{What do you want to do first?} Gracie asked.

“I have more than one thing to do?” Jace questioned. “Don’t we just need to look at Draya and level her up to me?”

{We need to level you up too?}

“I just assumed I would go back to twelve automatically. I don’t have to rechoose everything, do I?”

{No,} Gracie said. {It goes back to how it was before Esther drained you. But you went up to 13.}

“How? I was over 500k away before we started. The lich couldn’t have been that much.”

{The lich was 50k,} Gracie confirmed. {Officially the most expensive creature you’ve ever killed. However, each of those mummies was worth 5,000. Swarm creatures are worth more experience when there are a lot of them. Mummies are normally 1,000, but they were each worth 5,000 when you killed them.}

“And I killed over 200,” Jace said, doing the math in his head.

{You killed 233,} Gracie said. {Though the last one was only worth 1,000 since he was all by himself when you bull-rushed him off the bridge. The five you unsummoned by destroying the totem don’t count. That is 1,161,000 experience points. Not only are you level 13 now, but you are about 200k away from 14. Remember I talked about the Leader Board? You did 1.37 x10^90 total damage with that spell. There are 10^57 atoms in the sun for comparison. That is a record no one is going to beat.”

“Is the 1.16 million exp a record for the most from one spell?”

{No,} Gracie said. {When you kill a PC that is 13 or less, you get their experience points or the difference between your current level and the next, whichever is less. When they are over 13, you get the difference to your next level or 2 million, whichever is less. When a high-level character kills someone at 13+, they get 2 million. The cap is 2 million, and no one has ever gotten more than that for a kill. That is the record. There was a 3 million dragon once, but it took six PCs to take it down, so they split it. Anyway, that is the only global record you set, but you also own virtually every record for the Intelligence module now.}

Jace could look at that later from his computer in the real world. Now he wanted to get into Draya’s character sheet. Jace pulled it up and saw it was quite different from before.

{Her strength and Constitution rose from 12 to 16,} Gracie said. {She used the lich’s mana to make that change permanent as it’s tied to her dragon powers. Also, her Spirit when up to 20. I have a feeling it would have gone higher, but humans have a cap of 20. Orcs, like yourself and . . . whatever Esther is . . . can go higher.}

Jace saw that her Dexterity and Wisdom were still at 14, and her Intelligence was at 18. He would give her the +2 ring he just got to bring that up to 20. It was an unwritten rule that characters in his party had to have at least two stats at 20+.

{Let’s cover the normal stuff first. She already picked everything for her first nine levels, and I agree with it. She chose to focus on Intelligence and Spirit, and I see no reason she should ever change that. She took her first four odd-level feats for the Spell Difficulty training, giving her a +15 bonus. Then she took Complex Damage at level nine. This doesn’t really make sense unless she knew she was getting a dragon core, but since the game had to account for her increased Strength and Constitution, I’m guessing everything got redone when she was in that sarcophagus.}

“What does Complex Damage do?”

{It lets her take some or all of her Damage Skill associated with Intelligence and add it to her Spell Difficulty. She will be casting fire. Lots and lots of fire. She will be drawing that fire from her 4,200-mana dragon core. Dragon fire is special. It is different from normal mage fire. Hellfire is also something in the game and is separate from mage fire. The Intelligence Damage skill increases the damage of mage fire. It won’t help with dragon fire, so you might as well change that to Spell Difficulty. Her dragon fire gets a natural bonus to damage and difficulty equal to her level.

{For her even feats, she took two to increase her mana pool, which is critical, and two to increase her Spirit Damage and Spirit Magic Defense. The Spirit Damage skill will increase her dragon fire damage since she now has a dragon spirit. We have to do Level 10 next. I hope she qualifies for . . . good, yes she does. Mana Bridge. It is usually reserved for shapeshifting druids and shamans who pick an animal spirit, but it should be used for anyone with two mana cores.}

“I’ll bite; what does it do?”

