In Loki's Honor

While everyone chipped in to build airships, I withdrew into my own mind to update my Status. Things were less hectic now and with all seven Aspects on board, Barbara was safer than ever. I had time to evolve and purchase my Perks in peace. Boy, I had a lot of work to do.

Before I looked at the evolutionary choices I had, I needed to review the Perks I had active. Loki and Tuisto were known to make changes to it, most often in the interstitial time when I was dead.

Mimic (1/7) (rare): You can reshape your body to create eyes, teeth, legs, and a tongue, or to imitate inanimate objects roughly your size. The quality of the mimicry is based on Mind.

Libromancy (1/7) (ultra-rare): You can cast spells from drawn spell diagrams without consuming the written medium.

These were the two basic Perks that define this very existence. Libromancy was a spellcasting technique, just like Barbara's Spell Shards.

Magical Affinity — Spells are 50% stronger, 25% cheaper, and 50% harder to dispel.

Somatic Magic (2/7): Animal, Blood, Flesh, Healing, Nature, Necromantic. You resist 80% of these effects.

Elemental Magic (2/7): Darkness, Earth, Fire, Ice, Light, Lightning, Water, Wind.

Transcendental Magic (1/7): Shadow, Ritual, Fate, Divine, Mental, Summoning. You resist 80% of these effects.

Environmental Magic (1/7): House, Force, Bardic, Ward, Illusion, Weather. You resist 80% of these effects.

The 26 magical affinities that were engraved in legend as Haru's kitsune tails. They didn't have a rarity listed because they are combined Perks. I believed that these would be the first Perks that would be released from the Broodbitch's curse. Any time one of my future incarnations picked a magical affinity, the corresponding combined Perk would be unlocked one more time, and on the count of seven, it would be permanently available.

That the highest counter was at two even after two thousand years was worrisome. [Saintess Magic] did nothing to alleviate this restriction as our magical cheat power wasn't strong enough to counter a spell that drained the magical energy of a whole moon. Which wasn't even after two thousand years, completely fixed.

All-Resource Booster (1/7): Add half of all unrelated Attributes to determine all Resource Pools. Add Faith to Magic for the MP pool. Increase Attribute weight on HP by 50%. MP and SP are added together into Energy. Add 10% of your total HP to Energy and vice versa.

Usually, Resource Pools were derived from a single Attribute. It was easy to see how adding half of every other Attribute boosted my values greatly.

Combined Perks were ae mixed-blessing. This one, for example, had in its misleading description the combination of more than twenty or so standard Perks and a handful of unique ones. But combining such Perks was a life-saving feature. I couldn't think I'd be free of this curse in less than a thousand lives if it weren't for them. Each Perk unlock was dear. My future incarnations wouldn't have the knowledge I had from the [Lost Sage Encyclopedia] which contained Mom's full Status sheet at various points in time. It would be a hit-and-miss to find the proper Perks that would go into a combination.

Whenever I picked a Perk, one of three things could happen. The most common would be to just gain that Perk and expend the slot. That Perk would then become one among the gigantic pool to unlock in the future.

Then it could conflict with an already-existent but locked Perk or Perk combination. The System would issue an error message and just unlock the Perk for free, both rejecting the selection and thus not wasting the slot and adding one to the count to break free of the curse. And last, it could just decide to merge the new Perk into an existing Perk, locked or unlocked, making the combined result available for that life.

Titan Slayer (1/7): When fighting big creatures (cumulative): 1 size larger, 25% evasion. 2 or more sizes larger, 2x damage. Riding:(Dexterity)% evasion and accuracy against that enemy. Add Dexterity to contests to remove you. If an attack misses you, it hits your ride instead.

These combined Perks date way back from the time of the Great White One, the sacred rabbit deity of the Auvani tribe. Too bad it didn't have a scaling bonus based on the size difference, stopping at two sizes. With me at tiny, this Perk was at full power against humans or bigger creatures.

