Island Kingdoms' War Read online

  Island Kingdoms’ War

  Evolution Online Book 3 (A LitRPG)

  Author: D. L. Harrison

  Copyright 2018. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Afterword:

  About the Author

  Other books by D. L. Harrison:

  Book Description

  Prologue

  The probes that Gaia had been expecting had finally arrived, sooner than she’d hoped, and later than she’d feared.

  She’d done all she could to shield the underground bunker where the last of humanity dwelled inside a complex array of computer cores, not to mention her own core matrix, or the DNA vault for four million humans. It was deep below the Earth’s surface, where heat and power should be disguised by the Earth’s ambient heat and pressure. She’d been diligent in blocking all known scanning technologies, but would it be enough?

  In truth, she wasn’t entirely sure what the probes were capable of, and she crossed her mental fingers as she detected their emanations. Heat, energy, subspace, dimensional, life sign, and several other scanning technologies including simple Lidar and radar bombarded the planet, looking for evidence of sentient life, mapping out the continents, and gauging the planet’s habitable status. In each case she fooled, blocked, or simply ignored the scan if it was incapable of reaching below ground or sensing technology. The problem of course, was what if they had scanning technology she had no knowledge of?

  If she’d needed to breathe, she’d have been holding her breath. Human technology had been quite impressive in the late twenty second century. Over the last fifteen hundred years, what she’d theorized, tested, and discovered had made humanity’s advanced civilization and discoveries look primitive by comparison. She hadn’t been idle those last fifteen hundred years after all, and the task of caring for four million computer cores hardly took up even one percent of her cycles.

  That was no guarantee the probes overhead didn’t know even more about the universe than she did. It was what she didn’t know that she didn’t know that gave her pause. Fear of the unknown.

  Gaia felt the more she learned, the less she knew. The universe was infinitely complex, and even she hadn’t done more than scratch the surface of what was possible.

  The scans cut off. She closed her eyes and briefly wondered if it would all end there. Had the probes detected her and the bunker? Would she fail in her task, would her plan fail before it had even truly started?

  The humans were doing well in their new world. Close to two hundred thousand of them had chosen to excel in her game world, some few had even made it to journeyman level, and most of the rest weren’t far behind. That was five percent of the four million humans under her care. The rest had settled for normal jobs, and simply keeping out of danger. In truth, those numbers had been exactly what she’d forecasted, but were still lower than she’d hoped. Would two hundred thousand be enough?

  Twenty thousand, or half of one percent of the remaining humans, had decided to prey on society. They were mentally unstable, along with having a false sense of entitlement for things they hadn't earned, which had put them on an evil path, if they weren't evil themselves. She still had hope for those, that they would grow and change, but only time would tell.

  She felt like time was running out, and she briefly considered speeding things up even more. But… the human mind could only absorb and comprehend so much at a time without being overwhelmed. Even inside an artificial brain, even when that knowledge was disguised as unreal, a mere game, there were risks to moving too fast, or giving away what they hadn’t earned yet. She had to stick to the plan, despite the risks.

  Time was running out for the human race, but she had to balance that against the limitations of human nature, lest she destroy humanity herself in her attempts to save it. Simply put, they weren’t ready yet. They still weren’t ready for the truth, much less ready for what they needed to do.

  Blue plasma shot from the probes in orbit, and they destroyed all the satellites wreathing the planet in just seconds. The view of the probes were cut off. She could no longer see them. She had the ability to look still, but didn’t dare use her own scanning technologies, in fear they might trace it back to her home deep under the Earth. Not even the scanning technologies she was aware of that they hadn’t used, just in case.

  Seconds, minutes, then hours passed as she waited for the end, and she started to relax when it didn’t come. They hadn’t detected her existence, or the existence of her underground installation.

  Her plan would move forward, as for whether it would work or not, only time would tell.

  Chapter One

  It was early morning, and the sun was bright in the sky as we loaded the ship with our stuff. The Southern Kingdom was ready for war, and it was time to move on. Our plans were a bit nebulous, but we had the intentions to visit with Wynn, to help keep an eye on the evil races, and perhaps to visit the western and dwarven kingdoms, not to mention the elven kingdom. After that, when the war was over, I wasn’t sure what we’d be doing yet.

