Chapter 26: [26] : Mutating the Class, Eclipse Sovereign

The Purge Wave raged outside the Iron Bastion like a bad thunderstorm, but inside the dome, it was completely peaceful.

Declan sat on a large and comfortable armchair that Sloane had pulled out of a ruined building. He had dragged the chair right into the middle of the city square.

He ignored the thousands of players whispering and pointing at him from a safe distance.

He was entirely focused on the glowing purple coin in his hand.

[Item: Shadowblade Class Token]

It was a good class. For a normal player, an Epic-tier class token on the first day of the Grid was a massive game-changer. It meant instantly out-scaling everyone else in speed and critical damage.

But Declan was not a normal player. He did not do ordinary Epic tiers. He did broken tiers.

Everything was peaceful now, he could use this opportunity to work on some upgrades.

He pulled up his system interface.

[System Resources]

↳ Origin Points: 30,500

Sloane had done a fantastic job running the toll booth. He had enough currency to buy a small country.

"Let us see if my talent works on class items," Declan whispered to himself.

He mentally selected the Shadowblade Token and opened the enhancement menu.

"System. Enhance the Shadowblade Class Token. Push it to plus ten."

The familiar blinding white light erupted from his hand. It was much brighter this time. Enhancing an Epic-tier item required a massive amount of energy.

The chimes rang out in his head like heavy church bells.

[System Enhancement Initiated]

↳ Cost per level for Epic Tier: 1,000 Origin Points

Declan did not care about the cost. He watched his balance drain as the light grew more intense.

[Shadowblade Token +1... +2... +3...]

[Shadowblade Token +4... +5...]

The system threw up the massive and glaring red warning box right on cue.

[Notice: Maximum safety threshold reached. Item shatter imminent. Severe soul backlash guaranteed if enhancement fails.]

A normal player would drop the item in terror. A soul backlash meant the VR pod in the real world would literally fry their nervous system.

Declan just smiled.

[Talent: Boundless Enhancement activated. Cap removed. Safety protocols bypassed.]

The red warning box shattered into a thousand tiny digital pieces. The system tried to stop him, and his SSS-Rank talent just completely bulldozed over the game’s core coding.

[Shadowblade Token +6... +8... +10.]

Ten thousand Origin Points vanished from his inventory.

The coin in his hand began to physically change. The purple glow deepened until it turned into a suffocating pitch-black void.

The metal cracked and reformed. It was no longer a simple coin. It looked like a tiny swirling black hole encased in a ring of jagged dark silver.

[Class Token has reached +10.]

[Triggering Conceptual Mutation...]

A wave of heavy cold energy pulsed out from the token. It was so strong that the players sitting twenty feet away shivered and backed up immediately.

Declan looked at the new stats.

[Item Information]

↳ Name: Eclipse Sovereign Class Token

↳ Tier: Ascendant (Mutated)

↳ Description: Consume this token to acquire the Eclipse Sovereign Class. The user becomes a master of the void. Greatly multiplies base Agility and Strength.

↳ Class Mechanic Unlocked: Eclipse Charges. The user generates one Eclipse Charge for every five seconds spent standing in complete darkness or heavy shadow. Maximum of 5 charges. Consuming a charge multiplies the physical damage of the next attack by 200%.

Declan stared at the text. He read it twice.

"Two hundred percent per charge," Declan breathed. "If I stack five charges, my next hit does a thousand percent more damage. That is a ten times multiplier."

"On top of the Warden’s Halberd mass increase."

It was absolutely disgusting. It was a math equation designed to completely break the physics engine!

"Acquire," Declan commanded.

The dark silver ring shattered. The swirling black hole inside expanded and shot directly into Declan’s chest.

He gasped. It felt like a block of ice had been dropped into his stomach. The cold energy flooded through his veins, rewriting his avatar’s base code.

His muscles tightened. He felt impossibly light, as if gravity did not really apply to him anymore.

[System Notification]

↳ Class Successfully Acquired: Eclipse Sovereign

↳ Base Agility increased by 50.

↳ Base Strength increased by 30.

↳ New Resource Unlocked: Eclipse Charges (0/5)

Declan stood up from the armchair. He did not just stand up. He practically floated to his feet.

His new base Agility of 70 made his movements feel completely effortless. He flexed his fingers. The power coursing through him was intoxicating.

As usual, he needed to test the mechanic.

He looked around the ruined city square. The Iron Bastion’s black dome blocked out the sky, but Sloane had set up several glowing mana-crystals to provide light.

However, there was a dark alleyway between two collapsed buildings just a few yards away.

Nice spot for a quick excursion.

Declan walked into the alley. He stepped out of the crystal light and into the deep shadows.

He stood perfectly still.

A small counter appeared at the bottom of his vision.

[1... 2... 3... 4... 5]

[Eclipse Charge Generated. Current: 1/5]

Declan looked down at his feet. The shadow cast by his body was changing. It was not just a normal shadow anymore.

It looked thicker. It looked like a puddle of black ink that was slowly starting to bubble.

He waited twenty more seconds.

[Eclipse Charge Generated. Current: 5/5 (Maximum)]

His shadow was literally writhing now. Tiny tendrils of dark energy whipped off his boots. He felt like a coiled spring.

The sheer amount of destructive potential stored in his body made his skin tingle.

"Hey, boss!"

Declan turned around. Sloane was jogging toward the alley. She had a glowing clipboard hovering in front of her face.

His little excursion was over.

"We have a slight problem with the city building mechanics," Sloane started saying. Then she stopped dead in her tracks.

She stared at Declan. She stared at the bubbling pool of darkness beneath his feet.

"What in the world is wrong with your shadow?" Sloane asked. She took a nervous step backward. "Are you leaking?"

"I just got a new upgrade," Declan said smoothly. He stepped out of the alley and back into the light.

The moment the light hit him, the bubbling darkness vanished. The counter in his vision remained at maximum, but the visual effect hid itself.

"You got weirder. That is what you got," Sloane grumbled and shook her head.

"Listen, I was going through the Iron Bastion management panel. We have tons of resources. We have enough Origin Points to fund this entire thing. But I cannot build advanced automated defenses like turrets or spell-wards."

"Why not?" Declan asked. "Just click the build button."

"It is locked," Sloane explained. She showed him the clipboard. "The system says we need a specialized NPC to process the raw materials into complex machinery. We need an Artificer or a Master Blacksmith."

"Otherwise, this iron is just going to sit in the treasury doing nothing."

Sounds complicated, but anyway.

Declan frowned. "Where do we get one of those?"

"I checked the Global Auction House forums," Sloane said. "People from other sectors are talking about hidden NPCs. There is a rumor about a guy named Bram."

"He is supposed to be a genius mechanist. But he is located deep underground."

"Okay, How deep?"

"Sector 4, Subterranean Hollows," Sloane read. "It is a Level 30 cave system directly beneath the Ashlands. Nobody has been able to clear it yet because the monsters down there hit like trucks and have insane armor."

That’s what I’m talking about.

Level 30. That was double the level of the World Boss he had just crushed.

Declan cracked his knuckles. He had five Eclipse Charges ready to burn, a teleportation skill, and a new class that begged to be used in the dark.

"A Level 30 dark cave," Declan smiled. "Sounds like my kind of vacation. I will go get our mechanic."