[CYA] Chapter 97: Three Options

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/19NQyiLxxa6LhZap0X0rHdLN2TaEJg7EPG55BbVRJwUc/edit?usp=sharingg

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<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Perimeter>

Alex had found that fighting with six spear wielders was an illuminating experience. Really, he assumed that fighting with six wielders of any particular weapon might have shown him the same things, but it happened to be spear users this time.

They each had slightly different styles that shifted to mesh more perfectly over the course of their two hours fighting near one another. Their spears, reach, and physicality weren’t perfectly the same either, so they had differences in reach, power, maneuverability, and recoverability from both successful and unsuccessful attacks.

Seeing so many different approaches to the same weapon caused him to think about his own fighting from different angles, wondering how much of his style could be shifted to better effect.

At first, Alex almost found that he had nothing to do as the warriors very effectively advanced whenever they could before falling back while executing steady thrusts, spells flashing out at opportune moments.

The result was an overall stationary conflict, with their back and forth motion giving them the freedom to move and strike safely.

Wanting to do something, Alex used each advance as an opportunity to ash the bodies they stepped over—the vast minority of those they harmed or even took down—keeping them from rising back up under their feet to tangle their legs and spoil their formation.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before they had shifted their formation, having him take a position in the middle, just slightly ahead due to his shorter weapon.

While they retreated each time, he was the final one back, the tip of the retreating spear as it were, drawing the focus of the undead so that the others could slaughter them as they tried to kill Alex.

It was effectively how he’d been fighting alone, but this time most of the enemies coming at him were hampered—or even butchered outright—before they could reach him.

Even so, fighting with others wasn’t all sunshine and roses. He had quickly found his Danger Sense skill to be invaluable.

They weren’t used to fighting together, and he was prone to move about as he clashed because of the style he was beginning to form, and so it was only Danger Sense which allowed him to avoid friendly attacks that he almost stepped in front of a dozen times in the first five minutes.

Wonderfully, that very issue caused him to realize just how much he’d been underutilizing his Danger Sense in standard combat, and he happily added it to his focus going forward.

Funnily enough, they also found another method of battlefield communication. Analysis.

Alex began altering his Basic Resistance - Examination to display different single words, which projected what he was about to do.

It wasn’t precise by any means, and he occasionally had to do something other than what he’d planned given the fact that unexpected things happened on the battlefield, but it was useful to convey ‘Right’, ‘Left’, ‘Hold’, ‘Forward’, or ‘Back.’

It also forced the six others to use their own brand of Analyze on him whenever they could to keep apprised of his intentions.

Initially they grumbled at the request, but as they got better at effectively flickering their skill and absorbing the information, they all found great utility in doing so to everything their eyes touched.

Alex, for his part, began to feel how each person’s skill felt just slightly different to him through his resistance attribute. Moreover, there was the barest mental space between when he had the feeling of being examined and when the person got the information from their skill. As such, Alex thought that he should be able to send back different information to various people who were all using the skill on him, but such was quite a bit beyond him at the moment.

Even so, he was excited at the opportunity. It was effectively a secure means of communication and coordination… if he was willing to have himself be the center of such.

He didn’t like that on principle, but time would tell. Fighting with the spear wielders definitely had him enjoying unit tactics more than he had expected to. He wasn’t regretting his weapon, however, as the dadao was a wonderful linchpin when flanked by the spear wielders, at least for these opponents.

The seven of them had fought the undead for close to two hours before the sun well and truly set, and the darkness was becoming truly dangerous. Even still, it wasn’t until an undead bat of some kind swooped at Alex, aiming to rip open his neck—the deadly assault only foiled due to his Danger Sense’s warning—that they agreed to call it a night.

All told, they’d only permanently ended a few dozen undead, instead using the reviving enemies to hone their skills.

When they returned to the high school building, Alex quickly gave a bit more Life to the unturned, before he was flagged down by Kaylee. She had gathered three groups of boxes to unlock. One was a large group with a total of fifteen, and the other two were groups of three and seven.

Alex was incredibly confused by this, but apparently, some of the Initiates wanted to be sure they only lost at most one item, rather than having the potential of him choosing two or more from them alone.

That… actually made some sense to him. Still, with most of the prizes likely to be identical, Alex proposed a single, simple change to the process. If he happened to choose more than one item from a single Initiate—and one of the items was duplicated elsewhere—Alex would randomly take one of the other instances of that option, thus keeping anyone from losing multiple items unless they had multiple unique ones, and Alex picked multiple of them.

Kaylee was easily able to get approval for that change, and Alex was left with a single group of twenty five boxes to open.

That did drop his ‘take’ from four items to three, but he didn’t mind. Honestly, while he was happy to help, he would have preferred to have everyone open their own boxes.

When Kaylee noticed his continued hesitation, she assured him that she had tried to convince the people to try the boxes themselves. Apparently, she’d been convincing enough that everyone with boxes had tried at least once, but even so, enough people hadn’t wanted to bother that this was the result.

“How do they have so many?”

Kaylee shrugged. “Apparently, they’ve averaged about four per Initiate, with those highly concentrated on the ones that have been doing everything they can to explore odd places while they traveled through the city first to the police station and then here. Then, half of the boxes are being kept to be opened by the ones who earned them. Honestly, that’s most of the Initiates. Don’t forget that they used to have a much larger group, and those with boxes already tended to prioritize picking up those belonging to the fallen when some of their number fell.”

Alex grunted, grimacing but understanding. “Alright…”

He couldn’t say that he didn’t want more prizes, but it still felt odd to him. Why didn’t they want to use the boxes as an opportunity to grow?

No matter. A man convinced against his will was of the same opinion still. He would gain nothing by trying to force them to better themselves.

