Silver Spoon Series

With some time on his hands, Alan decided to explore his qi channels more thoroughly. He had been reading his opponents more than his own, and that had only allowed him to predict when they would move, and sometimes how. He hoped that by studying his own, that much like with his aura, he would gain a better understanding of what he was seeing.

The first thing he was able to confirm was that the channels were tied tightly to his aura. He had figured that was the case since Tamee had given him direction on cultivating his aura, but had never mentioned his qi. Either she was unaware of these pathways, unlikely, or it wasn't something she thought he should worry about yet. Most likely Alan had once again managed to score an ability that he shouldn't have yet.

Because the tutorial was here to help them learn the rules and how things worked, then since there hadn't been any instruction on dealing with the qi pathways they must have been taken care of for them somehow. The simplest solution would be if their cultivation of their aura also helped with their qi. It looked like Occam was right again. While it was moving different energy, the channels moving his qi seemed to occupy the same space in his body.

Obviously there was some magical or metaphysical chicanery going on, but what else was new. Having located the channels in his own body, he now tried to study what caused them to activate. Yes, they were always moving some energy through his body, just like his aura was, but it tended to send surges through specific channels at times. His aura was almost always full of energy and some was simply siphoned away when it was needed.

Qi on the other hand, seemed to be tied into his stamina somehow. It was a perfect causation. Simply running, for example, caused his stamina to drop, but it didn't have much effect on the qi flowing through him. However, sudden bursts or dramatic changes in how his body moved did cause surges of energy through his newfound pathways. Activating some of his skills also caused a surge. Twin slash, especially caused noticeable waves of energy to flow through his arms, and also to his head.

Having run a number of tests, Alan sat down and started cooking while he thought. The campsite Thadrick's party had left here included a rough fire ring, so he set up the grill he always carried with him these days and roasted a hunk of boar meat he had harvested off of some of the animals he had killed while testing his qi. He also got a pot going and boiled some potatoes. He planned on mashing them up with some herbs he had collected from his farm and some of the spices he had won.

Alan had been using some terms interchangeably as he thought about the way things worked in the Network. Mana and energy had become synonymous with each other in his head, but that didn't seem to be true. Mana was just one type of energy, and qi seemed to be another. Just as his aura helped move the mana through his body, but the energy inside of it wasn't actually mana, his qi pathway helped move stamina, but that wasn't its major purpose.

He would need a lot more testing to try and figure out the nuances, or he could always buy a pamphlet or seven on the topic to help him along. Or Tamee could actually explain exactly how it worked. He had to chuckle to himself at that thought. The last thing he wanted to test out while mashing and mixing his potatoes, was where the qi came from.

As expected, Alan found the source to be his soul. Just as his aura was somehow connected to the fount that was his soul, so were the channels for his qi. It seemed, though, that the energy passing through the two sets of pathways was decidedly different. This seemed to be an example of the concept of being able to split things, but not recombine them. His soul produced some kind of pure energy, but perhaps his body wasn't capable of using it in that form. It was split up into at least two different types, one that flowed through his aura, and the other was qi.

While he ate his meat and potatoes, he considered what this said about non-sapient creatures. Their defining characteristic was a lack of a soul, so did that mean they could have both mana and chi? Were they limited to one or the other? That didn't quite seem to fit what he'd seen because he had been able to detect both auras and chi channels inside of his foes. It was something to dig into more as he leveled up his new skill.

It had been about two hours since he arrived with no sign of the others yet. Alan was willing to give them two more, hoping they were simply out leveling up their classes while they waited on him. Since he had some time and was close to a large body of water, Alan decided to tinker more with his fire bolt spell. He had been looking to get a real fireball spell for a while now.

This led to him reaching into his mana pool and pulling out a single strand. From there, he started trying to pull it apart into different pieces, seeing what type of mana he was currently able to manipulate. Having his mana handling upgrade to general energy handling had dropped the level of the skill, but he wasn't noticing any decrease in his capabilities. If anything, he was finding it easier. More strands of mana were sacrificed in the interest of seeing what he could find. In addition to mana concepts like ignition, heat, and combustion, he was also able to get one specifically for flame, another for insulation, and he was getting hints of something that seemed similar to heat, but more intense if that made sense.

Alan also explored air mana, hoping to bring some other elements in to help compress the fire, ease its passage, and help with its explosive ability. After all, fire had always needed air to help it burn. That had led him down a rabbit hole of looking for other types of mana that might help him with his creation. The more types of mana he included, the more difficult it would be to find a workable spell form, but Alan had confidence in his own abilities.

