[D'sP] That Costs A Bit - Chapter 273 (Patreon)

{30 points applied to Monster Rancher II path...

10/100 - Farmed monsters can be released early at half their projected level for the floor and for half their point cost though monsters with a minimum level can not be released early if their level would be below that minimum

25/100 - Allows the viewing of a monster pattern’s stat specialization as well as minor modifications to them with the use of Monster Pattern Adjustment Points, Earned +50 Monster Pattern Adjustment Points}

The Energy Well III path was about what he had expected. While the amount of passive world energy didn’t go up for each step, there were more steps. Though Doyle dims after seeing the rancher path only giving two bonuses, neither of which boost the actual stats of his monsters.

Both of the new options are interesting with the first being easy enough to understand. He could already spawn monsters below a floor's starting point. It would still cost just as much to spawn a level one kobold on the tenth floor as it would to spawn a level 15 kobold. The ten point perk on the other hand allowed him to use a half level monster for half the cost.

Very powerful for his beefier monsters that haven’t gotten too much of a boost from levels yet. The only catch to that, if you can call it one, is the fact that they have to be farmed and not spawned. An interesting quirk that Doyle assumes has something to do with how “natural born” monsters form as compared to the ones he summons.

This, however, still left the second perk. Of course the extra 50 adjustment points was nice. He hadn’t gone too wild with them yet, but he could see being a bit starved for them later. The real questions come from the first section.

Now, Doyle has an idea of what this is talking about. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact it was limited to monster patterns he would have been frustrated about all the work he put into breeding his ants. So, he pulls up the pattern for his goats and selects their Strength. Then nothing goes as he expected.

Instead of some clean screen of text or maybe a fancy chart, Doyle is dunked into a very much not three dimensional mental imagery where every aspect that he can sense has a dense and rich meaning behind it to the smallest degree. He tries to pull back and get a simpler interface or more systematic view of things as he can feel it exists. However, his existence as a dungeon core seems to drill down into the deepest parts of reality on this matter and refuses to show him something as facile and meaningless as a simple list of percentages.

From there it takes Doyle at least an hour to figure out how to leave the deep pool that is his goats Strength stat. A task that he can feel will be easier next time, but also that if he hadn’t already experienced another form of infinity when searching for bosses, it would have taken a lot longer. The good news is that from what he could feel, he had the right idea.

That full sensory and then some experience was a view of how his goats Strength was developing. In the past this sort of thing had been described as a sphere where as you get deeper, the more aspects you come in contact with. Now though, he can see that such a simple analogy is only technically correct and at best a nice cartoon print bandaid pasted over the reality of it.

After getting his mind on track, he took a few days to sort out everything he had felt during the experience and came away with a couple things. First was that the strength of his goat’s horns and bones was off the chart. He didn’t remember their horns ever breaking and this certainly explained it. While they weren’t as tough as metal or stone yet, just give them time.

The second thing and one which explained why they weren’t throwing the adventurers around with every strike, is how little of the development goes to the actual physical power. To Doyle, this made more than enough sense. While monsters, they are just goats in the end. They don’t need to be able to split boulders or anything and so the stat growth goes to important things like having the best horns and a tough hide.

Though, there was one exception to physical power. The concept of strong legs to move was artificially high. Doyle figured this was going to be a side effect of having the charge skill. Satisfied that he had figured out what was up, he turned to Ally who had been not quite waiting for him to tell her what happened.

Doyle, ‘So uh, monster rancher now lets me see my monster’s stat specializations. I tried it out on the goat’s Strength stat without really thinking much of it and it sort of threw me for a loop there. Anyway, I can also mess around with them now using my adjustment points.’

Ally nods, ‘I figured you had got caught up in something. Anyway, what are the percentages on the stat then?’

Doyle snorts, ‘As if life was going to be that easy. I can sort of feel that the system has an easy interface most people hook into for this. Except being a dungeon core I get dunked right into the info. Not very pleasant.’

Ally laughs, ‘That is unfortunate as I’m sure it would be easier to mess with things when you could just reduce something by a percentage or some such.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘I don’t know if I would want to do it that way, now that I’ve seen the reality of it. The whole stat is connected to itself and any simple percentage change the system might do is going to be a ton of behind the scene rebalancing. There is no way to just add plus one to muscle power as that cascades out to everything else such as the bones. Can’t have someone who is just trying to move snapping their own bones from the force of their muscles. Not that my goats would have that problem.’

