DAY 118
EVENING
Me, in a flower crown? That’s a bad idea—better nip it in the bud!
THE ROYAL PALACE OF THE KINGDOM
I WAS A WALKING CONTRADICTION. The only way to stop my body from exploding on itself was to control it manually, and the only way to control my hyperfast reaction times was to use thought acceleration…but thought acceleration drained my MP reserves in a flash, causing me to fall over immobile. I ended up immobile either way, ’cause self-destruction rendered me bedbound too. And immobility in battle meant death.
“I wish I had something halfway between these two extremes. Guess I just gotta keep fine-tuning my setup and hope Wisdom figures it out someday.”
I could solve this problem with the right equipment. (Let’s ignore that my equipment often contributed to the self-destruction process.) Yes, this was the quickest, most effective solution!
Which was all just to explain why I went into town earlier.
“Yup! I need to boost my intelligence and vitality. If I don’t have a balanced build, I’ll balance it myself. Operation: If Even Wisdom Says I’m Dead, Pray My Equipment Doesn’t Break! is a go. Have at it, equipment!”
I spotted an interesting ring at one of the stalls: “Marionette Ring: Dexterity +30%. Control Abilities Boost (large).” Seemed like kind of a niche item, to be honest. It was meant for fighting with battle puppets and stuff, right? But then I took a closer look at the Traits list and realized what a gem I had on my hands. Naturally, I snapped it up.
“I bet it works on tentacles too! And if not, at least I can put on a puppet show for the orphans?”
Then, much to my surprise, I found a stall selling ear cuffs. One was called the “Oscillation Ear Cuff: Hearing Assistance. Sound Modulation. Slots five items.” I had no idea what a vaguely fantastical hearing aid was used for, but I guess I could hold onto it for when I got old? Also, I liked the sound of that “Slots five items.” With mithril, I could probably bump that number up to seven, but I only had the one other ear cuff: “Fortune Ear Cuff: An amulet that shifts one’s fortune according to the luck stat. +Luck.” Come to think of it, both of them have kinda shitty Traits…
“And then we have the best find of the day, the ‘Minotaur Leather Breastplate: Strength +30%. Physical and Magic Resistance (hyper). Slash and Penetration Resistance (hyper). +DEF. Slots three items’! This is a bona fide bargain. The strength buff will exacerbate my self-destruction problem, which is kind of an issue, but…I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it. Meanwhile, the leather lends a classy touch to my poor man’s Villager A garb. Listen, I’ve waited long enough! I deserve some new armor! The breastplate may have won me the shopkeeper’s pity, but I’ll never pass up a bargain!”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t add mithril to the breastplate yet. I didn’t trust myself to be able to handle the load it’d place on my internal systems—which was a shame, considering it was my shiny new toy. Oh well, what the hell. Let’s at least try it on for old time’s sake.
“Huh. It covers the shoulders too. That’s a twofer! You gotta watch out with torsos—lots of dangerous bits and bobs in there that really shouldn’t be stabbed.”
Wiggle wiggle.
I could potentially regenerate my own heart; hell, without a heart, I could probably pump my blood with magic and qi. Lungs, though—I had to watch out for those. One punctured lung, and I was a goner. It didn’t matter if I had a second working lung. If I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t temper my qi. Without that lianqi, I couldn’t use any of my qi arts, and without qi arts, I was dead. Call that a vicious qi cycle. When my healing abilities took a dramatic hit, none of my physical or magical prowess would make a difference—I’d inevitably wind up on death’s doorstep.
Yeah, so, a breastplate was paramount. At first, I’d assumed any old breastplate would do, but most breastplates made it look like I had megapecs, which was a no from me. I’d hit the jackpot with the Minotaur Leather Breastplate—I could worry about the whole self-destruction thing later.
“Above all else, I gotta protect my head and torso. But a flower crown on a teenage boy… Are you kidding me? With all the looks I’d get, that’d be more of a glower crown. (Not going to lie, though, I think I’d look good in a flower crown.)”
Judgmental jiggle jiggle.
Or maybe not. I’d never seen such a judgment-laden jiggle from Slimey before. He shouldn’t have been able to lip curl, being a big ball of goo lacking any kind of face, but he’d managed it somehow. Oh, the psychic damage!
