"Hurry, the drugs are about to wear out." Toby Alton heard a raspy voice, unable to think straight.
"What, where am I?" His disoriented state became worse, but the intense pain in his arm was still able to keep him conscious. The wound kept bleeding profusely, even though he had thought the bleeding was not a big issue. Had the wolf some kind of an anti-coagulant agent in its saliva? He knew, he was still walking , but was no longer sure where to. He forcefully shut his eyes for a few seconds, trying to get rid of the blurr that threatened to consume his vision.
"Hurry, give her another dose." He heard the voice again and felt a big, rough hand grabbing him by his throat and inserting a needle under his skin, without much care for his consent or comfort.
"Wait, it isn't her! Leave him, we have to backtrack." The hand let go of him immediately and let him fall to the ground. There was a second of silence, before the voice spoke again from a greater distance, they had to move incredibly fast.
"Elven blood boss, should I have licked it to tell which is which?" Someone growled and that was the last voice Toby heard, his condition worsening as he felt the warm sensation of the injected liquid spread in his body.
What luck was this?! It looked like he had been poisoned on top of everything else and was no longer able to stand.
"I need to stay conscious, I need to think of something." To think became difficult, he tried to reduce the blood loss by pressing on his arm, but was uncertain of the efficiency of this measure.
He felt slipping away, into a dreamlike cold land.
"Damn, I did not see them properly. I want to at least become a vengeful ghost."
[You have gained experience +39 952]
"H-how?" His slow brain managed to process that he had just earned an incredible amount of experience. He was bleeding to death and had been probably poisoned, this was his last hope to do something.
"Status." He squeezed out of himself.
Toby Alton
Level 28 Elf Stargazer
Fitness - 5
Mysticism - 5
Chronomastery - 5
[Experience 2202/2800]
[Attribute Points 27]
[Skill Points 32]
Unique Bonus Abilities -
[Selfless Saviour] - You do not like killing, you care for lives of even little kittens. You won't receive any experience for killing, but you now receive experience for saving lives of all creatures. The amount depends on the level of threat prevented and the level of the saved creature.
[Impress The Elderly] - Nothing warms your heart more than impressing your grandpa with your heroic deeds when he is watching you! Your experience gain is trippled, when you manage to impress the elderly with your deed.
"Skill points?" Toby breathed out heavily, questioning the new entry. He could guess where the attribute points went, but he was at a loss with the other kind. Thankfully, the moment he said it, another selection made itself available for him.
[Fitness]
[Mysticism]
[Chronomastery]
"Mysticism." He made another selection. Chronomastery would probably not help him, as it sounded in a way it had something to do with time. He could not even stand, lying down one hundred years would not have helped him. Fitness was appealing, but he was not sure that it was enough to improve his condition when he was almost dead. The greatest betreyal was that the level up had not healed him, so he was left with only one branch that may hold a miracle he needed.
[Mysticism 5/5 -> Stargazer(Refund = Max-2*NumberOfRefunds)]
[Mysticism 5/8 -> Elementalist; Prophet; Pyromaniac; Priest]
[Mysticism 5/9 -> Arcanist, Druid, Moon Priest]
[Mysticism 5/10 -> Psychic; Priest+]
[Mysticism 5/12 -> Elementalist+ ; Sun Priest]
[Mysticism 5/14 -> Pyromaniac+; Druid+; Priest++]
[Mysticism 5/?? -> ???]
???
He tried to pour Skill Points into the Druid role, but only got a message that he had not enough attribute points in Mysticism. Considering he was quite dying at this moment, he hurried and poured 3 Attribute Points into Mysticism and selected it again, hoping that the druid role had some sort of a healing spell. What he got was a slightly different picture compared to the last time.
[Mysticism 8/5 -> Stargazer(Refund = Max-2*NumberOfRefunds)]
[Mysticism 8/8 -> Elementalist; Prophet; Pyromaniac; Priest]
[Mysticism 8/9 -> Arcanist, Druid, Moon Priest]
[Mysticism 8/10 -> Psychic; Priest+]
[Mysticism 8/12 -> Elementalist+ ; Sun Priest]
[Mysticism 8/14 -> Pyromaniac+; Druid+; Priest++]
[Mysticism 8/16 -> Elementalist++; Beastkin; Moon Priest+ ]
[Mysticism 8/18 -> Pyromaniac++; Prophet+; Keeper]
[Mysticism 8/?? -> ???]
Apparently, he was able to see ten levels ahead. He just recklessly poured another twenty two points into the Mysticism attribute to get a big, round number and looked at what else he had available.
