Chapter 16
I found an area where my back was to a hill and to the side were a couple of trees. If I rested here, I wouldn’t be able to run but also, I wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked from multiple directions. I was less worried about goblins now and more worried about some random monster or animal that may be nearby. The cabin was not too far away. Perhaps maybe only an earshot of a distance. It was getting late, and the sun had gone down. I felt maybe it was best that I do not approach the cabin at night. There were too many unknowns. I had no idea who was going to be in the cabin, if anyone. If it was this feerix cat, he may not be friendly to people barging in on him in the dark. Given my current state, any fight would be a losing battle for me.
I decided to skip making a fire. My location was not obvious, and a fire would only take away from that. I didn’t expect the goblins to have followed me. Goblins were lazier than teenagers with a new PlayStation and with about the same amount of attention span. Then again, these goblins I encountered were not like regular gobbies. These worked in unison and even had ogres working with them. Goblins tribes were willing to work with each other for short durations for a war effort but beyond that it was hard to keep them together. They tended to have a lot of infighting if there was not great leadership behind it. Even great leaders had difficulty because ambitious goblins were always trying to kill the leader to take over the position. Another impressive thing about goblins was how quickly they multiplied. The females were able to give birth once a month to a dozen goblins at a time. They also matured quickly from the infancy stage to an adult within the same year.
Goblin females were never seen on a battlefield but instead were left home to give births. It was rare to find one that was not pregnant at any given time. Goblins also did not believe in monogamy. The females took on mates on a first come first serve basis, often changing their mates monthly. The females that birthed the healthiest and most viable goblin babies were at the top of the pecking order. The females that could not give birth were made to tend to the fertile ones as servants.
I plopped down and got in a meditation position. I wasn’t going to sleep. Sleep was not a necessity at this point, and it would only be dangerous if a wild animal or worse, goblins were to approach. With meditation, I could rest my body, recover mana, stamina, and health. Certainly, the rate would not be as fast as sleeping but the situation called for this.
I meditated for an hour, and then decided to add the unused points and review my status. My Intelligence, wisdom and willpower had all increased by 9 points given the 3 levels I had obtained. I had 17 free points left. I could have added to my mental attributes, but I really wanted to try and obtain the title where all my attributes were 60 or more before my class evolution so I added 3 points to each physical and 2 to charisma. My secondary attributes rose appropriately from increasing the primary.
Name: Gatsby Lark
Race: Human Avatar
Primary Class: Mana Scepter
Level: 16
Experience to next level: 185
Primary Attributes
Strength: 45
Dexterity: 50
Speed: 47
Constitution: 53
Endurance: 46
Intelligence: 109
Wisdom: 64
Willpower: 64
Charisma: 37
Unused Attribute Points: 0
Secondary Attributes
Health Points (HP): 575
Mana Points (MP): 749
Stamina Points (SP): 588
Psychic Defense (PD): 128
Perception Points: 223
Skills:
Arcanum Studies - Intermediate
Mana thread - Novice
Intimidation - Novice
Spells:
Mass Sleep – Advanced
Magic projectile – Expert
Revealing Light (Chain of captivation)
Chain Lightning (The Shocker)
Summon Water - Novice
Path of frost - Intermediate
Thunder Stun - Intermediate
Titles:
Amalya’s Blessing and Curse
Rage against the Titans
Genocidal for Life
The brave and the bold
Perks:
+5% damage to all foes 5 Levels greater than you
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Magical Items:
Ring of minor healing
Red robe of spellcrafters
Boots of the lost wanderer
Wand of minor telekinesis
Chain of captivation
The Soul of Amalya
Silent Storm
Magic Short sword
Ring of defense
The shocker
My spells had improved quite nicely. My Magic projectile was now at expert level. Path of frost and Thunder Stun had improved to Intermediate level now which was also fantastic. Mass sleep was now Advanced. The skill, Arcanum studies had also improved. I brought up each by focusing on them starting with Arcanum Studies
“You’re too hot to handle and too cold to hold!”
“Your skill is smoking hot so pump up and get in the ring! Oohh Yeahh!!”
Arcanum Studies: Intermediate
This skill allows the individual to Read and Write the Language of Magic. This skill increases the chance of learning Spell Craft at a faster pace.
Skill Type: Magic – Common Upgradable
Requirements: Intelligence 14
Intermediate options to upgrade
Option 1: Increased the speed of reading and writing of the arcane language by 25%
Option 2: Decreases chance of spell failure by 5%
Option 3: Can feel surrounding mana.
Option 4: No upgrade
Once again, I had the odd message come up. Was the system changing somehow? Was it in any way related to all that had happened with me being back to level zero. The time does not correlate since this just started occurring. Could the system be hacked? Was that even possible as it was what everything was made of.
I looked at all the options thoroughly. This was a no brainer. There was one that stuck out the most and that was Option 1. Option 2 was only 5% and I already had low risk of failure given my high intelligence. The third option was something I could already do in a way, and I suspected my ability was far superior to what was being offered here. I selected the first option because this would dramatically improve my ability to learn spells from spell books.
You will eat my rear rockets, and like it!! Ohhh Yeaahh
Mass sleep upgraded to Advanced.
Mass Sleep – advanced
Cost: 75 MP
Cast time: 3 seconds.
