I learned something else. When you died without knowing what killed you, there was no XP gain, even if you were a monster. That meant for now I could only guess who or what would have killed me. The planning involved, as well as what I was pretty sure was the use of a weapon, convinced me it was likely Tulbat or one of his senior warriors. He really didn’t like me.

What followed was a roller coaster of emotions. At first, I didn’t mind being sent to respawn because I felt like I had gotten a full night of sleep now. I wouldn’t be dragging all day long. Then I saw my character sheet and pissed off didn’t even begin to describe it. A moment before, I had been less than two hundred XP from level five and safely passed the threshold, where I wouldn’t lose levels.

NPC- HI 3a5.x290 Integration: 24.1% AI Usage: 11%

Call Name: Frank Monster Race: Ogre

Ht: 9’2” Weight: 848 lbs

Class: Outcast

Level: 1st

XP to Level 2: 0/1000 Available XP: 872 Strength: 36 Agility: 5 Constitution: 36 Mind: 10* Will: 18

Unassigned Free Stat Points: 8 Now I was back at level 1. Worse, I felt weaker. As I checked, I realized I had lost the Strength, Constitution, and Will points that I automatically gained at each level. A panicked glance at my skills drew a sigh out of me. At least I had not lost any skill points. I only lost the things that I gained with the levels.

But then my eyes caught on something. I stared at it for a full minute. Then I dropped my character sheet before summoning it back again. Sure enough, I was right. I still had all my unassigned stat points. Each level in outcast I gained two free stat points to place as I wanted. I had been saving them, and now I was thrilled.

The implications were almost game breaking. If I leveled up to 4th level and then died, would I be able to earn another six more free stat points. Not eight for sure dying only put me back to level 1. Could I rinse and repeat that process until I had so many stat points, I would be forever OP? Maybe the bigger question was, could I do that and stay sane?

I began going about the preparations for cooking today. The other outcasts were already bringing supplies and there were the carcass of something that looked like a three horned bull but was the size of a Mack truck. Apparently, it was another victim of the poor AI naming scheme because its corpse assessed as a Tri-Bull. I had to assume that was the result of the chief’s hunting party the day before. Well, at least it was something new to work with.

Once I got the fire started, I began making omelets again. The bull could wait for later in the day. For now, my mind was too occupied with considering the possibilities I had just discovered. Without thinking about it, I found some of my mana was leaking into the frying pan.

When I realized it was enough to break me out of my mad scheming about how to game the system. I began focusing on how the mana felt. Then, on a whim, I triggered two streams of mana. One that was going directly into the pan and one that was going into the food. Before, I had not been able to infuse the food with more than about twenty-mana and then only if I did it slowly.

Different foods also absorbed the mana better than others. So far, the bacon had been the best at it, but the omelets weren’t too bad at it either. Whenever I had tried to push beyond that point to increase the effects, I had ended up exploding the eggs in a mess that covered everyone within a few feet of my frying pan. Now, I laughed as I realized I could balance that out.

Mana in the pan had a stabilizing effect. It cost me twice as much mana, but now for forty mana I was able to enhance the food to the same extent as if I had been using thirty mana. When I added salt and pepper to the chief’s omelet, the effect was much improved. Rage cool down was reduced by 80% and AGI was increased by 5 for four hours. He even grumbled something about it being good. Which was the closest I had gotten to a compliment from any of the ogres.

Throughout the entire morning, before the warriors went out hunting, I saw Tulbat staring at me. This time there was no glare, but more like he was laughing at me. If that wasn’t enough to confirm my suspicions, then I didn’t know what would be. Now, I just had to figure out how to use this information.

Ultimately, I went for it. It hurt like heck, but I leveled myself up each night. It took two nights to reach level four each time, but even when I had enough XP to hit level 5, I never crossed over. Tulbat never attacked me unless I was level 4. So, I reasoned, he simply wanted to keep me from crossing the threshold. Maybe it would be harder for him to justify attacking me if I was already a shaman.

I played my part and acted appropriately scared of him. It was a toss-up which was harder on me, cowering before the idiot, or repeatedly going out and getting chewed on by monsters. Still, I pushed it. I had a goal in mind and I kept pushing for it.

