BXBX NOVEL Chapter 117: Explosive growth
\'Shit!\'
In the moment of desperation, I reached out for the lesser of the two evils and invoked my "Eye of Time", hoping it would be enough.
Between the rapid growth of my attributes and the activation of the skill, the time appeared to slow down…
Or rather, my perception of it grew faster, leading to the illusion of time dilation. And in the fraction of a second that it bought me, I did the only thing that I could to save the day.
Even though artificially raising my intelligence by a whopping three points changed my perception of time a bit, the time I had was the same as before. And my lips would move too slowly to capitalize on this extremely short window of opportunity.
So, as much as it pained me to do so, I filled my soul with as much fear, repulsion, and desperation as I could in the short time I bought for myself. Then, I forcibly relaxed my entire body, daring not to move a single muscle of mine in fear of harm it could potentially bring to the girl who happily and ignorantly straddled me.
Just like I didn\'t have the time to calmly voice my concerns, Fay was too slow to consciously react. Yet, with how she kept reading my aura to make it a bit easier for her to understand my words and general vibe when all my negative emotions struck her, Fay\'s body shrugged.
It was just an extremely tiny motion, one that distanced her upper body by half an inch. But that was the limit of what we could achieve in this fleeting moment that my skill and sound reaction brought us.
[Blessing of a Celestial Fox] > [Evolved Blessing of a Celestial Fox]
All attributes +1 > All attributes +2
Core attributes +1 > Core attributes +2
Core capacity attributes +1 > Core capacity attributes +2
Beast Affinity: 1 > Beast Affinity: 2
[Strenght: 4.98] > [Strenght: 5.98]
[Agility: 4.25] > [Agility: 5.25]
[Wisdom: 4] > [Wisdom: 6]
[Inteligence: 4.25 (7.25)] > [Inteligence: 6.25 (9.25)]
[Endurance: 10] > [Endurance: 10]+1 .
[Aura: 6] > [Aura: 8]
My attributes exploded under the evolution of the Madam\'s blessing.
In the moment of clarity, I noticed how the system actually perceived my core attributes to be mental focused rather than physical ones, despite the former being generally higher than the latter…
\'Is it because of that boon from the skill?\' I thought, somehow aware that it was the highest non-capacity attribute that decided what was the core of my build.
And just like I suddenly became aware of that fact, the meaning hidden behind the names of those attributes suddenly shed its disguise and revealed itself to me.
The strength means the maximum output my body could bring to bear. The agility meant my top speed. The Endurance, the capacity attribute connected to the two, described not only how resilient I was but also how long I could maintain my top strength or top speed.
The mental attributes were pretty much the same, with the only difference in just how much more versatile aura was when compared to endurance. And to my delight, those mental attributes… were just like physical ones - extremely technical.
My wisdom described the capacity of my brain to store information and the speed at which I could recall it or absorb new knowledge. And if wisdom was akin to the storage of my brain, then intelligence was nothing else but a processor, with this attribute measuring just how quickly I could process the information.
Lastly, there was aura. And while I was nowhere near understanding its deep intricacies… To what I suddenly grew to understand, it was the outwards projection of my mental state, given form and purpose by… By something that the blessing of knowledge wasn\'t generous enough to make me aware of.
\'So this is the blessing of knowledge,\' I thought, still maintaining my "eye of time" skill in hopes of slowing my perception of time down and thus making it slightly easier to keep my body as still as possible.
I already knew what it meant to go through a process of such explosive, rapid growth. And right now, for at least a few more moments, I wouldn\'t be able to control my newfound strength.
A mere moment later, my skill collapsed, whatever fueled it finally running dry. And with my perception thrown right back to its more natural state, I could see the added number to the side of my intelligence vanish without a trace.
"Haaaa…."
"WHA…?!
I heaved a deep, long sigh right as Fay jerked back, shocked by the sudden wave of my fake, negative feelings.
