He decided to think about it in a different way.
If this made Broadcast work a third as well, would it be worth it?
The answer to that question was surprisingly hard to generate. On the one hand, Broadcast made all his farming go faster. It was the primary reason he could grow a plot of land to something significant and worthwhile within the temporal confines of a particular level.
But on Tulland’s literal other hand was a Clubber Vine, something that was only possible because his Farmer’s Intuition had helped him push through several variations of briars before his splicer finished the job for him. And that splicer, near as he could tell, wasn’t actively nullifying his Farmer’s Intuition. The skill simply wasn’t strong enough to figure out what was going on in the machine, and thus didn’t try very hard. But if it was a higher level, that might change.
There were a lot of perfectly logical considerations on both sides of the problem, each stacked up so high Tulland couldn’t assess which one won out. In the end, the decision came down to something so simple it was almost petty.
I hate how messy my status screen is. I can hardly keep track of all the skills.
Tulland watched the token glow and dissipate in his hand as he activated it, then felt a prompt in his mind as The Infinite asked what passives it had permission to push together.
Let’s go for broke. All of them.
Tulland had expected to feel a sense of loss as the skills flowed out of him, but what he had not expected was for it to hurt. It was excruciating in a bone-deep, nauseating way that went beyond the mere sensation of pain. It was like someone was stealing his eyes, for a moment. Like he was being injured in a previously unknown vital area that every one of his instincts was making a panicked attempt to protect. But there was no resisting the pull now. The Infinite was moving, and it was too little, too late.
After a few seconds, he felt the last of the skills tear away, leaving a gaping wound on his soul, like some emptiness had gnawed out a hollow in his spirit and took up residence there like a rat. And, then, just as quickly, he felt something thump into that hole, sealing the gap and adhering to the sides until it was like nothing had ever happened at all. His notifications confirmed that wasn’t quite the case.
Tulland would take those changes, no questions asked. His Strong Back skill had become much better when his class had evolved, sure, but it still broadly sucked. He had seen Necia close up wounds in seconds that would have taken him minutes to knit together. While she was a vitality class and that was somewhat expected, he still knew he was well behind the curve in terms of what a normal class should be able to do with their regenerative capabilities.
The fact that regeneration now ate away at his farm wasn’t great, but the System’s language seemed to him that the balance of that sacrifice was greatly in his favor. The other skills seemed to be pure gain, or at least to come with downsides from the combination so very small The Infinite didn’t consider it worth mentioning them. But the cream of the combination crop was yet to drop, and Tulland decided not to spend any more time thinking when he could be reading that last bit of benefit.
Tulland sighed and clicked back on the System, who was clearly over-excited.
…glowing like a damn sun as energy gushes out of you and then back into you like a tide, and you feel I shouldn’t have been involved in the decision? You fool. You absolute…
System.
…fool of a boy, who never stops to think for a single instant about what he should or shouldn’t do or how best to preserve himself for the challenges ahead…
As the System kept up with its rant, Tulland realized something about the tone that had long since been milling around the outskirts of his consciousness, waiting for him to notice it. The System, he realized, wasn’t acting like a friend, or like an enemy, or even like an unrelated investor whose success was tied to Tulland’s performance. This was something different, something that he had only seen before when he had done something very stupid, or when he observed missing children finally being found by their parents.
It was concern. As weird as it was, it was a true feeling unless the System was a much, much better actor than Tulland thought it was. While Tulland had been feeding his class to The Infinite to create something new, the System had been watching him do it without knowing the specifics and now was worried sick.
System. Tulland tried breaking through the rant for the third time that minute. I’m here. Everything is okay.
As if you’d even know, you absolute imbecile.
That feels uncalled for.
Oh, it does? I suppose you wouldn’t feel like I do if you had just watched someone get absolute dissected…
Only then did the System seem to realize what it must have looked like panicking in that way. There was an immediate silence as it gathered itself, eventually rejoining the conversation much calmer.
Well then. What’s done is done. What happened, exactly?
I got a choice between a skill enhancement token and one that combined my passive skills.
I suppose I know which one you chose. How many did you feed it?
All of them.
That is… a substantial risk you took.
You would have told me to.
I actually would have likely cautioned you against it. A pure, guaranteed upside is a large benefit. Against that, the rewards of risk are weighed somewhat less heavily. Did it…
Pay off? I think so. Tulland decided to trust the System just enough to give up on the usual delay between when he got some change to his class and when the System learned about it anyway. It seems to have tied every passive to my staked farm area. I get faster regeneration, slightly better armor when I make it from farm-grown materials. And a lot more information about plants growing on my farm then I would have before. I haven’t tested any of it out yet, and it comes with downsides. Mostly that I’m more tied to my farm than ever.
That hardly matters. You were already inextricably linked to the growth of your plants. It’s no loss becoming more tied up.
True. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to mosey over to some of my plants, and see how they are doing. If this new Farmer’s Intuition skill works like I think it will…
Tulland was cut off. It made sense, actually. Whatever grace period The Infinite had given him to get used to the big change in his class was much longer than what he normally got. When he found himself in the white place all of a sudden, it wasn’t exactly a big surprise.
He cut off all his communications for a bit, just soaking in the real quiet. It felt like home.
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