[Mysticism 30/20 -> Druid++; Arcanist+]
[Mysticism 30/21 -> Beastkin+; Sun Priest]
[Mysticism 30/23 -> Keeper+; Moon Priest++]
[Mysticism 30/24 -> Druid+++; Beastkin++]
[Mysticism 30/25 -> Forest Spirit; Prophet of the Moon]
[Mysticism 30/26 -> Life Eater]
[Mysticism 30/28 -> Keeper++]
[Mysticism 30/30 -> Druid Mystic]
"The last should have the most power." Toby's brain was barely functioning, when he selected the supposedly strongest option with only two AP and SP left. Soon after, there was a new line in his status.
[Expert Level Arcane and Life Energy Manipulation] - You are one with arcane and life energies, manimulating them intuitively and with great expertise.
He glanced at the skill and his consciousness faded into oblivion, while feeling betrayed. He had expected some ready-to-use skills not this!
After some time, he opened his eyes again, feeling surprise. He had not hoped to survive his wounds. Why was he even alive?
He looked at his hand and saw it enveloped in a strange grass bandage. The grass was just an ordinary grass, except it was unnaturally long and still connected to its roots under him. Its structure was alsa strange. It appeared to have little azure crystals interwoven into its fibers, giving it a distinctive azure sparkle.
He wrestled his hand out of the bandage to see his wound, but the hand was completely healed.
"Well, I guess the phrasing "intuitively and with great expertise." was not an exaggeration." Toby felt much better, but he could still feel the injected liquid coursing through his blood, only slightly less concentrated.
"Maybe it was not a lethal poison." He could only speculate about what had just happened to him. He replayed everything the people had said in his head and tried to understand the situation.
"They mistook me for someone else who escaped them. Considering the experience, I should really not investigate this further and get the hell out of here." He stood up, his head still spinning due to the injected drug, but he felt no pain. His action had to had a huge effect if an ordinary wolf got him just measly fifty experience points.
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"I hope this will not have some consequences later." He began to move in the direction of Durkan again as he strayed away from the road considerably, thinking about the changes in his status. After an arduous calculation, he guessed that the experience needed for another level up should be consistently increasing by one hundred and he would get one SP and AP every time he leveled up. It should have quite serious consequences on the dynamics of the world, if the other people had the same system. If it was just not visible for them, was something he would find out eventually.
"So, in total I would need two wolves for level two, six wolves for level three, twelve for level four, twenty, thirty, fourty two. . .oh my. That is quite a nasty trend there." It set a dangerous precedent for the world, making large forces actually viable, as the experience cost of one's Skill Point or Ability Point was higher as people had higher levels. From the point of view of a ruler, they could make one level seven, or three level four plus one level three from fourty two wolves. If considering the saved wolves as currency for convenience's sake. If they poured everything into fitness, the singular level seven would have 11 fitness, opposed to the level fours' 8.
It was very clear what was better. The only gamechanger might have been specific roles that gave people unique capabilities or skills. As Toby understood it, Attribute Points influenced power point by point, while Skill Points were simply just a currency to get a good role. They seemed to be refundable with a penalty, via the Stargazer role. He noticed that all the roles looked elven-toned, they were probably dependant on race.
Of course they were, he could not imagine an ogre Moon Priest, what a nonsense. . .
He found the road again and continued his journey, welcoming the feeling of the drug burning out of his system. He did not know what it did exactly, but it was a good thing to get rid of it.
"Intuitively and with great expertise." He growled the words from the status again. "Like really? I want to shout fireball and see a fireball, not this!"
Although it was the truth that he had managed to intuitively heal himself somehow, thus it should come to him naturally.
He cleared his head and imagined an angry wolf running towards him, it was easy given his recent experience. Then he imagined a flow of energy gathering inside him and tried to hurl it at the nonexistent enemy. To his surprise, a blue stream of energy left his fingertips, but dissipated after a dozen meters.
"Wow, it is really intuitive." He grinned, finally something went as he wanted.
While walking, he kept experimenting with his abilities, finding out he could do quite a lot, the class of Druid Mystic that had eaten away his thirty SP was not just for show. With the Arcane branch that was typical by the azure hue of its energy, he managed to find out how to perform a short distance teleportation, a simple direct blast of energy, wide blade of energy, simple 360-degrees shield around himself and many more. He tried to find out something more complicated, but when he conjured a small purple ball from which a tiny piece of otherworldy something fell out, he immediately discontinued furhter experiments.
His life magic was impressive as well. He could manipulate grass, roots, even move trees. Although the speed of their movement seemed too slow for any kind of ocmbat. He could channel energy from living things to himself at short distances of a few meters and have even transformed into the wolf he had killed.
