Primer for the Apocalypse

“You know, I totally forgot you were mostly an Enchanter in the game,” Faith commented after our second encounter in the frozen zone. Like my previous fights, I relied heavily on enchanted accessories and tools. Even the spells I cast were run through an enhancement foci.

“I’m mostly an Enchanter in real life, too,” I said with a grin as I nodded toward the [Temperature Control] talisman she was wearing. She rubbed the small charm unconsciously.

“I don’t know why I was thinking you’d be way more into melee,” my fellow Time Mage commented.

I glanced at the scepters in my hands. Though they were primarily used for casting ranged spells, both could be used as melee weapons if necessary. I simply hadn’t needed to enter melee range with Aiden and Faith adding to the assault.

“Maybe because I’m a solo ascender?” I shrugged.

“Maybe,” she said noncommittally before letting out a heavy sigh. “I wish I’d learned Enchanting or something helpful like that in the game. It would have been so much more useful than Cooking.”

I stored the last of the ice-covered wolves in my storage ring and turned to the other woman. “Cooking is useful,” I said. “It might not have any direct combat applications, but you should have picked up the Alchemy skill once you gained the ability to add buffs to your food. I’m sure there are plenty of combat applications for Alchemy.”

“You could make bombs,” Aiden suggested. “I could set them off with a Fireball or use a Wind Gust to launch them at our opponents.”

I nodded in agreement. “You could add all sorts of elemental effects, like alchemical Ice that would freeze something on contact, or Earth-based compounds that envelop something in stone,” I suggested.

Excited by the possibilities, Aiden started listing off various spell effects. Faith seemed contemplative as she listened, though her attention seemed to be focused on my modular staff.

“You don’t fight with Time or Space much at all,” she realized a little while later.

“Not really,” I agreed. “I use them occasionally, but I prefer the variety that fighting with accessories gives me. It also forces me to think about my attacks more instead of becoming predictable.”

Faith seemed to perk up with the realization that I didn’t use my affinities all that much during combat. “Do you think I could do something similar?”

“Sure,” I said. “You could use Alchemy to make consumable offensive weapons and either buy or learn to make your own enchanted weapons and accessories. The downside to buying is that you’ll outgrow most things as soon as you tier up.”

“Aren’t growth weapons a thing?” she asked. “I could’ve sworn I remember having a growth weapon in the game.”

I shrugged. “They exist, sure. But they are beyond me. At least, for now.” I sighed, thinking about how nice it would be to create a modular weapon that could grow with me instead of needing to replace everything each tier. I doubted I would manage such a feat before Tier Five or Six.

As we continued through the zone, I realized it hadn’t taken very long to get used to working with others again. We moved through the frozen zone quickly, killing many more creatures than I would have been able to manage on my own.

The amount of experience I gained was only a little bit slower than I probably could have managed fighting alone, but I knew that would shift as we grew more accustomed to fighting together.

A few hours later, Faith and Aiden watched curiously as I set up two pods shortly before the false sun disappeared. I’d shifted the exterior to white to make them blend into the environment better. Between that and the built-in wards, I didn’t think we’d have any issues remaining undisturbed overnight.

“I’ve never seen something like that before,” Faith said when I was finished.

“It’s a modular shelter,” I told her. “I have a version that works like a vehicle as well, but these are mostly just a place to sleep safely.”

I opened the spare pod and showed them around. “It isn’t much, but there’s a small bathroom over there,” I said, pointing at the door opposite the entry.

“It’s a camper,” Aiden commented. “You made this?”

I nodded. “I made the structure, but I bought most of the furniture. The shrinking effect is on the pod and works on anything inside.”

“Could you use it for storage?”

“You could,” I said hesitantly. “But it would be pretty awkward. The resizing array takes a lot of mana, too. It’s much easier to just make a storage bag or ring.”

Of course, that comment sparked a new line of questioning. Though they both had inventories, the amount of space they had access to was limited. It was understandable that they’d be interested in acquiring additional storage devices.

