Ruthless ~ 13!

~ 13 ~

“I can't help but feel that we missed something.” Joe muttered as they walked away from the dungeon. “Something was nagging at me there at the end…”

“So go back tomorrow and look.” Poppy grumped at him. “Don’t just keep repeating yourself. Did you get the five points of dex?”

Joe blinked and looked at the rewards. “Yeah. Oh! I also got a point for characteristic training! Holy… nine hundred and ten experience, too!”

As the notification faded, Joe was lifted into the air and an explosion of golden light raced away from him. He landed, took a deep breath, and whooped, “Level sixteen!” 

“Congrats!” Bard cheered for him.

“What?” Alexis gasped with unrepentant jealousy. “There is no way that you were training dexterity for a full, uninterrupted hour!”

Shrugging helplessly, Joe simply declined to answer. “If I can do this tomorrow, I’ll clear the threshold for dexterity!”

“Atta boy!” Bard whacked him on the arm. “Good things happen with tha’. Ya get all sorts ah… flexible.”

Alexis blushed, opened a bottle, and tossed it at Bard. “What did I tell you about embarrassing me in front of the group! Enjoy emptying yourself!”

Bard’s stomach groaned loudly enough that Joe took a hasty step away. “Joe! No! Cleanse me, quick!”

“Bard! I don't have that spell any more!” Joe looked on with horrified eyes as Bard sprinted toward the treeline. The remaining party looked at Alexis, who simply raised a brow at them.

“Let that be a warning to the rest of you!” Alexis threatened darkly. “If I’ll do that to my boyfriend, think about what you would get.”

Poppy and Joe looked at each other, Jaxon jumped after a butterfly that flew past. Poppy unsheathed his rapier just an inch and looked Alexis in the eye, “Your boyfriend might stand that, but do something like that to me and we’re done. Think on that, before you start making power plays and tooting your own horn. You’ve been pushing all of us pretty hard recently, and you’ve been doing a fine job. Start attackin’ me, though… I’ll make sure you go off to respawn faster than I can inhale your poison.”

Alexis deflated. “Wow, take a joke and turn it into… Just wow, Poppy.”

“Don’t turn this around on me-”

“Oh, look! Loot!” Joe loudly exclaimed, dropping all the Neigh-Bears out of his storage devices. “Let’s get these processed. I’m betting that we’ll find a few Cores, lots of materials that will sell nicely…”

The party members turned away from each other, avoiding eye contact as they all went through and chopped up the Neigh-Bears. As a benefit of being on Guild property, each time they pulled out usable meat, it vanished into nothingness and a notification appeared.

Contribution points added!

“That’s handy.” Joe muttered, pushing a carving knife through a thick section on the beast’s haunch. “Easy cleanup. Now where’s… that… Core?”

Joe kept slicing for another few minutes, then sighed and sat back. “Forget this. Shadows… pull, push… solidify!”

The entire beast was pulled into ten large chunks, the meat and bones tearing rather than being cut. “Shoot… still don't have perfect control of this. That was supposed to be razor sharp.”

“Joe, that hide is totally ruined now.” Poppy sighed and sat down as well. “Whatever… they aren't worth much these days anyway. Here’s the Core, found it when the head was pulled off.”

“Thanks.” Joe took the Core and grimaced. “Common Core. Ugh. What a wasteful joke.”

“Those were pretty common monsters, I’m actually surprised they gave a Core at all.” Jaxon leaned in and looked at the Core. “Seems… almost different than the others that I’ve seen.”

“Huh?” Joe looked at the notification from touching it.

Common-grade synthetic monster Core found! Would you like to convert this into experience points? Current worth: Five hundred experience points.

“Five hundred?” Joe looked again. “Synthetic? This is a common grade Core, why is it worth the same amount as a low grade, or damaged Core?”

“If you hadn’t noticed yet, this is also a perfect cube instead of s gemstone shape.” Jaxon pointed out. Joe had not seen that, the light emanating from it making him not want to look at it directly.

“As long as it works for what I need, then I don’t care if it’s a smiley face.” Joe sighed and stored the Core. “Must have been my new skill messing with things.”

“Good to know that there is another way to get those Cores. Have you seen what they are costing at the contribution shop?” Alexis rejoined the conversation, clearly trying to put the previous sore conversation behind them.

“Mike actually got that up and running?” Joe chuckled at the thought. He was sure the man was going to rub it in the next time they met. “Good for him, I suppose?”

Bard came out of the woods, gave Alexis a dark look, and walked off toward the Guild town. She swallowed and looked at the ground as they all resumed their journey. Joe was thinking over his recent realizations, and had to sigh at the sheer amount of work that he had in front of him. “Hmm… show skill details: Ritual Magic.”

Ritual Magic (Expert I): Ability to create, maintain, and change rituals much more efficiently than usual. -.5% mana and component cost per skill level. Ritualist class exclusive: -50% mana and component cost. Current bonus maximized at 85% cost reduction.