Ally, ‘Tough skeletal system?’

Doyle, ‘You can say that again. The largest single percentage of their Strength stat seems to be going towards making them really good at bashing things with their horns. Which, seeing as their one skill is charge, isn’t exactly the worst idea. Now I just have to figure out what the cost will be to shift things since it is so complicated.’

Ally nods, ‘Yep, since you’ve got the deep dive on stats I’m going to assume you could accidentally rack up quite the bill. Though the basics of this ability should hold steady compared to other monster ranchers, meaning it should let you play around and then tell you how much it will cost and double confirm if you want it.’

Doyle sighed, ‘Welp, I’m going back in then. I’ll try to make the smallest change possible and see what happens. In theory such a small change shouldn't cost more than 50 points since the system gave me fifty with the ability. On the other hand, most people aren’t dungeon cores.’

Ally, ‘Good luck!’

And with that Doyle dove into his goats Strength again. This time though it is less disorienting and he has a better feel for what is a part of the current growth of the goats. Though the fact he can recognize that in the first place is pretty impressive as is.

First time through it was like being shown all the oceans and lakes of the world, while now it was reduced to just the small pond that the goats are currently using. Still overwhelming as nothing is just one thing. Horn toughness is connected to bone toughness is connected to tendons and so on and so forth. It is all connected.

Though now that he is here, Doyle realizes he hadn’t really thought about what he should try changing. That passed quickly as he wasn’t planning on actually purchasing whatever change was made this time so he poked at the strength of the goat’s hide, adding just a drop more toughness to it.

With that, Doyle almost gets kicked out of the view as that one simple change that would be hard to detect ripples outward. Like a rock thrown into a calm lake except the lake’s surface spreads across more dimensions than his mind can currently fully comprehend. Good thing it settles down quickly as at least the changes being made aren’t rippling back on itself at all.

That done, Doyle takes a few moments to steady himself and then backs out to where he can feel a blue screen waiting for him.

{Concept of a tough hide adjusted on goat pattern, this will cost 68,418 Monster Pattern Adjustment Points

Not enough points detected...

Automatically reverting changes}

To say the least, Doyle was more than a bit surprised at the supposed cost of change. Not that he didn’t have a clue on why it cost so much and in the end, it was his fault. Instead of just adjusting how tough the hide was on a physical level, he had somehow adjusted the concept of the hide being tough.

That meant not just the goat being harder to damage with a knife, but also tougher against things like a ghost reaching into it or a deity trying to look in it. High level stuff that he had no right nor need to mess around with at the moment.

So, with failure in hand, Doyle dove back in trying tweak after tweak to make the hide tougher. To start the price did vary, but not in the right direction. It wasn’t until he figured out how to think extra flat, that progress was made.

Doyle’s problem in adjusting the hide was that he knew too much and guessed at even more. He had seen too much and knew that toughness wasn’t just how well the hide held together. Though even after reducing the height and breadth of the change to a more manageable level, it was still costing in the four digits. Low four digits, mind you, but still four digits.

Then he made a breakthrough after a few days and got it down to the mid three digits as he started to build back up his mental view of it. The change required a careful balancing act between not being too detailed and at the same time, containing the right details. Even a single stray thought could cause waves of change. It wasn’t until another day passed that he nailed it down.

{Hide toughness adjust on goat pattern, this will cost 17 Monster Pattern Adjustment Points

Accept/Deny}

Doyle of course denied the change as he was sure that he could now do better. Well, do something more effective. The goats already had pretty tough hides and it would be better to adjust their toughness against magic.

Still, going by what he could feel from the change, it would have been an impressive increase in his goat’s defense. The only problem was it came at the cost of the goats horns. It didn’t have to, but everything else was pretty balanced and the section adjusted by the charge skill was being held in place by the skill.

That last part gave him pause as Doyle rolled it around in his mind some more. It was an almost off the cuff observation, but after a bit more testing was proven true. Not just that, but if what most people got from stats added up to 100%, the goat now had their Strength add up to 101%.

Well, not literally one percent, but it was there. This meant that skills could modify the effectiveness of how stats express themselves.

Well Well Well - Chapter 272

Skills Vs. Stats - Chapter 274