Alex still had a little over three thousand experience points left to spend so he upgraded both Summon and Enchant as well.
Orb Caller: Class Options
Summon Level 2: 1000/2500
User Skill: 1/2: Combat Orblet: Summons a Combat Orblet to fight for the User.
Durability: 300
Physical Attack: 31
Duration: 10 minutes
User Skill: 0/1: Scouting Orblet: Summons a Scouting Orblet to explore for you.
Durability: 30
Physical Attack: 6
Duration: 30 minutes
Elements Level 2: 1000/2500
Orb Passive: 1/1: Flame Aura: Permanently embody the essence of Flame.
Quality: 2
Orb Passive: 0/1: Frost Aura: Permanently embody the essence of Frost.
Quality: 2
“Well, that’s straightforward.” Alex said as he looked over the new abilities. He was about to assign the abilities when he noticed the ‘one of two’ beside Combat Orblet.
“Oh cool, V.V. I got an extra Combat Orblet.”
“That is a powerful addition to the team. The one that I use has helped me several times, especially in this last battle.”
“What would happen if I assigned it to you instead of myself?” Alex asked, wondering if it would add an extra Orblet to V.V.’s ability, add a whole extra skill or maybe not work at all.
“I’m also unsure of what would happen. Your class has several unique features that I’ve never seen before, as I’ve said. This is yet again a new encounter for myself. It’s fascinating.” V.V. said, now floating back and forth in front of his System panel her Map still floating in time beside her.
“Well, my Combat Orbling isn’t much different from the Combat Orblet as far as I can tell. Either way, we’re going to have a swarm on our hands eventually. It’s awesome.” Alex said, a big smile crossing his face as he thought about a horde of cueballs raining down on his enemies. It had been a while since he’d felt a genuine rush of both excitement and happiness. When V.V. had spontaneously come back to life, he was happy, but it was overshadowed by the release of a mountain of despair that had been crushing him.
“Let’s see what happens if I add it to you. It may not even work.” Alex said.
“That’s fine with me. The more skills I have, the more options I have.” V.V. responded as Alex assigned the second Combat Orblet to V.V. He watched again as V.V. shook for a few moments and then recovered even faster than when she’d received the Craft skill.
“How is it?” Alex asked, curious about how the skill manifested for her.
“It combined into the same skill and added an additional summon.” V.V. said and demonstrated by summoning two identical black marble sized Orblets. The little popping sound they made when they came into existence echoed around the small room for a moment. Alex watched as they began to orbit around V.V. on opposite sides.
“Well, that’s pretty awesome. If the skill leveled up and said you could summon two, would that let you summon four?”
“If that were the case, it would be quite something. If you were eventually able to assign another Combat Orblet to me, then I could summon six. If I again leveled the skill to the point that the base could summon three then my total would be nine. Zzhahaha. I highly doubt that would ever happen, but we can hope.” V.V. said as she drifted away to mess with her Orblets and her Craft skill while always keeping the Map close to her.
“If another Combat Orblet pops up, you’re getting it.” Alex said and looked at the other abilities that he needed to assign. This time he added the Scouting Orblet to himself and the Frost Aura to Opal. He felt the same tingling sensation run through his body as when he’d added Scour to himself. The real show was Opal as it shook violently and dropped to the ground. Alex leaned over and watched as the off-white metal started to freeze. Frost covered its entire form, and steam began to envelop his tiny soldier. After about a minute had gone by, Opal zipped back into the air and resumed its slow orbit around Alex.
He examined his Summon Healing Orbling and his Scouting Orblet and decided to summon them both. His Orbling simply appeared where he wanted it to be without even a whisper of sound. The Orblet had an almost sizzling pop when it arrived. He could feel an immediate difference in the two abilities, but he wasn’t sure if that was because they were different species… he wasn’t quite sure what they even were to be honest with himself. Or did they feel so different because one was for healing and the other was for scouting? Both moved to where he wanted them without needing actual commands and if left to their own devices, they’d join his Orbs and begin orbiting him. They were close to the same size, but his Orbling seemed a little larger and was aqua blue instead of the splotches of brown, green and grey that he Orblet had. It made sense to him that it was camo patterned as it needed to be sneaky.
It was unfortunate that he couldn’t add Stealth to his Scouting Orblet instead of Sapphire. Alex pulled up the Status window for the Healing Orbling to try and compare the two. His Healing Orbling had a thirty minute cooldown time while his Orblet had no cooldown time at all as far as he could tell. While he was pretty sure he could make the Orbling attack something, it didn’t specify any attack power. If a Healing Orblet ever appeared as an option, he’d consider adding it to himself just to test the differences more thoroughly. After messing with the two units a bit more he relented and decided to delve deeper into the differences some other time.
Summon Healing Orbling
Summons a Healing Orbling for a time under the User’s control.
