Chapter 87: Making the Choice (Patreon)

To begin with my choices, I decided to pick a Spell. Honestly, they all looked powerful. I almost discounted Ember Gale as not useful because it’d damage Erani and the Dryad, who both had pretty low Health, but then I remembered that Erani would actually be hit much less hard from it than I thought. With Angelic Shield, she’d be able to block the damage, and would really just be taking a hit to her Mana, which she had plenty of.

There were other downsides to the Spell, though. It’d be borderline useless in populated areas, since I could hit civilians, and it would also be pretty bad when I was facing single enemies. I mean, Ray of Frost dealt a bit over 2 damage for each 1 Mana spent, while this dealt less than 1 damage per Mana. Plus, something that wasn't as obvious upon first glance was that it damaged me, too. Now, it could be insane value for Mana against a massive crowd of monsters, but it wouldn’t do much outside of that.

I thought back to the wasteland. With Ember Gale, I could easily kill off any Ghouls that came near us, and probably without spending so much Mana. And, of course, with the long range it could possibly get me a good amount of XP.

So Ember Gale was solid in the short-term, but could fall off pretty hard once we were out of the wasteland and into more situations where its downsides were more apparent.

Next up was Expedite. 55 Mana for 20 Dexterity was a good rate, when compared to other Stat-boosting Spells. Thinking back to Bioshift, which I’d been offered once before, that created a gap in Stats of 20 for the cost of 80 Mana. And Holy Strength, which I’d been offered a long time ago, gave 5 Strength for 15 Mana, but only for 15 seconds. So Expedite gave me the best value for my Mana in that respect.

However, it also offered the least amount of flexibility. Bioshift was costly, but it could also target any Stat I wanted. And Holy Strength only covered one Stat, but it could be used in smaller increments, allowing for much finer control of exactly how much I wanted to spend. So there was definitely some trade-off there for the efficiency of Stats for Mana.

But I definitely preferred efficiency over flexibility here. If I spent, say, about 500 Mana on the Spell, I could give myself an extra 180 Dexterity for the next half-minute. Thinking back to my previous experiences, I could absolutely see the opportunity in that. With that much Dexterity, I could’ve dashed through that blockade the Demons set up to trap us in the forest fire without a problem. Or flee from something like the Mountain Troll without ever having to fight it.

And, of course, it could be used in non-extreme cases, as well. Just casting one or two stacks of the Spell active on me could mean a massive boost to my Dexterity in a fight – and Spells like Noxious Grasp were useful when used in conjunction with a high Dexterity Stat. So Expedite was a solid contender here.

And then there was Heartstone. That was a strange one. It looked like it was in that same category of ‘object summoning’ as Ethereal Armor was, but it served a totally different purpose. It looked like a great Spell to activate just before we went to sleep, that way we could rest for a shorter period of time while still rejuvenating ourselves just as much.

Now, for me personally, it wouldn’t have quite as much of an effect as it could. Specifically, one of its best aspects was that it could boost Health/Minute by 100% for such an extended period of time. Normally, it’d take around 48 hours to fully regenerate your Health, and this Spell could cut that in half. But for me, Regenerate already cut that down by quite a bit. And Stamina and Mana would already be fully regenerated over the course of a full night’s sleep, anyway. Still, it’d be helpful for Erani and the Dryad, plus that double speed sleeping effect sounded quite convenient.

But still, I could certainly see the upsides to just casting the Spell every six hours and keeping the stone in my pocket as we travel, keeping us all in top shape. Using it while we slept would be nice, but really it’d be great to help us recover after fights as we moved through the wasteland.

Although, really, it didn’t seem like Heartstone would be used to its full effect for us as just a group of three. With its large radius of effect, it could easily support a group of dozens – if not hundreds – of soldiers.

Still, I could see its uses. Where Ember Gale was great now, but might taper off later, Heartstone was the opposite. It wouldn’t be as useful now, but I could see myself doing something like selling uses of Heartstone to people who wanted it, once I was out of this Demon situation. The thing stuck around for six hours, and didn’t say anything about needing to stay near me, so I could just make one and give it away for a price to an adventuring party that wanted to stay in peak condition during an expedition.