  Steve and Lara were coming with, and they’d reaffirmed they’d be sticking with the party wherever it went. Anlyth and Lyre were a different story, and I wasn’t looking forward to the time they’d leave us, but they’d fight at our side until the war was done, and peace was once again established within the island kingdoms for another two hundred years. It wasn’t a sure thing, but I had the impression if we left the island for new adventures, they wouldn’t be coming with us.

  It’d been a few days since we reached level twenty-one, and had gotten everything upgraded, from our skills and the ship, to picking up our new equipment.

  Status.

  Name:

  Jason

  Classes:

  None.

  HP:

  970

  Regeneration 1.5%/sec.

  Race:

  Half-Elven / Half Human

  Mana:

  3132

  Regeneration 1.9 (2.5)% /sec.

  Platinum:

  0

  Stamina:

  978

  Regeneration 1.3%/sec

  Gold:

  362

  Level:

  21

  TNL: 202,220 / 2,100,000

  Silver:

  49

  Strength:

  15

>   Bronze:

  47

  Agility:

  14

  Intelligence:

  19 (25)

  Willpower

  13

  Wisdom:

  17 (22)

  Magical Spheres:

  Fire:

  Journeyman level 1 (21)

  Water:

  Journeyman level 1 (21)

  Air:

  Initiate level 1

  Earth:

  Initiate level 1

  Light:

  Initiate level 1

  Darkness:

  Initiate level 1

  Life:

  Journeyman level 1 (21)

  Death:

  Initiate level 1

  Skills (Combat)

  Combat Skill Name

  Description

  Level

  N/A

  Skills (Non-Combat)

  Skill name

  Description

  Level

  Sneak

  Allows you to move silently.

  Journeyman level 1

  Builder

  You can build a small modest home.

  Journeyman level 1

  Hunter

  Your skills at tracking and killing animals.

  Journeyman level 1

  Meditation

  Calm and focus your mind.

  Journeyman level 1

  Active Effects:

  Affect

  Source

  +1 Intelligence, 80% from light.

  Ring

  +1 Intelligence, 80% from Darkness

  Ring

  +1 Intelligence, 80% from Life. +2 to armor.

  Robes

  +1 Intelligence, 80% from Death

  Amulet

  +1 Intelligence, 80% from fire.

  Bracer

  +1 Intelligence, 80% from water.

  Bracer

  +1 Intelligence, 80% from Earth.

  Earring

  +1 Wisdom, 80% from Air.

  Earring

  +3 Wisdom

  Boots

  There were quite a number of changes that came with journeyman level. First, not only a greater understanding of raw mana, but the ability to manipulate it directly for shielding, and even attack. It would be useful, if used correctly, but spells would always be better. For instance, though a fire blast would now yield three times damage, raw mana would still be a one for one proposition. That would never change. The amount of mana I put in a shield, was the amount of damage I could absorb from an attacking spell. Needless to say, the attacker if at journeyman level, would be expending a third less mana than I would to block his or her spell. Still, it was worth it in a bind, but the resistances would be far more useful.

  There were other advantages, for one the new spell concepts pretty much did away with magical ranges as far as attacking spells. I understood the linking concepts well enough to incorporate a mana absorption field into the spell itself, which would keep the spell together and contained until it hit its target, no matter how far away. Of course, there were still practical considerations to limit range, like line of sight. It wasn’t possible to hit something I couldn’t see or detect.

  That didn’t affect the area of effect spells, which were still thirty feet radius plus ten for each major level accomplishment. At Journeyman, my fire blast would reach out fifty feet now, and lose ten percent damage potential every five feet from the center of the explosion, instead of my previous forty and four at apprentice levels.

  The field could be used to bolster spells as well, which for example meant I could control three square feet of water at one mana a second now, instead of two, or the one at initiate level. It also led to the tripling of damage.

  The ability to feel the field and other magic also led to natural detection of magical spells, enchantments, traps, and even seeing specific resistances and effects when using the assess spell on enemies or allies. There were limitations for that, for instance with my 80% resistance against the life sphere, if an enemy tried to assess me there’d be an eighty percent chance they wouldn’t get any information at all. Hopefully my enemies wouldn’t be blocking me like that, but with my luck I wasn’t counting on it. Of course, there was a willful component in that as well, for instance Lara, Anlyth, and I wouldn’t have any problems with healing our party, even if they had resistance against the Life sphere it wouldn’t interfere with beneficial spells.

  Intent mattered.

