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Chapter 106- The Greaves Of Achilles
🕑 Added 2023-10-26 23:54:20 +0000 UTCOkay guys, I've mostly recovered from my illness and am well on the way to recovery. The first two days were the worst, a time where I couldn't keep anything down, not even water. Things got better fast on the third day and now I'm practically perfect. This is the delayed chapter. You'll be getting the one that's supposed to be released today tomorrow. I'm also going to to try to work on increasing the number of advanced chapters you'll have available to you, so you have that to look forward to.
Chapter Begin---->
It took them three attempts to lift the unconscious mare off the ground, not because it was too heavy but rather because the weight distribution on its body was so unusual. The front half of the horse weighed about twice as much as its rear end, some evolution fuckery no doubt to increase its speed and it was why Alyssia had failed soo epically when trying to lift it initially.
Once they had the unwieldy beast in the air, it only took them a minute and a lot of bumbling about to get it into the stable. Bambam was excitedly prancing about to and fro in his stall and he neighed loudly when he caught sight of his unconscious mate. They gently set the mare down and quickly walked out of his stall, securing the gate in place so the oddball didn't follow them out. The stormwalkers, particularly Bambam, had gotten extremely attached to Alyssia over the past few days, or maybe it was just her delicious cooking that made her so appealing.
"So are we done or what? How do we get to the next layer?" Arthur asked.
"This is my first time in an untested Locus of power too," Alyssia replied, a hint of uncertainty tinging her voice. "All I know about them comes from stories my grandmother told me."
The words were hardly reassuring and Arthur wouldn't be surprised if this was the first time Alyssia had considered her lack of information an issue. Putting it politely, the alverin woman was an airhead. Without the sugar-coating, she was- at times- an idiot. Arthur sighed in exasperation and wracked his brain for a solution to their conundrum. Before worry could set in, he was thankfully interrupted by a System notification.
Congratulations on completing The Trial Of The Grasslands. The Labours of Hercules trial 1/3 has been completed. The first Challenger completion reward is being generated...
Reward has been generated...
Do you wish to accept Achilles Greaves (Soulbound) as your reward?
YES/NO
Arthur quickly read through the message and then re-read it to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Alyssia seemed to have received a system notification too as her eyes were glued to the air in front of her face. They steadily grew wider and wider in shock until she was expressing the emotion to an almost cartoonish degree.
"Accept it, Arthur. Now!"
It wasn't a request and Arthur could hear the disbelief in Alyssia's voice even as she ordered him. Damn, she really wants this. Is it that good?
"Are you sure?" Arthur asked cautiously. "That soulbound stuff sounds kinda sketchy to me."
Arthur had no idea what it was but he didn't want to end up in some weird soul binding contract just because he was too impatient to get some details first. Alyssia didn't answer his question, instead asking one of her own. She looked directly at him, really looked at him, eye to eye with her yellow irises as if she was trying to peer into his soul.
"Arthur, do you trust me?"
Five words. A single sentence and yet they carried a mountain of expectation and responsibility. Trust. One word with so much implicit meaning. To believe in and rely on, expect and hope, an obligation arising from responsibility. Arthur thought over everything that had happened over the past week and everything he knew of Alyssia.
A caring, stubborn, stupid and lovable woman who was a comedy routine rolled into a person. Violent at times but a pacifist in the next. An alverin woman, a dimension away from her home, alone and isolated on a strange planet to such an extent that Arthur wouldn't be wrong in saying he was currently her one and only friend.
Did he trust her?
Arthur nodded his head.
"Then hurry up and accept. The reward will change if we don't accept it soon and I only carry fifty percent voting power here. You won't regret it, I promise. It's the best thing we'll get offered, too good for this locus to be providing, honestly. I'll explain everything later, but there are NO downsides to this. That I'll tell you now."
Arthur chuckled. Alyssia seemed pretty damn desperate here and the fact that she was glaring at him only made it more amusing. Hopefully, she knew what she was talking about. Arthur accepted. The results of his decision-making were... underwhelming, to say the least. At first, nothing happened and when something did, it occurred so fast and subtly that it was over before he realised anything happened.
