Chapter 455: Science in the Service of Torture

Second chap, read the 454 before!
A third coming soon; I just need to sleep before translating it.
A fourth half written. Need to read your comment before finishing it.

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PS: Priam Character Sheet 
PSS: Discord to say hello and discuss the chappies!

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Chapter 455: Science in the Service of Torture

“What am I doing here?”

“You want to become more flexible. More athletic.”

“I want that?”

At the edge of the clearing, Jasmine took a short run-up, then performed a double backflip followed by a triple twist. She landed on a branch, used its spring to launch herself again, and ended up facing Esmée, dagger pressed against her carotid.

“You’re good at drawing up battle plans and manipulating your opponents. But when things get close and personal, you’re about as dangerous as an arthritic old man. That’s a weakness worth fixing, don’t you think?”

The princess narrowed her eyes. “What’s in it for you?”

“Besides having fun watching you struggle?” Jasmine smirked. “Making sure Priam isn’t wrong about you.”

It went without saying what Jasmine would do if she ever decided Esméralda posed any kind of threat to her Lord.

Thirty minutes later, the princess deeply regretted her decision. Jasmine, on the other hand, was having a great time.

“Spread your legs wider!” she shouted, using the military bark Kazuki sometimes employed.

“I cannot!”

“Your future husband won’t like that attitude. Alright, watch me,” Jasmine said, launching into a flip. She landed in a full split that would have earned a perfect score at any gymnastics competition. “Easy.”

“Show-off. If I try that, I’ll tear my groin,” Esmée muttered, attempting to imitate her rival. Without the jump, and with a frankly pathetic leg angle.

“I could do that at six, and I didn’t have System attributes to help me,” Jasmine pointed out as she stood up. “Have you ever exercised a day in your life?”

“I scrubbed the twenty thousand windows of Father’s summer castle. And attributes don’t work like that. My constitution interferes with my agility,” Esmée retorted. “I have a huge advantage compared to not having the System, but not one as great as a child’s flexible body.”

“Blah blah blah. All I hear are pathetic excuses.”

“What’s pathetic is not noticing an aether needle against your jugular.” Wiping the sweat from her brow, Esmée shot her a mocking look. “It’s been there for fifteen seconds, and your superb instincts didn’t feel a thing.”

Jasmine looked down and growled when she noticed an almost imperceptible distortion at her neck. Her instincts relied on several factors to identify threats, including hostile intent and their magical or mundane nature. The Author must have convinced herself she didn’t want the Shadow dead, and meta perception wasn’t Jasmine’s strongest attribute.

“Look at you barking at me. You’re a lot less assertive when it comes to talking back to Priam or Kazuki.”

“Twenty years of being taught to stay quiet around males don’t vanish in a few weeks.”

“You’re going to make me cry,” Jasmine mocked, touching the aether construct. It was solid under her fingers. Not an illusion, then. This thing could actually kill her. “My Domain can’t perceive it?”

“Your authority sphere’s resolution is poor, and the needle is thinner than a hair.”

“Damn. Alright. You show me how to detect your attack, and I’ll give you a lesson.”

“Isn’t that what you’re already doing?”

Jasmine looked at Esmée, dressed in a heavy gown, painfully trying to do the splits while, legs straight, she couldn’t even touch her toes.

“A real lesson. One where I actually try to teach and help you improve.”

The princess raised an eyebrow. “I’d like to see that.”

“I doubt it,” Jasmine said, summoning a wall of shadows around them. “Start by taking off your dress.”

*

Number of deaths: 51 > 56

A few days later, Priam was leaving Kazuki while counting his bruises. Since awakening his titan bloodline and Tiering up, the hoplite’s punches were capable of massaging a dragon. Despite not being weapons of mass destruction like his spear, the Warrior’s hands were still dangerous.

Lvl Up: [Sun Steel Body] lvl [44,] 45
CONST +12
META (Endurance) +6

Upon reaching the base of Log, Priam stepped through a portal onto a high branch where Sna’s cabin rested—both her bedroom and her laboratory. The shaman slept while her concoctions infused. He knocked, and the door opened.

“Here,” the Transcendent said before he could even sit down.

Priam took the vial she handed him and drained it without asking questions. Closing his eyes, he focused on the liquid flowing down his throat and into his stomach. There, it met gastric acid in an exothermic reaction.

The Juggernaut belched a cloud of flames.

Lvl up: [Pyro Champion Physique] lvl [7, 8] 9
CONST +27
VIT +9
META (Endurance) +18
META (Authority) +27

“One more level,” he smiled. “The third in six days. Not bad for a Legendary.”

The Tier 4 pinched her lips. “One per month is already considered an insane growth rate. Your Talent is unfair,” she muttered, opening a notebook. “Damage inventory.”