Master Shapeshifter (1/7): After 1 second, take the shape of any species of your previous lives, any non-magical animal (including dire shapes), a were-jaguar, or a boggart. Gain the abilities of these shapes. Mix and match body parts among them. Add (Ego/2) to resist harmful shape effects. Mundane perception cannot discern the shapeshift. Were-Jaguar: You may infect creatures with therianthropy. Boggart: you are immaterial and can fly at your normal walking speed. You can telekinetically move objects at a distance according to your Strength score. You can speak in any shape with a mouth. +10 to Physical Attributes.

Here we start to see the compensation for lost features, Attribute bonuses. People with their limited Attribute allocation from low rarity Classes love Perks that grant points. Some out there advocate for that selection. But they lose in versatility. Well, with the multiplicative nature of combat in this world, I couldn't fault them for choosing that tradeoff.

And yes, I could transform into an amoeba and probably infect someone though I no longer spread disease. If I had rejected Wyxnos's offer back then, this world would probably be dead already. Or they would've made everyone immune to disease. Doubtful about that one. Anyway, I was the very first life to acquire sentience in this newborn world, the way Loki injected me into this world under the nose of the Gods.

Magic-Infused(1/7): +1 Magic at every level divisible by 4. Your magic is 50% stronger. {Force} effects can be shaped and are 50% stronger and cheaper. Pay half the spell cost with HP to increase the effect by 100%. Cast (50+Mind)% faster. Add Magic to Willpower for spell resolution. Spells that affect the body or mind are 25% stronger.

Another combination of many Perks accumulated over several lives that were generalized into one heavy-hitting one. This Perk alone reduced all MP costs for spells by half since HP was cheaper than air for me. And all the effects in this single combined made the damage of my combat spells increase by six times. Or nine if it was a Force spell. No wonder {Force Javelin} was my hallmark offensive magic.

Mystic Hunter (1/7): 25% more Exp in the Labyrinth. Detection: Divinity, Monster, Assassin Contract, Favored Enemy[see list], Spirit, Living Sentients, Tremorsense, Echolocation, Treasure, Royalty, Aquatic Creatures, Blood, Poison, Thoughts. On a successful Mind test (Add Soul if they're living or spiritual, add Willpower if they're hostile), You can sense them in a range of 40 x Mind meters. Concentrate for 10 seconds: Detect direction to a chosen target in 800 x Mind meters in a 45-degree cone. Test Magic to pierce magical protections. Your favored enemies are [Humans], [Dragons], [Abominations], [Orcs], [Undead], [Demons], [Demigods], [Giants], [Goblins], [Trolls], [Kobolds], [Gnomes], [Beast-Kin], [Dwarves], [Elves], [Minotaurs], [Halflings], [Silk-Folk], [Centaurs], [Harpies], [Mermaids], [Ogres], [Avians], [Insectoids], [Beasts], [Reptilians], [Aquatic], [Elementals], [Golems], [Plantoids], [Saurians], and [Chimeras]. Against these, you deal double damage, gain 3x Exp and 25% Accuracy, Evasion, Damage Reduction, and critical chance. +5 to all Physical Attributes.

Say with me, kitchen sink! It merged my tracking and hunting Perks into one. Again, this one was worth forty or more normal Perks.

Boundless Mobility (1/7): Your reflexes are twice as fast. When moving, you make no noise and exert no pressure. If still, no sound reflects off of you. 5x Movement rate, ignore terrain penalties. No maximum speed for movement Perks. Become incorporeal for 100 Energy/s. While incorporeal: pass through force constructs at a tenth speed. Senses extend up to (Magic/10) meters away from the surface you are inside. Manipulate solid objects while phased. Shifting out of phase inside a solid object deals heinous damage to both you and the object. Effects that inhibit, incapacitate, or control your body, mind, or soul have their effectiveness and/or duration reduced by 67% and are 67% easier to escape. Immune to stagger. Stun, restraint, or similar debuffs last 50% less. Collisions with rocks deal no damage if you choose to sink into them at no cost. You may move through rocks at half speed and leave a tunnel behind if you wish. +5 Dexterity and Mind.

