It took Doyle a moment to process what Ally had said, when a realization hit him. ‘The adjustment points are for exactly that, permanent adjustments. That is why skills and stat adjustment felt so similar. It is just one is more modular than the other.
‘In fact, I would use a different comparison. The stats are the land and the skills are what gets built on top. Brick by brick, level by level, a skill can build itself up. The land beneath, on the other hand, silently supports it.’
Ally shrugs, ‘Eh, the land is also growing, so I still prefer the other analogy.’
Doyle, ‘I guess to be fair, neither are perfect fits. Instead, the important thing to take away is that using adjustment points will result in some kind of permanent change to my monsters’ base abilities. It will be interesting to see if there is anything else that uses those points.’
Ally nods, ‘That does seem to be the case.’
With that, they go back to watching the various assassin vines, including the elders. Of course, things aren’t that peaceful outside.
At first people ignored the panicked team warning of tougher vines monsters. After all, those things are known quantities more than anything. And truly they were, as without mind stats unlocked the plants worked entirely off of reactions.
It was only after multiple teams had reported the problem that Jim got involved. Of course, in theory, it should have been someone else who was local and working for the Guild, he just didn’t have that luxury yet. So instead he got together a quick team of people who were hanging out around the dungeon and rushed to the third floor.
Of course, the new and improved assassin vine on the third floor isn’t any kind of actual threat to him. Even if he let it get a vine around his neck, it would be up in the air on whether it could actually strangle. So, without much worry, Jim is able to get a feel for the monster.
Was it going to be tougher to beat? Yes. However, he could also feel that in exchange for harder to break vines, it traded away some of its accuracy, grab speed, and so on. Not a lot, but enough that the growth in flexibility wasn’t quote unquote unfair.
Jim got back to his office and let out a big sigh after sitting down. This was going to require a ton of paperwork. Of course, changes happen all the time in a dungeon, but generally not on floors before the most recent boss.
Any such changes in turn was required to be documented heavily for the Guild. A rule that Jim actually was in favor for. That doesn’t mean he wants to do the paperwork himself, but some rules requires a local observer to document what happened.
This, of course, brings his mind back to his lack of Guild employees from Wolf’s Rest. Not that he couldn’t find enough people willing to take up the work. Rather, the other people in the inner circle had all fallen into various important jobs.
Plus, working for the Guild was to some extent like working for some out-of-town business. Useful for the services it provided, but not entirely trusted. Jim sighed again, he was going to have to talk with Ace about vetting some people for work in the Guild, even if they are from the second ring.
Ace, upon hearing this is quite uncomfortable with the idea. The Guild is in town because of the Dungeon, and the reason he had to set up the whole inner and outer thing in the first place was exactly because of the dungeon. Not to say he doesn’t have candidates. He would, however, have preferred to wait until some people got married or kids were born and grown up enough to start taking up the roles.
Not to say he doesn’t have a few people in mind. In fact, he has four people in mind. The four ladies who had been caught up with that one guy that had figured out how to use his dad’s influence like a weapon.
It had been a while since the four joined the town. Of the four, three settled down easily enough. Susan Smithson with her sewing, Jessica Lewis with her cooking, and Pam Stern with her cleaning had all found places they fit in town. Though they were still in the awkward position of not really being inner circle while also not quite being accepted, I’m the second ring either.
This was to some degree, Ace’s fault. If he had laid out where they stood, things would have progressed better for them. On the other hand, having access to their skills in the inner area was useful. Though this still left one of the ladies.
Courtney Williams was a driver. She ride, drive, or even fly just about anything. If the town ever got a spaceship, she would be the one they go to, to figure it. Problem is, the town doesn’t need a driver right now.
Ace originally planned for her to take over the boat he had planned on getting. They never got that boat and so she has mostly been left to herself. The four ladies stuck together after getting out of the near mind control that idiot had been running, so she wasn’t planning on leaving.
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However, it had been months now and Ace had started to worry. This was, in theory the perfect assignment. After all, while the other three technically found jobs, they certainly weren’t full time, so working at the Guild wouldn’t interrupt anything.
This would be especially true if all four worked at the guild as that would spread out the work. Ace was still worried about them. However, Jim was more than happy to overlook their origins as long as it meant having someone else to help fill out paperwork.
