Class: Arcane Mage The Arcane Mage gains 1 Constitution, 1 Vitality, 2 Willpower, 2 Nerves, 2 Intellect, 2 Balance, and 2 Channeling per level. Features: Arcaniac: You can more easily translate and comprehend runescript. Effects improved by Nerve and Intellect.
Major Skills:
Please select one of the following: Arcane Affinity Arcane Conjuration Arcane Manipulation Arcane Presence Arcane Resistance
Minor Skills:
Please select one of the following: Arcane Barrier Arcane Body Arcane Bolt Arcane Song Arcane Strike
No descriptions, huh? Well that's alright, I can just guess.
Affinity sounded like a general 'your Arcane is better' deal, Conjuration was probably a creation skill, Manipulation would let me move Arcane mana around. Presence was a bit harder to guess, but I assumed that it was either an intimidation skill, which I didn't need, or an area buff for Arcane, which could be good short range, but would die off at long range. Resistance would allow me to resist damage caused by Arcane better, I assumed. The minor skills were a bit more difficult.
I decided that I would probably go with Affinity, as it sounded like a generally safe option, but I waited until I examined the minor skills to set the decision in stone.
Barrier would probably be a shield, but might just be a static wall. They would serve similar purposes, but if it were a mobile shield, it would be easier to work with. Arcane Body would probably let me deal Arcane damage with just my body, but it might also let me phase through walls or resist Arcane damage similarly to Resistance, or something like that. Bolt was obvious, it was just a variation on the mana or mage bolt from games. Song... I was guessing that song was another area buff? Strike would most likely be a close range but stronger version of Bolt.
I picked out Affinity, watching as the blue world upon the pillar flashed purple. After a moment, the pillar itself returned to its blue coloration, but the wisps and auroras retained their purple coloration. The wisps also stopped darting away when I approached, which was pretty cool.
After I picked out Bolt, though, the wisps flashed once more, becoming much more solid. A few of them dove straight for the ground, smashing into it and causing small explosions that didn't really cause any damage. The wisps wobbled a bit afterwards, now noticeably smaller, but they quickly recovered both their stability and size.
...Maybe the wisps not being scared of me anymore wasn't such a good thing?
My Class Screen popped up again.
Class: Arcane Mage The Arcane Mage gains 1 Constitution, 1 Vitality, 2 Willpower, 2 Nerves, 2 Intellect, 2 Balance, and 2 Channeling per level. Features: Arcaniac: You can more easily translate and comprehend runescript. Effects improved by Nerve and Intellect. Major Skills: Arcane Affinity Lvl. 1: Arcane spells you cast are slightly more effective, and require slightly less from you. Effect amplified by Intellect and Channeling. Minor Skills: Arcane Bolt Lvl. 1: Fire a bolt constructed of Arcana Mana. Costs Mana. Damage based on Intellect.
Beautiful. That was about what I had expected. I noticed that it didn't give me any values, though, which was a bit odd.
Arcaniac was interesting, both in that I hadn't been offered any other features, and that the feature was somewhat vague. Did more easily mean that I had to have knowledge beforehand, or would it supply them? Also, was the magic that Harkemth had created considered runescript?
I fired a couple of Arcane Bolts at a dummy, and was satisfied to see them deal a not-insignificant amount of damage. Sadly, I couldn't see exactly how much it was, but that was fine. I would just figure that out against some of the Homunculus later.
I turned my attention to the Profession Screen.
Profession: Autodidact The Autodidact gainst 1 Vitality, 1 Fitness, 1 Willpower, 2 Nerves, 3 Intellect, 2 Balance, and 2 Channeling per level. Features: Self-Taught: Gain more skill experience when you are learning without a teacher, but much less when under one's tutelage.
Major Skills:
Please select one of the following: Adept Genius Hard Worker Prodigy Young Master
Minor Skills:
Please select one of the following: Autodidact's Sense Effortless Flawless Work Impressive Training Montage
Wait, was Autodidact the anime 'Young Master' Profession? Yeah, that skill is out. Honestly, all the Major Skills gave off weird vibes. They were all descriptors, so I tried to work based off that. The question was which I wanted to exemplify.
I tentatively decided on Prodigy. Learning fast sounded useful.
As for the Minor Skills, they all sounded interesting, to a degree. Effortless, Flawless Work, and Impressive all sounded like things that would be used to make things look easy, rather than actually make them easy, and I was assuming that Training Montage would accelerate time or something. Useful, and cool, but I was curious about Autodidact's Sense. What would someone who taught themself be able to sense better than others?
Hoping I wouldn't regret it, I accepted both Prodigy and Autodidact's Sense, resulting in the following update to my Profession Screen.
Profession: Autodidact
The Autodidact gainst 1 Vitality, 1 Fitness, 1 Willpower, 2 Nerves, 3 Intellect, 2 Balance, and 2 Channeling per level.
