NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36: Revelations
<Alex, Real - Secure, High School Gym>
Alex once again sat in the gym, eating food as he read.
He had experience to claim, but he just felt so hungry. Even seeing his obviously horribly abused hands didn't hamper his hunger.
Wounds:
Advanced Necrosis
[6634 HP x 1 required to heal]
Jerky and a cream-cheesed bagel wasn't the best of breakfasts, but add in black coffee, and it was pretty good as far as apocalyptic meals went.
I've been a widower for too long… He missed his wife's cooking more at times like this than others.
He almost laughed at that.
Times like these.
As if he'd ever experienced or expected to experience anything like this before. He thumbed his wedding ring absently, the gold still undamaged atop his no-longer-undead hands.
I miss you…
He shook his head, refocusing on his reading.
He would want to try his spell-created rations soon, but one of the important parts of this short rest was to recover mana, so that test was out of the question for the moment.
He was beginning by reading the introductions to the five books that he hadn't been able to start reading as of yet.
He'd still finish the skills and spells book first, but he wanted a better understanding of what was going to be covered by the others.
His Speed Reading made it so he easily finished the five introductions before his bagel and jerky were gone.
In the end, his biggest new take away was that he was incredibly excited to have time to actually read through the massive tome simply labeled 'The Basics of Permanent Magic Symbology.'
But food was done, so he had a couple of other things to get done. "Accept Experience."
Notice:
You are in a safe location.
You killed:
Zombie Ambusher (Uncommon), level 8
Zombie Plague Witch (Uncommon), Level 14
Plague - Zombification (Rare), level 14
Reward:
Experience adjusted for level and rarity disparities.
And that did it.
His class had already been ready to level, and his race had been close. Those last two high level, uncommon rarity kills had filled in the rest… well, them and overcoming an apparently Rare zombie plague along with the experience gain from upgrading a skill and spells.
With a smile, Alex simply said, "Accept level ups."
Level Up:
Life-Aspected Warrior (Rare), F
Level 3 → Level 4
Life-Aspected Human (Rare), F
Level 3 → Level 4
Stats assigned.
Five Unused Points Available
Alex took a look at his character sheet and almost immediately added stats to his Physical and Mental Agility to bring them over 50, but hesitated.
I can check the System's Basics book. And so he did, pulling it out and flipping through.
Apparently, 50 was the second stat milestone, the first being at 10.
10 was considered the general unleveled limit, with a few rare individuals surpassing it to reach as high as 12.
A case of the exception proving the rule, I suppose.
50 was a bit special, because passing 50 was interpreted as focusing on that stat in the lower levels, so it was important to cross that line with a stat he cared about first.
So far, following his inclination would have gone fine.
Then, he looked and realized something… the best gains seemed to come from crossing a milestone—after the first—with three stats at once.
Physical Fortitude is at 47, and Mental and Physical Agility are both at 49. I can cross 50 with all three at once.
A grin spread across his face.
He mentally distributed the points and accepted the distribution.
Notice:
A Milestone has been reached!
Reward:
Title based upon first stat to reach this milestone.
Physical Agility
Physical Fortitude
Mental Agility
have reached 50 concurrently.
…
Three stats have reached the milestone in concert.
…
Title granted:
Reactively Resilient
You are quick and tough.
Your speed is not just that of prescribed patterns, instead you see and react as quickly as you move.
Moreover, you have the fortitude to see your chosen actions through to the end, no matter the cost.
+10% to Physical Agility, Physical Fortitude, and Mental Agility.
Apology Tutorial Note:
This is your first title, congratulations!
Titles are awarded for meritorious accomplishments of various kinds.
Most grant some type of benefit, and all can be displayed at your discretion to even the most basic Analyze.
That was… interesting. He might have seen a book about Titles, now that he considered it, but it hadn't caught his attention.
Just like the System basics book said, 10% for each stat. That was huge.
If he'd crossed with two stats, the bonus would have been 12% per stat, and crossing with just one would gain a bonus of 20% to that stat. Four stats, however, would have been only 5% per stat, and five and six crossing at once was even worse.
This was, over all, more stats gained.
I'm spreading myself out a bit, but I think it will work out better in the end.
He checked his wound again.
Wounds:
Advanced Necrosis
[6574 HP x 1 required to heal]
He almost laughed. He'd heal that wound in just over an hour, now, and then top up his much larger health pool in less than ten minutes after that.
He pulled out his book on skills and spells and began reading.
He didn't spend stamina, but he was gratified that he still found himself reading incredibly fast.
