Chapter 73: Tasty Titles

Chapter 73: Tasty Titles

Erani helped me through the forest for about an hour before we had to take a break. I was burned, battered, burdened by notification sickness, and couldn’t walk on my own. Erani was in no shape to support my entire weight for that long, either.

Once we were a good distance away and sure we hadn’t been followed, we sat down. The moment I was no longer wrapped around Erani’s shoulder, she collapsed on the ground. I didn’t realize just how exhausted she obviously was, and felt bad for burdening her so much. But I was just as tired, so I lay on the dirt, rubbing my eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to remedy my headache. It reminded me of that stress I used to feel from my rigorous practice with Noxious Grasp – back when I’d first been lost in the woods.

The Dryad seemed to understand that we were taking a break, and sat down next to us. She closed her eyes, seeming to meditate in a similar way Erani or I would in order to manage our Level-ups. It was strange – I’d never seen her do that before.

But now wasn’t the time to ponder what our monster ally was doing. I had Level-ups of my own to manage, and I was excited to see what I got. First, I opened up my Status.

Name:

Arlan Nota

Age:

20

Strength:

16

Class:

Minute Mage

Level:

14

Endurance:

31

Class Type:

Magic

XP:

341/1k

Dexterity:

15

Health:

24/310

Health/Minute:

0.1122

Conjuration:

74

Stamina:

93/139

Stamina/Minute:

0.93

Intelligence:

18

Mana:

830/830

Mana/Minute:

16.02

Stat Points:

9

Spells:Ñøv€l-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

So, with thoughts of maximizing this new boost in power as much as I could in my mind, I opened my Spell Choice and looked over the options.

Choose one Spell to learn:

Ethereal Armor

School: Arcane, Summoning

Type: Activated

Cost: 150 Mana

—

You summon one of two sets of magical armor – Dark Plate or Light Plate. You may dismiss it at any time. It will be automatically dismissed after 60 minutes.

While wearing Dark Plate, you cannot take more than 50% of your maximum Health in damage in a single second (155 damage). Preventing damage this way breaks the Plate, making it unusable for 60 seconds.

While wearing Light Plate, your other spells cost 10% less, though still gain Spell XP as though they weren’t discounted.

Intelligence information:

If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:

Ember Gale - School: Fire

Expedite - School: Alteration

Heartstone - School: Alteration, Summoning

Abrupt Decay

School: Nature

Type: Activated

Cost: 75 Mana

—

Choose a being you are touching. If it has less than 300 Health, it dies.

Intelligence information:

If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:

Damnation - School: Demonic

Mana Seism - School: Arcane

Contaminated Bond - School: Curse, Nature

Stasis

School: Curse, Arcane

Type: Activated

Cost: 280 Mana

—

Freeze time for a single being that you are touching for 10 seconds. The being cannot move, think, or otherwise perceive the outside world for the duration, and its body cannot be forcibly moved or damaged.

Reduce the duration of this spell by 1 second for each 10 Endurance the entity has. A being with 100 Endurance is completely unaffected.

Intelligence information:

If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:

Chain of Vapor - School: Aqueous,Arcane

Killing Wave - School: Arcane

Luminous Bonds - School: Curse, Divine

I could tell by now that my options were aimed toward higher-Leveled individuals. Between Ethereal Armor and Stasis, these options cost quite a bit. Even Abrupt Decay was up there, at 75 Mana. Compared to my first few Spell Choices, their costs were enormous. Even Gravity Well’s 10 per second was pretty up there. But with their high Mana costs came high power, too.

Ethereal Armor was flexible, essentially allowing me to choose between better survivability against high-damage attacks, or cheaper Spells – provided I was willing to pay its up-front cost of 150 Mana. Abrupt Decay was interesting. It would let me deal 300 damage to anything I was touching for the relatively miniscule cost of 75 Mana, but only if that damage would kill them. Otherwise, it’d do nothing. And Stasis could freeze someone in time for up to 10 seconds – a great effect paired with a suitably great cost.

But, of course, I’d have to choose the best from among them.

I just had no idea which one that was.