Congratulations, you are now a level 3 Psychic!
You receive item: Common Chest - Psychic Starting Gear
You have gained a new Fixed Iconic Passive: Psychic Class
You have gained a new Iconic Spell Slot and the Iconic Spell: Moment of Mastery
You have gained a new Spell Slot and the Spell: Mindlash
You have gained a new Spell slot. Open your Ability Selection pane to choose a new Spell
You have gained a new Spell slot. Open your Ability Selection pane to choose a new Spell
“Time to look at stuff,” I whispered to myself, struggling to contain my excitement. I opened the common chest:
Common Equipment - Simple Orb
1-Handed
A basic glass orb. Etched runes aide the wielder in spellcasting.
Weapon Level: 1
Common Equipment - Simple Padded Armor
A basic set of padded armor.
+ 1 Defense Rating
Common Item – Healing Potion [2]
Drinking this potion restores 170 Hit Points
Shares a 60 second cooldown with other healing potions.
Common Item – Mana Potion
Drinking this potion restores 170 Energy
Shares a 60 second cooldown with other resource potions.
Common Item – Stamina Potion
Drinking this potion restores 170 Energy
Shares a 60 second cooldown with other resource potions.
The gear was useless to me, but my experiences earlier in the day made me treasure the potions, even if I still had both my mana potions. I glanced at my mana and stamina—they had disappeared, replaced by a single, purple bar:
Energy 640 / 640
False identity had indeed stayed active even after getting the second class, and so it didn’t need to be recast—and, I admitted, I didn’t actually need to farm to level 4 as long as I kept it up.
Still, it never hurts to be careful.
I looked over my new abilities:
Fixed Iconic Passive – Psychic Class
You combine your Mana and Stamina into a new resource called Energy, which can be spent as either resource. Your Energy regeneration is calculated by adding what your Mana and Stamina regeneration would be had they not been combined, with Energy points not sourced from either Mana or Stamina (such as those gained from Psychic levels, or some equipment) have a base regeneration rate of 1.5 hours.
You add your level to your Prowess for the purpose of learning any techniques that have the Divination, Kinesis, Mental, or Warp subtypes, as long as the technique in question has no subtypes not listed here. Techniques you qualify for in this manner will use your spellcasting stats, not your martial stats, to determine their effects.
You gain 1 Psychic Element.
You can speak to other creatures with the power of your mind, provided you both share a language. Any creature can block you out of their mind without effort.
Iconic Spell – Moment of Mastery
Cost: 4 Mana + 4 Mana / Hour
Cast Time: 3.2 Seconds
Effect: 5 Precision or Defense Rating
You may only have this spell cast on one target at a time.
The target of this spell may expend the buff it grants either when they make an attack, or when an attack is made against them to gain a large, single-use bonus to either their Precision (for their attack) or their Defense Rating (for an attack made against them).
Spell – Mindlash
Cost: 2 Mana
Cast Time: 2.4 Seconds
Effect: 51 Damage
This spell deals damage to your target. If that target dies within 10 seconds of being damaged by this spell, you have a chance to obtain any desired piece of information from their mind, which reaches you as a set of vague impressions or experiences.
I nodded along as I read these. Similar to the mage starting kit, then. I noticed that their basic damage spell was dealing psyfrost damage thanks to my staff—if I was correct, my elements were 1 frost, 1 psychic, and 1 magic. I knew you could only mix two on a given spell, and obviously a spell that required 1 psychic would keep that one, but I wondered how the system decided which to use and which not to. Perhaps the basic elements couldn’t be combined? Or maybe because frost added an effect to my damage, the system preferred it? My Magic Arrow was still a Magefrost Arrow, after all.
Moment of Mastery seemed… quite strong, if I used it right. My current precision was 13: 2 from my weapon, 6 from my level, and 5 base. My current Defense Rating was 14: 11 from Agility, 3 from my armor spell.
Precision governed both hit and crit chances, with the tooltip giving a strange progression:
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Having half as much Precision as your target has DR means a 25% hit chance with 0% crit.
Having equal Precision to your target’s DR means a 90% hit chance with 5% crit.
Having half again as much Precision as your target’s DR means a 100% hit chance with 50% crit.
Having twice as much Precision as your target’s DR means a 100% crit chance.
Which made it seem like Precision was stronger than all other stats… except you could only get it from level, weapon level, and class abilities, from what I’d seen.
Regardless… a Supercharged Moment of Mastery would guarantee a crit against someone with even my Defense Rating, which monsters certainly didn’t have. What was more, it could outright negate an attack or crit against me. Both of those felt exceedingly good, especially in PvP—hence why it was a Class Iconic, I guess.
Then I opened up the ability selection menu to choose the spells I got for level 2:
Ability Selection
Choose a new spell to learn. You may replace this spell with any other spell you are eligible to learn by consuming its Spell Card or using a Spell Book.
Technique – Mighty Leap
Cost: 5 Stamina
Cooldown: 9.5 Seconds
You leap up to a height of 13 meters and a distance of 26 meters. The height you travel while using this ability does not count toward fall damage.
Spell – Unnatural Terror
Cost: 3 Mana
Cast Time: 2.4 Seconds
Range: 20 Meters
Effect: Unnatural Confusion
This spell fills your target with unearthly fear. They may cower, flee in terror, or simply fight less effectively. Creatures gain a resistance bonus to this spell for each time it has been cast on them that day.