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Frowning in marginal confusion, he checked the skill, and sure enough he found that both mental and physical agility would factor in, and he'd had more than a thirty percent increase in both due to his leveling, among other things.
With a smile pulling at his lips, he dove back in, focusing in order to speed up the process even further; though, he still did not spend stamina.
I'll be needing that soon enough.
In the end, he was not quite as fast as he'd been previously when spending stamina wantonly, but it was a near thing.
Over the two hour break, he finished 'On the Improvement of Skills and Spells', read 'On the Acquisition and Improvement of Classes' and 'On the Improvement of Races and Rarity' in their entirety and dove deeply into 'The Basics of Permanent Magic Symbology.'
He would have spent the whole time on Symbology, but the composition of it was practical exercises in the front, followed by libraries of symbols in the back, divided by subtype, if he understood correctly, and that just wouldn't be as immediately useful as he hoped the other books would be.
He honestly didn't know enough to understand yet, which is why he was going to wait until he could at least do some of the basic practice exercises.
As to what he'd learned from the other books?
It was simple, really. For skills and spells, it boiled down to watching his internal energies of various types when using a skill or activating a spell. Then, he would just need to try to alter the movement in some manner. He could slow it down, speed it up, or move it differently.
All the while, he needed to continue to monitor the effects and adjust what he was doing to simply move toward the results he wanted.
There was obviously a lot more to it, but the book had been filled with various methodologies on approaching the oversimplified result.
One key takeaway, though, was it was far better to get a skill or spell of as low a rarity as possible. That way it could grow and morph toward his own best utility. It would start out weaker but end up much, much stronger.
After I take the time to improve it.
He'd also end up with a far greater understanding of the ability, which was better all around.
The one noted exception was skills or spells granted via a Class, as those were specifically tailored by the System for best effect with him in mind, and often were even superior to the same gain if at Simple rarity and painstakingly upgraded to a given level.
As for Classes? That one was interesting.
Apparently, there was technically no limit to the number of classes a given person could have, so long as they kept them all advancing in relative lock-step.
The issue came from the fact that any experience earned would go to the highest level class to which the action could be reasonably attributed.
Meaning, if he had two sword-fighter classes, and he killed a monster with a sword, all the experience would go to the higher level one. Similarly, if he had a sword-fighter class and a more generic fighter class, all of the experience for kills with a sword would go to the higher leveled of the two.
Now, if he had a sword fighter one and a hammer fighter one, that would allow him to gain experience by using each individual weapon, but that was incredibly difficult, as most classes—even highly rare ones—started out as rather generic, only specializing as they advanced.
Thus, the general consensus was to have as specialized classes as possible, and overlap as little as possible.
That boiled down to many people seemingly having a melee class and a ranged class.
Others had a mundane fighting and a magic class.
It was also common to have combat and non-combat classes.
The actual breakdown tended to come from exactly how a person's first class specialized. His being a 'warrior' class meant that he would likely be able to get a more magic oriented second class, or if he continued as he was going, his class might de-specialize to include such actions when next it advanced.
Regardless, each of the possible divisions helped to keep experience acquisition clean and all classes advancing in as close to lock-step as possible.
There was, of course, the limit of what classes were offered, and that was generally dependent on his non-class skills and spells, along with his attributes, race, titles, and accomplishments.
And if things were too closely aligned, it would more likely dilute one class than allow for a 'close' second class. Again, the classes of hammer-fighter and sword-fighter were given as an example of something that should theoretically be possible but essentially never actually happened in practice.
This was partially because each of his classes would 'advance' at the same levels at which he was given his options for his next class. Therefore, it was impossible for him to acquire the prerequisites for a class without those same things influencing what he was offered for his current classes.
But back to how acquiring a new class would work. Apparently, even if he bought a bunch of cooking skills from the System, but never cooked anything, he wouldn't be offered a cooking class.
On the other side, if he cooked for large portions of every day—and somehow never got a cooking skill—there was still a reasonable chance that he'd be offered a cooking related class when the time came.
That was the example given in the book.
It was good to know, but what stood out to him most was the existence of something called augmentation classes, those that seemed like they overlapped, but really covered something different.
The example given for that was—again—cooking related.
Saucier and Prep Chef were two compatible classes, apparently. That combination was somehow different than the two types of fighter in a way he didn't quite understand, but that might have just been because he wasn't much of a cook.
Regardless, such classes got into the danger of over-specialization, even to the point of influencing and affecting his leveling overall.
The class he'd been offered—Undead Bane—was one such. He would have literally gotten no experience for anything but fighting undead.
