Chapter 25
The day had started like any other.
"You son of a bitch," Ben said, glaring at his hated enemy, "you think you're better than me? You think you've got what it takes to beat me? Huh!" the bland, gritty, flavorless protein shake loomed in front of Ben, glaring at him with a crude angry face Ben had drawn onto the cup directly with his Utility Pocket. He'd felt like an inkjet printer, merely looking at the cup and willing the ink to be applied, and it was done. Really, Ben was finding that the Utility Pocket was superb when it came to any kind of manufacturing work. Like making little googly eyes to put on his cup that shook when Ben picked it up and began pretending it was talking back.
"You like being a [Magical] Leap-rechaun don't you ya naked fucker," the hostile beverage container said, "you don't want to get your human body back!"
"Yes I do!" Ben said, then having psyched himself up suitably, took off the lid and began chugging. He looked at his hands as he drank from the silly cup, slightly glowing, almost holographic looking hands that sometimes made him feel like his body was made of CGI. He hated being [Magical], hated how dry he always felt, hated how frictionless he was. He hated how clothing rubbed against him like slippery silk against slippery silk, how it all felt like it was about to fall off, no matter how tight it was. He finished the drink and immediately washed it down with some highly illegal soda, brewed in Mice Labs, securely stored in his Utility Pocket, where not even skills could detect its existence.
"Any day now," Ben said, feeling the shake settle in his stomach and willing it to digest faster. He confirmed his statement against his calendar, which had the current date circled with exclamation points around it and the words 'Back to Normal' written on it. Nick and Atomis had been quite specific, they'd scanned him with lasers and shit and scientifically deduced that he would generate a brand-new flesh body any day now. He'd eaten enough biomass, he'd avoided every bit of magical food in Solas, which sucked, because 99% of the food in Solas was magical in nature, allowing aliens with extremely specific digestive systems to eat pretty much anything. He was ready, his Utility Vault was flush with stored experience, ready to be deployed to charge his body with enough experience to bring him directly to Level 20, which should trigger the [Evolution] Racial Ability, which should transform him into a full human being, which should fix all the problems with his level system.
The problem was, 'Any day now' could mean sometime today, or sometime within the next thirty days. Not even scientific instruments could get him a more specific range of days than that, not unless he wanted to pay out the nose for some kind of diagnostic specialist. The uncertainty had spawned a particularly vivid fantasy of him in The Mines, being gleefully pinballed around by explosions, looting literal tons of mundane and semi-magical ore, when all of the sudden he'd be stuck in place while he grew a new body and [Evolved]. The wall of [Instant Death] would touch him, and then he'd be dead before he really had a chance to start his new life.
Or, at least he'd lose his brand spanking new body. He wasn't really clear on how [Magical] interacted with things like The Mines. Like, if he died down there with a flesh body, would he just once again become a mana ghost and be free to roam around The Mines for as long as he wished? That was a question he'd rather not have the answer to, but Ben admitted that it would be pretty sick if he could survive the wall of [Instant Death].
Ben's thoughts were interrupted by the melodic sound of windchimes ringing, which meant someone was at the door. The lightly enchanted windchimes had been a gift from Dubdella, Dryst's sister who was also Anna's BFF. They were a somewhat inappropriate gift, a bit suggestive considering how music elementals reproduced, which Ben had learned about firsthand during his stint in a time loop, but he used them anyways because Ben had always enjoyed windchimes. He made it to the door and opened it.
"Anna!" Ben said, pleasantly surprised by the sight of his first wife from another timeline, "nice to see you, I was just thinking about you. Come in, I was just finishing up for the morning. Normally, we'd be out in the Overcavern Forest doing Quest stuff, but right now our main priority is getting me my body back. You want anything to eat? Drink? We've got all kinds of conjured foods in the fridge. From what I've heard, they're delicious."
"Naw babe," Anna said, reaching down and giving Ben a fond pat on the cheek with her crystal hand, "I already ate. How's the whole 'getting your body' back thing going?" she seemed. . . nervous was the wrong word. Excited?
"It's going good. Any day now," Ben said giving a weak laugh, pointing at the calendar. It wasn't awkward being near Anna, but they hadn't really talked about what'd happened. What she'd done for him.
