My sincere apologies for the incorrect release this morning! This should not be available to all the correct folks.
NOTE:Patreon does not like formatting/different 'alignments' of paragraphs that help make this fiction what it is.
Because of that, I will always be providing a link the google doc for each chapter where you can see it properly formatted. Elsewise, feel free to read the chapter here, if that is your preference.
I am sorry for the limitations of this platform.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14oy7pkwBpri_dHaXU0WfIutGgJpquarFg5ZmdJaTuZc/edit?usp=sharing
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Alex’s vision cleared almost instantly as he felt power washing through him, every part of him improving by nearly fifteen percent from the single level.
Oh, this is so broken. He chuckled nervously. He was about to continue his revelry, when he remembered something from the System Basics book. It had talked about the pros and cons of improving the rarity of one’s race and classes earlier in level growth.
It was quite common to strive for more ‘advanced’ classes for the secondary and tertiary position as means of increasing power, but the most powerful under the System were said to do so at level one, despite the difficulties that brought upon the lowest leveled.
So, there’s some silver-spooned brat out there with a Legendary Race and Classes from level 1 across the board. In fact, if the book was to be believed, that was the ‘default’ for the elites of various worlds, with the occasional Emperor’s scion having Mythical mixed among those Legendary.
Alex still grinned at his gains, but he also promised himself that he wouldn’t let it go to his head or allow him to assume that he was uniquely powerful, even as he leveled up.
There’s always a bigger fish, eh? He chuckled again.
He pulled up his stat sheet then, grimacing slightly. There were a lot of decimal places due to his various boosts, but he did have some points to assign… twenty-two, in fact.
Alex began manipulating the numbers, and he found that he was able to get all but two sorted and landing on whole numbers, and while those were his lowest two stats as well, they wouldn’t be for long due to his new class.
With a smile at being able to take at least one decision off his plate with ease, he confirmed his choice.
Alright, alright. I don’t have much more time before I need to meet up with Natasha. What’s left?
By his notifications, he had a skill for his new class to choose, and one for his first class as well.
Right! I forgot that I still need to choose my next class skill for my first class. Not wanting to forget again, he pulled up that list, diving in.
Class Notice:Class Skill or Spell ChoiceA Choice Must be Made:
Regrowth (Simple) [Spell]Heavy Strike (Simple) [Skill]Basic Life Chains (Simple) [Spell]Basic Health Manipulation (Simple) [Skill]Rage of a Great-Bladesman (Simple) [Skill]Life’s Sustenance (Common) [Spell]Life’s Eyes (Simple) [Skill]
New:Harden Life (Common) [Skill]Sacrifice Life (Common) [Skill]
He immediately noticed that all of the previously offered skills had reduced in rarity, but a quick check of the descriptions showed that they had not changed at all beyond that.
So, it could be a strategy to let them reduce, so I can build them up higher on my own? It was an interesting idea to consider… later.
Heavy Strike and Rage of the Great-Bladesman were still both unappealing in the direction they seemingly would take his build.
Life’s Sustenance was tempting as it would supposedly take care of all his ‘external needs’ with the use of mana. Additionally, if he combined it with two of his current spells—Create Water and Create Rations—it would cut down on his number of skills and spells that needed to be advanced, but the utility of Create Water on its own was too great to give up. He might be able to combine it with just Create Rations, but that was a rather poor reason to pick an option unless there was literally nothing else of interest. He resolved, yet again, to focus some on Create Rations and uplift it as well. Then, he moved on to the next item.
Life’s Eyes would let his eyes see the life in anything he looked at, and it still seemed like it would synergize with Detect Life and Detect Unlife. While it would seemingly become an always active, constant upgrade to his vision, he’d lose the longer range, spherical nature of the two detection spells.
It was tempting, but… he thought he could do better as far as finding something to fulfill that niche.
I should also analyze those two again, now that I understand the magical language…
Basic Life Chains seemed to use an opponent’s own life energy to tie it down, and now he knew that even undead had Life of a sort. That, at least, had to be assumed because his own Life had learned from theirs. This one was… it was actually rather tempting now that he understood it better.
If it is what I think it is, it would have been nice to have. Though, I don’t think I would give up any of my other choices, even if I could go back.
Basic Health Manipulation would still be a less powerful version of his Life Manipulation, and while it might combine and give the powerful skill a little boost, he didn’t think he’d choose it.
Regrowth was essentially a healing skill that would use MP instead of HP. While it was technically more efficient, point for point, it was worse for him. Given his vastly larger HP pool and far, far higher health regeneration, Regrowth actually turned out to be quite a bit less efficient than what he was already doing. Still, he considered it as another option in his tool belt for healing. He doubted he would use it often, but if he did need it…
He’d keep it in mind. It was an option, even if not a very tempting one.
That just left the new options.
Harden Life, at a basic level, looked to effectively lock his Life in place, making it more resilient. According to the notification, he’d been granted this as an option because of how often his Life had attacked others’ Life. As such, he could codify what had worked best when his enemies had used it against him into this skill, which would both give him a passive boost and allow for a more active ‘hardening’ of his defenses on that front.
