Okay, that's all the skill points spent, time to look at my badass tokens next.
Swapping over to the badass section of my aquamarine blue colored holographic system, I spent a dozen and a half seconds weighing my different options and eventually settled on one.
I did say I was going to stock up on points so I can find out how much each of these stats cost to increase, so I might as well investigate them now since I got a stock of 244 badass tokens to work with.
Beginning my investigation into their individual costs, I skipped past agility and selected intelligence.
[ Badass Tokens -10 ][ Intelligence +1 ]
As soon as I upped my intelligence to a value of 6, I felt as if a fog had lifted from my mind, making my thoughts clearer than they had ever been before.
That's quite the unique feeling.
I spent a few seconds enjoying this clearing of the mind and noticed my memories that were once fuzzy were becoming clearer by the second.
Oh, I can even recall past memories and information with better crity too.
Aside from that and feeling as if a veil was lifted from my mind, I quickly discovered my calcuting and thinking speed had undergone a noticeable improvement as well as many of my other brain functions.
If pouring points into my intelligence improves all these brain functions, it should be possible to get to the level of being able to absorb information like a sponge and process it as if I was a supercomputer or something comparable. I might even be able to develop a sort of photographic memory, too.
But imagine all of that is going to require an absurd amount of badass token to even obtain something even remotely near that level... Thinking of all those benefits intelligence can provide, this single attribute could really become a tremendous asset to me, one that would be a major help in accomplishing my longer-term goals, like taking control of the Ats corporation.
Pleased with the improvements to my brain and looking forward to what I could potentially obtain as I dropped more and more badass tokens onto my intelligence attribute, I moved onto strength next.
[ Badass Tokens -10 ][ Strength +1 ]
Right as those points of mine went into strength, I felt a sudden sharp pain begin pulsing from the core of my body.
This can't be good.
I thought to myself, not knowing how right I was going to be in a few moments. This pain I was experiencing quickly spread from its origin point to the entirety of my body and began burning as if I had tens of thousands of tiny fire ants going to town on my muscles, ligaments, certain organs like my heart, and god knows what else.
*Urgh* I grunted through gritted teeth as that sharp burning pain overtook my body and rampaged throughout it.
Unable to do nothing but hold out against the agonizing waves, I kept my jaw locked and my teeth gritted and waited for it to pass as my body started cold sweating in buckets.
These excruciating sensations went on for who knows how long and eventually withered away as if it had never occurred nor existed in the first pce.
"Holy fuck, that was painful!"
"But I suppose it makes sense since there is no gain without pain." I thought aloud as my body continued exuding sweat.
Gd that I got through that hellish experience without breaking down, I began testing my body out to see what had improved. Performing a plethora of movements with and without my weapons, I found it easier and somewhat less taxing to perform any of my previous actions. This included wielding my two machine guns simultaneously, too.
Let's see if I can wield that savage combat pick without feeling like I'm going rip my shoulder out of my socket at any moment.
Doing just that, I withdrew my heavy melee weapon from my digital backpack and gripped it strongly so it wouldn't go anywhere. I made a few basic swings with no real technique and felt its weight had lessened some. However, it still wasn't at a comfortable level that I could use in combat, hence I returned it to my inventory once again to be used when I am finally able to.
I'm gonna need a few more points in strength before I can use that monster of melee weapon in an actual combat scenario let alone practice.
Moving on from that weapon and back to figuring out the cost for all the badass stats, I don't think it would be a bright idea to continue things here, seeing how I just experienced a bout of debilitating pain. The sort of pain that would prevent me from fending off against the creatures that call these tunnels home.
Yeah, I can't guarantee a simir experience won't await me when I put badass tokens in the other stats, so I better head back and seal off the mine tunnel before I return to looking into their costs.
Siding on the side of caution, I backtracked my way through the tunnel whilst keeping my wits about me for any surprises. When I safely passed through the massive open bulkhead and entered the bottom of the mineshaft, I roamed over to the door panel and pressed the rge red button required to shut the door. The second I pressed the button, it activated the sirens and rotating lights around the massive opening and began releasing chirps whilst the gargantuan solid door started grinding closed.
I waited patiently with my weapons aimed at the rapidly disappearing opening, weary of crab worm, skags, and whatever else inhabited the tunnels. Thankfully, nothing showed up by the time the bulkhead closed and fully sealed my safe haven off from the danger filled mine.
*Phew*
Relieved to not have to constantly scan my surroundings and look over my shoulder nearly every second, I strolled over to a nearby dusty chair, cleaned it off with an old rag, and took a load off.
