A Gamer Into Trails

Here are some more Trails chapters!

As always, Giliath demands your power stones!

*****

I reached a good point to end the ongoing conversation about how my Gamer System worked. Tio and Lechter now had a much better understanding of the Gamer System. I didn't outright say it was a System, as that would only confuse them. The concept of having a System is very foreign after one reincarnates. Many main characters often hid the existence of whatever System they received by God.

I did walk along the fine, grey lines while diving into the Gamer System's capabilities. I merely stated that I had a strange ability, and that was enough for Tio and Lechter to accept it. After all, this was the Trailsverse. Thanks to a certain organization, people have displayed far more bizarre abilities, compared to what I refer to as a System. Tio, for example, can literally sense and feel all types of flowing energies surrounding her. It isn't just limited to Mana. She could see invisible orbal waves of energy, if she put her mind to it.

I shouldn't thank the DG Cult for instances like this, but it was because of them that many strange things occur here in the Trailsverse. Because of that, being reincarnated or having a strange system wasn't completely foreign to others.

Hell, I'm not the only reincarnated person in this world for that matter. Scary, right?

I'll save that topic for another time.

For the time being, Tio secured the tools she needed to upgrade her Combat Orbment. It was good that I had some lying around inside my Inventory, courtesy of Professor Russell when she assisted in making my Enigma II. It was enough to perform basic maintenance on a Combat Orbment.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the games. In the games, all you needed to do to unlock Slots was press a button a couple of times to prompt the menu to unlock it. As long as you had enough Sepith in your Inventory, the action would be instant. That wasn't the case here. I had no menu to prompt said actions. I had to rely on Orbment Charging Stations that could adjust Combat Orbments, or rely on Orbal Engineers.

The Orbal Charging Station that was a distance behind us near the purple and black mist sadly wasn't the type to adjust Combat Orbments. We could only rest there to recover our HP and EP.

That meant I had to rely on Tio. She was merely turning ten years old later this year, but she had already advanced so much. Tio even becomes an Orbal Development Chief by the time Rean becomes a teacher at Thors Military Branch Campus. Right now, she is still studying at the Epstein Foundation. I haven't checked in on how far her studies have progressed, but I think she's already a basic engineer by now. I'll have to get in touch with how Tio is doing there later.

Remaining at a safe distance from the rest of the dark tunnel ahead of us, Lechter and I remained vigilant, while we started to watch Tio hammer away at her Combat Orbment. Her movements were meticulous. One wrong move could damage the entire thing, but Tio knew what she was doing. Before long, only the sounds of a chisel striking against metal struck our ears as Tio slowly continued to carve out not one, but two Lines.

To our surprise though, I actually saw the Gamer System react to Tio's progress. Just in a few short minutes, she had successfully unlocked more of her Combat Orbment! In response to that, I started to see notification after notification appear in my mind. Seeing these notifications, I decided to read them.

[Ding! Party Member Tio has consumed x80 Sepith (Basic Element).]

[Ding! Party Member Tio has unlocked Slot Two and Slot Three of her Combat Orbment. New Quartz detected.]

[Ding! Scent - Tier 1 and Haze - Tier 1 Quartz has been equipped. New Arts are now available to cast. Now strengthening Combat Parameters...]

[Ding! Party Member Tio's Combat Parameters have been strengthened. Status can now be reviewed.]

"This...", Lechter said, raising his eyes to see the notifications before him. "Did this ability just read the kiddo's inputs?", Lechter asked.

"It sure did. If you happen to work on your Combat Orbment too while you're in a Party like this, you'll get your own Status updates.", I explained.

"Well, that much is clear. At the very least, the kiddo now has more Arts to use, yeah?", Lechter guessed after reviewing that information.

"I do. Maintenance work complete. Thank you for your patience.", Tio said, calling out to the two of us.

"Hmm, do you feel any different, Tio?", I decided to ask, wanting to be sure Tio was fine after being influenced by the Gamer System during this. You can never be too careful when treading the unknown like this. Hearing that, Tio checked herself out. Seeing nothing changed, Tio nodded her head.

"Nothing really changed. I should be able to cast more Arts now. You are wanting to test a certain one out, right, Naoto?", Tio questioned me.

"Yeah. You should be able to cast Aerial now. If we can round up the rest of the spiders in one go, you can use Aerial to finish them off. If these spiders are still near your level, they shouldn't pose a problem. You killed the previous ones in one hit.", I started to say.