When I pulled out the MealMaker and asked what they wanted to eat, Faith practically begged me to make her one. As a Chef, Faith could naturally intuit substitutions well enough to get by, but knowing I had access to ‘real’ ingredients from Earth had almost been too much. Just learning the device could transmute material into basic ingredients was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“It’s not that I don’t want to make another one,” I tried to explain, “I just don’t have all the components.”

“What do you need?” Faith asked eagerly.

“A good source of Crystal, for one,” I said.

The other Time Mage waved her hand. “So, let’s go to the storm zone trial when we hit high-tier,” she said casually. “It’s supposed to have crystals and gemstones, though I’m not sure if it’s the same type of Crystal you need.”

I’d heard about the trials – the mini-dungeons within the larger dungeon that had different types of challenges for participants to complete. Surprisingly, most were not combat trials since the dungeon was full of opportunities for combat.

“What kind of trial is it?” I asked curiously.

“It’s a weird one,” Aiden chimed in. “It’s an obstacle course that grades you on effort and performance. You can go through it as many times as you want, but you can only get rewarded once.”

Faith nodded along eagerly. “One guy ran it a ton of times before doing his official run. I don’t know if his reward was based on improvement or what, but that dude got a Tier Four quiver that makes arrows as a reward. It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard of someone getting.”

I was surprised to hear the dungeon awarded someone with a weapon accessory a full tier above them. The man’s performance must have been remarkable.

“Where does the crystal come in?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Faith admitted. “But everyone who finishes the trial tends to have at least a couple of chunks to sell to the Trading Post afterward.”

With tentative plans to find and visit the trial upon reaching the next stage, we finished dinner. Afterward, I guided Faith and Aiden through a few Meditation exercises that Master Kairos had taught me to help improve my mana control.

We spent most of our days killing and processing the creatures we encountered as we made our way through the zone. As long as we didn’t challenge anything too far beyond our level, the fights were more than manageable.

During the evenings, our time was split between personal projects and working on mana skills. The latter was mostly for Faith’s sake, but all three of us benefited from the exercises. She spent a lot of her time working on Alchemy, and the improvements were already showing.

I reached level twenty-five about two weeks into our month-long excursion. Master Kairos had shared a few secrets about leveling effectively during our lessons, so I already had a decent idea of the direction I wanted to take for my next profession.

There was no question that the first profession was the most important one. Experience gains from secondary and later tertiary slots were significantly lower than what could be gained through one’s primary profession. It was one of the reasons I was confused about why the system allowed people to take combat-related professions as their primary in the first place.

The alternate-level restriction didn’t seem to really go into effect until Tier Three since people seemed to progress through Tier Two with combat professions just fine. I assumed the system made allowances early on – allowances that obviously ended as soon as the second professional slot became available. Those whose first and second professions were combat-related almost never made it out of Tier Three without changing their primary profession to something non-combat-related.

Some people tried to use the loophole to rush to level twenty-five, but many found themselves stunted since they hadn’t bothered to develop alternate skills capable of gaining a viable profession. It wasn’t an insurmountable problem, and I was sure some truly felt the early advantage was worth it.

I disagreed. So did Master Kairos.

If I wanted a non-combat, non-crafting secondary profession, Trader or Merchant would likely be my best options since I sold my creations and traded the materials I gathered on a monthly basis. Well, I didn’t sell the items I crafted every month, but I could. I could easily spend one day a month selling the items I made to both villages.

Harvester would similarly work since the profession would give me experience for any material processing I did. Some days, it felt like I spent more time processing my kills than I did actually killing mobs. That would undoubtedly add up.

Professions like Cartographer, Scout, and Pathfinder might be okay since I would have to explore new zones on each floor. It also wasn’t unheard of for a floor to randomly shift, sometimes completely altering a zone in the process. In the months I’d been wandering around the dungeon, I still hadn’t covered the entire third floor.

