Broker

Chapter 049 - Not Hard

Added 2025-06-20 12:00:10 +0000 UTC

Anna and Catherine agreed after their respective refinement sessions to get a little rest before going another round with the Garden. There was still over a week until the deadline of the quest and the inevitable shuffling of Earth’s geology. Essence was not in short supply and grinding tirelessly against the now level seven skeletons had proven far more rewarding than the veritable massacre that Anna had dolled out the previous day. She was intimately aware that the whole situation was tilted in her favor and fighting this many creatures at a higher level on an even playing field was suicide. Still, it felt pretty fuckin’ good.

Anna kicked the last of the skeletons after her turn with the Garden and double checked her gains.

You have received: 1981 Iron Coins and 1436 Essence Points

And that’ll get me to level six, she thought and mimized the other notifications. She turned to nod to Catherine who was still resting. Anna paused only briefly and glanced back at her. “You know I’m kinda shocked that we get essence from these things at all, they’re grown, right? Where’s all that essence coming from?”

Catherine made a face. “I do not think you would like the answer to that question.”

Anna crossed her arms. “What? Is the soil made of ground people or something?”

Catherine raised an eyebrow, then made a face, then let out a sigh. “That is… part of it.”

Anna gaped at her. “I wasn’t serious, what the fuck?”

Catherine let out a sigh. “Either we use it or they do,” she said with a shake of her head. “As I said, the debatable contents of the soil is not the real issue. Structures like this one draw essence from the world they are built on. They are profane.”

A cold hate bubbled up in Anna’s gut and she looked down towards the soil. “I wasn’t aware that planets have essence, though I’m not really surprised. It’s not something easy to tap into, I’m guessing?”

“Correct,” Catherine said mildly. “What a building like this steals is a grain of sand in a desert, but it is stolen. I can imagine that any number of these buildings are scattered across your world. Not only by the Grand Necropolis, but by other factions that use similar means to bolster their forces,” Catherine explained. “The system puts limits on the invasion forces that come to newly integrated worlds. Maximum number of sapient participants, gear restrictions, building restrictions, and personal restrictions.”

“Like a level cap?” Anna asked.

Catherine nodded. “Quite so, I imagine that the Skeletal Champion you encountered had the word ‘capped’ present on the information window when you inspected him?”

“Yeah,” Anna said, crossing her arms. “Does that mean his real level is actually higher?”

“I would say it is a certainty,” Catherine said.

“When does the cap come off? It can’t stay forever,” Anna asked.

“At the end of the integration, just as the tutorial ends,” Catherine said gravely.

“So the general population comes out of the tutorial and right into the hands of some monster, is what you’re saying?” Anna asked with a scowl, crossing her arms.

“Not quite, the System is many things, but it is not arbitrarily unfair. It will not drop your fellow terrans too close to domains controlled by the other forces and the other forces will be restricted to their domains for a grace period after the tutorial. It is not a long one, but it is something,” Catherine said and leaned back against the wall. “I know you may have hard-”

“Fuck no,” Anna said with a wave of her hand. “I’m not gonna turn down a free meal. Leave that to the ultra-moral blowhards,” she said and walked away. “Enjoy your slaughterfest, I’m gonna refine.”

Anna’s expression, though, was troubled. She crossed her arms as she sat down against the wall and readied herself to refine, glancing briefly at the timer for the integration. Almost a month has passed already, eleven to go, she thought. Do I have enough time to get things ready before everybody gets back? She scoffed, Fuck no. But I can set some goddamn ground work. I need a better plan than just getting stronger, though. A precinct is not a castle.

She twined her fingers together. Catherine said that there were friendly factions out there, I doubt they’ll leave me alone, though. As far as they’re concerned I’m some hick native. I can’t be trusted with Authority. She paused and rubbed her chin. What if other people in the tutorial get it? Is that a possibility? I can’t be the only one, right? Catherine said that tutorial quests don’t give out Authority, but a long term thing like that has got to have rewards of its own at the end.

She nodded to herself. I should operate under the assumption that other people are gonna have it when they get back. I need to figure out how it works first, what it can do. There’s got to be a reason why everyone wants my head now. She shook her head and turned her attention inward. One step at a time.

