Chapter 82

  Chasing a Future

  (Misha Tulley)

  Sinus pressure.

  It was odd, the way Misha’s sinuses now seemed to scream at her every time she went outside. At first, she though it was allergies, but by all means and methods available her body was fine.

  Actually, according to the staff, her body was beyond exceptional.

  Which only begged the question, why was it that there was a perceived buildup of pain right at the front of her forehead, right where her sinus cavity was located.

  Yet, despite tests and other checks, nothing seemed to work.

  Even the odd nasal spray that smelled like rose particles wasn’t working.

  While she could still move and function normally, it still had a long lingering effect on her, particularly with how long her day went.

  Of particular concern was the way her body seemed to react when at the dark sections of campus. These were the areas of campus that seemed to be dead to recording equipment and the like.

  Part of an effort of keeping the campus green and vibrant meant that one could expect to see fewer cameras and recording equipment in these locations. This was especially the case for the section of campus that Misha chose as her morning wake-up route.

  While she did feel an odd increase in the pressure on her sinuses while she entered the area, her sinuses never seemed to stay irritated after making her route.

  In fact, if anything her sinuses seemed to clear up after her runs, which was why she kept this route, despite it being one of the places most likely to have foreign pollen or irritants to her senses.

  Tingle.

  Despite her sinuses feeling better after the run, there were parts that always sent her instincts to a heightened alert.

  At first, she thought that these sinuses were a symptom of her Heightened Danger Sense (9) that like most of her abilities had met their maximum increase for her Tier ranking.

  In her mind this limitation made sense, as it was three times the original cost of three. Being as she was now on Tier -III it seemed that most of her harvested abilities would be capped at the third-tier rating. Just as her Improved Harvesting (3) was also capped at this rating which seemed to be predicated based on her Class Tier rating.

  There might have also been another, far more obvious reason for her sudden discomfort.

  Namely the fact that no matter what she did, she could not seem to increase her ability points available, nor improve her body any more than she already had to this point.

  That was right, she was now a Tier III reaper who had met her true potential in this form. At first she had hoped to be able to keep the open slot and accumulated Ability Points after the evolution. But this was apparently not allowed by her class.

  Now when she ran, she found herself being drawn to a place, where she could stop and think about things for the day. It was clear that her choice for the future was drawing near, and she would not be able to put it off for much longer.

  There were obviously a few concerns, namely why was she only allowed to have and store an additional 27 Ability Points? From what she could tell the answer to this was simple. The highest Tier III Ability that she had found thus far cost 9 points, thus purchasing that ability three times would only cost 27 Ability Points.

  Part of why Misha also held off was due to wanting to have the greatest listing of possible Abilities to utilize.

  It was logical that by her coming out to a larger school with a wider exposure level of people and cultures, that she might run across more interesting Abilities.

  While she was not wrong in her assessment of being able to find more, or even Tier III examples of previous Abilities, she did find the selections to be rather underwhelming, in the end.

  Logic dictated that grabbing one of the Abilities that cost nine ability points would be ideal for her future growth, but the problem came with choosing which one of those three to focus on?

  For the Elementalist, it seemed to be a waste as she already had at least Fire and Electricity covered thanks to her Psycher acumen. And while she knew that praising one’s own abilities over others was the height of folly, she still felt that her ability to control flames and lightning were almost as good, if not better than what an Elementalist path could offer. Particularly as they couldn’t be used in conjunction with one another. The only element that seemed to be able to assist her already powerful Psycher side would be Air, but that would only help with larger flames and explosions. Something that she for the moment was trying to avoid.

  This left Mind Bastion, which again seemed to be something a Psycher should be naturally capable of on their own. Which left Exponential Healing.

  While injuries were important to avoid, particularly life threatening injuries, this did not seem to be the way she wanted to go with her evolution.

  Which was why for now, she found herself waiting and contemplating what to do.

  Obviously, she wanted to maximize her gains from this potential Ability, while also identifying future flaws in these Bakshee designs. Flaws that could thus be exploited in the future.

  Deep down in her mind, she knew that the war with the Bakshee was over. That said, she still had a hard time breaking her own mind away from the mentality that let her continue to push forward with this new set of challenges that had arrived.

  There was also the fact that she was simultaneously relieved and saddened by the seeming lack of diversity available to all three classes of Bakshee here on the planet.

  Their seeming lack of diversity implied that there was still a chance to resist, to fight back. To at least save this planet from being completely corrupted.

  As a Reaper, she found herself at a unique ability to correct most of the corruption that had taken root in this planet.

