05 Fighting Shadow Part 1

Multiple [Mission] notification pings rang through the bluish holographic [Character Status] screen.

YEESSSS...! This. Is. IT! Oh, my God! This is so good that I think I'm tearing up. Twenty minutes in and I already got my [Energy] stat up...and a class-change mission too...?

...hahaha...it's already fricking hard to get a class-change mission in the first place and now what! I got mine at effing level 1!!! Oh, my God, I can't believe this...!

Nuel cupped his face, he could not stop himself from smiling giddily.

But again, like usual, the moment was quickly ruined.

KRriieeaAGHH!!!

The monstrous scream amidst the blaring siren grated against his ears.

Apparently, the Shadow had discovered his most recent active mental traces - at the maintenance room he looted earlier - and triggered the EMP mine he planted there earlier!

F**k you, loser! Haha...

Nuel quickly pulled up his [Character Status] screen and identified all the changes.

There was about 9 to 10 minutes left to the mission timer so he need to familiarise with all the new additions before that horror of a monster break in.

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[CHARACTER PROFILE]

Title(s) : [Subject-023] || [Disciple of Archimedes (New!)]

Race : [Protopsionic Human (New!)]

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[STATS]

Energy (New!) :

• Psions : 11.0 /11 | Psion.Recovery : +1.1 | Psionic Rank 1 (0 /10)

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[EQUIPMENT]

[Tool]

• <Rusty Combination Pliers (New!)>.

[Misc.]

• <Scraps (New!)> × 11.

• <Defective Capacitive Sensor (New!)> × 1.

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[MAIN ATTRIBUTES]

• STR : 2

• INT : 2 | INT.GP : +0.5/Lvl

• DEX : 1

• VIT : 1

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[ABILITIES & SKILLS (limited access)]

<Lv 1 Ability : Precognition (Basic)> (New!) : Glimpse a few seconds ahead into a probable future to increase chance of being more combat-effective. Provides bonus to Initiative chance.

- Initiative : +25% Chance

- Precognition Time : Initiative Duration × 1.1

- Psions Cost : 2/s

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[ TALENT TREES (limited access) ]

<Lv 1>> Lv 2 Talent : Sense (Basic)> (New!) :

Passive : Allows the innate perception of mental presences nearby.

- Range : 10 >> 11 meters

- Mind Sense : +5

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<Talent's Active : Tranquil Aura (Basic)> (New!) : Provides a bonus to self's and allies' [ COMP ] against mental-based attacks.

- Range : 5 >> 5.5 meters

- Self: Composure +3 × (1 + 0.06INT)

- Allies : Composure +1 × (1 + 0.02INT)

- Psions Cost : 0.1 / s / target

- Stamina Cost : 0.1 / s / target

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<Rank 1 Deviance : Psionic Esoterics> (New!) : Psionics is the manipulation of psion particles through the discipline of the mind. It carries information from the user to his surroundings and back, through the interaction of information within the Eidos. Psion is sourced from the mind and connects one to the Eidos. This is the reason why to temper oneself in psionics is to temper one's mental prowess!

- Psion.Recovery : 5% +0.5% for every 2 INT

- Rank 1 : +10 Max.Psions || +1 Max.Psions for every 2 INT

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<Talent's Active : Psionised Esoteric Training (Basic)> (New!) : Maintain [ Psions ] and [ STA ] at a certain percentage for a certain time duration. During the active's duration, Psions and Stamina will not regenerate above the percentage value, unless the active is cancelled or interrupted.

- Rank 1 : 50% || 10 hours || (0 /10)

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[ MISSIONS ] :

[ Act 0 - Main Story Mission : Survive till Rescue Arrives ] : The facility is under attack by hostile unknown entities! However, the facility managed to send a distress signal to a nearby allied forces, so rescue is underway. Survive for 30 minutes!

Duration left : (8m:56s)

Rewards :

• <XP> +10.

• <Random Common Light-class Armor> ×1.

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[ Dungeon Mission : Rescue the Civilians ] : A distress signal coming from a previously unknown medical facility had alerted <Thacon City Administration>. {REDACTED}""You and a team of elite soldiers are immediately assembled and dispatched to the facility.""{REDACTED} Secure the objectives and clear the facility of any hostiles within the time limit.

Duration left : (8m:56s)

Requirement :

• Secured Objectives : (2 /3)

• Hostile Level : (25 /100)---(Contribution: 0)

Reward :

• {REDACTED}""Loyalty Points : <Affiliation Points: Thacon City Administration> +100.""{REDACTED}

• <XP> +( 2.5 × <Secured Objectives> × [ Class Level ] ).

