That was a big handful, and a massive increase to all my physical abilities, which were already greatly increased by my crossing another Rise threshold, to the Torch stages—though the second technically increased my mental abilities as well. But I had to move on to the next massive update, the one concerning the Tumult brought on by the Flood.
Attention, the second update said. A Behemoth, Toxin, and Oblivion-based, Tumult-level Challenge has been overcome by the allies and inhabitants of the Sun-Jeweled seas. The entity responsible for creating said Tumult has been utterly obliterated, and any sponsors to its creation were not present. As the entity known as the Flood also represented an Expanse-wide Tumult, extra power has been released upon its obliteration. Previously consumed minds will be restored and rejuvenated. Previously lost knowledge will be rediscovered. The synapses, neural pathways, and overall cognitive function of all life will be greatly enhanced, allowing for potential new breakthroughs in both technology and magic. The inhabitants will further gain an innate understanding of mental health, allowing them to resist further deterioration and advise other beings on effective mental care. As a result, all inhabitants will gain +5 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, as well as instinctive understanding for a physical skill of their choice, allowing them to increase it more quickly due to practice. All inhabitants will also gain 5 skill points to allocate for scholarly or magical skills.
Creatures that directly participated in overcoming the Tumult will additionally receive +10 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, +10 skill points for scholarly or magical skills, as well as two free skill points per Rise.
As the Challenger of Avalon and the primary combatant responsible for defeating the Tumult, all benefits are doubled. ERROR: multiple Earthborn Challengers detected in the vicinity. Applying the award of power to both Challengers. ADDITIONAL ERROR: primary Challenger cannot raise skills more than five points above his Risen level. Countermeasures are attempting to reallocate benefits.
A nascent Planetary Lord has participated in the ending of a Tumult. Right to Rule has been gained. The Lord will receive the same benefits in skill as the inhabitants who participated in defeating the Trial, 10 skill points and an increased ability to learn new skills. The Lord gains two additional skill points per Rise to spend on any skills related to social situations, such as calming a frightened army or populace. He need not choose the same skill each Rise.
ERROR: detecting allegiance from at least one Elder Icon of the Sun-Jeweled Seas. Right to Rule has further been increased. Further detecting that the nascent Lord has played a direct role in ending the Tumult, including the use of his personal retinue. The lord will gain the same increase in mental skills per Rise granted to his retinue. As a Challenger has been detected among the Lord’s retinue, this increase will total to four skills per Rise. This benefit is retroactive. ERROR: the Planetary Lord cannot raise any skill more than five points above his Risen level. Countermeasures are engaging.
The Planetary Lord’s regalia, Woadtattoo, and Well anointing have successfully assisted countermeasure protocols. His bond with the Kingtree allows him to pass on excess benefits to those under his authority, including the retinue bonded to him via the mindlink. For every skill point beyond the Lord’s limit, every retinue member will receive one additional skill to assign as they wish, as long as the skill is a physical one in the case of the first Tumult, or a mental one in the case of the second. The Lord may also choose to sacrifice any unspent skill points.
The Planetary Lord’s Kingtree has also successfully spread the success of the Sun-jeweled Seas back to other territories under his authority, thanks to the Lord’s actions. All inhabitants on Avalon and the Woadlands will receive the same benefits that a corresponding inhabitant on the Sun-Jeweled Seas would have received for overcoming either Tumult, per the Universal Law Glory Answers Glory: the successes of one person will carry past themselves to benefit their loved ones and communities.
My status screen opened up long enough for me to see my ratings, before demanding that I assign my new skill points. I felt like I understood why. Technically, this was an even larger increase than the flat gains I had received from the Woadland Tumult, which had pushed me into the Practitioner level for most of my arts. The problem was that I couldn’t use the total amount of increases, especially since I was already at or close to the cap of all my abilities. Furthermore, they would help ensure that all my magics, and at least most of my weapon skills, would keep up with me automatically as I gained more Rises in the future.
More importantly, it multiplied the power of everyone else that worked with me.
From the very beginning, I had avoided specializing in any one area. Maybe I had leaned toward things like close combat and wearing armor, but the truth was that I had tried to make myself able to deal with almost every scenario that came up, spreading myself as evenly as possible. In most of my video games, where I could find out what I was going up against, it would have been sheer idiocy. It would have meant that I wasted resources on something that couldn’t help achieve victory. In my video games, I would figure out what was needed to win, and devote time and resources to gaining the necessary item, ability, or skill. If there was something that actually wasn’t helpful—usually because nobody had figured out how to perfectly balance, or perfectly imbalance, a video game yet—then I would ignore that item or skill completely, all while privately bemoaning the fact that it was a wasted idea.
But here, every idea was a potentially wasted one. I didn’t have the luxury of knowing my enemy’s weaknesses before I encountered them. I could run into a monster that was susceptible only to a certain magic and resistant to most forms of weapons, and in the very next, encounter one that was almost completely immune to magic and had to be slain with a certain weapon. If I had specialized completely in Fire magic for the Woadlands, I would have been unable to hurt the Nuckelavee with Ice magic in the very next world. My skill with axes had let me use Toirneach well enough to hold off Cavus until Breena was ready and able to destroy his spider-ant body, and that had been my best weapon at the time.
And there was no telling what battle skills I would need on the next world, or in the underground halls of Avalon… or with my next battle with Cavus.
Speaking of the disgusting Umbra, I hadn’t even known about the existence of most of my enemies before I began training with Stell and Breena. The Starsown and her Satellites had done their best to guide me through my first few Challenges, but we all quickly discovered that our problems had decided to come from a brand-new encyclopedia, along with a couple half-dozen that had been out of date for centuries. She hadn’t bothered to train me on dealing with what already felt like a dozen threats, because both she, the local Icons, and several scholarly institutes had studied their existence for centuries, confirmed that they had been successfully eliminated—or never found any proof of their existence in the first place—and closed the book on them. Cavus had been nothing more than a repressed memory for Stell for thousands of years. The Horde had supposedly been completely dealt with, isolated to just one lost world with the only remaining entrance completely sealed. The Flood, along with the Stellar Council of frightened old men who kept trying to detonate my brain cells every time I got my act together, had predated all of our knowledge, coming out of history books we hadn’t even had the chance to discover yet.