{When a druid shapeshifts into a panther, they get lots of Athletic benefits, but their mana core is smaller. They had lots of mana as a human, but now that is locked away, and they can only process mana as a big cat. Draya has the opposite problem. Her dragon mana is WAY bigger, but in her human form, she can only process mana up to her mana pool, which by the time we are done with her, will be 546. She has a near-infinite pool of dragon mana because it regenerates instantly, but she can only pull 546 at a time. That is 109 damage before all her damage bonuses, but she will have to pay for range, and if she wants to increase the difficulty and make a fireball explode to a different radius, that will decrease the damage. Mana bridging lets her pull 546 from her dragon core, hold it in reserve, and then add to it from her human mana to throw it, increase the difficulty, or make it explode. So she can cast spells bigger than her human mana pool.}

“Makes sense. She will only use her own mana to manipulate the dragon fire and shape it into a useful spell.”

{Correct. For her final two odd feats at 11 and 13, she should start Fire Training to increase her fire damage by 50%.}

“Sounds like cheating.”

{It is. Dragon and demon mana cores exist in the game, but only in elder elven wizards you meet in huge modules that span weeks to play. Like Dayrin told you, you need a ton of mana to control a core like that. Up until you, no one has figured out how to cultivate that without dying.

{Her last even feat should be Fire Mana Source.}

“I’m detecting a theme.”

{It is a feat only available to people with fire immunity, which she has. When she would take fire damage, she can instead absorb it as mana. So she can cast fire on herself and let it feed her human mana. We aren’t spending any points on Mana Generation, so she needs this.}

“How about a feat that lets her absorb Fire damage as Health?”

{That exists in the game, but only if you are a being OF fire, like an elemental or a fire demon. So far, she is a human WITH fire. She has a mana core made of fire, so she can absorb fire damage as mana, but she is still a flesh-and-blood human. The only exceptions I know of for PCs are a fire shaman or a druid that can shape-shift into a fire creature.}

Jace understood and kept looking at her character sheet. “She isn’t going to be big on melee attacks, is she?”

{No. That shouldn’t be a problem with you and Esther. If you run into something with fire immunity, you two will have to kill it. I’m sure you will manage.}

“I would think fire protection would be quite common.”

{It is,} Gracie agreed. {But fire protection is different from fire immunity. Fire protection can go up to 100%. This means if you fail a saving throw and would take full damage, you take nothing. However, if you critically fail the saving throw and would take 150%, the damage is reduced to 50%. You have 100% electrical protection and 50% cold protection. You can still take damage from these, just not easily. Immunity means you always take nothing. That is much rarer.}

“I understand. Is there anything else for Draya?”

{We haven’t even gotten to her dragon abilities. She has Dragon Strength, Dragon Spirit, Dragon Breath, Dragon Claws, and Dragon Scales. She can cast these spells using her dragon core, so they basically cost nothing. Her only limitation is that at level 13, she can only have three of them. It goes up to four at level 15. Level 20 is another story.}

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“What happens at 20?”

{That is when she gets Dragon Form, and she can turn into an actual dragon, which triggers all five of the spells above and will be a sight to behold. A level 20 dragon is not invincible, but she could annihilate any other level 20 character. But that’s a ways off yet, though it might be next week at the pace you're going. The first twos are basic; they increase her Strength or Spirit base by her level. So she would get +13 to all her Strength skills or +13 to her Spirit skills. Using the Dragon Spirit to give all her Spirit skills a +13 would be amazing. Her Mana Pool would jump from 546 to 715, allowing her to pull even more from her dragon core. It would also add 13 to her damage bonus.}

{Dragon Breath allows her to breathe a stream of fire out of her mouth. It will travel ten times her level and explode against her target in a radius equal to her level. So she can send it 130 feet, and it will explode in a circle 26 feet across. The distance and radius are free, so if she wants to make multiple attacks without running out of her human mana, this will work, but she is locked into the shape of the fire attack. She can also turn her head to drench a large arc in fire. She can do this attack every other round for the duration of the spell, which is ten rounds. She can combo this with Dragon Spirit to get more damage, but she can only cast each of these spells once in any combat round, so she has to be strategic about it.