This spell is more effective if you have insights into your target’s fears.
I took the leap, reasoning that an escape was better than a crowd-control spell when I had another crowd-control spell sitting in my bags, but also in accordance with the sound rationale that I could jump around like a motherfucking jedi.
Then I opened up the selection for level 3:
Spell Selection
Choose a new spell to learn. You may replace this spell with any other spell you are eligible to learn by consuming its Spell Card or using a Spell Book.
Spell – Reactive Armor
[You already know this spell. Choose a different spell available to you.]
Spell – Unnatural Confusion
Cost: 4 Mana
Cast Time: 2.4 Seconds
Range: 20 Meters
Effect: Unnatural Confusion
You make your target’s thoughts sluggish and confused. The target takes a penalty to its precision, and its ability to make decisions becomes impaired. Creatures gain a resistance bonus to this spell for each time you have cast it on them in a given day.
If the target is already in a state of natural confusion when you cast this spell, its effect is greatly increased.
Well, the choice had been made for me in this instance. Psychics apparently got a lot of crowd control. I took Unnatural Confusion, obviously, and then was faced with my last real decision: which spell did I want to replace with Hex of Chains?
The damage spells seemed like the most obvious candidates—Mindlash or Magic Arrow. If each class was expected to get by on just those for so long, then it felt safe to assume I could drop one and rely on the other. Unnatural Confusion was another option, since Hex of Chains would perform much the same purpose while still affecting mindless creatures like undead.
But if I wanted to get away with faking myself as a single-classed character, especially to Cuby, I couldn’t start throwing out the basic spell that belonged to another class unless I wanted to try convincing her I’d bought the card from the observatory—something I’d had no reason to do, given that I had no psychic affinity.
It felt like a bit of a bad decision. Kontor had made it clear that the whole of the region had a demon problem, and my lore skill had taught me that the demons all had low psychic resistance. What was more, was I really going to be able to trick Cuby if we fought anymore monsters together? It seemed to me that if I couldn’t trust her, this was probably the end of our partnership.
I replaced Mindlash anyway. If I sold or unequipped my Staff of Frost, I could get my Magic Arrow to deal psychic and magic damage for the demons. And I wanted to at least… I don’t know, try to keep Cuby around, a strange desire that I didn’t think much on for now, given that she was, admittedly, pro-murder.
All that taken care of, I proceeded into the cave. It was funny: so far the dual class didn’t feel particularly overpowered, mostly just some extra abilities and regeneration. But that was because I was a 3/3 instead of a level 6—the same amount of technical levels on both sides.
But levels 2, 3, and 4 must have had just over the experience in them that level 5 and 6 did, because I was almost level 4—at which point I knew I’d pick up Supercharged Spell again, strengthening my buffs and letting me open combat with a double-strength Hex of Chains for a mana cost I could more than afford now that my stamina regeneration was feeding my spells.
It wasn’t long before I found my first worm, gnawing on a stalactite in one corner of a cave chamber, oblivious to my presence:
Burrowing Rock Worm – Level 4
I didn’t know if the non-demon versions had the bodyslam attack that I was worried might instantly kill me, but if this was anything like the tombworm we’d fought earlier, it would be a strong solo monster—much stronger than the weblings of equal levels.
I opened with an Hex of Chains, flinging a tangle of chains through the air at it, then began to spam Magic Arrow as it struggled. The chains only lasted two or three seconds until it broke free and began to crawl toward me.
The worm reached me and reared up for an attack, but I used Mighty Leap to hop to the other side of the cavern with distance to spare. It was a disorienting experience, being propelled so quickly through the air, and my mind reeled with sudden terror that I would simply plow into the back wall—but then I landed, turned, and loosed more spells, my movements feeling automatic even if I wasn’t used to doing this at all.
The worm reached me again with almost no hp remaining, and I expended my Moment of Mastery to dodge its second swipe. This, too, was an incredible and peculiar experience—to my perception, time slowed down as I made the movement by instinct, springing back off a rock as the massive weight of the worm’s head slowly moved through the space ahead of me.
It hit me once, damaging but not breaking my Mana Shield. Then it ran out of hp and fell.
I watched my experience go up. Not only would another worm get me to 4, I hadn’t taken any damage fighting such a powerful monster—it had obviously been much stronger than the level 4 weblings we’d fought earlier. I looted the fallen worm, getting another rock worm heart, and progressed further into the cave. I didn’t want to be down here for longer than an hour and a half, say—but I wouldn’t need to be.
The next worm I found was level 5, but it fell just as easily as the first. I couldn’t help but grin with delight at the system message:
Congratulations, you are now a level 4 Mage / Psychic!
You have gained a new Iconic Spell Augment slot. Open your Ability Selection pane to choose a new Iconic Spell Augment.
You have gained a new Iconic Spell Augment slot. Open your Ability Selection pane to choose a new Iconic Spell Augment.
Your Hit Points have increased by 70 and your Energy has increased by 130.
Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 2. You have 2 stat points to distribute.
“How lovely,” I muttered, watching my Hit Points rise to 410 and my Energy rise to 730. Knowing what the Mage ability was, I opened the Psychic ability selection first.
As I read my two options, my eyes grew wider and wider.
I had been wrong.
Having two classes was definitely overpowered.