CC 9: Tenacity ~ Eleven

Joe walked out of the door unassisted, a pleasant surprise as Jake had threatened to bodily hurl him out of the door if he didn't leave to ‘ponder his few advantages and many disadvantages’. That was fine with the Ritualist, as he'd been unable to create a single alchemical compound of any rarity. Well, technically he had been able to generate lots of Trash rank items, but he knew that he shouldn't count that.

Jake would know, somehow.

Even so, going through the motions and doing everything correctly had been somewhat beneficial. The Alchemist had given him excellent instruction, to the point where Joe had received skill levels in the lore incredibly quickly.

Ritualistic Alchemy has reached Beginner VII!

Alchemical Lore has reached Student III!

Calculus and Number Theory has reached Beginner VIII!

“Two lore levels in one training session…” Joe shook his head at that thought, even though a wide smile was on his face. “If I'm able to keep that speed up in my next few lessons, I should focus my Knowledge spell on other areas. I guess the Math skill came from all of the super intricate fractions of aspects that he was making me contain in various patterns. I bet if my Magical Matrices skill had been lower, that would've gone up as well.”

Joe took a moment to go over the entirety of his crafting skills, as they were what he'd been mostly focusing on, and what he hoped to bring to the highest heights while he was stuck on this world.

Crafting/gathering Skills

Enchanting (General): Beginner V

Field Array: (Maximized)

Herbalism: Novice VI

Message: Novice VII

Natural Magical Material Creation: Student 0

Ritual Magic: Master I

Alchemical Rituals: Beginner 0

Enchanted Ritual Circles: Beginner VIII

Ritual Circles: Master I

Ritualistic Forging: Student II

Magical Matrices: Journeyman 0

Ritualistic Alchemy: Beginner VII

Somatic Ritual Casting: Student VIII

Spellbinding: Student 0

Words of Power (Written): Student 0

“Almost unbelievable that I technically only have ten different crafting skills, since Ritual Magic breaks down into five distinct subskills. Crazy how with just this much, I can literally change the face of this planet when I get powerful enough.” He looked over each of the other skills, noticing with a grimace that a few of them were practically useless to him. “When was the last time I used herbalism? Not like I need to be able to tell plants apart anymore. Kind of wish there was some way to get rid of it.”

Permanently delete skill ‘Herbalism’? You will be granted one free skill point for each novice level, plus five for the skill itself. To regain the skill, you will either need to pay the same amount of free skill points, or complete enough herbalism related tasks to regain the skill and level as it currently is. Yes / No.

The Ritualist read over the message several times before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I just know someone close to me knows about this, and never bothered to mention it for some reason. I bet it's something class trainers use all the time to help their students focus all of their abilities into a useful, cohesive whole. I can't even get mad, since I’m the only class trainer for Ritualists and will absolutely tell them. I'll just need to make sure this goes in my notes for when I train people up again.”

Only taking a few more moments to bemoan the fact that there were still so many fundamental things he didn’t know, Joe cheerfully converted the skill into free skill points… then he went looking for more useless skills.

Herbalism permanently removed! +11 free skill points!

The only other skill or spell that he found that he might be okay with giving up was ‘Wither Plant’, but he'd already increased that to the Student rank. At this point, he felt that he had invested enough time into it that he should hang on to the spell, just in case there was some enormous plant that needed to die. He felt it was a fair concern, as he was in a world of giants. Just before he closed out of the skill sheet, Joe realized he'd overlooked one of his skills because it was technically listed under his combat skills. Usually, he wouldn't consider getting rid of one of those important abilities, but Intrusive Scan tended to make more issues than it solved.

First of all, anything at his level or higher could easily tell that they were being scanned, and would know exactly where he was. As he progressed through the worlds, he was certain he wouldn't get much use out of this ability. He decided that it was appropriate to cash it in for additional points, figuring that it would be easier to assume everything was much, much stronger than he was. If he wanted to know a non-hostile entity's name, he should just ask for it.

Removing the skill brought him an additional fifteen free points, and he double checked his skills more carefully to make sure he hadn’t missed anything else. “Nope… everything else is as close to perfect as I can get it.”