{Dragon Claws gives a bonus to Melee damage equal to two times her level, so +26. She can attack with both hands without any penalties or needing to use her Off-hand skill. This would put her on par with your attack skill, and if she combined it with Dragon Strength, she would have a better attack bonus than Esther and do more damage than you. Her claws are considered level 13 long swords; the magic bonus is +1 for every four levels, so +3 at level 13.

{Dragon Scales give her a plus +13 to damage reduction and +13 to Armor and lets her treat her Armor skill as her Armor Class, so she doesn’t have to divide it by two. She also gets one natural crit protection for every ten levels.}

“So she only gets three of these abilities for now?”

{Yes. I recommend Dragon Spirit, Dragon Strength, and Dragon Scales.}

Jace made the selections on the character sheet and then returned to her raw numbers. “So,” Jace started, trying to wrap his mind around all this, “do the math for me on a standard fireball attack.”

{Sure, this will be fun. Let’s assume she casts Dragon Spirit first. She can summon 715 mana, and after adding all her damage bonuses, that turns into 187 damage. She has the two Fire training feats to increase this by 50% to 280. She wants to throw it 100 feet and have it explode in a 50-foot circle, which costs 225 of her human mana. Without adding any additional mana to the difficulty, it is already at 80, assuming you are giving her the +2 ring. Because it is a “Thrown” attack, she gets to add her range bonus of 5 for a total of 85.

If she were attacking you at level 13, you would have a magic defense of 41 and get to add your Dodge of 2. If you roll a 20, you will still critically fail twice, but one will be canceled because of the 20, so you will take 150% damage. If you roll 12 or less in defense, it will be three critical failures, and the damage is at 250%. I’m not taking into account your +50% vulnerability to fire. Most players will have a lower Magic Defense but a higher Dodge. Axilia, Drescher’s priest, would take 0 damage if she rolled a 14 in defense, but she might have also had some fire protection I don’t know about. Gwen would also not suffer much since her Dodge, and elemental defense is so high. But against average level 12 players, the attack would be devastating. She could do it three times in a row before her human mana would need to regenerate.}

“So, is she invincible?”

{Hardly. Esther would kill her in a second. Without equipment, she has an AC of 12 and 234 HP. She is a sitting duck for archers too. If someone generates 120 damage in one strike, which you do all the time with crits, they would send her into a Death Save. She has excellent Magic Defense, so you might need an attack of 140 to send her into a death spiral, but she is quite fragile. If people know she has a dragon inside her, they will prioritize her first. You will have to hold her in reserve in a fight until you need a knock-out blow. Also, remember that you take +50% damage from fire and can’t save against her attacks. You will never critically fail, but if you are in the range of one of her fireballs, you will take 150% damage every time. So will Snowy.}

“Is that all?”

{Is that not enough? She also gets spells to choose from. Obviously, she needs Fire, and you can look over the others. We should leave several spell slots open so that she can memorize multiple fire spells, and we will take fire twice to double that. She also had an occupation as a Scholar. She is level 3 and has two feats: Damage Reduction and Difficulty Reduction. This lets her dial back her damage and difficulty when casting spells, and she gets a refund in Mana. She used this to save your life when she dropped her fireball in the Academy. I don’t know what kind of use you will find for this, but I’m sure you will think of one. Are you ready for you?}

Jace’s mind was already buzzing with the possibilities, and he almost forgot that he would be updating himself and Esther.

{Your updates are obvious. Your feat should probably be the last Totem reach to push it up to 20 feet per level. I’ll let you handle your skill updates. Esther has a bit more going on. You picked her up out of the blue last week, and we were in a tight situation, so I built her based on what she wanted and traditional rogue builds, but she has obviously become something more than that, and we should take advantage of it.

{I assume you will let her keep the earrings and the bracelet. You won’t use them, and they don’t make sense on Draya. Esther doesn’t need the fire spell anymore. And with the earrings, she has room for a few more. I recommend Web, True Strike Range, and Mass Charm+. This brings her to seven spells, and she can memorize three versions of each.