It was interesting, but not overly so. Very little attacked his Life directly, though he supposed he might be able to apply it to his Life within other beings, as he attacked them…
He grunted. Worth considering.
The other new option was Sacrifice Life, and it was exactly what the Watcher had warned him about. He could burn away his Life to get a temporary boost to his stats.
It tempted him for a moment, but as he glanced at the details, he grimaced.
One stat point gained for one Life point sacrificed, with the increase lasting one minute.
It would be immensely powerful in some niche situations, but it would take even him three minutes to recover for every one point used. That meant to uplift all his stats by a single point each, for a single minute, would require half an hour to recover from.
Again, in certain situations, it could be immensely powerful, and for him it was far more tempting than for someone who couldn’t replenish Life in the same way he could, but…
He still felt like it was a trap.
If he came to depend on the boost, he would be taking away his ability to heal and repair infirmities with as much ease. It was definitely interesting, but…
No. Trading away one’s life for power is the stuff of dark tales. I might take it next time, in ten levels, but right now? No.
That left him with two that were of interest: Harden Life and Basic Life Chains, one defensive, the other offensive.
Let’s take a closer look.
Basic Life Chains (Simple)Turn a target’s very Life against them.Your magic is able to turn a creature’s very Life against it at a fundamental level.Use your magic to pierce enemy resistance and turn their Life Force upon itself.This takes 1 point of MP for every 1 point of hostile Life subverted.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:This is not a means of learning from another’s Life. Any Life so subverted will lose all special aspects and act as generic Life.
Harden Life (Common)Reinforce the Life of your body, sacrificing reactivity in favor of inertia.As a base, your Life becomes slightly more resilient. Additionally, you gain the ability to entrench your Life, locking it down but greatly increasing its ability to weather potential damage of all kinds.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:This augmentation is of all of your Life, thus any Resistance type attributes that apply will be affected as well.
Alex had to admit that Harden Life was far more appealing for quite a few reasons.
First, Basic Life Chains was a spell, and he already had difficulty with MP shortages. Even still, as a spell, he should be able to customize it and improve it in time, given his knowledge of the language of power.
Second, while Harden Life’s addendum let him know about a further benefit to him specifically, the one for the spell was a notice of detraction.
Again, though, you can maybe mitigate that.
Third, the overcoming of enemy magical resistance was an unknown factor that could range from making Basic Life Chains untenable against the strongest opponents to something so onerous as to make it simply untenable.
The only reason he was still tempted by the spell was, ironically, because it was Simple. As such, it had more room to grow than Harden Life, and the very idea left him almost laughing at the thought.
Who’d have thought that a lower rarity skill or spell would actually be more tempting. This System really was a bit odd.
Still, he was torn…
No, I don’t need another spell at the moment. I’ll have my runewright practice to use MP for, and there’s just too much potential for disaster.
With a deep breath, he made his choice… instantly being presented with another.
Choose skill variations:Harden Life (Common)
OR
Life’s Hardened Defense (Uncommon)This comes from merging Life’s Active Defense (Uncommon), with the Class Skill Harden Life (Common)
Life’s Hardened Defense (Uncommon)Infuse key positions of your Life with your health, reinforcing it at the same time.Damage taken in the chosen areas is reduced by 99% but taken directly to your Life.Damage taken in areas not chosen is split between HP, SP, and Life in a 49%/49%/2% split.
Any calculated damage to any resource is rounded down.
Physical Fortitude has a minor increase to effect when calculating damage, severity of wounds, and conditions received.You can change the ‘hard points’ in your body every 5 seconds.
Alex stared at the combined option in utter shock. Without thinking, he voiced his thoughts aloud. “What utter lottery tickets?”
On the surface, it might sound amazing… except that every point of Life was effectively 10,000 points of HP for him, from a recovery standpoint. So, while it reduced the damage by 99%, it then multiplied it by ten thousand, leaving it still being one hundred times more damaging than it otherwise would have been.
The second portion was worse, as it seemed to be meant to be, ensuring that 2% of any damage was amplified to an insane degree.
Sure, smaller sources of damage would do literally nothing to him. He could lay in a vat of acid, so long as it did less than fifty damage at a time and it wouldn’t affect his Life, and his ‘hard-points’ could take any hit of less than a hundred points of damage with absolutely no issue…
It would also give him greater staying power in short engagements…
He frowned.
As he thought more about it, he realized that this was likely what it was aiming at. This skill would make him very difficult to harm at all, but any harm he did take would be positively glacial to heal.
This is another poisoned honey pot. He couldn’t even imagine someone taking this if they couldn’t recover Life as he could.
Short term power with long term consequences indeed. It would make him strong against the weak and weak against the strong.
No.
That was not the path he wanted.
This would be the perfect skill for a petty tyrant.
That made him hesitate, then he let out an involuntary chuckle. This seemed like exactly the type of skill a videogame’s endboss would have as ‘evil incarnate’. Someone who pushed around the little guy, just waiting for a prophesied hero to come in and save the day.
He selected the non-combined version and felt the Skill settle into place.
Alright, then. Just my second class’s first skill, and then, I can get to actually doing my new job.
He’d work on sorting and fixing his gear after connecting with Natasha and the others.
Let’s take a look.