There was a flash of light at his ankles and a feeling like he'd swallowed something a little too big and then everything went back to normal. Arthur would've thought he'd imagined the whole thing if Alyssia hadn't suddenly whooped in excitement.
"Oh shit! Oh Shit! It's real, it's actually fucking real!"
She was jumping about on her feet as if she had springs in her heels and she had an expression of childish delight on her face. If there was one thing that Arthur had learned about Alyssia, it was that her face was extremely expressive. If she was happy, it was very apparent and if she was conspiring something, you'd see it coming a mile away.
And right now Alyssia looked like a toddler that had just found out they were going to Disneyland. Arthur watched the amusing spectacle for a short while before trying to figure out what the hell the 'reward' he'd supposedly received even was. As far as he could tell, nothing had happened. He felt no different, nor could he see the so-called 'Greaves Achilles' on his person.
Arthur bent down to inspect his calves to see if the flash of light had done something there; as far as he knew, that was where greaves were supposed to go, but there was nothing there except for his usual, albeit pretty damn fine looking calves.
I'm glad I never skipped leg day.
Upon closer inspection, Arthur felt that there was 'something' there, but the feeling was so insignificant that he wasn't sure if it was just a placebo effect because he expected to see a change. He prodded his legs a few times to see if his physiology had mutated even a little.
Nope, still the same old leg.
"Arthur, what are you doing?" Alyssia asked, confusion evident in her voice.
Arthur looked up to see that she had calmed down a little, though the occasioned twitch in her leg showed how difficult it was for her to maintain a semblance of control.
"I'm trying to find out what these greaves are supposed to be," Arthur replied, getting back to his feet. Alyssia shook her head in half exasperation, half amusement.
"You really have no idea what a soulbound item is, do you? People would give their right hand to be in your position right now and you don't even know how lucky you are."
"So, are you going to tell me what it is, or what."
"Patience, patience patience. Do they not teach the virtues of such things here or are you just ill-bred," Alyssia said in a snobbish voice, an air of haughty privilege surrounding her.
"Alyssia."
"Yes, Arthur."
"If you don't tell me where my Greaves are in the next ten seconds, then god help me, I will make sure you wake up covered in horse shit for the rest of our time in here," he deadpanned. "And I'll tell Artemo you have a crush on his friend's older brother."
Alyssia's skin rapidly paled.
"What. How- how do you know that?" She stuttered.
"You talk in your sleep. Six seconds remaining."
"Wait, wait, wait, okay. Calm down. I'll tell you alright. You don't have to start resorting to such drastic measures."
She mumbled something under her breath far too fast for his under-levelled Myriad Tongues to keep up with. Arthur didn't say anything else and just let Alyssia stew in her discomfort for a while. She really needed to learn how to maintain an air of mystery without coming across as an annoying child with a secret and Arthur didn't mind helping her along in the process.
"A soulbound item is exactly what it sounds like," Alyssia began. "An item bound to your soul."
"They are incredibly rare, like literally borderline impossible to acquire. Either as a reward from a locus of power as we've just received or as a creation from a master blacksmith who has pushed his craft beyond the realms of human achievability."
She paused for a moment to let the information sink in and smiled when she saw that she had the entirety of Arthur's attention.
"Being soulbound, the item will have a lot of unique features. First and foremost amongst them is that the item is solely yours. It cannot be given, nor taken away from you and it will stick by and grow alongside you through every evolution you go through."
"How it will grow is entirely dependant on yourself so although we received the same item today, a year down the line, they may be completely different. And that is why Soulbound items are so well sought after. They will NEVER become obsolete, no matter how strong you may become and they will only serve to enhance those strengths further."
For once, Arthur understood everything Alyssia had said. She'd made no strange alverin references, nor had she gone on any diverging tangents as she normally loved to. I really need to blackmail her more in the future. In essence, the way Arthur understood it, a soulbound item was like a title, a part of him that would always be useful instead of something he might one day outgrow. And that was based on everything Alyssia had told him. He didn't doubt that there was so much more about soulbound items that she didn't know.