"Ahh, that was some adventure alright."
I rexed there for a few minutes just simply organizing my thoughts and repying my fights with the many creatures I had annihited in the mine tunnel in my attempt to locate an escape route that I could use in case shit hit the fan above with Sledge and his bandit tribe.
I really did a number to those oversized alien lobsters, didn't I...
Okay, I've rested enough, time to get back to it. But before I do, I'm going to go take this sweaty armor off and investigate those showers first and see if I can't remove this sweat.
Wanting to get rid of this sticky feeling before I continue my investigation, I trekked to the locker room, unequipped my armor and id it out so it could air out. From there, I went over to the showers and turned one of them on to see if they were even still functioning. Moments after turning the cold water on the pipes in the walls started producing a bunch of noise and before long, dirty brown water shot out of the shower head.
I hope this clears up.
Giving it a minute, the brown eventually cleared up and dissipated from the water, leaving with just clean H2O. With the cold water running just fine, I tried the hot water next and after waiting 30 seconds for the pipes in the walls to stop rattling, not a hint of hot water came.
*Sigh* "I suppose cold water is better than nothing."
Not all that enthused about the ck of hot water, I got over it, cleaned off a couple of wracks as well as some metal bars and began stripping and ying my sweaty clothes on them so they would air and dry out some whilst I removed my build up of sweat. As soon as I got my clothes off, I noticed the muscles all across my body appeared to have leaned out and grown by a marginal amount and seemed to be denser.
Even my underdeveloped legs have seen some decent improvement... In fact, it looks like they've improved more than any other part of my body.
Thrilled about my legs, seeing some decent muscle growth and beginning to catch up with my very developed and built upper body, I approached the cold shower and put my arm in first.
Shit, that is cold.
I let my arm adjust to the cold water and slowly moved into the shower.
"Ahh, it actually doesn't feel that bad now that I'm in it."
Getting comfortable, I looked around for some soap but found nothing of the sort.
Now that I'm thinking of it, I don't recall seeing a single bar of soap nor any else of the sort... I guess I'll just be cleaning with water then.
With only my hands and the cold shower being the only things I could use to get myself clean, I did the best I could with what I had avaible. After nearly ten minutes, I had removed the yer of sweat I gained in the mining tunnel and the dirt and grime the original owner of this vessel accumuted. Happy to be feeling somewhat clean for the very first time in this world, I grabbed one of the incredibly rare clean towels I discovered in my looting and scavenging of the locker room and speedily dried my massive physique off.
From there, I ventured over to my clothes that were still anything but clean.
Yeah, I don't really want to throw on my dirty sweat-soaked clothes after I just got done showering, so let's see if any of those washers and dryers are still working.
Unwilling to wear that filthy outfit of mine, I strolled out of the shower room buck naked and moseyed on over to the undry room and started investigating the situation there. I messed around with most of the machines and found none of them would turn on nor do much of anything, no matter how much I messed with them.
Fuck, do I really have to put those clothes back on?
As dread was beginning to set in, I had an idea.
Let me check the breakers before I go that far.
Wanting to try absolutely everything and expend every avenue I could before needing to wear those gross articles, I went straight to the breaker box and, sure enough, the breakers for the undry machines had been flipped.
Overjoyed that I may have found the potential issue, I raced on back to the machines and tested the two cleanest looking ones out of the bunch.
"Phew, I lucked out there." I thought aloud as the washing machine and dryer came to life.
Shutting off the dryer and then washing machine to prevent it from filling up with water, I went and grabbed my clothes before returning and throwing them into the washing machine.
*Sigh*
If only I had some detergent.
With nothing else to do in the meantime whilst my clothes were in the wash, I sat my bare ass on the metal bench in the undry room and opened up my system and navigated straight to the badass section ready to resume where I left off.
I did strength st, so toughness is next on the chopping block.
[ Badass Tokens -10 ][ Toughness +1 ]
The instant my toughness attribute increased, I felt a warm comfortable sensation spread out from my center and eventually reach every point of my body. Enjoying the warmth bathing my frame, it subsisted for a while but was eventually repced by an equally pleasurable cooling sensation for a simir length of time before finally disappearing.
Mm, that was pretty nice.
Done enjoying that rexing transformation that was in stark contrast to my strength one, I began inspecting my body and trying a few things to see what had changed besides my maximum health, health regeneration, stamina, and stamina regeneration increasing.