“So this ‘Talisman Flower Crown: Inherits Traits from talismans. +DEF.’…All it does is buff defense, huh? And its talismans provide all the fun Traits. I guess they didn’t consider the consumable angle.”
Wiggle wiggle.
The talismans themselves, drawn onto the flowers with spellstone ink, had very weak Traits. The crown was made of three large flowers, each with Traits like “Nullifies 30 HP Damage. (Limited to one-time use)” and “Status Ailment Recovery. (Limited to one-time use),” interwoven with several smaller, decorative flowers, with Traits like “Fire Resistance (small). (Limited to one-time use)” and “Slash Resistance (small). (Limited to one-time use.)” It was a sumptuous piece of equipment—maybe too sumptuous. I doubted it would fit inside the girls’ helmets. I needed a simpler, smaller version because I wasn’t about to ask the girls to go around with flower crowns outside their full suits of armor. Do you have any idea how creepy that would look?
“Hmm, would it be possible to have a full suit of armor made from fake flowers? I should make suits from chrysanthemum flowers2—and give ’em to the meatheads and nerds. Yeah, and then burn ’em? I bet fake flowers are real flammable!”
Wobble wobble.
Yup, these fake flowers were weak to fire and water. The talismans couldn’t be activated with the spellstone ink alone, meaning that their user had to provide their MP. They autoactivated, which was nice in its own right, but this also made it impractical to use huge numbers of them in armor. These flowers had some pretty specific use cases, but if applied effectively, they could be a genuine technological innovation.
“I don’t know how to make talismans myself. I’d better take these apart and figure out how they work.”
Outside of the, y’know, visual problem, I had no issue with wearing a flower crown. My old Intelligence Crown had only had three slots, so it’s a good thing I’d added mithril to it and made it the “Wisdom Crown: Intelligence, Resistance +40%. Control boost (ultra). Sorcery boost (ultra). Slots five items.” With enough mithril and high-grade spellstones, maybe I could upgrade it again and get seven slots.
Anyway.
Metal Helmet: Vitality +20%, +DEF.
Sorcerer’s Crown: Intelligence + 50%. Sorcery Boost (hyper). Seal Spawning. Sigil Spawning. Skilled Sorcery.
Carbuncle Crown: MP, Intelligence +50%. Scarlet Shield. Scarlet Armor. Scarlet Eye. Uses unique Scarlet magic.
Those being the first three I already had slotted. Now, for the next two:
Talisman Flower Crown: Inherits Traits from talismans. +DEF.
Talisman Flower Crown: Inherits Traits from talismans. +DEF.
Five outta five.
“I sure have a lot of vitality buffs in my headgear. I should find a way to leverage that.”
Two flower crowns gave me close to 300 freebie hit points. Add in my current HP and I could take quadruple-digit hits. Score. Unfortunately, the flower crowns’ talismans were consumable and didn’t have any Traits that mitigated self-destruction.
“To be fair, I rarely get hit. Most of my damage is self-inflicted.”
And the crowns only took hits caused by enemies.
“Next up on my to-do list is to find some equipment to combine with my breastplate.”
Problem was, breastplates were mainly for low-level adventurers, so I rarely stumbled across them in my travels. My best bet was to put off adding mithril to the Minotaur Leather Breastplate until I had extra. My mithril resources would be allotted for the Wisdom Crown. Yeah. That sounded good.
Okay, it was time to see how my equipment functioned in action. I popped on over to the castle training grounds and found the girls hard at work doing some training of their own.
The average level of the girls hovered somewhere near the 130 mark, so the castle soldiers gave them a wide berth. With every stat in the thousands, the girls and their physical abilities were off the charts. And with cheat Skills and cheat buffs? Well, they were unstoppable. They scattered the Kingdom’s heroes; the earth trembled at their passing. Yup, ’cause if their levels were stratospheric, you should have seen their wei—why do I have the sudden sensation that several someones want to kill me?
“Hey, watch it! I’m not your target? Are you locking on to me with your glares?! Girls, please! Fat burning and muscle building are great for the figure, but muscle is much heavier than fat. If you lose weight, you’ll lose muscle. It’s perfectly natural for you to be a little on the heavier side, so—aiiyeeeee! Please don’t do the cool samurai sword drawing thing with morning stars!!! You’re scaring me!!!”