Sam smiled sheepishly at Nara, “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize the bracelets would react so strongly when I put them on.”
Nara looked at Sam’s bare wrists in confusion. “What bracelets?”
Sam had decided to absorb the bracelets into her body on the off chance someone would be able to identify them and try to take them from her. She held up a hand and let one of the bracelets reform on her wrist for Nara to see before absorbing it back into her body. She explained, “They can be hidden in me for safekeeping.”
Nara nodded her understanding and said, “I assume your reward options were powerful then.”
Sam wasn’t sure and said as much, “I really don’t know how my options stand up against what everyone else got. Mine were all over the place, from powerful items like the bracelets I chose to an option to change my class and even a power source for a spaceship.” Sam furrowed her brow, “It was really confusing.”
Nara nodded, " That sounds strange, but judging from the options I was given, it seems like the System tailored each item specifically for the user. Maybe it is the same for you, but you cannot see the pattern yet.”
That made Sam think back to her choices. “Hmm, now that I think about it…yeah, it makes sense. The mana core and the Technomancer class were obviously meant to be chosen together. I imagine the bracelets were meant to assist with the reincarnation ability since sacrificing part of my mana pool wouldn’t be that bad if I could increase my magical potential and reduce my usage costs simultaneously.” Sam scratched Lupie behind her ears absently, lost in thought. “I’m not sure where the spatial cabin came in, though? Maybe it's because I was drooling over the one in Helms Peak?” Looking up at the cave ceiling, Sam cringed and said aloud, “Man, I hope I didn’t fuck up with my choices.”
Nara and Lupie looked at Sam quizzically, so she summoned the mana core, her second purchase, for them to see, saying, “I think I chose two incompatible items—wait a second.” Sam caught herself and quickly looked back into her inventory to where she had just seen the mana core. A small pad, similar to an Earth tablet, was floating in the void of her spatial dimension right next to where the core had just been. “What the hell is this?” Sam mumbled, summoning the small item from her storage into her waiting hand. She identified the pad, which resembled an electronic device from her homeworld. Only this tablet had a translucent screen with a thin silver frame around it.
Mana Tablet: With upgraded Hyperlite Mana Core instruction manual complete with recommended ship design schematic.
“Okay…that’s not what I was expecting…” Sam mainly said to herself. “Nara, I think I may have really fucked up.” She worried aloud, handing the tablet to Nara so she could identify it.
After a few moments of staring between the mana tablet and core, Nara finally asked, “Were you offered a Technomancer class?”
“Yes…” Sam said tentatively and asked, “Is it bad?”
“I—no, maybe, I don’t know—” Nara was staring thoughtfully at the tablet in Sam’s hand.
“My dad can help you with that,” Nina said from her blood cocoon on Lupie’s back, causing Sam and Nara to jump!
“Shit! I forgot you were here!” Sam shouted at the young woman seated behind her.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nina said sheepishly.
Lupie chuckled, the deep rumbling vibrations running up Sam’s spine.
“I wasn’t scared! Just a little surprised, is all!” Sam defended herself as a blood tentacle, retrieved the mana core she dropped, and handed it back to her. Sam looked at Nina, “So, who exactly is your father, and how could he help?”
“Um, I think you already know him, Miss Samantha—"
“Call me Sam; you have earned it, Nina,” Sam interjected.
“Okay then, Miss Sam,” Nina began again. Sam could only sigh at the young woman’s continued use of the honorific and hear the girl out while internally grumbling about them being the same age. Nina continued, oblivious to Sam’s internal musings, “his name is Alexnder Batiste. He mentioned meeting a strange purple-haired woman a few days ago when I was having dinner with him and Bradley.” Nina looked at Sam’s recently regrown hair, which was burned away in the blast from her axe attack, “I assume he meant you.”
“Did he tell you he asked me to make him something that I now think could be used to blow up one of the moons?” Sam asked with a slight smile. Nina’s eyes opened wide as saucers, and she shook her head. Sam continued, “I don’t think he knew what my mana crystals are capable of when he asked. The two blasts that took down the Gilabear had less than five hundred mana in each crystal. Your father wants me to make him one with five hundred thousand mana units.” Nina’s face paled, and Sam let that information sink in for a second, then finished her thoughts. “So, a couple of things, Nina. How could your father help me, and would he want a bomb that could wipe the Kingdom of Orlina off the map in return for his services?”