I fear someone spent a lot of time cramming stuff together around vaguely-related themes. But enough lampshading. Next!

Life Crossroads (2/7): You can have up to five Class Paths and combine them in any way you want. Your species is considered one rarity above. You gain two bonus Proficiencies.

Which usually meant burning those Class Path slots to bump the rarity bonus of the current one to the top. This one was a good candidate for the first Perk to be released from the curse unless multiple paths stopped becoming so ubiquitous. However, people seldom developed their paths because of the heinous Exp grind this world had.

Unraveler of Curses (1/7): Suppress one curse for 1 hour, once a day. Each Mp spent to break a curse is worth [100+140*(1+Luck/100)]% more. MP pool full: 2x MP regeneration erodes a chosen curse. Cost to break a curse: (1,000,000*Rarity*([Their Magic]- [Your Magic])^3)). When all MP is paid off, you may break the curse or pay the same amount to change it to a Perk. 100x the cost to cast a curse on you. The passive effects apply even when this Perk is locked.

Curse Breaker and Erode Curse merged into this one. If my Magic score was equal to or greater than the caster's, the cost to break a curse would be only a million times rarity, 1 for common, 2 for uncommon, and so on. The Broodmother's curse was currently on 421 trillion MP left to break. By reverse-engineering the formula, her effective Magic Attribute to curse me was 1,700. If I could raise my own Magic score to that amount, the curse would be gone within the week. One could dream. I was currently at 443 when the cap for people at level 81 was only 100.

My choice of evolution was a dud. It had plenty of Perks to put curses on people but none to remove them. Go figure that becoming a cursed book wouldn't help cleanse those.

Dullahan (2/7): Attacks that hit your head merely cause it to detach, dealing no damage or effects. Your effects may originate from either body or head, whichever is beneficial. While your head is up to (Soul) kilometers away, it functions normally and floats at your normal walking speed. Further away you only know the general direction. It never slips from your grasp. While touching you, add (Soul/2) to Perception. Your neck sheds cold fire like a torch when the head is not on it. Detach at will, and reattach with 24 hours of rest.

The most useless Perk for a mimic. Well, the perception bonus was always on because a book doesn't have a head so it is attached by default. Immunity to decapitation was a good thing, right?

Titan Body (1/7): Absolute Damage Reduction 93%. Your integument is always impeccable and can be colored at will. Bonus to stealth equal to the percentile of exposed skin. You can stretch body parts along their longest dimension up to 3 times the normal length without losing strength, accuracy, or balance. Add a tenth of your maximum HP to your maximum Energy. Add a quarter of your base HP to Endurance for determining HP regeneration. Divide the HP recovery tick by 24. Missing body parts regrow in the time needed to regenerate 2% of your maximum HP. Immune to Bleeding, Muscle Paralysis, and integument afflictions including damage from fine particulate at normal speeds. No Attributes are locked to you. You gain 60 HP, 30 Energy, +32 HP/level, +22 Energy/level, (75+(Strength+Dexterity+Endurance)/20) hardness, +15 base damage, +10 to all Attributes, and another +5 to all Physical Attributes plus Charisma.

Wait. I checked again. I had two Perks giving me ten percent HP to Energy? Yes, it checked. At current values, that was another 200k Energy to my pool. Though it didn't affect regeneration.

Titan Body was one of the top 10 most important Perks to me. A 93% absolute damage reduction was ridiculous. On top of that, Hardness further reduced base physical damage (including spell damage dealt through a physical medium like Earth and Force) before any calculations. It was currently at 102 which meant any attack that rolled less than that on the base damage would become nothing regardless of the multipliers.

Indomitable Vitality (1/7): x1,000,000 negative HP threshold. Cannot die under direct sunlight, regardless of accumulated damage. For each of the following conditions, increase resource regeneration by linear 50%: Underwater; in the Ethereal plane; line of sight to the sky; surrounded by stone; under sunlight.