“I haven’t been able to budge this skill in weeks now.” Joe looked at his Ritual Alchemy skill, and hoped that with the new information he had gained… his skills would at the least stop stagnating. 

Soul Forge completed! New skill acquired: Artisan Body.

Artisan Body (Novice IX): Everything that you do with your body is just a tiny bit easier. Mind, body, or something more ephemeral, all Characteristics are .1n times faster to train during a daily skill increase, where n = skill level.

Joe stared at the new skill, trying to figure out how the skills he had combined were able to make this. This means that… if I needed to train for a full hour, I’d only need to train for… almost fifty-five minutes? That means that I need to train for… about thirteen and a half? Useful, but not really. What if I took that to rank fifty?”

He worked on the mental math for a long moment, really missing calculators for the thousandth time. “No, I’m wrong from the start. It says ‘point one N times faster’.That means that… why am I having so much trouble with this? My math was right. At fifty, this would cut the time to train characteristics in half.”

“Sir!” Joe jumped and looked around. He was sitting alone at a picnic table, and at least an hour had passed since his team had started walking home. Joe focused his confused glance on a messenger, who handed over a box. “Package for you.”

Joe took the box and stood, making his way swiftly to the temple. “I don't like this. I'm not this scatterbrained, these debuffs are messing with me.”

He looked at the extraordinarily plain box, pulled on his Exquisite Shell to the maximum, and opened it. The plain outer shell fell away, revealing a box with the Royal Crest on it. “This… is not what I expected.”

Opening it, a letter and a small golden circle were revealed. He read the letter first, not trusting that he would know what to do with the other item.

To Joe,

Please be aware that we 

are fully aware of the acts that you

continue to do. We see the benefits you have wrought, 

and hope that this upgrade of Our gift to you 

will be put to good use. 

Queen Marie.

-P.S. In case that wasn't clear enough, this is Our thanks for the new arena. 

Touch the circlet to the golden marker on your forehead.

-P.P.S. Do not combine these.

“I mean… not going to throw it away, so I might as well use it, right?” Joe picked up the glowing circle and placed it on his forehead. What was that last part about combin-”

Skill gained: Essence Cycle (Novice I). One of the four magical senses that can be granted by the King or Queen of Ardania. By powering your eyes with mana, you will be able to see the energy in all things. Practice will be needed in order to be able to ignore the ambient power in the environment. Higher levels of this skill will allow for more detailed studying of the energies. Masters of this skill are rumored to be able to perfectly learn spells simply by seeing them a single time. Effect: 1n% increased mana-visual sensation, where n = skill level. Cost: 40 mana per second.

“Don’t combine these with each other. Now that makes more sense.” Joe looked into a mirror, grimacing as he saw that the mostly-clear but slightly-gold dot on his head had turned into an outline of an eye. It was small, but it glowed softly, and he was bald. It was very noticeable. “I just… fine. Try it out, don't think about how weird this is. Just makes me look like a classic Monk. It’s fine.”

Sitting in the lotus position, Joe looked straight ahead and activated his new ability. “Essence Cycle.”

In retrospect, sitting in a massive magical building, in a portion of said building that was devoted to the divine, may have been a bad idea. May have been.

Hours later, Joe was able to look away from his inspection of the deepest darkness that he had ever seen. He had been staring at and inspecting pure dark-aligned power, and really felt that he had gained something from it.

You have stared into the void and walked away with a smile on your face! Characteristic training complete. +1 Charisma. Caution, gaining charisma in this fashion may lead to side effects. For being the first traveler to discover this new method of characteristic training: Charisma +5!

Skill increased: Essence Cycle (Novice V).

Joe wobbled to his feet, feeling sick and wrung-out. His head was pounding, and he felt that he was going to drop. “Wh-what’s happening? Character sheet!”

Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Mage (Actual: Rituarchitect)

Profession I: Tenured Scholar (Actual: Arcanologist)

Profession II: Ritualistic Alchemist

Character Level: 16 Exp: 136,123 Exp to next level: 16,877

Rituarchitect Level: 4 Exp: 8,936 Exp to next level: 1,064

Hit Points: 282/350

Mana: 60/1,650 (115 Reserved)

Mana regen: 33.89/sec (Base 30.81/sec increased by gear)

Stamina: 315/315

Stamina regen: 5.68/sec

Characteristic: Raw score (Modifier)

Strength: 33 (1.33)

Dexterity: 48 (1.48)

Constitution: 40 (1.4)

Intelligence: 110 (3.1)

Wisdom: 85 (2.35)

Charisma: 40 (1.4)

Perception: 63 (2.13)

Luck: 31 (1.31)

Karmic Luck: 0

“Ugh. That constant mana drain… it must have eaten into my health when I was running too low on mana.” Joe took deep breaths, waiting for his mana to quickly refill. “Right… onward toward my goals.”