There was the added benefit that my skills continued to increase. Especially as my weapons skills increased, it became much easier to kill the monsters. The alpha cat saved Tulbat the trouble of killing me on two occasions, but for the most part I had learned how to avoid it. The beasts I wanted to hunt were those that were closest to the village, and so it worked out. Only slipping up twice in a month wasn’t too bad.

By the end of a month, though, all of my skills had stopped growing. My spells, weapon skills, and even cooking were all stuck at twenty and hadn’t moved at all in three days. Fifteen more deaths, though, had been enough to pack on the skills and to gain an additional 90 free stat points.

I did feel myself cracking up a bit, though. It was difficult to allow myself to intentionally be victimized, but I sucked it up. I did have one other breakthrough that I spent a bit of XP on. I had already learned and maximized Quick Meditation. But about halfway into the month, I had remembered a skill called Dodge.

Just remembering it had caused me a stabbing headache, but after all the pain that I endured up to this point, it was tolerable. It came with another warning message about not trying to modify my base coding. Another forced reduction in AI Integration level, which I didn’t really understand occurred. But at the same time, I also gained a permanent bonus to Will of +5. So, again, I didn’t understand the AI’s reasoning. If you don't want me to do something, definitely don’t give me a reward.

Now, I had stored up 4328 XP even after buying Dodge and Rapid Meditation. It was time to spend it and cross the threshold. The problem was that I was strangely nervous. What happened if I ended up losing the extra unassigned stat points. Or what if the next time I died, I ended up being pushed back to level 1 even though I had crossed the threshold?

It was fear, not logic, that was driving me this morning. But it was a fear brought on by the trauma of repeated deaths and suffering over the past month. Rather than leveling, I started going about the normal cooking process. I had learned how to fry a dozen different forest animals, but we still hadn’t obtained any recipes or more spices. Even the salt and pepper I used exclusively for the chief was almost gone.

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A day of cooking was almost done by rote now. I didn’t need to think about what I did and instead could focus on how I would spend the stat points. As I saw it, there were two main paths, I could consider. Well, that wasn’t true. I could level up, cross the threshold, and still not spend the points. But if not now, then when? There would always be a reason to hold them back for some later point. Was I supposed to wait till I hit level 100?

So given that I was going to spend the points, all of them, I needed to decide on a build. I clearly wanted to be a caster. So, I could go the min-max route and let my natural points go into Strength and Constitution. It would make me a weak ogre, physically speaking. And as I fought higher and higher-level opponents, my natural ogre starting strength would no longer be enough. Not to mention the fact that all strength and no agility was a recipe for lack of coordination.

I could also split them evenly between the stats. That method would try to stay balanced, but it felt like the chicken’s way out. So, by the end of the day, as the other outcasts were cleaning up the cooking station, I decided on a plan. A split that would favor casting but leave me with a powerful physique still. I realized I could have waited to see what spells Shemi had to teach me, but it didn’t really matter. Even if I couldn’t learn spells from her, I was still going to learn spells.

Once everyone was gone, Shemi turned to walk into her hut. She stared at me for a minute before finally asking, “Youz giving up?”

Confused, I asked, “What do you mean, Mistress Shemi?”’

“For weekz youz go in jungle and leveling. Tulbat smash youz, but youz never complain to Shemi. Mez be thinking youz want handle problemz ogre way. Be strong. But nowz youz stop leveling. No gain levelz last two nightz.”

I smiled at her even if she thought I was ugly, it didn’t hurt to try to be charming. “No, I have simply been saving up my XP. I am ready to cross the first threshold now.”

“Whatz youz mean?” she asked. The expression on her face spoke of confusion. At least it did now that I had learned to interpret ogre faces better.

“I simply don’t accept the XP when I get it. Then I allow it to build up until it is sufficient to go to level five in one instant.”

“Youz having strange ideaz in dat ooglie head of yourz,” Shemi said.

I was confused for a moment. The instructions I had gotten made it clear that this was available to all monsters. But maybe that was just it. Maybe the ogres were so stupid that they just assigned all their XP and stats as quickly as they obtained it. Hmm…

Not that it really mattered. Leveling up was as simple as a thought. I triggered it and got the following message.

