Vel had disappeared back into the greenhouses with Aelrie, I had desk duty for the rest of the afternoon, and Breknir was out for some home visits.
The first thing I did was check out all the new skills I had.
Mystic Knight
Magic Combat - Rank 1, Level 1
Active, 20 MP/min, 10 FP
Grants the user an intuitive understanding of how to weave weapon attacks and spells together. This allows the user to charge a spell while in the midst of combat. A higher skill level improves the fluidity of actions and allows stronger spells to be cast and more attacks to be weaved into the process.
Magic Strike - Rank 1, Level 1
Instant, 10% of spell cost
Deliver a touch range spell with an attack of your weapon or projectile. The spell is reduced in strength by 50% when cast this way, the penalty decreases by 5% every 10 skill levels.
[Magic Combat] must be active to use.
Mystic Enhancement - Rank 1, Level 1
Instant or Active, variable cost
Apply a magical enhancement to your body, armor, weapon, or projectile. This skill uses elements available through your magic skills, each can produce a variety of effects. When applied to an object, the skill is instant, and when applied to your body, the skill is active.
Skill level increases the strength of enhancements, skill rank increases the number of concurrent enhancements possible (1 per rank).
Mystic Witch
Nature Magic - Rank 1, Level 1
Passive
Allows the conversion of internal mana into nature mana. Grants the ability to memorize and cast nature spells. Grants an intuitive understanding of nature spell patterns. Skill level increases available knowledge and elements.
Available Elements: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Light, Void
Minor Spell Tier: 1, Major Spell Tier: 2
Arcane Magic - Rank 1, Level 1
Passive
Allows the conversion of internal mana into arcane mana. Grants the ability to memorize and cast arcane spells. Grants an intuitive understanding of arcane spell patterns. Skill level increases available knowledge and forms.
Available Forms: Pure, Light, Force
Available Concepts: Conjuration
Minor Spell Tier: 1, Major Spell Tier: 2
A very interesting spread. The Knight skills were a little useless for my day to day life as a healer but it looked like they allowed for the Witch class to be a viable combat caster at low level, something that was usually not possible. They would surely come in useful in the upcoming trial.
The Witch class was a bit more standard as far as casters went except it dipped into two unrelated fields of magic, something that was usually reserved for high levels or required two distinct classes.
I checked the list of available skills to purchase for both, there were a few skills that caught my eyes but I didn't linger for the moment. I wanted to be a bit more informed before I made any decisions.
With nobody in sight, I started on the books I had just been gifted. They were bound to have some wisdom.
> Druids is a versatile class. Access to Nature magic gives it many options in terms of magic including both powerful healing and elemental spells. The large number of supporting skills such as metamagic, auras, familiars, and transformations open many paths. This guide will provide examples of several different ones that can be tread as well as what to watch out for when choosing skills.
>
> ⨠ Druid Class Guide, Introduction
>
> The Nature school of magic is focused primarily on elemental manipulation. At first level, it grants access to the four base elements, earth, water, fire, air, as well as the two balance elements, light and void. The manipulation of an element does not necessarily mean directly manipulating its form, it can also involve channeling its properties. Earth spells, for example, can strengthen defenses. Fire spells can enhance strength and air speed.
>
> Spells of the Light element are often associated with healing due to its alignment being creation but the element is also a key component of some elemental spells as it allows them to create the desired element before manipulating it.
>
> The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
>
> Void is the opposite of Light, destruction. Some of its applications include disease cleansing and defensive barriers. Used offensively, void is potent but the effects can sometimes be unpredictable.
>
> ⨠ Druid Class Guide, Nature Magic Theory
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I put the book down as someone entered the clinic. It was Nuovis, a plant mage from the berry orchard. She had her young son in tow, a very shy boy by the name of Haldir.
"Hello Nuovis," I greeted her, "how can I help you."
"I'm here to pick up more cough potions for Haldir," she said, "it still hasn't gone away."
I flipped through the book for his file. A small case of bronchitis, nothing too dangerous. I checked the pharmacy and pulled a few tubes of potions from the reserves. They were pre-portioned to make it easier to use.
Nuovis handed me a case of empty phials back and I swapped out the contents. The empty tubes would be washed and re-used for a future batch of potions.
