Chapter 56: Attendant Upgrades

Tess surveyed the window she had received from absorbing the cores, thoughtfully considering what things would go best where.

You have absorbed a Spitfire Phoenix Core!

Slots filled: 12/27

You have gained 1,590 EXP in Monster Breeder!

Monster Breeder has leveled up!

You have absorbed a Mountainous Mole Core!

Slots filled: 13/28

You have gained 1,035 EXP in Monster Breeder!

New cores absorbed! Scanning for abilities…

New Skills detected!

Attempting to degrade and obtain Phoenix Fire…

Congratulations, you have successfully obtained Wreathed in Flames!

Attempting to degrade and obtain Reborn from the Ashes…

Congratulations, you have successfully obtained Fragile Rebirth!

Attempting to degrade and obtain Purifying Flames…

Congratulations, you have successfully obtained Soothing Flames!

Attempting to degrade and obtain Fire Magic (High)…

User already has Fire Magic (Moderate). No Skill obtained.

Attempting to degrade and obtain Mountain out of a Molehill…

Congratulations, you have successfully obtained Soil Sanctuary!

Attempting to degrade and obtain Earth’s Embrace…

Congratulations, you have successfully obtained Ground Grip!

Attempting to degrade and obtain Regenerative Retreat…

Congratulations, you have successfully obtained Healing Hideaway!

Attempting to degrade and obtain Earth Magic (High)…

User already has Earth Magic (Moderate). No Skill obtained.

Wreathed in Flames

Rarity: Legendary

Type: Passive

Description:

You are coated in a layer of deadly flames. These flames do not affect you or your possessions in any way, but creatures have a 20% chance to be set on fire every second they are within five feet of you. This fire lasts for 10 seconds and deals 10% of your health as damage per second. These flames can be turned on and off, and their temperature can be adjusted at will. Without adjustment, the temperature defaults to 1,100°C, can go as low as 30°C and as high as 1,350°C. 25 Mana per second can be spent to further increase the temperature, allowing it to go as high as 1,700°C. Creatures take damage from the extreme temperature as normal, though the temperature drops off ten feet away from you. Any effect from an outside source that would set the user on fire instead strengthens these flames, doubling their volume and range for the duration.

Is it hot in here…never mind, it’s just you.

Fragile Rebirth

Rarity: Epic

Type: Passive

Description:

When you reach zero HP, an egg forms around you. If the egg remains intact for three minutes, you return to life with half HP, Mana, and Stamina, otherwise you die as normal. The egg has health equal to twenty-five percent of your maximum health, and its defensive stats are equal to double yours. Your passive Skills continue to apply while you are in the egg.

Better than dying, but if you’re in a situation where you died in the first place it’s probably not going to help that much.

Soothing Flames

Rarity: Legendary

Type: Passive

Description:

Your flames are both weapon and panacea. Your allies do not take direct damage from your fire attacks, and any time they would take damage from your flames have a 10% chance to be healed of any one status affliction. Your allies suffer the effects of the heat of the flames as normal.

Your fire would be a great tool for medicine if it didn’t have the unfortunate habit of cooking anything not properly shielded. Amazing if you’re trying to heal a fire elemental, though.

Soil Sanctuary

Rarity: Rare

Type: Active

Description:

If you are touching dirt, sand, or other loose material, you may spend 500 Stamina to bring much of it to the surface, creating an enormous wall of the material encasing a small clear area with you as the center. This small hill is as packed and durable as it would be if that amount of material had been moved to the surface manually and left to settle. This Skill may be used while underneath loose material to open a path to the surface for only 100 Stamina.

While it may not be more sturdy than normal dirt, there’s a lot of it.

Ground Grip

Rarity: Rare

Type: Active

Description:

You may spend 100 Stamina to have the ground itself reach up and grab a target, encasing it in up to 10 feet of whatever material the target is standing on, but not more than 1 foot taller than the target. If there is not enough material to fully encase the target, points of mobility are targeted first.

Is conveniently bio-degradable. Usually.

Healing Hideaway

Rarity: Legendary

Type: Active

Description:

You may spend 1,000 Stamina and Mana to designate an enclosed space with no more than one opening to the outside as a healing zone. You and your allies regenerate 1% of your maximum HP and Stamina every five seconds while inside this area. You may only have one space designated as a healing zone at a time, and if more than one opening is ever created, the zone is rendered inactive until there is only one opening.

Just camp your opponents out. They have to come to you now.