"Good, good to hear. Think you'll be taller than me?" Anna was looking around the sparsely decorated studio apartment, scratch that, looking around the embarrassingly trashed studio apartment, looking for a place to sit.
"Probably," Ben said, giving Anna's short stature a quick glance, then walking over to the eating table and clearing some stuff off of one of the chairs. Ben noticed that the floor was covered in food, and that there was a smell coming from somewhere.
"Well, even if you're not. . ." she said, then trailed off. She was definitelythinking about the wedding, and about Dubdella, and about everything that Short Bus fucking recorded on that stupid Time Loop app on her Smartest Phone. "But anyways, enough chitchat." Ben noticed, belatedly, that Anna was dressed up like the sexy cosplay lovechild between a PI and a reporter. It looked like a Halloween costume on her, and Ben succeeded at keeping his opinion locked down tight.
"Oh yeah? What's up?"
"This is all hush hush," she said, putting a perfect crystal finger to perfect crystal lips, her eyes literally sparkling with excitement, "like, nobody is supposed to know about this, but apparently. . . The Bank of the Sun's been robbed."
"Really? Oh, hey Frankie!" Ben said with fond surprise as the Utility Pocket Elemental happily appeared and leaped into Anna's lap. She squealed in delight and began playing with the little scamp, talking in a happy voice.
"Oh yes it was! Oh yes it was robbed!" she was making little kissy faces at the elemental, who was gleefully soaking in the attention. "Was it you? Did you rob the bank?" Frankie started nodding his head, prompting peals of laughter from both Ben and Anna.
"He's nodding his head!" Ben said, warm joy in his chest, "Oh my God Frankie's the best. You're the best little guy!"
"He is the best!" Anna cooed, then took a moment to compose herself. "Anyways, it was Vivi's uncle. Duke, Fucking, Sluggington. Nobody knows how he did it, or why? Like, why? But he's a legend, like, a bad legend everywhere outside of Frazzrazzle Mountain."
Ben suppressed any questions about Frazzrazzle Mountain and its stupid fucking whimsical name. “How do you know it was him?”
"Because he's a fucking legend?" Anna replied, "Duke Sluggington is like one of theAeon Slug powerhouses. A [Battle Wizard], one of the most powerful in the world. He's also notoriously aggressive, constantly patrolling the first seven layers, reaching Max Level over and over again, just to fuck with everyone. Did you know his very identity is a class? [Duke Sluggington]," she said with the same strange silent inflection everyone used when speaking of system terms. It wasn't something heard, but something known, like the 's' in Island or the 'k' in Know. Or how The Beyond always seemed to silently echo and send goosebumps running up his arms.
"He'll give it back," Anna said, reassuring herself, "this is all a part of some stupid ploy, some game he's playing to leverage Solas into doing something for him. He shut down our capitol crystal once. That's supposed to be impossible, but he did it, and he wouldn't turn it back on until Solas let the Aeon Slugs build a summoners tower within the city. Or how he established the 'Hall of Aeon Slug' studies down in the College of Eternal Life."
Wait a minute, Ben thought as Anna continued listing the many super-villainous plots hatched by Duke Sluggington, who Ben was seriously starting to consider for his position of prime role model in life. He had a thought, and interrupted Anna.
"Wait, did your family bank there?"
"Oh yeah," Anna said, "like our entire family fortune is in there, but it's nbd," no big deal.
"I can spot you some money if you need it," Ben said, fully willing to just give Anna whatever.
"That's so sweet," Anna said, smiling at him, "but no bitch, I don't need a loan. But I do need a big payday, and there's a massive reward for finding what was stolen and letting The Bank know where it is.
"How big?" Ben asked, feeling the distant heat of excitement.
"Big enough that Solas will never be able to push you around again. We're talking wishes, a full set of seventy-two bonded to a Genie, a practically unstoppable summoned creature. You could go all the way down to the seventh layer with a being like that. Nobody has something like that, but The Bank is willing to dig deep into their pockets, so deep it hurts, to get back whatever he took. Honestly? It fucking scares me how much they're offering as a reward."
"Fuck," Ben said, and the distant excitement was closer now, warming his thoughts. "Is it really that good of a reward?"
