Chapter Thirty-Eight
You have entered a corrupted safe zone! Monsters can still attack you here, and you can be attacked by players until the corruption is removed!
When the pocket world collapsed, Jackson and Melanie found themselves in the same tent that Bob had allowed them to use in what seemed like forever ago. Jackson looked around and then at Melanie, who was doing the same. He couldn’t say he felt glad to be back, exactly, but he did feel something—a satisfaction to be back at it, as he supposed. Melanie was also eying the tent with a curious gaze before shaking her head and rubbing her hand against her leg for a moment.
“Should we tell Bob we have returned?” she asked.
Jackson shrugged.
“I really think we should see our advancements first. We can finally see all of our gains, and before we get back to getting out of here, we really should address that.”
“Good idea; it just seems a little rude not to tell him we’ve returned.”
Jackson smiled reassuringly at her.
“We will, just not right away. Besides, we have to do it anyway. We need to ask Bob to go into more detail about what he encountered at the mountain.”
Melanie nodded slowly, “Let’s get to it, then.”
Her eyes glazed over, a sign Jackson had come to recognize that she was looking at her status page. Jackson decided to look at his levels first.
Congratulations! You are now at Level 50!
Jackson almost yelled in shock. Twenty levels? He knew that they had faced a lot of monsters and trained constantly, and that final challenge had definitely felt like a doozy, but twenty whole levels? Then again, it really had been a lot of monsters, near constant training with very few breaks. If he had to guess, it felt like they had spent at least six months training and fighting. Before spending the twenty attribute points he had accumulated, Jackson decided to look at his other skills. It would be helpful to see how far they had advanced after training before deciding where to assign his stats.
Phoenix Regeneration (Expert Level 1*), Consume Blood (Journeyman Level 1), Hidden Bloodline (Expert Level 1*), Enchanting (Apprentice Level 23), Analyze (Apprentice Level 20) Unarmed Combat (Journeyman Level 35) Blood Lord’s Gaze (Apprentice Skill Level 20)
Jackson felt like he should be an expert with Unarmed Combat, but from what Lazarus seemed to imply, getting to the expert tier wasn’t easy, and the fact that he had items that did it for him was truly amazing. Jackson looked at Lazarus.
“My unarmed combat is level 25 in the journeyman tier. When is the expert tier?”
Lazarus responded quickly enough.
“Good progress there, but expert tier isn’t until level 75, so you still have a ways to go.”
Jackson grunted in response and turned his attention back to his skills. Consume Blood had gone up, of course. He knew that it would with how much he had been feeding, especially off the fellow vampyre in the final challenge. Idly, a thought occurred to him. Was he a cannibal? He did sort of eat one of his own kind, in a way. Jackson shook his head, banishing the thought. He already consumed human blood and monster blood; what would it matter if he consumed vampyre blood? Plus, he remembered what he had decided about himself. He was what he was—a vampyre. He drank blood; it didn’t matter who, as long as he was careful not to kill innocents.
Analyze had leveled, which was interesting because Jackson didn’t remember trying to analyze anything. Perhaps it was a passive thing at times. He really did need to level it out more. Hidden bloodline was now an expert, so he decided to bring up what that now did.
Hidden Bloodline (Expert Level 1*): Now that Hidden Bloodline is in the expert tier, it has unlocked new effects! Hidden Bloodline will hide your vampyric nature from even divine entities and will grant you significant resistance to mind skills and weaves. Furthermore, all of the Hidden Bloodlines benefits will be extended to the people you have told.
Jackson had to admit, that was pretty sweet. It prompted a question, however.
“Laz, why is it that I receive new effects at the expert tier but not any of the other tiers below it?”
Lazarus shrugged,
“Because the other tiers are foundational. Training tiers, if you will. Every tier after Journeyman is when you truly advance that skill or weave. Think of the basic, apprentice, and journeyman tiers as the foundational practices that the new effects build upon.”
Jackson chewed on his inner lip in thought. It seemed a little wasteful to him to keep advancing skills and weaves and yet gain nearly nothing out of it. Lazarus must have sensed his thoughts because he spoke up again.
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“You have to know how to walk before you can run, my fledgling. You need those foundational tiers; without them, the new effects of the higher tiers wouldn’t work properly or be as good as they are. It’s that way for a reason; the sooner you accept it, the better.”
Jackson was still a little grumpy about it, but Lazarus was right that there was nothing he could do about it. Jackson couldn’t deny that the expert tier had a nice effect. He decided to bring up his Phoenix Regeneration skill.
Phoenix Regeneration (Expert Level 1*): Now that Phoenix Regeneration is in the expert tier, it has unlocked new effects! Note that because this skill has reached expert tier through a set effect, the following effect comes with the cost of increased hunger and mana for every skill and weave other than ebon eruption and unarmed combat. Phoenix Regeneration will now heal most major wounds, including lost limbs and organs, and even regenerate your heart if need be. Regeneration speed is fast but can be near instant if enhanced through consume blood. Note that attacks with weaves or skills of a higher level or tier may make it harder or even impossible to regenerate.
