"Class Gems are one of the few items where the actual rarity is almost completely unrelated to its value, especially for non-combat classes. This is because while higher rarity classes do generally have better skills and give more stats, many of them are also highly specialized and as such are much less likely to work well with your other class or classes, and a good synergy is far more important than individual class power."
-Quote from a member of the Colstacian Merchant Guild
----------------------------------------
The next day the conversation was all about a possible boss fight, as we had gotten enough healing crystals from previous runs to fulfill the requirement that we had set. Plus now that we knew just how mobile the boss was, combined with Leo's new shield meant that we were unlikely to get ambushed again, so it was not long before we decided to fight the centipede once more. With that goal in mind we methodically cleared the dungeon until we once more stood across from a conical pile of gems surrounded by pillars of stone.
During our clearing of the dungeon we naturally planned out how to fight the boss now that we had actual information on it and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a majority of the conversation was about the opening strike and its apparent lack of efficacy. Apparently the centipede had never repeated whatever skill it used to tank that initial blow, as the rest of them said that it never glowed when they fought it and while hard, the carapace was far from the toughness it would've needed to emerge from that attack unscathed. This lead us to believe that it was either a skill that it could only use while coiled or, more likely, was a skill with a cooldown, which apparently existed according to Jason. Knowing that, it was decided that I would open with the same attack while standing near Leo for protection while Jason and Jackson hid behind nearby pillars in order to make it use the skill as soon as possible.
The first beat of the fight went almost exactly like before, I gathered my energy, shot a spike at the centipede who shivered and glowed before emerging unscathed, screeching and charging towards us, but this time rather than feinting at Leo it instead jumped on a pillar to our right and used that as a springboard to go around him and attack us from the side. Thankfully, this time we expected it to bypass him so he was able to interpose his arm between me and the centipede and activated his skill to absorb the momentum, yelling out that it took three quarters of his stamina to stop it before Jason and Jackson came out from their pillars and we started a brawl.
Since I was still far from a sniper with my magic and it seemed to have a high lightning resistance we decided that for this fight I would fight up close using my crystal shell and added blade to my staff to harass it whenever it wasn't focused on me, as I lacked the stats to be truly effective in a melee. But even with my lacking melee ability it seemed that just the presence of a fourth person to jab at it and send the occasional crystal spike was enough to make it significantly easier on the others as it could no longer pay attention to everyone all at once, causing its shots at Jason to miss more often than not and giving more openings to both Jackson and Leo to get their weapons in between its carapace or even cut off a leg or two. And since it wasn't able to make an opening it never tried to do a lunge like it did last time, which meant that instead of one decisive attack to end the fight it became a battle of attrition as we slowly opened more cuts and fought as carefully as possible to avoid getting injured ourselves.
However, the monster seemed to catch on to the fact that it wouldn't win if things continued on as they were so it completely turned its back on me and Leo, distracting us with a tail swipe that Leo didn't have the stamina to cancel out, and focusing entirely on Jackson, who managed to dodge his chomp with his mandibles only to get batted away with its tail which had made a crescent rotation to hit him after we dodged.
"SHIT!"(Mason)
Now that Jackson was out of the picture it turned back towards us just as a card hit it in the eye and caused it to let out a pained screech that me and Leo took advantage of, with him hacking of a leg and me creating a crystal ring emerging from the floor around its body, but it seems I underestimated its flexibility as even while holding Leo back with its mandibles it managed to raise up its body in a wave that resulted in its tail leaving the ring, barely buying us a few seconds before it was completely free.
"HE'S OKAY"(Jason)
With Jason's yell me and Leo relaxed a bit and went back to a more cautious fighting style and soon enough a slower, but visibly okay Jackson rejoined the fight and though the centipede tried to repeat its previous action I used the remainder of my mana to make a crystal hook that managed to stop the tail swipe before it could hit anyone, and the fight ended much like the previous one, with us waiting for it to bleed out while discussing the fight amongst ourselves.
"You okay?"(Leo)
"No, I almost died again and unlike Mason I can't just brush it off and pretend like it never happened!"(Jackson)
Starting with a normal voice but ending with a hoarse yell Jacksons voice echoed through the cavern while he took a few audible breaths to calm himself before continuing in a calm but determined voice.
"Look, I know why we have to and I know it's necessary, and I will fight and gain as much strength as I can until the end of the tutorial, but I can't live like this, not forever. I'm scared of fighting monsters way bigger than me, I'm scared of getting seriously injured, possible crippled, and most of all I'm scared of dying so I'll fight until the tutorial ends. Hell I'll even fight after it if I need to,but once things settle down enough where every day isn't a fight, I'm done, I'll take that crafting class and I'll make equipment and items for other people and I won't worry about if I'll die that day or become crippled and die the next day or anything, alright."(Jackson)
With his piece said, Jackson slumped down and sat against a nearby pillar and just waited with his eyes closed. Soon enough the messages appeared and the boss dissolved, leaving behind another emerald and piece of carapace,and two uncommon orbs that turned into a pair of metal boots and leather bracers, both with minor increased hardness. Altogether more lackluster than last time without the first clear bonus, but still better than what we usually get from the salamander and we got the same amount of EXP as before so it was still worth the fight.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
After gathering the loot and depositing it in the cave we reviewed the fight and what we did wrong/how to do better next time. All in all the fight didn't go too poorly, but it did reinforce the importance of adaptability since the centipede behaved far differently in this fight compared to the last one. Since we did not have enough healing crystals to attempt the boss again we didn't wait for all of our resources to regenerate before re-entering the dungeon and continuing to clear it. In the dungeon runs that followed I noticed that Jackson seemed more subdued than usual, but also more resolved, likely because he just wanted to get it over with and have the tutorial end as soon as possible. Likewise, both Jason and Leo seemed deeper in thought than usual, presumably thinking about what they wanted in this new world now that there was less than a week left of the tutorial combined with Jackson and my speeches. With the general mood of the party being that of resolve and determination we carried on clearing the dungeon and getting as much as we could before the tutorial ended.