“I—” Nina paused to collect herself, licking her now dry lips and looking afraid under Sam’s intense gaze. Finally finding her words, she said, “I do not know what my father would require, but I know he would never use something so powerful as a weapon. And as for how he could help you. He is a master crafter,” Nina paused. When Sam only stared at her blankly, she continued, “his class is True Craft, one of the seven legendary classes known to Hallista.” Nina stopped and stared at Sam and Nara with a proud look.
Sam looked at Nara, who just shrugged. Nina looked back and forth between them, slack-slack-jawed. Sam finally said, “Nina, please understand; I’m not from around here, and Nara and I have unique classes.” Sam turned and patted the young woman's shoulder, “It’s not that we aren’t impressed that your father is a great man or something; it’s just that we have no idea how he can possibly help us with this.” She held up the silver grapefruit-sized mana core with one eyebrow raised.
Nina opened and closed her mouth a few times as if she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if she should. Sam patted her shoulder again with a smile, “I’ll tell you what, Nina, I will visit your father when I get back to Helm’s Peak. You don’t have to say anything—”
“That would be wise,” Parish said from directly behind Sam.
“Fuck!” Sam shouted, whipping around to stare incredulously at the healer. Dismissing the core and tablet back into her inventory, “How the fuck did you sneak up on me?” Sam asked, looking around the room and the mana threads she had laced through the cavern.
In answer, Parish reached out and wrapped one of Sam’s threads around her wrist just as Sam had done during the event. A coy smile played across the elven woman’s lips, and she raised her eyebrows at Sam. “Of course! She can see my threads. Still, why did she need to sneak up on me?” Sam grumbled internally. She noticed Parish was looking her up and down. When their eyes met again, Parish deliberately licked her lips and wrapped her other wrist in the same mana thread, tying them together. Confused, Sam looked down and realized Lupie had removed the blood cocoon at some point, so she was fully exposed as she sat on the Bloodmorph’s back in her birthday suit. Sam flushed slightly but thought, “Oh, two can play this game.”
Parish let out a little yelp of surprise when Sam cinched the thread tight around the healer’s wrists and yanked her off the ground, using the extra power from the bracelets to lift the woman up and swing her over until they were face to face. Parish’s look of surprise was priceless, and the deep flush on her face was even more fun when Sam put her hands on the dangling woman’s waist, pulling her in to whisper into her ear, “Careful little healer, don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”
Sam would have kept going, but Nara's light cough reminded her the cave probably wasn’t the best place to goof off. So, lowing Parish back to the cave floor, Sam hopped off Lupie and, after looking through her inventory for a minute, found a clean outfit and put it on. Once Nina had done the same, the group walked toward the cave's exit together. Sam noted the archer was sticking close to Nara as they walked, making her curious about what had happened between the two women.
Sam was even more baffled when Nara leaned in and whispered something in Nina’s ear. Nina looked at Nara and nodded her head vigorously. Looking back at Sam, Nara smiled and said, “Check out my second purchase.” With that said, a glow surrounded the Moonblight, and a perfect copy of her stepped out of her body to stand beside her. An instant later, the copy formed into Naris, who stood staring at Nara in amazement for a moment before holding his hands up in front of his face as though he couldn’t believe they were real. Surprising everyone, Naris reached out and pulled Nara into a tight embrace. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he said, “There is no pain. It doesn't hurt anymore. Thank you.” He choked off a sob, finishing with, “My friend.”
Sam walked up and poked Naris in the arm with her finger, saying, “Well, now this is interesting. Welcome to the party, buddy!”
Sam’s statement broke the somber mood, and Naris released Nara with a light sniffle. Looking over to Nina, he said, “Hi.”
“Hi, Naris,” Nina responded, turning beet red and looking down at her feet.