"Here you go," I handed the wooden case back to her, "have a good day."
"Have a good day Liscura," she smiled, "and congratulations on your class. Already hard at work studying I see."
"Always," I winked.
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> The
>
> After a search for more mental enhancement skills, I have discovered
>
> ⨠ Breknir's Notes, Mental Skills
An interesting discovery, it was worth a deeper look. I looked through my available general skills.
Mental Mastery (Cost: 8 ES, 6 ES, Requires: Rare Magic Class)
Passive, 5 FP
Increases the mental effects of Intelligence and Wisdom by 20% every 10 skill levels.
Mental Library (Cost: 8 ES, 6 ES, Requires: Rare Magic Class)
Passive, 5 FP
Allows you to memorize 5 pages with 2500 words and 400cm2 of images per skill level.
Mental Acceleration (Cost: 8 ES, 6 ES, Requires: Rare Magic Class)
Passive, 10 FP
Increases your speed of thought by 50% with an additional 10% per 5 skill levels.
The amount of acceleration can be controlled.
Mental Partition (Cost: 8 ES, 6 ES, Requires: Epic Magic Class Mystic Path Class)
Passive, 10 FP
Creates 2 mental partitions and gains an additional one per 10 skill levels (Max 8)
All three were available and there was even an additional skill, Mental Partition. The warning on mental side-effects likely applied there too. Since they were general skills, it wasn't a problem to get all four.
> Purchased Skill Mental Mastery for 6 ES
> Purchased Skill Mental Library for 6 ES
> Purchased Skill Mental Acceleration for 6 ES
> Purchased Skill Mental Partition for 6 ES
Skills that consumed focus did not start active by default. Focus in the system was a measure of how much load the mind could handle, it was a limitation to prevent frying your brain with too many skills at once. Going over the threshold knocked you out and disabled all skills. Not something I ever wanted to experience for myself if I could.
I cautiously enabled them one by one.
Mental Mastery didn’t have any immediate effect but I hadn't expected one, the same went for Mental Library.
After that was Mental Acceleration, when it was enabled the world seemed to move slower. Without a matching body skill, the skill didn’t really improve my ability to react to most things however. Mystic Enhancement would probably pair well with this one.
Finally, Mental Partition. Having two partitions was a strange feeling. I could process two streams of thoughts at once without effort. It was not quite as if I had two instances of myself running at once, the partitions were independent but I could tell that there was a primary partition that was coordinating everything. I could also regulate the speed of thought for both independently, I wrote down that discovery in my notebook.
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> Arcane magic is one of the three school forms of magic, alongside nature and psychic. Most other magic skills are a subset of one of the three or, in rare cases, a combination of two. There is no known skill that combines all three.
>
> The nature of arcane magic is hard to precisely define, unlike nature magic which focuses on the elements and whose spells are often broad and flexible, arcane much more orderly. Spells of this school have precisely defined effects that can only be altered by metamagic. This immutability makes arcane spells more powerful at the cost of flexibility.
>
> Most mages build flexibility back into spells with multiple modes or variability. This always comes at the cost of raw power but the increased options often more than make up for it.
>
> ⨠ Treatise on Arcane Magic, Introduction
There was a lot of magic theory to go through. Thankfully, the druid guide was written in relatively simple and easy to digest language unlike the book on arcane magic. Even with Mental Mastery, the text was a slog to get through. But it was worth it as it netted me some levels in the relevant skills.
By the end of the day, I had managed level five in both skills alongside some progress with the mental ones.
> Skill Nature Magic has reached rank 1, level 5
> Skill Arcane Magic has reached rank 1, level 5
> Skill Mental Mastery has reached rank 1, level 8
> Skill Mental Library has reached rank 1, level 6
> Skill Mental Acceleration has reached rank 1, level 3
> Skill Mental Partition has reached rank 1, level 4
"Hello love," Vel hugged me from behind.
"Hello lovely," I hummed, "had a good day?"
I turned around and gave her a deep kiss before she could answer.
"Great," she whispered in my ear, "and you?"
"Very informative," I said.
"Really? Plenty of things to show me then?"
"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," I said with a grin.