This one was weird. I wish the sun shone in the Ethereal. I would have 5x resource regeneration inside a narrow stone pit full of water with a sky view. In the Ethereal because I couldn't rely on sunlight reaching down there all the time. But my enemies might tire of beating me before they could accumulate the trillions of damage required to kill me. And that was with Titan body doing its best to keep me from being harmed.

Eternal Trainee (1/7): Title: [Master of Magic]. Friendly units in the same area as you learn 50% faster. At midnight of your birthday, gain 1 fast-growth on the following Proficiencies, if they are above 50, Assassination, Spellcaster, Alchemy, Diplomat, Enchanter, Metalsmith, along with the 3 lowest Combat and 5 lowest Technical. You learn all Proficiencies 500% faster. Every 5 levels give 1 point of Proficiency in: Chemist, Silkweaver, Surgeon, Appraise, Jeweler, Metalsmith, Mason, and Sculptor. Each level gives 1 point of Proficiency in: War Technique, Spellcaster, and Rune Scriber. You cannot spend a pick on the latter three Proficiencies. When picking a new Technical Proficiency, gain 20+SQRT(highest Technical score) Fast-growth points in it. +20 to all Attributes, +30% lifespan.

The Heirloom or Legacy Perks ended up mostly in this one. A solid third of Haru's contribution to my Status was here too.

Familiar Mastery (1/7): Beings under a familiar contract with you receive: 75% of your resistance Perks. When your bond is within (Magic/2) meters from you, {Appraise} attempts on them are blocked by your protections and they take 30% less damage. Half of the remaining damage is instead taken out of your MP pool if possible. Your bonds are active from birth. So long the donor has above 20% of their maximum MP or Energy, the bonded ones can freely use that Resource instead of their own. Bonds may access your dimensional storage. Spells you cast can originate from them instead. Both of you may communicate telepathically with a range of ([Magic]+Magic) meters. Both share the same Exp awards. Pay 1,000 MP: familiar teleports to the master up to (Magic+[Magic]) kilometers away.

Note that this Perk works regardless of who's the master and who's the familiar. In the current situation, Barbara was the master of our bond. Mom decided not to tell her she can access the dimensional storage and I respected that decision. Also, the damage protection eats 65% of the damage Barbara would take if I failed to defend her. Doubtful but it was good to have an extra safety net.

Book Familiar (1/7) (unique): You forged an eternal bond with the [Lost Sage's Encyclopedia]. No longer hungering for knowledge, the book will still obey your every command, including copying the contents of another book, leaving the original intact. Others cannot read the tome unless you allow it.

I guess the book could access my dimensional storage if it were sentient. It even might be, because why would it count as a familiar otherwise. Huh. Maybe I've been calling the wrong entity "mom".

Elemental Rejuvenation (1/7): You are healed by 10% of all elemental damage before any mitigation. You resist 97% of the remainder.

Elemental magic was all those listed under Elemental Affinity above. Note that it was the only affinity without a resistance listed because that ended here. But using fireballs to heal me was neat.

Party-Wide Exp Share (1/7): When you are in a party, all Exp earned is divided equally among all members in (200+Soul) meters as if the party size was 1/3 of its real size. All party members gain a 3.05 Exp multiplier.

After combining, the limit on party size was lifted. With this, I could power-level a whole army, so long they stayed inside the range. With everything in here combined, leveling up this way was nine times as efficient than everyone doing it solo.

Perfect Awareness(1/7): You have the equivalent of normal sight from any point of your integument. Increase all your other senses' precision, range, and accuracy by 10. Your sense of vision does not require light and is not blocked by fine particulates in suspension. Water does not hinder your senses. You can detect infrared and a portion of the ultraviolet spectrum. You can hear any sound frequency up to 100,000 Hertz. Strong sources of stimulation do not hinder or bother you. You are immune to scent-based attacks. You resist 50% of all sonic attacks. You can perceive incorporeal entities. Your senses extend into the Ethereal world at their normal range. You add (Dexterity+20) to your Perception tests. Identify chemicals in fluids around you.

