NOVEL NEXT Chapter 51: Other's Second Classes
<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Hallway>
Alex considered how his fellow initiates had grown over the last few days, and what class they'd each taken as their second.
Grant had actually chosen a sort of demolition class, which gave him skills and abilities for destroying non-living things with his hammer to complement his 'fighting' class which used the hammer on enemies.
He claimed that it allowed him to get experience for destroying armor—even 'living armor' on enemies like the bone lurkers they'd been seeing more and more often—while damaging the creature within the armor helped his fighting class to grow. Essentially, if he was doing damage to HP, it was credited to his first class, and anything else was attributed to his second, making even 'blocked' attacks work in his favor.
Lenka kept most of her trap-making in her primary class, but she was able to pull her 'Mage Hand' skill in as the basis for her second, leaning into a telekinetic focus.
As she'd started with Mage Hand, her current skills were more focused on small movements and manipulations, currently lacking power to allow for easy, offensive use. So, while she couldn't stop a charging undead—or lift one off the ground—she could tug on their limbs to throw them off, or delay them with relative precision. This included ensuring they triggered her traps or simply triggering them herself at a distance.
Pilar had chosen a 'defensive' leaning class with an emphasis in fire and heat usage to complement her material creation—bent toward fire—'offensive' class.
There had been the danger of a bit of overlap, but she'd been able to pull all her specialized fire magics into the new class and that had prevented the worst case scenario. Thus, she could continue to advance with little difficulty… at least in theory.
Natasha chose what seemed to be a movement based class with emphasis on force and friction manipulation to complement her spear, short-sword, and force combat heavy class.
The two meshed beautifully, and the Russian woman was already using tactical repositioning and quick bursts of speed and rapid movement to further dominate any engagement she participated in.
James had followed the lead of so many others of their group of initiates by complementing his roguish, thrown-weapon class with a more robust—if still specialized—weapon creation class, via mana-to-matter spells. As to how specific? At the moment, he could only create various kinds of knives and other small, thrown weapons, and only through duplication. At least, that is what he claimed.
John took a bit of a different route. He leaned into what seemed to be a specific gun-smithing class, using magic, skills, and spells to repair and upgrade his weapons as they'd moved between clashes. He'd conveyed that he didn't see any need to augment the combat potential of his marksmen class, it was just his gear that he feared would fall behind.
Kaylee had solidified her crossbow usage with a marksman second class, which complemented what Alex felt was a rather esoteric first choice.
The woman seemed to both gain and give mild boosts to those around her, depending on the size and nature of the group she was in. As a result, everyone had a bit of an easier time fighting when she was with them, and she stated that she thought that she'd be able to tap into at least some of Alex's immunity to undeath… eventually. Truthfully, though, she didn't know if 'eventually' was in one more level or one hundred more.
If he was honest, Alex resonated with each of their choices. He wasn't sure he'd have made the same if their positions were reversed, but he didn't see any issues with them on the face of it.
But all that was other people. It was time for him to level up, even if it left power on the table with his race.
He simply couldn't wait any more.
Thus, in a moment of quiet, with a bit of jerky between his teeth, he whispered, "Accept All Level Ups."
Level Up:
Life-Aspected Great-Bladesman (Epic), E
Level 5 → Level 7
Life-Aspected Human (Rare), E
Level 5 → Level 7
Stats assigned.
Twenty-four Unused Points Available
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Brace for alteration… again…
Oh, spike-trap. He'd forgotten about the issues with large stat increases, and this was more than a single level-up…
His entire body suddenly felt like it was on fire. His head felt like it was going to explode, and even metaphysical parts he deliriously assumed were associated with his magical traits felt like they were undergoing 'breakdown to build back better' in rolling cycles.
He gasped, unable to scream as his stats came close to doubling across the board.
Notice:
Trauma Is Training, Right?
Stats Trained:
Physical Stats:
Fortitude: 129.6 → 130.8
Your Physical Fortitude has been trained. You cannot increase this trait through training again, until after you have fully recovered.
Mental Stats:
Fortitude: 66 → 67.1
Your Mental Fortitude has been trained. You cannot increase this trait through training again, until after you have fully recovered.
Magical Stats:
Fortitude: 89.1 → 90.2
Your Magical Fortitude has been trained. You cannot increase this trait through training again, until after you have fully recovered.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Come on, Alex… You might think you're clever to not level up to increase level gains, but there is a cost to everything.
Stat increases from a given level up cannot be spread out over multiple sessions. You could have chosen to spread those out though…
Keep that in mind going forward, yeah?
