Chapter 4: Sinister Undying

I completed my goal of helping the orphans I’d accidentally crippled in the horrifying accident. Then ended up picking up another goal to go and kill a Gangster that was terrorising the orphanage with ‘protection fees’.

I once suffered some horrible experiences when I was young, and some of the worst were at the orphanage. With a great deal of effort, I’d managed to mostly forget those experiences. Having stood there and witnessed that poor little orphan girl being threatened, all those memories came flooding back.

Now, because they were once again fresh in my mind, the rage boiling in my heart had completely overwhelmed my Hurts So Good. Although I was pretty sure it was still operating, nothing could quell my wrath this time.

I couldn’t stand to see someone suffer that treatment again. No matter what, I had to protect those orphans!

After a cursory inspection of my status and inventory, I left to the east side of the city.

Buried amongst rows of cramped fancy houses all 3 or 4 stories high was a villa that took up an entire block all by itself. When I arrived, the villa seemed to be in the midst of a party. It was close to midnight in Game Time. Retrospectively, out in the real world, it was most likely about 11 PM.

By now I’d stacked up nearly 74 hours of game time.

I quietly inspected my mood and found that the curse I put on myself was already drastically affecting my judgement. The reason I knew this was because despite me feeling a little irrational for trying to break into the gangster gang house, I irrationally didn’t care and decided it would be fine to leave the curse running for a bit longer till this job was done.

Now that I’d determined I was most definitely out of my right mind, I put some specific potions onto my potions belt and put on my Poison Assassin’s Hat of Concealment. I started trying to be as sneaky as possible as I quickly approached the villa. Once I was close enough, I snuck a look through a nearby window.

Seeing the party in full swing, I was half tempted to just throw some poison fog potions through the window and run. But I didn’t know who Taritz was, or if he was even in the crowded dining hall of the villa.

Unfortunately, I was too irritable at the time and didn’t pay any attention to the goon’s story. If he described Taritz, I couldn’t remember it. After circling around the villa a few times to assess the place, I chose an unguarded rear door. It was, of course ... locked.

I was so tempted to just bust it down anyway and charge in throwing poison and swinging my sword around.

So, with my irrationality and irritability now having reached the point that even my Hurts So Good can’t hold it back, I decided to do exactly that.

I took out a little exploding powder and then dusted it onto the door. Then with as much force as I could muster, I kicked it. The sudden pressure from my kick caused the somewhat violent powder to do justice to its namesake and explode.

The door blew wide open while at the same time I was shot back like being hit by a car. I rolled along the ground a few times and spryly jumped back up. I then ran in swinging my sword and preparing to throw potions everywhere only to realise the locked door that was left unguarded was some kind of storage shed with gardening implements.

There was no way into the mansion through here.

With the advent of my explosive entrance to the gardeners shed, the whole villa suddenly lit up with flaming torches as gangsters started rushing around everywhere thinking they were under attack.

As I was preparing to leave the garden shed and try another door, one of the cabinets along the wall suddenly slid open. A man in exquisite looking clothes rushed out as if he was trying to escape for his life.

His fat body jiggled every which way, and his rushing was more akin to brisk waddling. Unlucky for him, he rushed straight into me. Seeing as I was discovered, I decided to just kill the fellow and make use of his secret escape route.

‘Swish.’

My sword made a graceful arc through the air, and then the fat man’s head made a less graceful arc through the air, followed by his blood making a disgusting arc ... everywhere.

By habit, as everyone does in a game, I looted the corpse of anything interesting then raced up the stairs of the secret escape route. At this point, my irrationality was stacking faster and faster, and I decided hunting down that Taritz fellow was going to be too much trouble, so I’d just kill everyone in the villa.

When I reached the other end of the tunnel, I found myself in a lavish library filled with books of all different sorts. Without reservation, I looted it of everything.

I then started passing through the villa room by room while throwing Poison Fog Potions everywhere and looting everything of value. Hell, I even stole the kitchenware and the fancy jade plates.

By the time I’d walked out of the front door of the villa, every step I took caused my bones to ache and left a big imprint of my foot behind. Even with the Boots of Burden, which halved my inventory weight, the weight of everything I reappropriated from the gangsters was just too much.

Unlike the stealthy quick getaway I’d been imagining when I decided to come here, my every step was a loud thud, and they were spaced apart by many seconds. It took almost an hour just to walked all the way back to the slums. Of course, I chose the route carefully so as to avoid leaving a trail of footprints leading the guards to me later.

