Ray’s notification was still up, calculating his rewards, but he couldn’t pay much attention to it. Not when he had the innards of the Tower of Forging opening up before him.
The ground was the colour of an ugly bruise. Ruddy and peaty for the great majority of what he could observe, but at certain locations it turned a ruined purple. Here and there, leafless, black-barked trees twisted out of the earth in the distance like strands of unruly hair. Ridges, pits, and craters dotted the land almost everywhere he could see.
Was this a tower, or was he walking on the skin of some hideous giant?
Then there were the ruins. Strange architecture dotted the landscape, built in a style he had definitely never seen. They were broken though. Remains of a long-lost civilization.
A light haze covered the distance, preventing Ray from spotting much beyond a mile or two ahead of him. He could make out what looked like a spire rising in the vast distance. Huh. A tower within a Tower. Whoever had come up with the architecture in this place was obviously pretty warped in the head.
The tower in the distance did have a similar architectural style as the rest of the ruins. It was made of the same kind of pale gold material. But at least the tower was a structure he recognized.
[New Denizen Tutorial—Complete]
Objective 1: For defeating forty out of twenty Imps, you have earned 800 Essence.
Objective 2: For locating a Map Fragment, you have earned 100 Essence.
Objective 3: For discovering the exit to the Marauders’ Caves, you have earned 200 Essence.
Hidden Objective 1: For defeating the Feathered Fiend, you have earned 1,500 Essence.
Hidden Objective 2: For locating the lost Brighthorn, you have earned 400 Essence.
Hidden Objective 3: For conquering the Marauder’s Caves and subduing the Imps, you have earned 2000 Essence.
Personal Objective 1: For obtaining a Talisman, you have earned 200 Essence.
Rewards
* 1 Arcanist’s Grimoire Page. As you exceeded the required number set by your first Objective, Arcanist’s Grimoire Page has been converted to Grandmaster Arcanist’s Grimoire Pamphlet
* 1 Spell Synthesis Point
* 1 Tier Point
* 1 [Selectable] Tier 3 Talisman
* 1 Tower Node of the Marauder
* 1 Skill Token
* +20 to any [Selectable] stat
[New Personal Achievement—Overachiever!]
You have ignored the limit set by the System itself and outdid what was expected of you by a wide margin. An effort deserving of recognition.
Reward
* Reputation: +30 Thorough
[Reputation Threshold Crossed]
For reaching the 25-point threshold, your Thoroughness grants all your attacks the ability to pierce through defences up to 1 Tier higher than your attack’s Tier with no negation.
[Level Up!]
Reward
* +3 Intellect, +3 Spirit, +2 Vitality, +4 allocatable free stats.
* 5 Mana Crystals [Tier 1]
Essence to level 12: 3,650/5,000
Wow, alright. That was quite a lot. The rewards seemed deceptive. Other than the first one, none of Ray’s other prizes had received any special boosts or descriptions. In fact, the System definitely hadn’t explained what in the world a Grimoire Page or Pamphlet was.
That was fine. All that he had earned was materializing before him. Ray grinned almost shivering in anticipation. He couldn’t wait to dig in.
It turned out the Grimoire Pamphlet was exactly what it said on the tin. A thin booklet materialized in front of Ray, floating in the air before him until he reached out and took a hold of it.
[Information Request—Grimoire Pamphlet]
Spellbook [Tier 3]
Pamphlet created by plagiarizing a part of the old grimoire of Arcanist Grandmaster, Deckles, of the Fifty-three Stars Faction. Contains a mere fraction of his magical prowess, which is so volatile that the process of learning even a single spell from the pamphlet will cause it to spontaneously combust. But where a page contained only the information of a single spell, at least a pamphlet allows options to pick from.
Oh, good. A pamphlet was definitely better than single page. Instead of potentially getting a spell he didn’t like or didn’t fit his style, he could now pick from a few options. He would retain control. That was important.
Ray opened the little booklet. Instead of reading off the pages within, that crinkled like dry parchment, another information-filled screen popped up in front of his face.
