We rested for a bit longer while Jazmyn’s mana recovered -- as with traditional, on-screen MMOs, it recovered quicker while she was “resting,” and probably would have recovered even more quickly if she had food or drink to provide a boost. But, as new players, we didn’t have any consumables.
Pity. A few potions, flasks, and on-use items, and we might have succeeded in our first encounter, after all. Or, we might not have. It had still been a slogfest, and the rat having a second-stage wasn’t something we had been prepared for.
Still, with the amount of damage that Jazmyn’s Silver Slash spell had done, perhaps it and some consumables would have helped.
While I was considering that, Noa asked the question that the rest of us were probably working our thoughts up toward. “Jazzy,” she said, “I’m curious. What exactly is the description of that spell?”
“Hmm? Oh, let me look at it again. Let’s see, how do I …? Oh, there we go.” It took my sister a moment to manipulate that aspect of the interface, but we weren’t waiting long. “Hmm, ‘Silver Slash,’” she read to us, “Melee range. Empower your weapon with elemental silver. Deals 1.5 times normal attack damage as elemental slashing damage and drains available mana to deal additional elemental slashing damage.’ Oh. That’s why I ran out of mana.”
“Yeah. It was impressive, but probably not something you want to do in every fight,” Ette said.
“With faster regen, or some mana-regen items or food, the downtime wouldn’t be as significant,” I said. “Who knows, I might even get something in one of my abilities to boost mana regen and not just health regen. Jazmyn’s going to need something, anyway, if she continues to chaincast Silver Shot.”
“I might get something in mine, too,” Noa said. “Maybe a sustained power to boost maximum mana or one of my little tactical next-attack buffs that reduces mana costs, perhaps. That’d be good for you, too, Rie.”
“Unfortunately, not for me,” I said. “I have a merit that buffs the amount of mana I have, well, by turning it into something other than mana -- faith. My faith pool is quite a bit larger than my mana pool would have been, but it also means that abilities that affect mana don’t affect me. Buffs, debuffs, even things like plus-mana on equipment grant me no benefit … or detriment.”
“That sounds interesting,” Mikachu said, “but what about when you level up? Wouldn’t a level up affect mana and so not affect faith?”
I stretched back out. While the others were sitting on the ground -- even Noa -- I was reclining on the back of Daybreak Gleaming. With my diminutive height, sitting in the grass would have seriously restricted my field of view. Stretching out on a unicorn’s back wasn’t as comfortable as it could have been, however; after all, Daybreak Gleaming was made out of wood. It was a little like lying down on a park bench or the gym’s bleachers.
“I guess I’ll find out when we get that far,” I said, “but that will be a while. I’m not even halfway to level one yet. Just not a lot of experience from these fights.”
Ette and Mikachu both nodded, but Noa looked puzzled. “Not even halfway? But I’m about three-quarters there.”
“Just under halfway,” Ette said.
“And just over halfway for me,” Mikachu added.
Noa frowned. “Different experience tables for different classes?” she asked.
“Possibly. And/or for different races,” Ette said. “Remember? The more rare the race and class, the more and better skills they start with. But the more common the race and class, the faster they get stronger and can more easily adapt. It might not be different experience tables, but just experience modifiers. You and Jazmyn gain more experience, or need less experience, to level than the rest of us. And poor Rie, I guess for having a unique class, will be slower than the rest of us.”
“And I can’t exactly play more to make up for that,” I said. “No extra grinding experience while you’re out shopping or studying. I should pout, but my class is too good for that.”
“Yeah, well, we aren’t always going to be doing everything together,” Ette countered. “I’m a crafter. That means there will be times -- and probably many of them -- when I’m going to be focused on crafting instead of coming out of town and killing monsters with you. Plus there’s quests, some of them are for solos or duos. And you’ll have your church to worry about, too.”
I shrugged. “Yep, but that’s for a different day. A different month or year, even.”
“Anyway, my mana’s all back,” Jazmyn said as she stood. “Are you girls, sorry Rie, are you all ready to fight more rats?”
A handful of rats later, one of which was a level 2 and was also virtually one-shot by Silver Slash, Jazmyn was lit up by a silver glow spiraling around her when the most recent rat fell dead.
The glow was accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets, and we all congratulated her.
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“Okay. So, um, now what?” she asked.
“What did you get from leveling up, Jazzy?” Noa asked.
“Besides a ‘congratulations’ message? I got a stat point, a development point, and an ability point. If I focus on them …. Oh! I can spend this stat point to raise a stat by a percent, but that doesn’t do much because the stat doesn’t get better until it gets to 100% when it goes up to the next category.” She frowned a moment and then shrugged. “You can help me with that in a moment.
“The development point can be spent to develop health or mana, to choose a new spell in an ability I already have, or to make it so an ability point can choose freely instead of from a random selection,” she continued.
“And the ability point lets me choose a new ability. I guess those stop coming sooner or later, because there’s only room for ten abilities, right?” she looked toward Ette.
