The Over-Break System

‘All or nothing, there is no turning back now.’ With that final thought, Cynrik pushed his hand forward, envisioning that his finger was a hair-thin tool, and began carving the runes, bringing about a new type of pain he had never experienced.

With his fingertip pressed firmly against his flesh, Cynrik made a micro-incision on the pectoral muscle, one so small that it wasn’t even visible. Through his control of the Mana collected on his fingertip, he made a neigh invisible beam of pure energy that pierced through the muscle, skin, and right into the surface of his Codex.

When the highly compressed particle beam made contact with his Codex, Cynrik’s vision blurred, and his body uncontrollably spasmed in pain.

In an instant, he felt all the air leave his lungs, and it took every fiber of Cynrik’s being and willpower not to cry out in pain. No, pain wasn’t the right word; this was pure torture and misery; the worst part was he had only just begun the carving process.

With sweat trickling down his temples, Cynrik’s eyes glowed with Mana light, and he moved his hand to trace the transposed image of his Mark from memory onto his Codex.

Every millimeter the beam moved sent a wave of muscle spasms and nerve pain throughout his entire body; when it would get to be too much for him to handle, Cynrik would pause for a moment, collect his whits and breath, then continue the carving process.

All the while, Tobs was constantly flooding him with notifications; unfortunately, he didn’t have the mental power even to acknowledge them as he only had a singular thought and purpose at that moment.

After the first few, Tobs silenced them and watched on from Cynrik’s SOC, monitoring all his bodily functions so that if they did reach critical levels, she could stop him at a moment’s notice.

And so, time slowly moved on, with Cynrik sitting alone, drenched in sweat and his body repeatedly tensing as he slowly but methodically carved his [Mark of the Tamer] into his Codex.

—

Meanwhile, as Cynrik was torturing his mind and body in the training room, Brance finally woke up from his enlightened state after over three and a half hours.

With his eyes suddenly focusing, Brance looked around the room in confusion before rubbing his eyelids and observing Gabby and Benny as they stared off into nothing with blank and lifeless expressions on their faces.

‘Ugh, my head is killing me; I wonder how long I was out for?’ Brance thought as he checked his Watcet and found out three hours and forty-five minutes had passed..

‘Damn, Tobs’ what are Selene and my brother doing right now?’ Brance asked as he rubbed the right side of his stiff neck.

-Host Selene is in the process of absorbing her Class prerequisite skill books, just as Gabriella and Benjamin Sanford are, and Host Cynrik…-

Tobs paused for a moment, unsure if she should tell Brance about the insane thing his older brother was attempting at the moment.

As an Artificial intelligence who was linked up to both brothers and knew their thoughts and personalities almost as well as the individuals did themselves, she had to consider if it was optimal to explain the situation.

‘Eh? What’s wrong, Tobs? Why did you stop mid-sentence?’ Feeling a sense of worry overcome his mind, Brance stood up and activated [Mana Sight] to observe his brother’s whereabouts.

Looking down the hall, he caught sight of three near-blinding sources of Mana particles. Two of which were the assembled Incubators, and the last, was Cynrik.

Creasing his brow, Brance started walking in the direction of the training room but was soon stopped by Tobs.

– Brance, it is recommended that you do not interfere with what Cynrik is attempting. He is in the middle of carving his [Mark of the Tamer] into his Codex and needs complete focus not to make any mistakes.-

‘What the fuck did he do, Tobs? Explain now!’ As he watched the multicolored storm of particles in Cynrik’s arm sloshing back and forth like gasoline in a tanker truck, Brance began pacing the room with his eyes never leaving his brother.

-Sigh, don’t get all pissy with me, Brance; you know that Cynrik will only consider my advice and never follow it. With you and the rest of the Party temporarily out of commission, there was no way for me to stop him from this crazy idea of his.-

Understanding his anger and confusion, Tobs quickly filled Brance in on Cynrik’s idea and the method of execution. By the time she finished speaking, Brance had found himself sitting back on the couch with his arms crossed, glaring at the wall opposite which Cynrik was seated.

‘Sigh, crazy fucking moronic idiot!’ Shaking his head and letting out a slew of curses, Brance helplessly observed the large mass of Mana stored in his brother’s left arm for a couple of seconds and had to look away when another wave of convulsions wracked Cynrik’s body.

‘Can he do it, Tobs?’ Accepting that there was no way to help or stop Cynrik, Brance finally asked the question on his mind.

-If he continues at the rate he is going, there will be no issues. He has gathered the proper amount of Mana, and there is still plenty of time left before the two pills he took wear off.-

-Using the data from the skill book, he has already passed the worst part of the carving, the outer shell of the Mark, and has started on the internal runic formations; overall, he has already passed the halfway point.-

‘And will it work as he expects? Or is this all a waste of time?’

