Chapter 32: Well

Chapter 32: Well

Rain groaned as he dragged himself out of the hut. He was feeling sore after yesterday’s training, having refused healing as they only had two scrolls. He’d convinced Val to hold off on using one as well. As a compromise, Rain had allowed the man to give him instruction in the use of a branch as a makeshift quarterstaff. Working through the basic forms Val had shown him had been strenuous, but much better than the ‘chasm duel’ he had proposed. That apparently meant balancing on a log over a pit and trying to knock your opponent into it with a stick.

Rain was considering keeping the branch he had been training with the day before. It wasn’t a proper staff by any means, but it would allow him to keep enemies at bay if they were capable of making it to him through his aura. He’d discarded his spear before, as he had tired of carrying it around, but now he was admonishing himself as foolish after getting a bit more experience. It would be good to have a backup for his auras.

Val seemed to be familiar enough with the staff to make a decent trainer, so Rain was willing to listen to his instructions, even though he knew it meant a chasm duel was in his near future. The man was a bit of a puzzle to Rain. His main attack skill seemed to be focused on range, but he also had a defensive shield and skill with the staff.

I wonder what this class he’s going for is? Maybe something light focused? I found a few of the skills he uses when I was looking at all the tier 0 skills. I had plenty of time while I was just lying around using aura focus. Solar ray and lunar orb are in different trees, as is hard light. I couldn’t even find a light magic tree. Maybe it’s hidden? Can you have a hidden skill tree?

Rain shook himself out of his musing and stretched, turning to his own training results.

Ok, moment of truth.

Training Overview

General Experience Earned

Health Use: 29

Stamina Use: 74

Mana Use: 11601

[Level Up] [Level Up]

Skill Experience Earned

Refrigerate: 490 [Rank Up]

Extend Aura: 1452

Purify: 2388 [Rank Up]

Winter: 540 [Rank Up]

Amplify Aura: 1988 [Rank Up]

Detection: 3155 [Rank Up]

Aura Focus: 621

Channel Mastery: 394

Immolate: 211

Magical Synergy: 11090 [Rank Up] [Rank Up] [Rank Up] [Rank Up] [Rank Up]

Yeah! Double level! That’s what I’m talking about! I could have done even better if Val hadn’t been distracting me all afternoon. All I had time for was spamming detection while I practiced my footwork.

Pulling up his attributes and statistics panels, he dumped his 20 free stat points into clarity as per usual and surveyed his progress.

Attributes

Richmond Rain Stroudwater

Level 14

Experience: 1141/12151

Dynamo

Health

400

Stamina

200

Mana

2760

Strength

20 [10]

Recovery

10

Endurance

10

Vigor

10

Focus

10

Clarity

160

Free Stat Points

0

Statistics

Total

Base

Modifier

Health

400

400

0

0%

H.Regen

100

/day

100

/day

0

0%

Stamina

200

200

0

0%

S.Regen

100

/day

100

/day

0

0%

Mana

2760

2760

0

0%

M.Regen

21.7

/min

10

/min

-0.79/min

124%

Movement Speed

10

Perception

10

Resistances

Heat

Cold

Light

Dark

1

0%

1

0%

1

0%

1

0%

Force

Arcane

Mental

Chemical

1

0%

1

0%

1

0%

1

0%

Magical synergy is the best! Look at all that mana! I could totally rock Val now, and I didn’t even train my offensive auras that much. I should do that, then challenge his ass. Ha, I bet he’d be surprised! Shit, I think he infected me.

Rain grinned and walked over to his pack to dig out his notebook. He consulted the table of skill priorities he had listed out the day before and immediately started second-guessing it.

Humm, according to this I should go for spring and summer. They level so slow though, and I can only use one of them at a time... Plus, we have healing scrolls now, so getting life well is less important. Damn it, why can’t anything be easy? I didn’t see any killer hidden skills when I was looking through skill trees... Should I wait? I’ve got plenty to train, after all.

“Aaaargh!” Rain ran his hands through his hair.