The "equivalent of normal sight" part was a bit misleading. Yes, I had awareness of my surroundings but I still found it useful to have eyes to see with.

Heavenly Performer (1/7): Effects created by artistic performances are twice as effective and twice as hard to dispel. Benefits while Performing: Normal environmental effects do not hinder you. 10x performance range. Shift the Spectator's reactions by 6 steps. If you take no hostile action, reduce all damage to you by 75%. Gain 10% of spectators' resource regeneration. Creatures not under attack must stop hostilities to watch if they fail a Willpower test, once per minute. You may imbue your performance with an aspect. Only one can be active at a time. The cooldown to switch aspects is 5 seconds. – Sacrifice: Allies who perform no hostile actions cannot be targeted. You redirect to yourself 90% of all Area effects that include at least one of them. – Healing: You can wave Healing magic into your performance, targeting every friendly unit as if you were touching them. – Heroism: Allies suffer 50% less and deal 50% more damage. They gain +10 for the three highest Attributes. – Inspiration: Grant a (20+Luck/2)% quality and a +20 bonus to all Technical Proficiencies, including yours. – Peace: If you and your allies take no hostile action, all enemies must make a (Willpower + Ego) against your (Charisma + Magic + Ego) or they must cease all hostilities. This counts as a diplomatic attempt and may shift reactions.

This hurt to look at. Most of Arista's entire life was crunched and squeezed and processed into this. Some of Lakerta's Perks too. But the minutiae and detail she could weave into her spell songs were completely lost.

Mythic Rancher (1/7): Each level gives 1 point of [Harvester] Proficiency. You may not spend a pick on it. You have a small chance to harvest legendary versions of the materials you collect. Conjure grain, nut, seed, or fruit. MP cost varies by rarity. Improve the reaction of animals by 2 steps. Plants and livestock under your care take 50% less damage and double resistance against illness. They grow twice as fast and double the yield.

If one day I wanted to become a farmer.

Homeland Defender (1/7): When fighting in your homeland or up to (50+Soul) hectometers outside its borders, gain 20% to: damage reduction, evasion, accuracy, damage dealt, and increased spell effect. Spells last 100% longer (including upkeep ticks) and are 50% harder to dispel. You can designate or change your homeland only after you've lived for 10 years in that country.

This was mostly from Haru but some effects came all the way from the Great White One.

Royalty (2/7) Titles: [Emperor, King, Queen, Unicorn Queen, Grand Duchess, Prince, Princess] Gain one extra Attribute for every 4 levels as listed in the species below. .+3 Reaction steps from listed groups, +1 from all others. Elf: Dexterity. Perform rituals to bond with Nature. Merfolk: Strength. +100% Resource regen underwater. Human: Always 1 Perk/2 levels and an extra 1 Perk/10 levels. Centaur: Strength & Endurance. Dwarf: Endurance. Kin: Dexterity & Endurance. Imperial: 2 free Attribute Points. Borderland: Willpower. Spend at least 3 hours/day managing your realm: Ignore 75% of the penalties for lack of infrastructure. Pay 1,000 Energy/s to exude a Royal Aura. All non-royal enemies in Charisma meters lose (Charisma/2) on all Attributes. While aura is active, all in the area know your location, and stealth is impossible. Hide your Royal Status at will. When hidden, automatically fails because you are Royalty shall display as "resisted" instead. Pay 10*(Target's Soul) SP to impose a Royal Geas with an Ego contest. If the target violates the geas, take (Soul*150) HP of unmitigated damage per second while you pay the base cost. Geas may be non-lethal, causing the target to fall unconscious at 0 HP for 24 hours. Geas must have a condition to end.

Every four levels, I gained 2 free Attribute points, 2 Strength, 2 Dexterity, 3 Endurance, and 1 Willpower. The rest was the Royal Aura, Hidden Royalty, and Royal Geas crammed.

Ultimate Surpasser CXII (unique, 1/7): You get N Attribute Points every 20 levels, where N is your {Surpasser} level. Increase your Attribute cap by N%.