“Stomach lining damaged, but not perforated like last time.” A serious injury that had taken time to heal. A resource Priam didn’t have in abundance. “The esophagus is in bad shape, the mouth too, and I can feel my tongue’s about to molt,” he grimaced, feeling his deadened taste buds. “At least the backdraft only superficially damaged the lungs, and the trachea is intact.”

“Given your draconic bloodline, that’s not surprising. It’s used to channel Breaths,” Sna mused, handing him a second vial filled with a whitish liquid. “I’m less sure about this one.”

“That the base I told you about?”

With his scientific background, Priam knew that while acids were powerful corrosives, there existed, at the other end of the pH spectrum, bases such as bleach or lye. Their caustic nature made them just as capable of destroying human tissue as acids. He theorized—hoped, really—that fusing both resistances could unlock an ideal version.

“I’m afraid I didn’t fully understand your story about stealing or giving electrons. I’m an alchemist, not a chemist,” Sna said, stroking her cauldron. The object very clearly did not belong in an Earth modern laboratory. “That said, I tested all my corrosive products using your method. It’s slippery to the touch.”

Tingling or burning would have indicated an acid.

“The components?”

“Water, wood ash, and Tier 3 treant sap. Dropping a corpse into that cocktail makes it disappear in a few minutes. With your constitution, it should be manageable.”

Priam nodded and poured a drop onto his thumbprint, rubbing it with his index finger. An ivory-colored, slippery substance appeared. It looked like…

A black lock of hair fell in front of his eyes. “A milky white, lubricating liquid… If Sna’s charms affect you more than mine, I’ll be disappointed,” his Shadow teased before sniffing it. “Doesn’t smell like sperm. Soap?”

“Good morning to you too, Jasmine. And yes, it’s soap,” Priam said, raising his hand. “The fat in my skin is reacting with a strong base,” He pointed at the vial of caustic liquid. “to create it. A process called saponification.”

Without his eidetic memory, he would never have recalled the word.

The young woman went pale. “Wait! You’re telling me I clean myself with a product made from people’s fat?”

“I don’t know about Proxima, but on Earth, the industry used pork fat or beef fat. Or vegetable oils,” Priam said, pouring a generous amount of the base onto his palms and rubbing them together.

“But you can use human fat?”

Priam remembered his history classes on the Second World War and grimaced. “Some madmen did.” A change in his hands drew his attention. “My fingerprints are gone. The base is strong enough to eat through my skin—and therefore my tissues.”

Sna stepped closer and nodded. “The proof of concept we were waiting for. I’ll prepare more of the substance in my cauldron, and you’ll immerse your hands in it. You should acquire the resistance in a few hours. At the cost of horrific chemical burns.”

Priam couldn’t help but smile.

“He looks proud of himself,” Jasmine noted.

“I already got the resistance,” the Juggernaut revealed. [Homo Elysian Obsession] and [Life is Hard; I’m Harder] were not slackers.

You have gained the skill: [Base Resistance - Common].
[Base Resistance] - Bases are just as dangerous and corrosive as acids. More insidious, even: on contact, no immediate burning; they destroy your nerve endings. Your fat is turned into soap, and your muscles are eaten away painlessly.
This skill magically reinforces your chemical bonds, making you less reactive to high-pH substances.
Did you know you can both have [Base Resistance] and still hit first base? Please, man, do something. Your love life is sad.
CONST +1

“Science in the service of torture,” Priam smiled before swallowing the rest of the vial. “Bitter,” he grimaced. “Like endive. Or soap.”

An acid would have tasted sour. For example, lemon. Or vinegar.

“How do you know what soap tastes like?” Jasmine asked.

“My mother used to scrub my teeth with it when I forgot to brush them as a kid.”

Even Sna looked at him with pity.

Lvl Up: [Base Resistance] lvl 2
CONST +1

Priam shook the vial like an alcoholic. “The same again!”

*

The next day, Kazuki lent Priam his Colosseum VIP token and hid away in his inner world with Jasmine and Esmée. The four rivals attempted a new run, one week after the last. The plan was to do that until the second Reunion. They had a month and a half to make it as far as possible.

The start was easy. Preparing [Ideal Aether Manipulation], Priam destroyed the first ninety waves with sheer aether proficiency.

Lvl Up: [High Aether Manipulation] lvl [56,] 57
META (Affinity) +6
META (Focus) +6
META (Endurance) +6

Wave ninety marked the beginning of the past gladiators’ phantoms. Stryk-7 greeted him before charging him at jet speed. Priam slipped left, then ducked under a strike meant to take his head off.

A rookie would have backed off to put space between him and the insectoid engine of war. The Juggernaut stepped forward.

Pressing his palm against the praying mantis’s exoskeleton, he released an impulse at resonant frequency. The armor remained intact, but everything inside had been reduced to pulp. The insect collapsed.