"So I get that the Greaves are really special and all, but... where are they?"
Alyssia facepalmed and muttered a few obscenities under her breath.
"You don't know where they are. Really? Have you perhaps forgotten that your dimension has one of the biggest cheats I've ever seen? Check your fucking Status page!"
Arthur nodded his head sheepishly. He had indeed forgotten to check if the system had anything for him. In his defence, he would've expected a system notification to let him know about such changes if and when they came, but if what Alyssia had said about soulbound item's rarity, it made sense that the system- a creation made mostly for weak, newly evolved planets- would have trouble identifying them.
From what Alyssia had said, a Soulbound item was scarcely found on planets that had undergone multiple evolutions. It would do him well to remember that one of the system's primary objectives was to make ether safer for the uninitiated to use and not a gateway to power as many mistook it for. There were a whole lot of political agendas behind its creation, a method to keep new planets weak and reliant on the more established races, but that was a can of worms he didn't want to open right now.
Calling forth his status, Arthur looked through it to see if any additions had been made. Everything was as it should be; his titles, attributes and skills were all on display. He missed it the first time and almost on the second scan too. After all, it was easy to miss. Just a little ? next to his name.
Arthur focused on it and the characters changed before his very eyes, reflecting his own understanding of what it should be. It took a few seconds before it was complete.
Soulbound Items 1/?
Arthur selected it and the familiar blue of system text flooded his vision.
The Greaves of Achilles (Soulbound Rank F)- Increases agility by 5% of the constitution attribute.
Rank F ability: Once every 24 hours, you become invulnerable to a single attack dealing up to 20,000 points of damage. Unused attempts do not stack. (Hidden state)
Arthur read through the item's description, his grin growing wider and wider.
"Pretty sweet, isn't it?"
Arthur nodded his head dumbly not trusting himself to speak and say something stupid. The soulbound item was frankly insane and would make his trip to the locus worth it all on its own. And they still had two layers left to go. In his own hands, the item was already broken enough at only F rank. For someone like Alyssia who specialised in speed, it was terrifying.
Being a soulbound item that worked off your strengths, Arthur suspected that Alyssia's greaves created a symbiotic relationship between agility and constitution opposite to his own. It was the attribute she complained about the most, always going on about how her frail body prevented her from moving faster. With this single item, she'd revolutionised an already overpowered build.
Generations of effort and research had gone into Alyssia's current path, and it had been optimised as much as possible. These greaves had come along and added the mother of all catalysts into the mix. Things would just snowball from here, of that Arthur was certain.
Seeing that the item's description currently said that they were hidden, Arthur tried to switch it to visible. It took him a moment, to use the system as an intermediary to communicate his commands with the soulbound item, but then it clicked and a pair of skin-tight leather materialised onto his calves. They fit like comfortable gloves as if he'd been wearing them for years already.
Arthur admired them for a while. They were understandably green- any other colour coming out of this layer would be blasphemous- and they were exquisite in their making and design, a single piece of fabric that flowed like a smooth stream around his legs.
"Thank you," Arthur mumbled. Alyssia tilted her head to the side in confusion. Arthur tried again. "Thank you for bringing me to this place, Alyssia, and for everything else you're helping me with.
Arthur really meant those words. Whatever selfish reasons she may have initially had for bringing him here, they had changed significantly over the past few days. His Bhai Giya pact told him as much. The magic didn't lie and even if it did, Alyssia never could. At least not convincingly.
His words had a nearly instantaneous effect on the woman, and her skin flushed the darkest shade of green he'd ever seen on her person. It took her a moment to get back her bearings and say something.
"Shut up. Don't get sentimental on me now. We've still got two layers left to go."
Her ears looked like they were seconds away from alighting. Arthur grinned wryly and shook his head in amusement. She was right. They still had a ways to go before they conquered this locus and they still had a ways to go.
