Gestation by John Gold (love books to read .txt) 📗

me. There are almost fifty blanks for rings that I’m carrying with me to make different kinds of rings with. I already have a good selection of rings to use magic with, and I need to make more of them with a focus on strength and stamina. The rest will be unique and for personalized use in specific situations. For example, I can make one with strength and intellect maxed. Yeah, normal players can only dream about this kind of thing. Want to join me? Go ahead, get through Hell, and you can have all the goodies you want. Payment? Simple—your soul, and that’s it. Well, you might also have problems with your health and a psychologist.

I decide to figure out what I’m going to do about my clothes right away. There’s one set I can enchant, so I’m going to need to sew another set. I’ll have to find some shoes, too. I’m not a cobbler, so I can’t make them.

For now, I need to create a mage’s amulet to wear around my neck. I work on that all day, looking for monsters with a magic bent. I’m a long way from the lamias and going back doesn’t make sense, so I have to use the eyes I come across.

Monster, Wild Eye, Level 312

I see the green wonder levitating a meter and a half above the earth. It’s a sphere with an enormous eye, a mouth that’s acid-green, and octopus-like tentacles. It has no stamina, so it prefers to use lightning, and its enormous jaw with three rows of sharp teeth snaps at my head when I get too close. It has immunity to Mind Magic and tries to break through my shield, but it can’t get away from a paralysis spike. One good throw, and my collection has a new body. Doctor! Time to operate.

Next, two weeks of electrotherapy go by with health boosted to two million. The wild eye “heals” my weakness to electric damage. I’m able to train my defense against lightning cast by monsters at Level 400, though that still doesn’t solve the problem. I bring together a collection of “doctors” to see if I can find a drastic solution. Sadly, they all admit their incompetency, and I have to kill them.

On the way, I make myself clothes that give me a magic bump. A spider shows up on the last day of therapy…and it isn’t alone.

Disaster strikes when two raid bosses appear almost at once. Life hasn’t prepared me for this kind of thing! At least, I have a bunch of victims that boost my health all the way up to two million. Luck is on my side, and I use a meteor with double force.

Monster, Death Spinner, Level 301, raid boss

I do my best to bring down a boulder so big that the shock wave can be felt from half a kilometer away. The recoil takes off half a million health, but it’s a success. All that’s left is a crater twenty meters across with a bunch of bodies inside. How much damage must that have done if it took off half a million health even with my resistance? Ten million. Ah, I wish I had more mana!

For six long minutes, I have to wait for it to replenish, and the enemy approaches all the while. The second raid boss is an enormous colossus, a statue complete with escort.

Monster, Colossus Amanir, Level 312, raid boss

Yes, there’s a whole escort behind the twenty-meter giant, a statue of a man with the head of a dog and wearing nothing more than a loincloth. He’s holding a two-handed sword. I quickly heal myself before sending another meteor down on top of the group. I heal again, and a second finishes off the fallen colossus. My luck has been pushed pretty far, so I decide to grab my loot and step away. Like they say, meteors never strike the same spot twice. First, though, I need to finish up what I’m working on. My ritual was interrupted right before the end.

Strangler belt

A famed strangler once lived in the world. He earned his reputation by first paralyzing his victims, and then slowly strangling them with his belt. They executed him, but his belt was lost in the process.

Defense: +5

Effect:

Morale +2

Wisdom +2

Intellect +4

Requirement: Scalable item

Durability: Indestructible, with damage to it taken out of the owner’s health

∞ ∞ ∞

Apparently, I’m putting together the world’s largest collection of evidence left over from executed killers…or dragging them out of the local jail.

The reason I don’t have many cloth items is that really good material is exceedingly expensive, and the usual stuff doesn’t give you more than three effects. After Hell and life in the village, I don’t even mind. I like rough cloth more than silk.

Finally, I have six red master rings, the sun-eater ring, the monster-eater, and the strangler belt. I also picked up a fantastic amulet with a scarab made out of a black gem.

Black mark amulet

In life, a mage practiced necromancy, understanding all its depths and intricacies. His own team ended up killing him over his inhuman experiments, shooting him with the weapons found on a captured ship the mage was working on. The necromancer returned as a lich and decided to wreak vengeance on his betrayers, however. Everyone died in the battle, including him, and this amulet floated to shore on a piece of the ship.

Effect:

Morale +2

Wisdom +4

Intellect +2

Requirement: Scalable item

Durability: Indestructible, with damage to it taken out of the owner’s health

∞ ∞ ∞

I have the world’s best pants! I’ve been running around the desert in just my underwear with my cart behind me, since my clothes were all destroyed by the dragon breath recoils. Now, I can make myself some indestructible trousers.

Self-moving pants

A boy once lived in the far east of Congul, and he didn’t listen to his parents, causing problems all through his area. But there came a day of reckoning. A demon possessed him and made him run until he