"Amazing." If he had to sum up his class, it felt like a druid, energy manipulating mage and probably a necromancer squeezed into one thing, except he was sure that he could not manipulate souls in any way. He suddenly felt powerful, a feeling that evaporated quickly, when he looked at his fitness.
"I have gained a ton of SP at once, ordinary people would probably not live long enough to accumulate this with a fitness of just five." He should not overestimate himself, as he was still as squishy, as an ordinary level one. Stating that he was a glass cannon was an understatement. He quickly put the rest of his AT into fitness, changing his stats a bit.
Toby Alton
Level 28 Elf Druid Mystic
Fitness - 7
Mysticism - 30
Chronomastery - 5
[Experience 2202/2800]
[Skill points 2]
. . . ..
. . .
"It looks much better, it is clear my strategy to increase my power should be to save powerful individuals." He was content with his range of spells and role, but he should be still aware that the Mysticism was certainly increasing the power of his spells, he could feel that fitness worked that way. He did not want to create a mediocre weak build with balanced stats.
"My priority now should be to find a way to safely level up some more. Is there a world tree dying somewhere or anything like it?" He giggled like a little girl, but his mechanic was not that broken, he was just lucky the first time around, nearly dying as well.
The next test on the list was the volume of his spells. He began to travel using shor-range teleportation, curious about how long he would be able to keep it up. The answer was unexpected.
Indefinitely.
Totally broken.
Well, not that much. Mysticism probably limited the juice per second he could access and he could pour it whenever he wanted. Still, it meant that people dealing with magic would never run out of mana or anything like that.
"I wonder what the balance between melee fighters and mages will look like if it is like this. Well, it will still take some time to pour juice into large spells, just that the source will never dry up."
While he was thinking about the mechanics of this new world, he could see the gates of Durkan. He had been expecting something small on the edge of the elven territory and the sight nearly took all air out of his lungs.
Actually, it was only because he was so engrossed with his short-range teleportation that he had not noticed sooner.
"Holly Molly!" Durkan was huge. He had been expecting a capital city in this world would be of a smaller size.
The most eye-catching landmark of Durkan was the central citadel that towered up to the hight Toby did not dare to estimate, it was the tallest and biggest structure he had ever seen, there had to be a wide moat around it, but he could not see it over the skyscrapers around it. The rest of Durkan consisted of several walled-off rings. The ring closest to the citadel contained a lot of skyscrapers.
Yes skyscrapers.
His shock did not end there, the further rings contained buildings of considerable height as well. He had expected a normal medieval city and instead, this one was at the scale of New York and that was only the ground level of the city!
There were other rings of the city above the ground, surrounding the central citadel that was visually piercing through them all, reaching the height of at least one kilometer. He counted the above ground levels of the rings and ended up with four rings floating in the sky, meaning the city had five layers. It all created an illusion of a huge pyramid on a scale, it left the pyramids he knew in the dust as small dwarves.
Clearly magic had to be involved, there was no way to construct this with ordinary materials, or simple labour.
"Oh My God!?! How is this a medieval fantasy world?!" Toby stared at the city that had to have a population above thirty milion at least.
"H-How is this possible? Why are not more people on this road?" The road he was using was not a main road, but still, given the size of the city there should be thousands of travelers. The only explanation was that no one was heading into the elven forest for some reason.
"How come elves have not been conquered in a flash? Such might at their doorsteps!" There were tens and tens of questions induced by the size of Durkan that he was unable to answer. The answer was only one. He was really in another world where the principles were considerably different. He should no longer feel above its inhabitants only because he came from a "modern society". This view had shoved him, how silly such a preconception was.
He had ceased to use teleportation to move forward at some point, walking the rest of the distance. The city was surrounded by plains, but he noticed it was quite close to the forest. Althought there were many people using the space in front of the city for what seemed to be camping, all activity ceased with the forest line, as if there was some invisible barrier. There had to be a reason no one went into the forest.
He noticed there was even a patrol of a dozen men and as he passed the last trees, the men began walking in his direction.
"Oh dear, this smells like trouble." All of them had grey uniforms. He breathed out with relieve, when he noticed they had leather armor and swords. He had almost expected machine guns and pistols given the air of the megacity in front of him.
"An elf coming to Durkan? What for?" One that had the greatest number of silvery shining things on his uniform asked.
"Work?" He said, but decided to add something more, because the human soldiers were looking strangely at him.
"I have been exiled. .. kind of." The man's eyebrows rose and he heard some of the soldiers laughing. Their leader just gestured with his hand and a soldier brought forth some instrument with a metal ball at its end.