"Yes," Anna said emphatically, "The Bank of the Sun is the only organization in The World that knows how to even [Summon] a [Genie], let alone control it orbind the wishes to it! There are only three in the entire world, and The Bank is going to give one of them away to whoever finds either The Vault, or whoever stole it. My stars," she said, shuddering, "I don't know what they plan to do to whoever stole it. . ." she shuddered again, looking genuinely afraid, "actually I don't want to know."
"Don't need the nightmares?" Ben joked, feeling relaxed. "No, but seriously, that's actually a really good plan. Not many people know about this?"
"Almost nobody," Anna confirmed, "they're going keep looking on their own, but the [Quest Reward] is already official. I think the only reason they haven't sent out a [Global Message] is that The Bank employees are trying to get a crack at getting the reward before anyone else can. But they're all idiots," Anna said, smugly, "half of them don't even know about Utility Pockets. And even if they did, they wouldn't have access to Duke Sluggington's chatty nephew. Vivi, who recently confided in me that Duke Sluggington had spent a considerable portion of his vast personal wealth to purchase-"
"A Utility Pocket," Ben said, momentarily awestruck. "No kidding, huh? Yeah, that would work. My Utility Pocket has like, some kind of maximum-security upgrade on it! During the Time Loop? Yeah, like everybody was trying to get inside it to. . ." Ben trailed off, not wanting to mention the Purebeast.
"Yeah yeah," Anna waved his thought away, "we're on the same page. Everybody thinks he took it, but nobody can prove it, and without proof, there's really nothing they can do. They don't even want to admit that it's missing, because honestly, that's the most embarrassing shit ever. Whatever Duke Slug wants? It must be huge, because We're," she said, and Ben knew she was talking about her race, the Sunlets, "are never going to forget this. At least, our leaders won't. I personally couldn't give a shit."
"Well," Ben said, mind racing ahead, "what if it wasn't him?"
"It has to be him," Anna said, a hint of worry entering her voice, "right? Who else could pull something like this off?"
Frankie started purring.
"Aw," Ben said, "he knows you're worried, and he's purring to make you feel better!"
"Frankie!" Anna said, sounding touched, "that's so sweet!" she hugged him again, then sighed when she was done, calmed. "Well! Now you know the situation. You in?"
"Sleuthing around Solas to find the missing. . . what was stolen?"
"The Deepest Vault."
"To find the missing Deepest Vault? Count me in! So we know for sure," Ben said, diving straight into the investigation, "that whoever took it needed to have a Utility Pocket, right?"
"There's no other way it wouldn't have been found by now. The Utility Pocket was designed by The System himself to be theft proof, and if it can keep anyone from detecting The Deepest Vault inside it, then it's theft proof."
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Hm," Ben said, rubbing his chin, "you know, I don't think it was Duke Sluggington who took The Deepest Vault. He hadn't planned on coming here, he was summoned by my wish for the Parade of Wonders. Stealing The Deepest Vault must have been complicated, right? Someone would have had to planned how to do it for a long time. . . I bet they timed their theft with Duke Sluggington's arrival!" Ben said, practically gasping.
"Oh my stars, because they would know that everyone would blame him and not even look for the real thief! Ben, I'm a [Reporter] now, which is apparently a valid class evolution from [Brawler]. I've got special investigative skills that can help us find The Deepest Vault, but they only work when I'm following a solid lead; I just used one of my skills, [Detect Lead], and it told me this was worth investigating."
"Well, shit," Ben said, "let's investigate then!"
"Yeah!" Anna cheered, and they began discussing who might have stolen The Deepest Vault. Their conversation was spirited and energetic, full of laughter and brilliant streams of logic. When the rest of Ben's party returned from all their various chores and obligations, they enthusiastically agreed to assist in the investigation, committing ng their full range of expertise and will to solving this terrible crime.
--
An instance of The System, who despite having the appearance of red-skinned, cloven hoofed, horned being, was not the devil, watched as Ben's party put forth 100% effort to destroy themselves, and snorted in laughter. The first thing he did, was make a meme and share it with all the other instances of The System. It was well received.