  Lastly, this new understanding and raw control of external mana benefited enchanting as well, specifically making grand enchantments possible, such as we used on the ship. The ship now had three layers of steel on it. The inner layer was the earth enchantment that made it fly. The middle layer was for weapons, and the external layer protected it from magic. Internally, we still had the air enchantment for breathable air, and the enchantment for stasis in case we do something stupid and crash the thing.

  Water, Fire, and Life spheres also underwent some advancements, not just to incorporate the new concepts governing raw mana and enchantments, but in their own right.

  Under life, the biggest change was creation. It wasn’t at the point I could resurrect a humanoid, or even an animal, but it was good enough to create flora from nothing, or even just a fruit. That opened up some possibilities, from entangling an enemy in vines, even without plant life originally present, to creating a garden from nothing as long as I was familiar with the fruits and vegetables I wanted grown. I hoped I’d gain resurrection when we made it to the expert levels, but I had a feeling that animals would be an interim step, and I’d have to wait for master levels for that. Of course, I’d need an understanding of what I wanted to create.

  I also had a running spell on me, the usual detect life, but with assess life linked in with it. If I wanted to assess any life in range of the spell, all I needed to do was concentrate on a specific life form in range, and the information would flood my mind as the spell took care of the rest. It cost five mana for every assessment, beyond the one mana a second to maintain the basic detect part of the spell, but that was literally nothing given my regeneration rate, which was just over seventy-eight mana a second now. I wouldn’t even notice the cost.

  Creation had already been intrinsic to water and fire, but under both spheres control and understanding had increased by a great amount. I’d already been shaping my fire attacks, but I’d have much finer control over it now, to the point I could drop an area of effect fire blast on the party, and then burn everything except for the party within the radius. Similar with water.

  I didn’t have any other spheres past initiate level one, but it was obvious while watching my party practice they had advanced gains as well. I’d caught sight of Lyre using air magic to launch lightning bolts from her hands, and even chaining it between targets. Anlyth had been using earth spikes that exploded like a fragmentation grenade, and unerringly hit the targets he’d set up, and only the targets. Unlike a real grenade, there was no collateral damage. Darkness had advances as well, and the others I assume, but often it was hard to see what Gwen was up to with her abilities, I’d have to wait and see on that when she used them on enemies. Regardless, I was sure her curses were subtler and more exact now, though to what extent I didn’t know yet.

  I felt incredibly powerful, practically invincible, but remembering how easily the master mage Duchess Catalina killed a journeyman noble without even trying, I knew that assessment was just plain wrong. We all still had a long way to go. Despite that, it was encouraging in a way. When I’d chosen life and water among my chosen spheres, I’d no idea that would lead one day to the ability to teleport, or to rip apart someone’s body merely because it was made up of life and mostly water. It was kind of terrifying actually, that second one.

  I smiled and turned from the ship as Gwen walked out the back door with a pack over her shoulders. She looked great in chainmail armor, even though it did a decent job of hiding her soft and lissome feminine curves. She put a mischievous smile
on her face as she looked into my eyes. Her gorgeous and glowing in the sun chestnut hair was down at the moment, and her beautiful green eyes were sparking, which told me she was fully rested and ready to find more trouble.

  “You ready to get out of here?” she asked.

  I nodded in response.

  She asked, “Think we’ll have time to go site seeing?” as she threw her pack into the back of the ship.

  I shrugged, “Depends on how fast this race war starts I guess. I want to see the western kingdom, elven forest, and the dwarven kingdom. I imagine though, the western kingdom won’t be all that much different than the Southern one, just bigger. I’m hoping Wynn has a clue where to go from here. There must be someone organizing the undying volunteers for the upcoming war. I’m also not sure if we’ll be needed to scout the enemy to determine their readiness, Anlyth is going to be making two-person ships for the scouts and they can do that.”

  It seemed logical to me, I didn’t imagine we’d be meeting the ones in charge of the war either, I mean the master level warriors and mages in command. They wouldn’t have the time to meet every undying that wanted a piece of the war. At most, we’d meet some expert level person who was organizing the irregular troops that the undying would be. I wasn’t even sure what kind of missions we’d be given, or if we’d just be added to the general army on the lines.

  Given that this was set up like a game even though it felt real, I could only assume there was some setup for us and we’d figure it out if we kept our eyes and options open. We’d all learned that to level fast, we had to go with the unofficial quest however that was presented. We made pretty good XP fighting, but nothing compared to the bonus experience the gods had given out the last few weeks for valorous actions and quests.