End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2) by John Gold (always you kirsty moseley .TXT) 📗

Hell, the desert, and the trial all taught me a lot about life. The most important lesson I’ve learned is the value of time. With my streams of consciousness, you can calculate my advantage as 440 levels and eleven familiars plus 110 levels for my achievements, a total of 550 levels. While the other players in Project Chrysalis are getting to that point, I need to keep building. With that in mind, ever since the trial, I’ve been working on my ability to use fire, space, and earth magic. The maximum skill level in the game is 1000, so I have a way to go before I’m ready to take on my enemies.

Since we landed on the island two months ago, I’ve been focusing exclusively on Space Magic, though I still haven’t even gotten to Level 500. We spend twelve hours a day working, and that’s all I’ve been able to do. Of course, there’s no sense going into it all the way. That wouldn’t be smart or advantageous strategically.

The orphans have found me quite a few books about dark magic. The most interesting are the ones about the gods and their powers. Mysticism, which I thought was a stupid read, turns out to be a wealth of information. And while there’s nothing about the weaknesses the gods have in regular books, the forbidden ones do have some juicy tidbits. Reading between the lines of three books, I’m able to put together a pretty good picture: the gods feed on the energy of belief and prana, wielding enormous magic strength. The strength enjoyed by each god’s created body depends directly on the power of the altar in their main temple. The better it is, the simpler and more powerfully the god can appear in the real world. As the strength of the avatar goes up, so does the cost it takes to make it. That’s a weak point for any god, which is why they protect their altars like the apple of their eye. If you can destroy the main altar, the god will only be able to show their avatar once, and the altar can only be rebuilt by the god’s followers where the god’s strength is greatest.

There are three ways you can kill a god:

The first and simplest is by killing them in their avatar body.

The second is by destroying their altar and then killing the avatar when it appears.

The third is by destroying the altar and then waiting a year. If the god’s followers don’t rebuild it in that time, the god will die, dissolving in the astral and losing touch with the physical world.

Femida frowns when I give her my hypotheses.

“Sagie, you realize that those will only work on the small pantheon gods, right? They won’t work with gods from the large pantheon. The only way you can kill them is by killing their avatar. They have believers on all the continents who can rebuild their altars at the drop of a hat.”

“I’m not in a hurry. All I want to do is find out how to defend and attack. You know very well that the gods are too arrogant and full of pride to forgive or forget.”

At home, father gets to work on the next lesson. We still have weaknesses when it comes to actually fighting despite our knowledge of methods, tactics, and teamwork.

“Son, you said you learned how to find a killer in a crowd. Hiding is the most basic, superficial thing you can do. Anyone can fake the way they look and act. Hiding your actual strength is the tricky part, and I have yet to meet someone who can do that.”

“I’m not sure what strength you’re talking about.”

“It’s the feeling you get from a person. You get a sense of whether they are strong or weak, and you can even compare multiple people. It isn’t a skill or an ability.”

I think I know what father’s getting at. When I met death, I felt the strength he wielded, and it was the same with the devil. Raid bosses give you the same feeling. I’m used to being weak and sensing my own weakness continually, though I’ve noticed that sensation starting to recede. What he’s talking about is genuinely a hidden skill, not just some nonsense.

Father offers to teach us.

“Sagie, are you stronger than Fem?” Tact has long since been absent in our lessons.

“Yes, at least twice as strong.”

“Are you stronger than me?”

“Yes, though I’m not as sure there. I’m at least three times as strong as you are.”

Father is surprised.

“What makes you think that?”

“Compared to the two of you, I have an enormous advantage in both attack and defense. Father, I’ve met creatures worlds stronger than the two of you put together. My enemies have always been stronger than me, and I’ve always beaten them. I’m used to sensing strength, though I’ve never really done it consciously. Usually, I just ignore threats from people I know can’t kill me with the usual attacks. Mastery is something different, however. You and Fem are both better where that’s concerned, so you would both have a shot at killing me.”

Father and Femida exchange glances, and I see understanding spread across Fem’s face. She already knew this about me. Father didn’t.

“You are absolutely right, son. In every situation in life, you always have to accurately evaluate your own strength and that of your opponent. You can then use that information to decide how you want to fight.”

Femida huffed. Nobody asked her opinion.

“Uncle Arman, why aren’t you asking me?”

“This is something you’re not good at thanks to your armor. Your strength is always changing depending on how much you use your armor, so you need to acknowledge that you evaluate your opponents using different criteria. For Sagie, it’s instinct; for you, it’s analysis.”