Next, he filled out an [Exploit] report, held it in the air, and watched it vanish. He'd submitted it to see if Frankie was an [Exploit] or not. He remembered designing the Utility Pocket and balancing it against the other Plus Perks, but Frankie had snuck past three fully empowered Genies and stolen the greatest treasures of the entire Sunlet race. Under level 20. He just needed an unbiased opinion, and he promptly received one. His form reappeared on his desk, and The System looked it over, then cringed back from the scathing comments on his form.
"What. A. Drama. Queen," The System muttered about the other instance of The System, as he scanned the form. "My creation is perfect blah blah blah balanced against the other plus perks blah blah blah oh, insulting our mother now? Very classy. Ah-hem," he said, skipping to the end, "in conclusion, the Utility Pocket and the Utility Pocket Elemental are functioning as intended and designed. Though the Utility Pocket Elemental was not explicitly foreseen, it is well in line with the Utility Pocket's intended purpose. Stealing The Deepest Vault barely even scratches the surface of what the Utility Pocket was- Infinite Void," The System said, crumpling up the paper and throwing it away in his perfectly ordinary waste bin, "all I wanted was a yes or no answer."
He composed himself, now guilt free, and got ready to watch the show.
Chapter 26
"Who dunnit?" Ben asked, casually swinging his pickax into a particularly potent chunk of uranium ore, glancing straight up to see the [Wall of Instant Death] slowly, dramatically descend from an extremely comfortable distance. He was deep in the mines, idly pondering who could have possibly stolen the Deepest Vault from the Bank of the Sun. He knew next to nothing about The World and it's famous inhabitants, but rightly felt that if anyone was capable of stealing the treasures of the Sunlets, they probably would have already done it.
"Bah," Ben said, backhanding the air in front of him and watching as Frankie gleefully hoovered up the chunks of useful ore Ben had blasted loose. He took a moment, but not too long, to look around. The complexity and depth of The Mines were almost depressing to him, because he'd never have the opportunity to fully explore them. Shafts and seams, tunnels and corridors, the place was endless. As were the possibilities of the identity of the thief. Ben was hoping it wasn't Duke Sluggington; he hadn't interacted with the gargantuan slug much outside the trial, the dude was busy doing high level diplomatic / supervillain stuff apparently, but he'd helped save Ben's life, so he was automatically given the benefit of the doubt.
"Fuck that, I'm here to relax," Ben said, physically shaking his head to dislodge the thoughts, then striking a dramatic pose before dramatically striking the rock below him with his summoned pickax. "I am become death!" Ben shouted into the safe privacy of The Mines, depositing a shaped nuclear bomb into the newly created cavity, "the destroyer of worlds!"
To say that the miniature nuclear bomb only exploded in the direction it was supposed to would be an outrageous lie. Ben was gleefully blasted back by a wall of nuclear fire, protected by his [Amulet of Explosion Immunity], an item which had yet to fail to protect him from his own explosive damage. Despite the splash damage, the shaped charge did work, and work spectacularly well. A solid bar of atomic plasma blasted straight down, piercing deep into the criss-crossy mixture of natural cave and outright engineered mine.
Layer after layer was instantly evaporated away in moments, leaving Ben once again outright amazed that nukes could be enchanted; it wasn't even particularly complicated. The shaped charges had been enchanted to give them additional piercing damage, allowing the column of absolute destruction to retain coherence and shape far longer than a mundane explosion could. Ben couldn't hear a fucking thing, but he imagined he could hear the numerous monsters that infested The Mines keening and screaming as they were cooked alive by the heat and pressure. He, rather smugly, reflected on the fact that he had never even once engaged in a remotely fair fight with these monsters. He'd never even really gotten a good look at them, opting to explode the monsters before they could get anywhere close to him.
The shaped charge, after a few more satisfying moments, expended it's energy. Ben looked up once again, wall of [Instant Death] was still a good distance away, excellent, when he felt a rumbly in his tumbly. He laughed good naturedly and patted his tiny, [Magical], Leap-rechaun belly. "Time for a snack," Ben said, feeling a bit like Whinnie the Pooh, then grimacing when he realized he didn't have any honey. All he had was disgusting protein slurry, and he was just about fucking done eating that shit.
