“That was amazing!” Jamie said with a huge grin after stepping away from the open window he’d been using.
Isa smiled at her excitable Team Leader before turning her attention back to the creatures outside. More flyers had appeared since she used the explosive habetis – likely scavengers – so she avoided using more of them once the first ones were exhausted.
Instead, she targeted the flying monsters with Lightning and Ice, her two favorite aspects aside from the much higher-tier aspect of Storm. She couldn’t quite use Storm openly, considering the planet had only just ascended into the Mana Realm. In fact, she’d probably have to wait until her next life to reintroduce the complex aspect to her arsenal.
“We should see if some of the civilians would be willing to assist more directly in their defense,” the former goddess said after noticing a few people watching them from a nearby building.
She felt confident many civilians would be willing to fight if they had a plausible justification for such actions. A request for assistance from the force responsible for the city’s defense/ reclamation should be enough of a justification, though there was always a risk.
“I honestly expected them to already be engaged at this point,” the Healer admitted quietly as he followed the younger woman’s gaze. “The city is completely overrun by monsters. It never should have gotten this bad.” He shook his head in disappointed amazement. “I can’t believe people just sat there watching their neighbors die without doing anything to help.”
“It’s the culture,” Isa said sadly. “I can send a message to everyone located in this building and the adjacent ones if you’d like,” she offered. “They might be waiting for someone to give them permission to act. With a semi-official request, they should be able to avoid any potential pushback.”
After giving it a moment of thought, Jamie nodded resolutely. “Do that,” he said. “Be careful with your wording, though. We don’t actually have any authority here. If it works out, I’ll let the other Team Leaders know so they can do something similar.”
While Isa drafted the message and coordinated for its delivery, Jamie stepped away to speak with a newcomer who had entered the floor from one of the side stairwells.
Even without using her AI, Isa was a genius when it came to electronics. It took longer to draft the message than it did to hack into the local network and target the correct people.
When Jamie returned a few minutes later, Isa looked up from her tablet and said, “I’m sending a copy to you as well.”
Jamie’s palm-sized communicator beeped from within his pocket a moment before his augmented eyewear displayed the contents of the message. Normally, such actions were practically invisible to others. However, Isa had always been a bit more connected to electronics than others.
Since psionics did not use mana or other ‘higher’ energy, it was a skill that could be developed in the Mortal realm. However, it was exceedingly rare in civilizations that weren’t oriented toward the development of such skills.
Just a few minutes after the message was sent, Isa felt bursts of mana from above. A glance out the window showed some of the civilians had accepted her request and had begun carefully targeting the remaining monsters roaming the streets below.
She smiled grimly at the sight.
Most of the new fighters focused on the monsters to the north of the building, though she heard a few impacts coming from the west as well. Both directions provided more space and a clearer view for targeting since the roads there were significantly larger than the alleyways to the east and south.
It was also where the bulk of the dungeon spawns targeting the building had gathered.
As the results of their efforts became obvious, more civilians joined in. It didn’t take long for most of the dungeon monsters to fall, though there were still a few stragglers crawling out of the hidden alcoves behind waste receptacles and recessed doorways.
Isa stowed her weapons, allowing the civilians to finish off what remained. They could probably use the experience more than she could anyway.
“I’m ready for a class evolution and race upgrade!” Milo called out excitedly as he joined them in the center of the floor. He casually slid his new wand into an accessory slot in his armor, patting it affectionately when he thought nobody was looking.
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“Me too!” Benji said as he joined them. He was quickly followed by a nodding Sophia. The only one who hadn’t reached the upgrade threshold was Jamie.
“Go ahead and take care of it,” Jamie said with an exaggerated sigh. “Isa and I will pack up while you guys are busy. I’d like to get at least two more sections clear before we call it for the night.”
Isa held up a hand, stopping them. “You might want to wait on that. The upgrade takes a while,” she said matter-of-factly.
“How long?” Jamie asked with a raised brow.
“A few hours,” she said, causing the others to deflate.
“Damn. We might have to wait, unless you two want to sit around and wait for us?”
“Will we lose any experience we earn while we wait?” Sophia asked quietly, raising an important question.
