It took them 10 more minutes to get to the outpost. After only a minute of silence, Phil had once again resumed the conversation and carried it till their arrival. Michael learned more details about the three and where they had been during the battle. Unsurprisingly, they had spent much of their time in the freight district. The district with all of the cargo containers, that was just south of the wharf district, where himself, Phil, and Becky had all started the battle in. Later they had decided to head south to visit the outpost and then hunt to the south in several of the surrounding districts. They had met Dax during the second week while hunting in the 4th industrial district. It was the large district west of the 2nd Oceanfront district that was south of oldtown and along the coast.
Michael did not miss it when Phil mentioned that they had found a handful of entrances to the catacombs in the freight district. Michael had found his first entrance on day 1. Seemingly it was the avenue that undead came from the underworld onto the map. It was not the only way enemies made it onto the map, and as far as he could tell it happened at night.
Kyrie and him had also found the hell gate at the dog track. A gate that had been letting dark hounds onto the map, and that supposedly could be closed with the right key. Seemingly it was not something for them to delve into right now, potentially it was just a glimpse at things that were still to come.
Also of note, was Phil’s forge profession. Their most recent blue drop had gone to Phil just the day before. He had used the profession to embed metal nuggets into his club. Michael had seen the empty profession stalls at both of the outposts, but it also seemed to be a developing aspect of the survival battle. Phil might not be at the forefront of the rankings, but he might be for professions. Of course professions did not seem to be directly related to battle, but as Michael had seen better weapons could make a real difference.
The four arrived at the old town outpost well before the stalls closed for the day. Michael could only sigh when the same old man at the upgrade stall stated his nonnegotiable price for the secondary attribute upgrade. It had climbed up to 4,300 crowns. It was far higher than any of them were prepared to pay. Michael was even more frustrated to find that the old man would not pay much more than 150 crowns for each of the regular equipment upgrades. Apparently the guy was shameless, since the old guy currently still had 500 crowns as the quoted price for them. The ammo replenishment was not even in stock yet, but Michael would only be able to get the old man to offer 600 crowns for it. It would still leave him a good 1,000 crowns short.
However, Michael immediately saw why certain prices were dropping. Phil and Dax were also trying to buy the same thing as him. They also had minor upgrades that they were willing to sell. If contenders were doing it throughout the map, it made sense why weaker upgrades were going cheaper. Contenders were currently all looking for an earth shattering edge in a fight, not a slight upgrade to their equipment or another aspect.
Michael could only look frustrated. The other two each had a better shot since they had over 3,000 crowns in hard currency. Becky on the other hand was happily sifting through the skills list the whole time. She quickly settled on a skill called precision that she was able to get sold to her for only 1,200 crowns. She had briefly scrolled through the available tier up methods, but had ended up deciding to leave it to chance or get one later. The good tier up methods were also apparently sold quite quickly, making Michael wonder if he should not have gotten more for the better of the two that he had sold.
After buying the precision skill, Becky offered up most of the remainder of her crowns to try and help the other two. She only held back enough to buy additional arrows to keep in her storage. Although it was also clear that she had far less than either of them since she had done far less killing then either of them. With her funds, it was clear that one of them could at least get one of their secondary attributes unlocked. Michael sighed. He was not in the business of charity, but one of the things that Dax had asked the price to sell had caught his attention.
“I’ll tell you what, Dax I will buy the basic skill upgrade from you for 800 crowns,” Michael said before looking at the old man. The old man had only offered 350 for the upgrade, but had 750 as his quoted price. So Michael was not overpaying by much if he had wanted to actually buy one. “With that, both should be able to afford the secondary attribute?” he stated affirmatively. The man retalleyed on the piece of paper he had been scribbling on.
“As long as they sell the rest of what they offered, that will do it,” the old man agreed.
“Thanks,” said as the verbal deal took effect. Michael watched his crowns drop to 1511. A quick glance at the inventory showed that he now had a basic skill upgrade for levels 1-3. It
“I’m going to buy more arrows,” Becky said, disappearing in an instant.
“Thanks for helping us out,” Phil said, clapping him on the back.
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“Not really an issue. One of my skills seems like it would be pretty difficult to level up without an upgrade as it is. Boosting it now would just be reshuffling my priorities slightly. So, what secondary attribute are the two of you going to unlock?”
“Ki,” they both replied in unison.