[Spell Selection]
Otherworldly Hammer [Offensive] [Tier 3]
Gather arcane energy into your fist and strike down. Causes a shockwave of magical spikes to radiate outwards from the point of impact. At Tier 3, this spell creates a shockwave for a 10-meter radius. Can only be cast with a Talisman.
Arcane Construct [Utility] [Tier 3]
A primal spell that converts any targeted element into a semi-intelligent construct that obeys the caster’s wish. Shape and abilities of construct depends on targeted element and the Tier of the spell. At Tier 3, the construct’s effective range is 20 meters from the targeted location. Can only be cast with a Talisman.
Occultic Apparition [Utility] [Tier 3]
A utility spell that untethers the caster from the physical plane, enhancing the caster’s mobility and making the caster more difficult to spot using regular senses. If the caster is spotted, the spell enhances the ability to proc status afflictions. At Tier 3, movement speed is boosted by 9% and status afflictions proc 6% faster. Can only be cast with a Talisman.
Interesting. So Ray was being provided with a complete set of offensive, defensive, and utility spells. That was cool. He pored over the spells’ specifics again.
Occultic Apparition would work great if he was trying to use the Shaper Raiment. Greater mobility would synergize well with being harder to spot. It would also further boost his Insanity affliction.
Arcane Construct would obviously be quite useful. Ray had to wonder if he could synergize it with Primal Summons or Lifeblood Crucible somehow. They were all different flavours of the same kind of ability. A glorified summoning spell. Definitely worth considering.
Powerful as Otherworldly Hammer sounded, Ray wasn’t certain he needed it when he had Shatterclaw. Sure, it sounded stronger, but it also sounded more… involved. Like he was going to have to be face-to-face with an opponent to use it properly.
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Shatterclaw’s range was rapidly improving with every increase in Tier. A ten-meter maximum range was nothing to scoff at.
Clearly, the first option was the least appealing of the trio of offerings.
Ray found that he could close the small booklet and make the screen disappear. When he opened it again, they reappeared with the same choices as before.
Oh, good. His heart had leaped into his mouth when he had instinctively closed it as he had begun to think. He had almost been afraid that he had accidentally waived the ability to get a new spell. That would have been a tremendous bummer. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.
In other words, he could take some time to think it over before making a decision.
Everything else he had received needed him to make choices too. That meant more thinking needed. The Spell Synthesis point combined any two of his spells to form a new one that had a mix of the previous two’s abilities. It would also be one Tier higher than the strongest constituent spell. Neat.
He had to think about his Tier point too. No way was he wasting it on a spell only to combine that spell with another using the Spell Synthesis option.
Ray supposed he could get a single, significantly powerful spell by exploiting that. He wanted to be a little more rounded out, though, so it didn’t appeal much. Being overly reliant on any one spell would make it difficult to tackle situations where said spell wasn’t useful.
What dominated Ray’s thoughts, however, were the choices he was offered for his new Talisman.
[Talisman Selection]
Talisman of the Scourge [Tier 3]
A Tier 3 catalyst that boosts primal spells by 15%. Attacks deal additional pain, worsening all status afflictions by 20%. Channel the primal forces of the world to become a scourge of all those who would oppose you.
Talisman of Focused Fury [Tier 3]
A Tier 3 catalyst that boosts primal spells by 15%. Build up all the charges within the Talisman to unleash the last used spell once more, without any Mana cost. At Tier 3, this Talisman needs seven charges to activate.
New Denizen, please pick wisely.
Great. Ray was supposed to pick between two great options. Not fun. Couldn’t he pick both? Why couldn’t he pick both?
Ray decided he’d make the hard decisions later. He wasn’t indecisive. It was just that, the more he found out about his different options, the more his plans for how he wanted to conduct himself in future fights changed.
For instance, with the new Talisman options, he could see an even greater potential for synergizing with one of his other options—Occultic Apparition—and the Talisman of the Scourge. They would go well together. On top of those, there was the Shaper Raiment to boost the status afflictions, movement, and possibility of Insanity even further.
Ray would be silly to ignore the combined benefits of them all.