It was a few hours later when she finally finished and she pulled herself out of her meditation. Anna glanced up at Catherine who was in the middle of carving through undead and let out a breath. Alright, level six.

Level Up!
You have refined your body to Level 6.

You gain a total +16 Attribute points for this level.

She smiled to herself, Gotta love the Little Powerhouse title, that plus five is awesome, she thought and got to work. I can take a hit pretty well right now and I can go for hours as long as the opponent isn’t crazy strong. My biggest problem is my Mana Tolerance, I need it to be higher so I can refine and engrave more efficiently. Not to mention my spells. She tilted her head to the right and looked her stats over. My Willpower is at least ten points lower than my Vitality and Endurance and it’s the core stat for MT. I’ll dump ten points into it and see where that gets me.

She tapped in the points and whistled appreciatively at the result.

Resources:
HP: 224/224 | SP: 209/209 | MT: 0/217

Bumped up nearly thirty points by getting it in line with the others. Nice, I can dig it, she thought and glanced at the rest of her stats. She had six more to distribute and… her thoughts trailed off as she eyed her presence stat. 97 in Presence, she thought. Three points from hitting one hundred in a stat. She grinned, Three points won’t kill me, she thought and dropped them in as well. Putting the last three into Intellect since it was the lowest of her ‘attack’ stats.

The results spoke for themselves.

Resources:
HP: 224/224 | SP: 209/209 | MT: 0/217

“Beautiful,” Anna murmured to herself before checking her notifications. She’d let a few sit after getting enough essence to level up and now it was time to go through it all.

New Titles Unlocked!

Undead Hunter I (Mortal-Common-Base)
The walking dead are your prey. You hunt them without mercy or restraint.
Effect: +5% Damage against undead targets.

Attribute Specialist of the Integration - Presence (Mortal-Rare)
You have managed to reach 100 points in the Presence stat before your primary class has reached level ten.You are the first individual of your integration to accomplish this feat.
Effect: Presence-related abilities and skills are more effective. +1 Presence Per Level. A Presence Ability Upgrade Token has been added to your inventory.

“I knew it,” Anna muttered, savoring the feeling of the system energy or whatever it was that spread throughout her body, improving her just a little more with the advent of her new titles. She chuckled at the Undead Hunter title, noting that it appeared to be improvable. Maybe she should spend a lot of her spare time here and the garden and get a nice damage bonus against bone head.

She plucked the token out of her inventory next.

Presence Ability Upgrade Token (Mortal | Common-Grade)
Crushing this token will allow you to select one ability you possess that depends on Presence as its primary stat. Doing so will forcibly improve that ability by one grade within the Mortal-tier. This token is Soulbound to Annastasia Flitt.

She considered the item for a while. What it sounded like it was implying was that she could hold on to it and use it later after improving Aura Snap on her own. On the other hand, I haven’t even gotten it to Low yet and it would be nice to buff it up. Hell, I might even get more use out of it that way. My big problem with improving it is that I barely use it. It requires winding up my presence and my presence is ‘locked’ after using it. She pursed her lips and shrugged before crushing it in her hand.

Detecting Relevant Abilities… Aura Snap detected. No other abilities present that utilize Presence as a primary stat. Aura Snap will be improved. Branching options available. Please select an option to continue.

Nice, I get options. Anna thought and leaned her head back, rubbing her chin as the list popped up.

Available Improvement Routes for Aura Snap:

Targets | Damage | Debuff

Please select one of the above options to improve Aura Snap to Rare-Grade.

Oho, Anna thought, I wonder if you get this kind of option every time you upgrade an ability or whatever. I guess that happens when you hit the top of the base, low, middle stages. She considered her options. Too bad there isn’t a choice that deals with the ‘cooldown’ period. Adding a debuff would be cool. It doesn’t really need to do more damage, my Presence stat is crazy high already. I made one of those little fuckers in the dungeon explode with it once.

She shrugged. Additional targets sound good to me.

She made her choice.