"Wait just a second," Ben said, his eyes and brain alight with sudden realization. He began, for the first time in a long time, actually rifling through the contents of his Utility Pocket, bypassing Frankie in his excitement. "I know it's in here somewhere, and also, wow I have alot of shit in here. Where did I get all this. . . shiny shit? Oh!" All thoughts of shiny shit were forgotten as Ben mentally reached the approximately gallon sized blob of magical wasp honey he'd siphoned up from Vivi's [Lair]. Briefly, Ben determined if the honey would screw up his diet and cause him to lose all progress towards getting a real physical body back. It wouldn't, only the conjured kind of magical food would do that. The extremely magically dense kind of magical food was a-ok. With that happy thought, Ben began humming the 'rumbly in my tumbly' song from Whinnie the Pooh, pulled straight from his childhood with a shocking level of fidelity. He danced around the hole, and then reached the end.
"Time for something. . . for something sweet!" Ben punctuated the end of the song by decadently injecting a stream of the sweetest, most delicious, most utterly magical honey he'd ever tasted directly into his mouth. As he ate and just loved every second of eating, he had two thoughts. First, he would never tell this story to anyone, and he was so glad nobody had been around to witness that. Second, and he wasn't sure if he'd thought this before, but if he could inject food directly into his mouth, he could also inject it directly into his stomach, so why the fuck had he ever been eating that nasty shit with his mouth???
"Oh my God," Ben said, about to say 'I'm so stupid', when he felt a distinctly different kind of rumbly in his tumbly. It was like the worst gas he'd ever had, mixed with a sudden desire to vomit, but rather than being localized in his stomach, it was generalized across every cubic centimeter of his body. "Oh no," Ben said, eyes wide and glancing up at the now much closer wall of [Instant Death], "oh fucking no," Ben said, realizing his worst nightmare was about to come true. He was growing his body back, in The Mines, and would be completely paralyzed, helplessly watching his doom descend from above. His body was already beginning to shut down, and in a move of both utter stupidity and brilliance, he let himself fall forward, down into the still red hot hole his shaped nuclear bomb had blasted into the floor.
All levity had died and Ben fell headfirst, feeling his body growing heavier by the moment as the air rushed around him. He was reminded of his first birth into The World, falling into the ocean. Into the crushing depths he soared, passing through rings of dripping red hot stone, his new body growing and being seared from the heat immediately. His amulet was no help, and his clothes began to burn, and Ben screamed, watching the ashes of his beautiful clothes be sucked up into the updraft of the heat as he fell. He was no longer spirit, not any longer, no, once again Ben was clothed in a body of flesh. He felt the System Notification begin, then fade away, realizing it was unneeded and unwanted.
Ben screamed of the agony of burning skin, but his transmutation continued, and with it, came a pain born of being fundamentally altered on a basic level.
[System Notification]
[Due to extreme physical danger, you will undergo a twelve hour evolution process in under a minute. This acceleration will not affect the quality of your final evolution, however, it will sting a bit.]
Ben couldn't even scream, because his entire body tore with the force of his growth. Both arms burst forward, doubling in length and tearing his skin. His legs too burst to stretch. His torso at the same time as the arms and legs, along with his neck and his skull. Every muscle screamed in agony as they surged in size, every bone experiencing the pain of a break all at once, everywhere at the same time. Ben heaved in the first breath of his new body and exhaled blood. He finally landed on the ground, back seared against the pool of barely cooled magma that cushioned his fall. He took deep wheezing breaths, unable to move as his body was torn apart piece by piece.
With a moment of mental clarity born of experience, Ben knew he was dying. He'd died enough in his last time loop to know that for sure. Though his muscle, nerve and sinew had failed, Ben pushed through with sheer will to bring forth his [Pocketwatch of Time Loop], which he had set before entering The Mines, to prevent this very situation from killing him.
[Warning! You have exited the confines of your Time Loop!]
[Your time loop has been broken!]
Ben chuckled madly and put the thing away. Clearly, entering whatever dimension or plane The Mines were located in had broken the loop he was supposed to be in. He tried to get up, but his skin was seared stuck to the stone, and he didn't have the strength of body for the grisly task of tearing himself free. With a scream of effort, Ben tried anyways, utter animal desire to live propelling him to ghastly lengths. His muscles were weak as a newborns, and all he succeeded in doing was hurting himself. He struggled until he could no longer move, then a bit longer after that.
