The Next Morning Daniel got up early and went to his shop. Over the last 24 hours or so Daniel had done a lot of research in the wiki about crafting, and he had a lot of new ideas he wanted to test out. He had focused most of his searches on crafting and professions, and had learned a lot about how the system operated such professions, and ways that he might be able to get higher rarity materials for the next stage of his quest.
One of his greatest discoveries was how crafting experience was calculated. Experience would be given on two main factors. What the rarity of the final object was and its quality. These two factors would decide how much experience a crafter would receive. The quests he had gained from the System had said he could only make his weapons out of widespread rarity materials. Items at Widespread rarity had a .5x multiplier on them meaning he was currently only getting half the amount of exp that he could be for a completed item. The only problem was that from what he had read it was exponentially more difficult to increase the rarity from one step to the next.
That was something he had experienced first hand when he had completed his quest. His only advantage previously was he had a vast amount of experience working with steel. Going forward he would no longer have that advantage when working with Common Rarity materials.
Daniel was reading more about crafting on the wiki when he was pulled from his concentration when a knocking sound came from the direction of his open shop door. Turning he saw the man that had been on the news standing in his doorway. Daniel dismissed the screen he had been reading, and approached the man holding out a hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you Steve. I must say I am surprised that you arrived so soon. Though I honestly didn't know when you would arrive so I guess early is better.” Steve was wearing similar clothes from what Daniel had seen on the news last night. Daniel waved for Steve to enter through the shop's big garage doors
Steve took Daniel's large hand with a surprisingly firm grip for his slender build. “The pleasure is mine Daniel. I must say I am surprised that I got a response so quickly. I was expecting that it would take a couple days for the news story to spread enough that I would get my first legitimate response. There are after all only 10,000 of us spread over the whole world. It is honestly very lucky that the two of us were so close together.”
“Yeah, I just so happened to be watching the news when you put on your little show. I must say what kind of class did you get to be shooting fire out of your hands like that?”
“Straight to business I guess. Well, I started out as an Elemental mage and the specialization I chose for Tier 5 was Elementalist. What about yourself? Just looking at your size you don't seem to be much of a mage.”
“My class is called Juggernaut. Though I haven't selected my tier 5 class yet.”
“Oh, why is that? Selecting the next specialization is a nice power boost. You get more Skill Points and stat points per level.”
“I tried, but when I did I got some kind of system error saying that I had undergone a ‘partial psionic awakening,’ and that I would need to complete the process before I could gain my specialization.” Daniel used air quotes as he spoke about his partial psionic awakening.
“Do you know why that happened and how you will complete this psionic awakening?”
“I think the awakening might have happened when I chose one of my feats, but I can't be certain. As for how to complete the awakening I have no idea. I also haven't been able to find much information on the topic on the wiki.”
“Okay, that will be something we will need to figure out. Getting you your tier 5 class should be a priority.”
“We?” Daniel questioned. Raising an eyebrow at Steve.
“Of course.” Steve replied with no hesitation. “I intended to bring this topic up a bit later, but considering what you have shared with me I will make my proposition now.” Steve paused his speech. He straightened his posture, looked Daniel in the eyes, and began to speak in a slightly more formal tone. “I intend to gather as many of the heroes together as possible. There are so few of us and so many people on Earth. I do not know what will happen after our time limit is up, but I do know from the bit in pieces I could find in the wiki that it will be some kind of disaster that will affect the whole world. I and those that I can convince to join me will become the shield that will protect normal people from the coming disaster.” Once Steve finished talking he looked at Daniel waiting for a response. From his look and posture Daniel knew that Steve was not trying to rush him, and would give him as much time as he needed to think over what he had proposed.
Daniel thought back to the woman that the goblins had killed. Daniel, just like Steve, didn't know what would happen in three months' time, but if it was anything like what he had already seen he would not stand aside. He would not let such monsters kill people that he had been given the strength to save. Then he thought about his father. That had been another person that Daniel had been unable to save.
