As Myer had a mental breakdown due to the chaos Cynrik was causing in the stairwell, the person in question was lazily reclining on a pile of charred corpses while watching the countdown timer tick away.
-Time remaining 01:23-
[Hehe, one, two, three, make a wish, Brance.] Covering his mouth with his right hand, Cynrik snickered softly at his bad joke.
[Shut up. Don’t you have something more important to be doing right now instead of fucking around? I’m almost done down here;] although Brance was hurrying along a couple of remaining children through the magic circle, he still took the time to condemn his brother. He wasn’t entirely clear on what was happening in the stairwell since his attention was solely directed at the massive group of kids he was supposed to be keeping in order. As such, he wasn’t able to separate his attention and direct it to where his brother was fighting.
Brance did, however, understand that Cynrik was slaughtering a large number of people, thanks to the constant influx of notifications he was receiving. But, unlike Cynrik, Brance didn’t get drunk on the feeling of power he acquired from his increased Stats and was diligently going about completing the task assigned to him.
Finally, when the timer ran out and the last child stepped into the teleportation circle, Tobs started sending notification after notification to the boys.
-Part 3 D: Send the freed children to the safe zone using the teleportation array. 83/83 (Complete)-
-Part 3 E: Defend the array until all children have successfully teleported. (Complete)-
-You have received 25 Skill points, 20 Stat points-
-You have received 249,000 XP-
-You have leveled up-
-You have reached the level cap for Tier-0 Level 10-
-You are unable to evolve to Tier-1 due to requirements not being met. Minimum Requirements to evolve from Tier-0 to Tier-1 are listed below-
-Level 10 (Complete)
-All Stats at minimum 50 (Incomplete)-
-Mana Codex Tier-1 (Complete)-
-1 Elemental Affinity at Tier-1 (Complete)-
-Mana Cycles Completed 100/100 (Complete)-
-Mana Circuit Tier-1 (Complete)-
-Tier-1 EvoStone 0/1 (Incomplete)-
[Oh, SHIT, look at that!] Cynrik shouted gleefully into the mind link. Momentarily he ignored the next part of the chain quest and took the time to read over the other notifications. Then, waving his hand frantically, he quickly closed all the present windows, except for the one about evolving to Tier-1.
[Interesting, so we’ve basically met all the reqs for advancing to the next Tier, we’ve heard about EvoStones before, but I haven’t found out how we get our hands on them. The only other box we haven’t checked off is the “All stats to 50,” but we can table that for later.]
[Agreed, I’m missing two stats right now, but I should be ok since I’ve got 28 points to use.] Like Cynrik, Brance was also staring feverously at the notification window that indicated what he needed for his advancement to Tier-1.
With a simple thought, Brance assigned five points to his INT and 13 to his MIND, bringing both of them to 50 and leaving him with 10 Stat points which he subsequently spread evenly between his VIT and STR, raising both to 96.
The instant his MIND and INT Stats broke through the 50 point threshold, he felt something in his head and chest shatter, followed by a wave of nausea. Unlike when Cynrik had pushed up his INT Stat and was relatively ok, he had pushed his MIND forward as well, the effects of which nearly made him pass out. Adding 13 points by themselves wouldn’t have been a significant issue; he broke through the 50 point threshold, causing him to feel sick.
Brance didn’t have to worry about this nauseous feeling, though since he had also increased his STR and VIT, the gross feeling swiftly disappeared and was replaced by the warming sensation brought about by those Stats.
[Whew, that was almost rough; how are you holding up?] Now feeling better than ever, Brance checked in on how Cynrik was handling his powerup.
Cynrik had been carefully distributing his Stats this whole time, and now, it was paying off. Unlike his brother, who needed to forcefully raise two Stats, Cynrik was only required to bring his MIND up eight points to meet the evolution requirements.
This slight increase caused him to be a little uncomfortable, but it didn’t have nearly the effect on his body that it did for Brance. Since he was born, Cynrik always had an unnaturally high MIND Stat, but he never allotted points to it specifically. Instead, he let it naturally grow with level-ups and kill rewards. As such, It was already at 42 when he learned about the minimum requirement for his Tier-1 advancement.
Once finished meeting the Stat reqs, Cynrik faced an entirely new issue. Scanning through his profile, Cynrik’s left eye was continuously and rapidly twitching. The reason for this tick was simple.
[(twitch)51, (twitch) 81, (twitch) 81, (twitch,twitch) 61, (both eyes twitch at different times) 61, MOTHER FUCKING UNEVEN BULLSHIT ASSS FUCKING AHHHHHH! ALL MY EFFORT TO KEEP THEM AT WHOLE NUMBERS AND SOMEHOW THEY ALL FUCKING ENDED UP WITH 1’s REEEE!] Cynrik’s irate screams of pain echoed into the mind link, causing Brance to instinctively cover his ears and crouch on the ground.
