The First Archmage

(Gavin)

I mentally review the things I determined in the Training Dimension as Kade discusses their plan for taking on the beast, now that they're all a fair bit stronger. Several of them managed to ascend a Tier higher in a Class or two than they were before I arrived.

There were several things of note that I determined with the addition of the Training Dimension and while training in it.

A Tier X Skill awards 10,000 Experience upon reaching that Tier and when it reaches Level 10, as well as 1,000 Experience every Level between, for a total of 28,000 Experience. This means that Tier VII Skills do not award 7,000 Experience upon Mastering, but four times as much.

In addition to that, I have determined that the Dekami Scholar was wrong, and that fully mastering a spell to the ultimate doesn't actually give another Subspecies Slot or any Stat Bonuses. That may only be for certain Species, such as the tier of Species the Dekami and Dragons and such are at.

Finally, I have also confirmed that while a Skill that has multiple Tiers to it does, indeed, grant Experience for Mastering, Skills that don't have multiple Tiers to them do not. That was something I suspected from the start, considering the number of Skills I have Mastered from Tier I and Tier II that did not grant me Experience upon Mastering.

I was able to confirm this with Silence, Roar, and Blindness, thanks to Kade's people allowing me to test those on them (I might have also given some of them nightmares from the Roars), which are all at Tier III, so a Tier or two higher than the ones that didn't grant Experience for Mastering, and with Shroud of Gardens and Mysts of the Lake, which are Tier IV Skills, so yet another Tier higher.

"Is everyone ready?" Kade concludes his discussions, and everyone confirms it. "Alright, then let's set off," he glances to me. "Are you coming?"

"Yes," I answer. "Though I'll retain a distance, and only interfere if it's absolutely necessary. Your team should be able to deal with the Demon Boar, but regardless, it will die today. How long will it take to reach it?"

"Approximately four hours," he answers. "Based on what our scouts have determined."

"Alright," I say. "I'm going to give you all the Gift when we draw nearer to it, which is part of the reason I'm coming, as I'd suspected such a thing. However, before we leave here, I am going to give everyone in your Party a Quest, yourself included. It's for each member of the Party individually, but the Quest is assigned to the Party itself."

Quest Issued!

Requirement: Slay the Demon Boar harassing the settlements on Emerald Island

Reward: 2,000 Experience (44,000 Total)

-28,050 Experience (25% reduction for issuing to a Party of over 20 members)

Experience Remaining: 92,998

Everyone's eyes blanch when they receive their Quests, reminding me just how absurdly high 2,000 Experience really is. I probably could have doubled that, actually. Maybe I could amend the Quest?

Quest Amended!

Requirement: Slay the Demon Board harassing the settlements on Emerald Island

Reward: 4,000 Experience (88,000 Total)

-28,050 Experience (25% reduction for issuing to a Party of over 20 members)

Experience Remaining: 64,948

"Gavin!" Kade exclaims, blushing furiously for some weird reason.

"Yes?" I ask.

"What are you doing?"

"Ignoring the normal limitations of Quest Rewards, why?"

"How are you even able to sacrifice that much Experience?" He asks. "First you issued 2,000 Experience as the Reward, now it's 4,000!"

"Oh, that?" I ask. "I have a lot of Unused Experience that I can just grant."

He stares at me.

"How do you have unused Experience?"

"Several different reasons," I answer. "Mastering a Skill that has multiple Tiers to it grants you Experience based on its base Tier – a thousand per Tier for the base Tier. Tier X Spells grant even more than that, granting Experience every Level of it. This Experience is just General Experience – that is, it can be used for anything that takes Experience, and this works even if you're incapable of gaining Experience. It doesn't have to be used immediately. I've been using it to help out some of the higher members of my Order and my apprentice, but I feel that if you can manage to defeat this thing, you can get the bonus as well."

"You have an apprentice?" Kade asks.

"You have five hours until my Fear Ward fades."

"Right," he says. "Let's go."

We begin the journey out of the village and through the woods, and once we're near the Demon Boar's territory, I give them the Gift.

"Shouldn't we wait until we're closer?" Kade asks. "It should be-"

"It's roughly two hundred yards that way," I indicate a direction to the east. "Sounds like it's in a cave."

"A cave?" He asks.

"It's eating."

"Are you sure?"

I listen for a few moments.

"Yes," I answer. "Judging by the sounds within it, it's the beast's den. I'll be ascending into the sky and observing from there, so as to not affect the fight unintentionally."

With that, I soar into the air, stretching my wings. I left myself in my natural Human form, because I know the battle below will make it a little hard for me to resist flaunting myself, now that I'm aware of the effect being a Timeless One has on my mental state. It affects me even when I'm not in my natural Human form, it seems.

I keep an ear on the battle, looking at them every now and then as they fight, but for the most part, I think about my plans for the future. I can use my new Skill to get my brothers and apprentice trained well, so that they may become capable of handling themselves even better before my departure from this plane of existence.

I also need to construct new shrines for Nies. This cave here looks like a good spot for it, and I still need to find a decent space back at headquarters. Might add one to our outpost in the city I left Eli and Dylan in. There are Spirits guarding it for us.

Before I pass, I also need to work on improving the Training Dimensions' runes and spells so that they are more efficient in terms of Resources, and also to finish making the others. This way, I can pass them on to my apprentice and brother before I pass. Tristan wouldn't be able to sustain them, despite his immense age and level of power.

