Chapter 46: Upgrade

Chapter 46: Upgrade

After our rest, Erani, the Nymph and I got up and started on our way, heading to Kingdom’s Edge. It would be a long journey, but heading anywhere away from Carth would be a good development in our situation. On our way, I worked to Rank up my new Spell, Gravity Well.

Gravity Well

School: Arcane

Type: Toggle

Cost: 10 Mana/Second per Being Affected

—

While active, increase gravitational pull by 25% for any number of beings within 30 paces of you.

I had to choose at least one target for the Spell in order for it to spend Mana so I could get Spell XP for it, so I ended up choosing myself as I activated the Spell.

“Hurk!”

My feet sunk a bit into the soft dirt at the sudden extra weight. It felt like a backpack full of rocks had been dropped onto my shoulders from the top of a tree, and I almost fell to the ground from the pressure. It was mostly the surprise that caused me to stumble, though, and after a bit, I almost felt used to it. Throwing an extra quarter of my weight on top of me was certainly rough, but it was spread all throughout my body, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

At 10 Mana/Second, before I hit the Soft Cap of Rank 5, I was getting 5 Spell XP per second. So in relatively little time, I got there.

Threshold reached. Gravity Well XP has reached 10.

Gravity Well Rank has increased to 1.

Due to Gravity Well Rank reaching 1, it has undergone the following changes:

Mana Cost: From 10 to 10.3

Gravity Increase: From 25% to 28%

Threshold reached. Gravity Well XP has reached 11.

Gravity Well Rank has increased to 2.

Due to Gravity Well Rank reaching 2, it has undergone the following changes:

Mana Cost: From 10.3 to 10.6

Gravity Increase: From 28% to 31%

Threshold reached. Gravity Well XP has reached 14.

Gravity Well Rank has increased to 3.

Due to Gravity Well Rank reaching 3, it has undergone the following changes:This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

Mana Cost: From 10.6 to 10.9

Gravity Increase: From 31% to 34%

Threshold reached. Gravity Well XP has reached 20.

Gravity Well Rank has increased to 4.

Due to Gravity Well Rank reaching 4, it has undergone the following changes:

Mana Cost: From 10.9 to 11.2

Gravity Increase: From 34% to 37%

Threshold reached. Gravity Well XP has reached 30.

Gravity Well Rank has increased to 5.

Due to Gravity Well Rank reaching 5, it has undergone the following changes:

Mana Cost: From 11.2 to 11.5

Gravity Increase: From 37% to 41%

Due to Gravity Well Rank increasing to Rank 5, Gravity Well has reached a Soft Cap.

Spell XP gain for Gravity Well is 50 times slower until your Level increases past the Soft Cap.

Increase your Level to 10 to increase your Soft Cap.

I finished Ranking the Spell up in about fifteen seconds, and switched it off. “Phew,” I laughed, “that’s a good workout.”

“I’m glad you decided to use it on yourself and not me,” Erani smiled. We were still holding hands as we walked, the pretense of it being for ‘training’ having completely left our heads. At this point, it was just nice to know she was there. I wasn’t sure how I would’ve survived so long without her high-powered artillery, her tactical advice, or her good conversation.

The Nymph wordlessly watched us as we talked. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it sticking with us. I was thankful to have the extra companion, of course, but not being able to fully communicate with it was irritating, and even got a bit scary when I would occasionally look over and see it staring through me with its large, glassy eyes. I swore, it noticed it made me jump every time it did that, and now it was just doing it on purpose because it thought it was funny. Erani didn’t believe me, though. She said it was cruel of me to pin such intentions on an ‘innocent thing that can’t defend itself’.

The Nymph’s glowing white eyes weren’t made any less unsettling while we walked through the night-lit forest. We’d woken up from our rest in the middle of the night, and the sun was only just now beginning to rise. And so we kept on with our journey, doing our best to move fast and keep our eyes out.

By the time the sun rose and set again, we’d traveled far and I was getting tired. Practicing Noxious Grasp helped take my mind off of things, though. And I wasn’t just casting it to help my mind.

Noxious Grasp 9 - XP 350/355

At my current rate of practice, I’d be able to finally get Noxious Grasp to Rank 10 in about another hour. And with that, my main weapon would receive a huge boost in power. Erani’s Angelic Shield had also slowly been gaining XP, and had even Ranked up to 6.

“Oh, right. Let me know what you get!”

I eagerly sat down to meditate and look at the options I had available to me.

Choose one Upgrade for Noxious Grasp:

Venomous Grasp

School: +Curse

—

Noxious Grasp Festers beings it damages. While they are Festered, beings lose double Stamina from all sources. The Fester remains for 5 seconds after you stop contact with the being.

Draining Grasp

School: +Necromancy

—

Noxious Grasp now drains 25% as much Health and Stamina. (Currently 4.05 Health and 2.04 Stamina).

50% of the Health and Stamina the target loses is given to you. (Currently 2.03 Health and 1.02 Stamina).

Annulling Grasp

School: +Arcane

—

Noxious Grasp now drains Mana equal to the amount of Health it drains. (Currently 16.3 Mana/Second)

I read my options out to Erani as I looked them over, myself.

“Well,” she said, “in a normal situation, I’d say Annulling Grasp would be the strongest option here.”

