The next day, Noah woke up to giggling and oinking. He got up to see what all the fuss was about and went out to the hall. He saw Lily running around with what he assumed was Prancer on her head while a bunch of piglets chased her. “Glad she’s not thinking about what happened to her mom.” He thought as he smiled. “Anyway, it’s finally time to get to the rewards from yesterday.” Excitement bubbled up inside him as he couldn’t wait for the tally, but first, he had to go get Mark.
He walked over to Mark’s door, knocked, and called out to him, but there was no answer. Then, Lily came around the corner with the piglets in tow and tilted her cute little head at him, almost causing Prancer to fall off.
“Are you looking for Mark? He’s outside with Mama Emeri, something about leveling and stuff.” She said while fixing Prancer’s position on her head.
“Leveling, huh? Thanks, Lily.” Noah went down the stairs, went outside, and pulsed his radar with fifty mana pumped into it. He saw two green dots off in the direction of the river, so he got into position and activated his movement spell.
He arrived just in time to see Emeri charge into the side of a stag. Mark, all the while, was at the back, a soft glow emanating from him.
Noah smirked at the sight. “Some paladin of nature you are.”
Mark blushed at being chided “You know what they say, survival of the fittest and all that.”
“That’s the law of the jungle. We’re in a forest.”
“I say it still applies, smartass.”
Then they looked at each other and chuckled. That was when they heard a squeal. They looked in the direction of Emeri and saw that she’d already killed the stag and was standing over the corpse in triumph. “OINK!” She oinked as she held her head high.
“Good job Emeri!” Mark praised her as he went over and rubbed her belly. “Noah, can you do the honors and take our lunch away?”
Noah went up to the stag corpse and put it away in his artifact. “Let’s get back. I’m excited for the tally!”
----------------------------------------
A few minutes of running later, they arrived at the apartment building and immediately went up to the ninth floor. They managed to find Lily and the piglets in Mark’s room and decided to do the tally there. Mark, of course, ended up with a piglet in both hands and one on his head.
“You really like doing that huh,” Noah remarked
“What, it’s relaxing. Anyway, let’s get to it!”
Noah started off by claiming all the mana stones they got for killing the normal orcs, warriors, and archers, which came to a total of nine hundred and thirty mana stones just from the quest alone. They also got four hundred and seventy stones for all the axes sold. Unfortunately, none of the pieces of armor survived so they weren’t able to get anything from those. In their place though, was the shaman’s staff which was presumably at least tier two.
Orcish staff of Mana – tier 2
A Staff embedded with a low-grade mana stone
Grants the ability to cast the spell [Mana Shield] at lvl 5
Grants +1 to talent Mana Affinity
Grants +10 Intelligence
Charge (49/100)
[Sell for 499 Mana Stones?]
“Well, that’s a bit underwhelming. I thought it was special or something considering it survived my spells.” Noah pouted as he read the description. Not only was it a bit weaker than the cheapest staff in the store, it was also only worth four hundred and ninety-nine mana stones when sold. “Though that Mana shield spell is surely going to be useful, I could just try to imitate it with [Mana Manipulation]. Hmmm…”
“Just sell it and buy a better one from the store. We’ve got enough mana stones anyway, not to mention the rewards from the bonus quest.” Mark said
“You got the the three medium-grade mana stones too?” Noah asked, shocked that the system would be so generous.
“Yup!” Mark took out the three much larger mana stones and showed them to Noah with a toothy grin on his face.
“That’s great! You can buy some really good gear with that!”
“Yeah, I was thinking of switching over to a sword and shield. Both tier two of course. It should make stuff a lot easier.”
“Then I’ll get a tier two staff to match!”
Noah proceeded to browse through the various staffs in the system store and managed to find one to his liking.
Staff of Mana – tier 2
A Staff embedded with two low-grade mana stones
Grants the ability to cast the spell [Magic Missile] at lvl 9
Grants +1 to talent Mana Affinity
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Grants +1 to talent Magic Affinity
Grants +30 Intelligence
Charge (89/100)
[Buy for 2000 low-grade Mana Stones or 2 Medium-grade Mana Stones?]
He was happy with the staff as he bought it almost immediately. Then he thought of armor… “Mages usually have robes in video games and that shaman had a robe on too…” Noah hurriedly searched through the store and found the section for mage robes but was instantly disappointed. The cheapest one was priced at five medium-grade mana stones, way out of his price range. So, he decided to keep it in mind for now. “Guess the leather armor is going to have to do for now”
The next thing he needed to buy were information packets, specifically for sub-classes and corrupted beings. He bought them both and then proceeded to absorb the information. He discovered that sub-classes never actually evolved, unlike main classes. That’s why they generally gave much better stat point bonuses than even EPIC classes. But, they also divide your experience in half when you earn it the normal way. That’s why leveling in the hundreds became exponentially harder. “Thankfully, quest rewards can be allocated however one wishes so there is that.”
