World Filter

Mark had spent half an hour in [Meditation] trying to gain as much Prana as he could before making an attempt. Jonathan had not gotten any worse or better. Mark had only felt comfortable leaving him to meditate because of his [Regenerate] working in the background. As it turned out Jonathan's natural recovery was fairly high too. So the fact that it was taking so long to recover was a testament to that Corrupted’s strength. The problem came when Mark's spell wore off. Jonathan could barely move as it was. What happened when the crutch fell away? Mark had used all his remaining Prana on the spell, it was probably the single biggest use of it to date and it was doing basically nothing.

He needed to figure out was what going on. He already tried a [Cleansing surge] to see if it was some kind of affliction, but found nothing.

“Okay our escape window is closing whatever you are going to do you’d better do it now or we are going to have to take our chances with him in this state,” Sam said.

She had only moved from Jonathan’s side to check the situation outside through the closed curtains.

Mark went over to Jonathan once more, he had about 25 Prana in total.

Resting his hands on Jonathan he dove into the wounds. Releasing a stream of Prana. As he watched for details he started to notice something about the way Jonathan's body was reacting to the Prana.

Right away he thought back to the firehouse. To Jonathan's off-handed comment about how the healers back at the base had never really helped much.

Along with what he was seeing he realized it must be an inherent aspect of Aura.

Jonathan’s Aura was making him healthier and stronger, but had it its own downside of requiring more energy to fix. So it stood to reason that to heal an Aura user required more Prana.

Like in a video game how a level 1 healer could heal a lvl 80 warrior, but the amount was so negligible that you would bearly see any difference in their health bar.

The thing was Mark had always had a higher Prana stat compared to his party members.

Most likely higher than any Aura attribute he encountered. In the beginning, healing a cut had knocked him out, but as he had gotten more Prana it became less of a problem.

He had thought it was only a quantity thing but he could see now quality played a role in it too.

It boiled down to the more Aura one had the bigger their health pool was.

Weaker healers could only refill a portion of this. Prana not only gave you more resources with each point but more potent healing in general.

He couldn't tell exactly what Jonathan Aura's attribute was, but it was probably equal to or slightly higher than Mark's own Prana stat and that was saying something.

However, Mark was probably the strongest healer in his sector right now, so the fact that Jonathan had gotten so badly wounded near him was lucky on Jonathan's part.

Well if it was a matter of more healing then that was an easy fix. Mark urged the flow of Prana into a torrent. Mending everything he could.

Focusing on setting bones correctly, only to move on so that his natural healing factor could take over. Repairing ruptured organs seemed to take two to three times the normal amount.

Mark tapped out at 3 Prana so he could still think clearly.

Even after all that Prana, Jonathan was probably only 30% battle ready.

His color was returning and he looked much more aware of his surroundings.

“Okay that's the best I can do right now, I’m all out of Prana” Mark panted.

Jonathan got up and looked down at Mark while testing his grip.

“Thanks, I haven't felt this shit since the first day,” he said

“Yeah sure, but be careful I could only patch you up, if you push it you could undo all my hard work”

He could feel the [Regenerate] was still in effect but it would end soon.

Mark quickly brought up his prompts, remembering the system ping earlier.

1 x Corrupted Titan cleansed[chaos - 3](10 + Sector reward: x4)[40]

Partial exp awarded to (Jonathan Wilson and Samantha Dureal)(Sector reward applied: 26)

4 System Points awarded

Congratulations on delivering the killing blow to [Corrupted Titan]

Rewards: 1x Bronze rank mystery chest

Roll: Yes/No

While Mark didn't expect that, he took it in his stride and hit ‘Yes’ right away. They were leaving any second and any extra power would help.

Item acquired: Blade of Horizons

Item lvl: 38

Resistance + 95

Aura + 45

Description:

Active: When making a horizontal slash, the user may expend Aura to send a Projectile of cutting force forward. The strength of the projectile is based on the Aura attribute.

Mark took it out of his inventory and inspected it. A sword in a blue scabbard appeared in his hands. Pulling the sword from its casing a single-sided blue blade peaked out of its sheath, it was slightly curved and had a comfortable handle, not unlike a katana.

Mark frowned, the box had been a mystery box. Unfortunately, it had given him an item that he simply couldn't make use of effectively.

It didn't match his build and he could see that weapons seemed to give half the amount of Resistance amour pieces did. That was a ton of Aura though.

The final test was to see if he could make use of the Aura stat it offered. Closing his eyes he felt the item's power join with his and his Resistance jumped up climbing rapidly.

Mark felt something else merging with him.

The Aura.

It moved down toward his core, but quickly began to dissipate into the environment.

He tried holding it together. Asking it. Commanding it. Neither worked and it was fading so fast he couldn't even test any other methods.

He was well and truly cut off from Aura right now.

A core of Mana and Prana thrummed in their respective spots. But where his core of Aura should have rested there was nothing. An empty space. The Aura had been moved there by the blade but the moment it let go of the energy and surrendered it to him, his body simply couldn't hold on to it. Leaking like a sieve.

Mark tsked in annoyance. One of his last hopes that he could wield Aura fading.