  That or, she could make it so the corruption that eventually conquered this planet was somehow susceptible to future Psychers. That was a dream goal after all, being able to resurrect in an enhanced Bakshee body.

  Pulse.

  The pressure within her sinuses began to almost burn.

  For a moment, she wondered if there was something nearby, some form of atmospheric meteorite fragment that was nearby and causing her senses to go wild with pain and anticipation.

  It would make sense.

  This theory would also explain why she felt a greater pull to the odd pressure when she was out in these woods.

  Though she could never exactly pinpoint the area of the greatest irritation.

  Following the meteorite theory, it would then make sense for the inability to pinpoint the exact location of the meteorite because it was buried or otherwise hidden from the surface of this forested path.

  With that theory in mind, she decided it would be best to at least test this out, but later. Right now, her head was pounding with undue tension.

  Then almost as if to exemplify why she was feeling off, she read a system message.

  Seeing the message, Misha stopped her jogging entirely as her mind began evaluating the messages in her mind.

  Then to her surprise, she felt around with her enhanced Psycher abilities, and realized that something interesting was now happening. For there, in the fields of random code that were being awakened to be chosen from, Misha realized that some of these paths were truly unique.

  For the moment, Misha dropped ideas of additional Bakshee terraforming pillars being buried somewhere in the woods surrounding her campus, and instead focused on the messages, their meaning, and what her Psycher senses were now telling her was possible.

  In these newly revealed, but still hidden slots, she found the three main branches, that is branches that reached out for each of the three primary classes of the planet. Each offering their own unique Abilities that can be harnessed as a native of that class by her Reaper class. In there, she also could feel the hidden branches of each group. These were branches that had not as of yet been unlocked by people of this planet. Or at least, these were special branches that had not been opened by people she had come into contact with to this point. Given her relatively small exposure to the world, she figured that some of these unique branches might have been identified and curated by powerful families.

  Yes, the Bakshee who pride themselves on diversity and allowing for the natural selection to take its toll in progressing a planet, still had their own form of hubris. That is, the powers and abilities that were only made available once a planet got to the final stages of their evolution.

  Of course, it was now that Misha realized exactly why her Reaper class was a broken class, for in her quick exploration of random sequencing that was made available, there were two flaws.

  First, there was a probability index that opened up every current and possible future evolutionary path to the Reaper.

  Now this isn’t to say that the chances of getting one of the rarest form of powers, including powers for reapers was high. In fact, by all accounts their random sequencing should be considered so low as to be all but impossible to achieve.

  Yet, that was exactly what drew Misha’s attention to those odd sequences.

  Sequences that should be impossible to reach, but were now available due to the way Reapers were meant to enhance the ability, frequency, and capability of evolving a planet.

  This of course led Misha to discover the second reason why her class was considered to be broken. Namely the fact that she could herself alter the noted probabilities, from any random number, to a 100% certainty.

  This exploration didn’t come without its own drawback, in that it took time to decipher most of the code available.

  There was a chance she could stop this timer, and give herself indefinite time to decipher each noted branch and possible evolutionary path available, which was in fact all of them. Not just every evolutionary path for the Warriors, Workers, and Rulers. But she also had the paths available for ever Reaper evolution possible as well.

  While she could stop the timer, she felt that this might be the mechanism that finally broke the already fragile Reaper system. One that would forever keep her locked at Tier III.

  This was why, she decided to ultimately allow the changes to happen, despite not being able to fully comprehend the possible changes.

  From everything she could tell the higher the mutation, the more powerful and more impactful they would be.

  That is why, following the trails, she saw multiple endings. Branches breaking off and dying quickly. The Warriors were the first to die off, somewhere around the seventh evolution. Followed next by the Warrior’s branch, which seemed to break off at the eighth evolution. Followed by the Rulers at the ninth. Only Reapers went on, following trails and paths that were otherwise unknown to Misha.

  Following the path, she paused for only a moment, as she debated with herself about whether this was the smartest of decisions.

  After all she had no idea what this mutation would do to her.

  The only thing she knew for certain was that if it truly got terrible, she could shed this body and find another.

  It was that final thought that pushed her to choose, to explore the loosely formatted evolutionary path and accept it.

  Class evolution requirements met. New Tier rating commencing.

  And like that, a burning sensation filled Misha’s brain, as she felt her entire body beginning to burn as if being swallowed up in lava. Lava that was consuming her from the inside out.

  Fortunately, the pain was only physical, meaning her mind was able to cut itself off and shelter itself, as she felt the power of the newly selected and clearly broken Ability fuse with her body in some unknown way.