Ok, I know I want IFF, there’s no question about that. I need aura focus at rank 10, so I can’t take it yet. I am also sure I want aura synergy eventually; I didn’t put it on this list because I wanted to get more auras first. Maybe I should just go for it and start leveling it anyway? Also, essence well is back on the table now that I’m gonna be adventuring with Val and Jamus. Their regen sucks.

Rain spent the next few minutes muttering to himself and scribbling in his notebook before finally deciding on aura synergy and essence well, neither of which had been on his original list. If he was going to be in combat, he and his allies would need all the mana and aura power they could get. He dropped the points in and confirmed the selection before he could change his mind again. Shaking his head, he pulled up the full list to see the effect of aura synergy on his other skills.

Skills

Aura Metamagic

Tier 0

Amplify Aura (9/10) Exp: 1060/3700

Multiply aura intensity by 190%

Multiply aura mana cost by 280%

Extend Aura (8/10) Exp: 2490/2900

Extend aura range by 8 meters

Multiply aura mana cost by 260%

Tier 1

Aura Focus (4/10) Exp: 900/1400

Focus on an aura to boost its output

Multiply aura intensity by 180%

Multiply aura range by 180%

Multiply aura mana cost by 180%

User loses all external senses while focusing

Aura Synergy (1/10) Exp: 0/200

Increase all aura output by 0.1% for each rank in any aura

Effective boost: 3.7%

Magical Utility

Tier 0

Intrinsic Clarity (10/10)

Multiply base mana regeneration by 300%

Intrinsic Focus (10/10)

Multiply base mana by 300%

Tier 1

Channel Mastery (3/10) Exp: 637/800

1.04

1.04

5.18

20.00%

+

1.35

1.04

7.51

17.95%

+

-

1.31

1.87

7.19

18.18%

+

1.87

1.87

11.72

15.93%

+

+

2.43

1.87

16.61

14.61%

+

-

0.73

9.33

4.57

15.87%

+

1.04

9.33

7.34

14.13%

+

+

1.35

9.33

10.31

13.08%

+

+

-

1.31

16.8

9.9

13.20%

+

+

1.87

16.8

15.59

11.97%

+

+

+

2.43

16.8

21.65

11.21%

+

-

1.38

1.04

8.91

15.48%

+

1.97

1.04

14.26

13.82%

+

+

2.56

1.04

19.99

12.81%

+

+

-

2.48

1.87

19.21

12.92%

+

+

3.55

1.87

30.19

11.75%

+

+

+

4.61

1.87

41.87

11.01%

+

+

-

1.38

9.33

11.77

11.71%

+

+

1.97

9.33

18.34

10.74%

+

+

+

2.56

9.33

25.31

10.12%

+

+

+

-

2.48

16.8

24.36

10.19%

+

+

+

3.55

16.8

37.55

9.45%

+

+

+

+

4.61

16.8

51.44

8.96%

Whew. That was a lot of mana. Thank you, magical synergy. Humm, the efficiency column doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Maybe I should try logarithms? How the hell do I do a logarithm without a computer? I could have sworn I used to know how to do that... Come on overmana, can’t you help me remember high school math? Maybe it was too long ago?

Oh.

That really could be it. Jamus said healing via overhealth is less effective the older the wound is, so maybe overmana works the same way?

Rain was interrupted from his musing as Val handed him a bowl of stew. He thanked him and set down his notebook, making a mental note to add his question about overmana to the ‘ask Jamus’ list after he had eaten. He blew on a spoonful and shoved it in his mouth. Immediately, he choked and had to fight not to spray it into the fire. He swallowed with an effort and turned to Val, grimacing.

“What in the name of all that is good in the world did you do to this soup?”

“What?”

“It’s... Yeah, there is something wrong here. Tastes like burnt dirt. What did you put in there?”

“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad,” Val said, taking a spoonful from his own bowl. He spat the mouthful out into the fire with a loud spluttering sound. “Ok, maybe you have a point.”

“Remind me to never let you cook again,” Rain said, setting aside his bowl and reaching for a ration bar.