Gestation, John Gold [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

Skill learned: Wood reinforcing

Wood reinforcing: +1

Effect on reinforced wood: +1% durability

There are four days until the ship gets here now. I spend every day on the pier, afraid to miss it. If I do, I’ll be stuck in this wilderness another two months.

In all my time on the island, I’ve picked up five class skills, and collected herbs, pearls, and some metal. I’ve boosted my resistance to poison. I’ve found tons of recipes for potions, poisons, treatments, ointments, and other solutions. I’ve made test tubes and a master potion-brewer kit. For the last nine days, I’ve been collecting herbs and making concentrated poisons. Incredible! They’re the dream of any self-respecting archer.

Hell showed me that all kinds of little things can end up saving you. Nobody ever reaches out to help, though everyone’s only too willing to jump on your head when you’re drowning. They’ll take everything, wait for you to get something else, and then take that, too. I need strength, the kind of strength that even the sovereigns of the world can’t take away from me. Judging by my conversation with the devil, they can take anything, even my body, but they can’t take my intelligence or skills. I’m not sure about my achievements or levels.

I sit there, seething at myself and my weakness. I want strength! The kind that will make me the equal of anyone trying to touch me, that evil being in the astral who was keeping an eye on me, for example, or the other one with the sword. By this time, I’ve realized that I wasn’t looking at myself. There were some differences that hadn’t caught my eye. They’re all enemies! The world is hostile and does everything it can to keep me from becoming too strong. My enemies have shown their hands, and I know how to respond to them.

I need strength and a path of development. I need to think. There’s one idea, but it’s too small. I need power, and not just physical power.

∞ ∞ ∞

Merlen Ruzh and Leon were sitting in one of the rooms in their clan castle. Their breastplates were made of bright white mithril, with the avatar of the god glistening under the rays of a sun, the crest of the Golden Hand. Merlen, who practically lived in the office even in real life, stuck with his favorite white shirt and stylish leather vest even in the game. He was readying the reports submitted by the negotiating team.

The castle was surrounded by six levels of tall walls, turning the whole mountain into an enormous fortress with a multitude of towers and moats. Inside, there were warehouses, barracks, throwing weapons, and an enormous pond. It was really more a city than a clan castle. They’d even set up a stationary teleport. The local population had suggested setting up a branch of the dwarf bank and several trading centers, though it was all desolate, the castle looking deserted. Shadows were all that walked the streets. The castle shields ran at full strength, too. And everything had started so well!

Two months ago, the clan leadership had wanted to boost the flow of prana coming in, so they decided to send missionaries to a few cities. A problem arose when all three cities in a long valley asked them to kill a dragon that had been demanding cattle and gold from them for years. The enormous lizard was always ravenously hungry, and that was hitting the locals hard.

After a reconnaissance mission, a strike group was formed two thousand strong, mostly made out of archers and mages. It was a green dragon, after all, hearty and Level 1200.

They found mountains of gold, epic items, and precious jewelry in its cave, and the Golden Hand celebrated their victory in the central castle. But nobody could have guessed what would happen next.

Dragons are intelligent and very vindictive.

First, four people arrived and asked the local clanmen why they were celebrating. They were told that the management was celebrating victory over the dragon and the recognition of their god Leon in three cities.

“You killed a dragon just for that?” asked one of the arrivals, a man with long, gray hair and dressed in burgundy leather armor. Experience and wisdom dripped from his words, and he was disappointed.

“What’s wrong with that? We got so much loot that there was enough for everyone!”

All hell broke loose. The arrivals turned out to be gold dragons in human form, and they were there for vengeance.

The four were all at Level 3000, and in terrible moods.

With their first spell, they turned everything within a hundred meters to ash. Their next attack, this time a combined effort, created a blue sun twenty meters above the earth. Buildings, tents, people in armor, everything went up in flames like dry straw, burning away in seconds. Then, the dragons started clearing the castle. They torched everyone who was there for the party, both in that castle and in the clan’s other castles. It was an organized attack on the clan and its lands.

After the dragon faction took on the Golden Hand, everybody realized how serious their mistake had been. The castle was under siege for a week. The dragons were circling cities looking for their enemies, so the local populations started kicking out everyone in the clan. They feared the wrath of the dragons far more than that of the young god, of course. Being cursed or killed is hardly a choice, but they went with the former.

The dragons didn’t want to raze the fortress, even though they could have done so if they had wanted to. The massacre of the Golden Hand was enough of a warning to anyone who might dare raise a fist at a dragon.

“Merlen, stop worrying. We just weren’t expecting it, so we weren’t prepared for it. I knew I could take out two dragons. The problem was that the other two would have crushed my avatar. Our reputation suffered in the city, but we still