"Why do you ask?" Axilya crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Actually, it is odd, now that I think about it. The things you're asking about were things I knew before my tutorial even started."
"If I can take a guess, I suspect he's new." Koren said. "His world, specifically. He's from a world that has yet to receive the blessing of the Labors."
"Oh." Axilya said, and then her eyes widened as the statement sunk in. "Oh fuck, you're that new?" Axilya looked at Leo. "Why didn't you say anything earlier?"
"It didn't seem relevant at the time." Leo replied quickly, not expecting to be put on the spot. "But yes, I was chosen to represent my world. Couldn't tell you why, there were probably millions of people who were more qualified, but they wouldn't accept any exchanges, so here I am."
"It's...fine." Axilya said. "I just need to be more careful - I didn't want any of you to die in the tutorial, but I didn't think anyone would be coming in without actually knowing anything. Do you have any more questions?"
"For now? No. I don't think anything else is gonna help me out while we're still in the dungeon." Leo answered with a shrug. With a nod, Axilya motioned for everyone to follow behind her as she began to walk down the hallway toward the next room. While they moved, Leo checked on his own stats. He hadn't taken a solid hit from the skeletons, but he was sitting at just over 75% for his mana, which meant the [Combine] skill took about a quarter of his mana every time he used it. That did give him another question, but it still wasn't relevant to completing the dungeon, so he'd save it for later.
For what it's worth- Leo heard what sounded like Koren's voice in his mind. He jumped slightly and glanced back toward the older man, who was looking back at him with a soft smile. You did rather well for what looked like your first time in a fight.
Leo gave a smile back and a thumbs up, but he didn't think he really did anything other than pushing bones around. He guessed that the other two using magic behind him more than made up for it, but he was not the kind of guy anyone wanted as a tank. He had a lean body with barely any muscles to speak of. He'd do what he could, as long as his shield lasted at least.
As they approached the next room Axilya spoke quietly from the front. “If it’s another group, I’ll try to draw half of them my way like last time. Just yell if you need any help.”
The second hallway opened up into another chamber, this one brightly lit by a large chandelier at the top that cast the entire room in the glow of an ominous blue flame. There were four skeletons already standing and active in this room, two on each side, all of them holding staves. The lights of their eye sockets differed. One on each side had a fiery red, and the other had a deep blue. Leo went to Appraise as Axilya rushed for the group on the left and yelled. "They're casters! Don't stand too close!"
Name
Skeleton Pyromancer
Element
Fire
Total Rank
D
Name
Skeleton Hydromancer
Element
Water
Total Rank
D
Following her lead, Leo quickly moved out of the entrance toward the other group as the skeletons raised their staves. Their jaws opened as if to chant, and even though no words came out, he could see both fire and water gathering at the tips of their staves. Both of their spells shot out before he could reach them, and Leo did his best Matrix impression, bending back to avoid both of the high shots and landing flat on his ass.
Blocking skeletons coming at him with swords and clubs was one thing - one crazy thing still, but a ball of fire and a ball of pressurized water both the size of bowling balls weren’t things he could block with his shield. He felt the heat of the fire fly past his face, and he didn’t think it was something he’d be able to walk away from if he actually took a direct hit. He scrambled to his feet and started to run again. At the very least, it seemed him running straight for the skeletons caught their attention and diverted it away from the other two.
“Don’t worry too much about their magic, young man.” Koren called to Leo. A moment later, Leo spotted a transparent dome emerging around him and moving with him. “That should stop the worst of it.” The skeletons charged up more spells, focusing them at Leo as he held his shield up in anticipation. Alright, he was going to trust this old guy’s hocus pocus not to get him killed. With this second salvo, the ball of water went wide, leaving Leo to block the fireball. It slammed into his shield and burst, causing Leo to hiss in pain from the heat that felt like sticking his face into a hot oven.
His shield arm stung from the impact, and taking both of those spells at once would probably knock him off his feet, but he held on. He ran toward the skeletons again, with the thought in his head that he absolutely did not want to do this all the time. He wasn’t sure if Mixer was the right class for him just yet, but he had to thank the god he was talking to earlier for not giving him something like Titanic Warden.
The skeletons didn’t take well to him coming into melee with them. They both raised their staves toward him, but the way the elements swirled around them changed. He dashed to their sides, avoiding close range bursts of fire and water that probably would have sent him reeling. They turned to face him, beginning to swing their staves, but swirling with fire and with a huge block of ice from the pyromancer and hydromancer respectively. He decided to mostly dodge, taking the opportunity to get a solid swing when a number of fireballs from Mada slammed into them from behind, making them both stumble even if the pyromancer looked mostly unaffected. Leo’s shortsword cracked the skull, so he went in for a second, third, and fourth swing to shatter it and cause the skeleton to stop moving.
With the first one dead, Leo turned his attention back to the hydromancer just in time to block its ice-covered staff with his shield. Another set of fireballs staggered the skeleton and caused it to fall, where Leo took the opportunity to stab through the skull, shattering it as well. Breathing heavily, he glanced over toward Axilya to see how her fight was going, while glancing at the results from his Auto Loot.
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Auto Loot Activated
Items Obtained:
Charred Bone (D-rank, Fire)
Soaked Bone (D-Rank, Water)
Axilya stood, holding her sword at a resting position, looking in his direction. The two skeletons she ran towards were scattered in pieces behind her. Some of her clothes looked singed, as if she'd taken one of the fireballs directly, but she herself didn't look like she even felt it. “Good job.” She said, walking over. Shortly after, Leo noticed Koren’s barrier around him fading, as Koren and Mada walked up to join everyone in the center of the room.