Seeing that he'd optimized his abilities to this degree even without knowing this shortcut returned the smile to his face. “At least I know what to do with useless skills now! Where should I put these skill points…? Let me see… when I got my Reductionist class, I remember it telling me that I wouldn't be able to use skill points for my ritual magics anymore.”

He tried, just to be on the safe side, and got instant confirmation that he couldn't place the skill points on anything to do with his class skills. That left him plenty of options, but his eyes kept returning to his Combat Ritual Orbs skill. It had been stuck at Beginner five for a long time, and he had to consider the fact that it was going to be harder to use them at all on this world. Just to find confirmation that he wasn't worrying about nothing, Joe flicked open the bandolier he was wearing, and attempted to take control of the orbs.

One of them came out with ease, but as the others lifted from their placements, they dropped to the ground as if the gravity of this world was ten times stronger than he was used to.

“Oh look, found confirmation!” Not hesitating for a moment, knowing that this was an important skill even if it wasn't going to be the main focus, he put five of his free points into his Combat Ritual Orbs skill, four points into Artisan Body, and decided to keep the last seventeen until he found a place where he was particularly in need of a rapid boost.

Congratulations! Combat Ritual Orbs (Exotic) has reached Apprentice 0! You are now able to easily control three Ritual Orbs with great finesse. The durability of all orbs bound to your Characteristics is increased by 25%!

Congratulations! Artisan Body has reached Apprentice 0! You are now able to devote a set amount of your Stamina Regeneration to this skill, to automatically begin training a physical Characteristic (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, or Perception). Would you like to do so now? Yes / No.

Both of those rank bonuses were extremely beneficial. Joe hadn't yet had one of his bound orbs destroyed, but he knew that it would be a painful experience if it were to happen. Going by the warnings on his weapons, that would mean one of his Characteristics would be effectively halved until he was able to recreate and rebind the item. An automatic durability boost was always appreciated. The next bonus was even more exciting.

Joe had a ridiculous amount of trouble increasing his Characteristics at a rapid rate. With the speed boost that his Artisan Body gave him, it would still require forty-eight minutes of continuous training to increase any of the offered Characteristics by a single point. “How much stamina can I set to be used?”

Up to 50% of your Stamina Regeneration can be diverted into automatic Characteristic training.

“Good enough.” Joe decided to allocate that full amount, and watched with excited eyes as he chose to increase his lowest physical Characteristic: Constitution. A notification popped up, and he read it out loud in absolute disbelief. “Time until Characteristic increase is… one hundred eighty hours? Are you kidding me? That's over a week! System, what’s with that number?”

Calculation is as follows: Characteristic is at fourth threshold (above 150 but below 200). Stamina Regeneration allocated is 3.32. 150*4 = 600 stamina hours required. 600/3.32 = 180.72 stamina hours.

“So I need to be at half stamina regeneration for more than a week in order to…” Joe stopped talking, simply waving it all away. “You know what? I'm not using my stamina very much anyway, and incremental gains are still gains. Fine.”

For a very long moment, he was sorely tempted to dump an additional ten free points into that skill and bring it up to the Student rank, but he decided that he needed to keep those in reserve just in case—even if it was aggravating to be patient. Joe peeled his mind away from thoughts of increasing his physical capabilities, and turned his attention to the enormous, mostly empty wasteland that he was standing in.

Thanks to reducing the remains of the World Boss, he was in possession of a hoard of raw materials that he could transform into anything. Joe's gaze landed on the Town Hall that was the center of bustling activity. He grimaced slightly, amending his thoughts. “I can make almost anything. Locked out of buildings for the time being.”

There was one major benefit to having a large, wide open space that was mostly safe. Joe chose a mostly unpopulated corner of the Hamlet and cleared an open space for himself. Far away from the center of activity, from the oncoming Beast Waves that were sure to attack now that a town hall had been built, he activated a Ritual Tile and was instantly hidden behind a reflective bubble.

“If no one wants me to take care of their issues for them, that works out perfectly for me. Just means I have all the time in the world to figure out what I want to be doing, and make it work. Hey! I can also make some progress on my Class quests. Killing a thousand monsters with a ritual I’ve never used before isn't going to happen by itself.”

Short-term goal fully embraced, Joe pulled out his reward from completing the second part in the Student Ritualist questline: The Ritual of Slaughter.