“I’ll do it. I will help become the shield this world and the people need.”
Steve's face which had been in a natural mask as Daniel thought about his answer bloomed into a large smile. “That's great Daniel. I am happy to have you onboard. We have a lot we need to talk about, but before that have you been to your training room yet?”
No I haven't. I read a bit about it on the wiki, but I was more focused on researching information on crafting. From what I read it's supposed to be where we can train against monsters and the like to gain more levels and rewards.”
“Yes, that is true, but it is also so much more than just that. The room also has a time dilation effect. Meaning that while we are in the room every 4 minutes in there only a single minute passes out here.”
Daniel was flabbergasted for a moment. “So, you're telling me I have been wasting precious time by not entering the training room.”
“Now I personally wouldn't put it that harshly, but yes that is correct.” Steve replied with a cheeky grin.
“Well then what are we waiting for? How do I open up the room?”
“It's easy.” Steve replied still with a slight smirk on his face. “All you have to do is will your training hall to open.”
“That's it?” Daniel questioned skeptically
“That’s it.” Steve confirmed.
“Okay let me give it a try.” Daniel approached one of the walls of his shop and placed his hand against it. Then closing his eyes to focus he concentrated on opening a path to his training hall.
To his surprise, when he opened his eyes there was a golden shimmering door embedded into the wall in front of him. Turning he looked back at Steve who was waving for him to enter the portal.
Turning back to the portal he walked forward and past the threshold of the portal. The room they entered was a massive dome with several more portals lining various points along the circular wall as well as a few hallways that branched off this central room. Each of the portals were labeled. From left to right they read, Solo Dungeon, Team Dungeon, and Arena Dungeon.
After looking around for a minute he turned back to the entrance portal and re-entered his workshop where Steve was still waiting. “Are you able to enter my training room?” Daniel asked.
“From what I read on the Wiki, yes I should be able to.”
“Okay then try to enter, and then we can continue our conversation.”
Steve approached and pressed his hand against the horizon of the portal. Unlike when Daniel entered, Steve's hand was unable to pass the threshold, so it looked like his hand was pressing up an invisible piece of glass that was preventing him from entering.
Immediately after Steve made contact with the portal Daniel received a system message.
Warning someone is trying to enter your personal training space. Would you like to allow them to enter? Y/N?
Daniel selected yes and suddenly Steve's hand was able to pass through the portal.
“What happened?” Steve questioned.
“The System told me someone was trying to enter and asked me if I wanted them to be allowed to enter.”
“Interesting. It's good to know that random people can't just barge into your training space.”
Daniel just grunted neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Steve’s assessment. Daniel and Steve both passed through the portal together, and were once again in the main hall.
“You know it's going to be kind of hard to have a conversation when there is no furniture to sit on.” Daniel said. Mere moments later the center of the room was filled with a coffee table, two sofas, and four recliners. “Okay then. Well that's definitely interesting.”
“Yeah, I had read on the wiki that the training room was able to adapt to its user and their needs, but I didn't really understand what that meant until just now. I never tried to ask for anything while I was in my own training room.”
Daniel and Steve approached the new furnishings together and sat down on opposite ends of the coffee table each claiming one of the sofas as their own.
“So, what exactly can you do as an Elementalist? I only have a couple active skills and neither are very flashy. At Least their effect isn't as obvious as your spells. I did see that one fire spell you cast on the news, but is there anything else you can do?” Daniel asked, he was curious to see how his abilities compared to another heroes.
“Well, I don't know how much you have read the wiki, but spells work quite differently from class skills. Mages or people with mana are able to craft effects using their mana. Most of the skills I have gotten from my class so far help me in making spells. For example I have a skill from my Elementalist skill tree that increases my control with all elemental mana types I have access to. As an Elementalist I have Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth mana affinities. Other skills might also allow me to add more effects to my spells. The other types of skills I get affect ways I can use my mana or increase the effects of my spells when casting fire spells for example.”