“Not counting class and race abilities, yes,” Ette answered.
“So what do I do, then?” she asked. “One of you all should have leveled first -- it shouldn’t be the new player to lead the way. I haven’t really played these types of games before.”
It was Mikachu who answered. “Even if it doesn’t pay off right away, you should probably start by putting your stat point into Spell Power. As a caster, that’s the most important to you. And the higher it gets, the quicker you can kill things because your spells will be stronger.”
“I can already kill them pretty quickly,” Jazmyn pointed out.
“Things will get tougher, Jazzy,” Noa said. “Remember the first rat?”
“I don’t want to remember that rat!” she exclaimed. “But I see your point. Okay, Spell Power it is. Hey! It went up by five percent, not one.”
Ette nodded. “On your character sheet, do you have plusses and minus after the stats?”
“Yeah. Spell Power is plus plus plus plus and the others are all just one minus each,” Jasmyn said.
“That’s why, then. Each plus means a stat levels faster and each minus means it levels slower. Having no plusses or minuses on a stat means it levels normally. I think everyone should have an equal number of pluses and minuses, that is … they cancel out. Anything that levels faster means something else gets stronger slower.”
“So, four pluses equals five? That’s some weird math,” Jazmyn said.
“Yeah, a better system would be showing times and divided by, but you can treat it as 1 stat point with four +1s on it, So one plus one plus one plus one plus one” -- she held up one finger at a time -- “makes five percent.”
“Okay. I’ll roll with it. So that means I’d need two points to raise anything else by one percent, yes?”
“Yep. You’re better off focusing on your strengths rather than shoring up your weaknesses,” Ette said. “At least right now.”
“Alrighty then. What about the development point?” Jazmyn asked.
Mikachu answered again. “I’d say use it to take a new spell. Sooner or later, probably sooner, you’re going to want to spend some on more mana. Especially with the way Silver Slash works. And once you have more spells, you’re going to want to spend those on increasing the tiers of your abilities so that their spells get stronger or you get access to spells that require higher tiers. But for now, having more spells means you’re less likely to get bored casting the same one over and over. Variety is the spice of magic, right?”
“Sounds good,” Jazmyn said. “I haven’t used Silver Shield, yet. So maybe another attack spell from Assertive Argentomancy? Let’s see …. Oh, wow, there’s a lot to choose from. Let me look at them.”
We didn’t have to wait too long. “Okay Sparkle Storm -- that sounds like a fairy spell, doesn’t it, Rie? Anyway, Sparkle Storm lets me target an area and it quote ‘periodically strikes all opponents in the area.’ That sounds like it can be fun.”
“That just leaves the ability point,” she said and stretched. “Huh. I can choose a new ability, one of these three: Conservative Casting, that’s a passive with an ‘x’; Argent Auras with 2 spells; or another passive x called Silvered Spellpower.”
“What do they do?” I asked, “But auras are usually support spells. You might want to choose a passive instead.”
“Hmmm. Conservative Casting has a chance to make a spell cost less mana and a tiny chance to have it cost no mana. Silvered Spellpower instead gives a chance to have a spell act as if my Spell Power stat was one level higher.”
“Take that one.” The rest of us were unanimous in our immediate reaction.
Jazmyn blinked in surprise at our simultaneous responses. “Okay. Why?”
We all looked to Ette to explain, since she was better at that sort of thing. “First, something like that sounds particularly rare, its effect is very strong. If the choice of abilities is from a random selection, then you probably won’t see that one again. You might not see the others show up again, either, but almost certainly that one won’t.”
My sister nodded to show her understanding.
Ette continued. “I’ve also looked into stats. They eventually cap out at Exceptional, the tenth level of stats. But there is one more level higher -- Legendary -- and you can only get that way via buffs or the like. You can’t raise a stat above Exceptional 99%. But one day in the future, when you’re at Exceptional Spell Power, that passive will let at least some of your spells be cast as if you had Legendary Spell Power.”
“It’s also a very immediate boost, Jazzy,” Noa said. “Certainly not every time you cast a spell, it will be as if you were stronger than you are. But the times it does will be very helpful. That’s probably better than having a spell sometimes cast for cheaper or for free. I know I would usually prefer stronger over cheaper.”
I nodded in agreement, “It’s a bit different calculus for a healer. Cheaper spells means more heals, and that’s better than potentially wasting the proc on overhealing. But for you, yeah. Don’t say ‘no’ to free damage.”
“But wouldn’t more spells be free damage, too?” Jazmyn reasonably asked.
“Sometimes, but even your boom-boom-boom Silver Shots one after another take some casting time. As long as Mikachu can keep enough hate from her taunting and totem, you doing more damage faster is better than doing more damage slower. And if you’re doing stuff by yourself because we’re doing other things -- more damage faster makes it less likely for the monsters to hit you.”
“Alright, well, I guess I’m leveled up all the way, then,” Jazmyn said. “A powerful level one, infinitely more powerful than a level zero me. I remember that much from math. So, now we find more rats to kill so you all can level, too?”