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

to keep advancing, but only because their affluent parents weren’t just raising their kids, but actively expanding their vessels. After all, the more of the primordial energy one imbibed, the more opportunity they would have in life.

So, in a way, I was one lucky bastard, my “infinite” vessel having been stretched to the max from the very start.

But I was in no hurry to rejoice at my stroke of luck. And not only because the remaining eight hundred twenty-six units would still need to be acquired somehow—quite a tall order for someone in my condition.

The bigger concern was that, at present, my zero degree was only filled by sixty units out of a possible eight hundred eighty-eight. And I very clearly remembered that there had been sixty-two when first I laid eyes on it.

And when I had checked again after salvaging the sack of spices, there had been sixty-one. There could be no confusion on that front.

So what happened? Though one’s “base chi” could theoretically be reduced, that typically required tremendous effort on the part of an enemy or some other horrific hardships. And even then, it wasn’t guaranteed.

My situation was clearly different. I couldn’t blame upon any enemy the fact that my zero degree reservoir was leaking like a rusty galvanized bucket. And if the rate of leakage remained steady, it wouldn’t take more than several days to empty, dropping me back to square one. Moreover, if I allowed it to happen, I feared an irreversible return to my initial state. Meaning I would revert to being a hopeless wreck incapable of the smallest development, forced to rely on regularly recharging the amulet to keep drawing breath. To say that I wasn’t enamored with such a prospect would be a gross understatement.

How long until somebody noticed such a valuable item hanging on the neck of a homeless wretch? It might be invisible, but surely some possessed the ability to see through the ruse. There was no scenario under which I would retain possession of the amulet indefinitely.

So, priority number one for me was to keep myself from falling back to zero.

All I had to my name at the present was twenty-three small and four medium symbols of chi. The former yielded one unit each, the latter yielded a dozen. That meant an additional seventy-one units with which to fill the ring. If my math was correct, I was losing six-seven units per day, so this would delay the woeful prospect of nullification by over a week. Added to my existing reserves, I had roughly twenty days to work with.

But what would tomorrow bring? Today’s efforts had netted me six units in all, a solid return by all accounts. A common peasant would have to toil for a solid month to get anywhere near this number. Assuming I got lucky—which was more than a fair assumption—I couldn’t possibly rely on recreating such a feat with sufficient frequency. And that meant nullification was not only inevitable, it might arrive sooner rather than later.

What else could I do? My attempt at activating the Novice Healer mark had failed. The number of talents unlocked at any particular degree must conform to the number of attributes achieved at said degree. And I had zero of those. All I could do was unlock one point in Agility, having received a personal embodiment of this attribute from my fight with the kote. But unlocking it was half the battle—now I had to fill it to the max in a process similar to filling my general reservoir with chi. I had gotten one small essence of Agility from mother, which would add one point to the attribute’s progress bar of the several dozen it should require to fill in full.

As far as I knew, the lowest possible number of points to advance an attribute was ten. In other words, there was no point in unlocking Agility, as there was no way I could fill in the required number. And that wasn’t the only problem. Activating an attribute with a personal embodiment should start it off with one progress point from the get-go. But if my attributes leaked in the same way as my chi, I stood to lose that bonus almost as soon as I used it.

Which brought me to my second objective: find the starting embodiments of the other attributes, as well as further means of their development. I was aware of only one way of getting those: defeating opponents with advanced attributes of the same kind. I had gotten lucky with the kote when the Order deemed my rather insignificant contribution to the killing of one predator worthy of a reward. And those beasts were certainly agile, like living torpedoes, swift and lethal.

Objective number three: fill up my chi reservoir. Perhaps that would put an end to the leakage, neutralizing the Damoclean sword of nullification from constantly looming over me.

Maybe that should be the primary objective, but I was too sensible a person to hope to find so much chi within a short enough span. Again, the six units I had acquired today were fantastic luck. Based on all that I had heard from others, that kind of luck might only happen to a person once in his life.

Or not at all.

I would need over eight hundred units even before accounting for the constant leakage. That was a small fortune. Indeed, a fortune, as chi symbols were proper merchandise. One small symbol was enough to buy several days’ worth of plain food. That was my impression, at least—actual market values could be much different. Besides, prices varied from region to region, and our homestead and village with a handful of subjects, lost amid the northern boondocks, surely couldn’t represent the whole world.

Still, there was no way I could earn that much. Which meant my sole lifeline was the magic of the amulet. As soon as it lost