Sam laughed out loud, “you’re like a couple of kids!” she said, handing a pair of pants to Naris, “also, you’re naked.” Naris’s grey cheeks flushed darker, and he snatched the pants from Sam. Alexander had made them, so thankfully, they formed to his size when he put them on. “How long can you stay like this?” Sam asked while Naris put on the pants.
Naris’s eyes glazed over as he checked his status, then answered Sam, “With the Voi—" Naris caught himself with a quick glance at Parish before continuing, “Ahem, the mana you just gave Nara and me, I can maintain this form indefinitely so long as I’m not too active with it.” He flexed his arms with a thoughtful look, then formed a void bolt over one of his palms. He momentarily allowed the small bullet of energy to crackle in the air before dismissing it with a nod. “In an all-out fight, I can last fifteen minutes before this body dissipates.”
Sam nodded at that, and they continued out of the cave, each lost in their own musings. When they exited the cave, Sam looked up at the sun overhead and realized it was barely past midday. “wow, the event felt like it took forever,” She thought. Hearing someone crying to her left, Sam looked over to see Alina sitting next to her father’s body. Sam whipped her head around to stare at Nara with a questioning look, so Nara quickly filled her in through their party chat, explaining how Alina had killed her own father, either out of self-preservation or altruism, when he tried to kidnap her and Marin.
Sam could only shake her head. From what she understood of the System, the longest he would have stayed in prison was around thirty years, or cycles as they called it here. Thirty years was a drop in the bucket when System enhanced people could live for hundreds if not thousands of years. It didn’t make sense to her why he would try something like that with so many powerful individuals to witness. She would ask Nara about it later when they were alone.
Chad noticed them exit the cave from where he was standing near Alina, and after a quick head count, he addressed the group. “Am I to assume everyone intends to return to Helms Peak today?” Everyone nodded, so he continued, “In that case, we should leave soon and stick together as we travel,” he looked to Alina, who hadn’t looked up or moved, “We have dealt the Church of the Light faction a heavy blow today albeit indirectly, and I would expect some form of retaliation because of it. I cannot tell you what to do, but I suggest we go to the Adventurers Guild to give our full report of today's events.” Seeing no one in disagreement, Chad finished, “Very well then, if we are all in agreement, I suggest everyone assign their levels if you already have not. We will leave in ten minutes.” With that, he knelt down by Alina and spoke to her softly for a few moments. Sam couldn’t hear what he said, but after a second, Alina nodded. Chad laid a hand on Arron’s body, making it disappear into his inventory.
***
Taking Chad’s advice, Sam sat with her legs crossed on one of the few remaining grassy spots in the clearing. She opened her status menu to see how many levels she had gained. “Holy shit,” she whispered quietly when she saw how many levels she had earned. Eight levels in her race and eleven in her class gave her a total of one hundred and sixty-six free points. She immediately began assigning her points, focusing on her magic power first by adding forty-three points to wisdom and thirty-four points to intelligence. It was a no-brainer when she had just received bracelets that increased her magical power. Next, she focused on her agility and endurance stats, putting twenty-one points into agility and twenty-three points into endurance. She hadn’t felt particularly tired or slow during the hour-and-a-half-long event, so she didn’t want to waste too many points on those two attributes. The same was true for her strength and vitality stats. Sam knew she had survived an explosion that would have likely killed most of the individuals present through a combination of a hasty magical shield at the final moment and her high health and physical resistance. So, she only added enough points to ensure none of her attributes fell too far behind, with twenty going into vitality and twenty-five into strength. With one more look to make sure she was satisfied with her choices, Sam finalized her options with a thought and moaned when the ecstasy of increasing her power washed through her body. When the waves of pleasure finally subsided, Sam checked her status screen.
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Samantha Alecto Moura [S.A.M.]
Race: Human/Voidling Hybrid; Mortal [Level 40]
Class: Arcane Pathfinder [Level 41]
Title(s): A Grade Above
Health: 3061
Stamina: 3078
Mana: 7833
Attributes:
STR – 105 [125]
VIT – 113 [146]
END – 111 [143]
AGL – 112 [133]
INT – 130 [155]
WIS – 157 [344]
Free Attribute Points 0.
