Ronan had expected illusion magic, or a mental attack. He hadn't expected the little fox resting at the base of the tree to speak to him. It was using telepathy, and its voice was childlike and airy—what he imagined a fairy might sound like.

So, you are the human who has been killing all of my children. You finally reached my den. What did those foxes do to you, to deserve death? I am curious… I sent Vulparis to investigate you when they started dying across the sector, but it seems you were able to defeat even that little pup. Tell me, Ronan Steele, do you know what it means to suffer?

In contrast, the contents of its speech were scathing. Ronan actually questioned his actions—why had he jumped straight to violence against the foxes?

The tutorial pitted him against violent, bloodthirsty monsters in the form of the goblins. Subconsciously, he'd begun to believe that all 'monsters' were his enemies. Had that been a mistake?

If he'd left the foxes to their own business, would he never have been manipulated and attacked by Vulparis the Trickster? He wasn't so sure about that. Plenty of the foxes had attacked him unprompted when they were exploring the city.

In any case, Ronan needed strength to protect himself, his allies, to find his sister, to protect humanity from the other species they now shared their planet with, and from whatever else the damned system wanted to throw at them. And killing things for experience seemed to be the best way to do that in this new reality. So he would keep doing it until he had the strength he needed.

It is too late to reconsider your path. What is done is done. You have slaughtered my kin, and now you will face the consequences. At the very least, you have a firm sense of your own beliefs. That is necessary to become truly powerful. As I approach the f-tier, I have noticed I am lacking in certain areas. You might have sailed past that great boundary, given time, but you killed your way here. So, suffer. And die.

Ronan lunged forward, thrusting the rapier at the fox as he activated as many of his skills as possible. Time seemed to slow as mana flowed from his heart to the Arcane Needle in his hand.

Before the rapier even reached the fox's fur, he felt an agonising burst of pain exploding through his brain. It was worse than anything he'd experienced until now; a wildfire tearing through the folds of his mind.

Time somehow seemed to slow further. Ronan's rapier never reached the fox's flesh, but he experienced a thousand waves of fresh, burning, stabbing, tearing agony in that single moment.

Then, the world went dark.

Unprecedented modifications detected…

Analysing…

Unable to determine harm-benefit of modifications. Deferring to inheritor

Mind has mutated, resulting in the following:

Mental resistance +48%

Keep mutations?

That is a lot of resistance… Then again, it almost feels like not enough reward for that fucking torture, he inwardly complained, before accepting the mutations. He wondered if it was changing his mind in a negative way, in order to allow it to resist the mental manipulation. Even if it was, it was a price worth paying to keep pushing onwards.

Iteration 17 analysis:

Highest level achieved: 79

Highest class achieved: Adaptive Martial Artist (Rare)

Highest fortune achieved: 112 Bronze Credits, 236 Copper Credits

Stats gained: 966

Cultivation stages achieved: Mind (Quartz ★★★), Body (Stone ★★), Energy (Sparkling ★★) [+3]

Inventory value accumulated: 45 Bronze Credits, 812 Copper Credits

Chrono Enhancement Updates:

Experience gain multiplier has increased from 720% to 790%

Achieving a fortune of 100 Bronze Credits has rewarded you with 1 Chronos merit

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Credit gain multiplier has increased from 48.7% to 112.2%

Experience gain multiplier has increased from 7.234 to 8.200

Cultivation talent multiplier has increased from 1.7 to 2.0

Achieving a total of five cultivation stages reached has rewarded you with 1 Chronos merit

Cultivation progress has been reset, maximum stages reached have been locked

Mastery progress has been reset, maximum tiers reached have been locked

Class has been reset, class skills purged from status

Chronos merits have been acquired! Access to Chronos Clan Ancestral grounds has been granted at minimum threshold

Ronan was disappointed that for all his efforts, he still only had the lowest level of access to the clan grounds. Just what did he have to accomplish to see a little further into the empty white void? What secrets awaited him?

Even so, he had earned himself a couple of chronos merits in his last life, along with a large increase to almost all of his multipliers. He approached the temporal obelisk while considering what enhancements to invest in.