At last, I arrived at my burnt down cottage. Seeing some nearby shanties, huts and cottages that were still smouldering, I couldn’t stop a wry smile from forming.

After removing my backpack and dropping it to the ground, I expected a loud thud only for it to drop to the ground as if it was light a feather. Creating further confusion, I still felt the weight of my inventory pressing down on me.

The weight of the inventory didn’t simply make my back feel heavy as if I was holding a huge backpack. It was a fully invasive and pervasive force. It was easier to consider the weight from the inventory as some kind of personal gravity field that increased the gravity of my body.

This indicated two major things I’d neglected to consider. The first was, if the Games System’s inventory weight still weighed down on me, then that could only mean my initial assumption in the beginning, was wrong ... my backpack had nothing to do at all with my inventory at all.

The second thing was that the inventory weight was affecting every single fibre of my being. Even parts of me that normally wouldn’t be affected by poisons was being influenced by the brutal pressure of my inventory weight. It also explained why my agility and strength were slowly growing despite me not making any effort to actively increase those stats.

The first thing I did after these two neglects had been realised, was to palm myself in the face. If I’d known earlier how useful the inventory weight would be for training my body, I would have just walked around picking up everything I could find. Hell, I would have even started stashing trees and rocks in there.

The other thing I did was to find out what the fuck was in the backpack.

Upon opening it, I wanted to slap the shit out of past Murphy for being an idiot. Inside the bag were two books, rations enough for at least two days in this world, and a polished Jade rock in the shape of a little triangle.

Of the two books, one was an introduction to magic, teaching you how to best utilise mana. The other was an introduction to the Status Place and basic guidelines on some of its functions. The most interesting thing in the bag was the Jade.

The moment I touched it, I felt the same sensation I did when I gathered mana in my finger. A moment later, my mana shot into the Jade. The Jade then disappeared into my Status Place and had the title ‘Class Booster’ written on it.

Presumably, this Jade was the method people used to set a class.

Even though I’d just discovered a whole bunch of things I desperately needed before now. My curse was building to a furious level, and I was pretty sure if I didn’t deactivate it soon I might just lose the rationality to do so at all.

So, I finally focused my mind on doing the imagining technique of mana in the body. I perceived it as a wispy smoky gas that filled my body.

Interestingly, without my own initiative to imagine it, some of my mana had formed into the picture of a little devil. The diagram was simple and crude, and it also stank of sinister Mana. However, seeing this made me a little excited.

The fact that something like that popped up without any effort on my part meant that I wasn’t just imagining my mana, but actually viewing it in my mind.

My excitement quickly dulled when I realised that the little devil diagram wasn’t alone. While I was viewing it, it pulsed with light and sucked in a whole bunch of mana. The next moment, another devil, this time huge, appeared inside my body and suddenly grew a little bit bigger. It then quickly became invisible again.

I could only speculate that the huge devil was most likely the curse effect, and the little devil was the part that stayed with me to channel mana into the curse every hour.

Having determined that, I quickly ‘willed’ the little devil to explode. In my mind’s eye, I watched on as the little devil slowly dissolved back into normal mana. At the same time, the big devil suddenly appeared again, seemed to make a silent roaring action as if telling me it’s indignation, then dissipated as well.

The moment the big devil disappeared, I felt fatigue smash into me like a bus. It wasn’t just sudden tiredness, but an instant coma. I hadn’t even realised what had happened until I woke up nearly 16 hours later, still lying in the middle of my burnt down cottage.

When Murphy finally awoke from his very long slumber, he felt remarkably refreshed. He slowly crawled up from the ground and patted all the soot and charcoal off his clothes.

He then noticed that his body had compressed the dirt in the area when he was rolling around in his sleep.

The magnitude of weight his body was capable of surviving under was completely unreasonable, and as he slept it had slowly compacted the ground to the point there was a clear outline of his body almost half a foot deep on the ground.

After stretching himself for a little bit and enjoying the pleasure of what should have presumably been sore muscles, Murphy was finally ready for a brand new day.

He quickly came to realise that his inventory felt slightly less heavy this morning than it had the night before. After checking his stats, he was shocked to find that his average strength stat had gained almost 4 points just from his sleeping under the extreme pressure of the inventory system.

