NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 81: Player ID
I gave the cure to Lara, an NPC in this game. This marks the second time I've prioritized her and treated her like a human being. Now, I wasn't just giving up the cure, expecting to die. This was a small consolation, but I was expecting to be rewarded in another way.
I didn't give up the cure just to get this reward, because that would be wrong, but I did expect to get a reward and I was not disappointed. The system notification system dinged, notifying me of incoming messages.
[Sacrifice Recognized]
[300 Karma Points earned]
[Shikasa's Favor increased by 90]
[Lara's Affinity: +300]
Nice! I didn't know what I was going to spend my karma points on or what having that much affinity with Lara would do, but I liked seeing numbers go up. Especially when they went up by that much.
Also, the thing I actually wanted to happen, happened. I got more of Shikasa's Favor. I had a feeling I had unlocked the second tier of blessings, which could be very useful going forward.
And since the only other time that Shikasa's Favor had gone up was when I did a good thing for Lara, I figured I would something good for her again. And since this was a greater sacrifice, I guessed there was a chance I could get significantly more favor with this action. Which I did.
Now to check the Shikasa's Blessings tab. I opened the Shikasa's Blessings tab in the system menu.
[Shikasa's Blessings]
[Favor: 200]
[Blessings threshold unlocked: 2]
[Threshold 1 Blessings] [Blessing of Gold] [Blessing of Protection] [Blessing of the Day]
[Threshold 2 Blessings] [Blessing of Skill] [Blessing of the Night] [Blessing of Aptitude] [Blessing of Learning]
[Threshold 3 Blessings][Locked]
[Click to see more]
I clicked on each Threshold 2 blessing to get a description of what they did.
[Blessing of Skill: Sets all skills to "Proficient"]
That sounded like it could be useful in niche circumstances. I didn't like the implied downside that it set your higher ranked skills to the lower "Proficient" level, but it would probably prove its usefulness in time.
[Blessing of the Night: You own the night, Night Terror]
Interesting. So it was some sort of powerup that only worked at night. How did that work in the dungeons? Did it count the time of day outside of the dungeons or in the dungeons? And what time of day was floating in space? Was there just no day and night in space?
[Blessing of Aptitude: Can hone and perfect one's skills infinitely. You are no longer inhibited by the rank cap "Master"]
Another interesting one. So I had to have this blessing active if I wanted to have legendary skills basically. Honestly, "Master" sounded good enough for most skills, but being able to infinitely hone my sword skills would be nice. And I wouldn't mind being able to get better at blood manipulation if that was a skill.
[Blessing of Learning: Learn skills three times as fast]
Hmm. That one just seemed like a no brainer to level up. Well now that I'd looked through all the blessings, I had to choose one. I chose Blessing of Learning for now. I could always change it later if I needed to.
"So, do you want to stay here in the Med Bay where it's safe?" I said to Lara.
"No. I have to go with you. The pilot override takes two crew members. You're technically the captain right now and I'm the Med Bay specialist. The pirates when they took over, made us give their leader exclusive access to piloting the ship. You need me to undo that," Lara said.
"Ok. Well then let's go," I said.
In the zero gravity, we made our way to the next section of the ship, cryo storage. Spread throughout the room were the cryogenic tubes that stored travelers and crew members in cryogenic slumber.
There was a big claw that hung over the center of the room that picked up a tube and dropped it into a chamber. The chamber itself was in a larger tube.
The chamber shuddered and traveled along the tube until it reached the wall and passed through it. From my character's memories, that was the tube that sent crew members from the cryo storage section to the helm where they were woken up and set into their crew positions. Stay updated via empire
Off to the side of the room was a repair station where they repaired storage units and other equipment. At the far end of the room, were pirates. They seemed to be welding the door shut.
The pirates noticed us as we moved through the air over the cryo storage units by grabbing and pushing off of them.
"We're welding this door shut so no one can pass through and retake the ship! So don't be getting any silly ideas." The pirate laughed maniacally.
"Thanks for telling us your plans, I guess," I said mostly to myself. "Lara. Hide behind some of the storage units and I'll fight them."
"Ok, sounds good," she said as she ducked behind a storage unit.
Midas had just been floating along with us for a while. I figured I'd finally let him come out and play. I concentrated and manifested him physically.
"Go on, Midas! Get the bad pirate dudes!" I said.
Midas jumped between the storage units while I climbed over them. We both made it to the pirates around the same time. As soon as the pirates saw us, they fired on us with their guns.
They hit multiple storage units, shattering the glass and killing the people inside. Damn. I didn't expect that. Maybe I should have taken a stealthier approach.
I jumped at the pirates and slashed my sword through the air, cutting three of them in half. Not to be outdone, Midas swallowed an entire pirate whole and then bit the heads off three others. They all got deposited into my inventory.
[Space Pirate (alive) added to your inventory]
Alive? I guess I would need to deal with that later. Not now though. Once we had finished dispatching the pirates, I checked the door to the helm. It was indeed welded shut.
I could try to smash it, but that might damage the airlock and let the space in, for lack of a better way of saying that. Depressurize? Maybe that was the right term. Oh well. It didn't matter.
"Lara! You can come out now!" I said.
Lara made her way up to me and Midas. "Oh I didn't know you had a dog! You should have told me." Lara petted Midas and hugged him. He seemed to like the attention.
"Yeah he's my soul beast. Helps me fight and stuff," I said.
"That's so cool! You must have all kinds of cool things where you come from," she said.
"Where I come from? Never mind that. I wanted to ask you something. How did you know it was me? The same guy who gave you the $1,500,000,000?" I said.
"Oh! Your player ID. Your player ID says 'Player ID - Dylan'." She said.
"My player ID? What is that?" I said.
"Oh, it tells us NPCs which player has logged into the game," she said.
"What?" I said, my mind metaphorically exploding out of the back of my head.