Michael nodded. It was not surprising. It was the go to for close combat fighters, and would have been his first choice if he had been able to choose a week ago. “Well when you guys get done, you should meet me over by the Vargas city guard faction board. There is a lot of useful information that you can look through. I can add you to the faction if you’re interested.”
“Thank you, Michael. If you are a part of it then we would be happy to join,” Phil stated looking at Dax. Dax shrugged in response.
Michael sent invites to all three of them, since Becky was still in range. In seconds both the two of them were admitted to the faction. Becky accepted shortly after. “Well I’m sure you guys will look into your upgrade. Meet you at the board,” Michael said, retreating to an open area. He had not gotten exactly what he wanted to get, but upgrading health offering again was definitely something that would be beneficial. With the long cold down it might take weeks to upgrade it naturally.
The only downside was that this was the last basic skill upgrade that he would be able to use with it since the basic upgrade was limited to levels one through three. Even the premium upgrade had been limited to the first three levels. Michael had not seen or heard of an equivalent that worked for level 4 or higher. There was a chance health offering might be stuck at level 4 for a while unless he could level it naturally. Michael’s eyes widened when he got notification that he had not expected.
[Congratulations: You are the first contender to level a skill into the intermediate range. An additional skill aspect may be improved.]
It was one of the firsts of the survival battle. Michael had seen them offered in other survival battles, but this was the first one that he had earned himself despite him being high in the rankings. Apparently other contenders had beaten him to various other milestones. Not real climatic for him to achieve a first from using two basic skill upgrades, but then the boost was not over the top. An additional aspect upgraded would not be earth shattering. In fact, since he was using the basic upgrade, he had actually been getting less than if he had the premium upgrade or pushed it naturally. Not that he would not take it.
Michael instantly looked at the options. Using the full upgrade, he could only drop the HP cost down to 17%. Apparently the change would be more minimal the lower he pushed it. Still it was not a bad option. He quickly looked through his options. Increasing the duration or decreasing the cool down were both desirable, but most hard fights where he would need it would not last more than 5 minutes and as long as he ended the fight the cooldown was not really a factor. It was not like he went from one high intensity fight to another, but that was assuming he only wanted the skill for boss fights.
Increasing the potency would also be good. Now he had 20% worth to distribute. However, he quickly found that after bringing one attribute boost to 20% he would have to spend 2% to equal one above 20. He would only be able to bring his primary attribute up to 25% with this boost.
Michael thought through the options for a while before deciding to split the focus. He used half the upgrade to decrease the cost back down to 20%. The second half he used to extend the skills duration to 10 minutes.
[Duration: 10 minutes; Potency +10% to 3 different attributes. Cost 20% of Health pool for 1HR]
The increased duration would allow him to use it while grinding normally through more difficult enemies. Of course, he would only use one health offering when fighting, saving a second use if he found himself in a pinch. He could also wait and double up before a boss fight. Ten minutes would ensure he got through longer fights. It looked like decreasing the cost below 20% of his HP would get progressively more difficult. It made sense, since he had to offer some health to get the benefits.
Regardless, everything was in a good place for now. Quickened step felt like it was nearing the end game on leveling up. The benefits should be quite a bit better than the basic upgrades had given his other skill. Not to mention he had started touching on the compatible aspect of the quickened step skill. Both of his skills were compatible with Ki, so now he was working to figure out how he could supplement the skill with Ki.
As of yet, he had not made any headway with health offering, but quickened step was a lot easier since he could use it far more often. He could theoretically make himself faster with just Ki by strengthening a leg he was using to push off the ground, but then he was left with an awkward long bound gait that was not very efficient based on the energy burn required.
Using Ki with the skill offered the promise of doubling down on the boost to his speed. So far, he had not gotten to the point where he felt faster, but he had managed to push against the duration of the skill. An extra second or too was not much, but it could mean the difference of getting caught by something horrible. After grinding all day yesterday, he had come to the conclusion that perhaps his low circulate ability level was stifling his efforts, but that also had its answer. Michael already felt close to pushing the brand new ability up to level 2 despite only having had it for little over a day. Already he felt the amount of Ki he was able to push into one area pushing against a barrier that would soon give way.
His musings were sidetracked by questions from Phil on Ki and its usage. Dax moved closer, eager to hear more about it as well. It was not surprising. It had only been a few minutes, but both did only have 1 point in Ki attribute at this point. They had probably already used up all the Ki they currently possessed up. Becky rejoined them a minute later, ending the Q&A, so Michael moved them over to look at the faction board.