"Round up the rest of the Monsters in one go, eh? How do you propose we do that, Young Master?", Lechter asked.

"I call it, Operation Lechter!", I suddenly declared. Tio immediately shifted her eyes downward, becoming deadpan.

"Now why would you give this strategy such a stupid name?", Lechter immediately retorted. Hearing that, I laughed. Reaching my hand outward, I pointed toward my current outfit. I was still wearing the Guardian Set.

You see, when wearing this two-piece equipment, it gave me an additional bonus. Two Crafts, to be specific. One called Disarm, and one called Taunt, courtesy of a certain individual in a galaxy far, far away.

Joking aside, my plan was to use one of those two Crafts. Taunt. Taunt does as it is designed to do, attract enemies within a certain radius. It's very similar to the Scent Quartz. There is one key difference to this. Scent attracts Monsters no matter where you go, you can't turn it on or off, unless you take the Quartz out. With Taunt, it's a Craft I can use on command. Meaning, once all the monsters are rounded up, I'll Taunt them all toward my way.

I did initially want Tio to take care of this Instance Dungeon by herself, but if we proceed to gather the rest of those spiders like this, that might be a bit too much for her to handle on her own. We still need to kill 10 Mottled Killers and 2 Mottled Murders. That was twelve spiders in total. I'm sure at least one or two can catch Tio off-guard after she casts her first Art.

So to prevent that, it's time to work as a Party.

And if I'm to remain behind to prepare my Taunt Craft, who does that leave to go round up the rest of the spiders?

I grinned, shifting my eyes back at Lechter. Seeing my wide grin on my lips, Lechter frowned.

"I'm not liking that look of yours, Young Master.", Lechter said with a frown.

"Oh I simply figured we should act as a Party this time. It might be a bit too much for Tio to kill twelve Monsters by herself, so I have a technique to attract Monsters. They just need to be within a certain distance from me.", I started to explain. "And guess what? We're a party of three. If Tio is going to cast an Art, while I use my Taunt, that leaves you to go round up those spiders for us.", I continued.

"I had a feeling you would say that...", Lechter retorted again. He could only shrug his shoulders.

"Heh, I'll be counting on you to go get the rest of those spiders. The action is going to go quickly once Lechter brings them over. You best be ready, Tio. We're going to try to kill them in one blow!", I exclaimed.

"Understood.", Tio said, nodding her head.

"Haha, and you made me run through such lengths to St. Ursula earlier. Doing this should let off some stress. Don't worry Young Master, I won't hit any of those Monsters. I'll make sure to bring them within range so the kiddo can finish them off.", Lechter said, proceeding to stretch his body around. He still had a hilt against his waist, sheathed. Just like me, Lechter used a rapier in combat.

"Have at it then.", I said, saying that Tio and I were ready to continue our fighting.

"I'll be back in a jiffy!", Lechter exclaimed, entering a combat stance. He now had his body shifted downward, ready to enter a dash. Just like that, he sped off into the tunnel, quickly vanishing from sight.

"Be ready, Tio.", I urged Tio.

"Yes.", Tio replied, nodding her head. She brandished her staff, and entered her own stance. It looks like she was raring to go. The spiders weren't in sight yet, so she didn't immediately cast her Art. I did want to review her updated Status, but I'll leave that after we clear this next battle.

For the time being, I just walked up in front of Tio, ready to use my Taunt Craft. Crafts relied on what's called CP in the games, but I had long since learned CP doesn't exist here in the real world. Instead, using Crafts are taken right out of my EP. I do have the Harem Seeker title currently in effect so my stats are more inflated than usual, but I still have a game-breaking EP right now. I was only a third away from reaching its maximum limit, assuming it only reaches 9999 EP. I don't know if EP went beyond that.

I recently perfected Teleportation, and that uses more EP the more distant the range is. Outside of that, most of my Spells and Crafts range from 20-50 EP per use. I've never seen my EP run out before.

If I manifested hundreds of Bloodfire Needles with my Blood Spheres, I could see that happening...

Well, this single use of Taunt will only use 30 of my EP. I can spend more EP to increase the Taunt's range. I plan to use 50 EP here to be safe, but even then, that is a mere droplet of water inside a lake compared to my entire EP pool. If I see EP as Mana too...

I dare say I might have more Mana than Master now, and that's a scary thought. This Gamer System really inflates stats to such degrees, eh? Either way, our battle plan was ready, and it was put into action!