Now that was an ability. Jackson could essentially just stand there and let attacks tear him apart without much worry. No, that was the wrong attitude. He would still need to be careful that whoever he was facing was not of a higher tier than he was. Arrogance would only lead to his death. Jackson only had three lives, after all, and so far he hadn’t been granted any more, even after taking out more demon seeds since then. There was no telling when he would gain another life. No use in being reckless.
It was an amazing ability, and one he was grateful for. His enchanting seemed like it was going to fall behind soon. Jackson had the gems needed to enchant some things, but he just didn’t feel like he had the time to do that. With a resigned sigh, he came to the conclusion that he just couldn’t do anything about leveling enchanting at the moment. Blood Lord’s Gaze was nice, though it hadn’t leveled much. Jackson would need to work on that.
Jackson gave his skills a final once-over and felt like he was progressing nicely with them. It was time to consider his weaves. He brought them up.
Blood Lightning Surge (Journeyman Weave Level 25), Ebon Eruption (Journeyman Weave Level 35), Veilstrike (Journeyman Weave Level 23)
Each weave had really progressed quite a bit. Jackson knew that none of them had new effects yet, but in all honesty, that was fine. He couldn’t be too greedy about it; he had just gotten most of them by combining his other weaves together. It made sense that ebon eruption had leveled the most; Jackson certainly used it enough. Blood lightning surge was a powerful weave and drained him rather quickly, but it was powerful, and Jackson felt like it made sense that it leveled to twenty-five. More than he had expected. Veilstrike was the lowest-level weave, and again, Jackson understood that. He really only used it a bunch against that vampyre angel.
Finally, Jackson felt like it was time to turn his attention to his attributes. He went ahead and brought those up, as well as how many points he had to spend.
Attributes
Mind: 15, Strength: 16, Dexterity: 17, Constitution: 25, Will: 25
Attribute points: 0
If Jackson remembered correctly, Lazarus had said he needed two skills to level twenty-five in order to upgrade his Domain from basic to apprentice tier. That conversation had been a long time ago, so he decided to ask Lazarus for confirmation. He nodded at Jackson’s question,
“Yes, you have it right, fledgling.”
Jackson thanked him and considered. It would take eight points to get his dexterity to twenty-five and seven points to get his willpower to that level as well. However, that would be the cheapest because if he did it with his mind, he would need to fully use half of his points. Was there a difference, though? Jackson queried Lazarus, and he responded,
“It does matter. Your stats and your attributes reflect your Domain, who you are. If you level both your dexterity and willpower to level 25, you will have a direct impact on your Domain because what you’re altering is yourself. You’ll be significantly faster, your weaving will be easier, and your mana will be more efficient and increased due to your will. If you increase your mind instead, you’re looking at a bump in mental resistance. Constitution would make your regeneration easier if you went that route. Up to you, fledgling.”
Jackson ran a thumb along his jaw and chewed his inner lip. Honestly, he wasn’t sure which route to take. Did he want to be faster and have more mana? Or did he want better mental resistance, maybe? Or perhaps some other combination? He could feasibly raise strength, but that would take a whopping thirteen points, and he considered that investment simply too much to be worth it.
Yes, Jackson knew that an ebon eruption might be more effective with strength being higher. If he could raise strength and dexterity to twenty-five, he would have given that serious consideration because it would have worked well with the ebon eruption. Jackson almost grabbed his head in frustration. He realized he was at a crossroads with this decision. He only received so many points. Yes, every level up from now on would come with an extra attribute point, and that was awesome, but even then, he still needed to be careful. He couldn’t raise all of his stats, even with the extra point, if he wanted to reliably progress in his Domain.
So, what did Jackson do then? He eyed his Phoenix Regeneration skill. Constitution would likely help it a lot. Briefly, he entertained a fantasy of rising from nothing more than a speck of blood, completely regenerated. That seemed like a really achievable goal if his regeneration kept going the way it was.
Constitution left Jackson with nine points left if he raised it to twenty-five. He could raise either his dexterity or his will to twenty-five. It just came down to what he wanted to do. It was a hard decision, with so many potential paths forward. Jackson decided to lock in constitution and raise it to twenty-five. High regeneration could effectively make him nigh immortal if he progressed it far enough, and his constitution would only help with that. Dexterity would make him faster, and that was nice, but the problem he had been having most lately was running out of mana. Phoenix Regeneration had now increased the amount of mana he needed for most of his weaves and skills.
Balancing out some of that with increased willpower seemed like the smart thing to do. Jackson was still a little reluctant. He honestly wanted really badly to increase dexterity and be faster. Yet he knew that just wasn’t the way to go. Maybe if he needed to dodge more, he would have settled on it, but with regeneration, he just didn’t need to dodge as much. Decision made, Jackson increased his willpower to twenty-five as well and locked it in.
As soon as he did, Jackson felt a surge within him as both his spirit and Domain grew, expanding themselves. He almost fell to his knees as the feeling of power surged through his body like a zap of lightning.
Congratulations! Your Domain has reached the Journeyman Tier! You will now generate slightly more mana to use!