Reaper's Resurgence: A System Reset

B1 | Chapter 10 - Quantum Displacement

Alexia Knight

After about ten minutes of tearing the piranhas apart in my lovely version of fishing, I very nearly run out of space to fish from as the piranhas continue destroying more and more of the river's shore.

I grimace as I look at the about five or so feet left of shore that I have.

Level ten should be approaching soon, but will I get it with one more kill?

I stare at the river for a few seconds before deciding to just go for it and rushing to the corner of the remaining area and stabbing another fish before jumping back. And just like the other times, the other piranhas rush to headbutt the ground, making it crumble. But thankfully, I'm still left with about two feet of area at the original line of the river to use when I try to cross it.

[Level 11 Lesser Venomous Piranha Defeated – User's earned EXP has been increased a small amount due to killing a being whose level is higher than their own.]

[Three points have been earned for killing a creature two levels above you.]

{Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 10! Your Species has awarded you +2 VIT, +2 DEX, +2 STR, +2 MAG, and +2 MEN. Your Class has awarded you +1 VIT, +1 DEX, +1 STR, +2 MAG, and +2 MEN.}

[*New Active Skill* – Quantum Displacement: Allows the user to teleport up to a radius of {the Skill's level to the power of the Skill's Tier} meters around themselves by altering their quantum position in the mortal realm. Skill is automatically slotted due to free open slots.]

My eyes widen at the teleportation skill before a grin stretches across my face. Although the grin is tainted a tiny bit in confusion at the sight of the System using the metric system now, since it used to use feet and inches.

A rather odd change, but not one I care much about since I'm familiar with both.

One issue I see with this skill though is the obvious problem. That I won't be able to use it to teleport to the other side of the river until I get the skill to Tier 2.

I frown for a few seconds at that, only to realize that it didn't say anything about me having to be standing on the ground to use the skill. Meaning I can probably jump half the way there and teleport the rest of the way.

And considering that the river is about three dozen feet wide, that means it's about ten or eleven meters in width.

I'll have to figure out how far I can jump first.

After looking like a fool by jumping back and forth across the cavern adjacent to the one the river is in, I realize that I'm currently strong enough to jump about a dozen or so meters. Which kind of makes my previous plan about teleporting rather null and void considering I can already jump across the river.

Kind of awkward, but it's fine in the end since the teleportation skill can help me in case I end up attacked by a piranha while jumping across. Which will probably happen, so I should train the skill a little bit.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I really hate how the stupid stats aren't a linear increase in physical prowess. It makes trying to figure things out annoying.

Also doesn't help how the stats shown in the status aren't actually my physical capabilities but are really just the power that my life energy gives me when I'm not completely out of life energy. Kind of like life energy is a fuel to power the body in some ways, although not everything requires life energy to run at System enhanced form.

Actually, do I even technically have life energy? Or is soul my life energy now?

That thought has me pursing my lips for a moment only for me to shake my head.

Doesn't matter now. Something to ponder when I'm not in a dungeon that's trying to kill me.

I begin to walk back towards the river again to jump across, only to pause as I realize I haven't eaten a thing since coming here. And yet, despite that, I'm not hungry. Nor am I thirsty.

Is that some sort of benefit to being a quantum being?

A pretty good one if that's the case. I've never been a fan of eating in general after all.

Plus the idea of eating the spiders or vampire bats here isn't a pleasant one. And the piranhas have venomous in their names, and I don't know how if the venom they have is stored in a gland or if it flows through their body, unable to be cleared.

Food aside though, I do need to level up that teleportation skill some. And while I'm at it, I might as well check my other skills' progress.

[General Skills]

|Pain Resistance Level 1(46%)(T1)|

|Polearm Mastery Level 1(11%)(T1)|

|Forerunner (Unique)|

[Active Skills]

|Quantum Bolt Level 1(94%)(T1)|

|Quantum Displacement Level 1(0%)(T1)|

[Passive Skills]

|Quantum Attunement Level 1(21%)(T1)|

It hurts to see just how few skills I have now. Badly. And that's with me having gotten Polearm Mastery while fishing for piranhas with a glaive.

The quantum skills and the Forerunner skill do make up for it a little bit though at least.

I sigh before closing out of the three skill lists and quickly trying out Quantum Displacement, which immediately has my thoughts automatically going to where I want to go before I find myself teleporting just two thirds of a meter in front of me in a display very much unlike any teleportation skill I've ever seen before.

Whereas most teleportation skills have a single blink where the person just vanishes and reappears either with no flashiness or with a single bright flash of blue light, this teleportation skill had me glitching out once before just glitching into reality where I set the target of the teleport.

A rather bizarre feeling overall, but not necessarily unpleasant.

And a quick glimpse of my status makes me realize it took twenty soul to use the skill.

Ouch.

I use the skill again, but this time teleporting just a third of a meter away before checking my status to find that it went down by another ten soul. Which means it costs about ten or so soul per foot of distance.

Certainly an expensive skill.

But my soul pool is growing larger pretty quickly, so it's fine.

I repeatedly use the skill about five times in a row before checking the skill's progress and quickly finding it to have advanced to about fourteen percent of the way to level 2.

So at level one it just advanced by about two percent for every use of the skill? Not bad.

Also looks like it doesn't matter how far I go with each teleport. So I can keep the cost down in terms of soul.

I glance back at the tunnel to the piranhas before beginning the very long and drawn out process of training the skill. Because I'd rather be able to teleport up to two meters when I try to cross the river at the very least.