First, I used my False Identity spell card, swapping Immobile Illusion for the new spell. I hated to see it go when it was such a good tool for farming, but the only other spell I could realistically replace was Reactive Armor—Elemental Weaponry was all my damage dealt when I was with Cuby, and Magic Arrow was the only way I could deal damage without her. Reactive Armor kept me alive—it wasn’t so great against monsters, but if player-killers like one thing as much as the element of surprise, it’s burst damage, and Reactive Armor was a strong check against burst damage. Right now it was more than doubling my Defense Rating when it was on.
After making that decision, I cast False Identity, changing my level so that it would now read as 7 just to make sure I understood correctly how it worked. I could see the illusion as a buff in the same place I could see my Mana Shield—it showed my adjusted nameplate, level changed, and listed the strength of the illusion—a value of 16.
I frowned as I looked at this—when I changed classes, would I keep the buff at its current strength, doubled as it had been from my Supercharged Spell Augment? Buffs didn’t have a duration: they just kept draining mana until you ran out or canceled them. If I kept this one when I used the card, all this questing and farming would feel somewhat unnecessary, even if I wanted to gain levels anyway.
I brought up my inventory and looked at the card. First, I shamelessly coveted it:
Legendary Boon Card - Chosen
Use this card to gain your choice of any chosen boon that you don’t already have.
You can have 1 chosen boon, plus 1 more chosen boon for each 10 levels you attain.
Special: As a human inheritor, you can have 1 more chosen boon than normal.
Warning: Using this card will mark you as one of the chosen, and players who kill you will gain a chosen boon card for each chosen boon you possess.
I looked around to make sure there was nobody nearby to see any system messages that might be broadcast. “Here goes nothing,” I muttered. Then I used the card.
A chime sounded as I was engulfed a flash of red light.
You have a chosen boon waiting to be selected.
I opened up the boon selection page and feasted my eyes on my options:
Multi-Classed:
You choose two classes instead of one. Your experience is split between these classes—your experience bar will fill with 1 experience point for every 2 you gain. When you level up, your character level increases by 1 and both your classes will gain a level.
The system will calculate your hypothetical level—this is what your level would be if you did not have this endowment, but had the same amount of experience points. Your hypothetical level is used to determine how your secondary stats and resistances scale, as well as how much XP is awarded for given tasks. Your hypothetical level will be shown on your character sheet.
Your character level will be used for features that grant rewards at specific levels or level increments, but all other level-reliant variables will use your combined level.
Artifact of Legend
You gain the ability to craft 1 Legendary item. Note that this boon does not furnish you with the materials required to do so, which will be costly, rare, and difficult to obtain. It also does not grant you any of the professional training necessary to perform this task.
When you complete the item, you will face a choice: lose this boon and have it cease to count against your maximum Chosen Boons, or exchange this boon for the Mythic Armaments boon.
Chosen Virtuoso:
You gain 2 Iconic Ability slots and 1 Iconic Passive slot. You gain an extra Iconic Ability slot at level 11 and every 11 levels thereafter, and an extra Iconic Passive slot at level 32.
Signature Move:
You gain a Signature Move slot. This slot can hold any ability you are already eligible to learn.
When you prepare an ability into this slot, you choose one of the following:
- You gain a second copy of the ability that functions exactly like the first, but counts as another ability. This means that Buffs and Spell Augments can be applied more than once to a target or ability, and cooldowns will be separate.
- The Ability has no cost. If the Ability consumes uses or charges of some kind, such as Miracles, it will consume a use only every second time it is used.
- Increase the Ability’s effect by 40%. If it is a buff, increase its effect by 80%.
Chosen Polymath:
Gain 5 Ability slots and 2 Passive slots.
You gain 1 Ability slot at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter.
You gain 1 Passive slot at 13th level and every 13 levels thereafter.
Chosen Titan:
You may grow up to 50% larger when you take this Chosen Boon. If you do, increase your base Might by up to 20%, depending on how much you grew. This change is permanent.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
You gain an extra 40 HP per level.
Stone Hearted:
You cannot be critically hit, and you are immune to negative [Mental] effects.
Mythic Armaments:
You increase the maximum number of legendary items you can equip by 1, and you gain another Equipment Slot – Fragment
Master of Conduits: You gain a Chosen Conjuration Ability Slot. Anything summoned with this ability doesn’t count against your maximum summoning capacity. Increase your effective level for [Conjuration] abilities by 5.
A note on Chosen Ability slots: A Chosen Ability Slot can hold any ability of its stated type, including Iconic Abilities for classes that you don’t possess. When you gain a Chosen Ability Slot, the system will offer you two such abilities much in the same way you fill other slots.