Cast Time: 10s
Durability: 100
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: 30 minutes
“Weird stuff…” Alex said to himself right as his stomach let out a growl. Opal and Ruby floated down in front of him and summoned food. The traditional swooshing sound was heard as food materialized before him. An entire rotisserie style chicken sat, steaming as if it had just come off the rack and beside it sat two decently sized peaches. Alex took time to stuff his face while he looked over his Status again.
User: Alexander Ingram
Race: Human (Other)
Age/Sex: 19 / Male
Titles: First Among Many, The Sky Is My Kingdom, Lonely Warden
Class: Orb Caller
Orbs: Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Opal
Level 9: 22000/25000
Profession: None
Exp: 1221
Companion: Vibrant Void
System Credits: 221933
System Tokens*: 1 X-Grade Tokens, 2 A-Grade Tokens, 2 B-Grade Tokens, 3 C-Grade Tokens
Skills: Mana Tolerance (1), Mana Absorption (1), Advanced Mana Channeling (1), Scour (1) Call Orb (1), AbsOrb (1), ResOrb (1), S. Healing Orbling (1), Advanced Blink (1), Greater Barrier (1), Greater Summon Sphere (1), Advanced Storage (1), Advanced Identify (1), Advanced Scan (1)
Body: Natural Stamina (1), Natural Regenerative (1)
Mind: N/A
Soul: ??? (?)
Attribute Points: 40
Skill Points: 4
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“V.V, would you say having over two hundred thousand credits is a lot?” Alex said as he scanned over his Status.
“It’s definitely a lot to have this early into the integration of the System but in a year or so it won’t seem like much. You can buy a good companion, decent armor, weapons, skills, abilities and spells with that amount. Eventually you’ll find yourself never having enough though.” V.V. said as Alex continued to look at his Status. He was only hours away from the biggest fight of his life and he needed to be as prepared as possible. Looking over his attributes he decided to put a huge eleven points into Strength and Dexterity, two into each of Agility, Endurance and Resistance, nine into Perception and the final three into Constitution. His goal was to never be in the front of combat but until he had the opportunity to truly sit in the back of battle, he’d focus on his more physical stats.
Attributes:
Strength: 20 + 132% = 46
Constitution: 29 + 132% = 68
Vitality: 10 + 132% = 32
Resistance: 10 + 132% = 32
Endurance: 20 + 132% = 46
Dexterity: 20 + 132% = 46
Agility: 20 + 132% = 46
Perception: 20 + 132% = 46
Intelligence: 13 + 132% = 31
Wisdom: 9 + 132% = 22
Willpower: 21 + 132% = 49
Charisma: 8 + 132% = 19
Alex knew that dumping all his stats in at once could knock him out, but the first time hadn’t lasted too long so why not give it another go. What he was most worried about was vomiting all over himself again. It was an extremely unpleasant experience and even if Scour could remove the sick, he’d prefer not to throw up at all. He braced for the pain, and it came. His head exploded in agony as his body started to convulse. This time, he didn’t pass out and road the excruciating ride while being fully conscious, fantastic. His muscles tore themselves apart and at the same time rebuilt them as his brain felt like it was doing the same. Passing out was something he deeply missed as his body underwent the task he’d assigned it, dragging his conscious mind along for every second of it.
He gritted his teeth through the ordeal as Emerald frantically moved from one end of his body to the other, focusing both Wound Care and Numb Aura in the most severely affected areas. A new sensation accompanied the relief he felt from Wound Care as whole parts of his body began to tingle and then disappear as the Numb Aura did its job. The body parts didn’t actually disappear of course but without looking at his body, he could have sworn they were gone. Sapphire used Boost Recovery on him and while it sped up his healing, it also heightened the pain. Luckily with the Numb Aura in place, he eventually felt nothing but the pain in his head. After a few minutes, the migraine faded, and he was able to relax.
“Wow, that sucked… At least I didn’t pass out, although it would have been nice.” Alex said wearily.
“If you added a few points at a time and let the discomfort pass, you’d not go through such agony.” V.V. said as she continued to create small, oddly shaped bottles.
“Yeah, I just didn’t want to waste time and thought I’d be able to cope better. I was right but still didn’t enjoy the experience. Next time I’ll go slower.”
V.V. rolled her eye in an exasperated manner while continuing to practice Craft and observe her Map. Alex scooted his body into a more upright position as his convulsions had slid him into the middle of the room. Now in a more comfortable spot, he decided that since he’d dumped all his stats at once to save time, there was no reason to wait before continuing his upgrade journey. He opened his Class Skills list and began to peruse his new options.
Class Skills: 4 points available.
Orbsorb
Send Orb
Orb View
Boost Orb
Restore Orb
Orbunion
Clone Orb
Orbit
S. Combat Orbling
S. Elemental Orbling
S. Shield Orbling
S. Scouting Orbling
“The odd combinations continue… I’d be more ok with it if all the names played by the same rule. Why not Clonorb or Boorb instead of Clone Orb and Boost Orb. The System’s got a few screws loose.” Alex said, one eyebrow traveling into his shaggy hair. Despite the odd naming of his skills, he was excited to see what they did and prodded the System to display the effects of everything. V.V. ignored his odd need to focus on inconsequential things as she played with her death bottles.
