Chapter 74

The Journey

(A Week Later)

Now I am one to always say that it is not the destination, but the journey that truly defines how worthwhile something is. Honestly if I was to summarize my last six months as a whole, I went through a lot, I grew personally and magically, and I definitely feel that over this last week I grew the most I’ve ever grown in my life. Of course, this can be due to a number of reasons, I have to say the Title and Soul Bound degrees that I got for reaching the fiftieth floor of the tower were amazing.

Arcanarus University Graduate

One of the most promising graduates of Arcanarus University. Effects: +10 Perception, Intelligence, and Willpower. Along with a +100% Skill Efficacy to Spirt-Magic Spell Creation, and Energy Resonance Alteration.

Arcanarus University Diploma: +100% Skill Efficacy to Spell Theory and Magical Theory.

Yep, I’m a graduate again, this time without the oppressive yoke of student loans. The experience was so great that I am now in the process of trying to get my Masters Degree. That is what I am currently doing now, heading to floor number 100, well likely 150 ultimately so I can get a Doctorate in Magic, that just sounds cool.

Let’s see, what else did I do. I won my first hand of poker, got a badge for that. Then I finished third in a tournament and got robbed of my winnings. I evolved my bloodline to be a Royal Bloodline, thus changing my race from dark elf to an Arcanist Elf, kind of cool, though my eyes apparently tell how evil I am. Also, I am a child of a new magical revolution, whatever that means. I have some ideas, I mean I can increase anyone’s magical tier rating by two ranks up to Tier IX, my current Tier rating for Spirit magic. I also shine like a magical beacon to anyone who is remotely sensitive to magic, making it so that I stand out like a sore thumb to people, thus making it hard to hide from anyone tracking me. As a thief this makes my life very difficult, fortunately sneaking around and being unnoticed are just one of my skill sets. I can hide in plain sight, thanks to my Void Healer class Trait Spiritual Doppelganger.

My first body that I was able to help move on was Octavia De’Arcaneri of Deolar, a doctoral candidate herself who managed to create a spell that could cure the Blight from an infected area. Of course, I took her study and progressed it the next step, making it so that those who were infected with the Blight would be able to be healed. Apparently, this started a whole thing, as I was the only one who could cast the spell, and once people were healed, depending on how long they had said ailment, they could increase their own magical Tier rating by two, going up to Tier XI for Mallory from the Midnight Hunter’s Guild. Oh yeah, I’ve been recruited to multiple guilds once I decide to leave this tower, this recruitment only doubled when it was found out that I could bring people back from the dead.

Though my joining a guild will not be for a while yet, as I want to keep climbing, it’s a lot of fun. Especially now that this tower was built for how powerful I was when I first entered, and that was a long time ago. Also, there is the fact that I now have my Simulacrum power leveling the both of us, well she was, until the game admins came up with a way to stop my exponential growth. As a pacifist, being able to avoid conflict because I am so over powered for the area is a huge thing. And over the last week, I just so happened to have gotten a huge increase in power. Going from level 38 in my Void Healer class and level 27 in my Simulacrum Master class, to levels 87 and 82 respectively. A growth rate of 49 levels for my primary, and 55 levels for my secondary class.

What do I mean by exponential growth, well hypothetically, I might have pulled off the best caper ever, stealing ten million in gold coins, and experience points from a tournament who might or might not have previously prevented me from taking home my earnings for third place in a tournament. So, my growth of 300,000 experience for each class, or 600,000 experience total was more than double the earnings I would have had, if I had been allowed to take my third-place winnings. I think we can just chalk this one up to karma, especially for Lady Constance Legrand, the person who I tried to build up a rapport with, going so far as to invest a legendary badge Master Tier Spell Creator (500), that went entirely to Lady Legrand and her branch within the Legrand empire. I had hoped to use it as an in to the Legrand empire, sort of play middle spy, where I could pit the Legrand Empire and Maltese Empire against each other, being able to gain intel from higher levels of the Legrand Empire and slowly feed them to the Maltese Empire, but alas, it was not to be. So I did lose that badge, completely, though I am going to see it as an investment, in pulling off what might or might not have been the best theft ever, where I was not caught up in, or implicated in the ongoings in any way, shape, or form. Even after being clearly in the clutches of Lady Legrand in what was easily a predatory soul contract. Fortunately, I can read, and was able to buy my way out of said predatory soul contract for a copper coin.

