Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) Jez Cajiao (top ten books of all time TXT) 📖

FOCUS:

Your skill in mana compression is formidable, and yet, it’s only just begun. Through experimentation, you have realized that by increasing the rate of compression, you can increase the rate of mana replenishment by a total of five points per minute, per level of compression.

I looked over the options for a few seconds, considering the options. I’d not really understood what I was doing; the meditation that Bane and others had taught me had each seemed to be part of the method to me, like understanding that that you cook a chicken to make a roast chicken dinner. Yeah, that’s true, but there’s a lot more to it as well.

The meditation I’d used had been partially guided by my headache and urgent need to refill my mana, and had been partially instinctual, with my mind simply doing, rather than thinking. No, as I looked at the options, I needed to decide. The faster healing, mana, and stamina would have been a game changer when I first arrived here; god knew that if I could have simply meditated for an hour or two and been totally healed and refilled with mana, I would have saved a fortune in healing potions up until now… but…

I had healing spells and potions for a reason. I couldn’t stop in the middle of a fight to meditate, and as cool as it would be, it just wasn’t enough. Having my mana jump by five points per minute per level of compression, though? Hell yes. That meant even if I couldn’t get the ‘boxes’ right, I’d still have what, nearly nine points a minute, and that was amazing.

I chose ‘Focus’. Not that it was really a choice to make, I reflected, and I went on to the next notification.

Congratulations! You have killed the following:

1x Gnome Badunka Rider for 5,150xp

A party under your command killed the following:

5x Gnome Badunka Riders of various levels for a total of  32,480xp

Total Party exp earned: 32,480xp

As party leader you gain 25% of all experience earnt

Progress to level 19 stands at 162,506/265,000

“Booya,” I muttered to myself, nodding in satisfaction and pulling up the final notification.

You have been given a Quest by the Goddess Jenae: ‘Fix the Fixers…’

The Goddess Jenae has commanded you to explore the Sunken City, a site you now know the be the Prax, Glorious Retribution. Upon further investigation, you’ve found a lost tribe of Gnomes, a species renowned not only for their standoffish nature, but also their unwillingness to allow their technology to be investigated by others, and their borderline drug-fueled insanity. Jenae wishes you to further investigate the tribe, healing any you can, and adding to your people.

Discover the secret of the gnomish regression: 0/1

Recover Magical Artifacts and Technologies: 2/?

Retrieve Manastones: 5/100

Retrieve Spell and Skillbooks lost in the Prax: 0/37

Recruit additional citizens: 1/?

Recruit skilled crafters: 1/?

Find the ‘Master’ and free the Gnomish tribe: 0/1

Bonuses will be given for exceeding these numbers.

Reward: Improved technological capacity in the Great Tower. Possible technological boosts to the fleet. Unknown, 250,000Exp

“Well, that’s just fucking peachy…” I muttered, rubbing my chin. “You see this, Oracle?” She nodded. “I notice that the option to accept the quest or not is gone...” Blushing lightly, she coughed.

“I removed it,” she admitted after a brief pause. “It’s not like we were going to refuse, were we?” she asked me, and I sighed.

“No, probably not,” I admitted. “So, now we need to save the gnomes? Seriously, they’re batshit little bastards; do we really want them in the Airships?”

“Probably not…” Oracle admitted. “But have you seen what Giint is making?”

I looked over at him again, having been too absorbed in the notifications to pay much attention to him and knowing that the periodical wash of Bane’s Worldsense, and the way that both he and Tang were watching, meant that we were all right for now, at least.

I paused, my eyes growing wider as I took in the gnome’s work. It was small, maybe five foot long by two foot high, but he’d scavenged the wheels from several smashed vehicles, then had taken four of the legs from the drained mobile shield before ripping half its guts out and adding them to his creation.

It made me think of a walker from the Imperial Forces in those movies I’d loved as a kid, but the legs were inside the wheels, moving them like pistons. A long, bare area had been fitted on the back, behind which I assumed Gint intended to sit, maybe four feet long and three wide, with a ridge around it.

“It’s amazing,” I admitted as he started chucking things into the back. He ignored sections I thought looked almost intact, and then chose bits I assumed were trash, and vice-versa, chucking them all in until he grinned up at Oracle and me manically, his eyes still glowing slightly.

“Sseeeee? Giiiint fiiix!” he crowed, his smile indicating that he was still well over the horizon of madness and probably still accelerating.

“Uh, yeah… well done,” I muttered, impressed at the speed he’d done it in; maybe half an hour, that was all it had taken him, but it was taking definite form, and far faster than I could have built a goddamn flatpack wardrobe. I looked to Bane in shock. He shrugged, but it was Tang who spoke up.

“You’ll never beat a gnome when it comes to making something, Jax. Seriously; where the other races learn and use magic to change the world, they use it at an instinctive level to fix and improve things. The mad little bastard probably has no clue what he does, but that’s why the gnomes are always in demand. The slavers will drop anything to try and capture some, so now, gnomes  generally keep to themselves and have a lot of guards. It’s common knowledge that they refuse to share any of their secrets with anyone outside their race, but after seeing what he just did? I’m betting they don’t tell anyone because they can’t. They probably just do