Not only that, all of his average physical stats had gone up a few points. Strength was now just over 7 and agility had climbed above 5. Even his pain mastery gained some experience.

As Murphy considered the outcome, he decided that from now on when he went to sleep, he would stack so much shit in his inventory that it was almost crushing him to death. This way his body could get stronger without him even needing to do a thing.

It was then time for some breakfast, which he luckily had on hand now that he knew his backpack had rations in it. Finally, he investigated the books and Jade triangle he’d found. Just as he was opening the book on magic, a few system prompts he’d been expecting rushed in.

‘Ping! Poison Assassin has cleaned out a den of gangsters in Gateway City. +30 Renown.’

‘Ping! Taritz has died. Return to the Orphanage to receive a reward.’

Murphy immersed himself into studying the basic game guides he’d found in his backpack. He decided to start with the Introduction to Magic because that was the one that was most interesting to him.

Most of it was things he’d speculated or that had been jammed into his head by the memory implant that flashed when he first got the spell tome.

Mana is the source of all magic. It is endless and comes from the void. The more it’s used, the faster it replenishes. While reading, Murphy also discovered a few tips for increasing his mana. The first, and most obvious, was to use spells continuously. The more he cast spells, the more he would interact with his mana.

It meant that the Max Mana and Mana Regen both accrued experience similar to skills and other stats. After some more reading, he determined that he didn’t even have to use spells. If he focused enough, he could manipulate the mana in his body to simply discharge.

If he learned to control it properly, he could even form it into different forms of energy and give it different properties. He’d already experienced the sinister energy of sinister magic arts, so he had a fair idea how it worked.

Contrary to how simple the explanation was though, it was incredibly difficult to control his mana without some form of medium, such as a spellbook or another item.

That said, he discovered that he could imbue things with his mana while he held it, such as his sword, giving it a boost in its attributes.

With some more reading, he also learned that the strange pattern and the words that appeared on the page when he was casting the curse spell, where in fact two other forms of casting.

One was referred to as a Spell Pattern. If a person managed to reach a certain level of control and had the ability to memorise the pattern, they could create the pattern with mana and that would cast the spell as well, without the need to even touch the spell tome at all.

The other method was the strange, incomprehensible words that appeared on the page when he cast the spell. Normally it took a while to learn these words, and it was generally required to go to some kind of magic academy.

That said, if you could learn them, then you could recite the words instead of building the pattern, and that would fire the spell as well.

The difference between the three methods was varying depending on the needs. For example, if you were casting with the tome, you first had to touch the tome and then point at the target. This was somewhat cumbersome in battle and could even be life-threatening. However, it didn’t require you to learn a bunch of strange words or memorise a complex pattern.

The spell pattern was the fastest method and significantly more powerful than the tome. However, it required a person’s mental acuity to be phenomenal because memorising the pattern was incredibly difficult. Adding to that, during battle it required a person to focus long enough to rebuild the pattern in their head so they could cast.

If they were quick, then they could cast quickly. If they were slow, then they would most likely get chopped in half with a sword while they were focused on their inner mind.

The chanting method required a person to learn a very ancient and complex language, and even sometimes a few different languages depending on the spell. It took time to recite a few verses and fire a spell and the pronunciation and remembering the lines was also no picnic.

However, it was more powerful than a spell pattern and the tome and it was possible to recite while still in the midst of battle, requiring a little less focus than recreating a complex pattern in your head and not needing a book in your hand.

The most powerful method of casting actually wasn’t any of these three methods though. It was the use of a Spell Model. Which was essentially the combination of all three together.

When casting a full Spell Model, the person uses the book as a medium to boost their power, they create the pattern in their mind and use it to help focus the mana on the book’s pattern, and then they chant the spell while channelling mana into the book.

If a person casts a spell model instead of just a spell, there’s a good chance a great catastrophe is about to come. The power of casting with a spell model doesn’t just increase the potency of the spell by a single magnitude. Rather it increases it by multiple.

If Murphy were to learn how to cast the Spell Model for his Ain’t No Rest curse, there’s a good chance it would most likely immediately send the target mad and would quite probably become a permanent curse instead of just a little channelling curse as it was now.

It wasn’t unusual for spells to create rather dramatic effects when they’re cast as a Spell Model.

Murphy wasn’t interested in learning strange languages and casting magic though. He was more interested in another use of mana. Which was termed as imbuing.

