Pearl of the South (World of the Changed Book #2): LitRPG Series Read online

  Valkyrie flashed in my hand, though I didn’t take the shot. And it wasn’t because I changed my mind or decided I liked Olsen. No, it was the 0% damage markers that told me my level twelve pistol couldn’t do anything about the bastard. But that didn’t keep Fang out of its chest. No result, of course.

  “You’d better not, Olsen!” I growled.

  “In that case, follow instructions,” it replied as though nothing had happened. “Two and Three just need a couple hours to find hidden players, what with the resources they have at their disposal. Wart gave you ten days; I’m giving you seven. If you don’t bring me the pearl by then, or if you decide to head into the city, I’ll tell the general’s spawn about your sister. I only work with the strong, Mark Derwin, and as long as your sister is still underground, that’s not you. You’re weak. And I don’t like that. You need to decide your fate.”

  “Can you help remotely? Can you block Wart?”

  “No, the game wouldn’t let me. I was only able to do that for Squirrel because of your blood connection and her condition. As far as I know, you and Wart are not relatives. Okay, I need to know what your decision is — are you going after the pearl or your sister?”

  “You know, Olsen, I’m going to find a way to wipe you.” The anger was gone, leaving nothing but cold determination. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to make sure you never see another release.”

  “That’s your emotions talking. They usually make people stronger, but in your case, they’re clouding your mind. And that’s unacceptable, Mark Derwin. What’s your answer?”

  “I’ll find the damn pearl.”

  “I didn’t expect anything less. You need to figure out your transportation — it’s about eight hundred miles to the noa concentration plans, and you won’t make it in time otherwise.”

  “You’re not going to help me, are you?” I asked with unveiled malice. But Olsen didn’t recognize the sarcasm.

  “You’ve already gotten more help than you need. There’s the equipment; you do the rest. I should warn you — as soon as you accept the mission, the game owner will find out about it. That’s the kind of thing the owner always stays in the loop on. It will give the general orders to find the pearl, and the general will send Eight, maybe even Eight and Seven, after you. It probably wouldn’t assign three spawn at once — Two and Three tend to visit the city pretty frequently. Plan your move with that in mind. But anyway, I imagine you’ll need some time to get ready, so Aspen is at your disposal. Get yourself in shape for the long road ahead. You stink, and that could give your presence away. As soon as you’re ready, come find me. I’ll tell you where the pearl is.”

  The Aspen leader’s advice was solid. As soon as I’d taken a bath and changed, I felt like a new man. Settling into one of the labs, I got to work. Getting my device repair up to level 60 took 80 syringes — I had to boost it from level 40. Working with those advanced coefficients was a pain. Until you got to level 40, everything was smooth sailing, one to one, though it went off from there. From level 40 to level 50, the ratio was three to one, or three free points to each attribute. From level 50 to level 60, it was five to one; from level 60 to level 70, it was seven to one. And a quick check told me the jump from level 70 to level 90 would take 90 syringes. That was an incredible number, though there was no way around it. Once the update was complete, I laid my hands on the damaged equipment and…

  Item needed for integration.

  Wait, really? I squinted at Raptor, checking out the different options the system was sending to the screen. The only problem was that they were all blocked. Filtering them by available for use, I only found one thing: Ulbaron. A grin spread across my face. Of course! If I was going to turn into Iron Man, I was going to need the outfit to match.

  Enter a name.

  “Ulbaron.” If it ain’t broke…

  Name accepted.

  Repairs, modernization, and integration successful.

  You’re the first player on Earth to modify a named item.

  Level +5 (320).

  5 free attribute points received.

  I looked over my new armor with interest. It was thicker, heftier, somehow more sophisticated. No nozzles. Just like on the Mark-2, small power circles handled takeoff and landing, filling in for electromagnets. There was also no pack, though there was a bulge on the back. That was presumably the energy block.

  The best part was that I didn’t have to spend days practicing at some workbench to pull off the masterpiece. All I had to do was get the item, find the attachment, and have the right attribute levels. The crafting in World of the Changed was one thing I liked. Hitting a couple buttons on Raptor, I dug into the description of my new outfit, though the smile quickly disappeared from my face. Seriously?

  Ulbaron. Description: Universal adaptive tactical outfit with aerial maneuverability for Mark Derwin. Current Ulbaron level: 12. Built-in universal protection capable of withstanding 600 hits from any weapon through level 12. Regenerates when up to 50% of the surface area is damaged. When activated, is airtight for 120 minutes. Heat resistant, cold resistant, built-in cleaning system. Maximum altitude: 60 meters. Maximum flight speed: 150 km/h. Maximum capacity: 1200 kg. Integrates with phone. Cannot be blocked in the game world. Requirements: Strength (70), agility (70), stamina (70), fortress (60), resilience (60), coordination (70), aeronautics (70), spatial perception (60), hacking protection (60), electromagnetic impulse protection (60). Cost: 30000000 coins.

