He’d slept in late.
He’d kissed a beautiful woman.
These were wonderful things, but they were not his main mission. His Quest. The humans held in the gnoll capital didn’t care that he felt well rested. They didn’t care that he felt, for the first time in his life… he wasn’t sure what the word was. Stronger than lust, and also more robust and complete. It was wonderful.
But it wasn’t his mission.
His mission required power, and it was power he would gain today.
His various exploits had gotten him to level 7. Remarkably fast progress according to Krystyna, but also hard-earned. He’d fought a lot of baddies that were far beyond his level.
All of his stats had increased through +1 bonuses; he’d ignored them in the heat of battle, but he could see the effects quite clearly now.
He willed the increases to display as before, even though they’d accumulated while he’d been transformed. Whatever reality or system ran this world obliged, showing the accumulated bonuses alongside his level-up messages.
You have reached level 5! You have 6 attribute points and 20 reserves points to distribute as you see fit.
You have reached level 6! You have 6 more attribute points and 20 more reserves points to distribute as you see fit.
You have reached level 7! You have 6 more attribute points and 20 more reserves points to distribute as you see fit.
Your actions while transformed have given you 6 bonus strength.
Your actions while transformed have given you 8 bonus agility.
Your actions while transformed have given you 1 bonus dexterity.
Your actions while transformed have given you 5 bonus endurance.
Your actions while transformed have given you 5 bonus focus.
Your actions while transformed have given you 3 bonus connection.
He’d done quite a bit more fighting and living during this set of transformations than during the first set, but the bonus stat gains were fairly similar — maybe even a bit smaller. Perhaps it was that the number of new things that he had encountered was similar. Perhaps stat gains simply got harder to earn as you earned more of them, just like levels and skill levels.
Name: Jerome Wallaby
Race: Human
Level 7, 21% progress
120/120 HP
120/120 MP
120/120 SP
Statuses: Unassigned points (18 attribute, 60 reserves)
Strength: 26
Endurance: 21
Agility: 33
Focus: 24
Dexterity: 15
Connection: 22
Jerome took a look at Krystyna’s stats for comparison.
Name: Krystyna Kowalska
Race: Human
Level 9, 25% progress
180/180 HP
100/100 MP
180/180 SP
Statuses: None
Strength: 32
Endurance: 21
Agility: 46
Focus: 14
Dexterity: 19
Connection: 19
Skills
Special Abilities
Recoil Burst Level 16, 81% (unique)
Burst
Dodge Level 11, 33%
Hear the Wind
Herbalism Level 10, 9%
Identify Herb, Make Potion (see recipes)
Grappling Level 8, 71%
Mobility Awareness
Unarmed Strikes Level 7, 52%
Light Armor Level 6, 5%
Healing Level 3, 2%
Refill HP, Refill SP
She’d gained a level while he was gone, likely from fighting gnolls, although she might have assigned herself some sort of quest as well.
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Her skills had risen in level as well, with most going up by one and Recoil Burst and Unarmed Strikes going up two levels each. Healing had been added and raised to level 3.
Finally, her stats had risen by several points each, with Focus making the most radical rise simply because she hadn't ever trained it before.
He compared her stats with his and saw that her Strength, Agility, and Dexterity still beat his. Agility wasn’t even close. His Focus and Connection were stronger than hers, even though he was a lower level and still had unassigned points, simply because he’d had a lot more practice.
She’d been purely an Agility and Strength close-combat fighter before getting Refill SP and Refill HP. Now she was a purely Agility and Strength close-combat fighter, but one who could heal herself and shoot rock bullets. A nice upgrade.
He, on the other hand, was a burgeoning jack-of-all-trades who had developed a bit lopsidedly into Agility and Strength based moves, but that was mostly because Krystyna’s form was the only one he had readily available for power-leveling. The mage-forms he’d found had to be switched out of rapidly in battle due to how quickly they took damage, and he had no friendly mages to switch into, so he’d have to level those skills and attributes like a normal person for now.
Time to assign the points he’d accumulated.
Irrationally, he wanted to match her stats — or at least match her Strength stat, so he wouldn’t get crushed in hugs anymore — but he couldn’t let his pride get in the way of his mission. It was important that he kept on raising his Strength attribute, but to dump his free points in there out of vanity was foolish. He needed all his stats, except maybe Dexterity.
Dexterity was good for crafting — and, seemingly, for aiming the Recoil Burst rock bullets — but he didn’t want to craft, and he had other long-distance attacks.
Analysis of his current battle effectiveness led him, surprisingly, to put a bunch of points into Focus and Connection. If he raised those attributes, then Hold and Crystal Overload would both be more effective (Focus) and could be channeled longer and used again sooner due to a higher MP regeneration rate (Connection).
However, while both those moves would increase his battle effectiveness significantly, it was secondary to the true target: Refill SP. With greater Focus, Refill SP worked faster and thus used less MP. With greater Connection, MP refilled faster and he could use Refill SP more often. Thus by raising his Focus and Connection he would be able to raise all of his stats faster through more intense and constant practice. He would be getting many stats for the price of two.