That's mostly due to his body being a fair bit more fragile, at its base.

Otherwise, he would be able to take them on.

Another option would be to create a space that functions similar to the Training Dimension Skill. Working on creating that might not be a bad idea, either.

There's also the matter of locating the Kratus. I'd like to befriend a leader of them, so that I can take on their Blessing. The bonus to Enchanting that would definitely occur would be a massive boon for me in creating said space.

Doing that, I could leave behind the formulas to create them through the Skill, but not have to worry about my apprentice or brother being able to create them, as that could likely take many more years than I have.

I'm technically an incomprehensible monstrosity. Due to both the bonuses from Dekami Bloodline and the triplicating bonus from having qualified for Wizard before acquiring Access to the System, neither of them could reach my levels as fast as I have, and part of the reason I did was because of Dekami's bonus to all Experience acquired in Dungeons and my heavy training in one combined with the triplicating bonus.

And since that was before Experience only generated with and for things relating to the Class, they would be able to take advantage of something like that again.

Though I do want a way for my Order's members to be able to grind Experience and Levels. The forests surrounding the valley are mostly filled with animals for food, not many monsters, so they'd have to travel several hours past the edge of the valley to get into the mountains to do proper hunting.

Something like the Tower Dungeon would be nice, though I've no clue how to get one of those, and according to Michael, they only appear there, sort of like with the Grind Arenas in the realm of the Dark Knights.

Speaking of them, I still need to check out the location he suspects one of Tristan's Grimoires are in. While I'm there, I can investigate said Grind Arenas. It might give me an idea for something.

I smile, thinking about Michael's stories of that place – and his encounters with the spiders. He's over his fear of large spiders, but his shriek when a regular, non-monster spider was spotted in a corner…

That was hilarious. I heard it and went to investigate, thinking something was wrong, and found him on the table yelling at Warren to kill it. For good measure, I hit it with a Blood Smite before the Fairy could take it out.

"Whooo!" A voice calls, and I turn my gaze to the party, who seem to have slain the beast.

I descend down to the party, my thoughts about the future disrupted.

"Congratulations," I tell the team. No casualties this time. "Do you mind if I do something with the cave? Or would you rather I don't?"

"What is it?" Kade asks. "And were you paying attention to us at all."

"At first."

He laughs.

"So what do you want to do with the cave?"

"Make another shrine for my patron," I answer, and he gives me an annoyed look. "He's the Origin of Quests and Adventures. I got him millions of followers some months back, and he's happy about that, but he could probably do with another shrine or ten. As long as you put good food on his shrine and offer up a prayer, there's a chance you'll have a bit better luck on any journeys you undertake – or any quests or Quests that you're performing. He also doesn't care if you're worshiping another Divine Being, not discriminating for those who give him good treats when he bestows a lucky blessing upon someone. With you guys being on a series of islands, having a place to get good luck for travels would be beneficial, unless you plan on never leaving the island. In addition, a hunt like this would qualify as an adventure to him, and so he'd be likely to give a blessing of luck with a proper enough offering. Not saying you'd win, but the odds of people dying if you can't win would definitely be lower."

Kade thinks about that for a few moments, then nods.

"Sounds reasonable enough," he says. "How long would it take you?"

"Moments," I answer. "If I use my magic to do it. I will, if you are okay with it, as I need to return to my Order and its businesses elsewhere and don't have the time to work on it by hand, though it makes no real difference either way, as a mortal-made shrine is still a shrine."

"Alright," he says. "Thank you for your help, Gavin. Once you finish, we'll return to town."

I nod, then make my way into the cave, clearing it out with my magic to erase all signs of the boar's presence, then I begin to weave my powers together, creating an altar within it surrounded by braziers blazing with fire that will never go out, the altar itself black with crimson tigers carved into it.

Once I finish that, I pull food out of my ring and set them on top. Several cakes, baked just for this occasion, along with many other treats he likes.

As soon as they're on the altar, the Divine Being appears on the other side of it, watching me from his tigers.

"Meanie."

"Hello, Nies," I say as two tigers sit beside the altar, the shrine becoming an official Shrine to Nies. "Do you like it?"

"…maybe."

He quickly swipes a cookie off the altar, cramming it into his mouth.

"It's mediocre."

He grabs another and shoves that into his mouth, then another, then another. The twenty-two Adventurers behind me are staring, likely encountering a Descended Divine Being for the first time in their mortal lives.

In their lives.

Stop that, Gavin. You, too, are mortal, and you know you can die.

"I'm glad you like it," I tell Nies. "Is my babysitting duty over?"

"No."

"I made you a second shrine."

"You haven't even been watching him the last month."

"It's a good lesson for my apprentice."

"You just want to get out of it," he finishes the first plate of cookies and moves on to the plate of sticky buns.

"Says the Divine Being who's pawning his son off on mortals so he doesn't have to deal with him," I say. "And Nies? I do deal with him when I'm stopping by the Order's headquarters. I even spanked him and put him in time-out for that prank he pulled on the Elves."

He sighs.

"Okay," he says. "But only because you made me another shrine. We're even."

He vanishes, along with all of the food on it, and I turn to face the Adventurers.

"Let's had back to town, shall we?" I ask. "There are a few things I want to discuss with Kade and some of you and others, then I'll be heading back to my Order's headquarters, so that I can work on some other things."