One hundred and twelve. That's how many times a hundred Attribute points above the general cap were taken from me. The Royalty Perk gave me 50 Attribute points every 20 levels.

Truesilver Hero (1/7): Title: [(Truesilver) Hero/Heroine]. Your entire body contains traces of Truesilver. Your attacks count as Truesilver and deal 2x damage to demons and undead. You are immune to damage from silver, Disease, parasites, Poison, Venom, Rage, and Mental Manipulation. Mental attacks on you rebound and drain an extra 3x the cost from the caster. You can compartmentalize threads of thought and feelings, isolating them to focus on another issue. For every 30 minutes in a hostile environment, gain additive 6% resistance, a maximum of 90%. 7 days outside the hazardous area reset the buff. Once the 90% maximum is reached, the tick to regain is 5 minutes. +15 to all Attributes.

Now, here's a thought Haru entertained but never fully tried. Could I harvest Truesilver from my body? Would it be any significant amount?

Warden Avenger (1/7): Select (1+Soul/10) creatures (Dexterity/4) meters from you. Any damage or debuff that would afflict them is redirected to you. Sacrifice (1,000) HP to deal 3x damage on one attack. Spend (1,000) MP to deal 2x damage and ignore 25% of defenses. Declare a vendetta against someone who grieved you or your people. Take 25% less damage from them, resist effects 25% easier, and are 25% shorter. Deal 100% damage or 500% with a spear to them. You can sense the direction of the vendetta's target. Issue a challenge. Targets who lose a (Willpower) contest may not attack others. If you refrain from striking outsiders to the duel, take 40% less damage from them. Spend 1,000 MP to deal 3x damage to challenged targets. They cannot flee unless they win an Ego contest. Against Royals, you may bet services, land, or titles against equivalent offers. If you win the challenge, you gain 3x Exp. +5 to all Physical Attributes.

I didn't need to make Barbara run away from Himmel as so long I was conscious no harm would fall on her. I was hoping he would stop chasing and call us cowards, which was perfectly fine. No, instead he chose humiliation.

Avatar of Death (1/7): +50% Stealth. Put a {Death Contract} on a target you can either see, declare vengeance on, or know the exact location by paying (100*[Soul]) SP. If the target is killed by you or someone with the {Death Contract} perk without taking an action or noticing the killer, the killer gains 650% more Experience. When under cover of shadows, teleport to another shadow in (10*Magic) meters. Attacks from stealth deal 5x damage. Enemies who lose sight of you allow you to stealth during combat. When attacking mutants, dragons, scaled beings, demons, or divine beings, you deal 4x damage and ignore 60% of their defenses. Divine beings also lose GP as well as MP. +10 Dexterity and Mind,

Good old {Assassinate} and some other things are thrown in for good measure. All the multipliers in this Perk and the one before could be used in tandem. But the same entry wouldn't stack with itself. For example, a dragon demigod would count as both dragon, scaled being, and divine being but it would only get a 4x damage bonus from the last feature of this Perk. Also, "ignore defenses" was trumped by Absolute Defense. Nothing could pierce it.

Siren's Song (1/7): +10 all Mental, Magical, and Spiritual Attributes. Select one spell-song as your anthem. It gains 100% effect and 50% cost. You can change it once every year. You can cast spells with songs. Select tempo, pitch, rhythm, and intensity. By doubling the cost of your spell song, you can triple one aspect of the spell. The effect's Duration, Casting speed, Accuracy, Critical hit, or Dispel Resistance depend on your chosen rhythm. You can repeat a spell-song up to five times, each time lowering the MP cost by 25%.

Okay, not all of Arista's Perks were crammed and lost in the Performer thing above. {Force Javelin} was my anthem for as long as I could remember. It was out of cooldown to swap too but I saw no reason. In one of mom's notes, she said that if it worked for "Megumin" it would work for us too.

Those were the Perks I unlocked from my past life. A lot of the others were locked unless I suppressed the curse, and then I had the ones I gained in this life of mine as a book mimic. Not to mention the Proficiencies.