Isa remained silent, not wanting to show any more knowledge than she already had. Seeing the genius’s lack of response, the others looked at each other questioningly.
“If you do, it shouldn’t be much,” Jamie said after a moment of thought. “You can take a break and deal with the upgrades once we get settled into the next building. Isa can use that time to build walls while I catch up to everyone.”
It was no secret that Isa had already upgraded her race. Someone had acquired a good enough identification skill to see her race grade and had mentioned it a couple of weeks earlier.
With the decision made, everyone started collecting the random equipment that had been unpacked during their time on the floor. By the time they had everything packed and ready to go, the sound of civilians attacking monsters outside had died down.
Once they were ready, Jamie pulled out his tablet and briefed the group on their route and target location.
“We’re going down the northeastern stairwell and heading to the L-shaped building directly across the road,” he said, pointing at the building being referenced. “They should already be expecting us, so gaining access to the building should be relatively easy. Unlike this building, our next target is mostly residential. That means we’re not going to have an open floorplan like this to work from.”
He tapped his tablet a few times, sending the schematics of the target building to each of the team members. “A few of the residences were breached by climbers and fliers. Those are marked in red on your map,” he said. “We’ll need to secure the breaches and clear the building, or at least the route to the fourth floor. There is already a team of locals waiting to assist us. They’ll meet us at the entrance location marked on your map.”
Isa saw the emergency stairwell they’d be using to access the building and made note of the nearby intrusions. Though it wasn’t something she was responsible for, she felt it prudent to be aware of where enemies might have entered the building.
“To start, we’ll all be in apartment 411. Once we get the area secured, you three can take care of your upgrades and evolutions,” Jamie said, motioning toward Milo, Sophia, and Benji. “I’ll stand guard and start taking out monsters while you’re busy. I should reach the attribute threshold in the next level or two, depending on how the system is calculating things. I’ll take care of my upgrades once one of you are finished.”
After a bit of discussion, the others realized that the threshold for the race upgrade wasn’t when someone reached a predefined level; it occurred once a person reached an average of fifteen points in each attribute. They also soon realized that class evolutions were tied to race upgrades and could only be completed in conjunction with or after upgrading one’s race.
Isa had already been fully aware of these facts, but tried not to bring attention to her knowledge. They knew she’d upgraded her race already, but she’d never given any details about her attribute points, and nobody had pushed for answers.
Asking such questions would have been an invasion of privacy, and the former goddess felt no reason to volunteer the information.
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The door to the emergency stairwell opened as they approached the L-shaped residential building, and they were quickly ushered inside. It took longer for Jamie, Milo, and Sophia to clear the first five floors of the building than it did for Isa and Benji to secure the breaches.
Most of the creatures that had breached the building had left once the immediate food source was no longer available. Splotches and pools of coagulated blood marked several locations where unsuspecting victims were overpowered, and there were several signs of offensive magic use spread throughout the floors.
Once they arrived at the target apartment, Isa got to work building walls while the others readied themselves for the upgrades. She hadn’t warned them about the pain, though she did mention it was not a comfortable experience.
Sophia was the first to awaken, and she was quite unhappy with the lack of warning.
Since Jamie had earned enough levels to reach the upgrade threshold while the others were napping, he took the former Rogue’s place with only a slight hesitation.
Following her race upgrade, Sophia had opted to eschew evolving her unwanted class, changing it to Air Mage instead. While her aptitude for Air magic barely qualified for the system to recognize, a twenty-five percent aptitude for an aspect was plenty to support a focused mage class.
She didn’t even lose the Rogue abilities she’d been granted, which was a nice bonus.
On Isa’s recommendation, Jamie evolved his Healer class into Life Mage. While it sounded like another basic class, Isa had assured him it was capable of doing much more than simply healing others.
Upon waking, he’d immediately tested that assertion.
While Jamie was pleased with his new offensive capabilities, he found they were much too mana-intensive to use often. With a touch of disappointment, Jamie went back to using the Ice wand as his primary offensive tool, his blaster and rifle largely forgotten.
Like the rest of them, Jamie’s lack of mana and poor mana efficiency would change eventually. It would just take time and effort.
Until then, they had a city to clear and people to save.