Abilities:
Spatial Inventory
Loot
Linguistics
Cartography
Mana Manipulation
Void Manipulation
Mana Sight [Level 24]
Class Skills:
Mana Repair [Level 31]
Mana Caster [Level 23]
Racial/General Skills:
Identify [Level 23]
Resilient [Level 50]
Meditation [Level 21]
Void Infusion [Level 3]
Class Spells:
Arcane Bolt [Level 21]
Kinetic Dampener [Level 12]
Racial/General Spells:
Void Bolt [Level 4]
Hybrid Skills:
Magismith [Level 1]
Hybrid Spells:
None
Resistance(s):
Pain [Level 50]
Heat [Level 19]
Poison [Level 48]
Cold [Level 25]
Mental [Level 6]
Void [Level 14]
“Huh? I have new hybrid types of spells and skills? Where did my Mana Crafter skill go? Shit, I hope the Magismith skill took its place; otherwise, I may be screwed…I can still use my threads, so that has to be it!” Sam also noticed her Resilient skill and Pain resistance were both flashing, “I wonder what that means?” A quick check showed most of the group was still checking their interfaces, so Sam focused on Resilient to draw out more information on the skill.
Congratulations! Your skill Resilient has reached an evolution point. Please review the options below and choose one. Note: all progression in this skill will be suspended until a choice is made.
Evolve skill to Resilient+: This evolution path maintains Resilient’s current bonuses and increases the natural recovery rate of the user by 1.5 times. Resilient will continue leveling from its current level of 50 until its next evolution.
Evolve skill to Rebuild: This evolution path will restart the leveling process to level 1. The user can' rebuild' lethal damage by exhausting fifty percent of current vital energies. The effectiveness of the skill and the damage repaired will depend on the amount of energy the user has when the skill activates. This skill provides a 10% bonus to vitality and endurance. The user will lose the ability to use their own mana to assist their natural healing. Mana Repair will no longer be useable on self. The user's natural recovery rate will be increased by 1.5. Also, the user can reserve up to 20% of all vital energies to offset the loss of magically assisted healing. Reserved energies will be used to instantly repair any non-lethal wounds and replace any lost body parts.
Sam quietly asked Parish, who was standing guard over her as she went through her System screens, “Can you tell me the pros and cons of Resilient+ versus Rebuild?”
Parish whispered, “I wouldn’t worry about those at your level, Sam. I assume you got the scrolls with your loot; if you identify them, they would plainly tell the level restrictions, which is around one hundred if my memory serves.”
Sam looked at Parish silently for a second. The white-haired healer’s expression shifted to amazement. Her mouth dropped open when she realized Sam needed the information right then, and it wasn’t because of a loot drop. Sam couldn’t help but think the woman’s beautiful elven features made even her surprised expression look elegant. Snapping her mouth shut, Parish looked around furtively; seeing no one listening in, she quickly knelt next to Sam so she could whisper in her ear, “Sam, I knew there was something special about you from what I witnessed you do to Sir Chadwick at the guild hall!” Parish looked Sam up and down like a scientist examining a fantastic discovery. She then surprised Sam by pulling her into an awkward embrace, whispering, “My poor girl, god’s only knows what you have been through to level up your recovery skill to its second evolution before level one hundred.” She squeezed Sam tighter, “After we return, I want you to find me at the guild hall; I’m there most evenings for dinner.” Switching the subject back to Sam’s original question, she answered, “I’ll make this quick. The Resillent+ skill is the most frequently chosen by mages because they focus on magic; it isn’t prudent to limit their available power in the unlikely event they are wounded. As for the Rebuild skill, it is a scarce skill with very little known about it. In fact, I only know because two of the elders in the village I am from had the skill. Still, all they would tell me about it was they recommended I choose it should the opportunity ever present itself.”
“What were their classes?” Sam asked.