"Touch it with your hand." He said and Toby could see the soldiers' attitude shifted slightly, no longer laughing and joking about him being an exiled elf. The moment he touched the ball, the mood reverted back in a second.
"Really an exiled elf, you may proceed." He shook his head and the soldiers let him go just like that. He was probably not the one they were wary of.
What bothered him was that he had expected that everyone would be radiating their magic, chi, mana, aura or something, or he would be able to just see their level, but he was unable to say anything at all about them. The guys from before could be level two hundred and he would not have been able to tell.
Passing further along the road, he looked at the people that were really camping here. It did not appear they lived outside the city, they were just throngs of people having picnic outside, probably sick of the big city.
"Impossible, I have expected refugees and they are really people having picnic." What the holy mother of reincarnators was with this world? There should be adventurers embarking on epic quests to fight monsters and refugees starving in front of city gates but no! There were families having picnic to take a breath of fresh air outside of their skyscrapers!
He really could not wrap his head around the workings of this world and he was yet to enter the city.
Toby thought about talking to the people, but he noticed their attitude was not friendly and decided against it, their stares telling him to stay away.
"They all seem to be human, I have not noticed a single elf yet." He mumbled, that could not be good.
Soon, he arrived to the first city wall and watched the numerous guards, who wore the same uniforms as those by the forest line. He expected some reaction, but they simply stood at the sides of the huge gate like decoration, paying him only minimal attention. He did not want to stare and stand out and continued further in.
Upon entering, he saw the second wall in the distance and because of the height of the surrounding buildings, his field of view was severely limited. He decided to continue on the road he had been walking up to this moment that went straight far into the distance. It was no longer a dirt road, it was paved with stone with great precision. Clearly, the pattern in which the city had been constructed was a giant set of circles going both outward and up with its main roads going radially, with other roads circling around. Toby was grateful for it, as it was nearly impossible to get lost as the result.
"Damn, everything is so tidy, wide and big." He kept turning his head and felt like a villager that came into Tokyo or New York for the first time. In fact, he had never been in such a big city, making the feeling genuine.
"Where can I get more information without looking like a retarded villager?" He was more reserved than he would have been if the city had looked like he expected before.
"Ho! That looks like a safe source of information!" He spotted someone who looked like a homeless person. Yes, it was a little bit pathetic, but come on! It was the safest option. He casually walked near the person who was sitting on the pavement and sat next to him.
There was no reaction for a while and honestly, he was grateful for it as he was slightly afraid what was going to be produced out of the individual. At last, the man looked at him and spoke, his face forgettable with brown eyes and hair that had not been cut for a while.
"Enjoying the last moments?"
"What do you think?" Toby tried to act like he knew what he was speaking about.
"What else? Free boost is the last ticket to get back up there for people like us." The man laughed bitterly.
"And for those with bad luck like me also a way to a graveyard." He added.
"No wait, there will be no grave with no body. Only food for crawlies will be left somewhere." He looked at a few men coming closer to them and his muscles visibly tensed upon seeing them. "Well, they are here."
Toby just kept looking left and right, not catching up to what was happening.
"Frank? Still no work or place to stay? I think we have given you enought time." The man speaking was a military type, very similar to the one who talked to him near the forest. He was also not alone, with several men behind his back.
"There is not yet a job for my qualifications man, give me a little more time!" The homeless person named Frank stared at the officer desperately.
"No, you go with us." He said, his face hardening.
Frank got up reluctantly and followed two of the men of law that were leading him away. Toby was surprised he had not fought back or cause trouble.
"What about you? Are you an elf? What are you even doing here?" The officer turned to Toby.
"I have just come into the city and saw the man, taking a pity on him." Toby said, it was not that far from the truth.
"So you are a visitor? Why are you here?" The officer was apparently confused, having not much experience dealing with elves.
"I have been exiled." Toby responded spontaneously and the officer facepalmed.
"An exiled elf?! Stay here." He walked aside for a while and discussed something with his men.
"Alright, you are lucky this is not another sector." The officer came back after they had arrived to some sort of a decision.
"Follow me, do you have any qualification or you are as useful as Frank?" He asked while he led the way somewhere apparently not too far off.
"I think that I can do a thing or two." Toby responded.
"You do not look like a troublemaker and you are new here. " The officer was thinking about something for a while, nodding after a minute.
"Alright, I will give it a try." He spoke and kept talking for a considerable while, as they were walking., telling Toby a lot about the workings of the city. Toby finally accomplished his goal of knowing more without endangering himself.