Features: Self-Taught: Gain more skill experience when you are learning without a teacher, but less when under one's tutelage. Major Skills: Prodigy Lvl. 1: Increased skill experience gain based on Nerves and Intellect. Minor Skills: Autodidact's Sense Lvl. 1: Gain a sense for where any training-related resources may be. Effects improved by Nerves.
Cool. I didn't really have any way to gauge that. I did feel a slight magnetic pull towards the training dummies, and they glowed just a bit, but otherwise I had no idea how much the increased skill experience would help, nor any idea if I could test that in here.
Name: Abel Halloran Class: Arcane Mage Level: 3 Class Xp: 0% Profession: Autodidact Level: 3 Profession Xp: 4% Health Total: 100/100 Health Regen: 5 /minute Mana Total: 100/100 Mana Regen: 10 /minute Physical: 10 Constitution: 10 Vitality: 10 Fitness: 10 Mental: 10 Willpower: 10 Nerves: 10 Intellect: 10 Astral: 10 Balance: 10 Channeling: 10 Harmony: 10 Free Points: 0
Tier Evolution Complete. Leave Soul Space?
Knowing this would make me black out again, I closed my eyes, and verbalized my decision, "Yes, please." A second passed. Then another. I peeked an eye open. I was still in the training grounds. Was there something else to do?
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Then I blacked out.
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Somewhat annoyed at the system, I decided to take my frustration out on the fuzzy Abominations just outside.
Lining up a shot on an unsuspecting critter that appeared isolated enough, I took a shot, immediately checking my mana for changes.
Current Mana: 92/100
About 9 mana, though it was consumed over the casting time, which was long enough for my mana regen to tick. If I had to guess, the cast had taken about 9 seconds as well. I fired another Bolt while the Homunculus was confused to try to gauge if it went off similarly.
Yup, it was the same. This time I tried for a weak point, hoping to end the creature before it figured out where the shots were coming from.
Congratulations! You have slain 1 Level 1 Rabid Homunculus Abomination!
Experience Reward Decreased for Fighting an Enemy Below Your Tier!
Reward: 1% Class XP
Wait... 1 XP?? There was no way that killing down a single level was that punishing. I guess I was stuck to killing things at my own level, then? I walked further into the cave, only to feel my stomach rumble. I winced, looking back at the corpse of the monster that I'd just killed. Hold up, maybe higher Tiered meat tasted better? Yes, yes, that made sense. I would just... go kill something tas-Tier. Heh. Yeah.
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I slowly crept about the Homunculus. In preparation for this fight, I had sniped a few of the Tierless Rabid types, and found that my range was a bit over 10 feet, maybe 11?
Congratulations! You have slain 6 Level 0-2 Rabid Homunculus Abomination!
Experience Reward Decreased for Fighting an Enemy Below Your Tier!
Reward: 8% Class XP
This new Homunculus was the same level as the one that had torn me to bits, though. It was a massive slug with a lion's head in form, maw stretched and enlarged grotesquely, permanently hanging open, and a query to the system returned its identity.
Level 6 Hungering Homunculus Abomination
"Oh god... what have I done?"
A relatively simple form of summon, a Homunculus is a doll-like caricature of another creature. While relatively weak, these summons are quite varied, and come in many shapes and sizes. As such, they have become a common staple for summoners everywhere.
Additionally, the summoning of this creature has failed, and the mana stored within its ritual has bled and crossed into another, resulting in scraps of two or more creatures combining into one.
Be wary. While these summons are rather weak, their potential is endless.
This beast's hunger is endless, and if left unchecked, it will consume all.
It looked to be the slowest of all the Homunculus I had seen so far. That was actually why I had chosen it. I needed a distance to cast my spells, but I had a rather short range, so going very far away wouldn't be helpful. I just needed an enemy that would keep coming towards me, but not very fast. It was quite large as well, meaning that I didn't have to aim perfectly. What I was hoping for was that the rather large target of its face would be enough to significantly damage it.
I attacked once, just to get it to turn and face me so I could test out my hypothesis, and as I had hoped, the attack seemed more effective that it might otherwise be. I lined up again, once more aiming for the mouth. This time, I missed the mouth, but still hit the creature, but quickly fired another Bolt at it.
In my distracted casting stupor, the Abomination had gotten close enough to slam its head down on me with a warbling roar/moan,
Current Health: 52/100
Level 6 Hungering Homunculus Abomination applies Consumed to Abel Halloran!
Consumed: The Consumed creature dissolves slowly, healing and strengthening the creature that afflicted them with this debuff.
How was that damage so high? Also, Consumed? I wasn't in its stomach! Even so, I felt my hit points slowly fading away. I knew that I had to end this fight, and quickly.
Backing up as far as I could manage without placing the Level 6 Hungering Homunculus Abomination out of Arcane Bolt's range, I cast another spell at it, giving off a quiet popping sound.