• <Random Common Item> × 1 for every <Hostile Level> -10 points contributed per player.

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[ Hidden Mission : Truth of Existence II ] :

Although you managed to discover the purpose of the experiment conducted on you and many others, you are still confused about how your circumstances came to be. Not only that, you are also curious about the unknown radiation which you were exposed to during the experiment.

Find more information clues regarding the reason of your circumstances.

Requirement :

• [ Hidden Mission : Truth of Existence ] completed.

Progress :

• <Clue Point> : ( 0 / ??? ).

Rewards :

• Reward is undefined currently and will be calculated later.

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[ Class-Change Mission : Esper ] (New!) : The [ Class : Esper ] is a specialist which senses and manipulates brainwaves and psionic transmission. This class is proficient in clandestine ops such as recon and counter-recon, as well as assassination and sabotage. However, this class suffers from low survivability due to zero growth potential in STR, VIT and DEX. This class naturally counters <Bio > and <Umbral > targets but is weak against <Robotic >.

Complete the mission requirements to be able to change into the class.

Requirements :

• Use <Talent's Active : Basic Tranquil Aura> ( 0 /10s ).

• Use <Ability : Basic Precognition> during a battle ( 0 / 3 ).

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What's up with my Race? Protopsionic Human? I never heard of that before...

...huh, just realised the dungeon mission actually had a 'redacted' description, is it because I haven't "officially" encounter the Administration that it got this 'redacted' status? Or is it because I am not a 'player' but an 'NPC'?

Bang!

Bang!

Huge knocking noises could be heard from the metallic door.

F**k that Shadow!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

KRriieeaAGHH!!!

Like some kind of deja vu, Nuel expertly retreated to the other end of the room towards the exit door, and peeled off another stun baton from the holding stand it was jutting out at the wall there.

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You have obtained <Slightly-Bent Viperstick-600>.

Would you like to equip it?

- Y / N -

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High-voltage of electricity crackled and buzzed as the stun baton was switched on and brandished before him - he had equipped it!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

BRIEEeeaAANNKK...

BOOM!!!

The metallic door twisted and broke inward from its center, creating a gap the size of two men.

An amorphous transforming black mass forced its way in through the gap despite its damned size, its presence overflowing of chaos and distortion, and simply looking at it bare could slowly drive one to madness.

Yet, Nuel stared at it directly, instigating it, looking down on it.

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You have used the <Talent's Active: Tranquil Aura (Basic)>.

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KIEEeeaaAAGGHH!!!

Almost instantly, the Shadow barreled towards him, provoked; its furious hyperspatial talons and maws poised to strike and tear him apart.

Nuel exhaled.

His eyes clear and calm, his right hand at the stun baton tightly.

His <Talent's Active : Tranquil Aura (Basic)> had resisted for him all of the mental corrosion generated by the creature's <Ability< strong> : Mindwarp Aura> as only its residual damage was felt, able to shave only 0.15 points per second off his [ Sanity ].

This however, meant he had only about a long seventy seconds before he would run out of [ Sanity ] and be left to the Shadow's mercy.

If I play this right, I could actually last until the rescue...

Nuel looked at the creature and recalled everything he could remember from his six long years of gaming experience.

The Shadow was a Level 5 <Umbral Roamer>, a medium-sized Umbral organism with an apparent height of three meters and moved around solo.

It would still have an HP pool of 100-ish something out of the full 150 points, after it suffered from the explosion of his EMP mine he planted earlier.

It would also have a Resistance [ RES ] of around 10 points - Nuel's bare-handed melee attack would barely deal 1 pity damage.

It had only two distinct attack patterns; the horizontal <Skill : Claw Strike> Level 1 ~ 3 dealing 10 to 24 damage which had 30% chance of inflicting the <Abnormal Status : Equipment Broken> which reduced equipment's durability by 4 to 6 points per hit, and an up-down <Skill : Chomp> Level 1 ~ 2 with 100% Critical Chance of dealing 20 to 43 damage, which also had a 20% chance of triggering the <Abnormal< strong> Status : Fractured> which deals 10% Damage-over-Time unless the Abnormal Status is treated.

The Shadow was a mere two arm-lengths away now.

Its formless yet open maw exuded a viscous stench of madness and bottomless hunger.

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You have used the <Ability : Precognition< strong> (Basic)>.