Before he could actually get to designing his spell, Alan heard the sounds of fighting. Mixed in were shouts and what sounded like laughter. No doubt this was the party finally returning, and it seemed like they were in good spirits. Hopefully that meant they had succeeded in getting some rare stones. Alan could have used his senses to pierce through the minor shadows of the forest to watch them before they emerged, but he spent the time considering what would come next, instead of focusing on the adventurers. He could see how they were doing soon enough.

As they finally emerged into the field around the lake, Alan saw little had changed for them in terms of their equipment. That wasn't a surprise since the starter dungeons had pretty much been limited to giving out class stones. While their equipment was the same, the overall appearance was very different.

When they had left, the group had been that mostly in name. Each was still learning how they fit into the overall dynamic, and how they measured up to each other. They now had more personal confidence, and were much more talkative. Except for Gaud, of course, she had plenty to say right from the get go. Even the previously overly shy Nephila offered the occasional word as they made their way back to camp.

They had to have noticed Alan waiting there, even non-perception classed individuals under the Network should be able to see him sitting at their obvious destination. If they did know he was there, they did a good job of ignoring him. Instead they were sharing recaps with each other of their recent exploits, and ribbing each other for any embarrassing moments.

It made him a little melancholy to think of the rapport he used to have with his old team. Things had ended badly between him and Jim over his ex, but before that they had been a tight knit group. He could easily imagine it being his group returning from a successful mission. He thought of what he had been forced to give up by being all alone here, and while it had at times been hard, the rewards had also been pretty nice.

"How did you guys make out?" He called once they were all the way back at camp.

Alan had expected Thadrick to answer, given their previous relationship, but the dwarf turned to Danny and let him do the talking.

"Great! It took us a couple of days to get a handle on all the creatures here, but it wasn't quite as bad as you had described. After that we were all able to clear the eight dungeons."

Alan was listening, but also trying to get a read on if the dwarf was mad at him, or if he had just fully committed to following Dantelion's lead. It seemed it was the latter as he looked calmly back at Alan, waiting to hear what he thought.

"That is outstanding news. Have you all used your class stones yet, or were you waiting?"

Gaud could only hold back so long, so she blurted out the answer. "We had thought about waiting, but the decision was up to us anyway and it was just too exciting to wait. I took rogue, anything to make me a better fighter, and since I was pretty tough already, this should help me a lot. Nephila here took a seeker class. I guess maybe to help find things? She's a pretty good scout already, so this should make her better. Elluin decided…"

It was at that point that Dantelion cut her off. "Perhaps we should let everyone share their own choices. It is kind of personal, Gaud."

The golemoid actually blushed at the reminder, and Alan had to admit that the man was doing a pretty good job as their leader. He had let his verbose tank run on for a bit, but interrupted before she went too far. It hadn't escaped Alan notice that he had let her share for Nephila first, the reluctant speaker of the group. It was still going to take him a while to forgive the man, but it seemed Dantelion was going to do well by his group.

Elluin shared that he had picked up a seeker class as well. The man mumbled a lot so it was hard to make out what he was saying, even with Alan's powerful hearing, but he seemed happy with his choice. It was interesting to him that two had chosen seeker as a class, and Gaud had already had one. Was it perhaps held in high esteem in the Network?

Dantelion went next and explained that his fourth class had been scholar, another non-combat related class. Although, as Alan thought about it, all of the classes could relate to combat at least a little. For a speed based fighter, the focus stat could help them deal with the high speed physical calculations their body would have to run through. His own seeker class had also been useful in combat, just just for his ability to read and anticipate his opponents, but to also shrug off certain status effects.

Thadrick was the last one to share. "As you know, I only had two classes to start with. They worked together to make me a decent tank, but with this big gal here," he patted Gaud's back as he said this, "that role is already being filled. Then I thought back to what made you such a good fighter and I realized that I can't compete. But what I can do is fill one role that our party could use."

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"So what did you take?" Alan asked the expected question.

"Elluin here is much more excited about being a mage, and he was only our healer out of necessity. So I used a healer and seeker stone."

Technically Alan had only promised one rare stone to each of the recruited adventurers, but Alan had let his friend know that he was welcome to take a second. A single rare stone wouldn't make a big difference in his plans, and it would give Thadrick a huge opportunity. It seemed the dwarf had taken this chance to redefine himself, and Alan had to admit it made sense.

Their group had only the single magic user, and that meant their elf had to save his mana to heal, effectively negating his preferred abilities. Thadrick could take on the role of healer and free Elluin up to do what he seemed to love. He would need to pick up a proper healing spell first, but Thadrick could do that back in Elstree. What did surprise Alan was that the dwarf had taken seeker and not mage for his second stone. As a healer, mana was important, and a mage class would have provided a big boost.