“Currently I only have made a single spell for each of my elements. What I am really excited for however is when I will start to be able to combine multiple elements to create spells with multiple or even new effects. That's what the Elementalist tree allows me to do. To combine mana to make new spell combinations. That's why I chose it over other specializations that would have given me new or rarer mana affinities like gravity or space.”
Daniel was confused. “This is all very interesting, but how do you know so much about this? We have only had access to the wiki for just over a day now. I guess you could have spent all of that time in your own training room, but it seems to me you know even more than you're telling me.”
“Well in a way that is true. When I gained access to my class I was informed that I was a ‘Class Trainer’ which gave me some advantages. The main one being I gained all of the knowledge that a skill trainer should have.”
“You had something like that happen to you as well. I hope you're okay. From my experience it was quite painful.”
“No it wasn't bad at all. The System gradually imported the information into my mind over a couple of days. It gave me time to process the information as it was ‘downloaded’ into my head. Though I will admit it was sometimes a struggle to keep the new memories separate from my memories. If I was to describe the feeling it would be as if I was living the memories though someone else's eyes.”
Daniel sat forward staring at Steve. “You didn't get any intense headaches or anything like that?”
“No, why?” Steve ask questioningly
Daniel waved his hand temporarily dismissing the question. “Did you gain a lore skill from the knowledge given to you for being a call trainer?”
“Yeah I did, I'm surprised you know about them.”
“What level is it at?”
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“I have my ‘Magic Lore’ skill up to level 5. From my understanding it's quite hard to level up any lore skill. At this level I should have the knowledge equivalent of a peak tier 2 mage. I have enough knowledge that it would allow me to train tier 1 mages. Everyone on earth besides the heroes will be tier 1 after the system is fully integrated.”
Daniel leaned back in shock. Steve lore skill was only at level 5. His own was at level 17. He thought about all of the dreams where he was experiencing events through eyes not his own, and the random pieces of information on smithing that he just seemed to know. He even thought about his own rapid improvement as a blacksmith over the last almost 2 months. He thought it had just been because of his new stats and skill, but what if it was more than just that.
“Daniel, are you okay?” Steve asked with concern.
Daniel's mind was still racing, but he focused on Steve and gave him an honest response. “Honestly, I don’t know. What you told me connected a lot of dots for me, and I don't know if what I have realized is a problem or not.”
“Well what did you realize? Maybe I can help.”
Daniel rocked his head side to side for a moment considering whether or not he should tell Steve. In the end he had already agreed to work with Steve, so there was no reason why he shouldn’t tell him about a potential problem. “I have this feat called ‘The Crafters Legacy.’ It's a crafting feat that gives me quests. When I complete quests it rewards me with professional experience and a level in my lore skill.” Daniel said in a somber tone.
“Okay… that sounds like a good thing. I don't see the problem. Leveling lore skills is supposed to be quite hard so having levels given to you is a nice reward.”
“From what you told me the problem isn't that it gives me Lore levels, it's how it does it. The knowledge is seemingly instantly shoved into my head.”
Steve’s eyes grew wide, “Daniel if what you are describing is accurate then for each lore level you gain would be like months or years worth of learning, memories and experiences being just shoved into your head in a single go. Just what level is your lore skill at?”
“I currently have my ‘Blacksmithing Lore’ at level 17. I just finished the fifth quest in my first quest chain and one of the rewards increased my lore skill by 5 levels and gave me access to a new quest chain. However, that's not my only problem. My lore skill seems to increase by a level every week on its own.”
“Daniel I don’t want to sound rude, but how are you alive? From my limited knowledge on the subject, having that much information shoved into your head with no safeguards in place should cause serious brain hemorrhaging or other serious issues.” Steve sounded horrified as he spoke.
“Oh it did, or at least I think it did. When I woke up after completing the quest I was absolutely covered in blood, and I still had blood leaking from my eyes, nose, and ears.”
