Chapter 56 - Emergency Quest Part 9 (1/2)

As Myer had a mental breakdown due to the chaos Cynrik was causing in the stairwell, the person in question was lazily reclining on a pile of charred corpses while watching the countdown timer tick away.

-Time remaining 01:23-

{Hehe, one, two, three, make a wish, Brance.} Covering his mouth with his right hand, Cynrik snickered softly at his bad joke.

{Shut up. Don't you have something more important to be doing right now instead of fucking around? I'm almost done down here;} although Brance was hurrying along a couple of remaining children through the magic circle, he still took the time to condemn his brother. He wasn't entirely clear on what was happening in the stairwell since his attention was solely directed at the massive group of kids he was supposed to be keeping in order. As such, he wasn't able to separate his attention and direct it to where his brother was fighting.

Brance did, however, understand that Cynrik was slaughtering a large number of people, thanks to the constant influx of notifications he was receiving. But, unlike Cynrik, Brance didn't get drunk on the feeling of power he acquired from his increased Stats and was diligently going about completing the task assigned to him.

Finally, when the timer ran out and the last child stepped into the teleportation circle, Tobs started sending notification after notification to the boys.

-Part 3 D: Send the freed children to the safe zone using the teleportation array. 83/83 (Complete)-

-Part 3 E: Defend the array until all children have successfully teleported. (Complete)-

-You have received 25 Skill points, 20 Stat points-

-You have received 249,000 XP-

-You have leveled up-

-You have reached the level cap for Tier-0 Level 10-

-You are unable to evolve to Tier-1 due to requirements not being met. Minimum Requirements to evolve from Tier-0 to Tier-1 are listed below-

-Level 10 (Complete)

-All Stats at minimum 50 (Incomplete)-

-Mana Codex Tier-1 (Complete)-

-1 Elemental Affinity at Tier-1 (Complete)-

-Mana Cycles Completed 100/100 (Complete)-

-Mana Circuit Tier-1 (Complete)-

-Tier-1 EvoStone 0/1 (Incomplete)-

{Oh, SHIT, look at that!} Cynrik shouted gleefully into the mind link. Momentarily he ignored the next part of the chain quest and took the time to read over the other notifications. Then, waving his hand frantically, he quickly closed all the present windows, except for the one about evolving to Tier-1.

{Interesting, so we've basically met all the reqs for advancing to the next Tier, we've heard about EvoStones before, but I haven't found out how we get our hands on them. The only other box we haven't checked off is the ”All stats to 50,” but we can table that for later.}

{Agreed, I'm missing two stats right now, but I should be ok since I've got 28 points to use.} Like Cynrik, Brance was also staring feverously at the notification window that indicated what he needed for his advancement to Tier-1.

With a simple thought, Brance assigned five points to his INT and 13 to his MIND, bringing both of them to 50 and leaving him with 10 Stat points which he subsequently spread evenly between his VIT and STR, raising both to 96.

The instant his MIND and INT Stats broke through the 50 point threshold, he felt something in his head and chest shatter, followed by a wave of nausea. Unlike when Cynrik had pushed up his INT Stat and was relatively ok, he had pushed his MIND forward as well, the effects of which nearly made him pass out. Adding 13 points by themselves wouldn't have been a significant issue; he broke through the 50 point threshold, causing him to feel sick.

Brance didn't have to worry about this nauseous feeling, though since he had also increased his STR and VIT, the gross feeling swiftly disappeared and was replaced by the warming sensation brought about by those Stats.

{Whew, that was almost rough; how are you holding up?} Now feeling better than ever, Brance checked in on how Cynrik was handling his powerup.

Cynrik had been carefully distributing his Stats this whole time, and now, it was paying off. Unlike his brother, who needed to forcefully raise two Stats, Cynrik was only required to bring his MIND up eight points to meet the evolution requirements.

This slight increase caused him to be a little uncomfortable, but it didn't have nearly the effect on his body that it did for Brance. Since he was born, Cynrik always had an unnaturally high MIND Stat, but he never allotted points to it specifically. Instead, he let it naturally grow with level-ups and kill rewards. As such, It was already at 42 when he learned about the minimum requirement for his Tier-1 advancement.

Once finished meeting the Stat reqs, Cynrik faced an entirely new issue. Scanning through his profile, Cynrik's left eye was continuously and rapidly twitching. The reason for this tick was simple.

{(twitch)51, (twitch) 81, (twitch) 81, (twitch,twitch) 61, (both eyes twitch at different times) 61, MOTHER FUCKING UNEVEN BULLSHIT ASSS FUCKING AHHHHHH! ALL MY EFFORT TO KEEP THEM AT WHOLE NUMBERS AND SOMEHOW THEY ALL FUCKING ENDED UP WITH 1's REEEE!} Cynrik's irate screams of pain echoed into the mind link, causing Brance to instinctively cover his ears and crouch on the ground.