Displaying core information:

Spitfire Phoenix Core:

Level 68

Estimated Power: 1,200

Estimated Maximum Power if Enhanced: 2,400

Stats:

HP: 4,400

MP: 13,100

Stamina: 5,000

Power: 325

Defense: 290

Magic: 660

Magic Defense: 630

Agility: 690

Luck: 540

Current Skills:

Fire Magic (High)

Phoenix Fire

Purifying Flames

Reborn from the Ashes

Current Attributes:

Exceptional Flier

Feathers (Fundamental)

Fire Immunity

Fire Affinity

Sharp Beak (Major)

Sharp Talons (Major)

Wings (Fundamental)

Mountainous Mole Core:

Level 55

Estimated Power: 900

Estimated Maximum Power if Enhanced: 1,700

Stats:

HP: 10,000

MP: 4,200

Stamina: 10,000

Power: 750

Defense: 510

Magic: 110

Magic Defense: 240

Agility: 275

Luck: 300

Current Skills:

Earth’s Embrace

Earth Magic (High)

Mountain out of a Molehill

Regenerative Retreat

Current Attributes:

Earth Affinity

Earth Swimmer

Fur (Fundamental)

Sharp Claws (Major)

Stereo Smell (Greater)

Tremorsense (Perfect)

New Attributes Discovered!

Earth Affinity:

Strengthens the effect of Earth Magic cast by the creature by 50%

Earth Swimmer:

Allow for effortless travel through any loose soil, sand, or similar material, and limited burrowing through most types of rock.

Exceptional Flier:

Allows the creature to fly in ways that should barely be possible, enabling it to perform various acrobatic maneuvers and even giving the ability to hover in place, regardless of the creature’s biology.

Fire Immunity:

Gives the creature immunity to fire damage from most sources and grants the creature complete resistance to temperatures warmer than 30°C that are colder than 2,250°C, as well as partial resistance up to 2,500°C.

Fire Affinity:

Strengthens the effect of Fire Magic cast by the creature by 50%

Stereo Smell (Greater):

Greatly heightens the creature’s sense of smell, to the point where it can be easily used as a replacement for sight or other, similar senses.

Tremorsense (Perfect):

Enormously heightens the creature’s sense of touch, allowing it to ‘see’ through solids it is touching, with a range of up to 300 feet. This heightening of sense is not subject to any sort of sensory overload from heavy vibrations.

New Skills Discovered!

Earth’s Embrace

Rarity: Epic

Type: Active

Description:

You may spend 50 Stamina to have the ground itself reach up and grab a target, encasing it in up to 20 feet of whatever material the target is standing on, but not more than 1 foot taller than the target. If there is not enough material to fully encase the target, additional material will be created to allow fully encasing the target. This extra material disappears after 10 minutes.

Does it count as being bio-degradable if it disappears into nothing?

Mountain out of a Molehill

Rarity: Legendary

Type: Active

Description:

If you are touching dirt, sand, or other loose material, you may spend 500 Stamina to bring a huge amount of it to the surface, creating a titanic wall of the material encasing a small clear area with you as the center. A smaller amount of rock and other harder material is brought with the loose material, strengthening it immensely. This miniature mountain is as packed and durable as it would be if that amount of material had been moved to the surface manually and left to settle, and is additionally reinforced magically, making it roughly three times harder than the material would otherwise be. This Skill may be used while underneath loose material to open a path to the surface for only 100 Stamina.

This is why we didn’t want you to make a mountain out of a molehill. It’s a pain to clean up.

Phoenix Fire

Rarity: Mythical

Type: Passive

Description:

You are coated in a layer of deadly flames. These flames do not affect you or your possessions in any way, but creatures have a 20% chance to be set on fire every second they are within ten feet of you. This fire lasts for 15 seconds and deals 20% of your health as damage per second. These flames can be turned on and off, and their temperature can be adjusted at will. Without adjustment, the temperature defaults to 1,300°C, can go as low as 30°C and as high as 1,500°C. 25 Mana per second can be spent to further increase the temperature, allowing it to go as high as 1,900°C. Creatures take damage from the extreme temperature as normal, though the temperature drops off twenty feet away from you. The user can spend 50 Mana per second to concentrate these flames into a lash of fire that can reach up to 60 feet away from the user. This lash can be controlled at will, and may be shaped in any way the user desires.  Any effect from an outside source that would set the user on fire instead strengthens these flames, doubling their volume and range for the duration.