-Although there are some discrepancies between the available information, by my calculations, his Mark will be significantly more potent than an average [Mark of the Tamer]. Upon completion and acceptance of the Tamer Class, he can house his Avians within the dimensional space, unlike a regular Mark, which can only store a singular Creature.-

-The issue he will be presented with is that, unlike a standard Mark, it will draw a minute amount of MP automatically and continuously so long as both creatures are housed within. This fact will not change until he has reached a certain point of growth in his Tamer Class.-

‘I see; that idiot probably doesn’t even realize, and I’m sure he didn’t ask you either, so he is in the dark. Please be sure to let him know once he’s finished.’ Uncrossing his arms, Brance pulled up his Status profile and navigated to the Class and Sub-Class tab to search through the list to see if he unlocked any Unique classes after using his three skill books.

After scrolling through an endless list of Classes and Sub-Classes and not finding anything that could be considered “Unique,” he swiftly located the one he had been preparing to acquire in the first place.

-You have chosen Gemsmithing as your Tier-2 Sub-Class. Would you like to lock in your choice? Remember, once you accept, this change can not be undone (Y/N)-

Swiping at the air, Brance clicked on the yes option and was hit by a flood of notifications.

-You have obtained the Tier-2 Crafting Lifestyle Class Basic Gemsmithing.-

-Your Stat Distribution has been adjusted; you will receive an additional 0.2 points in DEX and INT upon increasing your Main Level. Current Allocation, 0.2 DEX, 0.2 INT-

-You have learned three Tier-0 Gemsmithing Skills .-

-You have learned the Tier-0 Gemsmithing passive Skill [Gem Cutting]-

-You have learned the Tier-0 Gemsmithing Skill [Socket Fitting]-

-You have learned the Tier-0 Gemsmithing Passive Skill [Material Grading]-

-Your Tier-0 Gemsmithing Class passive Skill, [Material Grading], has been fused with your [Inspect] skill, upgrading it and adding new functions.-

-You have unlocked the Tier-1 Hidden Stat: Will Power.-

-Your current Willpower stat is 15 points.-

As he read through the notifications, Brance nodded and was perfectly satisfied with his gains. The DEX and INT boosts were essential for keeping his stat build balanced, and the addition of the Will Power stat, which Cynrik and Selene had held over him for some time, was a pleasant surprise.

Tilting his head to the side, Brance pulled up the description for his [Inspect] skill, which had been severely neglected over the years and was still sitting at Tier-1 to check the new functions.

What it boiled down to was he could now see the precise details such as Carat, Size, grade, exact color, and all the finer points a gem or material held.

‘Pretty handy little upgrade,’ Brance thought as he navigated away from his skill description and back to his main profile.

‘The real question is do I boost my Paladin class or the Gemsmithing….’ Brance thought as he opened a second window to display his Class and Sub-Class simultaneously.

‘Hm, increasing my Paladin Class won’t benefit me much; considering the best case, I gain a couple of new Skills, but if I raise Gemsmithing, I will get more knowledge and potentially more crafting skills.’

‘Not to mention, I can start working on making some new gear for us ahead of time, which will benefit us in the long run and the short term.’

Making up his mind, Brance stood up and gathered several clusters of XP crystals before beginning to absorb them in groups of five.

-You have absorbed an Essence (XP) crystal and received 10,000 XP.-

-Current Essence stored in Essence Pool(XP): 10,216,370.-

-You have absorbed an Essence (XP) crystal and received 20,000 XP.-

-Current Essence stored in Essence Pool(XP): 10,236,370.-

Like Selene and Gabby, once Brance reached 30,000,000 XP, he shifted his attention to his Sub-Class and assigned XP to his Class Level.

-You have chosen to distribute 252,616 XP to your Sub-Class.-

-Are you sure you would like to assign this XP to your Sub-Class? (Y/N)-

-Your Tier-2 Basic Gemsmithing Class has leveled up-

-Your Distribution has increased by +0.2 DEX, 0.2 INT.-

-You have received two Stat points.-

-You have received two Skill points.-

Repeatedly clicking the yes button and starting from scratch, Brance worked his way through the levels until, 15 minutes later, his Sub-Class reached the Cap.

-You have distributed the total amount of XP your Sub-Class can handle.-

– Your Tier-2 Basic Gemsmithing has reached the level cap of 35.-

-Current Primary Class Distribution upon leveling up, 7 DEX, 7 INT.-

-You have learned the Tier-0 Gemsmithing Skill [Runic Carving]-

-You have learned the Tier-1 Gemsmithing Skill [Gem Molding]-

Brance released a tired sigh as he cleared out the spam of notifications from his vision. As expected, he received a few more skills, one every five levels, in fact, and then two more when he capped the Class; however, none of them amounted to much, and their only purpose was to add some minor boosts to his crafting profession.

Waving his hand and moving on to the next task in his mind, Brance withdrew over a hundred raw, uncut opal stones, a chisel, and a carving knife.

These small cloudy gems were the lowest grade gems available and the standard for new Gemsmiths to work on after obtaining their Class.

“Sigh, I am getting flashbacks to all those MMOs I played back in the day; oh well, time to grind,” Brance ruefully said as he set about chipping away at the cloudy uncut stones.