[Temporal Obelisk]

Jack of all trades, master of some III: The influence of the Chronos Clan is not truly boundless, especially so for a sapling. However, with time and investment, your mastery over everything becomes more persistent through iterations. Maintain 25% more of your progress towards the next mastery tier through each iteration for every tier of this enhancement. [Cost to reach next tier: 2 Chronos merit]

Deep cultivation IV: As a clan which transcends the limits of time and space, the act of cultivation holds a far more significant meaning to those of the Chronos heritage. Maintain 10% more of your progress towards the next cultivation realm for every tier of this enhancement. Cultivation benefits are 25% more effective for every tier of this enhancement. [Cost to reach next tier: 3 Chronos merits]

Brand of the temporal artificer II: Even items forged from the base materials of reality can be iterated. Through the powers of the temporal artificer, items can be branded and will persist through iterations. Number of concurrent brands increased by 1 for every tier of this enhancement. Enhancement will mutate once for every 3 tiers in this enhancement. Branded items will receive a 10% improvement for every tier in this enhancement. [Cost to reach next tier: 1 Chronos merit]

Accumulate greater accomplishments to unlock further enhancement options…

Ronan had 2 chronos merits, which meant he couldn't afford the next tier of deep cultivation even if he wanted to buy it. That meant his choices were narrowed down to the third tier in jack of all trades, or the second tier in brand of the temporal artificer.

He considered his goals and his strategy in the next life, and the next few after that. He wanted to defeat Veloxis the Dreamweaver, but that fox had killed him instantly. Ronan hadn't even been able to resist its magic for longer than a few seconds.

He didn't think he would get strong enough to take it down even if he spent the next ten iterations gradually increasing his multipliers and masteries. Which led him to a decision he'd been putting off for a while—attempting the next difficulty step of the tutorial.

More mastery progress would be useful, but he felt that the increased difficulty tutorial might naturally increase his mastery gains, anyway. He had a plan for another permanent item. It relied a little bit on luck, but if Ronan pulled it off then he would get a massive spike in combat power.

So, he decided to get the second tier in brand of the temporal artificer. That would also leave him with one chronos merit spare, to save up for future enhancements—hopefully, some more variety appeared once he pushed himself further.

You have purchased the permanent enhancement [Brand of the temporal artificer] for 1 chronos merit! Brand of the temporal artificer has increased from Tier I to Tier II

This time, he hadn't run out of merits, so he had to manually leave the obelisk. It was harder than it seemed. He had to first force his mind out of the object, then remove his hand. Dismissing the messages of the system required less than a thought, but it seemed the workings of the Chronos Clan had greater staying power. Given what his heritage did… It makes sense that even their creations are stubborn.

With all of his tasks complete, there was nothing left for Ronan to do here. He gave the vast white space a final once-over before willing himself to exit.

Beginning a new iteration, please stand by…

The 18th iteration was similar to the 17th, although there was one major difference. Ronan wanted to test something, which meant he was distributing his stats in a vastly different way.

All of his free stat points went into luck.

In fact, defeating the boss was really difficult, but thanks to his vast, and growing, collection of skills, along with his knowledge of the tutorial, the gang pulled through. Terry did lose an arm, but he seemed fairly upbeat about the whole thing given that they'd all survived.

The final moment had been tense, but a pretty genius move. Ronan hadn't been as physically capable as previous iterations, so he'd dumped almost all of his credits into magic money to summon a barrier capable of blocking the boss' strikes, while the others dealt the finishing blow.

Ronan had saved both myriad skills tomes until they were out of the tutorial, as well as all of the endless treasury tokens. He had reached level 45 after killing Magriz'al. That meant a total of 80 free stat points, all of which had been invested into the stat of fortune, putting him at a whopping 82 luck.

He and Keith had made their way to their usual base, but instead of spending the first day exploring, he'd told the guy he wanted to rest. It was a white lie, but what Keith didn't know couldn't hurt him.

Ronan made his way to the roof and took out the two myriad skills tomes, the four common treasury tokens, and the rare token. This experiment could end in failure, but Ronan was hopeful he might have found a way to really abuse his heritage.

I haven't been creative enough. If this works out, I'll need to think of more ways to experiment. Hell, even if this fails I'll need to do that. Now, what overpowered skills are you hiding from me, system… With that thought, he activated the first tome, eagerly awaiting the results.

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