Improving Ability…

THUMP

Anna’s heart thudded in her chest painfully. She doubled over with a gasp as her blood caught fire in her veins. Oh, shit, what the fuck was-

THUMP

The lion in her blood that she’d tamed through stirring her heritage let out a roar within her mind. She felt the system information for how her upgraded ability worked pour into her brain only for it to immediately dissolve into the noise created by her heritage. She clutched at her chest and planted a hand on the ground, a headache beginning to throb behind her eyes. Shit! Calm down! The lion roared its defiance in response before it settled once more. She let out a gasp and planted her back against the wall, breathing hard. “Ow!” she grumbled. “What the fu-oooh. Oh. Well hello beautiful.”

Ability Upgraded!
Warning - Your branch choice has been forcibly changed.
Warning - New Ability’s Level Requirement is Higher than your Current Level!
Addendum - Heritage: Born in the Gray has overridden the Level Requirement.

New Ability Acquired!

Furious Rebuke (Mortal-Rare-Base)
You may project your aura into the surrounding area to deal a moderate amount of mental damage to all targets in your vicinity. Targets afflicted by this ability have a high chance of being stunned and a low chance of falling under a fear effect. Damage done is influenced by your Presence stat. This is a Heritage Ability.
Level Requirement: 10 (Overridden)

Anna’s eyes widened and she cracked a grin. “Now that’s what I’m-”

New Ability Acquired!

Dominant Presence (Mortal-Rare-Base)
Your aura has a unique quality granted to it by your heritage. All creatures struck by your presence-related abilities have a chance of incurring the Trespasser debuff. If a creature possesses an immunity to an attribute of an ability used against them, that chance increases. Each instance of the Trespasser debuff stacks.

Trespasser (Debuff)
Suffer, Trespasser, in my presence. 5% of mental damage used against you is converted into force damage. Your stats are reduced by 1%. This effect lasts until you exit the sphere of influence of the caster.

Anna slumped back further against the wall and just read it. She reached up and rubbed the side of her head in wonder. So this is what my heritage is supposed to do, well damn. A laugh bubbled up in her chest and she shook her head. Now that’s an upgrade. Finally gonna get some use out of my heritage besides hiding with it and blowing up a few tiny monsters. She grinned and turned to her last notification, itching to get back up and show off. Up ahead of her, Catherine was already wrapping up her session with the skeletons.

You have acquired a new Ability:

Contingency (Mortal-Common-Base)
You may set a single spell of common rarity as a reaction to a simple trigger or trigger word. The spell will invoke a higher mana cost upon casting. You may only have one contingency active at any one time. A contingency must be recast every time it is triggered.

She smirked. And the good keeps on coming, she thought. I’ve been thinking for a while about what I could do with this with what spells I know.

Next Class Quest will be available starting at Level 15.

She pursed her lips. That’s a while off, but I can deal with it.

She hopped to her feet and after a moment of experimentation she used Contingency. A menu appeared where she had to designate what spell she wanted to trigger and how it would trigger. She frowned a little at the menu, it wasn’t quick to use which meant the ability was not something she could use on the fly. That narrows my options a bit but it could definitely save my life, she thought with a sigh. She hovered her hand over the spells. I know just how to test it out…

She set her contingency and a message appeared.

Contingency set, you may expend additional mana upon triggering your contingency to recast it.

“Oh, that’s better,” she muttered. She figured the additional mana was on top of the pre-cast spell, it was a mana sink but it was better than dying in her opinion. She grinned and looked up to see Catherine walking towards her. “All done?”

The knight raised an eyebrow. “You look eager. Did you finish refining already?”

“Yeah, got some upgrades,” she said and turned towards Beval who was looking a lot more relaxed than their first few hours here in the garden. “Hey, get another one going.”

He looked up at her. “Already?”

She frowned at him, “Do it.”

He hopped to his feet with a nod and hurried into the control room. Anna glanced back at Catherine who had crossed her arms. “An upgrade at level six?”

“Just watch,” she said and started for the steps. She arrived at the top before stalking her way down and calling up her club. She slung it over her shoulder as she cranked her presence all the way up. Skeletons started to pour out of the ground, their blazing eyes turning on her. With a collective howl they raced towards her, bladed fingers extended, mindless rage driving them to kill. The bony horde surged, Anna planted her feet, and unleashed her rebuke.

An invisible wave of her presence ripped outwards, crashing into the incoming monsters. She felt her presence go on cooldown but this time she didn’t mind as she watched every single one of them shudder as cracks spread across their bones.

“Work smart not hard,” Anna said, and started swinging.