I found myself in a familiar predicament, unsure of what Spell to take. And, of course, that uncertainty was compounded by the other choice I had to make. There were nine combinations of different Spells and Talents I could get for myself, and each one could potentially spell out my death, or set me up for life.

So, I turned to the only person I trusted would put more thought into this than I ever could. “Hey Erani, you mind helping me out with this choice?”

“Sure,” I heard her say and sit down in front of me.

I read out the Spells and their effects to her, then told her my general thoughts and opinions on each. When I told her what Heartstone did, I heard her perk up.

“Huh, I thought Heartstone’s name sounded familiar, but now I definitely remember its effect. It’s a Wizard Spell, up in the Level 10s if I remember correctly. In Carth there used to be a few inns that utilized its effects to help adventurers heal faster, or people who were particularly busy spend less time sleeping. As far as I remember, it isn’t too uncommon to see.”

“Hm. Well, if it’s not very rare, I guess it’d be a bit more difficult to make money with it. Did people ever give one away for adventuring parties to use on an outing, or something?”

“Oh, no. Those Heartstones are massive – they easily weigh thousands of pounds. Not just something you could carry around. You’d probably need to open an entire inn to actually make money with one.”

I pursed my lips. Okay, so not quite as monetarily useful as I thought. And it didn’t seem like I could just plop it in my pocket and carry it around with me, either. So, really, it’d only be useful for us now to keep active while we slept. And, for us specifically, the main thing that could actually be used in that aspect would be its effect of having us sleep twice as quickly. That’d be nice, sure – I could definitely see it keeping us out of danger occasionally – but was it really worth using an entire Spell Choice on? “What about the other two? Thoughts on those?”

“Well,” Erani hummed, “Ember Gale definitely has its uses if you’re looking to go solo and clear out a hive of monsters, but I’m not too sure about its flexibility. I mean, there really aren’t too many times it could be useful.”

“Yeah, one of the main things I’m thinking about is just how much extra XP it could get me here in the wasteland. Killing all those Ghouls, I’d be sure to get an extra Level, at least.”

“Wait, there are those Mountain Troll things out there too though, right? The way you made it sound, wouldn’t there be too many for you to safely use Ember Gale? Chances are, there’d be at least one within such a big radius like 75 paces. And if you angered it, it’d probably attack.”

“Well, shit. You’re right. Well, if it isn’t useful here, it suddenly looks a lot worse.” Suddenly, Expedite was looking a lot better in comparison to the other two.

I paused and thought for a moment. Specifically, I considered the method I’d used to kill the Mountain Troll. With the build I’d been making for myself, it seemed like the fighting style I leaned toward was one focused on one-on-one combat. I could overpower a single enemy that would normally be able to crush me through smart usage of Stat debuffs and Stamina drains.

And, specifically, Noxious Grasp’s Upgrade – Venomous Grasp – was a massive part of that strategy. By periodically tapping an enemy, then backing away out of their striking range, I could kill something with way more Health than me just by tiring it out. The main problem with that was just that, if the enemy was faster than I was, I couldn’t get away to safety before tagging them with Venomous Grasp. Really, if an enemy was too fast, I couldn’t utilize Noxious Grasp at all.

But with Expedite, I suddenly had a method to close that gap with almost anything. Sure, it’d cost me some Mana, but the range of options it offered me was well worth it. I could flee from just about any combat if it seemed like it’d go poorly, I could rush straight over obstacles like ravines or rivers that I’d normally have to spend time figuring out a way past, and I could easily outmaneuver enemies that I normally wouldn’t dream of being faster than. Even a Level 20 Swordsman wouldn’t even approach my Dexterity if I put a couple hundred Mana into the Spell.

The main issue with it would be that it would cost me a ton of Mana to use to its fullest effect. I had close to 1000 Mana, but even that amount had its limits, as was shown in that fight with the Mountain Troll.