As he lay on the ground, still twitching he contemplated how he'd ended up here. Right… levels in E rank are twice as stat-heavy, and my Epic class is twice that again.
If he'd planned on this happening as a means of training, it might have been seen as wise, but to stumble into it? Yeah, he just felt like an idiot.
He groaned as his head reeled just a bit.
So, I gained much more than I was expecting.
He'd effectively been sitting with roughly six levels of stats untapped, assuming they were equal to the levels he'd earned in the F range… That also explained why it had taken so long for him to earn those four, collective levels. He'd forgotten that E would triple the experience required, and the Epic class was triple that again.
Actually, now that he thought of it, it was impressive that he'd earned enough for the level-ups at all, and if he had managed to make his race epic, he would probably not have even been able to achieve so many level-ups.
Alex sighed at his own idiocy. The stats that he had just gained would have been very helpful to have earlier, even if the acquisition would have been more spread out. It also would have allowed him to recover more Life as his HP recovery rate should have risen similarly.
He had a lot of stat points to assign, and that deserved consideration, but one thing stood out to him. Because of his various boosts, he had a bunch of decimals on his status sheet. He did not prefer that.
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He wouldn't cripple himself to avoid it, but if he could…
With some quick math, he realized that he had exactly enough points to remove all the decimal points for the moment. If he put eight points into Physical Power, along with two into Physical Agility and one into Physical Fortitude. Then, he could put two into Mental Agility and the remaining nine into Magical Agility.
Not only would that remove most—sadly not all—of the decimal points, it would keep his stats balanced as he liked, give him greater MP regeneration, and give him a bit of a boost to physical power, which should help him move around a bit more easily.
It certainly would have helped at least a few times.
With that decided, he spent his points and pulled up his stats for what was likely the first time in days.
Overall, it was something to be proud of, at least he thought so.
Character Sheet:
Alex Johnson
Life-Aspected Human (Rare), E, Level 7
Class: Life-Aspected Great-Bladesman (Epic), E, Level 7
Class 2: NA
HP: 4791/4791 [Max: 5280]
SP: 3536/3960
MP: 1377/1980
Titles:
Reactive Resilience
System Initiate
Physical Stats:
Power: 88
Agility: 132
Fortitude: 132
Mental Stats:
Power: 66
Agility: 132
Fortitude: 67.1
Magical Stats:
Power: 99
Agility: 89.1
Fortitude: 90.2
Unused Points: 0
Attributes:
Basic Resistance - Curse (Lvl 1)
Basic Resistance - Venom (Lvl 1)
Blood:
Life Finds a Way (Unique)
General Skills:
Great-Blades Initiate - Dadao (Common)
Advanced Kinesthetics (Common)
Inventory (Common)
Analyze (Common)
Danger Sense (Common)
Basic Mana Sense (Common)
Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)
Basic Carving (Simple)
Speed Reading (Common)
Spells:
Force Burst (Uncommon)
Create Rations (Common)
Create Water (Common)
Detect Life (Uncommon)
Basic Small Force Blade (Common)
Class Skills and Spells:
Life's Active Defense (Uncommon)
Multi-Strike (Common)
Basic Life Transfusion (Uncommon)
Class Bonuses:
All Life related Spells and Skills cost 50% less to use.
Your Life related Spells' and Skills' effects occur 50% faster.
Your HP is calculated at Racial Base + 15 x Physical Fortitude.
Your MP is calculated at 20 x Magical Power.
Your effective Physical Power is 40% greater for physical attack and defense when you are armed with a great-blade and unrestrained.
You take 25% less damage from Physical attacks when you are armed and unrestrained.
Unrewarded Kills:
NA
Quite happy with his stat-sheet, Alex was only mildly disappointed by the next message.
Apology Tutorial Notice:
No further class skill or spell will be gained from your first class until level 10.
If you desire or require more skills or spells, you must source them elsewhere.
That was fairly definitive. It also lined up with what the others had told him.
He glanced at the bone piles in the corner. There was one for each slain flesh golem—the one with fracture lines throughout was obviously the one that Grant had struck with his self-sacrificial attack—and a pile of armor plates, harvested from the bone lurkers before Alex had ashed the bodies.
He really wanted to go study them, to practice his permanent symbology, to get better with his carving and use of the little force blades…
But everything seemed to be pointing in the same direction. It was high time for them to range farther from the school and gather more resources for themselves.