Of course, part of that was because I was under-leveled for the high and peak-tier areas of each zone. I might be able to skulk around under [Invisibility], but I didn’t see the value in risking my safety like that.

There was no reason to take another crafting profession since doing so would have limited benefits, especially since the system wouldn’t grant experience twice for the same action. I’d learned that lesson the hard way in the other timeline, having taken the general Crafter profession for my second slot upon reaching level twenty-five.

The experience gains had been abysmal since most of what I did counted toward my primary profession. I had planned to change it once I reached level thirty-five and the option to swap my secondary profession became available, but I didn’t quite make it there.

Not that it mattered now.

Since combat-adjacent options were totally viable as secondary professions, I considered the most promising options listed on my screen. Mage and Manatechnician.

Mage was a general profession, much like Crafter. It provided a small amount of experience for each spell cast, which added up over time.

Manatechnician was a profession that granted experience for using manatech. I was pretty sure any enchanted item counted, so it was really a matter of whether I thought I’d actively cast or use tools more in the long run.

Both Mage and Manatechnician were viable paths, but I really did use accessories more often than not.

If I spent more time in villages crafting and selling my wares, I’d probably take Trader instead. But since I spent most of my time actively hunting, going with a combat-related secondary profession simply made more sense.

Besides, if I wanted to change it, I only had to wait ten levels. I’d also gain my tertiary professional slot at level fifty, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t eventually incorporate all three professional types – Combat, Crafting, and Lifestyle.

Making my decision, I slotted my second profession and pulled up my status to look at the changes.

***

Name: Emie deEpikairos

Level: 25 (914/64900)

Profession: Enchanter/Manatechnician

Affinities: Time, Space

***

Health: 250 (6.5/min)

Stamina: 450 (18/min)

Mana: 470 (24.5/min)

***

Attributes

Strength – 20

Agility – 25

Vitality – 25

Intelligence – 47

Wisdom – 37

Perception – 33

***

Spells*

Skills*

***

I smiled widely at my improved Health and Mana Regeneration rates. I’d gained nearly a thirty percent increase in both!

“What’s a Manatechnician?” Faith asked. I was a little surprised she’d evolved Identify into Assess at first. Then I realized she’d been in the dungeon for over two years and had likely used the spell on a daily basis.

“It’s a profession that uses enchanted tools,” I replied. “It should give me a small amount of experience every time I use one of my items.”

She whistled. “That’ll add up fast with how you fight.”

I grinned and closed out my status. “That’s my hope.”

“I can’t wait to pick my second profession,” she sighed. Aiden had reached level twenty-four a few days earlier, but Faith was still solidly in level twenty-three. Her hiatus had put her a little behind.

“What are you going to pick?” I asked curiously.

“Alchemist,” she replied without hesitation.

I wasn’t surprised. Faith had already shown a knack for applying Alchemy offensively. Though there might be a little overlap with her Cooking skill, it wasn’t enough for me to recommend she consider another path. In fact, her entire fighting style had already begun shifting to accommodate her growing arsenal.

“That’ll be good for you, especially if you continue pursuing Alchemy as a form of combat.” I turned to Aiden. “What about you? Do you have any plans for your second profession?”

“I took Crafter for my first one, so I was thinking about taking Mage since I have two affinities. I considered doing Pyromancer since I only ever really use Fire, but just in case I want to use Air—”

“You never use Air spells,” Faith cut him off with a playful swat. “You only have one, and I think I’ve seen you cast it like three times the whole time we’ve known each other. Stick to what you love.”

Aiden glanced between me and Faith. I didn’t feel strongly either way, so I just shrugged. “Either one would be fine. General professions tend to give less experience over a wider base. If you know most of your spells will be Fire-related, it might be worth specializing. If you want to branch into Air magic more, sticking with Mage would probably be better.”

He nodded in acknowledgment but didn’t comment. Ultimately, it was his decision. Either way, he’d have to put some effort into gaining experience through crafting unless he found some way to use magic that didn’t involve killing. I was almost positive neither of them had earned their alternate level for the tier yet.