In the end, this forced a sort of balance.
Since it seemed that there were certain vague rarity and class-count requirements to advance past certain junctures? He could advance faster with a more general class, but it would be like sprinting up a short hill. He'd reach the top quickly and have nowhere he could go from there. Or, he could make it so his every action advanced a different class, keeping him forever at the low levels.
Jack of all trades, Master of None, though oftentimes better than a master of one.
This seemed to be the embodiment of that sentiment.
Thankfully, he hadn't been messed over by his generic 'Life-Aspected Warrior' class. Most classes were general for the first five or ten levels, allowing them to be more easily advanced before they were made more specific, and it became harder to gain experience.
Interestingly enough, all subsequent classes offered for specialization or advancement of any given class would be at least as rare as the starting one was, sometimes even being one rarity higher. That was both interesting, and explained why it would take even longer to advance them.
He also had to remember that this book had been tailored to him, and it was possible that others would have different issues with their classes, and possibly have differing ways in which the System would offer them advancement.
Because nothing can ever be easy.
Finally, he'd read up on Races and while most of it was interesting, the advancement of his race came down to something in the vein of rebuilding himself with magic or enhanced materials and the like.
Everyone would advance in grade as they leveled, which was another reason why spreading himself too thin would be foolish. Every level in higher grades was worth more, so if he didn't get his race and classes to advance in grade because he was trying to maximize a lower grade, he'd be harming himself.
F to E grade advancement would happen at level 5 for him and any other initiate that was still human… whatever that meant. I guess if I became a zombie my advancement would have been different?
That made sense. It seemed that most beings started at E grade, so they were all a bit behind the curve. Most were also Common races though, so he was quite a bit ahead.
There was also the fact that if he couldn't advance in grades, he wouldn't be able to gain levels either.
There seemed to be a lot of things that could slow or stop leveling, the advancement through the grades simply being a greater delimiter.
Importantly, it seemed that all races would downgrade in rarity at that advancement—unlike classes—unless he fulfilled various conditions.
So, get to level ten, and make sure to maintain or increase my race rarity. Got it. Easy. No trouble at all. He had no clue how. Even if the book gave some insight, it was more generalized than a step-by-step guide. It seemed like he needed to improve his Life Force—given he was a Life-Aspected race—and as a human, he needed to 'help the tribe' in some way.
Gaining or strengthening attributes would be another way of maintaining or increasing his Race's rarity. The book noted that it was easier to do enough to maintain rarity at advancement than to achieve a higher rarity either before or after, and rarity of race could only change at level up.
But he'd spent enough time learning and recovering, and his mind was a bit overloaded with all he'd just learned and absorbed.
It was time to go back into the high school, proper.
They only had three hours remaining on the school's defensive enchantments, and this time he'd be wiser about how he proceeded.
I'm not alone in this. I need to work with the others, not just fight on my own.
He met up with the others, and noticed that they looked a bit more refreshed than before. At least the rest had been good for them too.
"I apologize, again. I'm not sure how I could have handled it differently, but I will try to work with you all more closely."
That got a round of smiles and 'you're fine's.
"Alright, let's go."
<Pilar, Real - Secure, High School Gym>
Pilar was not happy with the apocalypse.
This might seem like a silly thing to be thinking, but she was adamant to let it roll through her mind every so often.
She was not happy raining fire down upon her enemies.
She was not happy fighting beside her husband, life and limb on the line, to achieve goals they chose together.
She was not happy that she'd been pulled from yet another pointless meeting about micro-this, updated-safety-requirements-that.
No.
She was ecstatic.
Sure, when she'd thought John was going to become a zombie, she'd felt a little part of her mind crack, the whole edifice of her acceptance of the new reality teetering on the edge, but he'd been fine in the end, and she hadn't needed to burn down a city as his pyre.
The experience hadn't broken her—as it might have had he died or turned—but it had highlighted something deep within her, something that she had always been sort of aware of, without ever really acknowledging.
There was a reason that she'd chosen to work with such caustic chemicals, stress-testing new materials, and seeking ways to break them down.
She liked destruction, so long as she was in control of it. It was her security blanket, her means of emotional recovery.
Kaylee seemed nice enough, and Pilar was fine with the young woman being the nominal leader, but Alex?
Pilar felt a smile tug at her lips.
Alex was leading them to where they could destroy things and, with her John by her side, was there anything else a girl could want?
Truly, the apocalypse was not a source of mere happiness. She had found her joy, and she was never going back.
The clinical environment was for others.
Let the world end in glorious fire, so long as the fire was hers.