“That wasn’t nearly as bad as before.” Leo said, glancing over toward Koren. He felt very glad that the skeletons were slow and predictable. He remembered having to be more responsive against regular people in his memories of boxing, even if they weren’t actively trying to kill him then. “Can you keep that barrier on me all the time?”
“I’m afraid not.” Koren said with a sigh. “It takes mana to maintain, but it is undoubtedly effective.”
“Alright then. Oh- that reminds me, I have another question. Can your mana increase? If so, how?” Leo asked. He still didn’t know if the costs varied at all from item to item with Combine, but even as it was now, only being able to use it four times at most before he had to wait for his mana to recover seemed like a pretty major drawback.
“It goes up when your total rank does.” Axilya answered. Leo nodded in response, but he found the answer a little disappointing. If it was tied to one of the stats then he could have at least pivoted to spending whatever karma he got on it. He supposed it was fine for now, - other than the healing item he didn’t know what to mix. Thought and intention seemed to be part of it, but maybe he’d get a better direction if he could talk to another Mixer.
“This is unrelated, but could you introduce me to the Mixer you said you knew?” He asked.
“Sure, I was actually going to suggest it after we clear the dungeon.“ She ‘sheathed’ her sword, the metal straps on her back wrapping back around it. “I don’t envy you in that regard. The first couple of skills I got were pretty easy to use, and I learned how to utilize them better when I increased my Intuition. When I think about it, though, maybe that’s why the gods put you into a tutorial with people who knew what they were doing. I had to do mine alone.”
“That sounds like an awful time.” Leo replied. He didn’t think raising Intuition would do anything for learning his skills, but he’d already started putting points into it for A “Maybe I just got lucky, since Luck is my highest stat for some reason.” He wouldn’t complain about having any stat higher than E in the first place, but he wished it could have been something like Intellect or Reflex. “Since we’re on the topic, what are all the ranks, anyway?”
“From E to S, which also has minuses and pluses in between. So E- to S+.” Axilya answered. Koren and Mada seemed content to let her talk without adding anything in, but Leo guessed that she wanted to make up for not having a complete answer earlier. “After that, there’s SS, SSS, L, which stands for Legend, and M, which stands for Mythic. You won’t have to worry about the last few for a while though - especially M, since it’s the domain of the gods, essentially. This world is Rank C, which means the biggest threat anywhere in the world at the moment would be A-rank at most.”
“Not that we haven’t established that it’s a good idea for me to be here for the tutorial, but why send me, a newly christened E rank, to a C rank world?”
“You should be able to find E and D rank quests still. Typically, ranks affect and influence things around two ranks away from each other. Though when you’re two ranks apart, the effect is pretty diminished unless you use an element that something’s natural element is weakened by. It’s still technically possible for you to run into something that’s A rank on Heom, but even I’d have to run if I found something like that.`` Axilya said with a shrug. “You just kind of have to roll with the punches, but it should be easy for you since you have Appraise. If the rank is high enough to block you from seeing anything but the rank and name, that’s a pretty good indication that you need to run.”
“Also, from what I understand.” Mada took the chance to interject here. “Most E and D rank worlds are that way because they are desolate and lifeless. Unless they have some valuable material on them, most of them aren’t fought for, and even then that will quickly raise the rank as higher rank Laborers and Outsider agents flock to it.”
He nodded at that. He supposed that it made sense - even he lived on a world where he could - although very unlikely - run into a tiger or an elephant, which after fighting E and D rank skeletons he had to assume the average tiger was at least D+ or C-. As he pondered this, something about what they said that he almost completely glossed over came back around and metaphorically punched him in the head. “Wait, hold on, we can go to other worlds?”
“Yes - it typically costs credits to do so though. It’s not something you start to think about until you’re C rank at least.” Axilya answered. “We can talk more about it later, if everyone’s recovered, we should probably get going. I think we’re coming up on Oorden’s resting place.”
Name:
Leonell Bolden
Stats
Title
-
Fortitude: E- (0/10)
Class
Mixer
Reflex: E (0/10)
Element
-
Intellect: E (0/10)
Total Rank
E
Intuition: E (4/10)
Status
Health 100%, Mana 100%
Will: E- (0/10)
Skills
Combine, Auto-Loot, Appraise, Storage
Luck: D (0/10)
Skill: Combine
Mix different raw materials into a new item. You choose the shape of the form. Final form is affected by rank and element of materials.
Store Combine results into a mental guidebook that grows based on Intellect rank.
Skill: Auto-Loot (Mixer)
Automatically separates mixable materials from slain creatures. If the [Storage] skill is active, automatically places loot into storage space.
Skill: Appraise (Mixer)
Look at a creature or material and gain information on them. Information includes: Rank, Element, Class, Statuses, Titles. May have difficulty appraising creatures of higher rank, or creatures hidden by another skill or effect. Skill affect boosted by Intuition Rank.
Skill: Storage (Mixer)
Creates an inter-dimensional storage space that only you can access. Storage increases with Total Rank
Storage
Animated Bone 11x (E-Rank, Dark) Vine-Covered Bone (D-Rank, Wood) Charred Bone (D-rank, Fire) Soaked Bone (D-Rank, Water)