Finally, he accepted the end had really come for him. Ben looked up at the green wall of [Instant Death], the dancing skulls of glowing emerald smoke lazily getting closer, seeming to stare at him like it knew what was going to happen. Ben glared at the wall, feeling a deep, simmering resentment that this was how he was going to die, after everything he'd survived. He felt in that moment both a deep love of his friends, and a burning desire to fucking destroy Solas. They were the ones who put him in this fucked up mine in the first place! How many times would these cocksuckers kill him!
Ben began screaming inarticulate rage at the wall as it got closer, letting all the limiters civilization had put on him melt away, safe in the knowledge that he would not survive this. He was free to rage and hate and simmer in the vengeance he so desperately desired.
With wild, wide open unblinking eyes, Ben stared down his death until it touched him. [Instantaneous Death] lived up to it's name, bringing an abrupt end to his agony, plunging him into darkness.
End of Book 3
Epilogue
Ben was then overcome with the sensation of being buried deep in a pile of stinking, disgusting, utterly soaked towels, an unfortunately and blessedly familiar sensation. With a laugh, Ben began to push and wriggle, before bursting from his corpse for the second time in his life. Ben began laughing in earnest, watching as the wall of [Instantaneous Death] continued it's lazy descent from above it.
"Yes!" he shouted, jumping into the air and then pointing both of his completely human middle phalanges at the descending wall that had just killed him, "FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER, I'M A MAGICAL ASS HUMAN BEING! YES!"
[System Notification!]
[Congratulations! Your class system has been successfully reset! You are now a level one [Prince]. All skills have been reset.]
[Congratulations! You have evolved into a Human.]
[You have gained the Racial Trait [Eternal Youth]. Five hundred years of youth you shall live, and not a day longer. Exceptions to this rule do exist, and they are yours to discover.]
[You have gained the Racial Trait [Instant Digestion]. Instantly converts all food eaten into pure energy. Food can be eaten to restore health, mana, stamina and other specialized resource pools. Anything eaten in excess of restoring resource pools will strengthen and heal the body. Anyone who petitions me further about regaining the ability to defecate shall now immediately have their request granted, and the disgusting results broadcasted on my official YouTube channel.]
[You have gained the Racial Trait [Titanic Physique]. Titanic Physique is a unique and exclusive upgrade on the Ultimate Soldier passive ability. Titanic Physique provides an ever-increasing buff to all attributes the longer a fight rages. This buff wears off at the same speed at which it was gained. Unlike the Ultimate Soldier passive ability, there is no cap on the buff. Out of combat, this ability greatly increases the rate at which all basic physical skills can be mastered.]
[You have gained the Racial Trait [Reality Distortion Field]. The Human aptitude for magic is Legendary. Because of how bad you are, as a species, at doing it. However, humans don’t need magic, because they are constantly warping the fabric of reality around them without even being really aware of it. This ability manifests differently for every individual human.]
[You have gained the Racial Trait [Bottomless Well]. The Human mana pool is Legendary, due to how useless it is. As a human being, you can absorb and store a functionally infinite amount of mana. The rate at which your body generates mana is similarly enhanced. The real benefit of this skill is how angry you will make every Aeon Slug you meet for somehow getting one of their exclusive racial traits!]
[You have lost the Leap-rechaun racial traits.]
"Yes, yes, yes, fuck yes!" Ben shouted again, now riding both the high of still being alive, and now being very powerful. "Oh, fuck, yes," he said, his mind instantly coming up with an immediately useful exploit. Ben opened a Utility Pocket directly into his fully human, [Magical] stomach and began pumping disgusting protein slurry directly into it. His body began vibrating with energy as [Instant Digestion] made the food vanish, turned directly into energy. Ben began upping the pace of injecting liquid food, literally vibrating on the spot. He could feel the physical matter suffusing his [Magical] body. It was working.
He had time, and he was safe. Ben sat down and worked for hours straight, hours of being uncomfortably energetic as he pursued his line of thought, feeling it work. Then, after eating months worth of food in mere hours, Ben felt a cramp throughout his entire [Magical] body. The pain? Ben was practically leering like a maniac as the profoundly uncomfortable sensation of growing a new body was upon him. He screamed and the pain did not touch the scream, only triumph. Only victory.
A new Human Being had been born into The World.
And it trembled.
Where have I been?