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Nuel's eyes glowed in bluish tint as he activated his Precognition ability; his [ Initiative Chance ] instantly shot up to 31.25% and his combat-effectiveness [ CE ] increased to 2.2 for 1.25 seconds.

But that was not important, it was his <Precognition Time> of glimpsing 1.375 seconds into the future which was his trump card.

Admittedly, Nuel was astounded when he first tested the ability; he could actually see visions from the future, although it was quite clouded and only visions from less than two seconds ahead.

Foresight was never a feature inside the game, instead the developers compensated the lack of true precognitive abilities by playing around with the CE mechanics, which actually translated well into the actual gameplay.

Nuel bounced to the right and swung the stun baton as hard as he could, activating the <Weapon Ability : Shockstrike> in the motion.

The Shadow missed.

Nuel's <Shockstrike > hit landed.

Level 5 Umbral Roamer's [ HP ] -9 points (Shocked!)

Nuel's [ STA ] -5 points.

Nuel's [ Psions ] -2 points.

Viperstick's [ Durability ] -2 points.

KIEEeeaaAAGGHH!!!

The Shadow turned towards Nuel and struck its claws from right-to-left.

Nuel rolled stiffly forward-right and thrusted the stun baton towards the creature's middle. A Critical Hit!

Level 5 Umbral Roamer's [ HP ] -16 points (Critical!).

Nuel's [ STA ] -2 points.

Nuel's [ Psions ] -2 points.

The Shadow jolted and tumbled backwards, but before it could recollect itself, Nuel leapt in and rained down strikes upon the monster struck with the <Abnormal Status: Staggered>.

Level 5 Umbral Roamer's [ HP ] -4.6 points (Blunt!).

Nuel's [ STA ] -2 points.

Level 5 Umbral Roamer's [ HP ] -4.6 points (Blunt!).

Nuel's [ STA ] -2 points.

Level 5 Umbral Roamer's [ HP ] -4.6 points (Blunt!).

Nuel's [ STA ] -2 points.

Then he immediately distanced himself as he steadied his erratic breathing and his trembling hands.

Nuel chest heaved up and down as he inched away from the seemingly injured creature.

More than two thirds of his Stamina [ STA ] and [ Psions ] pools were already gone yet barely thirty seconds had passed.

He needed to stall for time now - he needed time to recover some of the spent resources.

Yet, time was a luxury he seemed to not possess.

Duration left : (8m:19s)

Nuel lowered himself slightly into a defensive stance.

The stun baton thrumming audibly in his hand was brandished towards the formless monster that was recovering from his critical hit strike.

He inched backwards one step at a time, trying to put more distance between them and stall for time.

Then, he skimmed over his [ Character Status ] screen and galled over the sorry state of his [ Stats ].

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[ STATS ]

[ Stamina ] : (6 /20)

[ Sanity ] : (9 /15)

[ Energy : Psions ] : (3 /11)

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Luckily, I grinded these f**kers a lot in the past, I end up memorising its attack patterns...

...And, they do drop a lot of of crafting materials and they can be hunted solo too; one-shot-one-kill style...

...It's just that my Stats now are just too low. If I had a normal player's stats instead, it would be much faster to solo-hunt this f**ker, I'd then just need to treat it like an elite mob or something.

The three-meters tall Shadow growled and grunted as it rose to its feet - if those amorphous appendages could be considered as its feet.

This time, it did not immediately rushed over to him but instead it paced diagonally to his position.

It seemed to be wary of the <Viperstick > this time around.

Nuel, on the other hand, trying to stall for more time, moved opposite of the creature, always maintaining a certain safe distance from it.

As the Shadow took one 'step' to the right, Nuel took one to the left in contention.

And when it tried to take a step forward instead, Nuel waved the stun baton in silent threat, forcing the alien beast to wrench itself back, like a viper coiling back.

And it seemed like Nuel was tangoing the Shadow into a bizarre, life-or-death dance!

But the moment was instantly broken, the Shadow quickly twisted its hyperspatial body at an impossible angle and lunged at his torso fast!

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Author's Post-Script :

Nuel's first blood candidate! ~~~

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[ ARCHIVE OF ANATHEMA ]

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<Umbral Roamer>

Race : Umbral | umbral, etheric

Level : 4~6

HP : 125~160 | RES : 8~10

Trait : <Psio-Corrosion >

Ability, Skill & Talent:

• <Lv 1~2 Ability : Mindwarp Breath>

• <Lv 1~3 Skill : Claw Strike>

• <Lv 1~2 Skill : Chomp>

• <Lv 1~2 Talent : Umbral Sense>

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