Augmented Aspects: Chapter 104 Perks of the Job (Patreon)

Chapter 104

Perks of The Job

As we arose, I could finally see what had cut off the right-side track, or the track that would normally have been traversed by the orcs. Further up on the right-hand portion of the paths leading upward were dragons. Oddly enough, the fact that dragons were there in the tree was not the problem, as I could tell people generally rode dragons, or at least the small wyvern type dragons. Honestly, I had been so focused on healing the branches on the way up, that I failed to notice the use of said dragons, and dragon riders, but it was clear that people were riding dragons to go from the base of the tree, to the far outer branches, branches that extended well beyond the three kilometers that I was currently able to view with my own Angel’s Sight.

I am so caught surprised by what I am seeing that, stopping on a minor branch that is just below the main landing portion, and just large enough to catch the two of us as we make yet another pause for Mallory and her percentage costing spell. Honestly, whoever designed her class really messed up her ability later on. The more we fly together, the more I can see what exactly the problem with her spell formula is. Her spell is a continual burn type spell, what I mean by that is that it is like a coal furnace, it will go on forever so long as there is coal in the furnace but won’t do any once the last ember of coal runs out. This is great for lower-level spells, which is likely when Mallory first got the spell. The payoff is that it makes it so your class has advantages of flight early on, but that doesn’t make it so your are exceptional later on. The only problem is that now that Mallory is a much higher level, she has only been able to find ways and perks that extend the time gained from her spell, and it is a spell, regardless of what she calls it. Now she still burns away a percentage of her mana all the time to keep her spell active, meaning when needing to rely solely on her wings, we have to take multiple breaks.

Clip-clap.

Whoosh.

Gasp.

Mallory lands on the branch, instantly dissolves her wings, only to be hit by a random strong breeze that threatens to throw the tired Mallory over the edge. Exhausted, she scrambles forward, but her reflexes seem to be slowed due to her constant mental drain from overusing her mana so often. Seeing her, without hesitation, I reach out and grab her. Not personally mind you, that would be stupid, I am but a waif of a girl, even in my human form compared to Mallory. Also, I have my Spectral Drift activated, meaning I am currently weightless. No, I reach out and grab her the way every mage should, with good old, natural Telekinesis. I hold out my hand, letting Mallory know it was me that saved her, and finally after a moment she calms down, lets her two feet settle, and then exhaustedly nods her thanks.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, would have been painful to watch you try to climb your way up again.”

“Hey.” Mallory states, a bit indignantly, but then tiredly walks her way to the base of the tree again, and firmly plants her back against the wall. Only once she is fully stuck in place does she let out a long breath and then relax a little.

“One last hop, and then we will be there.” Mallory states.

I nod, as I am in the final stages of ridding this limb of the Blight. “I know.”

Blighted Death Jump.

The Blight makes its final jump of life, trying to escape, only to be captured by my Legendary Trick Shot skills, and then I too plop down right there. Being as I weigh nothing, I don’t really worry about being blown off, at least not in the way Mallory did. If I get hid by the wind, my wings will flap and keep me in place. Even if I go off the side, I can easily catch myself and just fly right back.

I am looking at Mallory’s internal components, seeing where and how she casts her extremely inefficient spell for flight. Though I make sure to turn my face, towards Mallory, to let her know I am thinking about this. Looking at her, I can see where the spell for flight is formed, by this point I have seen the spell cast and recast so many times that I am fairly certain I could mimic the spell if needed, not that I’d want to for such an inefficient spell, but I could. Still, looking at her, and the way the spell is basically carved right there, into the base of her core, I can’t help but think that should be changed or modified at the very least. Her mana is so much more robust than it was when she first gained the ability to fly that it is now just a relic of the past.

“You are doing it again.” Mallory states, a bit exhaustedly.

“Doing what?” I ask, shaking my head at the random train of thoughts going through my mind about how I could fix Mallory. She is right, it is not a spell, at least I could see how she would think it wasn’t a spell, even though it clearly is.

“You are doing that thing where you are trying to dissect me.”

“What? WHAT?” I state twice, and I realize that with the second one I might have been on that very thought process. “No, I was just thinking that you might be right, it isn’t a spell you cast.”

At that Mallory pauses and shakes her head, “I told you that.”

I shake my head and wave a dismissive hand, “it is not one you cast, but it is one that you automatically cast via your class. Meaning it has been etched into the heart of your very class, right?”

Mallory nods, “yes, it was one of my class’s evolutionary markers. It was a Class Perk that I was offered at level ten.”

At that I nod, as it makes sense. At level ten such an ability would be amazing, but now that she is over seven hundred and fifty levels removed from such a marker, it would be less appealing.

“The perk is interesting, it is like the spell, or a spell was permanently carved into your core, making it so you just had to divert your core’s energy directly into that automatic spell formula, which would then create the wings for you.” I state, as I think I understand this part of what is happening.