“One was a Battle Healer like myself and the other a Space Mage, which is also a rare class,” Parish answered, then said, “I cannot and would not tell you what to do with your progression, so I will only say Resillent+ will cap out at two and a half times your innate recovery speed, which is common knowledge. Regarding Rebuild, my only experience with the skill was when I witnessed our village space mage get interrupted by a little girl while traveling through a portal, causing the portal to close prematurely, cutting him nearly in half.” Parish shuddered at the memory still, she continued with her story, “a third of his body was left lying in a pool of blood on the soft grass of our village square including some of his head. Sam, understand when I say this: No one survives their brain being destroyed, and I witnessed a third of that man’s brain plop out of his skull when his body struck the ground.” Parish let that sink in for an instant then finished her story, “as I screamed in horror at the dead man—”
“It was you, wasn’t it? The little girl?” Sam asked out of the blue.
Parish winced but nodded her head, “Yes, it was me. I had found a stick that I thought was embued with life magic and was trying to draw it out of the branch, but it wound up being fire magic instead, which I should have guessed because the stick was burned black. Anyway, when I finally managed to force the magic out, it shot a fireball into the square, which struck the side of his portal, slamming it shut just as he passed through. Typically, portals are very stable, and something like that would never happen. However, he was responding to an emergency and must have skipped a few steps in his haste.” Parish waved a hand in the air, “but I digress. Where was I…oh yes. As I screamed in shocked horror at the scene in front of me, another portal opened, and the space mage, who is also my uncle, walked out of it as if nothing had happened. He tried to tell me it was a space thing and that he was never harmed. Still, even though he had changed his clothes, he hadn’t thought to clean the blood from his face and hair, so I knew he had been dead only minutes before.” Parish sat back smiling, “He snatched his body up into his storage and promised to never tell my father if I didn’t tell my aunt. Of course, I agreed, and to this day, only he and I know I accidentally killed him because he was in a hurry. Oh, and the emergency was to intercept a trade caravan passing by our village so he could get first choice on any goods they had for sale, and by goods, I mean good wines and cheeses for my aunt.”
Sam laughed at Parish’s last comment, then got serious about the potential evolution of her skill. “Let me see…I can keep going as I am with Resilient+, allowing it to improve, or I could…what, have a version of Reincarnation? Okay, so the pros for Resilient+ are that I can stick with the tried and true method of using my magic to assist my natural healing, which is already super fast and will also be boosted by half. The cons are that although it’s high, there is a percentage cap for my natural healing rate.
Now, as for Rebuild, which is strangely similar to the Reincarnation skill I was offered, I can now see it would have replaced my Resilient skill. So its pros are it is a more easily modifiable version of the skill I was offered and allows me to choose how much, if at all, I want to nerf myself. As for the cons, they aren’t exactly small…I won't be able to heal myself with magic. I will have to constantly watch my energy reserves to ensure I have enough for the skill to be effective, and if I want to heal from normal wounds in a fight, I will have to sacrifice my precious vital energies.” Sam was stressed. She desperately wanted to stay the way she was with Resilient+. At the same time, she really wanted to see what the Rebuild skill could do but was afraid she couldn’t take the hit to her energy reserves. Plus, there was the whole 1up token aspect she didn’t like. However, this skill seemed less likely to allow her to recover from being vaporized, used more energy and used all her vital energies instead of just mana.
Sam thought long and hard about her fighting style. “I basically run headlong into everything I do, my body be dammed. Hell, I’ve cut my own arm off, ruptured my soul, mangled and destroyed my avatars…whatever those are, and blown myself up just to win a freaking fight, for god's sake! Do I want to keep slowly healing those injuries or instantly heal them so I can keep fighting?” After only a few more seconds, she chose Rebuild for two reasons. One was because she had just gotten a significant boost to her magical power, so losing a bit of her energy wasn’t so hard of a hit that she couldn’t recover from losing it. The other was because she was already levels ahead of everyone regarding raw power, so sacrificing some of her power to have an advanced skill early in her progression was worth it. She still didn’t know the specifics of the skill and hoped her low energy levels wouldn’t affect its usefulness. Still, she wouldn’t let fear of the unknown stop her from essentially harnessing an incredible power long before most people could.
Evolution path chosen: Rebuild. Prepare for skill evolution.