Master of Deception: You gain a Chosen Illusion Ability Slot. Increase your effective level for [Illusion] abilities by 5. You can have two of each illusion you know active at a time, rather than one.
Master of Emptiness: You gain a Chosen Death Ability Slot. Increase your effective level for [Death] abilities by 5. Any undead creatures under your command become resilient to effects which specifically target undead; such effects are half as potent.
Master of Influence: You gain a Chosen Mental Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Mental] abilities by 5. Beneficial [Mental] abilities with a limited number of targets have that number doubled, and detrimental [Mental] abilities don’t increase your target’s resistance to them the first time they affect your target.
Master of Sight: You gain two Chosen Divination Ability Slots. Increase your Effective level for [Divination] abilities by 5.
Master of Space: You gain a Chosen Warp Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Warp] abilities by 5. Your [Warp] abilities with a range have their range doubled.
Master of Time: You gain a Chosen Time Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Time] abilities by 5. Your [Time] abilities have their duration increased by half.
Master of Life: You gain a Chosen Life Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Life] abilities by 5. Your [Life] abilities have their costs reduced by half.
Master of Motion: You gain a Chosen Kinesis Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Kinesis] abilities by 5. Increase the force generated by your [Kinesis] abilities by half.
Master of Mastery - All Skill Points you gain are converted to General Skill Points. You gain 10 extra Skill Points a level.
I read this all a couple of times. It wasn’t hard to see why the dual class option was considered the strongest—it was one of the very few options that would obviously make me harder to kill, while still giving me a ton of extra abilities to make me more dangerous. I even had to wonder if it was intentionally the best—it seemed like it would give more abilities overall than the boons that specifically gave abilities.
Cuby had said there were options that were strong at low levels, and the ability subtype boons were certainly that. They would effectively double my current level in calculating the effect of my abilities in their field, and give me an ability from someone’s else’s class to boot.
Still, Cuby had said that the Chosen almost all chose the multi-classed option, and Haroshi had done so. I might have played games before, but I wasn’t going to completely upset the meta at a glance, especially not when I was obviously a noob, here.
I took the first option. Then I watched my Health, Mana, and Stamina drop as a few of my abilities vanished and my stats were reduced.
Congratulations, you are now a level 3 Mage / [Unchosen]!
Choose a Second Class
I brought up the class selection menu:
Warrior
Rogue
Shifter
Spellsword
Pilgrim
Battlemind
Priest
Psychic
Professional
Though I confess, to me it looked more like this:
Psychic
What can I say? I like casting spells; spells are cool. I’d gotten Cuby to offhandedly list the good combinations when we were down in the mines—and she’d said psychic paired well with mage or priest. I thought about priest, too—I mean, the priest was a healer and a support caster in almost all the D&D-inspired western RPGs that the Colosseum was taking after, and surely that would be pretty strong?
But I reminded myself again that I wasn’t going to upset the meta at a glance and looked at them both for good measure:
Psychic
Psychics are the premier controllers among common classes, and excel at taking the initiative to quickly turn combat in their favor. They are the most physically-oriented pure casters, combining mana and stamina into a new resource called energy that can be spent as either, and they gain limited access to techniques.
Each level grants:
40 HP
40 Energy [Psychics combine their Mana and Stamina into a new resource called Energy]
3 Spellcraft
3 General Skill Points
3 Psychic Skill Points. Psychic Skill Points can be spent on [Magic] and [Talent] skills.
Priest
Priests use divine magic, either empyreal or infernal, to bolster their allies and hinder their foes. They are the premier healer among common classes, and can focus on either Support, Healing, or Control. Priests have access to blessings, which are powerful buffs that have limited targets, and miracles, which are powerful spells which can only be cast a limited number of times per day.
Each level grants:
40 HP
50 Mana
3 Spellcraft
3 General Skill Points
3 Priest Skill Points. Priest Skill Points can be spent on [Magic] and [Religion] skills.
I kept reading the Psychic’s note about energy. I had no choice but to gain 1 Strength and 1 Agility each time I leveled, which gained me Stamina—meaning Psychic would give me a way to use my otherwise useless resources on spells. What was more, if converting both my stats into one would add my Stamina’s regeneration to my Mana, the buff to my overall regeneration would be considerable: Stamina regenerated twice as fast as Mana, and all that regeneration was currently being wasted because my Stamina was always full.
As I thought on it more, I could see which way the wind was blowing. Mind-powers are cooler than divine powers, and from what I’d seen so far I’d be able to learn some healing abilities to make up for my lack of them once I got an item with the Divine affinity.
I chose my second class—Psychic.