Homestead Survival

<Dungeon: The Royal Crypts of Karzun, Floor 1, A+ -- S->
[Theo and Julia]

>Local Message: Battle Delay of Notifications disabled.

Suddenly, they began to receive a flood of information. Blue boxes popped open one after another. The first of which was a Level Up notification. So Theo and Julia smiled and started on their level-up process.

[Theo]
"Congratulations Theo, you have leveled up, as a part of your System Reward for staying in a High Mana zone, the rewards for leveling up have been increased until level 5. As a reward for leveling up, you will be granted a skill and allowed to pick one skill to upgrade. This in in addition to the Class based level up rewards, and your Racial level up rewards. Congratulations once again."

>Private Message: You have been granted the skill 'Blooded Soil' as a reward.
>Private Message: Please select one skill to upgrade.

Theo was slightly overwhelmed with what Blooded Soil did. He focused on the new skill, and shook his head, "Not upgrading that one right now."

Theo wanted to upgrade Identify. So he did.

*>Private Message: Skill 'Identify' can not be upgraded at this time. Please select another skill to upgrade.

Theo's eyebrows shot up, "Well that is new. Okay, so what should I do."

He ran down the list of his skills in his head and finally settled on Dimensional Storage.

>Private Message: Skill 'Dimensional Storage' Has been upgraded to Rank C+ from Rank C. Increased Growth Rate (+4") Decreased Channel to open by 5 seconds. Increased Allowed Open time by 12 seconds.
>Private Message: Bonus Stats granted by Dungeon - 2 STR, 2 CON

Your System Reward for staying in a High Mana zone has been completed. After this level, you will not be granted a Skill at every level. Skill increases will be grated at every level, and Skills will be granted at every multiple of five.

>Private Message: Level Up process complete.

[Julia]
"Congratulations Julia, you have leveled up, as a part of your System Reward for staying in a High Mana zone, the rewards for leveling up have been increased until level 5. As a reward for leveling up, you will be granted a skill and allowed to pick one skill to upgrade; the skill can not be Bond. This in in addition to the Class based level up rewards, and your Racial level up rewards. Congratulations once again."

>Private Message: You have been granted the skill 'Runecarvers Touch' as a reward.
>Private Message: Please select one skill to upgrade.

"Oh, that is nice; it works with Retaliate and Ward." Julia thought to herself. "Alright, what to upgrade..."

She had upgraded Retaliate last time. "So it should either be Ward or Warmth of the Hearth... Hmm, Ward just got a boost from Runecarvers Touch, so let's go with Warmth of the Hearth."

>Private Message: Skill 'Warmth of the Hearth' Has been upgraded to Rank B from Rank B-. Increased radius multiplier to 4.
>Private Message: Bonus Stats granted by Dungeon - 2 INT, 1 CHA, 1 META

Your System Reward for staying in a High Mana zone has been completed. After this level, you will not be granted a Skill at every level. Skill increases will be grated at every level, and Skills will be granted at every multiple of five.

>Private Message: Level Up process complete.

[Theo and Julia]

"What did you get?" Julia asked excitedly.

"You want to talk skills now or finish going through all this." Theo gestured vaguely to the space between them where a System chest waited, and many blue boxes hovered.

"Skills!" Julia said cutely, then looked at him. "I really like this particular aspect of leveling up, but I guess that is over for now."

"True, but we can do skills first," Theo said with a smile. "I got a passive called Blooded Soil."

"Oh, sounds intimidating; I also got a passive called Runecarvers Touch," Julia said excitedly.

"What does it do?"

"I'll read it to you..." Julia said, quickly feeling for the skill information with her mind. "Grants the User a specialized understanding of Runes. Allows the placement of Runes in a permanent state on Claimed land. On unclaimed land, the size of a rune can determine its strength. Enemies repelled by a permanent rune will take damage. Allows the learning of runes."

"That is pretty slick," Theo said

"I know; it also says that it has synergy with Ward and Retaliate, so the damage that is dealt is based on Retaliate, and I can place one hundred Ward runes on our claimed land," Julia said. "Now, what does your skill do?"

"My skill seems to be a strange mix of combat and home defense," Theo said and then read off the skill. "Spilling blood on a location marks it as 'Blooded Soil.' If the land is Claimed by the user, this effect becomes permanent and covers the entire Claimed area in a 'Blooded Claim.' If the land is not Claimed by the user, it is treated as a Combat Zone for a radius of thirty feet around the user."

"Oh, that is kind of weird. But I like it." Julia said, "Is there a difference as to what it provides for those two?"

"Yeah, a Blooded Claim gets fifteen percent User Damage Reduction and twenty-five percent Structure Damage Resistance," Theo explained. "And a Combat Zone has Healing increased by fifteen percent and a fiver percent User Damage Reduction."

"That will be nice. It means that my skills will help you more, and in turn, you can do more damage."

