Mark knew they were higher than him, but the level gap was quite a lot larger than he had expected.
Taking a moment he, thought it through. Each time he leveled up his kills were in the hundreds, but a majority of his exp always came from assisting others around himself. The same could not be said for them. Just like Mark had first thought in the early days, casters and close-quarter fighters had a much higher kill potential than healers.
The main factor here was that Mark's additional attributes effectively made him a pretty good caster too. This compounded things, allowing him to extend the number of people he could reach with his healing and protection. It was because of both factors he was as high as he was. He could see himself easily being in the top five percent of the city, though there were many unknowns still, so he couldn’t be sure.
Jonathan and Sam, however, had to either the highest level in the city or so damn close that they were tied for it. But as Lisa had first said when they got here, level didn’t mean everything.
Both of them had driven themselves just as hard as Mark, the difference was their kill potential was three to four times his and they had been on the frontline since the beginning. Now that Mark thought about it, he never did find out what their levels were when they first met, but they must have been quite high already.
Honestly, he couldn’t see many people being higher than these two at the moment, but that could change as time went on. They had been focusing on building up a faction and it was worth it, but it didn’t leave much time to level.
Mark's mind raced, Jonathan had only just revealed his level when Sam spoke up once more, though this time she was talking to Gibby.
“I hope you understand that if I ever find out this information was leaked, I’ll know it was you, and I’ll come for you”
Even with her lighthearted tone, she managed to make the words sound ominous.
Gibby nodded confidently.
Mark woke from his musings and thanked them for their trust in him. At this point, Gibby started to go into his thoughts on how they could improve their builds.
For Sam, he recommended she take the course multithreading and start to make use of her large calculating ability to output spells faster. He wanted to reduce the time it took for her to build large-scale spells.
For Jonathan, it was the opposite, he wanted to see the guy get as many skills under his belt as possible.
“It's not often I say this, but you have more than enough raw power. Aura is not as multifaceted as the other two, in fact, it's exactly the opposite. Focus on growing large a range of smaller skills to diversify your responses. Defensive, offensive, utility, people will be able to counter you if they know you are only good at one thing, make em think”
Gibby was finishing up his explanations and like everything he had promised so far, he had delivered.
“Whew, talking shop is always so energizing, I’ve got a bunch of things to think about now. I’ll see you, tomorrow ladies and gentlemen, I should have more for you then”
Making a mock salute he left the roof, leaving the three of them up there.
Mark looked at the cherry trees and saw each of them had grown another meter, he’d unknowingly dumped a massive amount of energy into the plants.
Looking at the trees brought the memory of the experiments with [Meditation] the night before.
Seeing as it was still early he turned to Sam and Jonathan.
“Speaking of energy, I found a new way to gather energy which is much more effective for stat growth”
Sam was still busy going over Gibby's instruction but her ears perked up when she heard this, Jonathan seemed uncharacteristically attentive.
So, seeing as they were interested Mark launched into an explanation of how he had pulled Prana towards himself through his spell.
For Sam, she seemed to understand the idea, because it was built on Mark’s previous techniques, and while she was having some initial trouble, she was well on her way to figuring it out.
Turning his attention towards Jonathan, Mark saw he was struggling without a spell to funnel his energy through and Mark didn’t know what the equivalent would be for Aura.
Then he had a thought.
“Well here, let me see if I can help you guys directly”
Mark sat down next to them and cast [Telpathic link], beginning to perform the technique, demonstrating what was happening as he did it.
Mark directed the technique’s method down the connection by feeling, and Jonathan’s Aura began to change its shape.
Right away, Mark could see that his Aura was shaping to match the effect of their spells. The air on top of the roof took on a tempered, sharp quality to it, filling the space.
Mark could tell when Sam got the hang of it, as her spell stabilized and began pulling in Mana.
Jonathan was still struggling to pull outside energy through his Resistance, his Aura seemed to dislike this method, and would not let him progress to the next step.
Or at least that's what he was telling Mark through the connection. Mark placed a hand on Jonathan's shoulder and sent a small amount of power into him to get an even better look and guide his Resistance.
For a brief instant, he got to see Aura through Jonathan's eyes.
Because Mark had never possessed Aura, he couldn’t tell what he was looking at, but he didn't need to guess, Jonathan knew already, that Aura was a sovereignty unto itself.
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It was not pure unfiltered information like Mana, or boundless creation like Prana.
It was a rule unto itself, so unyielding that it bent to nothing, not even the other laws of reality.
Mark watched as Jonathan aligned himself with it rather than trying to control it, Aura in turn connected to his Resistance and Mark felt the technique solidify.
Power came rushing into Jonathan, what Mark didn’t expect was the overflow.
The Prana that Jonathan's body could not absorb rushed into Mark, drawn to him by his stronger core.
Mark's eyes snapped open, but he didn’t break the connection.
Last time his limiting factor was that his body couldn’t handle absorbing too much of the other types of energy. He hit his limits there before he ever hit Prana’s cap. He hadn’t been able to just pull in Prana as they were so interconnected, that he couldn’t untangle them until they were in his body.