At that revelation Mallory cocks her head to the side as if seeing me new for the first time. “So, what are you saying? That you want to replicate this class perk in yourself?”

“What?” I ask, immediately floored by the question, then answer honestly, “Gods no. That spell is so inefficient that I think it literally has parts to burn off excess mana without converting it into anything. No, if I was to get a perk, it would not be that.”

“Wow, just, wow.” Mallory states, and this time I think I might have actually gone a bit too far.

“What? You know it is inefficient. You said you got it at level ten, what class Perks do you know from level ten would still be this useful still?” I ask, trying to be a bit more diplomatic with my interactions with the already ornery Mallory.

“Yeah, I got the perk at level ten, but then I upgraded it twice more.” Mallory states.

At that revelation I pause, and then really focus, and I can see two different tracks that lead from her core to the carved-out spell structure. I realize that she is both right and wrong, as these perks don’t solely focus on improving this spell formula, but rather focus on improving all her core functions. “That’s not true.”

“What?” She asks, somewhat indignant and holds up her hand to her chest as if I have somehow offended her by calling her a liar. Seeing that reaction, I press forward with my explanation.

“You know I’m right. You did upgrade the original perk, but what you did improved your overall functions, in addition to this flight perk.” I state, then leaning forward, I mentally zoom in my view and focus on the different formulas, and I see the patterns. “It looks like you chose one that improved your mana conversion rate, which had a direct effect on how long you could sustain your flight, which looks like it increases the overall conversion rate by close to a quarter. Then you had a second upgrade that,” I pause trying to understand what the lines are doing.

Only once I see that the line is looping around her core a couple of times do I begin to realize what is happening. The second one that looks like a large intestine wrapped around her core, actually has the ability to act as a limiter. “Oh, and that one improves the overall time of your channeled spells, making them last for what, one and a half times as long?” I ask.

Shock.

“You.” Mallory stammers, then pauses, as she looks at me blinkingly like I just randomly appeared out of the mists.

“What?”

“You just listed off the two Perks and their effects that I chose to supplement my Flight ability, perfectly.”

“So, you admit they weren’t directly for your Flight?” I ask, feeling a bit like I had just won this argument.

“What? Well, yes. You are right in that they didn’t change the Flight directly, but their overall effects did help my Flight. Well, my class’s ability to fly.” Mallory states.

At that, I hold up my hands in victory as I wiggle my fingers letting her admit I was right.

By this point Mallory is so focused on me that she is already up on her feet and walking forwards. Seeing her, I get to my feet as well, and begin to go towards her, to keep her from falling. For someone who is such a badass, she does have an insane fear of falling, which given her crummy class wings is understandable.

Gentle breeze.

As she begins to walk forward, a gentle breeze begins to blow, but she completely ignores this as her eyes are focused solely on me. Then after a few steps she is all but racing towards me. Finally she gets to me and holds my shoulders in excitement.

“You know what this means right?” Mallory asks.

“That you are getting over your odd fear of heights?” I ask.

At that, Mallory shakes her head and that odd intense focus that had been going on breaks, as she looks around, then realizes just how high we are and trembles before clinging to me tightly.

Oof.

“No. Not quite that.” Mallory admits. Honestly, I don’t know how you can do that. There are clouds below us, then at the very bottom is just a patch of green and maybe black spots that might be the armies of the orcs and elves below.”

“Oh, well I can tell you how I can do it.” I admit.

“You can?”

“Yeah, I just can’t see the ground, makes it less frightening.” I admit.

Mallory just stares at me for a moment, then shaking her head exclaims, “you know sometimes I hate you.”

“Ah, I love you too, sometimes.” I state the inverse.

There is an awkward moment where Mallory clearly bites back something, but then composes herself with a deep breath.

“As, I was saying. You know what this means?”

“What? Sorry, your hate or my love?”

“Stop it, neither of those. You can read class perks. Meaning that even with rare classes, you can find out how they are built and what to look out for. That is one of the greatest hinderances for going up against someone with a rare class, you never know what they have. Or worse, when wondering if you should learn a new class, you never know what the class offers at a later stage. But you can fix all that.” Mallory states.

I pause, and realize that she is right, that I could use this new ability, which I assume is related to the recent skill I got, Magical Physiology, which I believe is the precursor to my being able to perform Magical Enchantment Surgery. Then I state just that, “you mean with Magical Enchantment Surgery?”

“What? No. Well, maybe. But that is not the type of fix I meant.”

“Oh, right. You were talking about an information brokering perspective. Which class evolutions are good, which ones fizzled out and so on?” I ask. Then I mentally wonder if I have done enough for my level 200 class upgrades to be good, as they should be impressive at this point. I mean I have gone from not having any degrees, to having a Doctorate in two magical theories. And working on getting a degree as a Magical surgeon, which should be great for a healer class.