His personal quest was in a fantastic position with all the people that they'd found and brought back to their base, as was Kaylee's for that matter, but they needed to help the others achieve their goals, too.
Apparently, most could be handled through Kaylee's modification of their base, and she was working with the others toward that end, but Natasha's seemed uniquely outward focused.
Thus, their first true stop would be the little bodega that had locked her away from that which she'd rightfully purchased.
Natasha said that retrieving those supplies wasn't her only personal quest, but she stated emphatically that the other was set up to succeed anyway, so it wasn't a concern. When Alex had inquired further, she'd just shaken her head and patted his shoulder without otherwise responding.
They were only waiting for Mr. Weston, Mr. Southard, and Ms. Woods to wake up from their naps and be ready to go.
So, what I'm saying is that I have time… Before he really made the decision consciously, he was already halfway to his bone-piles.
The next hour was an exercise in frustration as the very nature of the infinitely thin, Basic Small Force Blade meant that it only removed material when he cut the same line twice, forming a wedge. He was reasonably able to cut the symbol he wanted—especially with his Basic Permanent Symbology book open for reference—but doing it precisely? Twice? And making those two precise cuts accurate to each other as well?
Yeah, that wasn't happening any time soon. His limited successes technically worked, but they were never good enough for him, and so he pressed on without empowering any.
Even so, he did learn quite a bit, even if not about symbology. For his spell, Basic Small Force Blade, he was able to alter some properties of the blade that was created. First and foremost, he was able to change the width of the blade, which was important because that was his main limiter on how tight his curves could be. He had tried bending the blade, and that had worked to some extent, but trying to actively fluctuate the curvature of the cutting surface had actually made the process harder for him, as it added one more thing for him to try to control perfectly.
Thus, he focused on minimizing the width, ending up with what was essentially an omni-directional cutting line of force. That lost him a bit of the guidance he'd initially had for straight cuts, but it made any change in direction so, so much easier.
Next, he changed the length of the cutting edge, thus allowing him to vary the depth of his cuts without changing the position of his hands.
It was then that he stumbled on an idea, and pulled out a marker to draw out the symbol he was working on. Once that was done, he simply traced it with the spell active, making his first cut.
It worked essentially exactly as expected.
Even so, he still needed two cuts to remove the material. He was at a loss for a moment, experimenting with his spell until, with only about five minutes left, he discovered that he could alter, to some extent, the position and angle of the cutting line the spell created. This had the obvious benefit of allowing him to shift the orientation and origin. At that point, he then simply traced his previously cut line.
This wasn't perfect, but it did drastically improve the results.
He happily set three wooden slats beside the bone-piles. He hadn't been willing to waste the materials gathered for him on learning the absolute basics, but being near the bones had felt… inspiring? Something like that. It had felt inspiring to be near the complete set of permanent symbols in the flesh golem bones, as well as being beside the bone lurker plates that would hopefully be of so much use going forward.
He saw his group stirring, and even caught a glimpse of the pack-teachers—their joking name for themselves—moving about and getting some food, and so it was obviously time to be done for the time being.
It wasn't a lot of food, as Kaylee was starting to ration what they had rather heavily. Her justification was that—aside from perishables that wouldn't fit in Inventories, which was very little—it was better to end up with more food in the end, than to run out. Additionally, she had told their group privately that she was planning on relaxing the rationing later on so that she could achieve the same level of austerity in a way that would be seen as generous rather than restrictive.
Once again, he was glad that he wasn't the one in charge…
Regardless, his time was up, and he was excited at the progress he'd made.
As a capstone to that excitement, he pulled up the System notice that he'd seen appear near the beginning of his practice—and then flicker several times as he was continuing to improve his use of the spell.
Basic Small Force Blade (Common), Spell
Create semi-permanent small blades of Force Magic.
Generally useful for utility purposes, but can function well enough for close-quarters combat in a pinch.
No inherent magical penetrative power.
Physical and Magical Agility have a minor boost when using this skill.
→
Basic Small Force Blade (Uncommon), Spell
Create semi-permanent, small, cutting constructs of Force Magic.
Generally useful for utility purposes, but can function well enough for close-quarters combat in a pinch.
Through practice and close study, you have learned how to use a bit of magic to slightly alter the length, width, angle, and even point of origin of these small constructs.
No inherent magical penetrative power.
Physical and Magical Agility have a minor boost when using this skill.
That was not too bad for an hour's work, and Alex looked forward to having more time to continue his progress.
For now, though, it was time to venture forth into the undead-flooded city.