Ok seriously turn down the heat, this is getting excessive

Purifying Flames

Rarity: Mythical

Type: Passive

Description:

Your flames are both weapon and panacea. Your allies do not take direct damage from your fire attacks, are immune to any negative effects of the heat of the flames, and any time they would take damage from your flames have a 20% chance to be healed of any one status affliction.

Forget leeches, just burn it instead. It’ll work, I promise.

Reborn from the Ashes

Rarity: Mythical

Type: Passive

Description:

When you reach zero HP, you are revived with full HP, Mana, and Stamina after one minute. Each time this ability is used in a day, the amount of health regained is reduced by an amount equal to the damage dealt to you by the hit that brought you to zero HP. If you would regain less than one third of your maximum health, instead an egg forms around you. If the egg remains intact for three minutes, you return to life with full HP, Mana, and Stamina, otherwise you die as normal. The egg has health equal to twenty-five percent of your maximum health, and its defensive stats are equal to double yours. Your passive Skills continue to apply while you are in the egg.

…We really should have nerfed this before you got it. Oh well, if it’s a problem, we’ll nerf it later, no big deal.

Regenerative Retreat

Rarity: Mythical

Type: Active

Description:

You may spend 1,000 Stamina and Mana to designate an enclosed space with no more than two openings to the outside as a healing zone. You and your allies regenerate 2% of your maximum HP and Stamina every five seconds while inside this area. You may only have one space designated as a healing zone at a time, and if more than two openings are ever present, the zone is rendered inactive until there are only two openings.

Yeah, running and hiding is kinda lame but it’s also optimal so don’t let anyone give you flak for it

Well, that hadn’t been what she was planning on getting, but she was absolutely going to use quite a few of those for herself. First off, she had an extra slot available for an Attribute now, so she moved Blighted Body from a User Fundamental slot to it. She really wasn’t gaining that much more benefit from it than if she kept it in a regular slot, so she was going to put something else in the newly-freed slot.

And her gut said that something else would have to be Tremorsense (Perfect). Being able to basically see through the floor, around corners, through walls…it was too good to pass up, and even if putting it in a User Fundamental slot only increased the range, it would be well worth it.

So, she did…and then immediately let out a yelp as she was bombarded with all sorts of unfamiliar new sensations. She didn’t even really register the window that popped up informing her of what it did in a User Fundamental slot until a moment later, as she just…processed all the new information.

New User Fundamental Attribute discovered!

Tremorsense (Perfect) (User Fundamental):

Enormously heightens the creature’s sense of touch, allowing it to ‘see’ through solids it is touching, with a range of up to 450 feet. This effect works at drastically reduced capacity through liquids and gases; every foot of liquid is equivalent to 15 feet of a solid, and every foot of gas is equivalent to 30 feet of a solid. This heightening of sense is not subject to any sort of sensory overload from heavy vibrations.

She could feel as Ellie ran from her room, practically sprinting as she sprang up from her bed and burst into the hallway before throwing the door to Tess’s room open. “Tess, are you okay?!” She asked, looking around wildly. “Did something go wrong?!”

“It’s…it’s fine.” Tess said, waving a hand. “I’m just…still getting used to this new Attribute. I just got an entirely new sense from it, so I was shocked at first.”

“Oh, I…um…I’ll leave you alone to get used to it, then, this probably isn’t helping. Let me know when you’re ready to talk, I want to hear about it.” Ellie said awkwardly, shutting the door as softly as she could and walking back to her room.

Tess could feel Silky skittering about worriedly on the bed behind her, as well as the mice in the walls and the insects and…she took a deep breath, calming herself. It honestly wasn’t as bad as she might have thought. It wasn’t actually giving her a headache or anything, it worked perfectly fine, it was just a little overwhelming to basically be able to ‘see’ the entire house and some of the outside all at the same time.

She’d have to force herself to get used to it later, and she was guessing she’d keep it off when it wasn’t necessary, since she didn’t really want to be privy to everything like this, but it was definitely an addition that would help her out greatly.

She turned it off, and got to deciding where to put everything else. The magic Skills would be going on Isabella, since she had a much higher Magic stat than either Tess or Silky. Regenerative Retreat would go on…either Silky or Isabella, since Tess didn’t even have enough Mana or Stamina to use it, but those two did.

She’d be taking Phoenix Fire, Purifying Flames, and Reborn from the Ashes, while Earth’s Embrace would be for Silky, and Mountain out of a Molehill would go to Isabella, which took care of all of the Skills.

Which just left the Attributes. The Affinity Attributes would go to Isabella, and that took care of pretty much everything she wanted for her, making Isabella much more of an offensive presence than she was before.