Like this the next five and a half days passed, with us running the dungeon as often as possible and clearing it one to two times every day, gaining experience, both system and real, and items as our reward, and by the end all of us had become far more accustomed to combat, not even needing to use a single healing crystal in most fights with the centipede, and while we had all hoarded our SP in case we unlocked something good or learned what we saw naturally, it seemed that Leo and I had skewed our perceptions of how easy it was to learn skills as none of us were able to gain any new ones, most of us not even feeling any closer to obtaining them after a week of practice.
When there was only a few hours left in the tutorial, we took a tally of all the loot we had obtained in order to split it as fairly as possible, and while there was quite a bit, we could only take back what we could carry so most of it would unfortunately be left behind. The most valuable items we acquired were the rare shield, the gemstone jeweler class gem, a rare class gem for crystal mage that appeared when we broke the dungeon core,a rare crystal gauntlet that could shoot spikes, a rare whip that was modeled after the centipede and had minor enhanced control and sharpness, the rare salamander chestplate, as well as pants that went with the chestplate and had a set effect that raised regen by an additional 10%, and the spell crystal. Naturally, Leo kept the shield and also got the salamander armor, Jackson got the gemstone jeweler crystal and almost all of the crafting materials we had, while me and Jason haggled over the rare class. While neither of us actually wanted to use it, me because I didn't want to heavily focus on just one element and Jason because he didn't think it would synergize well with his class, we all recognized that it was definitely the most valuable item of the bunch and with a little luck someone else would have a rare class gem more suited to us that they would be willing to trade. In the end it was decided that one of us would get the gem and the other would get the rest of the rare items and first pick for the rest and one game of rock-paper-scissors later I had a wide grin and a much less full backpack than everyone else. Besides the class gem, I also got a smattering of uncommon and common items with no special effects to equip and 5 of the healing crystals for emergencies, as well as the canteen that can be refilled with mana.
With loot distributed and only two hours left before the tutorial ends and we get sent to whatever the system considered a safe place with who knows how many people, I took this opportunity to use the 10 SP that I had accumulated to purchase skills from my unfortunately unchanged shop, and even though it would take all of my SP, I decided that it was still worth it to get [Elemental Manipulation], as it would help me in all aspects rather than just defence, and [Field Advantage] was just way too situational without a way to reliably activate its effects.
Similarly to myself the others, sans Jackson who immediately used his class gem and was familiarizing himself with it, also used this time to browse their skill shops and spend their accumulated SP, and while Leo didn't have outward reactions other than looking pleased with himself, Jackson started throwing cards that seemed to multiply in the air, though he seemed tired after only a few throws. Once everyone was finished with their various things, we all gathered around the remains of our firepit and watched the counter tick down, until after what felt like hours, but was actually minutes, the long awaited message appeared before us.
Congratulations, you along with 72% of humanity have successfully lived through the tutorial. Prepare for return to your planet.
Without time to process the message fully I once again found myself standing in an unfamiliar place, this time significantly less panicked and surrounded by a much larger group of people.
Masons stat sheet
Name:
Mason King Race: Human(+6 Free Points per level Level: 10 SP: 0 Classes: Elementalist(Rare),(1 slot available) Titles: N/A Attunements: [Lightning I], [Crystal II] EXP 640 EXP to next Level 5000 Mana 440/440 Stamina 280/280 STR: 15 INT: 39+3 DEX: 15+2 WILL: 50+2 END: 25+3 WIS: 39+5 Skills: [Elemental Channeling 1/10], [Elemental Meditation 2/10], [Elemental Sight 1/5], [Elemental Manipulation 1/10] Traits: [Elementalist]
Skill/Trait Descriptions
[Elemental Channeling 1/10] Channel an attuned element through your body to augment it (Effects and cost vary on element and intensity -2% cost per second per level)
[Elemental Meditation 2/10]
Through meditation, you can sense the surrounding elemental energies and pull them into yourself to raise your affinity with the corresponding element(Range and speed increase with level).
[Elemental sight 1/5]
Allows you to see elemental energy
[Elemental Manipulation 1/10]
Makes the control of elemental energy easier(5% per level)
[Elementalist] Allows for the attunement of more than one element with no upper limit but makes it impossible to use any elemental magic for non-attuned elements or their subsidiaries.