Then there were the corrupted beings. They only appeared when gates leading to the demon worlds opened and miasma leaked out and drifted into the target world. The native worlds usually fought back with their own “will” and the system helped somehow, but that was all that the information packet said about that particular topic. “There are probably more information packets on the topic, but they definitely cost way more and I’m too low-level to see them.” He thought as he’d noticed that he could only see items up to tier three at the most.
He looked over at Mark and saw that he was already holding his new sword and shield. “Ready for the level-ups?” He asked his cousin, as he couldn’t wait much longer.
“Yup!” Mark put his new sword and shield down to the side and said, “How many levels did you get?”
“Nineteen point five, still thinking about where to allocate them though.” Noah furrowed his brows. “Main class or sub-class. Hmmm.”
“Suffering from success, I see.” Mark grinned. “Well, with no immediate threat, it’s probably a good idea to go with the long-term gains option, your main class.”
“You have a point. Hmmm… Okay then, I’ll get my main class up to thirty, then put the rest into my sub-class.” With that decision made, he allocated the levels and a trumpet suddenly sounded in his head.
You have reached level 25 and unlocked more System Features!
Unlocked Achievements!
“Huh, you unlock achievements at level twenty-five.”
“Well damn, I’m three short. What do they do exactly?” Mark asked.
“Let me check.”
You have no Achievements yet…
“It says I have none yet. You’d think I’d have some, considering we just eradicated a whole orc encampment.” He complained.
“Yeah, well, maybe we need to do one of those dungeons to get them?” Mark said
“Maybe… Anyway, I’ll distribute my stat points now.” Noah went on to think about what a good ratio would be for intelligence and regeneration. “Hmmm, I’ve got one hundred and eighty-nine points to spend.” He thought for a minute about what to do and came to a decision. “Since there’s no immediate danger, I’ll increase my regeneration to a respectable one hundred, then put the rest into intelligence.” With that done, he looked at his mana and saw that it was sitting pretty at five hundred and seventy-two points. “Over two hundred more mana and a nice amount of regeneration to boot.” He thought as he finished allocating his stat points.
“All done?”
“Hell yeah, over a hundred in both strength and constitution. I’m feeling good~.” Mark’s smile went from ear to ear as he relaxedly rubbed the bellies of the piglets close to him.
Noah then had a thought. “I’m level thirty now. Surely I’m on the leaderboards now, right?” He hurriedly checked the leaderboards window.
Planetary Leaderboards (Human)
1. Victoria Hendricks - Level 51
2. Jason Lang - Level 50
3. Sophia Barr - Level 50
4. Lukas Thornton - Level 48
5. He Shutai - Level 48
6. Asim Chahal - Level 47
7. Ernesto Mendoza - Level 46
8. James Howard - Level 46
9. Hou Yingxiu - Level 46
10. Willard Thompson - Level 45
11. …
12. …
13. …
99. Noah Blake - Level 30
100. Frederick Porter - Level 30
“Holy shit! How are these people leveling up so fast?!” He exclaimed as he looked at the crème de la crème of the entire planet.
“You saw the leaderboards, huh? Yeah, those guys are insane. They’re all probably running dungeons all the time or something,” Mark just smiled and stroked the exposed bellies of the piglet in front of him.
“I get that. But the number one guy is twenty-one levels ahead of me!” Noah said indignantly.
“Well, I guess we’re going to have to do some dungeons then.”
“Yes, we NEED to catch up.” He balled his fists as he inhaled deeply. “We need to get stronger, faster. If we want to survive, if we want to protect those we care for or what’s left of them anyway, we need to find us some dungeons and conquer them.”
----------------------------------------
After leveling up and allocating their stat points, Noah and Mark went outside where Noah decided to pump five hundred points of mana into his radar and scan the surrounding five kilometers. Thinking that maybe they missed a dungeon somewhere.
Noah looked at his map. “Nothing of note, except that sinkhole and pond we found the other day.”
“Let’s head toward the encampment and scan again.”
“Okay, let’s swing by the pond first though while we wait for my mana to regenerate.”
And so they ran in the direction of the pond, brimming with mana. And when they arrived there, they were surprised to find that the mana surrounding it had already become more abundant. They saw that it had attracted a lot of animals. Some were lying down with their eyes closed, others were drinking from the water. But strangely enough, none of the animals were fighting.
“Odd, who’s going to do the honors?” Mark asked.
“You, of course, mister one hundred constitution. I’m much too fragile to be diving into unknown waters. I’ll enhance you of course hehe. [Enhance]”
Mark sighed as he stepped forward into the area of the pond. When he did so, all the animals stopped what they were doing and looked at him. “That’s not creepy at all.” Luckily for him, he had the perfect skill for this situation. “[Soothe Animal]” He cast it repeatedly until all the animals were under the influence of the spell. Then he dove straight into the water.
A full ten minutes later, Mark finally surfaced and was holding a low-grade mana stone in his hand. He went up to Noah and said. “There are at least eight mana stones down there.”
“That doesn’t explain the increased mana density here, though. Hmmm.” Noah went up to the shore of the pond and activated his skill [Mana Sense]. “Woah.”