She’d take Fire Immunity for herself, and that was everything she wanted. To make room for that, she removed Part of the Pack (inferior), since that was really just a placeholder, got rid of Keen Nose (Greater) since she barely ever used it and she was planning on giving Stereo Smell (Greater) to Silky anyway, and finally, Rallying Cry she’d give to Silky, leaving her with room for everything.

And that just left what she wanted for Silky. Earth Swimmer was probably not very useful without Tremorsense (Perfect), but if she could fit it in, that would be something to give to her, just in case. Next would be Stereo Smell (Greater), to give Silky yet another tool for scouting and make it so Tess didn’t need to worry about smell-enhancing Attributes.

And, finally Wings, and Exceptional Flier. She had originally decided that wings weren’t worth it on Silky since the jump in ‘current power’ was quite large and Silky would be able to scale walls and other things anyway, but it turned out that there were still situations in which flying would be beneficial for her, so she had decided it was worth it.

She really wished she was able to sort of…migrate her attendant’s form to other cores, giving them the stats of the new core with the body type of the old, or just otherwise increase their stats of their original core, but that was apparently something that came later on in the Class, so for right now she had to work around their current limitations.

Fortunately, she had left a fair bit of room in their ‘current power’ as opposed to their maximum, so she probably had enough breathing room to put in everything she wanted, as well whatever else she had lying around, so she could maximize that ‘power’ and make them as strong as possible.

“Alright you guys.” She told them. “Do you know of a way to just return to your cores or do I have to…” She trailed off, not wanting to say what she was thinking. She really didn’t want to kill these two if she could avoid it, it would just…leave a bad taste in her mouth.

Don’t worry! Silky said, scuttling around so she was in Tess’s line of sight. We can do it, so long as we have permission! Do you want us to do it now?

“Yes, please.” Tess replied, relieved. “Though Isabella may want to come out of me first.”

“Understood.” Isabella droned, floating out of Tess. She gave a small curtsey, then just sort of…faded out of existence, a core falling to the floor when she was done.

For her part, Silky gave a salute, and then began fading much as Isabella had, until there were only two cores on the floor.

Tess picked them up and absorbed them, prompting a window to show up, informing her that she had absorbed her attendant’s cores and that the slots had been freed up. She was somewhat surprised to note that their cores had leveled up somewhat in the time they were out, allowing her a little more breathing room with their modifications.

Furthermore, there was a special Attribute for their memories, meaning that, in a pinch, she could just transplant them to a different core entirely if she didn’t mind making them look completely different. She was satisfied with how they were now, though, and she didn’t want to move them to a much stronger core for fear of instilling bad habits in them and in her from them being so overleveled.

Now that she had Precision Surgery, she could adjust their stats too, so she did that as well. Silky wasn’t really built for damage, so she took as much as she could out of Power and Magic and placed it into Agility and called it good. Isabella, on the other hand, had a lot of stats she wasn’t using, since she spent most of her time undetected inside of Tess. HP, Power, Defense, Magic Defense, and Agility were all put as low as they could go, and the extra points put into Magic and Mana.

With that, all that was left to do was transfer Skills and Attributes she wanted over to them and a couple extras to fill get their power as close to maximum as possible. After she was finished, she took one last look at them before preparing to bring them back into existence.

Blacker Widow Core:

Level 25

Estimated Power: 498

Estimated Maximum Power if Enhanced: 500

Stats:

HP: 2,040

Mana: 2,100

Stamina: 2,030

Power: 103 (144 - 28%)

Defense: 113

Magic: 102 (142 - 28%)

Magic Defense: 111

Agility: 334 (253 + 81)

Luck: 125

Current Skills:

Decaying Touch

Earth’s Embrace

Induce Despair

Rallying Cry

Current Attributes:

Amphibious

Arachnid (Fundamental)

Common Language Proficiency

Exceptional Flier

Increased Intelligence (Moderate)

Night Vision (Greater)

Sharp Claws (Major)

Sharp Fangs (Greater)

Silky’s Memories

Spiderclimb

Stereo Smell (Greater)

Sticky Web (Major)

Wings

Lady Isabella Core:

Level 31

Estimated Power: 605

Estimated Maximum Power if Enhanced: 610

Stats:

HP: 1,470 (2,050 - 28%)

Mana: 5,100 (4,100 + 1,000)

Stamina: 1,640

Power: 93 (130 - 28%)

Defense: 93 (129 - 28%)

Magic: 457 (310 + 147)

Magic Defense: 223 (310 - 28%)

Agility: 73 (102 - 28%)

Luck: 155

Current Skills:

Dark Magic (Basic)

Decaying Touch

Earth Magic (High)

Fire Magic (High)

Haunt

Haunting Wail

Induce Despair

Mountain out of a Molehill

Paralyzing Blows

Piercing Wail

Regenerative Retreat

Summon Undead

Current Attributes:

Common Language Proficiency

Earth Affinity

Fire Affinity

Increased Intelligence (Moderate)

Intangible (Fundamental)

Isabella’s Memories

Greater Levitation

Humanoid

Night Vision (Greater)

She nodded her head in satisfaction, took a deep breath, then sent a message to Ellie.