There were no attribute multipliers or sudden epiphanies to explain the crushing victory. Nothing but training. Until he collapsed.

For most of the past week, [Priam’s System] had analyzed the data stored in the Juggernaut’s eidetic memory from previous fights. Then it had processed it to extract optimal victory scenarios. A parallel thought of Priam had drilled those scenarios with [Shadow Boxing] every hour of the day. And almost every night.

Lvl Up: [Priam’s System] lvl [26]

MEM +3

VIVA +3

META(Authority) + 3
Lvl Up: [Shadow Boxing] lvl [25]
STR +1
AGI +1
DEXT +1

Waves ninety-one and ninety-two were cleared without a single scratch. It took Hailcyon, an immortal jellyfish hive mind for the fight to finally get spicy.

The moment the jellyzoan began invoking its hail cyclone, Priam opened his mouth to unleash a Pyro Breath. Interrupted, the boss was forced to abort its preparations and dodge. A low-frequency impulse disoriented it again. With air being less dense than water, the wave failed to make it explode, but it was enough to stun it long enough for Priam to raise a curtain of sand and cloak himself in armor.

Now protected from physical contacts, the Juggernaut unleashed Pyro. In response, Hailcyon summoned its hail. The jellyzoan initially avoided the flames by riding its Concept, but Promesse—infused with Heroic Aura and Spear Mastery—forced it out of hiding and into the fire.

Meanwhile, the Juggernaut shamefully gave up on facing Proto Life head-on, choosing instead to shelter inside the heart of a sand golem. His kinetic proficiency halting the hail before it could strike his armor. 

The fight lasted ten minutes, the two adversaries circling one another until Hailcyon finally died of dehydration. Not a clean win, but it worked. The next boss wouldn’t be so easy to pass. 

Aarthash Riusling appeared just as Priam stepped out of his armored sand suit. Their eyes met. The phantom frowned.

“A dragon bloodline? Low purity at that. Hm. Kneel.”

An oppressive spiritual pressure bore down on Priam. Still, the second time was far less effective than the first. The Champion barely felt his knees tremble, instead feeling pity for his opponent. For all his power, the drake was a toy of the System. Frozen in time, he would never grow stronger. Unlike me.

Seeing his opponent remain calm, the phantom smiled, showing sharp teeth. “Interesting. My name is Aarthash Riusling, heir to the Immortal clan of the same name,” he introduced himself as he inspected his claws. “Since you are unknown to me, I assume I am this wave’s guardian. Which number?”

Perhaps because it was their second encounter, Priam noticed details he had ignored before. Like the fake gold of the drake’s horns. Gold leaf.

“Ninety-four. You failed to defeat Keltan’h.”

The drake narrowed his eyes. “Have we fought before?”

“I’ve already beaten you. Unfairly. I’ve come to correct that mistake.”

The boss looked him up and down. “I doubt it. Your resistance to divination is impressive enough to block my [Identification], but your physique speaks plainly enough. Soon, the arena will be red with your blood.”

Priam shrugged. “This time, certainly. The next as well. But the one after that? And the one after that?”

Wisps of black smoke billowed from the drake's nostrils. He was seething.

“There won’t be a next time. You will die. Here and now.”

The Juggernaut smiled. “That’s my hope. Do your worst.”

This time, the drake would find his victory hard to swallow. Since their last encounter, Priam was tougher to chew.

Lvl Up: [Shear Resistance] lvl [35, 36, 37, 38 ,39]
CONST +35
META (Endurance) +10

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Status: 

PHYSICAL:
Strength 1 284 (+2)
Constitution 3 026 (+122)
Agility 1 689 (+1)
Vitality 2 730 (+20)
Perception 1 050 

MENTAL:
Vivacity (D) 688 (+4)
Dexterity 1 053 (+1)
Memory 1 291 (+9)
Willpower 1 400
Charisma 1 252 

META:
Meta-affinity (O) 1 529 (+8)
Meta-focus (P) 994 (+8)
Meta-endurance 1 962 (+60)
Meta-perception 1 031
Meta-chance 837
Meta-authority 1 192 (+51)

Potential: 42 764 (+46)
Tier 0

[Tribulation]: Two Tribulations pending.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 1 200 / 6 attributes > 1 600 / 3 attributes > 2 000 / 3 attributes > 2 800 / 1 attribute > 3 200

Time: 43 days 14 hours 25 minutes 41 seconds.

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Alright, next chapter: timeskip to just before the start of the second Reunion. And therefore, Tier 1. It feels good to finally be there!

If there’s anything you wanted to see in Tier 0 that I might have missed, now is the time to let me know in the comments!

See you tomorrow!
EDIT: needed to rewrite 456 as you guys have plenty of good ideas.

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Sna - Homo Elysian