Alan chose to ask, rather than stay ignorant. "Thadrick, if you don't mind, why did you choose a seeker class over mage. I would think you would want to boost your intelligence to increase your mana pool."

The other five all cast looks at each other before Gaud chose to answer. "Well, sure, that might help him a little now, but once he hits red grade, his spirit will provide a boost to his mana pool as well. Plus it will eventually help him to direct his healing spells better. He can always use stat boosting items to improve his intelligence, but there's no good way to replicate the extra senses he can gain through his spirit based classes."

It seemed there was something else Tamee had neglected to tell him about. If he was being fair, though, Alan had all the classes, so such things probably wouldn't really matter for him. Still, it would have been nice to know before he started handing out class stones. That brought up another question.

"How come most of the new healers in Elstree weren't picking seeker as their second class?"

Dantelion coughed lightly, as if in embarrassment, before answering. "Well, it's the kind of knowledge that those with classes, or who aspire to get classes, discuss. The vast majority of the people in the village probably thought the idea to be beyond them. If they had hope of earning classes, they probably wouldn't have uprooted their lives to come here. They probably thought no differently than you."

It turned out that having your entire planet, and body, ripped apart and then being recreated in a new universe with all different rules, was a pain in the neck. Every time he thought he was making progress, something came along that showed him he was still just a newb. Since they were in a sharing mood, Alan thought to ask them about qi.

Gaud was more than happy to explain what she knew. "Qi is an energy that powers your body. Just as mana is tied to your aura, stamina is tied to your qi. These two overlapping pathways connect all the scattered parts of your being and allow your soul to fuel your abilities."

Dantelion continued. "It's not something most people worry about until they get to higher grades, but it is necessary for activating a lot of abilities. The reason we don't worry about it at our level is that we have no control over it yet. That won't come for a while, if ever. Why do you ask?"

This seemed like another one of those things Alan shouldn't talk about. "It was something I heard someone mention and I thought your guys might know more about it. Thanks for telling me."

Maybe he wasn't supposed to be able to detect qi yet, just like his aura reading skill was way too advanced for him to have as a lowly white grade being. Alan would have to explore this more. If it really was the case that people didn't get access to their qi until much later, than he could potentially leverage his ability to give himself a huge advantage.

One of the advantages of working with Lyonel's crew and also assaulting Chrisly's gang was that he had gotten a chance to study their auras in more detail. When Alan had upgraded his aura to opal, he had taken a very hands on approach, something that pretty much no one else could do since they didn't have aura reading. That single ability had given him the power to better understand what was happening as his aura evolved and even his mana handling and mana enhancement skills had seemed to help him with modifying it. This had let him smooth out quite a few inefficiencies that had popped up during the transition.

At the time, he hadn't had anyone to compare his aura to. Now he had had the opportunity to look in detail at several other opal classers. They didn't have eight classes like he did, which made a difference, but he could see how many areas of wasted aura energy. Poor pathing led to eddies and partially blocked tubes. Alan's ran smoother than Mussilini's train system. If he could do something similar with his qi system, even though it already seemed to mirror his aura, it could be hugely impactful.

As they hiked across tier two, back to Elstree, Alan started pumping them for information. He interspersed questions about their recent adventuring so that they wouldn't feel interrogated, but he decided it was time to fill in some of the knowledge gaps he didn't even know he had. A big one was why class stones were so rare.

Being in the tutorial, there were dungeons whose whole purpose was giving class stones. Those didn't exist outside of these special beginner discs. There were only two ways of getting class stones in the wider universe, and both relied on the Network and dungeons. The first was as a random drop in Network dungeons. The second was from volunteering to participate in a Network dungeon. People without classes were naturally barred from the random drop option since they didn't have the strength to explore dungeons without one. This was mostly true for those with only one class as well. That left them with either volunteering for dungeons, a risky and limited opportunity, and buying one.

The price of a common class stone was somewhere around one to two hundred gold. It wasn't quite a fortune, but it is a sum that a respectable businessperson would have to work hard for a long time to save up for. And even after purchasing it, a single class wasn't as life changing as that much money could be to a poorer family. To get a second class, which opened a lot more doors than the first, would take an uncommon stone. Those went for well over five hundred gold.

Rare stones were sold for thousands and anything better than that couldn't be purchased with money. They were out there, but they usually went for incredibly rare treasures. The reason for this was that only quartz level people could gain quartz class stones as rewards. Since the Network provided rewards that could benefit you at least somewhat, it wouldn't give 'worthless' quartz stones to people who couldn't use them.