“That didn't answer my question. In fact it just gave me more.”
“Well if it's as serious as you say then there are probably two reasons as to why I’m alive. First and probably more importantly would be my feat. My other feat is ‘Troll Regeneration’ which gives me passive regeneration. Next would be one of my skill trees. It's called reinforcement and one of the skills I have in it is called ‘Powerful Organs’ and it increases the Efficiency, power and toughness of my organs.”
“Hold on. Let me get this straight. You're telling me that you have some skill that enhances your body, and not just your body but your organs including your brain. Then you have a feat that gives you constant and passive healing and recovery.”
Daniel had a feeling about what Steve was leading him on for, but decided that he would play along. “Yes, I do.”
“You must be the luckiest man alive Daniel!” Steve almost shouted. “From what MY lore skill is telling me, gaining that much pure knowledge in a single go should have caused your brain to pop like a balloon. Rituals have been attempted in the past by experienced arch mages where they tried to transfer a library's worth of information into their minds only for it to kill them.” Steve paused his rant for a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing his voice having lost much of its original fervor.
“Messing with the mind intentionally or unintentionally is a very dangerous prospect. From what you told me the only reason your brain didn't just explode was because of your body reinforcement, but even that wasn't enough to stop all of the damage. Then the only reason you survived the aftermath of your brain almost exploding was because of your feat. I don't want to tell you what to do Daniel, but if your skill had been any lower of a level you may still have survived, but you could have permanently lost memories or come back a completely different person. With all of the skill levels you gained you could have even lost much of the knowledge that was implanted in your brain, and you wouldn't even know what has or hasn't been lost. If I were you Daniel I would max out your ‘Powerful Organs’ skill as soon as possible in case something like this happens again.”
Daniel nodded seriously as Steve's speech finally came to an end. “I have enough skill points now that I push the skill to level 4, and with one more level I can get it to 5.”
“Good, go ahead and do that now. We kind of got off topic and I need to collect my thoughts.”
Daniel nodded and without saying anything else he put 4 out of his 8 available skill points into ‘Powerful Organs.’ However when he did so something he had never seen before popped up when he revealed the level 5 effect of the skill.
Powerful Organs ( 4/5 ): The power, strength and toughness of your organs is unmatched in your world. Cost to increase 5 Skill point(s).
Level 3 (Passive): Increase the efficiency, power and toughness of your organs by a moderate amount.
Level 4 (Passive): Increase the efficiency, power and toughness of your organs by a large amount.
Level 5 (Passive): You have walked the path of a generalist for long enough and you have finally proven that you are dedicated enough to follow it until the end. However that path is over now and it is time to make a choice. Choose a single organ and massively increase its efficiency, power and toughness. The selected organ will also gain 1 additional bonus when chosen.
Daniel was amazed with the level 5 effect. He had no idea something like this would happen at level 5. Daniel wanted to ask Steve if he knew about this. When he glanced away from his screen he saw Steve still lost in thought and seemingly looking at a screen of his own. Not wanting to distract the other man Daniel pulled up the wiki and began to search for answers.
He was quickly able to find what he was looking for and like all things the answer was complicated. Most skills would have some kind of big effect or change that would occur when bringing the skill to level 5. Most wouldn't give the user a choice like Daniel was getting now. Level 5 in a skill was regarded as a sort of mini capstone for that specific skill.
From what he read this mini capstone could range in effect from adding a new active effect, adding a new passive effect, adding a big boost like Daniels skill did, or even in the more rare and extreme cases completely alter what the skill did entirely. There were of course many other effects that could take place, but Daniel only skimmed over the information.
Once he was done he saw that Steve was no longer distracted, and replayed to him about his discovery.
“I didn't know about these minor capstones for skills reaching level 5. Most of my provided knowledge is about spells and not skills. I assume that you already know what organ you will enhance?”