“Really?” I asked, “I feel like it’d be the weakest.”

“Sure, for us it is. But that’s just because we know none of the Demons we’re fighting are magic users.”

“Right, but it’s not like other people are constantly fighting magic-using monsters, or even fighting them half the time.”

“Yes, but think about it like this: if you’re in a party of adventurers, and each one is specialized against a specific type of monster, then you’ll most likely always be facing off against a monster that someone fights best against. And think about how powerful that Upgrade really is. If you choose Draining Grasp, it’ll start healing you for 2 Health every second you use it on something. But with Annulling Grasp, it drains 16 Mana. Firebolt, for example, uses 30 Mana to deal 75 damage, so 16 Mana is worth about 40 Health’s worth of damage dealt. It’s literally twenty times as good at preventing damage, as long as your opponent uses Mana to hurt you. Plus, it doesn’t lower your damage dealt at all.”

“Hmm,” I wondered, “you make a fair point, but it really doesn’t do much at all for us right now. I don’t want a repeat of the fight we had with the Infernal Commander. I was completely helpless to do anything against the thing, and ideally, this Upgrade will help keep situations like that from happening in the future. What do you think, then? Seems like you made a pretty compelling argument against Draining.”

“Yeah. Healing is incredibly useful, sure, but I’m not sure how I feel about crippling your main source of damage like that. Plus, it can only heal you when you’re damaging something – if you need the healing and there isn’t anything around to kill, you’re out of luck.”

“So, Venomous Grasp?”

“That’s what seems good to me – at least in this situation. With Venomous Grasp, they’ll always be Festered while you’re draining them, and stay like that for the next five seconds. Seems worth it. Since they’re always losing double Stamina while you’re using Noxious Grasp on them, the Upgrade pretty much just doubles the amount of Stamina that Noxious Grasp drains, plus it helps your Crippling Chill in a huge way.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “And with Gravity Well, reducing Stamina is becoming easier and more effective than ever. Don’t need the healing if my enemy never moves, right?”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “Let’s not get too cocky, though.”

I selected the Upgrade.

Noxious Grasp has gained the Upgrade Venomous Grasp.

We got back up and continued walking once I was done. The Poison Spell Crystal was safe and sound in my backpack once again, ready to be used again once Noxious Grasp reached Rank 20. Not that I felt like that would come anytime soon, though. The next Spell XP cost was 461, and it would only get even higher with each Rank.

I asked Erani, and it turned out most people never got a single Spell to Rank 20 in their entire lives. The Spell XP requirements got so high at that point that most people who stuck to the lower Levels didn’t ever practice enough to get there. By Rank 15, the cost would already be well into the thousands, apparently.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to dedicate myself to that kind of long-haul so early, though, so I decided to start focusing on practicing another Spell. It’d take forever to Rank it again, and for so little benefit. But with another Spell, I could get that benefit with much less work. And those small increments in power were what I sorely needed right now. Choosing which of my three new Spells – Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, and Gravity Well – to start practicing was a surprisingly tough decision. Crippling Chill was an integral part to my ability to weaken my enemies, Ray of Frost allowed me to deal with enemies while staying far away from them, and I anticipated Gravity Well being a huge asset to stack on top of Crippling Chill and Ray of Frost’s debuffs.

They all seemed like they were equally important parts of my fighting style. Choosing one to prioritize just seemed wrong. Like choosing a favorite child.

But I had to do it. I considered my options once again. When thinking about the Upgrade that Noxious Grasp had just gotten, I felt I should really prioritize anything that drained Stamina, so I could maximize what I gained from Venomous Grasp. And, well, there was only really one Spell that did that – Crippling Chill.

So, that was the Spell I started to spend my time practicing. It had the added benefit of also being able to damage Erani in small increments, that way she could continue to practice Angelic Shield, too. The shield blocked the Stamina drain, but unfortunately it couldn’t do anything about the lowered Dexterity. And, with only a 10 in the Stat, she would get completely paralyzed by the Spell.

“So, should we just sit and take a fifteen-second rest every time you cast it on me, then?” Erani asked when I explained that I was going to be focusing on Crippling Chill from now on.

“We could... but sitting around and doing nothing for fifteen whole seconds? Sounds like a waste of time to me.”

“...No, not really,” she looked at me, confused. “It’s just fifteen seconds, and the amount of damage I’d have to prevent would drain enough Mana that we’d only have to do it once, like, every twenty minutes.”

“Right, but I think it would be better if we kept moving while practicing,” I smiled

“And how would you propose we do that? I’d be paralyzed.”

“Like this.”

You have cursed Level 10 Human Sorcerer with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, she loses 6.38 Health and 5.1 Stamina each second, and her Dexterity score is lowered by 12.8.

50.9 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 509.

Before Erani could collapse, I caught her and lifted her off the ground in a princess carry, one arm under her back and the other under her legs, so that she was looking up at me. I knew she couldn’t say anything due to the paralysis, but I could see in her eyes a mix of rage, embarrassment, and something else I couldn’t really identify. She blushed hard, though, and that was the goal. The Nymph looked at us strangely, but eventually shrugged and continued forward.

“Isn’t this so much more efficient?” I snickered to her. When I got no response – as expected – I just kept walking forward. I probably wouldn’t ever hear the end of this, but I’d take the time to enjoy it for now.