“And I lost you again.” Mallory states.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing, I just professed my undying love for you.”

“So, you no longer hate me?”

“Wha, stop that. No, this is big. What you are doing, what your Sight offers, that is a game changer, literally. I almost wish I had it.” Mallory admits.

“Almost?”

“Well, maybe not at the same degree that you do, that is intense.” Mallory begins, “but then again, if I could see the perks and other advantages that people have, do you know what I could do with that?”

“Have political clout to ruin lives and bury your enemies?”

At that Mallory pauses, and then looks at me with a bit of apprehension for a moment, before speaking. “You know, you are pretty scary sometimes for a pacifist.”

“Thank you?” I state questioningly.

“Just keep doing what you are doing. Sometimes I worry about how innocent you appear to be, but it is comments like that, that let me know you might just survive.” Mallory states.

“Um, thanks again?”

“You know what, never mind just keep doing what you are doing.” Mallory states.

I hold up my hand to make a point, but she cuts me off.

“And no, you can’t perform surgery on me. At least not as your first patient.” Mallory says, somehow guessing where I was going to go with my next question.

“I wasn’t going to…”

“Yeah, you were. That or at the very least you were building up to that point. Honestly, I think you might be one of the few people who I would allow to surgically alter me in that way. But, not at first.” Mallory states, and at that I feel slightly at peace with the decision.

Nodding, I can respect it, as that is a lot. I already see parts of her perk that I’d like to get rid of, but she is right, I would need to practice a few times before I would feel comfortable altering Mallory’s class perks to be more applicable for her current level and abilities. Then smiling viciously, I realized I have a way to get back at her.

“Well, looks like we should go and fly up to the platform that is right there.” I say, pointing to the platform that still has the orcs and elves right next to each other. Honestly, the fact that Mallory had to stop here showed how much her overall abilities are dropping and that we might need to spend the next few floors just walking.

“Yeah, when we get there, we will likely need to ask around to find out what is happening. Maybe spend a few hours walking and talking to leadership, getting information gathering quests, until finally we can find out what the actual problem is.” Mallory states, laying out a plan of action that would likely work, and sounds amazingly time intensive.

“Wow, is that how they used to do things back in the old days? Get their Sherlock Holmes on, along with a few dozen fetch quests? That sounds ridiculously painful.” I admit.

“What? You have a better way to find out what is happening?”

“Oh I know what is happening, I just don’t understand why they are there.”

“Why who are where?”

“Dragons. There is a colony of Blighted dragons living in a hollowed-out portion of the tree up above us. I am guessing a few of the matriarch dragons are Blighted, and one of those Blighted is also very injured. I don’t know what the dragon’s purpose here is, but that is what I got.” I state, pointing in the exact direction of the cave of dragons.

Mallory just stares at me dumbfounded, then presses. “You know all of that from just sitting here?”

“Yeah, they are easily within my sphere of sight. The only thing I can’t figure out is why dragons would be here?”

Hearing my explanation Mallory just shakes her head. “You are truly amazing, but I can see the limitations of your sight.”

“Limitations?”

“Yes, you can’t see past your sphere, which means that you can’t see the stream of dragons flying to and from the kingdoms that are built on the branches of the tree above us.” Mallory states, as she cranes her neck back and points off into the distance. I assume this would be at a point that I likely could see if I was higher up, but from my current position, I can’t see any of this. I also just now realize that we are somehow on the under branches of the great tree, and that the large branches up above are likely big enough to build entire cities upon, which seems both frightening and exciting at the same exact time. Given the fact that they are out on the branches, I can mentally understand how the use and incorporation of dragons as a means of travel would be invaluable.

“Oh, that makes sense for the dragons.” I admit.

“Yeah. All right, now that we know what is happening, fixing it should be easy. You just go in, heal the dragons, and let us go on our way.”

I nod, and am about to say something, but Mallory cuts me off.

“Let’s go but let me do the talking.”

“What? Why?” I ask.

At that Mallory just cocks her head to the side and glares at me with that look that states, don’t make me state the obvious. Then she states the obvious, “first I am a lot higher level, and thus automatically treated deferentially. Also, and I only state this because I love you. You can be a bit, hard for people who don’t know you to understand you.”

Then before I can mount a protest, her core begins to glow, and I see the quick activation of her class perk that is woven directly into her core light up, followed closely by the conversion and the time enhancing intestine, before her wings come to life and she begins to fly.

Honestly, the use of such magic to distract me is a bit unfair, but I quickly begin to follow her.

“Who’s slow now!” Mallory states, looking over her shoulder to where she expected me to be, only to find an empty spot.

“Still you.” I call out over my shoulder, as I passed her on her blind spot. Then with a smile that can only be born by winning an impromptu competition, I fly up and easily reach the platform first.