He tried to bid his spear wielding companions goodbye, but to his consternation, he found them unwilling to leave.

Jacob put their refusal to words for all of them. “Fighting beside you is broken, Alex. My second class already has two Uncommon variations available, and I feel like I'm on the edge of unlocking something even better… if I can be patient enough.” He grinned. “I’m stocking up experience, so yes, I can be patient. We aren’t going anywhere, and we aren’t letting you get hurt.”

Alex sighed, looking pleadingly toward Natasha. “I’m not even going to be fighting. I need to crack these boxes open, then shower and sleep.”

The Russian woman just smiled. “If we can keep you safe and undisturbed, you will be fighting again sooner. That’s better for all of us.”

He gave her a flat look. “I’m going to be training too. Don’t expect me to be fighting whenever I can.”

She shrugged. “Training alongside you could work just as well, only time will tell. It’s possible that that is what is needed for some of us to unlock even better classes.”

“And what if I don’t want you all around all the time?” He tested the waters.

Natasha gave a self-satisfied smile. “Well, you do owe me for the spearhead…”

Alex groaned and hung his head in mock defeat. “Fine…”

Ben clapped Alex on the shoulder, grinning. “You are a victim of your own Epicness, Alex. Besides, it’s hard to put a price on your healing, even if I haven’t experienced it myself yet. I’ll be sticking with you as long as I can.”

The others nodded in agreement, and Alex decided to just accept their presence and move on. “Very well… I’m going to do the boxes now.”

He sat to one side while they watched on, mainly acting to keep him from being disturbed.

Kaylee had apparently recorded which box came from which person, or more accurately which item, given that they could be seen through the clear magic, and that was what was important. She would also ensure that everyone got their items back afterward, aside from the three he chose for himself.

In the end, it was an eclectic mix, and Alex had to wonder if his obvious use of a dadao had prompted some of the clearly special weapons to be entrusted to him.

I should take one of those just to punish the assumption. He grumped a bit, but he knew he wouldn’t do that.

He was getting three of these, and he wouldn’t be wasting any of those three choices…

Oh, soggy poodles. Can I wear a mana and health regeneration ring at the same time? He didn’t know.

How could he test it without having to wait twenty-four hours to see if it attuned to him?

Off the top of his head, he couldn’t think of anything, but he still had time.

The twenty-five boxes were all quite simple, with their locks ranging from six to eight twists, turns, or kinks to the weak point within.

All told, it took him just an average of about five minutes a box—getting faster as he did each one, especially since he tried to do the harder ones first—so he was done after two hours of work.

During that time, the spear wielders had actually dispersed, only Ben staying behind to be a guard and keep him relatively unbothered.

There had been an obvious discussion before the others had left, and Alex had heard something about showers mentioned, but he hadn’t paid much attention beyond that.

I do hope they all shower. We all stink a bit…

Regardless, the result of his labors was now spread out before him.

There were five weapons, all of which were of no use to him, despite them being tempting simply because they were magical weapons.

There were another three Rings of Regeneration (Health), and that tempted him, as he could theoretically combine them with the ring he already had, but if the three to one ratio held, he’d need six of the rings to combine and tier up before he could improve the one he had.

He might never see another, so taking the three in hope of gaining more later was short sighted. It would also hurt those who could have used them otherwise.

There were three Rings of Breathing, four Rings of Regeneration (Mana), three RIngs of Regeneration (Health), and eight mana stones of various types, none of which really appealed to him.

The last two items were new, if not really unexpectedly so, both being the same thing.

Ring of Regeneration (Stamina), Simple

Once Attuned, this ring will double the wearer’s base stamina regeneration.

There it is, the set is complete. That did make him wonder if he could combine one of each type. The three Simple versions didn’t seem drawn to one another, but who knew if the Common could be united?

Still, he didn’t particularly want to increase his Stamina regeneration… until he considered it a bit more. “Would that mean I have to sleep less?”

Ben glanced his way at the muttered words, but when it was clear that Alex wasn’t talking to him, he returned to whatever he was doing to pass the time.

That was… tempting. Alex did wish he could rest well with less sleep.

There was a definite theme to the box rewards given by the System at the moment, and he was okay with that.

He did get his answer about the rings and attunement, or at least he thought he did.

When he held another of the health rings, there was no reaction to him whatsoever, but when he held one of the mana or stamina ones, he felt an ever-so-slight pull.

That wasn’t definitive, but it did seem to indicate that he could have at least two of the regeneration rings at a time.

Moreover—and further complicating his choice—the Rings of Breathing seemed able to combine.

He had no idea what that would do, but he theorized that it would reduce the cost of the breathing effect, or increase the maximum duration, if there was one.

Since he hadn’t fully attuned his yet, he couldn’t see if that might be among the hidden information… if there was any.

He growled in frustration. He didn’t like making choices like this.

Still, it was easy to eliminate some choices.

First, he wasn’t taking any of the weapons or crystals, so that left him with the rings.

The way he saw it, he really only had three options.

First, he could take all the health rings in the hopes of finding, trading, or otherwise acquiring three more. From there, he would hopefully be able to combine them all into his already acquired ring. If that worked, his health regeneration would become even more monstrous, giving him more safety and more HP to use in helping others.

Second, he could get all the mana rings and combine them to have a powerful boost to his mana regeneration, something he sorely needed given how often his MP was the limiter on what he wanted to do.

Finally, he could take two breathing rings to combine with the one he already had, and a stamina ring, hoping that it would cut his sleep—and maybe food—needs in down, giving him more time for everything that he needed and wanted to do as well as more ‘staying power’ in deprived situations where sustenance was scarce.

Alex leaned back, lightly banging his head on the wall as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Any advice, oh powerful System?” When no response was forthcoming, he sighed loudly. “How am I supposed to choose?”

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