Well on the bright side, it still offered him a nice boost to his Resistance, and having a melee weapon again would not go amiss. He had missed his machete.

Mark opened his eyes and was getting ready to go when he noticed Jonathan was staring at the blade.

“Mark, did you just get that as a reward? Could I see its stats?” he asked.

Mark looked down at the sword Jonathan had been using and realized it wasn't a system item, just a normal blade.

“Aa. Yeah, how do I do that?”

“You use the trade feature,” Sam said.

At the same time, Jonathan swiped his hand forward and a prompt popped up.

Jonathan Wilson wishes to initiate a trade with you: Yes/No

Mark picked yes and a new window appeared. It was divided into two windows with each of their names above one of the windows. His inventory also opened at the same time.

Allowing him to put up anything from his inventory into his window for Jonathan to see. There was even a field for Sp transfers.

Mark put the sword into the window.

“Wait why are trade windows even necessary? If I wanted to give someone something couldn't I just hand the item to them? ” Mark asked

Jonathan was staring at the screen and it looked like he liked what he saw.

“That would be fine for normal items, but it's not the same for system items. If you lose a system item or it's stolen you can request the system to recover it for you. It locks the item down for one minute but that hardly matters.” Sam said

Joining the conversation once more Jonathan said.

“Yeah, there were quite a few scams before people figured that out. Listen I want to trade the sword. Would this be something you would be interested in?” he said as an item appeared on his side of the window.

Item acquired: Wandering steps

Item lvl: 20

Resistance + 100

Mana + 5

Description: Increase movement speed by 10%

The way Mark looked at it this item served him much better, it was lower level and offered fewer attributes, but he could make far more use out of it than the sword.

Mark chewed on his lip in indecision.

Then another item appeared in the field.

Item acquired: Convergence (Ring)

Item lvl: 17

Resistance + 85

Mana + 15

Description: Increase Mana regeneration by 10%

Mark was shocked at first, but if he looked at it from a pure value trade it seemed pretty fair. In fact, Mark was losing out by 1 level but these items had much greater value to him than the sword. Plus he could just quickly buy a normal weapon from the Market place.

Before he said yes he asked.

“If you guys had these items, then why aren't you using them?”

“Oh, that's easy. The boots, I already have a better pair. The ring you can only benefit from one on each hand and Sam has better ones than this. I’m using ones more suited to Aura” Jonathan said.

Mark now understood how Jonathan's Aura was so high. After taking another look at them he realized they were kitted out from head to toe in system items. They were subtle. So it was hard to notice unless you knew what you were looking for.

That cinched it, Mark hit the accept button and the sword disappeared from his inventory. Replaced by the two items.

Both Mark and Jonathan took out their prizes and admired them. Mark putting them on right away.

The boots were a simple light brown leather. They could easily pass as a pair of hiking boots. The ring was a plain silver band. Both shrank to fit him perfectly. The boots were really comfortable and he could bearly feel the weight of the ring on his thumb.

He felt their power join his at once. He was ready this time but the increase in stats still almost floored him. He opened his status.

Name: Mark Young (22 - M)

Level: 17

Next level: 168/289

Stats:

Resistance

Aura

Mana

Prana

394 [+330]

0

93 (+5) [+20]

166 (+15, +1)[+25]

Unspent stat points - 0

Corruption value: 28.38%

System Points: 291.3

Skills: Meditation, Limit release(Physical)

Spells:

Passive Regeneration(Self)[5], Force bolt[8], Prana Pulse[2], Regenerate[4], Draw Corruption[5], Corruption recovery[4], Shape Mana(Force)[9], Invigorate[3], Cleansing surge[2], Read Memory[1].

World inventory. Marketplace. Trade

“Boys, it's wonderful that you got new toys, but we need to go,” Sam said while trying to hide a grin.

Mark nodded and got up ready. He quickly opened the Marketplace and grabbed a long combat knife and sheath for 14Sp.

Mark made sure Boe was alright, then they were off.

Getting out had been a bit of a trick, but they weren't looking to engage and the evolved Titans were easy enough to spot coming and skirt around.

As they got further from the area the evolved variants started to become more and more scarce. Until they were moving freely down that road at once more. Without the squad, they were eating the distance rapidly. Even in their injured state. Mark's new boots helped him keep up.

They were nowhere near their peak at the moment but the odd Corrupted that blocked their path was quickly diced up by Jonathan.

Mark was pretty sure he just wanted to try the new blade.

Fairly soon their destination came into sight. To be honest it was not what he had been expecting at all.

The park itself was surrounded by what looked like a wall of earth and rocks with a large moat surrounding it. No doubt magic was at play there.

Dozens of armed soldiers and civilians manned each section of the wall. Beyond that, one could see trees poking out from behind the wall.

High above the soft thump of helicopters circling the park could be heard.

The area was completely empty of debris or vehicles, leaving no place to hide. Allowing the defenders to see anything coming from a good way away. One strange thing was that there was no gate. As they approached there was a shout that went up from the wall.

Just as they got to the moat the ground around them rose up and created a bridge for them to cross. A section of the wall then opened, to make room for them the pass through.

After all the running Mark was finally here.