I know, I know, we are all thinking the same thing. You might have found and used six hundred thousand experience, what would you do with the other nine point six million experience? Well, I am glad you asked. I am going to spend it on me, in a way that will make it so my survival will be that much easier in the future. How will I do this? Simple, I am going to take full advantage of the recent patch to the game. One where people can trade in thousands of experience points in, no questions asked, to buy Merit Points, not additional Attributes, not new spells, not even Skills, I am talking about being able to purchase new Trait slots, and being able to hand pick my new Trait that would fill the void. This would mean I could buy Unbound, and Precocious both. The restrictions on my Magic Tier VII might be removed, meaning that I might be able to purchase to and then past my current Tier IX rating. I honestly don’t know how far it will go, but the possibilities are endless. There is of course a huge catch, each Merit Point costs one hundred thousand experience. Now most people would not go for this, as it is too much of a price to pay, particularly when the experience has to either come directly from you, or from the thousands of bottles of corked up experience that you might just have lying around. Given that the developers already put a one hour cool down timer on consuming experience potions, and this seems to be their way of playing nice cop, I, well my Simulacrum and I, have decided to go ahead and trade in the rest of the experience bottles. Especially as the experience potions taste like, and I quote, “the dried tears of defeat.” At least that is according to my Simulacrum.

So my Simulacrum and I traded in all the remainder of our experience potions and got a whopping 94 Merit Points, now unfortunately, we couldn’t double dip. I had originally marked all the bottles as trash, and then assigned a quest to get rid of one pound of trash for ten total experience points. Part of this turn in was that it couldn’t be trash, but a legitimate item. So, I had to go through unmark everything as not trash, then do the turn in. Fun loophole, but one they apparently thought I might try to exploit, its almost like they don’t trust me to do the right thing. Anyways, turning in all the experience potions this way was super quick, taking only minutes to complete, even with the added factor of changing the status of every vial and then presenting them for turn in.

Confirmed Merit Point Receipt (Soul Bound): You have turned in 9,400,250 experience points for a one time purchase of 94 Merit Points, which can be redeemed at any specially marked traveling shops.

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Fortunately, since the shops are traveling, they will eventually go through Crossroads, at which point, I will just Position Switch back with my Simulacrum, and show my receipt, buy the merits, and be done with everything. As it is now, my Simulacrum is still working through the close to a million pounds of trash in falsely marked gold coins that are littering the Guild Master’s office in the Crossroad Mage’s Guild.

Now it should also be noted that I can take a third class, but I am choosing not to. Mainly for the fact that I am trying to focus my will on what I actually want for my two class 50 changes. Because of my rapid growth and acceleration through the final few levels, I apparently didn’t hit as many milestones, as such my options for growth in each class were limited.

New Void Healer Class Evolution criteria met. You may now choose one of the following to gain for your class advancement: A new Spell, A new Skill, or a New Class Perk.

New Simulacrum Master Class Evolution criteria met. You may now choose one of the following to gain for your class advancement: A new Spell, A new Skill, or a New Class Perk.

That is right, I sped my way through leveling and missed the bonuses to getting class specific Traits, or even the Merits I wanted. This was also partly why I decided to trade in my experience potions for Merit Points, with my getting Merit Points, I could buy nearly anything I wanted. While the class evolutions were solely dependent on how the system rated my performance with rewards that I had already received, thus only the ability to get new perks, skills, or spells. Once again, the idea of getting a new spell was completely laughable, as I felt more than confident that I could create any spell I wanted, given enough time. So I was down to just either getting new Skills, or New Class Perks. While the idea of getting new Skills did speak to me on some deeper level, I ultimately decided to go for Class Perks.

Now there were a few things that I wanted to increase, or improve upon, most notably was the idea the distance I could Cast Spells, the Speed that I could Cast them, My magic Tier rating, My ability to disrupt other hostile magics, and so on. Basically, I wanted a lot of things, and found out rather quickly that many of my wants were off limits. Like the idea of increasing my magic tier rating, that was off the table before we even started. Spell casting distance was also not something that a perk could cover. The speed that I could cast a spell was a Skill, but I ran into a problem as I was told in no uncertain terms that this Skill already existed in the game. This was similar to the way I wanted to use Void Healer as a cheat to get Spell Creation and had to settle for Spirit-Magic Spell Creation, actually looking back, that might have been the best investment I ever made.

However, Spell Disruption for a perk was doable, as I already had a skill that dealt with that exact set of ideas with my: Magical Duelist, Magical Energy Observation, and Energy Resonance Alteration. With those four, I had the ability to actually direct one of my class perks to that very idea.

Thus, my Simulacrum Master level 50 perk went to Magic Disruption.

