NeoRealm - Staring back into the Future

Next day Jason continues further along the wastelands border. As he travels there are a few fights with lone emus but anytime a group comes into view, they stare at him then leave. Weird but not being able to do anything about this he shrugs. In fact, this continues for several days. After over a week Jason sits down in camp and thinks about the situation.

"I am not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, this is horrible for leveling. That situation has stagnated so hard. On the other hand, my few skills are shooting up. I even gained two levels in my cultivation plus enough experience to almost get another. The only thing I am not progressing in is poison resistance. I would almost call this week a waste if I hadn't figured out the scaling of Strength for unarmed damage. The stat seems to provide about 1 damage to 10 points in it. At least that is what I can figure out from only gaining a single point in Strength. I know that with weapons like a sword it has a diminishing return though the extra helps with penetrating Toughness. Blunt attacks however tend towards Strength staying effective longer and I would put unarmed more under that category.

Though now I think about it, I need to confirm Toughness for myself. Because human skin isn't exactly the best at defense, it has a bad ratio for us. A normal human character tends toward only having Toughness prevent 1 damage for every 40 to 50 points. With that I am right on the edge of either having a point of damage reduction from it. However other races get different conversion rates. Elves unless playing specific sub races might as well not bother with about 100 needed. Dwarves, Goblins, and the Yet are better off with 30 for the first two and the last one being quite the tank race weighing in at 10 Toughness to a point of DR. This also has diminishing returns but less so because of how many skills and attacks pierce it. Hell, my Blast Punch can and I am not even level 10 yet.

However, those are all just the racial standards. Skills both passive and active can change how much damage reduction that Toughness gives. From what I have experienced so far I will bet my skeletal magic item provides a last line of defense boost to mine. Otherwise those assassins or that panther would have gone right through the bone. Also, for all intents and purposes I am a body cultivator here. With my skill so low at the moment it isn't doing much, but I can see my cultivation boosting damage reduction later on. Not that I can test my Toughness right now. The only thing keeping me alive is the newb armor. Defense is too OP at low levels. Not that I can blame the game. If it wasn't for everyone basically cheating the System having over 10 Defense would be a dream. Without my armor I am too much of a glass cannon. Worse yet, a melee range glass cannon.

Now I don't want to start on another skill. Even though it should be relatively easy to get something like a metal skin skill, I did not finalize Blast Punch in the System yet. Trying to split my attention between two skills will just result in one of them being horrible or both mediocre. With Penny basically being my Master in this world I don't want to sully her name by having a sub par metal skin. She has reached Oricalcum with her shell after all. That isn't a bad path for me to go down either. Copper is flexible enough compared to other metals so basing a skill on it shouldn't limit my mobility too much. Gold would normally be a great choice but oddly enough the more magical the metal gets the less flexible it is. Whatever, I can look into this more at the next library I find. There are probably materials I can't even imagine available in the game.

Back to stats so I can finish this introspection I seem to be stuck on. Though the only one left to go over is Agility. If I were one to use the System assists, then it would correct my aim and such. As I don't then at most it is more forgiving with what counts as a critical hit. That combined with my accuracy means I am probably getting a lot of crits. Luckily the System doesn't display it by default or the message spam would have become annoying. Anyway, the other thing Agility does is to allow one to move their body easier. Another waste as not only do I not use the System assists for that either but my cultivation lets me ignore the restrictions somewhat. Now the System is fair so it should be doing something else for me. To find out though I probably have to get the stat appraised by some professional in a big city. It might surprise me. After all it was only just a few decades ago that a person gave it a whirl and found out what Toughness did for his fire elemental friend. Surprised everyone involved that while it didn't provide damage reduction, it gave them a boost to their resistance against water. Though it is still odd to see a fire elemental playing in the rain.

Meh, not much I can do except maybe more weight training. My Strength is still low. Though it is catching up to Agility now that I think about. In fact, let me check how I have progressed." [System Show Character and Changes Since Last Displayed]