But then, hadn’t one of the reasons I’d spent so much Mana in that fight in the first place been that I wasn’t fast enough? I’d spent over 500 of my Mana just trying to deal with the Ghouls that kept ambushing me out in the open field of the wasteland, since my only way of dealing with them was the Mana-intensive Crippling Chill. But if I’d just cast a couple Expedites, I could’ve easily escaped from them without taking a single hit. In an indirect way, the Spell seemed to make up for my weakness against large crowds of enemies.

“Alright,” I finally said to Erani after thinking it over. “I think I’m leaning toward Expedite.”

I didn’t take the Spell just yet, though. First, I wanted to figure out what Talent I’d choose.

Status Reconstruction was obviously useful in a fight. I could run in recklessly, spend all my Mana and not care about taking hits, and then right before I died, activate Status Reconstruction and get all my resources back. My main problem with it was the thirty-second time limit. Realistically, it could be difficult to effectively use those resources so quickly. Plus, if I got killed by an unexpected hit because of my low Health and I died before I could use it, I’d waste that use of the Talent – and a use of Time Loop.

Precognition was an interesting spin on Time Loop, essentially providing me an extra, but limited, use of it. I wasn’t sure how useful it’d be in my current circumstances, though, since my main usage for Time Loop was to guard against sneak attacks – which Precognition would effectively be useless against unless I got incredibly lucky.

And then there was Exponential Reclamation. It wasn’t too often you saw a Talent that only increased the regeneration of a resource, but not the maximum. But it made sense why this one had that limited functionality; it increased my Mana/Minute by an insane factor. Even by itself, multiplying something by 2.35 was a huge difference. It’d take my Mana/Minute from 18.33 to 43.13. But since it was dependent on my current Conjuration value – and not only that, but it also multiplied with itself – it was that much better.

In fact…

You have used 3 Stat Points to increase Conjuration.

Your Conjuration value is now 89.

Right. Now it would multiply Conjuration by 2.42. So it’d go from 18.87 to 45.75. Normally, increasing Conjuration by 3 would increase my Mana/Minute by about 0.5. But by taking that Talent, it’d turn what would be a 0.5 increase in Mana/Minute into a 2.5 increase – both because of the existing modifier, and because increasing Conjuration would increase the modifier, too. And, as I kept putting in more points, that ratio would only become more favorable.

The Talent seemed perfect for my Mana-hungry fighting style. Plus, with the method I’d used to kill that Mountain Troll, it’d be even better. If, say, I got my Mana/Minute up to 60 – which wouldn’t take long with that Talent – that’d mean I’d get a Mana every second. And if I could drag fights out to be as long as possible, I could make good use of that extra regeneration. Suddenly, I’d have an effectively infinite cap on how much damage I could do to something, as long as I was given enough time.

Before, if I encountered a monster with, say, 100,000 Health, I’d have no real way of killing it. But now, as long as I could survive long enough, I’d always have more Mana to cast Spells with. And that was just with 60 Mana/Minute, something that would come in my near future. Once I got to 120, 180, or even 300, I could start doing absurd things like having Noxious Grasp constantly active – I’d never have to shut it off. And those insane levels of Mana/Minute weren’t even that implausible; because of the way the Talent exponentially increased my Mana regeneration, it would only ever get higher more quickly.

And then, there was the interaction with Recursive Growth. As I got higher and higher in Level, Recursive Growth would give me more and more Stats, and thus, more and more Conjuration every Level. With that much Mana/Minute, I could Rank my Spells even faster, outlast my opponents, and survive fights even when they were mere minutes apart. It was perfect.

So I had my two choices. Expedite and Exponential Reclamation.

You have learned the Spell Expedite.

Your next Spell options will be:

Wild Might - School: Alteration, Nature

Defy Gravity - School: Arcane

Sanguine Bond - School: Arcane, Curse

You have obtained the Talent Exponential Reclamation.

Your next Talent options will be:

Cumulative Catastrophe

Spatial Flux

Future Sight

And now, I just needed to test them out.

Arlan's fully-expanded character sheet, as of now: