I woke up after a long sleep. I checked the small clock near my bed inside the container. It was really early, about three in the morning. After getting back, I cleaned up, ate, forced myself to fill out the reports for the missions, and then passed out. Mousethief was off somewhere getting our next mission and sending off the reports.
Moving my paws, they still felt stiff and slightly numb. That should clear up in a day or two. I moved the blanket cover off of me and went to the bathroom. It was a bit painful since the poison from that tree was passing through me, but it was better out than in.
I got another shower, there was limited water storage in the container, so it was a quick one, but I felt much better. I had no idea how Mousethief kept the water and everything else up to date, but I wasn’t about to complain. I actually liked the container more than Southpaw’s boat.
After getting dressed, I went to the front of the container where there was room and began stretching to work out the soreness in my body. The last couple of days had been non-stop fighting and I hadn’t gotten a proper rest. I slept for twelve hours once everything was handled after getting back.
Getting up to the ship had been a bit of a hassle with numb paws, but I had managed. I sniffed them, no scent of poison left. That was good. After about half an hour of stretching, I was awake enough to deal with other things. ‘Avatar.’
Mes showed up, looking dimmer than usual. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘Just tired. And laying low at the moment. In stealth mode. There shouldn’t be a problem, but breaking that illusion by that tree, was a risky move,’ Mes explained.
‘Thanks for the help. I couldn’t have won without you,’ I replied.
‘Thank you, Mittens. Winning was very good. Check your combat log,’ Mes suggested. I called it up.
COMBAT LOG
11 Dog Terrorists (Low): 622 EXP
33 Dog Terrorists (Mid): 3,237 EXP
10 Tree Cultists (Low): 1,071 EXP
2 Tree Cultists (Mid): 205 EXP
1 Young-Low-Full Demonic Blood Tree (Boss): 27,812
TOTAL: EXP 32,947
‘The dogs didn’t have much energy, as well as those tree cultists. Quite disappointing if I do say so myself. But the demonic blood tree, now that was a prize,’ Mes explained as my eyes went wide at the amount.
‘What does the young, low, full mean?’ I asked.
‘Well young is applied, since it is a young version of that type of demonic blood tree, which means it is fairly weak and inexperienced. Low for the same reason. It is low energy. Full instead of partial like the ancestral spirit, since it was physically present in full. That last bit is why it was so powerful and gave so much EXP,’ Mes explained.
‘Then how much would an elder, high, full demonic blood tree give in terms of EXP?’ I asked out of curiosity.
‘The starting point is millions, up to billions of EXP. But such a thing would kill you instantly, sucking out your blood before you could even see it. What you fought was a weed at best. Still, good job killing it. That is progress and you are getting better a killing,’ Mes told me.
‘Are the things you want me to face in that range?’ I asked.
‘Of course not.’ Well that was a bit of a relief. ‘They are far more dangerous than some puny plant. I am not just a weapon User Mittens. I am the weapon. As a Multi-Aspect Energy System, my power is immense. The trouble is bringing it to bare without creating more issues. That is why I need you, and you are doing a great job so far,’ Mes explained.
I was not going to think too heavily on that right now. One step at a time. No point in worrying about things, that I couldn’t control. I had enough problems in front of me as it was. ‘Interface.’
Experience: 33,310 EXP (+32,947 EXP)
Features: Interface, Avatar, Skill Attunement
T1 Skills: Movement (95/100) +3, Balance (78/100) +6, Listening (61/100) +3, Breathing (49/100) +4, Dancing (39/100) +38, Stillness (38/100) +37, Focus (32/100) +31, Smell (29/100) +4, Proprioception (26/100) +25, Sea Legs (20/100) +7, Sea Stomach (17/100) +6
T2 Skills: Danger Sense (65/100) +14, Purge Poison (35/100) +12
T3 Skills: Claw Combat (75/100) +9
I took a moment to process all the skill increases and the large amount of EXP I had. Movement was very close to reaching the maximum level. Danger Sense and Claw Combat was getting very high as well. It made sense since I used those skills quite a bit. Dancing clearly had paid off as well since I had used it heavily to move about.
All that dodging was improved by Dancing. It was very good progress in my mind. I liked that the numbers were going up. ‘I am thinking about making some purchases. You mentioned features?’ I asked Mes.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
‘Yes I did. Just pull up the Store, and I will bring them up.’
Body Attunement – 10,000 EXP
Mind Attunement – 10,000 EXP
‘You said these will unlock more improvements?’ I asked.
‘Improvements to your body and mind. After you get passed tier 3 in skills, there will be a greater strain on your body if you don’t have these improvements.’ I hesitated on purchasing them. That was a lot of EXP. Still, new features would give me more options. Increase my base abilities was not a bad thing. I purchased both of them.
‘Now pull up your interface, we have quite a bit to go over now that you got both features.’ I pulled it up like Mes asked.
Features: Interface, Avatar, Skill Attunement, Body Attunement, Mind Attunement
Strength: 63/80 (78%)
Dexterity: 102/120 (85%)
Constitution: 37/40 (92%)
Intelligence: 22/30 (73%)
Wisdom: 14/30 (46%)
Charisma: 34/50 (68%)
‘The first number in each category is your value compared to the second number which is the possible maximum. The maximum varies by creature. You can train up the first number, but your limit is the second number. The bigger the gap the easier it is to train that aspect of yourself.’
‘Take Dexterity, which involves your balance and movement. As a cat this is naturally high and you have trained it. That is what the percentage represents. It shows how much you have trained that stat.’
‘Why is Wisdom so low? Both the value and the maximum?’ I asked.
‘Wisdom is critical thinking and putting together information. Your investigation skills are poor, and you dislike them. So, you don’t train that category that much. As for the maximum, you aren’t a genius, Mittens. You are good at fighting, not at problem solving,’ Mes explained. I winced at that, since it was true.
‘But don’t worry, that can be fixed. You see, the larger the gap between your base value in the category and the maximum, the easier it is to improve. This actually means that your Constitution is the hardest category to improve in, even though you are much better in Dexterity, since your maximum is higher.’
‘Can I increase the maximum?’ I asked.
‘Maybe a small bit on your own if you dedicated a lot of time and effort. I won’t say it is impossible, but it will be a struggle. Thankfully, I can make this process super easy. You spend EXP and I can raise your maximum value up. You will train and improve, but it will be much quicker and you will soon exceed your previous limits,’ Mes explained.
That just left one key question. ‘How much?’ I asked.
‘The cost is the maximum value you currently have plus one to increase it by one point. So it would cost you 121 EXP to increase your maximum Dexterity to 121. Or only 31 EXP to increase your maximum Wisdom by one.’
‘That seems quite cheap,’ I thought.
‘It might seem like that. But improving past a certain point will be a challenge even with a high maximum. There are soft caps. That is where skills help. Since you can perform actions, push these statistics or stats higher.’
‘This really will help me?’ I asked.
‘Yes. It is absolutely necessary. Constitution is a stat you should focus on, since that is how much damage you can take. Like poison or other attacks. You should spend 4,230 EXP to raise it up to 100.’ I hesitated. That was a lot of EXP, but I trusted Mes. It was simple as tapping the maximum value on the Interface and confirming the increase.
I paused for a long moment and then increased the maximum value for Wisdom up to 100 as well for 4,585 EXP. I didn’t want to be stupid. I almost felt like Mes making a bit of fun of me with how low it was. That left me with 4,495 EXP. The percentages dropped to 37% and 14% for Constitution and Wisdom respectively.
‘Not a bad choice to upgrade Wisdom. I recommend you get the maximum for stats up to 500 and your value to at least 100, or 20%. This would be about where you hit the first soft cap, while giving quite a lot of room for growth. Also, other upgrades and skills will work better once you get your stats that high.’
‘So they are helping my skills then?’ I asked.
‘It is a synergy. The higher your stats, the easier it is for skills to gain levels, since the range of actions and activities you can do is much larger than it would be otherwise.’ I nodded at that since it made sense.
‘I can work out most of them, but Charisma?’ I asked.
‘Your base understanding of others. At a high enough value, it would almost feel like mind reading, where you could look at the twitch of a creature’s tail and know what they are thinking. It will make it easier to express yourself as well,’ Mes explained.
‘I thought this would help me against the snakes, protect my mind?’ I asked.
‘Again, that is the interplay with skills. Skills and stats work with each other in synergy. Also future upgrades and using energy will require stats, which you have unlocked. You need other features, the store please,’ Mes asked. I quickly brought up the store screen.
Attuned Body – 500,000 EXP
Attuned Mind – 500,000 EXP
‘The first one will allow for rapid healing based on pool of internal energy you generate from your Constitution. This is often called health points. The second will allow for a pool of energy to use in active and more powerful passive skills. Allowing for a wider range of skills that are truly powerful.’
‘Those are really expensive,’ I replied while wincing at the cost.
‘Yes, they are. But they will make it much harder for you to die and to resist effects. Attuned Mind allows you to ignore almost all mental attacks. Attuned Body allows you to ignore almost all hostile body transformation attacks and environments.’
‘Well let’s spend the rest of my EXP on Intelligence.’ I increased it to 90, spending 3,360 EXP. I didn’t have enough to raise it up to 100. That left me with 865 EXP and put the percentage at 22% for that stat. I already noticed that Wisdom had gone up by one point. I smiled at that. ‘How do I train my stats?’ I asked Mes.
‘Doing what you are already doing. Trying to focus train them like skills isn’t practical. Just increase the gap between the current value and the maximum to drag them upwards. Like I said, once you get the maximum values to 500, you should be able to raise them all to the soft cap of 100 fairly easily,’ Mes explained.
‘I could keep going after that?’ I asked.
‘Like I said, it becomes harder and harder and you need the proper skills. Body and Mind Attunement will open up the opportunity for quite a few of them. Dexterity is probably the only stat you can raise up to the second soft cap of 250 due to your innate nature as a cat and the skills you already have.’
I understood what Mes was explaining now. I could get past these soft caps on my own, but having the right combination of skills and features would make it much easier to raise my stats.