Calvin, Amy and Freya sat by the fire near their cabins. A feeling of peace had washed over them as they looked out toward the lake. This was the first time in nearly two months that they didn’t have some deadline looming over their heads.
Calvin had to laugh at their view. Previously, their cabins sat on a wide shoreline that gently sloped down into the lake. It was a wide open area where Freya would run around and chase imaginary monsters. The walls extended on either side out into the lake. Now those same walls were adorned with two large turrets on the ends. Seth had made a significant upgrade to their defenses.
What was once a quaint little settlement with wooden walls was now a properly fortified town, surrounded by stone walls topped with energy turrets. The walls were equipped with their own defensive barrier drones, and everything was powered by a mysterious alien power core they’d discovered in a dungeon full of bugs. Life certainly was wild now. Calvin thought back on it all and felt truly amazed at how they’d all adapted.
A chill breeze swept up from the lake and washed over them. It was clean air, laced with the scents of the surrounding jungle. For all the shit the system brought with it, Calvin had to wonder if this wasn’t a better life. Working in an office, hosting shareholder meetings and helping develop mobile apps certainly was safe, but it lacked fulfillment. Every day was a mundane grind into nothingness. Hard work and sleepless nights would translate to higher paychecks, maybe. Out here, the effort you put in was paid back directly and immediately in the form of power, wealth, and longevity. Yeah, Calvin was adapting quite well.
“Well, I’m ready to check out some skills and those construction options. How about you?” Calvin asked.
“Back to work it seems.” Amy said with a smile, “I’m ready.”
First, Calvin flipped open the missive menu. He’d made sure to immediately get something on the board for a brewer class and for a dungeon core related class. To Calvin’s surprise, a couple of Brewing related classes had accepted the call. He’d need to stop by Ambrosia later to check up on that.
With a mental flick of his wrist, the construction options appeared. He’d made the window visible so he and Amy could look at them together.
Aetherian Drone Assembly: This facility provides mass production capabilities of drones modified with Aetherian technology. Artisans can influence the output with their skills and abilities. The capabilities of this structure are limited by the tier of the settlement to which this structure is bound.
Library of Eons: This library contains records from many civilizations within the Aetherian Collective through the eons. This includes records from species they had encountered and studied. The records contained within can provide insight into classes, evolutions and skills and will assist individuals in walking the paths they desire.
The drone assembly was something that they immediately recognized as useful. Obviously, being able to step up their game in that department would pay off in spades. But the library was more of a subtle usefulness. As they thought about it more, the value became apparent. Until this point, every option they’d been given was mostly random chance. Their classes, skills and evolutions were based on the path they were walking, but they really had no idea how their actions would influence these choices in the future. Something simple like ‘Use spear, get spear class’, made sense. But with the way this description was worded, people would be able to research concrete methods to walking very specific paths and get very specific upgrades. That was huge. There might even be information related to dungeon cores in there. Calvin wanted to get this building up pronto.
Calvin pulled up the construction options and saw one little problem. These structures were huge. The library was manageable, as it was more tall than anything, but the drone assembly would take up a ton of space, and as it stood now, they’d need to rework a large section of the town to make it fit. They were about to head out and scoop up an upgrade token though, and Calvin had assumed that like the other upgrades, this would increase the base area of the town.
On the topic of skills. Calvin had gotten 19 levels from their last quest. The experience per level was growing rapidly, and the increases were coming slower, but the last missive reward was absolutely enormous, not to mention the hundreds of panthers and boss monsters that assaulted them before fighting the two assholes on the mountain.
He cracked open his skill screens to a welcome surprise.
Techlancer’s Arsenal has evolved to Stormlancer’s Arsenal
Stormlancer’s Arsenal: The Stormlancer marks a target and conjures six storm essence infused nanite duplicates of their currently wielded spear. These duplicates remain until destroyed or the skill is canceled. The spears can attack independently or be mentally controlled by the Stormlancer. Upon the Stormlancer's command, the spears will fire toward the marked target. These duplicates will carry all the intrinsic benefits of the duplicated weapon. The cost of this skill increases the longer it is active. This skill is a continuously evolving skill, having many options to evolve and grow with the wielder.
Calvin just shook his head and smiled. At this point, he was getting used to the massive power spikes of evolving skills, and this one was no exception. The number of spears increased, the duration increased, and now they carried storm essence. Calvin already imagined ways he would employ this new skill in battle.
Next, he pulled up his evolution options and tried to figure out how he would spend his two available points. There had been a few ok options, like adding attunements to Resonant Charge but overall, there wasn’t anything that screamed at him. He was level 54 now and just about to get a new skill selection. Calvin decided he’d save his points for now.
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Calvin knew Amy had a skill to get and two more evolution points to spend. He waited patiently to see what she’d choose. A few minutes later, he heard her emit a sinister chuckle before she displayed her skill screen for Calvin.
Nanovine: The Blight Stalker conjures thorned nanoweave vines, bending them to their will. These vines can be used to ensnare and damage targets. The vines can be infused with any skill based toxin, delivering the toxic payload through the thorns. Upon destruction of the vines, the toxins are released in a cloud.
Calvin could see why she had such a reaction. This skill would be nasty on the battlefield. It was yet another way for her to deliver toxins, while potentially controlling the movement of the opponent. This was a solid win.