"Move…" I uttered just a single word, my fake emotions dying out momentarily, replaced with just the honest fear and anxiety.
"Hon…?" shocked by what she felt through our bond, Fay sought an answer from my face…
But with my attributes settling down, my system continued to implement the remaining changes to its structure.
[Implementing Skill Tracker]
[Adding "Bond of the Forest" skill
- Allows the creation of a bond with [1] creature born of Celestial/Divine bloodline.
- Host and the bonded creature can share their attributes (lent/borrowed attributes apply as virtual attributes
- Host can summon the bonded creature to their side once every [24h]
- Host and summoned creature are now aware of each other attributes]
[Adding "Herb Seeker" title
- Passive ability:
- - Requires focus
- - Allows the automatic identification of lower and middle-grade herbs on sight
- - Raises the potency of the herbs harvested/grown by the user
- Active ability: "Greater than the sum of its parts"
- - Earth and Water Affinity skill
- - When invoked, improves the effects of the concoctions made with herbs
- - Cooldown: 2/day
- - Limit: 5/day]
"Haaa…. Haaa… haaa…" I breathed out, only for my sighs to turn into a silent, stifled chuckle.
"Honey?" Fay called out to me, perfectly aware that something was wrong and thus refusing to move a single inch. But while she managed to pull her body away a bit… she was still sitting down on my lap, mere inches away.
Thankfully, the surge of power from my growing attributes lasted only a short moment, with my body quickly catching up with its newly found strength and speed.
"Sorry for that," I spoke once I felt I could somewhat control myself.
Still, daring not to just assume the best-case scenario, I slowly swung my hand away from the girl, testing whether my intended speed matched my perception of it and its actual, objective momentum.
\'Uff,\' I finally allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief once I confirmed I was now back in control over my flesh.
"Honey, what\'s happening?" Still startled by the sudden wave of emotions I slammed her with and my strange behavior, Fay looked down on me with worry overflowing from her faintly-blue eyes.
"Dear, I\'m sorry," I apologized again. Only now I\'ve allowed myself to lower my head in an apology while reaching out to gently, gently bring Fay\'s upper body back into my embrace. "I\'ve forgotten about the surge of power that happens whenever I raise my attributes. And now that I\'ve finally accepted the rewards, I grew quite a bit stronger."
Fay squinted her eyes. Not with hostility or anger, but as she took a second to piece everything together. Then, she looked up and once again gazed straight into my eyes.
"So this twist of your aura I felt…?"
With the growth of my own aura, I could now much better discern how the girl felt. Rather than a mere feeling of what could be going through her head, I was now vaguely aware of it instead.
And so, there was absolutely no need for her to even finish this sentence.
"It was my desperate attempt at forcing you to get away, so I wouldn\'t accidentally hurt you," I explained, before bowing my head again. "Still, that had to be an awful experience, I\'m sorry."
I lowered my head for the third time… Only to have Fay sneak her slim hand up and prompt my lowered chin up with her delicate fingers.
"You did it because you were worried about me, so stop apologizing," she ordered, internalizing and processing my explanation in a single instant. "More importantly, though," she swiftly changed the topic, eager to dismiss my sense of guilt, "what about that portal you were worried about?"
Reminded by her words, I looked at my system again. And as Fay suggested, there it was; a single, flashing window that replaced all the clutter from before.
[Stable portals avaible: 1]
[Please, pick the entry and the exit points]
The system didn\'t explain how to do it. And quite frankly, it didn\'t have to. Just like with the understanding of what my attributes entailed, the blessing of knowledge infused my brain with the step-by-step walk-through of the process.
"It\'s okay," I muttered, slightly overwhelmed by both the information etched by the system into my mind and the information I could derive from the flashing notification window. "Actually, things ended up quite a lot better than I expected."
An entry and an exit point. Points that I would set by simply walking through the portal as usual. And points that would be accessible only to those whom I desired to share the ability to move between the world with.
Or, in other words…
A jackpot.