Tensing at the message, Sam only felt mild discomfort when she chose the Rebuild option for her skill evolution, and it burned itself into her core.
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill, Rebuild [Level 1]: Every entity that has ever felt the annoyance of the time it takes to regrow a lost limb has wished for this kind of power, and now you have it! With Rebuild, you can replace lost mass instantly by quarantining your vital energies! The mass you can replace directly depends on the amount of vital energy quarantined, your affinity, and the purity/strength of the energy/energies used.
“So it’s a variable skill depending on my power?” Sam liked this new revelation. Checking to make sure she wasn’t holding the party up and seeing some people still seated, Sam activated her new skill. The Rebuild skill flooded her with information on how to use it. Sam was relieved when she understood better how the skill functioned. In her mindscape, she pulled up the skill’s interface. Three bars with sliders representing her energies, health, stamina, and mana appeared in her mind. Sam also noticed the fourth solid black bar representing her Void energy below the other three. The void bar was much smaller than the rest by two-thirds; it also had a slider, which she found interesting. “hmm, so this represents my void energy. I wonder why it only shows as a blacked-out portion of my energy pools on my status sheet, but here it is separate? Oh well, I’ll figure it out later…I hope.” Finishing her thoughts, Sam tried moving each slider as far as she could on each bar and found she could only move them one-fifth of the way across the length of the bar. “I guess that’s twenty percent, then,” She mused internally.
Focusing harder on the skill, it told Sam how much mass each percent of the energies she was quarantining would rebuild. Her health was a one-for-one ratio, meaning for every percent she sacrificed in health, it would replace one percent of her total mass. That made sense to Sam, considering it was her health. Stamina wasn’t as good as a ratio, with it only replacing half of a percent of her total mass per percent of stamina quarantined. Sam was already thinking about what thirty percent of her body weight was but stopped herself to check her mana ratio. Mana had a much return, probably due to her magical might. It gave a two-and-a-half percent mass replacement for every percent quarantined. That shocked Sam enough for her to do some math, “Let me see, with only quarantining mana, I could replace fifty percent of my body mass. And if I use my health and stamina too, it would bring it up to eighty percent! That’s awesome! I could have almost fully healed instantly from blowing myself up earlier!” Sam quelled her excitement with the thought that she would be, in a way, sacrificing levels for this power. That and the skill told her that once the quarantined energies were used up, she could only refill them after replacing any other energy she had used. So, during a fight where her mana and stamina might be low, Sam would have to recover the energies she had exhausted before she could quarantine any more using the skill. With that in mind, she moved on to her void power.
Alert! Only three vital energies may be used for this skill.
Sam shrugged, moved the slider on her stamina to zero, and then tried the void slider again. The ratio was insane! For every percent of quarantined Void, the Rebuild skill would replace ten percent of her body mass instantly.
Sam could only stare into space as she processed the knowledge that she could instantly replace two hundred and seventy percent of her body and still be just as powerful as she was before the event. “I am definitely glad I picked this evolution!” she thought excitedly, keeping her health, mana, and void at twenty percent quarantine.
Backing out of her Rebuild skill, Sam started to check her flashing pain resistance ability, but someone placed a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. Dismissing her interface, Sam looked at the person to see what they needed and jerked back, startled by the person’s appearance. She half shouted, “Who the fuck are you?”
The furry anthropomorphic woman in black and red armor with yellow irises, a fury red tail, red hair, and canine ears smiled down at Sam. “Do you like it, mistress?” The woman asked in Lupie’s soft, smooth voice.
Sam could only return Lupie’s smile, saying, “I guess you aren’t called a Bloodmorph for nothing. I love it! But I think Nara may be upset she no longer has her ride.” Lupie smiled even wider at the praise, clapping her clawed hands excitedly.
“It’s okay! I can morph twice every thirty minutes!” Lupie said. To prove her point, she ran to a clear area away from anyone and burst into a massive ball of blood. The spattering mass quickly reformed into a prancing blood-colored wolf the size of a small SUV.
Sam got up and dusted herself off; it was time to head back to the city for some much-needed rest.