What I discovered in my tests was that my skin appeared more durable and was just generally tougher all around. Although not rougher thankfully, so it still retained the smoothness of human skin. And as great as that was, it was not the only change. The entirety of my body also seemed tougher and less susceptible to damage and wear and tear overall. Something was also different about my muscles, too, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Well, I'm sure I'll figure it out in due time.
[ Ding! Not Enough Badass Tokens ]
How many tokens do I need to raise my vitality by 1 fucking point???
Even though I was kind of pissed off that I still couldn't figure what it cost to raise that specific attribute, I got over it and moved onto the vanil badass stats.
Let's hope these all have the same affordable costs.
Praying I didn't come across yet another expensive stat I couldn't afford, I began increasing the vanil stats one by one and swiftly determined that critical hit damage through shield recharge rate only required a mere single badass token to improve them by 0.1%.
Nice, they all have the same cost. Now what about the ones below it?
[ Badass Tokens -10 ][ Backpack Space +1 ]
An additional backpack slot for 10 badass tokens ain't too bad.
[ Badass Tokens -5 ][ Bank Space +1 ]
That's even cheaper, but I've yet to gain access to a bank, so this is pretty much worthless to me at this moment. And even if I did have access, I'd much rather invest in backpack space since I have access to it at all times no matter where I'm at.
[ Badass Tokens -10 ][ Ammunition Space +100 ]
Being able to carry a whole extra hundred rounds with me wherever I go is something I'd use a hundred tokens on let alone 10.
[ Badass Tokens -5 ][ Grenade Space +1 ]
Hmm, an extra grenade slot for 5 tokens isn't great as a 100 ammo space for 10, but it isn't bad per se.
Alright, I've finally figured out the cost for every badass stat minus vitality of course, so now what do I want to do with the rest of my tokens... Well, as much as I would love to save what I have left so I can find out how much it costs to up my vitality, I'm not exactly at the level where I can face any threat I come across. Thus, I should focus on increasing my personal abilities and combat power so I can at least have a fighting chance of surviving on this ruthless and unforgiving pnet.
Decision made, I started looking through the various stats I could increase and quickly began allocating the remaining 173 badass tokens.
I'm still not satisfied with my current speed, so I'll double my agility to 10.
[ Badass Tokens -50 ][ Agility +5 ]
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
I thought as I was in the midst of testing out my upgraded movement speed.
Now that my movement speed issues have been resolved, my ammo capacity could use a boost as well, so let's bring that up to snuff.
[ Badass Tokens -60 ][ Ammunition Space +600 ]
2,000 rounds should be enough to handle at least a few swarms as long as I'm firing accurately.
What needs some help next... My intelligence is cking compared to the rest of my stats, so I'll put another point in it. As for the remaining 53 points they can go into recoil reduction, since I still don't have my weapons under my complete control when I'm dual wielding them.
[ Badass Tokens -10 ][ Intelligence +1 ][ Badass Tokens -53 ][ Recoil Reduction +5.3% ]
Finished leveling and distributing my skill points as well as every single st one of my badass tokens, I finally exited my system menu and just took a minute to rex whilst my clothes spun around in the washing machine's window.
[ Status Changes ]Experience Points: +2,060Total Experience Points Earned: 630 → 2,690Health: 2,760 → 2,882.4Health Regeneration: 16.1 HP/s → 16.812 HP/sShield Capacity: 4,000 → 4,004Shield Recharge Rate: 1,000 → 1,001Shield Recharge Dey: 2.5 seconds → 2.4975 secondsStamina: 2,300 → 2,400Stamina Regeneration: 5.7 SP/s → 6 SP/sBadass Tokens: 246 → 0Agility: 5 → 10Intelligence: 5 → 7Strength: 13 → 14Toughness: 17 → 18Critical Hit Damage: +0.1%Elemental Effect Chance: +0.1%Elemental Effect Damage: +0.1%Fire Rate: +0.1%Gun Damage: +0.1%Grenade Damage: +0.1%Maximum Health: +0.1%Melee Damage: +0.1%Recoil Reduction: +0.1% → +5.4%Shield Capacity: +0.1%Shield Recharge Dey: -0.1%Shield Recharge Rate: +0.1%Backpack Space: +1Bank Space: +1Ammunition Space: +700Grenade Space: +1
[ Loot Acquired ]Ammunition: 1,887
Just letting you guys know now that releases are going to be much more infrequent for all of my works for the next year to year and a half. If you want a more detailed expnation why, you can check out the pinned public post on Patreon.