Plus, the main worry with the three would be to some degree negated by having them work at the Guild. After all, the Guild can’t exactly have people thinking their personal information is easy to steal. So anyone working at the Guild will have magical contracts and such put in place to prevent them from sharing information learned while on the job.
This wouldn’t protect anything learned while not on the job. A worry, but not a new one. So, in the end, both Ace and Jim agree to let them give it a shot if they want.
Of course, the four were quite worried when called to Ace’s office. It is like being in school and being called to the principals office. Even if you know you haven’t done anything wrong, you still worry.
Suffice it to say, they weren’t expecting a job offer, especially not one so important. At least it felt important to them. The positions were, of course basically just secretary work, but it dealt with a force from beyond their world. As if some aliens had showed up pre-system and you got asked to work in their embassy.
Not that their positions were actually all that important. There wasn’t even the usual worry of an embassy about not hiring spies or what have you. After all, the Guild was capable of enforcing secrecy from its workers.
Still, for the four ladies, this was important. A step up in a way they never thought would present itself for them. So, after a few more questions, they accepted the offer.
All the while, Ace planned. In theory, the inner circle would expand on its own. There were couples who would eventually become families, of course. Though the most tricky would be when someone wanted to have a significant other from outside their circle.
His stomach churned at the idea of things turning into some kind of noble bloodline nonsense. However, the small number of people here could easily suffer such a fate. Not only that, but on the desk in his private office there was a dangerous report.
The energy field had strengthened again. People were recharging their powers faster than ever. Not only that, but his control over where the recharge field was had been refined. On one hand, this meant they could more easily hide the benefits.
On the other hand? That made the secret much more deadly. Any major force in the universe would kill for a place like this to train elites. The only saving grace was that the bonus so far was a flat one.
That way, at least, anyone that might find out would only be fighting for a place to raise young talents. A percentage bonus would get the truly old monsters interested. After all, there are beings out there with pools of power larger by a magnitude than the current pool of everyone on the planet added together.
Ace shakes his head. The four ladies are gone and he can get back to planning. Specifically, he was planning around Lucy Miller. One of the core members who had almost gotten caught up in the nonsense with the guy that had brought the four ladies. Almost a coincidence, not that he cares about Lucy being from overseas.
More importantly, and why she has basically been living within the field, is that despite how she started, she had a special advantage. Lucy had a natural talent for spatial magic.
It hadn’t been noticed at first because far and away her best stat was Agility. That, however, was apparently just an offshoot of her talent. Because she had such a good sense of her surroundings, she ended up extra good at gymnastics and really anything requiring spatial awareness.
Now, though, Ace has a greater purpose for her. One that he did get permission from her before guiding her down it. Still, he felt a little bad about setting her future in stone.
Not bad enough to stop. As he had been thinking, the inner circle would only grow in population. Yet, where would the space come from?
Well, Ace’s answer was to steal the space. More specifically, through a combination of studying the dungeon and mind numbing practice, Lucy was training to be a spatial enchanter. That meant that with enough stats and skills, she was going to be able to take space from elsewhere and increase how much room they had.
That might not come into fruition for a hundred years, but Ace had hope. Especially with the bags of holding as an example. Though they weren’t just going to copy them or use enchantments to increase the space. That was just asking for trouble.
The bags literally just connected to another space and so using a similar method would just introduce security risks. As for enchantments? While Lucy would use enchantments to get everything moving. If enchantments were used to keep it all in place, that would spell disaster if anyone managed to break said enchantments.
No, what Ace wanted was his own realm like in some of the stories he had read. So Lucy and anyone that she might train in the future would be in charge of moving more space to the inner area. There was even the possibility that someday the inner circle might be larger than the rest of the planet.
That, however, would be many millions of years in the future, if ever. For now, Ace just has to scrounge for every scrap of knowledge related to space there is available. And for this reason alone, the plan to grab all the books possible was already showing results.
Magic might be a mix of nonsense and chaos, but it works better with a framework. So every book that worked to explain what space was and how the very fabric of the universe worked meant a sturdier foundation for her. Ace could even see the potential for her to start making a version of the bag of holding. Not the magical portal into another area style bag, but rather the type that has a stretched inside area and doesn’t remove any of the weight.