"Yep!" Theo said, satisfied. "now, onto the chest or the blue boxes.?"

"Blue boxes." Julia said, "I want to be able to enjoy my loot fully."

Theo chuckled, and they looked at the first blue box.

"A mapping skill, interesting. I wonder if you can get skills from every Boss or if this is a special thing." Theo said, and Julia nodded. They both took the five gold and placed it in their Hands of Gold. Then Julia took both Crystals and placed them in her pouch.

"Next!" Julia declared. So they looked at the next blue box.

Theo and Julia both turned to look at the massive egg that was nearly ten feet around. Then Theo looked at Julia. "I am very glad that we did not hit the egg."

"Me too," Julia said, then they turned to the next blue box.

As they dismissed the blue box it dissolved into the items. Theo picked up the blueprints, and Julia picked up the Crystalized Mana and the Karzun Bloodline Recognition Token, and then everything went into their pouches.

They read the next blue box.

They dismissed it, and Julia caught the roughly two-pound, eighteen-inch dragon scale, as well as the Skill Crystal that landed atop it. She placed them in her pouch.

There was one final blue box to behold.

"Wow," Julia said, quickly looking at her titles, "That's more than twenty additional stat points."

"Yeah, and Patriarch Karzun is apparently a Divine Entity." Theo muttered, reading the description of the Tasker title, "Complete a Quest or Task for a Divine Entity."

"Maybe that's why he gave us so much stuff..." Julia said absent-mindedly.

"What do you mean?" Theo asked.

"Well, it's just that he gave us the Quest for the Mana Leeches like it was a quest to smash rats." Julia said, "Don't you feel like he over-rewarded us a bit?"

"I mean, maybe, but also, he gave us mostly blueprints. I assume that we are going to have to either wait for a long time to use the blueprints or put in a lot of work to get the things that we need." Theo said, "So while he may have given us a lot of stuff, it's probably stuff that he has no need for and is going to give us a lot of work to get it up and running. When we get home, we can look at what is usable and what will rot in storage until we can use it."

"Okay," Julia said, finally looking at the loot chest. "Can we do the chest now?"

Theo raised a hand and pointed at the Mana Leech corpses scattered around. "Let's pick all these fuckers up, then we can go ahead and do the chest."

It took them roughly twenty minutes to clean up the fifty-seven Mana Leech Corpses, all of which went into Theo's pouch. Theo also tried putting the massive corpse of the Boss into his raw materials storage, but it failed.

"What the..." Theo tried to put the Boss in again, but it failed. "Julia, will you try to put this into your raw materials storage?"

Julia stepped over and tried, and it worked. "Hoh, that is heavy!"

Theo helped her stand as she pulled the Boss back out. "I don't have the strength for that."

Theo thought for a moment and then shrugged, "We can deal with this later."

Finally, Theo and Julia stepped up to the chest, and at their touch, it dissolved into sparks and a pile of loot.

At the bottom was a slab of what looked like Runestone with a singular massive rune carved into it. Atop that sat a small horde of coins and two items.

"What did we get?" Julia said, looking at the pile of loot.

Theo chuckled, "Let's split the coin first, then we can go through the other stuff, you little loot goblin."

Julia cackled happily and nodded. Theo counted out the coin, "Alright, we each get seven gold, twenty-one silver, and seventy-two copper."

Julia quickly took her share, and they both placed the coin in their Hand of Gold. Theo then picked up a set of gloves. His eyebrows rose. "Huh, all it tells me is that my class is incompatible."

"Let me see?" Julia asked and accepted the gloves. As soon as she was the only one touching the gloves, a flash of Cherenkov blue emanated from the gloves. And suddenly, information emanated from the gloves into her mind. "Gloves of the Hearthwarden. They were meant for my class."

"Can I identify them?" Theo asked, and Julia nodded.

"I think that is the first time that we have seen the value box be populated," Theo said. "And these give you stats."

"That is kind of crazy," Julia said, putting on the gloves. "What about that?"

Julia gestured at the object on the ground, and Theo picked it up, resulting in a familiar flash of blue, then chuckled, offering the folded cloak to Julia, who touched it and Identified it.

"That is good," Julia said with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm happy with it," Theo said, swinging the cloak onto his shoulders. "Now, this last one is."

They both reached out and Identified the slab of very smooth rock.

"That is going to be very useful for me," Julia said, thinking of her new passive Runecarvers Touch.

"I think it will." Theo agreed as Julia placed it into one of the unrestricted slots in her pouch.

"Welp, what do we do about this?" Julia said, gesturing at the massive corpse of the Boss.

"Well, I have an Idea," Theo said with a smile, beginning to channel his Dimensional Storage skill.

"Oh, and what's that?" Julia said, looking at the drastically larger cube in front of her.

Theo pulled out the two Dungeon Invader Tags, "Let's ask for a favor from the Dungeon."