“Yeah, After our talk I see no other option than to enhance my mind. I don't know what the bonus effect will be, but I hope it will also help me in some way. I hadn't really thought about it until now, but It might just help with my psionic awakening. I did get a notification that my psionic awakening progress increased right after I gained those 5 skill levels in my blacksmithing lore.”
“Wait, you increased your progress towards psionic awakening after that?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Daniel everything you tell me is insane. If my guess is right then when you forcefully gained those 5 skill levels you took so much mental psionic damage that it increased your progress towards psionic awakening. I assume a similar thing happened before that started the psionic awakening process. Probably when you selected your second feat like you mentioned earlier.”
“That would make sense, but how do I complete the process?”
“That I don't know. We can look into that later, but right now we have other more important things to talk about.”
“You're right. Please continue Steve.”
“There are two things that I would say are the most important for us to keep in mind going forward. First is that as one of the heroes we need to grow stronger. The training room will allow us to do that, but it will still take a lot of work and it will put our lives on the line. The second is that we need to gather more heroes and civilians together. Our job is to protect the people of earth, and it would be hard for anybody to do that alone. I have already started this process with my little stunt I pulled on the news, but that isn't enough.”
“Along those same lines we will need to make a safe place where we can gather people together, and also train them. Class trainers like myself will be greatly needed as people gain their first classes. Normal people will only start at tier 1, and will need help leveling up. One of the things I hope to accomplish before the integration will be to put a basic guide out on the internet that will give people a basic understanding on how the system will work.”
“What else will we need to do before integration?” Daniel asked. “I know you are a skill trainer, but is there anything you need as a skill trainer to you know…train people.
“That's the other thing I haven't yet talked about. We will need a lot of coins to purchase items from the system shop. As a trainer I will need beast cores to open people's mana channels to allow them to select a magic oriented class. I discovered that you can sell items to the shop, so I have started liquidating my assets into valuable items I can sell to the shop. Like copper steel and other metals.”
“If you can, I would recommend focusing your efforts on metals like titanium. It's a common rarity metal while steel is widespread. That difference should make it sell for more.” A thought came to Daniel's mind. “Hey, are my mana channels open? You said to gain a magic class you would need to open people's mana channels.”
“I’m not sure, let me check.” Steve stood up and walked around the table to Daniel. He placed a hand on his shoulder then closed his eyes to concentrate. After a solid minute Steve finally reopened his eye. “No, you don't have open mana channels.”
“Could we open them with a beast core like you were saying?”
“Unfortunately for you it won't be that easy. The process is fairly straightforward. For a tier 1 any tier 1 beast core will open their mana channels along with some medicinal plant to make sure no complications arise, but the tier of the core required goes up with the tier of the person. So, we would need a tier 4 beast core to open your mana channels. In a way it's a good thing that you haven't selected your tier 5 specialization because the cost increases almost exponentially with each increase in tier. That also means that the plants required to keep your mana channels from bursting during the process also get more expensive.
“I really don't understand. How exactly does the mana channel opening process work?”
“Here let me explain better. A monster advances by consuming the mana of slain opponents. This means that their core is made up of solidified mana. When opening your mana channels a person would consume a monster core which would begin to dissolve in your stomach which disperses the mana of the core. When this happens the mana wants to disperse and escape your body; this is how your mana channels are formed. The mana like electricity will want to find the easiest way to escape or the path of least resistance, to put it another way. We all already have mana channels inside of our bodies; they are just naturally closed and blocked up. When the mana from the stone disperses it essentially jumps starts your mana system by ‘burning’ open your existing mana channels to escape your body.”
“This is where the quality, rarity, and tier of a core comes into play. What would happen if the stone you consume doesn't have enough power in it to open all of your channels?”
“I'm not sure,” Daniel said.