  Yes, the system really knew how to gum up the works. Ulbaron looked great, of course, but the long list of requirements was enough to make you lose your mind. I’m going to have to give myself 1,170 shots! Even if I gave myself one every ten seconds, it was going to take almost three hours. How much time will it take if at some point I have to go from zero to, say, a hundred? A week?

  “Not bad,” Olsen said, showing up right as I was finishing. “I knew you’d be fine.”

  “Hard not to be,” I snorted. “Boost your repair skill, and you’re done.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to disappoint you, but it’s not that simple. Attribute syringes just boost skills you already have. You can level-up your strength, agility, and shooting, for example. But there’s nothing you can do about creativity if you never had it to begin with. If a player doesn’t know how to rhyme two words, they still won’t have anything after the game no matter how high they get their composition skill. It’s the same with creating items. If you didn’t have a knack for it, or, more importantly, you didn’t enjoy it, it wouldn’t work. The game is very careful about how much it imposes on the players — the creator cared a lot about balance.”

  “I think I’ll just leave that bunch of tripe be. But you want to talk about balance? Forget the coins — I have to sit here for three hours sticking myself just so I can put on my new outfit. And that’s fine right now. But what if it happens during a battle? Let’s say I take out a larva, my named items all level-up, and then…I can’t use them? And while I’m trying to crawl out of the suit, the weakest inferior monster can take me out. Yeah, that’s some amazing balance right there!”

  Consolidated items functionality unlocked in the store.

  “Your request was approved and implemented,” Olsen said like nothing had happened. “You can now combine as many syringes as you need into a single needle.”

  “And you couldn’t have done that at the beginning?” I exploded. “What’s the point?”

  “The players are supposed to be active, understanding what they want from the game. Don’t forget that the game isn’t here to make you all happy. It’s here to extract noa. Figuring out all the rules and quirks is your job, so experiment, exchange information, and try things out. That’s the only way for you to get better and be useful to me.”

  “How about buying a help section?”

  “There’s no such thing. You can buy information, but it’s very limited. At least, I don’t know of any other functions that have that kind of problem with players. Anyway, about named
items. You’re wrong, Mark Derwin. They only improve that quickly through level fifteen, after which you have to clear locations to get them up to forty. Larvae and all those creatures don’t do anything. After forty — ”

  “Generals?”

  “Exactly. After forty, the only way to level them up is to kill generals. As far as the parameters, they only jump up every ten levels, so you don’t have anything to worry about so long as you prepare ahead of time. The jump is generally thirty points. Are you ready to hear where you need to go next?”

  I pulled up the store, pointedly ignoring the question. And yes, a quantity column had appeared next to each item, with items like attribute syringes now referred to as consolidated. Buying the number I needed relieved my wallet of two million coins, and a normal syringe appeared in my hand. The same as usual. The only difference was that the liquid inside was all different shades of green.

  “Out with it.” I sat down on the floor and injected myself. For the next three hours, I wasn’t going to be able to help anyone, so I figured I might as well hear a bedtime story, as Grust called them.

  And it really was quite the tale Olsen wove. The rainbow pearl could be found in level five-plus dungeons. The higher the level, the better the chances of getting it. That just left me needing information on the dungeon levels, and there Olsen was less than helpful. He knew almost nothing. Dungeon levels were static, and you had to give something at the entrance to boost them. But what? Olsen didn’t know, though he had a guess: noa, of course. Regardless, before doing anything else, I needed to find someone who definitely had the answers to my questions. And that was a digger. They were another function, that one responsible for finding the minerals the game owner was looking for. As it turned out, extracting life-giving noa wasn’t enough for the game. It wanted to suck Earth dry, pulling even the rare minerals out of it. Hey, I should try regular, Earthling weapons out on the functions. That M2, for instance. It was going to be interesting to see how they handled them.

  “The digger is by the fault lines, as it’s easier to get inside the planet there. Find it, Mark Derwin, and don’t forget — you have seven days to complete my mission.”

  Mission received: In search of the rainbow pearl. Description: Bring Olsen, the head of Aspen, the rainbow pearl. It can be found in level five-plus dungeons. Find the digger and ask it how to boost dungeon levels. Mission deadline: 7 days.

  ***

  Mercenaries were assigned to hunt you: the Tsarter group (5 players).

  “Just like I predicted, the game owner reacted instantly.” Olsen didn’t need a phone to see the game’s messages. “You should be proud of yourself, Mark Derwin. Not many people have had a group that strong sent after them.”

  “Judging by the fact that the game didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, Tsarter was already assigned to take someone else out. Who?”

  Olsen stared at me for a while, thinking about whether to respond. I was starting to suspect that I wouldn’t get an answer when the function spoke up.

