Chapter 118

Zea’s eyes went wide. “No. Noooooo. Bad idea. No!”

“What? Why? What’s the big deal with ants?”

“You have to have a special build to be an ant hunter,” Zea told him. “Because of the pheromones. They’re not the only bug monster that has them, but they’re the worst by far. If you fuck with an anthill, you’re going to have thousands of them pouring out and no way to stop them from swarming you.”

Luke frowned and considered that for a moment. “Uh, what are the pheromones good for?”

His knowledge on the subject could generously be described as hazy. He had a vague memory somewhere floating around in his head that it was something ants used to communicate, maybe by smell. That didn’t seem like something people with the technology level he’d seen on Aros should know about.

Then again, his perception was high enough to follow scents like a bloodhound now. Maybe pheromones were glaringly obvious to anyone who could see in the dark and hear people talking at a normal volume from five hundred yards away.

“Reanimation is the big concern. You kill a hundred ants, but then more show up and they get back on their feet. It’s damn near impossible to kill a colony without some extremely specialized skills.”

Luke came to a cold stop. “Wait, are you telling me there are zombie ants?”

“I’m not sure what they count as,” Zea said. “But they don’t stop coming, and once they get their scent on you, they’ll follow you anywhere, forever.”

“Scent-based tracking should be beatable with like… soap and water,” Luke pointed out.

“Maybe? I’m not an ant hunter. It’s kind of one of those things you can only get wrong once, you know?”

“Assuming I’m right though, how much XP could we get off an anthill?”

“Is it really worth risking your life over? If you’re not right, they’re going to kill you. You could kill a thousand of them, only for another five thousand to eat you alive.”

“Hmm. Hey System, I have questions,” Luke said.

“What would you like to know?” System asked.

“For starters, where is the nearest anthill?”

System raised a hand and pointed. “Twenty-six miles that way.”

“And can you tell me roughly how many ants are there?”

“Roughly, there are three hundred thousand ants there.”

Luke’s eyebrows shot up. “Damn, that’s a lot. What’s the level range look like?”

“Almost all of them are level 1 or 2, with an almost insignificant fraction reaching up to level 5.”

“That’s… that’s a lot of XP,” Zea said faintly. “Enough to drive a person insane instantly. No wonder ant hunters work in groups of thirty or more. They have to just to keep the XP split somewhat reasonable.”

“So that would be good for at least 10 levels,” Luke mused. “Instantly, with only a few minutes of work.”

“No,” Zea said firmly. “Get this thought out of your head. Bad idea. You don’t have any way to kill that many ants to begin with. Even if you survived XP Madness, the ants themselves are going to kill you.”

“Sure we do,” Luke told her. He pointed a finger at her. “You can make explosives. All we have to do is chuck it into the anthill and then run. We’ll blow up a few thousand of them and when the rest come up to the surface, there’s no one around to chase.”

Zea sputtered and started to protest, but then paused. “You know… huh. That… could work.” She shook her head. “No. It’s crazy. We’re not doing this.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to help,” Luke said. “I’m sure I can just [Power Strike] the ground a few times. It probably won’t work as well, but I’ll still get a level or two out of it.”

“Okay, this isn’t funny anymore. We’re not doing this. You’re plenty strong already.”

Luke stopped walking and shook his head. “Am I? System, can you tell me the average level of a church inquisitor?”

“There are many factors to consider, most prominently which church you are speaking of. The Church of Hestoc has the most advanced inquisitorial department, and if you include only them, the average level is 31. If you include all other churches, it drops down to 23. If you include clergymen and templars, the average level is 14.”

“The Church of Hestoc is the one that was giving us shit, right?” Luke said.

“Yeah,” Zea agreed unhappily. “And that merc who was super high level let slip that their contract was with an inquisitor, too.”

“So what’s the level range for Hestocian inquisitors?”

“Including apprentices, they range from level 7 up to level 63,” System supplied promptly.

Zea missed a step. “What the fuck! How is someone level 63 and still walking around?”

“That is the direct result of a god making changes to the system,” System said. For perhaps the first time he could remember, Luke thought he detected a note of emotion in the ghostly apparition’s voice.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you don’t like that,” he said.

“The system was not designed to be altered by the whims of the gods, but they all agreed to allow this one exception. You are aware of what XP Madness is, a clumping together of your XP and the forming of a miniature pseudo-deity. It is of course a bare fraction of the total XP that makes up the god trapped inside the machine, but even that is enough to overwhelm a fragile mortal mind.

“The system’s purpose is to prevent this clumping of XP from becoming a threat, which it does by circulating the XP as mortals are born, survive, kill, and die. In this case, an individual favored by a god will has their XP forcefully cycled, with their current total broken down and drained back into the God Machine and a matching set of new XP bestowed upon them. This results in a soft reset and prevents the mortal from being overwhelmed while this new XP begins forging new bonds.”