Duration: 10 minutes + 1 minute/ Intelligence point
Cooldown Period: 30 seconds
Effect: Puts one or more individuals to sleep. Affects 1 individual per level of the caster for a maximum total level of the target(s) together to be equal to intelligence of the caster.
Upgrade available: Please choose from one of the following options.
Option 1: May select the Target (s) to be affected in 25 feet diameter. This may increase the cast time of the spell due to selecting individual targets.
Option 2: May end the spell prematurely.
Option 3: Duration changes to 10 minutes + 2 minutes/intelligence points
Option 4: No upgrade
The upgrade options were not bad. The third option was the same as before but there was no reason to choose this as I did not have a problem with the current duration. With the current intelligence, I could place people to sleep for a couple of hours. I was hoping to increase the amount of people or levels as an upgrade but unfortunately no dice there. Ending the spell prematurely may have some benefit in the future but for now it didn’t make much of a difference. Option 1 was the best option as it allowed him to select individual targets in an area instead of The System deciding who would be the one going for nappy nap.
I focused on the next spell.
You will eat my rear rockets, and like it!! Ohhh Yeaahh
Magic Projectile upgraded to Expert.
Magic Projectile –Expert
Cost: 50 MP
Cast time: Instant
Duration: n/a
Cooldown Period: 4 seconds
Effect: May Imbue a small stone or metal with Mana and shoot it as a projectile towards the target. Dexterity determines the chance to hit. May Imbue 1 small stone or metal/Each level of caster. Damage done is equal to Intelligence of the caster. Each stone may be fired with up to 1 second lag and in different directions.
Upgrade available: Please choose from one of the following options.
Option 1: May cause an additional stun effect for 5 seconds. Chance of stun is 1% per projectile; Cumulative.
Option 2: Mass effect. May fire each projectile outward from the caster. Each shoots out an equal distance from one another in a circular pattern.
Option 3: There is an addition Impact damage of + 30 points.
Option 4: No upgrade.
These upgrades were even better. Could be since I had advanced it to expert rank I suppose. Still don’t know who in their right mind would ever choose option four and not do an upgrade. Option three was similar to the one offered before but just a little more damage with each projectile. Individually it would not be significant but now that I was level 16 with an Intelligence of 109, I could do over 1700 points of damage and if I select the third option, the damage will increase to over 2200 points. That was a huge jump and certainly made me think about choosing that option. Ultimately though I chose the First option. That damage was great already and being able to stun the opponent was too sweet an opportunity to pass up, especially considering that the chance of it happening was cumulative. Option two would have been good when surrounded by a lot of opponents but ultimately not great if you had teammates or friends around. Or even just innocent people.
Next was the Path of Frost upgrade to Intermediate.
You will eat my rear rockets, and like it!! Ohhh Yeaahh
Path of Frost upgraded to Intermediate.
Spell: Path of frost
Level: 1
Spell Type: Elemental
Cost: 100 MP
Cast time: 3 seconds.
Duration: 1 minute per level of caster
Cooldown Period: 1 hr.
Effect: Cover with sleet an area up to 100 feet away from the caster. The size of the area of each side is equal to the Level of caster x10 . Anyone moving on the ground in the area with dexterity less than the Intelligence of the caster is affected. Movement is slowed to 25% for anyone affected. 50% chance of falling if affected.
Upgrade available: Please choose from one of the following options.
Option 1: Cost is decreased to 75 MP
Option 2: Cooldown Period is decreased to 30 minutes.
Option 3: Movement is slowed to 20%
Option 4: No upgrade.
These options did not seem like anything special. The cost decrease was not substantial and with my high mana pool, 25 less mana really didn’t excite me in the least. Option 2 was a little better, but a cooldown period of 30 minutes was still very long as most fights did not take as long as that. It might be beneficial if engaged with a huge crowd of people but even then, to wait 25 minutes was just not worth it to me at this time. Option 3 was decent. I would have loved it if the decrease was more, but I think still it seemed like the best option to me right now and so that was what I went with.
You will eat my rear rockets, and like it!! Ohhh Yeaahh
Thunder Stun upgraded to Intermediate.
Spell: Thunder Stun
Spell Type: Elemental, Mental
Cost: 200 MP
Cast time: Instant.
Duration: 1 second per level of caster
Cooldown Period: 5 minutes
Effect: Causes anyone with Psychic defense less than the Intelligence of the caster to become stunned.
Upgrade available: Please choose from one of the following options.
Option 1: Cooldown Period decreased to 3 minutes.
Option 2: Duration increased to 2 seconds per 3 levels of the caster.
Option 3: May cause Dazed effect for 1 minute for each intelligence after stun has expired. Chance of occurring is 1% per caster level.
Option 4: No upgrade.
This was interesting. Sure, there was the cooldown period decrease which was really great and perhaps that could be upgraded even further in the future. Duration increase meant an increase by 50% in option 2. The third option was the most interesting. I knew about the dazed effect. I remember reading about it many years back related to a spell. This may be different, but it may be the same. Dazed from what I recall decreased in all physical functionality including speed, strength, focus by 10%. The great thing about it was that it affected everything. The bad thing about it was that because it affected everything, the percentage was not a huge amount. Would it make a huge difference to me? Perhaps…I really wasn’t sure. Maybe in extreme circumstances that 10% would go a long way. Then again, reducing the cooldown by almost half may be so much better especially fighting more than one tough opponent and it seems like that’s pretty much where I was headed these days. I selected the first option after much thought.