  “Yes, you’re right. The group isn’t tied to a location, and the Earthlings in the next hexagon over were able to organize and fight back. They were even gaining the upper hand over the changed. That’s when the game owner decided to take out their leadership — three days ago. The current prediction is that there will be no more players left in that location two weeks from now. Tsarter is a well-oiled machine. If you’re able to take them out, you won’t just have me interested in you; the entire game will look at you differently. You’ll be left in it even if that’s not what the game owner wants. The game will consider you a balancing force.”

  “Are there a lot of those in the game right now?” I asked, jumping at the chance to pick up some allies.

  “Seven players, none in our hexagon. They’re tied to their locations, so you’ll have to go see them yourself if you want to meet. Bring me the pearl, and I’ll tell you where one is. And in the meantime, I think it’s time for you to go, Mark Derwin. Tsarter will be in Aspen in six hours. Also, remember, you aren’t the only one out looking for the pearl.”

  “Wait, those five aren’t looking for the pearl, are they?” I was shocked.

  “Tsarter was sent after you, not the pearl. Don’t confuse the two. No, you’ll have Eight keeping you company, probably Seven, too. They’ll also be looking for a digger. And don’t forget that you don’t have much time.”

  Chapter 2

  OLSEN HEADED OFF to do whatever it was the character did, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Things certainly weren’t getting easier. Before doing anything else, I sent Wart another 300,000 coins, a message to let him know I was doing my best. He didn’t need to try to pull anything. Next, I crawled into Ulbaron. It was incredible — the new functionality had augmented the usual comfort and security. I could control it mentally via my device control or manually using Raptor. Of course, it was heavier, the underside picking up some spring. And the force circles didn’t touch the ground. Instead, they held me millimeters above it. But there was no rocking, no wobbling. I crouched down, and Ulbaron completely compensated for the change in my center of gravity. Even an attempt to fall backward just resulted in a smooth motion in that direction. Sure, the game asked me if it understood correctly what I wanted, or if I was actually looking to throw myself on my back, but everything happened so quickly, so smoothly, that I couldn’t get enough of it. Yes, Olsen, despite its idiotic mindset, had some surprises up its sleeve. The most impressive thing about Ulbaron was how I stood up from a near-horizontal position just by thinking about it.

  Flying was much more of a challenge, however. When I stepped out of the lab, I soared thirty meters up in the air, hurtled forward, and very nearly shit my pants. I had to quickly stop and come back down to earth. Quaking from the adrenaline, it hit me that levitating a couple millimeters above the ground wasn’t close to the same thing as flying that high in the air with nothing underneath you. Of course, there wasn’t anything to complain about. It felt like I was standing on firm ground, the wind didn’t knock me back and forth, and I couldn’t even feel any vibrations, but it was still terrifying. I was forced to stick to low altitudes for the time being. The issue there was that I wasn’t able to go faster than eighty kilometers an hour. Interestingly, the limitation wasn’t the costume; it was in my head. I started panicking and making stupid moves when I got that fast, losing all sense of precision. An hour later, I figured out that my speed limit was ninety kilometers an hour. At least, at that point.

  Olsen let me know every ten minutes that the Tsarter attack group was on its way to Aspen. They were already in the hexagon — five players starting at level 500 had quickly taken up the top slots in the ranking. Impressive! I had to wonder how many levels the game gave them for completing missions. And Olsen wants to talk about balance? Yeah, sure. Compared with those killers, I was weak and green. But anyway, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to head straight south. Tsarter knew exactly where I needed to go, of course, and they could have cut me off on the way. With that in mind, I made sure I kept the ranking for my current location pulled up in front of me. The system was going to let me know as soon as we were in the same one. For example, there weren’t any other players at all in the location I was in, and that cheered me up.

  At least, until I got to the edge of it.

  Raptor’s scanner only had a radius of 120 meters, so I saw the monsters from a distance before they popped up on my screen. Settling down to the ground and hiding in the tree shadows, I crept forward.

  It was an impressive sight. A long row of monsters stretched off in both directions, reaching the horizon to my left and right. Their perfect formation told me there was an invisible boundary they couldn’t cross. Probably the location boundary. Mostly meaningless for me, it was apparently real enough for the beasts in the game. The row was made up entirely of superior monsters standing shoulder to shoulder. A mouse couldn’t have gotten through. Back behind them, with some distance between each other, were c
hampions, all mages. But that wasn’t all — there were creatures flying overhead, too. Just in case, I scanned the ground across the perimeter location and grunted. There were even monsters down there. Shrews had dug long tunnels all along the border, and they were crowded. In fact, it looked like all the monsters in the area had congregated right there in front of me. I felt a warm fuzzy feeling when it crossed my mind that they were all there for me, but I knew that wasn’t it. They weren’t there just for one frisky player. Something else was going on, and that meant I had to act.

  Checking my map, I stepped farther away from the monsters and headed up a couple meters in the air. There was a wide river ten kilometers to the east. The monsters had never looked to me like they could live without air, and so I figured there wouldn’t be anyone in the water to catch me. There was no way I was going to cut my way through the line — any and all kills would tell Tsarter exactly where I was. And do I need that? No, thank you.