This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MrIzuarel on 2024-10-30 15:39:43+00:00.
Chapter 101
As we progressed with the mermaids quests, I noticed that their demands became more and more outrageous.
I am talking about skill or enhancement related quests.
The regular quests that gave out items didn't change. They always asked for the same thing, and it didn't matter if it was something like a material gathering quest or killing a certain type of monsters. Things like "get me 100 of these vegetables" or "give me 50 pieces of meat of this kind." These little quests didn't change, so they didn't worry me.
The problem was the ones I really needed to advance.
The first quest asked for items of 30 different dungeons. That much was acceptable, but as I progressed with clearing them, they asked for more. 40, 50, 60... The last one I obtained had demanded for 126 of them.
I tried to be considered of my system, but it was hard. I knew that every reward needed to be a reflection of the effort put into it, but it didn't mean I could accept it so easily.
And I was in a pickle about the quests themselves. The game back then had a particular way to punish the player if he abandoned or failed a quest. I was not ready to lose thousands if not millions of experience points to compensate the NPC in those cases, especially when it was a quest that eventually would be cleared.
I was not ranting because of the difficulty of those quests, I was ranting because of the time needed to clear them. And for those who didn't realize this: using traps to lure the monsters of the dungeon didn't make the item magically appear in your hand, so we had to physically search for it each time, and as previously mentioned, each dungeon run only generated one object, even if I had 20 to gather from the same dungeon.
What I didn't like was the fact that most of the skills were unavailable to me. That's right, the skills I had obtained were not functioning because those skills were regular skills, which were incompatible with my racial trait of "apex predator."
The number of skills I obtained was nice, but except for one, all the rest was disabled for me with the description . I hated it. This was another bug I had not discovered when I programmed this character, but unlike inventory, this one was detrimental.
As for the only skill I could use of that batch, it was a standard skill that puzzled me. In fact, not only was it a normal skill, but it was a half-locked skill. Those skills were normally lower grade as they didn't scale properly with the power of the player. But it was better than a fully locked one.
Just like the other regular skills, I should not have the ability to use it.
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Scratch (rank 1)
You can use your claws to inflict an attack on your target. Does 75%+2 of your regular damage.
Distance: close
Casting: instant
Cooldown: 2 seconds
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It was a good skill, and because it had a shorter cooldown that my tail attack, I could use it more often, but this was a regular skill and I should not have the ability to use it. The damage was quite lacking as my regular attacks could easily do a few hundred points of damage, thousands of them if I hit a critical, so the +2 on that skill was adorable but useless.
It was a skill that only beginners of the first generation and those from level 1 to 3 used. By the time a regular chimera player reached level 10, he had already obtained new bodyparts for the next generation that enabled the player to learn higher ranked scratch skills.
As I looked at my hands, those three-fingered grabbers of mine, I thought about all the other skills that were related to claws. Twin scratch, fury, slice. There were a lot, but I also thought about those skills that were very close to the physiology of my character. Pierce and impale were contenders because of my horn. Kick, roundhouse kick, trample, and others were also possible. But would they activate if I obtained them?
Unfortunately, the few skills I had obtained did not match with my character, which was especially frustrating as I had obtained a really good one called "Path of Nature."
As for the quests increasing my enhancements, I had cleared quite a few, but because the enhancement was randomly placed, I obtained only one in my swarm tree, which was a spiker. It was the first one I obtained from the sixth tier, so it wasn't all that bad.
It was after 2 months of repeated quest gathering and quest clearing that something massive happened.
Since my girls and I focused mostly on clearing the good quests while procrastinating on the regular ones, I had a list of thousands of quests to finish.
I was collecting a new batch of quests when one of my girls suddenly sent me an emotional response. This wasn't the regular routine, but the girl seemed confused.
As I approached her, I noticed what the problem was.
She had gotten a mermaid, but this one seemed different. The features were very imposing, just as the extravagant clothing it had on. Unlike the other mermaids, this one had a long robe and had a crown made of corals on her head. I didn't need anyone to tell me something big was about to happen, I could see it from afar.
I came closer, and the mermaid suddenly turned her head towards me. This wasn't the usual behavior of NPC. Her eyes looked at me expectantly, but I wasn't sure what to think of it.
Before I could react, she stretched her hand towards me and put a white flower in my hand. At the same time, I received the quest from her.
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A mermaids plea
Permanently destroy a dungeon and obtain the reward from the mermaid.
Dungeons destroyed: 0/1
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Before I could finish reading the quest description, the mermaid transformed into water and left the scene.
I simply stood there with the flower and stared at quest.
A permanent destruction? Why? What? Just... why?
I looked at the flower. It was a lotus flower, and my system didn't react to it, but inside the flower was a small stone, almost like a glass artwork.
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Gaia's mercy
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