Thus he put 6 points each into Focus and Connection, and split the remaining 6 points between Strength, Agility, and Endurance.
His reserves points he once again split evenly between HP, MP, and SP. HP would keep him from dying, SP would let him go longer between having to take a break and channel his healing spell, and MP was the fuel that kept everything going. He considered skimping on SP, but decided to wait on that until using Magic Pulse and Refill SP together returned more SP than the combo cost in MP.
Name: Jerome Wallaby
Race: Human
Level 7, 21% progress
140/140 HP
140/140 MP
140/140 SP
Statuses: None
Strength: 28
Endurance: 23
Agility: 35
Focus: 30
Dexterity: 15
Connection: 28
He was turning into quite the combatant!
Next he looked at his skills.
Skills
Special Abilities
Transform Level 3, 62% (unique)
Store, Transform, Preview (level), Pass-through (attribute bonuses), Intimacy Bonus
Recoil Burst Level 8, 47% (unique)
Burst
Portal Hand Level 3, 79% (unique)
Portal (1)
Blast Off Level 2, 22% (unique)
Blast Off
Magic Pulse Level 1, 54% (unique)
Pulse
Unarmed Strikes Level 6, 28%
Dodge Level 5, 36%
Grappling Level 4, 87%
Healing Level 4, 81%
Refill HP, Refill SP
Sneak Level 3, 71%
Alteration Level 3, 59%
Blessing, Hold
Flows Level 3, 11%
Crystal Overload
Herbalism Level 3, 9%
Identify Herb, Make Potion (see recipes)
Swords Level 1, 15%
It was quite a formidable array of skills, although each of them were still pretty low level. If he fought a high-level enemy he wouldn’t do well… and then if each of the skills were halved due to the new form they might hardly do anything. He’d gained a lot, but he still had a long way to go.
Swords and Herbalism he could safely ignore. Herbalism was Krystyna’s domain, and Swords were pretty useless if he couldn’t carry a sword with him between forms or through a Portal Hand portal (not to mention the fact that a sword would interfere with Grappling and Recoil Burst).
Would you like to forget the skill Swords?
Yes. Forgetting swords would be wonderful.
Just like that, the skill was gone.
You have 24 hours to retrieve the skill if you decide you’ve made a mistake.
Good to know.
He decided to keep Herbalism for now, just in case. He might get stuck in a place without Krystyna and want to make a helpful potion.
Looking at his skills, he chided himself for not using Blessing more often. With his skill level of 3 in Alteration he could get +3 on every stat, basically for free… and he would level his Alteration. That would not only make Hold more effective and cheaper to maintain, it would also increase the stat gains from Blessing, making a virtuous cycle. It lasted 15 minutes, so if he recast it whenever it wore out then he’d level quite quickly. At higher levels it might even pay for itself in terms of MP due to the increase in Connection.
The other skills he wanted to focus on today were Blast Off and Portal Hands. They would always be best to level while in his own form (at least until he found the owner of Blast Off) and leveling them up would add significant flexibility to his movement around the battlefield.
He spent hours practicing them, leveling them up once each, and leveling Healing in the process because of how often he had to use Refill SP.
Krystyna insisted on a wrestling session, where he learned how to get into a standing elbow lock from a dodge (and raised his skill level to 5), and then a sparring session to practice Unarmed Strikes and Dodge.
One of his punches hit Krystyna straight in the mouth.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry. Are you—”
“C’mon, ya pussy,” She cut him off with a wink. “Just because I cried in front of you doesn’t mean I’m fragile. Look at my HP: less than 10% gone.”
“Still,” he said, getting into the spirit of things, “I feel like I should kiss it better.”
She complied, wrapping herself in his arms. He lost himself in the kiss and then five (ten? Thirty?) blissful minutes later he pulled himself away.
“See? Your HP is higher than when we started.”
Hours passed, skill levels climbed slowly, and then it was dark. She lay beside him again, holding his hand. He pulled her closer, her head top of his chest.
“It’s even safer this way.”
She murmured agreement.
It wasn’t safer, in the end.
The next day they trained and kissed some more. Blast Off reached level 4. More auspiciously, Portal Hand reached level 5, meaning the accuracy of his portal was increased (that happened every level) and he could send a second limb through the portal (although the second portal’s accuracy was lower than the first portal’s had been at level 1; close range only for now).
Then that night, when Krystyna laid her head on Jerome’s chest one thing led to another, and the lack of safety began…. first, they didn’t use a condom (try making one of those while in the middle of a gnoll-filled forest). Second, her moans carried a long way, and unlike the grunts and crashes of fighting they were noises that gnolls did not often make.
When he finished he rolled onto his back and let her snuggle up to his chest again before he fell blissfully asleep.
He awoke to the sound of gnolls.