Most quartz adventurers who actively explored dungeons would only spend a relatively short time at that level before moving on. This had the effect of limiting how long they had the opportunity of finding these rewards. Elluin was the most knowledgeable about the drop rate of these things, and it seemed a common stone would drop maybe once every twenty dungeon runs, an uncommon stone every fifty, and rare stones were given maybe every hundred delves. If the drop rates for higher rarities were known, it wasn't something shared around.

It seemed that most adventurers were able to level up their classes to opal within thirty or forty runs. That was a surprise for Alan, because he had managed the feat with far fewer dungeons. He did have some extra quests helping him out, and he discovered that the dungeons here were better than what most adventurers had to work with.

'Wild' dungeons were rare on the outside, and a highly treasured commodity. These were dungeons that weren't created by a town. They were still Network controlled, but they usually were more powerful than the ones the towns and cities could acquire. This meant that each run provided better loot, and more of a challenge, which led to more leveling. Thinking of how Indiana's dungeon was currently set up it made sense.

As a brand new dungeon core, his difficulty level was similar to the type of dungeons that tier one towns could add. By the time a town broke through to being a city it could have one that was closer in power to what he had just run through, but that one wouldn't be able to service all of the adventurers that something the size of a city could field. Most would be restricted to the smaller dungeons.

Apparently it was the accepted practice for the common adventurers to have to purchase slots in dungeons. They would have to wait days or maybe even a week between their turns to dive the dungeon, and would have to give away a sizable portion of the rewards they gained. The town who controlled the dungeons obviously profited, and the adventurers were paid with the experience. Once they moved into opal or higher levels they had enough power to travel to more remote dungeons that would give them better rewards.

The next topic Alan broached was how the stats changed as people rose through the grades. He now knew that his spirit would eventually add to his mana pool, but what else would change. It seemed that perception and focus would help with qi, and just as constitution was a factor in health and stamina, so would strength and dexterity. His spirit would also improve his qi, but not by as much as the others. Alan wondered what other secret stats were out there and how they would affect things. Tamee had warned him that those things were only discussed with others who had also unlocked one. Technically Alan hadn't done that yet, but he had an achievement that promised to do so when he leveled up.

As knowledgeable as the group was, they didn't know much beyond what happened in the red grade, and pretty much nothing after orange. He did learn from Elluin's bragging that the elf had a skill called mana reading. He was excited to have it as only 'the elite' gained it as early as he had. It had apparently appeared during the mage dungeon challenge. As the man described it, Alan could tell it was a more limited version of aura reading. Because mana flowed through your aura, being able to sense mana meant you could get the shape of your aura, but there was more than mana flowing through those pathways and Elluin couldn't see those. It did mean the elf was able to start working on modifying and creating spells, something he was very excited for.

Without mana handling it would be a challenge, but now that he could see the actual mana, it shouldn't be too long until he got the handling skill to go with it. Alan hadn't realized that there was a lesser form of aura reading available. Neither his mentor nor Tamee had told him about it. It made sense, though, how else would you be able to explore different types of mana at the opal level if you couldn't even see the mana.

As they made their way through the tier two, Alan tried to stay away from his house and TS's patrol area, but through the limited bond they had formed he was able to detect him coming closer. He wasn't ready to share all of his secrets with this still unproven group, so he tried to send the wolf messages to stay away. As much as he tried, however, TS just kept coming closer. It seemed that he just couldn't communicate with him in the same way that he could with Indiana and Akilatjin.

That thought made him realize he had another option. He was also bonded to the little dragon worm, and so he tried to connect over their bond. He noticed that it was even stronger than it was before, but he could still not read anything from her. Alan was able to send a message, though, and shortly after, TS's bond showed the wolf moving away. It hurt a little that the at times hostile dragon was able to communicate with the wolf better than Alan could.

Alan's link with Akilatjin would bear some watching. He had originally hoped to bond with the little dragon, but her hostility made that unlikely. Whatever word he had for it though, bond or link, they had a connection and it was definitely getting stronger. He had already had something similar with TS, so it shouldn't be an actual bond like Tamee was talking about seeker classes forming. The fact that it was getting stronger despite them not spending any time together was either interesting or troubling. He wasn't sure which to go with at the moment.

That was a problem for future Alan. He had always scoffed at MCs who put their problems off for their future selves, but he now understood the appeal. He just didn't know enough at the moment to try and get a handle on it, so let his better informed future self deal with it. For now he was content to pump the adventurers for all the information he could get. Once back at Elstree Alan wanted to pull Thadrick aside for some actual catching up, but that was still hours away.