Amy, like Calvin, opted to save one of her evolution points for level 55. She had several great options right now, but with another potentially great option on the horizon, she would make her choice then. She did, however, choose to evolve Stinging Swarm.
Stinging Swarm has evolved to Stinging Cyclone
Stinging Cyclone: The Blight Stalker summons a flurry of 12 blades, that orbit the caster in a rapid, chaotic fashion. These blades carry all toxic effects present on the equipped weapon at the time of skill activation. The blades deal damage to all nearby enemies that are struck and can be used to deflect projectiles. The Blight Stalker can fire these blades at any target either individually or all at once. This is a continuously evolving skill, having many options to evolve and grow with the wielder.
“You know, I’m really starting to enjoy this whole magic poison assassin vibe I’ve got going on.” Amy said.
“You and me both. You’re getting really scary out there.”
“Says the man who literally teleports on lightning and has a magic lightning dog.”
“She’s such a good little lightning dog isn’t she?” Calvin said, giving Freya a pat, “Speaking of which, what did you get?”
Titanic Guardian has evolved to Chimeral Guardian
Chimeral Guardian: The Tempest Warden can consume essence to transform. The form taken is based upon the essence consumed. Consuming no essence will transform the Tempest Warden into a Titanic Guardian, tripling their size and stats. This Effect lasts for one minute. All forms enhance the Tempest Guardian’s skills with additional power or effects.
“Nice pick pup. We’re going to have to get you sorted with some essence treats.” Calvin said, giving her some well-earned scritches. “Andy, can you have everyone gather up in 15 minutes? We should head out and take care of that settlement.”
“Understood. Everyone has been informed.”
Calvin had one last thing he wanted to do, and that was check out the system credit exchange. He had just over a half a million credits and figured that had to be worth something good.
Something good was a bit of an understatement. The system credit exchange had equipment all the way up to Cosmic grade. There were thousands of items here covering nearly every possible category Calvin could think of. He definitely needed armor, and while he had looted Knox’s armor, which was pretty good, he wasn’t about to wear that bastard’s gear. He’d likely save it for the exchange outside the tutorial if Tank’s crew didn’t want it.
Calvin flipped through the various tabs. There was armor, weapons, jewelry, tools, utility items, consumables and at the very end, a tab labeled class.
This was where the goods were at. Every single item here was directly related to the Stormlancer. Calvin learned a few things about his class in here too. For example, there were shields available. It made sense that he could carry a small shield in one hand and a spear in the other, although Calvin much preferred his current setup with his bracers. He would be sad to lose that enchantment in the future. By then, hopefully, he’d be able to replace it with a much better enchantment.
There was a Cosmic grade spear, simply called ‘Bolt’. The stats on it were unreal with +20 speed, +15 power and an enchantment that made it fire lightning bolts. It was an incredible item, but Calvin was pretty happy with his spear currently and ‘Bolt’ cost just over 400,000 credits. He would have to spend nearly his entire stash on that one item. Calvin had discussed item grades at length with Andy right after he’d arrived and item grades were level based. A cosmic grade item acquired at level 50 would be far less powerful than one acquired at level 200 for example. So, while this weapon was an example of the top tier of weapons at his current level, he could hold out.
There were two items in particular that caught Calvin’s attention. First was a belt. It had a few really useful functions. It included spatial storage that temporarily attuned items with storm essence. For now, this meant spears, inert essence stones and maybe even treats for Freya if it worked that way. The enchantment on the belt also allowed him to expend the storm essence within to instantly attune the battlefield. Right now, he was mostly reliant on others to attune the battlefield and his Stormwalker skill was heavily dependent on it. He picked this belt up immediately at the cost of 60,000 credits.
The next thing he noticed was a piece of chest armor. It was a segmented lorica made of a black metal. Metal bands encircled the body and extended downwards, offering thigh protection. The segmented metal pauldrons were adorned with a blue runic script that seemed to crackle with energy.
Stormbinder Segmentata (Platinum): Forged in the deep core asteroid forges of the Aetherian Norah clan, this segmented armor combines the metallurgy of the Norah and the runebinding of the master artificers of Raish. The alloy is highly resistant to all forms of kinetic damage, and the runebinding provides substantial protection from elemental attacks. This runebinding also grants a special function to the armor. While in a storm attuned environment, a thin nanite barrier of the primary attunement covers the armor. While this barrier is active, all elemental damage is further reduced, and physical attacks will result in a lightning based retaliation. This barrier remains active until the storm attunement ends.
The barrier effect was amazing. It wasn’t quite as broken as Knox’s barrier, which just stopped all damage, but it also wasn’t limited in scope. As long as Calvin was in the storm, he would be protected. Combined with his bulwark bracers and Storm Legion, his defensive options were super solid. Without hesitation, he slammed another 100,000 credits on this and equipped it immediately. The armor molded to fit him perfectly. His previous adventurer’s armor made him look like a true adventurer. This made him look fit to lead armies.
Calvin met the others by the gate and talked over the mission once more. This one would be a piece of cake. They’d rush out to the settlement, grab the rune, hit up the mountain, drop a doorway, get Seth all his pretty rocks and be back in time for breakfast. Then it would be time to expand the town, check out their new buildings and kick their feet back and relax for the last week of the tutorial.