The beast closed in, and my second attack missed completely.
Quickly, I scrambled backwards, finding my back to the cave's wall, and cast another Bolt. If this one failed, then I'd need to try and get away from this thing, as quickly as possible. Hopefully, the Consumed debuff would die out, and it wouldn't follow me back to the small branch I'd woken up in, and been living out of.
A furious scream was released from the monster as I continued to blast it to hell, and then it fell to the floor, less than a foot away from me. I felt the Consumed debuff that had stuck itself to my soul like tar rapidly fade away.
Congratulations! You have slain 1 Level 6 Hungering Homunculus Abomination!
Reward: 14% Class XP
That... had barely been worth it. At least, until I received the next notifications.
Congratulations! Your Arcane Bolt has increased to Level 2!
Reward: 5% Class XP
You have taken an action in line with your Profession!
Reward: 25% Profession XP
The influx of experience was small, but it was still more than I had gotten from the Hungering Abomination.
Name: Abel Halloran Class: Arcane Mage Level: 3 Class Xp: 28% Profession: Autodidact Level: 3 Profession Xp: 34% Health Total: 42/100 Health Regen: 5 /minute Mana Total: 47/100 Mana Regen: 10 /minute Physical: 10 Constitution: 10 Vitality: 10 Fitness: 10 Mental: 10 Willpower: 10 Nerves: 10 Intellect: 10 Astral: 10 Balance: 10 Channeling: 10 Harmony: 10 Free Points: 0
It looked like leveling was going to get harder from here on. I now knew that there was no way that I could take any of the Tier 2 Homunculus variants. Even while landing constant critical hits, I had barely been able to take down that Hungering one, and it was in the same Tier as I was. Truthfully, it made me wonder how in the hell I had taken down that Hardened Homunculus. Maybe this one had just been stronger for some reason?
I discarded my speculations. The monster was dead now, so there was no way for me to test it. All I knew was that this thing had easily over 100 hit points when it was living, and a Tier 2 could only have more. At least, that's what I thought. I had no way to prove that, not knowing how health was calculated, or exactly how many stats were given every level. Honestly, all this not knowing was getting annoying. I was excited to level a bit, and try to figure stuff out on my own. For now, I was going to try to hunt down some creatures at my own level, and see how that went. At least, I would after my wounds healed up, and I'd had a bite to eat. Fighting that stupid slug had taken a bit of a toll on me.
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Fighting the random monsters at my own level, fresh out of their evolutions, had gone much better. They were much, much weaker than the Hungering Homunculus and, with the exception of one or two that had exceptionally scary sounding titles, it only took a few shots from my shiny new Arcane Bolt to take them down.
Congratulations! You have slain 5 Various Level 6 Homunculus Abominations!
Reward: 31% Class XP
Though the cost and casting time had stayed the same, it appeared that my Bolts had improved in their damage output. That said... this was still going quite slowly.
As I made my way back to my little branch of this massive cave, I felt something... tugging on me. I looked around, but I hadn't broken my stealth. All the Homunculus in this zone were trash mobs, still Tierless, so none of them had noticed me, and even if they had, none of them would have been able to affect me like this. Quietly, I snuck towards the pulling sensation, curious as to what it was.
I drew closer, and closer, and then when the sensation was nearly irresistible, screaming at me in my head, I found... a wall.
Thoroughly confused, and slightly pissed off, I threw a punch at the stone, only to fall over as my hand passed through it.
I laid on the floor for a moment, simply staring at the work of art before me, glowing an intense, angry red.
Congratulations! Your Autodidact's Sense has increased to Level 2!
Reward: 5% Profession XP
You have taken an action in line with your Profession!
Reward: 25% Profession XP
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So, there I was, staring at the intense beams of mana. I knew what this was, or at least, kind of. It was similar to what Harkemth had created, some kind of pentagram diagram thingy. It's just that this one was made with some kind of chalk.
Ritual Form of Homunculus Summoning (Damaged)
Yes, yes, thank you, system. So, a Ritual Form. One that created those screwed up Homunculus. Part of me wanted to destroy it, to kill off the Homunculus, but the other part of me... It wanted to study this anomaly. After all, my Autodidact's Sense had led me here, which meant that somehow, the system considered this to be a training resource.
After considering for a time, I decided that I would risk it. I could use it to train both my Class and Profession at once, studying the ritual until it summoned Homunculus, which I could kill for Class XP. I was gambling on the Homunculus coming out Tierless, or at least low Tier 1, but I thought that it was worth the risk.
Thank goodness I took Autodidact's Sense. If I didn't have that skill, I would have never found this, and might have been stuck in this cave with never ending Homunculus hordes until I was much, much stronger. Drinking Homunculus blood and eating Abomination flesh until I either died, or went mad... What a fate that would be.