Chapter 193: Ichor and Upgrades

In the process of boosting Galahad’s natural defenses with the ichor infused into her blood, Rachel spent ninety minutes looking over her Feats and what upgrades she’d gained since her change.

She was certainly built for speed, and in three weeks, she’d managed to go from Level 1 to Level 12; well, more specifically, she’d done that in a matter of days, but that was beside the point. Anthony and the girls had more or less gotten up to Level 10 since their Miami encounter, and if she were to hazard a guess, Arthur, Jeanne, and Charlemagne were around the same.

There was a drawback to EXP gain that had become increasingly evident from what she’d heard about their ventures into Anthony’s and Barbara’s Quest worlds. The Legend Quest that had provided the bulk of their burst EXP had been far out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t only her spirit’s rapid expansion that had put her on the back foot.

The Unique Moons were harsh on her spirit due to the amount of pressure all that power brought, and she was now beginning to think that on top of Nike’s internal spiritual reinforcement, Eostre had somehow been supporting her throughout the battle to handle the stress. Once she was outside the Legend Quest, the tulpa couldn’t mitigate the damage Rachel was doing to herself.

Sitting beside Nike, she saw the blanket rise and fall with the woman’s deep, peaceful breaths; the personification had gone from ragged pants, struggling to survive, to blissful slumber as she gradually recovered. Nia had been taking good care of her, mostly when she was in her child state.

Her captain was currently quite bored since there wasn’t any combat or general fun activities to do. Nia sat on the opposite side of Nike’s bed, going through her own status window, organizing what items her younger self had just tossed inside her storage without any kind of labeling or tags.

She still had roughly two and a half hours before her transformation time was up, and she’d be down until the following night; it meant the cooldown should be up for Scarlet’s father’s funeral. Of course, they could be here giving blood for another hour or two, which wasn’t the most exciting thing. Rachel could relate, since she’d been in bed for the past two weeks.

Taking in her upgrades, Rachel streamed out a long sigh, wondering if any of them could have advanced to the next Grade if she’d been a little more active. She was somewhat satisfied with her Stat Grades now:

Her Power Stat had gone from High to Extremely High due to her Level 5 Attack Perk, which also bumped up her Toughness from Above Average to High. If she were only using her fists, then she would have tried to keep both fairly equal so she wouldn’t see blowback from recoil, but her amazing hammer had changed all of that, allowing her to put three points into Power, and only a single point into Toughness.

Rachel sighed, reflecting on all the phenomenal feats she’d performed in the Legend Quest; the problem was that, yes, she could totally output that same level of destruction, yet, if she did, then she’d be bedridden again. Who knew how long she’d be down if she were this reckless a second time?

Her attention moved to Endurance, which was what she had sunk her Level 5 Stat Modifier Perk into, bringing it from a dismal Below Average to an acceptable Above Average. Her two points in the Stat had certainly helped her perform longer.

[Lunar Grace] was huge since it bumped up Dexterity by one, a core Primary Stat that provided a boost to Speed, Agility, and Quickness. She’d planned on putting her next Stat Point here to level out Agility with Speed and Quickness since the former had only one point while the others had three when counting the bonus from [Lunar Grace].

However, their recent brush with the monstrification clams made her think otherwise as her attention moved to Tenacity, where her Resistances were situated. She figured she was almost entirely immune to such mind-control efforts when under the effect of any Unique or Event Moon, such as the Greater Harvest, but that was only during their use, which didn’t prevent anything in her average state.

Overall, she saw weaknesses that she needed to fix. On another note, those weaknesses could be solved through the addition of Feats. She flipped away from her Stats. At least one of her Feat Refinements had been completed:

[Primal Force X] - Refinement Time - Complete - Doubles previous growth multiplier

[Bringer of Misfortune II] - Refinement Time - 10/30 Days

Rachel frowned at her still-refining Feat, twenty days remaining until it completed. There was no indication of what it might be refined into; it had to be good, though, with how beneficial [Bringer of Misfortune] had been. Her other Feat provided some clues, though.

She’d already come to the conclusion that [Primal Force] could be spread to those who were on her team, at least when they were nearby. It’s why Barbara and Anthony had been taking the Mythickin on their Quests to exploit that growth multiplier. Yet, did that also mean it helped with the elasticity of their spirits?

As Eostre had warned her, there was a limit to how much a person’s spirit could expand or soak up. The Seeds acted as a funneling device to gather energy and expand their physical, spiritual, and, she assumed, Intelligence capacities; the System was a numerical way of tracking that progress.

If [Primal Force] only made the funnel size bigger, then it wasn’t as amazing as she’d hoped it would be. On the other hand, if it enhanced their faculties to expand further, then it was beyond priceless. It was something to test. Then again, her mother’s warning about her own misfortune turning against her if she wasn’t careful was something to keep in mind.

A lump formed in Rachel’s throat at the thought. Mom is still not telling me everything. It matters... but it doesn’t. In the last ten days, she’s barely brought anything up about the topic, but, to be fair, it’s not like we’ve been alone together since we last spoke.

Shaking her head and trying to get her brain straight, she attempted to push the concerns regarding her draining Lunar Energy down, yet with every drop of blood Galahad soaked up, she felt herself growing weaker. Rachel scrolled down, foot tapping against her leg. When it came to her Feats, some had their Ranks upgraded, which was far less significant than a Grade increase; still, a gain was a gain.

She found a diversion in [Bringer of Misfortune]. Oddly, thinking back, its Grade Advancement condition had been for her to overcome one of Fate’s designs through manipulating fortune and misfortune, but it hadn’t upgraded when the lesser god of wine and insanity had killed himself. That had been a product of her manipulations, so was that inside Fate’s plans?