{Mass Charm+ is precisely what it sounds like; you can Charm, Daze, Stun, Paralyze, and so forth multiple people simultaneously. You have to pay the cost twice, and you pay for a range from yourself, but I have a feeling she will be faced off against several foes frequently. The ability to charm all of them at once, especially with all the circumstantial bonuses the game gives her, will be beneficial. Charming a level 15 player costs 75. She would have to pay it twice and then 125 for a 25-foot radius, and she could charm everyone in a 50-foot circle around her. If she added 50 more mana to raise the difficulty by 10, her bracelet would double that, and she will have a difficulty of 63+. It will cost 325 mana, but her vampire ability means she recovers quickly.

{Web lets her cast a spider web that entangles people. I overlooked this one before because most mages don’t use it. People get to add their grappling defense to their Magic Defense, so mages have to crank up the difficulty so much for it to be effective that hold spells become cheaper. If you are a ranger or druid, you get bonuses when casting nature spells, so they use it. What I forgot is that while the defender gets to add their grapple defense, the caster adds their Grapple ability. For most mages, that is 2. For Esther, it is 50+. The Hold spell lasts for a number of rounds depending on the level difference between the players and the result of the saving throw, but with Web, you determine the duration by how much mana you spend and can make it last up to ten rounds. If the defender fails, their legs are trapped, and they can’t move but can still activate their upper body to attack or defend. If they fail critically, their upper body can’t move either, as if they are stunned. If they fail more than that, they are considered Helpless.

{The last spell combines with the feat I think she should take, which is Melee Range. This feat lets her attack with thrown weapons using her Melee bonus up to her Range skill. So far, she has put nothing into that skill, so it is at 14. This means she gets her full attack bonus if she is 14 feet away from someone and wants to throw her knives at them. For every foot further than that, she loses 2 to her attack. Once she exceeds twice her range ability, 28 feet, she loses five to her attack for each additional foot. The True Strike Range spell increases her Range skill by ten for one round so that she can attack people up to 24 feet away without penalty.}

“I feel like I am being passed by,” Jace said. “My companions are way more powerful than I am.”

{Why are you complaining? Just sit back and let the women do all the work. As heartless as it may sound, you are better off sending them into battle. If they die, they respawn back here. If you die . . .}

Jace knew that wasn’t entirely true. If the Nothing from the last module had swallowed Esther, the game might not permanently delete her, but his version of her would have probably disappeared. Gandhi kept raising the stakes, so he should expect more situations like that, but she also justly rewarded him for overcoming the trials.

Now that they were done with the levels, Jace excited the screen and nearly jumped out of his chair when he saw Esther standing before him. He had no idea how long she had been there or what she had heard, but she usually respected his conversations with Gracie. When she saw he was done, the rogue opened her hands and presented Jace with two stones: a green emerald and a blue sapphire. “I believe these are yours,” she said matter-of-factly. “You probably have plans for them and don’t want me carrying them around.”

“Thank you,” Jace said. The woman usually operated on the “what’s yours is mine” policy and rarely asked when she took something. Returning these implied that she understood who owned them, and it wasn’t her.

“Also this,” she said after a quick trip to her gem bag. She held the undead stone in her hand. Her palm crackled, and her fingers looked white, but the strain on her face showed she was actively preventing the sphere from taking over her body. “I don’t want it. I don’t like what it does to me. Plus,” she managed a grin despite the tension in her body, “I like suntanning.”

Jace plucked the stone from her hand, ending her torment. He stored it quickly in his inventory and would likely lock it in the chest Trixna had warded for him. He hoped putting it near the demon stone wouldn’t have negative consequences.

{That was a big deal,} Gracie said, genuinely impressed.

“We are going to have dinner soon,” Esther said. “Draya thinks she will move in with me. My adjoining room is almost as big as the empty one we have left, and she doesn’t want to be alone. Plus, I think she likes my bath. Topper’s people are making pancakes. Do you want to join us?”

Jace smiled at how his “family” was already getting along. “Thanks, but I’ve got to get back to my world. I prefer sleeping in my own bed.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. It looked like she was going to leave but leaned in suddenly and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for the new friend.” Then she turned and scampered out of the room.

Jace was all smiles as he reclined his chair into its sleeping position, navigated back into his settings, and selected “Sleep and Log Off.”