“So it’s not some sort of immunity then,” Zea said. “That means this level 63 guy needs to keep going through this process every so often, maybe even every few months at that level.”

“That is correct,” System told her.

“The important take away here is that the guys who don’t like me have someone who’s almost twice my level on the pay roll,” Luke said. “That’s pretty good incentive to put on a few more levels just in case this guy comes after me.”

“Except that the gods aren’t giving you a do-over button you can push every few months. If you level up that high, you’ll just go insane and start destroying everything.”

“Well, maybe, but I’ve been thinking about that. My bloodline gives me control over the system, right? Is there a skill that duplicates what the gods are doing to their clergy? I mean, you told me that the level cap of 100 doesn’t apply to me, so there’s got to be a way.”

“There… is not a skill like that,” System said slowly. “It may be possible to create one.”

“Would I need to be at the console to do it?” Luke asked, afraid he already knew the answer.

“At your current level of bloodline purity, yes. I am sorry; this situation has never come up before. I am not able to say if it may be possible to create such a skill independent of direct access to the God Machine.”

Well, that was new. System might refuse to answer, but he’d never given any indication that he didn’t know the answer, just that Luke wasn’t privileged enough to be told it. Luke wasn’t sure how to take that. Maybe it was a good sign that a possible solution existed, or maybe it was a bad sign that System didn’t already know a solution. Who was Luke to think he could figure out something a whole Pantheon hadn’t already created? Unless it wasn’t that they didn’t know how, but just didn’t want to, of course.

“If a theoretical XP refreshing skill could be created,” Zea said slowly, “Would it work with [Remote Access]? Could Luke use it on me?”

“Theoretically, assuming it used the same rules and logic of other bloodline skills, that would be correct,” System said.

“Okay,” Luke said, getting excited now. “So we need [Bloodline Purification Ritual] rank 2, which is 200 AP, right? That’s 8 or 9 levels? I’m not clear on the math.”

“8, not counting AP needed for upgrading auxiliary skills,” Zea mumbled, obviously not liking where this conversation was heading.

“So we go kill some ants. You’ll make a few explosive enchantments with your new skill, we’ll chuck them into the anthill, then we’ll run like the wind. Repeat as needed. When we get to Sicanti, we can get supplies, do the ritual, and see if we can overcome our XP Madness woes. If the fucking church can do it, no reason we can’t.”

She was wavering now; he could see it. They were taking a risk, but that was nothing new. If Luke was right, they’d both be untouchable for the rest of their journey, and they already knew that he could reset her back to level 1 if that’s what she wanted once they made it to the God Machine.

“The simple truth of the matter is that we’re not done leveling,” Luke said quietly. “There are going to be more obstacles, and we’re already pushing up against the limits of what we can handle. Even if we could find a quiet corner of the world to fuck off to for a decade to manually train skills up, it still wouldn’t be enough. And we both know we can’t do that. We’re going to need a to gain more levels before it’s over, and with [XP Mask], I can get as many as needed. You can grab some of the non-bloodline skills that hide your XP presence, and even if someone makes an issue of it, it’s not like anyone would be able to stop us.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Zea said with a heavy sigh. “But.”

“But I’m not wrong,” Luke finished.

“Exactly. I guess we’re doing this.”

Luke broke out into a grin and turned towards the direction System had indicated. Before he could take a single step, Zea held up a hand to stop him.

“Not that one. We’re too close to the mercs still, plus we need to make it to Sicanti and unload this amaral hide before it starts to go bad. These enchantments aren’t going to last much longer. I’m also going to need some time to do some enchanting work. I think ant hunters have some sort of scent-blocker they use to help keep the ants from tracking them. I’ll have to do some research.”

“Sicanti first, then power leveling,” Luke agreed.

“System, let’s say that we need five years each before we have to worry about XP Madness. How high a level could we go?”

“I would estimate you could safely level up to 43, and Luke to 45 with a five-year window,” System said. “The initial effects are hardly intrusive. If you wish to exceed that threshold, you could both reach level 50 before XP Madness becomes a significant issue, and perhaps 55 before your behavior becomes erratic and noticeable to others.”

“So we have time to try this, and if the next purification doesn’t allow us to make a skill to handle XP Madness, we can still head for the God Machine to do a hard reset and just flush the XP out completely,” Luke said. “That seems like a good plan.”

“Those are the only kind I make,” Zea said smugly.

“Really? What about that time you tried to make money at a fight club off an apostate and ended up on the run?”

“Well, admittedly that plan had a few holes in it, but I was operating on incomplete information, wasn’t I?”

“I suppose it turned out for the best,” Luke said.

“It certainly has had a few perks.”

Luke pretended he didn’t see it coming when Zea goosed him. A few perks, indeed.