Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1) by Arthur Stone (top 5 books to read TXT) 📕

the amulet’s enhancements, my body didn’t let me down. Though not without difficulty, I heaped the load up on my shoulder, then turned back around.

And turned to stone. Because the next wave that pushed at my feet definitely wasn’t my imagination. I even saw the shadow of an enormous kote as it nearly brushed up against me. The beast might have been the largest one in Redriver, the size of a man-eating croc. It was moving toward its splashing cousin in the wake of the floating rags, and had nearly smashed right into me with its ridged nose. What if the thing belatedly realized that I wasn’t a snag or a lump of algae, and went back to check?

And how else would it check if not with its teeth?

There was a much larger splash downstream, as if made by a galloping horse. I looked askew to see a medium-sized kote surrounded by the fins of several others, clearly intrigued by their cousin’s boisterous state.

The beast was indeed behaving strangely, keeping to the surface as it twisted and turned every which way and smacked its tail on the water periodically. In the gaping jaw, amid two rows of sharp crooked teeth, I glimpsed scraps of dark cloth. And a bright yellow stalk as well.

My plan had worked. Not exactly how I had envisioned it, but it had worked.

Blueleaf was an interesting plant. It was rarely found on the right bank, but the left bank abounded with its creeping bushes. Its stalks were similar to steel in terms of elasticity, losing this attribute a few hours after being cut. Children entertaining themselves with this material had to keep cutting fresh stalks. It had been an easy thing to notice when observing the local life.

The stalks were peeled, sharpened from both ends, and spun into tight braids before being wrapped with cloth. I had counted on the kote swallowing it whole. And the creatures’ digestive acid was extremely potent, frequently utilized in certain alchemical recipes as a highly effective solvent. In other words, there was a chance that the cloth would quickly perish in the beast’s belly, releasing the wooden spring. The trick was similar to that used by Eskimos when hunting polar bears, only they used whalebone concealed in a frozen lump of fat. The fat would soften in the bear’s warm belly, and the destructive agent would straighten, its sharp ends inflicting fatal wounds from the inside.

Kote were known to sense poison and similar dirty tricks. This one might have suspected something as well, but its hunger and agitation hadn’t allowed it to avoid the fragrant lure. And as it chewed the cloth, the stalk sprung free, skewering the jaw above and below, and now it couldn’t shut its mouth. But there was more to its strange behavior. The monster fish was moving as though it had been partially paralyzed, whether from sheer shock or from some serious injury.

The behavior of the other kote suggested that a new feast was shaping up, this one of the cannibal variety. More and more of them were gathering, swarming their sickly cousin. Still at risk of being rammed into by another rushing beast, I kept moving. Quickly enough to increase the distance, but not so quickly as to get noticed.

Cause if that happened, I wouldn’t last a minute.

You’ve dealt significant damage to the kote. The kote has died. You are one of numerous creatures responsible for its death. Your actions are recognized as your first ever defeat over an enemy: kote (partial involvement).

 

Kote defeated!

You receive:

Lesser Symbol of Chi x2

Talent Mark, Scent of Blood x1

First defeat of an enemy: kote (partial involvement). You receive:

Lesser Symbol of Chi x2

Lesser Personal Attribute Embodiment, Agility x1

The messages caught me at a midway point to the shore. I didn’t even need to look within to read them, having grown sufficiently accustomed to the changes to note them without any additional straining. Not every detail, sure, but that wasn’t necessary.

So the wounded kote had been finished off by its bloodthirsty brethren. Still, the Order had determined that my contribution to the kill had been significant enough to warrant a generous reward.

So generous, in fact, that I should think long and hard about my next steps. My existing knowledge was perhaps too deficient to maximize this opportunity.

Largely because my knowledge on the matter was pure theory. And theory unbacked by practice was, by default, deficient.

Chapter 11 Like Water in a Sieve

Degrees of Enlightenment: Unknown

Attributes: none

Skills: none

States: none

When trying to find analogues to the local realities, it was easier to imagine that I’d gotten stuck in a video game with all the bells and whistles conceivable, and not kidnapped from my home world with the aim of being sacrificed.

Classic role-playing games measured a character’s development by their level. In Rock, the equivalent was a character’s degrees of enlightenment—milestones achieved only after accumulating a certain amount of chi. My situation on that front was just as pitiful as on all the other fronts—I was still a big fat zero. The one change was that a new ring-shaped indicator had been unlocked, displaying how much chi I still needed to accumulate before achieving the next milestone, or, in gaming lingo, “leveling up.”

The degrees themselves weren’t helpful. They didn’t add to the natives’ strength, agility, stamina or magical ability. Each seventh degree reached unlocked a new talent, and though that could be quite valuable, you couldn’t claim that it made the person an order of magnitude stronger. So, if you didn’t delve into the details, you might dismiss the local equivalent to a “level” as little more than a status number.

However, the truth was that this number determined a great deal. For starters, each degree came with a cap (limit) to its associated attributes. There were five primary