[ITS FINE, THIS IS FINE, TOTALLY FINE;] as he screamed, Cynrik was violently shaking his head in time with his words and aggressively shrugging both shoulders.
[Deep breaths, take deep breaths, Cyn, we still have a lot to deal with; just calm down for a minute and breath.] Slightly fearful for his older brother’s mental stability Brance did his best to calm Cynrik down. Cyrnik had always been obsessive when it came to numbers in video games. Now that they had a real-life system that used numbers to dictate their present physical abilities, Brance knew his brother’s illogical condition would make its appearance again.
[Look, Cyn, you still have like 20 points left-right; how bout you just bump everything up to five, and that shouldn’t be too bad, right?]
Hearing the logic his younger brother was attempting to present, Cynrik froze in place, with his arms fully extended and his neck twisted at a strange angle. [AH, but that still leaves my MIND at 50, and there’d be a point left over. HMMMM…] His eyes narrowed as he stared aggressively at the five 1’s present in his Stat Profile while rubbing his chin slowly with his right hand.
SIGH
[Fine, I can deal with it for now, but it’s gunna annoy the shit out of me again as soon as I level up.] With an angry wave of his hand, 20 of the 21 Stat points found their way into their new respective homes, and Cynrik closed his eyes while slowly exhaling and enjoying the sensations brought about by the powerup.
: Stat Points- 1:
: Skill Points- 75 :
: Strength- 55 :
: Dexterity- 85 :
: Agility- 85 :
: Intelligence- 65 :
: Vitality- 65 :
: Mind- 50 :
: Killing Intent- 93 – 3G :
Although he was still unhappy with his MIND being left behind, The excellent whole numbers in his Stat profile pacified Cynrik for the moment. As he relished in his newly increased power, Cynrik was disturbed by a loud screeching noise and a flashing notification window in his face.
-HOST, BE ALERT; A LARGE SURGE OF MANA HAS BEEN DETECTED IN YOUR AREA. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU LEAVE IMMEDIATELY-
“Huh!”
BOOM
Cynrik was just barely able to bring his arms up to shield his body as an immense force struck him, catapulting him backward and through the wall of corpses. It took all his strength to curl into a ball as he was hurtled through the bodies and down the staircase, where he impacted the ground and bounced several times before stopping at Brance’s feet.
On high alert and eyes wide, Brance watched Cynrik ricocheting off the ground like a ball before stopping and spitting up a mouthful of blood.
“So you’re the FUCKING RATS who have been stirring up trouble on my watch. HOW FUCKING DARE YOU. DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’VE JUST OFFENDED? YOU LITTLE FUCKING BRATS WILL PAY DEARLY!”
Struggling to his feet, Cynrik ignored the pain radiating from both his arms and chest and gritted his teeth while looking up at the stairwell, where a man wearing heavy iron armor was standing with smoke waving off his fist.
The man slashed out his left arm and vaporized the corpse wall into particles of grey energy. Then, he made a grasping motion with his right arm, causing those particles to condense into a solid orb the size of a baseball.
“I do have to thank you both, though. Without your chaos, I wouldn’t have met the conditions I needed to advance my Tier.” Finishing his statement, the man smiled evilly, and the brothers watched in horror as the person’s jaw dislocated like a snake, and he consumed the orb that was once dozens of corpses.
An eerie wave of powerful Mana burst from the man as the orb disappeared into his mouth, flinging Brance and the now standing Cyrnik back several feet.
-WARNING MYER AVIO HAS EVOLVED INTO A TIER-2 EXISTENCE; IT IS ADVISED THE HOST RETREATS AND USES THE TELEPORTATION CIRCLE!-
In an immense amount of pain, Cyrnik stood shakily on his feet and glared angrily at Myer. “Bastard, you fucking think because you’ve reached Tier-2 that we’ll be scared of you” he finished his statement by spitting a mouthful of blood in Myer’s direction.
[Get to the circle!] Cynrik knew this wasn’t a battle they could win and decided to follow Tob’s advice. Slowly the brothers slightly shuffled their feet to disguise their movements, but it was easily seen through.
“OH? Think you can run? That’s cute.” With a sadistic grin, Myer slashed out his hand again, but instead of causing bodies to evaporate, he fired an incorporeal mass of slimy, grey energy directly at the waypoint, causing it to explode into pieces and effectively shutting down the teleportation circle.
[Sigh, FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!]