Congratulations on reaching level 5. This is known as the first threshold. Respawn will no longer reduce you to level 1, but from now on will reduce you to level 5. There are other thresholds which can also lock as you level. At certain thresholds, you will gain additional perks. For crossing the first threshold, you gain +1 free stat point and your class will evolve. Outcast can evolve into either an Oracle or a Shaman. You must choose within 1 minute or the choice will be made for you. It was much as I had expected. I had already felt the basic stat points being assigned. Eight went into Will, with four into both Strength and Constitution. The bonus points into Will seemed to imply that Shaman was the correct choice. Of course, I had already gone over this before. I realized an oracle might be more like my usual class of wizard. But it also could end up being one of the crazy, mumbling prophet types.

I definitely didn’t want that. So better the devil I knew than the devil I didn’t. Also weighing in favor of shaman was the fact that I liked the healing powers. As real as pain was to me now, healing was almost an essential. Simple as that, I selected shaman.

You have chosen the class shaman. As a result, you gain your choice of two spells out of three options. Flash of Light: Attempt to blind your enemy with a quick flash of light. The spell has a range of 30’+1’/level. Duration is 10 seconds + 1 second/level. Mana Cost is 10+.5/level rounded up. Effect: Blindness- this effect may be resisted. Effect 2: Target loses the equivalent of 5 skill from all relevant attack skills.

Inner Power: Causes target to experience a toughening of their body. Range is touch. Duration is 1 hour + 2 minutes/level Mana Cost: 25+1/level. Effect: Defense is increased by 2 +.25/level. Effect 2: Target gains temporary HP for the duration equal to 50 + 2/level.

Compass: Spell will guide you towards a known target or in the absence of a known target will show you north. Effect is passive once cast. Mana cost: 1/minute until ended.

That was frustrating, in a way. A debuff that might blind a foe and could theoretically take 20% or more of the attack accuracy away from a similar level opponent. That was nothing to sneeze at for sure. Then there was the buff, which might not do as much for a warrior, but for me without an armor, it was initially a 33% increase in my defense and that was before I leveled it.

But at the same time, I was going to have to find my way to the players. It was almost like the AI was taunting me with an ability that I might need later on. I always hated those games or books, where you really had to make one specific decision if you wanted to have a viable build. It was the worst type of foreshadowing. Not that I could really afford to treat this like a game.

Eventually, I either made a stupid oversight or I simply refused to rise to the bait as I chose the debuff and buff. I felt the knowledge of how to cast those spells downloaded into my head. With a greater understanding of them, I was certain that hunting monsters was going to become much easier. With each new spell came another tattoo ring upon my arm.

Thinking about it probably took less than a minute, but I could feel Shemi’s eyes on me. I didn’t want to annoy her, but I also wasn’t going to be rushed. I had planned for the free points. Now was the time to use them. My plan called for me to focus on Will as my primary stat. First off, I wanted to be able to resist the way the game seemed to play with my emotions and second, I also was going to boost my mind stat. It would help me solve problems and contribute to the potency of my magic, or at least that was my hope.

I also knew that I would still be physically fighting for some time to come until I became part of a proper team. With that in mind, I was going to sink more than a third of my points into my physical stats. I glanced at my character sheet. The increased power was very welcome. I didn’t hold any delusions about being a match for the chief or Tulbat, even with these extra stats. But I knew they would be helpful in a myriad of ways.

The physical stats had felt painful as I applied them. When I added Strength, my muscles bulged. As I added Constitution, I felt sturdier but the most bizarre was Agility. Of course, it was my lowest stat, and I was adding more points to it than any besides Will. My body grew leaner and more balanced. I felt like I could handle my strength much more easily now.

Strength: 50 Agility: 21 Constitution: 50 Mind: 20 Will: 76

Unassigned Free Stat Points: 0 Then I was broken out of my enjoyment as Shemi grabbed my ear. “Mez no thought youz could get more ooglie, but prove old Shemi wrong youz did. Now, youz prentice. No cooking today. Today learning spellz.” With that, she tugged on my ear and I felt myself being pulled along behind her back out into the forest.