Tess: I’m going to be ejecting Silky and Isabella’s cores. I’m probably going to make some noise since this is…not a particularly pleasant process. Don’t freak out, OK?

Ellie: How long does this normally take? When should I start being worried?

Tess: Like…five minutes for the both of them. It’s not long, but…yeah. Um, I’ll let you know when I’m done

Ellie: Got it. Talk to you then

Tess sighed, made her preparations, and got to work.

A few minutes later she had both Silky and Isabella back, had finished using the towel she had laid out to clean up any remaining mess, and had dressed herself again.

Tess: I’m done

Ellie: Oh thank goodness. Are you feeling OK? Anything still hurting? That…did not sound fun.

Tess: Aside from a slight soreness, I’m fine. If it’s like last time, I’ll be feeling completely fine in like ten minutes

Ellie: That’s good to hear. Um…after that, what do you want to do?

Tess: Dunno, I’m good for whatever, I guess

Ellie: Well…Grandpa says he’s not going to be home until really late tonight. Maybe we should make some dinner and then have some…fun?

Tess: Sounds great. We can get started on dinner now, if you’d like

Ellie: No, you stay there. I’ll start on dinner, you come once you’re feeling better. I don’t want to see you for at least ten minutes, alright?

Tess: Got it. Um, thanks

Ellie: Don’t mention it. I’ll see you in a few minutes, love you!

Tess: Love you too!

Tess smiled slightly, sitting on her bed. “How are you two feeling?” She asked.

Better than ever! Silky said happily. I’m feeling…stronger, smarter, everything is better!

“I agree.” Isabella said. “It feels…good. Thank you, mistress.”

“Don’t mention it.” Tess replied. “Let me know if anything starts feeling off, we’ll get it fixed.”

“Understood.” Isabella replied, taking her usual position inside of Tess.

Got it! I’m gonna go eat, let me know if you need me! Silky said, scuttling out under the door and into the rest of the house.

Tess took out her phone, made note of the time, and began to mess around. Now that the thing she was most worried about was out of the way, it was looking like the night was going to be a good one, and she couldn’t wait.

Fighterman481

Sorry about the big windows if you don't like those, I guess, there wasn't really much of a way around it otherwise. I'm going to try and avoid showing their full statuses in the future just to streamline things more, so that should help cut down on things.

Anyway, for those curious, it's mentioned that their cores leveled up. Silky was originally level 18, and Isabella level 30. Silky obviously gained more levels due to starting much lower and also because, as I...believe I've mentioned (early on in the story), experience to the next level jumps drastically every 25th level. 

And, if you're wondering how their stats would compare, Tess had 58 in all her stats at level 25, and at level 31 had 70 in every stat (she's level 32 now, so 72 in everything). Of course, it's worth noting that boss monster stat scaling works differently than normal people scaling, but that only really comes into effect at higher levels. At this level, bosses are actually not too different from regular monsters their level, just with somewhat higher stats.  And they tend to be a fair few levels higher than other monsters in their dungeon, so that puts them apart too.

But after about level 50, they start to have stats that would not be possible if they used normal stat growths (especially in the resources). For example, the Mountainous Mole has 750 Power at level 55, but Ellie would only have 555 (since she started at 15 and not 10 like Tess), and she's the limit for people.

There are exceptions, though. The Spitfire Phoenix, for example, has much lower stats than would normally be expected for a magic-oriented boss at that level. That's because most of its strength comes from its Skills (and most of that is from Reborn from the Ashes lol).

Oh, and those of you with particularly good memories may note that the 'estimated/maximum power' thing for Silky and Isabella is quite different than their base cores were when we saw those originally. I did a quick and dirty reworking of those numbers for the important things, but it's not that big a deal, so don't really worry about it.

Next time...we're probably going to see Tess and Ellie's graduation, and depending on how long that takes, something else. So, look forward to that, I guess.

And, as always, thanks for reading!