Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3), John Gold [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

your stamina level, and the maximum charge is equal to your mana. The speed at which you can empower it depends on your morale.

Requirement: Non-level ability

Wait, what? Hey, now! I got my sword back! Oh, where’s the bow and everything else? I’m still missing my potions and my advanced attributes. I broke my back to get all that! Two bone swords, two astral bows…

Finally, I break down and laugh like a crazy person. Femida, seeing me laughing, decides to ask the question.

“What? It didn’t work?”

“No, it’s really good, actually. Look.” The bone blade slides out of my palm sans guard and hilt. “They gave me my sword back, and I was able to make the shield, too. It was a lot harder than last time.”

After mentally activating the shield, a piece of skin pops off of my back. Ow, that hurt! Although, it doesn’t leave a mark. The shield is virgin-pure, with nothing from my tattoos on it. All it does is float next to me and move wherever I want it to. I pour ten million mana into it. With the usual exchange rate, that should be enough to block a a hundred million physical damage. It’s like cheating!

“Fem, would you be so kind as to give my shield everything you’ve got?”

She doesn’t need to be asked twice.

“Dissection!”

Damage received: 2880500 (blocked: 2880500)

Charge: 97119500/100000000

Hm. The panel is a little different, but it makes sense. The shield blocks incoming damage by burning the charge. It doesn’t restore itself, and it actually makes me think of LJ.

Isaac is thrilled; Slender is hanging out somewhere in the vicinity. I’m so tired of him! He has to be reporting back to his master, so I assume the shapeshifter will be showing up again. How do I get rid of him?

While I’m busy with my shield, Femida guards the entrance to the laboratory. We’re both tired, so we decide to rest for twenty-four hours.

The next day, we get to work collecting the sacrifices for Femida’s javelin. It takes us just ten hours to get the five hundred bodies we need. She decided against a chimeric spear, so we don’t need as many.

All she has to do during the ritual is put a piece of blood malachite on the already-drawn seal and break it at the right moment. The energy that’s released is enough to activate the magic sign and jump-start the ritual.

The entire process takes less than a couple of hours. But when Femida comes back from the astral, she looks at me with surprise written all over her face. Her emotions all point at confusion.

“What? That bad?”

“How did you do it? I mean, you have five times more of them! They were 500 levels stronger than me, just constant fighting, critical hits, arrows, spells… Then, the undead came, evil spirits and other things. But what happened with you?”

“Hm. Well, judging by my experience, you were only in the astral for sixteen of their hours. It’s about ten times more than game time. When I made my bone sword, I had to spend almost seventy-five hours in there. And I had to deal with an enemy at the end that I wouldn’t be able to beat even now with everything I have. He moved three times faster than you or me. One attack cut an entire island in half, and I only survived because they kicked me out at the last moment. Making my shield and fighting these undead was nothing.”

Femida says nothing, though her emotions burn with disgust. It’s like she’s screaming at me that I’m a monster.

“Fem, I’m not a monster. I’m a normal person who wants to survive. If you want, you can think of me as a monster, but I’m just a person. And I’m fine taking responsibility for my decisions and actions.”

“How can you be so calm? There were hundreds of them! Thousands! How are you still normal? How did Hell not break you? Why are you still okay, even after your parents were killed? And don’t tell me it’s just better this way. It wasn’t a decision; it was the result of something. You’re abnormally normal! That doesn’t happen!”

“I’m changing, Fem. I’m growing up faster, loving more, caring more. We’ve always made it in a variety of environments. Look carefully at me. See me? Everything I’m wearing, everything in my bag—that’s absolutely everything I own. I don’t even have my own name. Who am I, Fem? Sagie? Anji Ganet? Ribonz Almark? Any beggar on the street is richer than me—he has a name, friends, and a home city, at least. Just compare me to a normal person. I don’t have work, parents, free time, my own room, or time to flirt with girls. I’ve never had a home. All the people I’ve ever cared about are gone. Everything I’ve ever loved, cared about, wanted, everything…it was all taken away. Do you know what it’s like to have your best friend kill you? Fem, look me in the eye. Look very carefully. I…will kill you. I’m going to rip your heart out and burn it! Where are you going? Who said you could leave? I’m going to kill you, kill you, kill you! Okay, now calm down. What are you feeling? Fear? But not rage. My soul and mind have been through the kind of torture you can’t even dream of. But I survived…once…again…ten times… That was how the Sagie you know was born. Fem… I can adapt and survive no matter what you throw at me. War, hunger, death, sacrifices, torture, pain, betrayal… I’ll bear up under it all, though I won’t forget a thing. You think I’m normal? I’ve had the same dream for seven months straight. I’ve become what I always despised most. And yes, I’m normal. Because that’s my choice.”

Femida says nothing, and the silence grows awkward. She broke first; I