However, he had just gotten pure, filtered Prana and maybe some Mana from Jonathan indirectly.
Was this a potential way to get around some of the limits of the technique?
‘Sam, Jonathan, I’m going to try something. Follow my lead.’
Mark also made a physical connection with Sam and concentrated, expanding his construct to take up the whole roof once more.
Then he began to draw in as much energy as he was able. Power came pouring in like a tide, he noticed he was still a little sore from yesterday's tests in this area. As Prana came in he absorbed it all into his core, but Aura and Mana he let flow through his connection to the other two. He didn’t even need to do anything, their cores pulled at the excess energy entering his body, and he let them.
Sam, taking the surplus Mana, and Jonathan the Aura. In turn, the Prana that they could not absorb flowed to him.
His hunch was right, if they used [Meditation] like this they could potentially reach their main attribute limit without being stopped by the other two first. The downside of this was the fact that this was only possible with more than one person. Not to mention the amount of trust one had to have in the people they were doing this with.
He could feel the massive quantities of surrounding Prana, it seemed to rise off each living thing like residual heat, ebbing into the environment. With the other two also drawing in energy, their speed skyrocketed.
Mark lost track of time as he watched the swirling energies in their natural state, but soon enough he felt that the core in his chest was full. If he took in any more now, he’d be pushing it. He sent as much down the link and broke the connection, breathing heavily.
Mark blinked and looked around at the well-light roof, they’d managed to lose an hour and a half like that.
Source: Mediation (+21 Prana, +0 Mana, +0 Aura, +42 exp points)
Mark could see he had more than doubled his gains from when he did this alone. Of course, he got no Mana attributes but that was to be expected, he had been giving the energy away.
Sam spoke next to him while rubbing her temples.
‘Shit, these improvements are massive. I got the equivalent of like three levels of attributes in one go. I can see what you meant by the limiting factors. I’d say we could probably only manage this once a day, maybe less, but I’ll be damned if it isn't worth it. There might be diminishing returns. We’ll have to see, but I think we should take the time each day to do this.’
Mark seconded that idea.
After some more discussion, they decided to all go their separate ways, wishing each other goodnight.
Mark headed for his and Daphne’s room, he had not even visited his room once since getting the key from her, and he saw no need to.
When he got in he saw Dahpney was already dozing in bed.
Mark showered –once more thankful for hot water– and after drying off climbed into bed next to her.
Daphne briefly stirred as she nestled herself next to him for warmth, causing a tender grin to play on his lips.
Mark pulled up his status, to take a look at how his corruption was getting along.
Congratulations [Bestowal] has improved!
Name: Mark Young (22 - M)
Level: 43
Next level: 1421/1936
Stats:
Resistance
Aura
Mana
Prana
1183 (+10) [1065]
0 [+25]
216 (+6)[+15]
553 (+5 +10, +21)[+150]
Unspent stat points - 0
Corruption value: 23.65% [+0%] - 23.65%
System Points: 6256.5
Skills: Meditation, Limit release(Physical), Limit release(Mental), Joint casting.
Spells: Passive Regeneration(Self)[8], Force bolt[15], Prana Pulse[7], Regenerate[7], Draw Corruption[6], Corruption recovery[11], Sculpt Mana(Force)[7], Invigorate[8], Cleansing surge[7], Read Memory[2], Mind Spike[4], Earth Control[7], Light Control[5], Bestowal[5], Telekinesis[6], Benediction[2], Nature control[2], Telepathic link[3].
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Over the last four days, [Corruption recovery] had burned off 16% naturally. Then whenever he had some free time he would use [Meditation] to funnel his regeneration into the active portion of the spell.
This way, he was able to burn off 2% every time he had a spare hour here and there. Especially when he was buried in documents Ethel had piled on him. He’d managed to burn another 49% off like this, leaving him at 23.65%.
Now he began to pull Prana from his core to burn away the last of it. As the two energies fought he watched them as his thoughts moved to Corruption itself and how it was affecting others.
Mark had done some research on it whenever he had the chance, right now, as a general rule, the public consensus was that a majority of fighters were sitting at an average of 8% on Corruption values.
This differed greatly depending on how intensely one fought, and their role in battle. For example, casters on average could have less than half that value.
High-level individuals would have incredibly high Cv, on account of the literal thousands of kills they would have to get.
People like Lisa had connections to the church of Brilliance, and Patrica Williams said they had methods to get rid of Corruption. Though he didn’t believe this was open to the general populous just yet.
Taking into account how slowly Cv naturally faded, a lot of people could be in danger in the coming months.
The method was online now for everyone to use now, so hopefully that would accelerate things, but Mark had a feeling supply would not meet demand.
Perhaps a visit to the church sooner would help him figure out if they knew anything he didn’t.
And maybe answer a few other questions he had about faith casters
Mark had had one hell of a busy day, and with the soothing feeling of his Prana at work and Daphne by his side, he fell into a restful sleep.