“It was rhetorical. If a core does not have enough power to open all of your channels the mana will become trapped in your body with nowhere to escape. The mana will stagnate and begin to re solidify which will cause it to fester in your body. Mana needs to circulate in your body to be able to be used. This festering mana will make it almost impossible for you to ever open your mana channels in the future because this mana will in essence reseal your mana channels meaning that you will need an even more power core to open them because the mana from the first attempt will make the process that much harder. Then there are also the Dangers of a more powerful core. Mana like I said wants to find the path of least resistance, but depending on the strength of the mana the fastest path could be to burst out of your mana channels and go directly out of your body.
“Okay, that makes sense, but where does Tier, Rarity and Quality come into play?”
“Tier is how much mana is in a core. For a beast to advance they need to accumulate more and more mana. Rarity can mean two things. First is some cores will have aspected mana that can affect the Rarity. Second there is concentration of mana: this also ties back in with Tier. The higher the Tier the more rare the core and higher tier mana is also more concentrated and powerful. A single point of mana for a tier 5 beast could be equivalent to 100 mana of a Tier 1 beast. Last is Quality: Quality is how pure the mana in the stone is. There are different qualities of mana channels and the better the quality of the mana the better quality of mana channels it will produce so, the trick is to find a core with a good enough quality to make good mana channels, and a core with enough power to open all of your mana channels without killing or injuring you in any other way. Generally speaking the more pure the mana in a core is the more powerful the mana in the core will be.”
“How much would a Tier 4 core cost?”
“I am not sure, but if I were to guess probably around 100,000 coins. We can check the system shop to find out, but I do think our first priority should be to finish your psionic awakening. From what you have told me of your class mana isn't something you particularly need for any of your skills.”
“True enough. Also what is this shop? You have mentioned it a couple of times now. You said earlier that we can sell items to the shop.” Daniel said as more of a statement to Steve, but still looking for confirmation.
“Yes, I have managed to sell a few items and have gotten myself a basic wand that increases the effectiveness of my spells I cast through it. It allowed me to get through the first few floors of the Solo Dungeon.”
“I read about the Dungeons a bit in the wiki. The only gear I have is what I have been making since I became a ‘hero.’ I wonder if I should sell some of the items to buy some gear.”
“I would recommend it. My wand has helped me a lot with increasing my cast speed and power of my spells.”
“Okay then. Help me gather up the items so that we can sell them to the shop.”
It ended up taking Daniel and Steve over half an hour to take all of his items to the system shop. Daniel had not made any sheaths for any of his bladed weapons, so they had been forced to carry them two at a time to avoid cutting themselves.
The shop ended up just being a counter with some floating screens that acted as search engines that would allow you to find any items you wanted to purchase, but it also allowed you to sell items which was what Daniel was after. Laid across the counter was the 39 items that Daniel had crafted over the last 50 plus days. Daniel quickly sold all but two of the items he had made. He had no particular attachment to any of them– that was just how it was as a crafter. Someone commissions you to make them something and at the end of the whole process you will have to give it away. There was only one item he decided to keep and another he hesitated to sell.
The first was an Exceptional Quality two handed maul that Daniel decided he would use as his primary weapon when taking on the Solo Dungeon. He had several skills that would work well with a blunt type weapon, and he also had his professional skills. He didn't know if they would work for combat, but he saw no reason to take advantage of a possible advantage. He would need to do some research on the wiki later about that topic, but for now he had chosen his weapon.
The last item that he hesitated to sell was the Flawless Quality sword he had made that had allowed him to finish the For the Forge 5 quest. It was without a doubt the best item he had ever made, but it would also give him a lot of coins if he sold it. All of his other items he had sold so far had only netted him just over nineteen thousand coins. Selling the sword would net him another ten thousand coins.
With a sigh Daniel confirmed the screen and sold the sword. Hopefully it will find a good new home. He knew that while that sword was currently the single best item he had ever produced, he knew that wouldn't stay the case forever. He would make better items in the future, but it was still sad to see the sword go.
With that done and thirty thousand coins burning a hole in his pocket Daniel moved on to purchasing items from the shop instead of selling them. Daniel had gear to buy if he wanted to start challenging the Dungeon.