The only reason he hesitated was because the Talisman of Focused Fury would enhance his current fighting style of smashing enemies with Shatterclaw. Ignoring the “build” he had grown familiar with over the course of the tutorial would be foolish.
He gripped his hair with both his hands and gave his head a hard scratch. “Argh.”
Ray decided to look at what this Skill Token was supposed to provide him.
[Skill Token]
Life-Cycle Breaths [Tier 3]
So long as you breathe, you shall never fall. Your Recovery regeneration is now tied to your breathing rate.
Dual Wield [Tier 3]
It’s easy to take up two of any weapon and start using them at once. What isn’t easy is to enhance both weapons while dual-wielding. The latent effects of both your weapons are now applied via both weapons.
New Denizen, please pick wisely.
Oh. Oh. There it was. Just what he had been waiting for. One little blessing to make his choices a little bit easier. Maybe.
He picked Dual Wield with a jittery nervousness and—
[New Personal Achievement—Specially Specialized]
You’ve obtained a skill that clashes against your archetype. A mage with two catalysts? Who ever dreamt of such a thing.
Reward
* From now on, in every armament selection, you can pick at least two options.
Excellent. Ray immediately went back to his last options. Two Talismans. When he focused, he found he could select both, which was exactly what he proceeded to do.
Like the pamphlet, they materialized with a shimmer before him, floating in the air before he grabbed them both. The Talisman of the Scourge was a circular seal of reddish-brown metal, sort of like rusted iron. It was embossed with a shape of twisted vines or knotted snakes. He wasn’t certain. It was definitely a lot more ambiguous than his other one.
The second talisman, the Talisman of Focused Fury, held a lot more in common with his first talisman. Shaped like an eight-pointed star with three slashes carved along its interior.
“Goodbye, old friend,” he said to the Talisman of the Otherworld on his right palm. “You served me well, but it’s time I moved on to greener pastures.”
Will. That was all it took to get the old Talisman to remove itself from his palm. It fell to the ground. Ray’s hands were too busy holding the other two talismans to catch it. He placed each of his new catalysts in the centre of his two palms. Like with the first, little ethereal red chains snaked out from their edges to wrap around the back of his hand, holding them in place.
“Excellent,” he said.
Ray picked up the old talisman, not sure what to do with it. He had no inventory space left, but just throwing it away felt wasteful. Also, it was hard to not feel like he was littering. He had been brought up to never just junk things outside their designated trash cans.
Some things were hard to unlearn or ignore, even when transported into a fantastical Tower that held nothing of the old world’s rules.
There were very small pockets on the Shaper Raiment. Big enough to hold coins and whatnot. He stuffed the old talisman there for now.
Unfortunately, it looked like the lucky break with the talismans was all Ray would be getting. He would still need to decide which spell to pick.
Ray thought for a moment. He considered how he had fought so far, what spells he already had, and most importantly, how he wanted things to go from here on out. Did he want to keep running around in between his foes and fight them head-on?
Wings. Primal Summons could bring up wings.
Ray went with Occultic Apparition. For some reason, Lifeblood Chaos didn’t change it immediately. He supposed that wasn’t completely surprising. It hadn’t affected Shatterclaw, Mystic Knowledge, or Arcane Aura directly either.
It turned out his Path couldn’t directly affect every single thing in his repertoire.
He wondered if he could learn Arcane Construct later via some other means. If he received another Grimoire Pamphlet, or maybe naturally as he levelled up. It would definitely be useful, but at the moment, it would detract from the fighting style he was rapidly becoming familiar with and fine-tuning, of the build he was—for lack of a better word—building.
The Spell Synthesis went to Mystic Knowledge and Arcane Aura. Ray’s instincts were right in combining the two. Information request revealed a new, powerful little spell that combined the best aspects of both, which had surprisingly been converted by Lifeblood Chaos too.
[Information Request—Spells]
Presence of the Primordial [Passive] [Tier 2]
A passive primal spell that boosts all other primal spells and shields the caster from Mana-based debuffs and afflictions up to this spell’s Tier. Nothing escapes the glance of a primal caster, so within the spell’s effective range, the caster can see into the soul of all creatures, abilities, and items. At Tier 2, this spell’s effective range is 10 meters.