Simulacrum Master Class Perk Unlocked: Magic Disruption: You have managed to focus your will into dominating the magical spectrum around you. Effect: +100% Range when dueling with other magicians, +100% efficacy when dismantling a spell targeted towards you, +100% when trying to alter, diver, or diminish any form of magical energy around you.

I had to admit that the perk I got was a lot more powerful than what I envisioned. Granted this was a level 50 perk and thus should be a lot more powerful, but it basically made it so that my Simulacrum and I both could duel better, meaning that my Simulacrum’s survivability became just that little bit more robust. Again, I don’t want to kill anyone, but I also don’t want to be hit with a stray lightning bolt, or random fireball. I think that this ability to stop spells in my immediate area is very needed and can be extremely beneficial in the future.

That meant that my primary class must also be amazing. Though, with my Void Healer class, I decided to go with a build that would help out in the future, particularly with my ultimate goal of being able to truly resurrect the dead. I knew for a fact that my parents were likely saved in the server somewhere. Their spirits had not been ripped apart by demonic necromancers, or anything like that, they just died in an random act of war. With my being a Void Healer, I could begin to lay the groundwork for true Resurrection. Currently I can only heal and bring people back to life who exist within their own bodies. My goal is to be able to generate the body of a person or spirit I am attempting to bring back to life.

That was how my level 50 Void Healer perk went to Reincarnation.

Void Healer Class Perk Unlocked: Reincarnation: You have begun to take the next step in bridging the gap between life and death. Now you are able to regenerate life where there was none before. Effect: Healing efficacy increased by 50%, Tissue Regeneration increased by 100%, ability to create a body to match a free floating spirit.

That last perk was likely the most amazing of them, as it clearly gave me the ability to bring back anyone from the dead. That was another reason I was so ready to search the different levels of the Arcanarus Spirit Tower, on the off chance that I would either find my parents, or find a place where the dead actually go. Now I could pretend I was all altruistic, and was willing to go to such great lengths for every spirit that I came across, but that would be a lie. Well not a full lie, but close enough, as I would be omitting the fact that I had a personal stake in this, and that if my parents were still alive, and still running around on their own, I likely would have never gone to such great lengths to be where I am today. I can only hope that my kids don’t follow in my footsteps, become accountants, or maybe just be regular court magicians. Being a Void Healer is not for everyone, though I do have to admit it is fun breaking the boundaries of what is possible with Spirit magic. I do wonder how much of my experience is from my class, and how much of it is what I have unlocked throughout my journey. Regardless, it has been fun so far.

There is of course one problem with my new Void Healer class perk, namely the fact that my Simulacrum is not able to use it. Don’t get me wrong, she can still use each and every skill I have, use every spell I have created, she apparently even has access to my badges, even though she has not used any yet. But she is unable to use my new perk Reincarnation, which is likely for the best, as it means that no one can force her to do something that she doesn’t in fact want to do, like Reincarnate a tyrant, or some giant world ending boss. In fact, for the time being I think it would be best if I were the only one who knows about this, the last thing I want is for someone to bind my Simulacrum in place and force me to return to do something stupid. Granted I could always just dispel my Simulacrum, but that would mean the constant stream of experience I constantly get from her would disappear. Also, it would mean that Zero, my familiar would be by himself. Unfortunately, we all agreed that Zero staying with my Simulacrum was for the best, first to sell the fact that I was still in the Mage’s Guild, but also to help my Simulacrum be slightly better at casting the spells that come intuitively to me.

So far everything has been going well, all things considered. I’m still Broke, that is another thing I might look at getting rid of, that and any other flaw I might have remaining. While I don’t think spending seven of my Merit Points on removing that flaw would be worthwhile, I can’t help but think that spending one to get rid of the next six months of being too poor to have even decent clothing would be worth the investment.

That said, I have taken my time exploring floors 50, 51 and 52. It seems there was a group of marauders that constantly went from the city on floor fifty and regularly went out to cleanse the local wildlife. From there they gained ingredients that were used in various Spirit Resistance potions. In fact, their needs were so great that the potion makers only focused on making those specific potions. It reminded me of the way the Apothecary Guild on the second floor only focused on creating Detox potions there for a while. Well until my Simulacrum got the Guild Auditors to run and clear the local dungeon, only to have them apply for and get denied acceptance to our Guild by not us, but by the other three members of the Mage’s Guild. It was that quest chain and its completion that made it so I felt confident enough to leave my Simulacrum alone at the Healer’ section of the Mage’s Guild. Well, that is enough for me, time to move on to my destiny.

Now Entering Floor 53.