Orbsorb: User designates a nearby Orb to absorb damage that would have gone to the User.
Send Orb: Teleports an Active Orb or Orblet to a specified destination the User has visited.
Orb View: Allows the User to view the surroundings of an Active Orb.
Boost Orb: Empower an Orb owned by the User for a certain duration.
Restore Orb: Regenerate missing or damaged portions of an Orb owned by the User.
Orbunion: Pull User’s Orbs into the target Orb to Empower that Orb for a certain duration.
Clone Orb: Summons Clones of designated User owned Orb for a period of time.
Orbit: Call the User owned Orbs to circle the User in a fixed orientation to allow flight.
S. Combat Orbling: Summons a Combat Orbling for a time under the User’s control.
S. Elemental Orbling: Summons an Elemental Orbling for a time under the User’s control.
S. Shield Orbling: Summons a Shield Orbling for a time under the User’s control.
S. Scouting Orbling: Summons a Scouting Orbling for a time under the User’s control.
Alex read over the four new abilities and skimmed over the others before making a knee jerk reaction and selecting. He chose Orbsorb, Boost Orb, Orbunion and S. Shield Orbling. Both Orbsorb and Shield Orbling would hopefully dissipate enough damage to keep him going in the upcoming battle. Boost Orb and Orbunion sounded like they’d have great synergy with each other. He already had AbsOrb which would pull his Orbs into him to make himself stronger, but his Orbs worked so well on their own that he hesitated to take them out of the battle just to boost himself a bit. Until he opened each of their Status panels to see exactly how the abilities worked, he’d just hope they did what he thought they would.
“I chose two defensive skills, and the other are utility meets combat I think.” Alex said to V.V.
“Utility meets combat?” She said and floated over to look at the panels.
“Ah, I see. I suppose you could look at them that way. Have you already viewed their more detailed panels?”
“I was just about to do that.” Alex said and opened the four skills Status panels.
Orbsorb (1)
User designates a nearby Orb to absorb damage that would have gone to the User. Orbs, Orblings, Orblets, Vibrant Void and Greater Sphere are acceptable defenders.
Cast Time: Instant and may be triggered by User allied Orbs.
Range: 30ft
Duration: 10s
Cooldown: 10m
Absorption: 10% of Physical Damage / 5% of all Non-Physical Damage
Boost Orb (1)
Empower an Orb owned by the User for a certain duration. Orbs, Orblings, Orblets, Vibrant Void and Greater Sphere are acceptable targets.
Range: 30ft
Cast Time: 5s
Duration: 5m
Cooldown: 3m
Empower: 10% Increase to Attack and Defense.
Weakened: 5m after Duration is up or removed.
Orbunion (1)
Pull User’s Orbs into the target Orb to Empower that Orb for a certain duration. Applies to Orbs, Orblings, Orblets as absorbable targets. Acceptable targets to receive absorbed entities include Orbs, Vibrant Void and Greater Sphere. Once time limit is reached, absorbed entities are released and the main body will be in a weakened state.
Range: 30ft
Absorb Time: 30s
Duration: 5m
Cooldown: 1h
Weakened: 30m after Duration is up or if Orbunion is removed or cancelled.
Enhance: 10% of base power and defense. 4 to 1 for Orbs. 8 to 1 for Sphere. 50 to 1 for Vibrant Void.
Note: If the target is much weaker than the absorbed entities, backlash may occur.
Summon Shield Orbling (1)
Summons a Shield Orbling for a time under the User’s control. The Orbling will attempt to shield the User from all incoming threats until unsummoned or designated otherwise.
Durability: 250
Cast Time: 10s
Duration: 5m
Cooldown: 30m
Alex looked over the four skills and was very impressed. Each one did what he’d hoped and more in a few cases. The biggest downsides were Duration, Cooldown and the Weakened state for two of the skills. He could fortify his defense and strengthen his allies all at the same time now. Before he slept, he wanted to explore possible long-range weapons or spells and maybe another companion like V.V. had suggested. The amount of information provided had expanded again since the last time he’d been able to look.
“I’m getting more accurate info now and these skills look pretty good.” Alex said excitedly.
“As I said, as the System integrates with the world and you, it will become more precise. Many Users don’t even need things like Status windows to gain information. The moment they need to know how much Durability their Shield Orbling has, they know. If you continue to grow, it may become like that for you as well.” V.V. went on to talk about how other worlds integrated and how the way he saw the System was different from many other lifeforms. She went on to him on System integration and Alex’s eyes were starting to droop. He was fascinated by everything she was talking about but that didn’t keep his mind from wanting to shut down. V.V. drifted off to play with her concoctions again when she noticed Alex fading but he fought to keep himself from drifting to sleep. He needed to see if there was anything big his credits could purchase that could give them an edge in the coming battle.