This form of mana manipulation was more along the lines of direct combat and focused on pouring mana into an object to make it stronger. If you altered the attributes and properly controlled the mana, then it wasn’t impossible to make a sword that can cut through the heavens or armour that could protect you in the heart of a star.

Later on, you could even use it for enchantments which imbued an object and even his potions with permanent status effects.

Unfortunately, this required the use of spell patterns and ancient language, so he decided not to pursue it for now, although he was definitely interested in it.

After he had read through the Introduction to Magic, he moved onto the next book, which was the Introduction to the Status Place.

Many of his earlier theories about how certain stats influenced the growth of certain skill was discussed in the book. It even went over certain functions of the Status Space that even Murphy wasn’t aware of.

He also learnt that the Stats and Skills usually encompassed the three parts of the ‘Self’. The Body, Mind and Soul. Whereas other things, such as spells and alchemy were a reflection of the ‘Self’ influencing the three parts of the ‘Universe’. Matter, Energy and Space-Time.

For example, ‘strength, wisdom and introspection’ reflected the three parts of Self, ‘mind, body and soul’ respectively.

Mana Manipulation is the skill of manipulating a certain aspect of the universe, namely ‘energy’, to achieve a goal.

Alchemy would be the same, except influencing ‘matter’.

Space-time was a whole other kettle of fish though, and Murphy couldn’t even pretend to understand anything about it.

The book went on to describe how stats generated and other helpful information. Something interesting he did learn was that the Game System made experience gained with skills permanent. Even if he never used alchemy again, he would always retain the skills and knowledge he had regarding it.

Not only that, it was apparently incredibly difficult for a stat to drop back a level. For the stats related to his body condition, such as strength and agility, he would have to literally sit in place for a year and not move at all for these stats to lose even a single level.

This was disturbing for Murphy, because 2 of his stats, wisdom and charisma, seemed to rise and fall like a yo-yo. If what the book said was true, they should only slowly continue to rise unless he didn’t use them.

He only realised when he read a later note, that doing very negative actions with regards to a stat would drop it more quickly.

For Murphy, this was only in regards to stats to do with the mind and soul. Thanks to his traits and his inhuman regen speed, all damage, even if it disintegrated his body, would only be helping him get stronger.

Perhaps the only thing that had been increasing his mind stats was the mental fortitude that seemed to be skyrocketing lately thanks to ‘Please Sir’.

The most ambiguous Stats were the soul related stats. The guide didn’t go into them too much and simply said that they were generated based on a person’s personality and life experiences.

At last, Murphy had finished his basic introduction to Status and Magic. The last thing on his agenda was to investigate the Jade triangle in his Status Space.

With a thought, he appeared in his space. For a long time, he stared at the Jade Triangle. Clearly feeling some trepidation towards touching it. He didn’t want it to be like the insignia and be auto generated.

Eventually, he came to the conclusion that he was being a little too cowardly.

Even if it did auto generate a class for him, from what Seelie told him it would only be boosting growth in certain stats. Worst case scenario his class would boost weird things like sinister arts and pain mastery.

Firming his resolve, Murphy reached out and touched the floating Jade Triangle.

‘Ping! Would you like to start building a class?’

‘Ping! Would you like to auto-generate a class?’

Murphy answered with a ‘yes?’. The moment he did, he hated himself, the world and everything in existence.

‘Why the hell did it ask me two questions in a row? It was clearly a trap! It’s a fucking trap!’

In truth the only person who duped Murphy in this situation was himself. If he had a tiny bit more social skill, he’d have been able to recognise that this was two questions that required him to verify what he was saying yes to.

If he’d said something along the lines of ‘I want to start building a class’, then he most likely would have had the opportunity to build his own class.

Unfortunately, he’s an idiot when it comes to proper social decorum and simply answered the first question. Giving Murphy more than one social cue at a time is too hard for him to wrap his head around.

As such, the Class Booster lit up the Status Space with a green light and then disappeared.

The fucking what class? Sinister Undying? What the fuck kind of class is that. And what were all those prompts from the system? Murphy’s Law?

Fuck that fucking traitorous special trait. I thought I was in positive luck. Murphy’s Law should have caused a happy accident ... don’t tell me that my lucky charms don’t work in the status space?

Even if you didn’t tell me I’d refuse to hear it! I don’t want to hear it! It’s nonsense! Sage Damnit!