Well, alright. That was definitely a hefty upgrade. This was going to be tremendously useful going forward.
All that was left was assigning the extra stats from levelling up. He put half into Spirit to reach the threshold faster. But with his latest choices, Agility was one he could get more use out of. His latest spell, talisman, and raiment acquisitions were all geared towards fast movement. Two points in Agility was the way to go.
He was tempted to put the Tier point into Shatterclaw, but since that was strong enough already, he placed it into Primal Summons for now.
Oh, he had almost forgotten about the extra 20 stats. Funnily enough, just as Ray began wondering, he was informed by Presence of the Primordial that those stats weren’t going to count towards any Tier thresholds. In other words, putting them all into Spirit wasn’t going to make it break into Tier 2.
Bummer. But handy how his new spell had the information that he himself lacked. He’d remember from now on, though.
Despite the free stats not affecting Spirit the way he wanted them to, Ray put them all in Spirit anyway.
Reason being, he was going likely going to get good bonus growth on his Intellect through his Knowledge Reputation. If his boots were going to give him 3 Knowledge for every monster killed, he could see himself crossing Knowledge Thresholds pretty rapidly once he got into the meat and potatoes of the First Floor.
Basically, Ray’s Intellect growth was assured. Now, with his Spirit this amped up, he wouldn’t need to worry about running out of Mana as often either. A good, complementary balance.
Lastly, and the one Ray had no clue about from just a glance, came the Tower Node thing.
[System Artifact—Tower Node]
Tower Node of the Marauder
With the Node of the Marauder, you can now lay claim to the entirety of the Marauder’s Caves. Call forth the strength of Feathered Imps and raise your Feathered Fiend to guard your Hoard. But beware, excessive use can alert the Marauder himself, and the attention of a Paragon is rarely pleasant.
What? Ray stared at the ceramic crystal appearing before him. It was plain, unadorned. White, a little shiny, but that was about it. Hard to believe this was some all-powerful artifact.
Could he actually use this thing to basically command all the Imps that had been trying to kill him? That was.. a little bit insane. Ray wasn’t certain how to process that.
He supposed it went with his Vocation of Tower Conqueror. One wasn’t really a conqueror if one couldn’t claim some measure of control over what one conquered. Questions was whether he wanted to control a bunch of bloodthirsty, semi-intelligent, beaked-and-feathered monkeys. Controlling a mini army of monsters couldn’t hurt. Right?
Ray tried to use it, but all he got was a warning.
[Warning!]
Activating a Tower Node uses True Mana. You are currently unable to access True Mana naturally. Forced usage of True Mana without proper preparation can overburden the caster’s Mana conduits and damage the Mana Core. Usage of True Mana can be substituted with a vast amount of regular Mana, Would you like to proceed?
[Yes]/[No]
True Mana? Huh. Ray wondered what exactly he had to do to gain access to True Mana, and how it differed from the Mana he had been using so far. Were there even more kinds?
Sounded like his current Mana conduits wouldn’t be able to handle True Mana. Also, he had a Mana Core? The hell was that? Ray would have to explore that later.
He tried calling up an information request for True Mana, but nothing appeared. Strange.
Anyway, even if he could replace the True Man requirement with regular Mana, he likely didn’t have enough. “Vast amount”, the System had said. He wished there was a number attached to the description. The Tower Node sounded like something that was more of a last-resort option. That made sense. For now, he declined the option.
Although, the Node itself raised so many questions for Ray to ponder. Could he actually control what the Imps did when he summoned them? How in the world was he supposed to “raise” his own Feathered Fiend? What constituted a “hoard”?
Also, what in the world was a Paragon?
Once more, Ray was tempted to scratch his head. He was distracted by another warning.
[Warning!]
Presence of the Primordial indicates your presence has been detected by Total Perception [Tier 3]. Presence of the Primordial has nullified the enemy aura, Sylvan Pride [Tier 3].
Apparently, Kredevel had finally decided to show up.