OverXelous
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Chapter 20 - Bonded Companion
🕑 Added 2024-10-26 04:31:43 +0000 UTCThe following two days passed in a blur as Alex fought wolves for his Personal Quest.
After earning his new [Empowered Step] skill, he learned several things about how the System worked.
When Alex first met John Riley, the older man mentioned that skills were “learned or earned.”
Learning, in that case, Alex realized, must refer to discovery through experimentation or being taught directly. Alex was confident that if he were to try, he would be able to walk someone through the process of gaining the [Empowered Step] skill as well. As long as they had the ability to sense and move mana like he did.
Earned implied that there was some way to gain them through merit.
Perhaps through Personal or Rift Quests?
Aside from acquiring the skill, Alex was surprised to see that he used less mana when he consciously activated the skill compared to his sloppy mana infusion. It seemed that the use of a skill through the System was more efficient than the original way he taught himself. Alex resolved to study the use of skills more when he was back home.
Was there a difference in the using the System granted skill versus using the shoddy version I was creating when I earned the skill?
He noted how he could choose to do one or the other. It was still possible to do the action as he had before, without actually activating the skill. At the point he was at though, if it was a decision between using his version of the movement ability or using the System granted version, it seemed like a no brainer.
The System version was quicker to activate, easier to control, and more efficient with his mana. But, Alex couldn’t help but think that it came too easily. Most things in life worth having, didn’t come easily.
So what’s the difference between the two?
While Alex knew that things would be much easier if he had someone to answer these questions, he found it fun to experiment and test the mana himself.
This same stubborn desire to test his skills and abilities almost caused a grave issue during one of his fights with the wolves.
Alex had begun to get in the rhythm of using the movement skill to continually outpace the Wild Wolf while kiting it and pelting it with mana darts from his wand. This was effective, though it took most of his mana pool to take down a single wolf. Depending on how things went, it took nearly an hour within the Rift for his mana to recharge. This left him time to brainstorm new tests and reflect on the previous fight.
He’d begun to try and cut down on his use of [Empowered Step], curious to see if he could alternate or swap easily between normal dodging and his skill-assisted movement. It worked well and saved him a good chunk of mana in the first fight that he tried it.
The second fight was where he almost had issues. He continued to alternate between monitoring his surroundings, pelting the wolf, and keeping his distance. This is when he wanted to test something from his fights with the boars. Rather than dodging back early to keep distance, he wondered if he could wait until the last minute to activate his [Empowered Step] to conserve on the amount of time he was moving and hopefully get off another shot with his wand.
The wolf almost bit off his right leg as he tried.
The wolf had lunged and closed its jaws where Alex had been a moment before. The [Empowered Step] safely moved him out of the wolf's path; however, to Alex’s surprise, the wolf hunched its upper body and sprang forward again. It was this second launch that had almost allowed the wolf’s jaw to close sideways around his knee and sink in its teeth.
After a desperate scramble and a very sloppy finish to the fight, Alex decided to save any more of the testing for practice and sparing matches. It served as a very real reminder for him that things could go horribly wrong out in the Rifts, and he’d have little to no help. He had no way to heal or mend wounds and other than the Guild App, there was no record of knowledge of him being in this Rift.
Alex played out the rest of his wolf fights with caution and kept plenty of distance between himself and the wolves.
He’d been surprised when the Personal Quest Reward appeared in his vision.
Alex was unsure of what to make of the reward name and decided that he’d take a closer look once he was somewhere safe. For the time being, Alex dismissed the System window and began to make his way out of the Rift.
He was a bit ahead of his self imposed deadline by this time, but he didn’t see much of a need to continue fighting at the moment. Alex was wound tight, and now that he was almost at the end of his allotted training period, he felt his mind begging to relax.
A nice hot shower and a big chicken sandwich.
His mouth began salivating as he thought of the food and comfort of his home. Thanks to his camping provisions, he’d been eating Meals Ready to Eat for the last week; some real food sounded delicious.
As Alex walked back down the gravel driveway toward his car, he thought back on his last two days in the Common Rift. While he did, he kept an eye out for the mysterious man in the woods who had taken his payment upon entry.
The wolves were a significant challenge. They were higher level than the boars and much more cunning. The first few fights pushed Alex hard.
He gained a lot in the two days: another level, several more Mana Stones, and more experience in combat. This didn’t even take into account his strange Rift Reward. Overall, Alex felt very satisfied with his five-day training stint.
Once he was safe and in his car once again, he eagerly looked at his Personal Quest windows.
***
Congratulations Awakened. You have completed Personal Quest: Culling the Wolves!
You have one Personal Quest Reward available.
Congratulations Awakened. You have completed Personal Quest: Culling the Wolves!
You gain: 1x Bonded Companion Token
***
Bonded Companion Token. Does that mean what I think it means?
Alex was giddy with excitement and spent the drive back to his house, imagining all of the possibilities. The one that kept returning to the forefront of his mind was that he could be getting some kind of wolf companion.
The quest that I got the reward from, was to kill wolves. So it might make sense that it’s giving me something similar, right?
It took a lot of self-restraint for him to not accept the reward the moment he walked in his apartment door. Instead, he forced himself to wait.
Shower first. Then check AG to see if anyone else has used one of these.
Having a plan always made this sort of thing more bearable.
It wasn’t long before Alex sat on his couch, flipping through his phone while waiting for his food delivery. Soon he found several articles on companions. Most of them were people who somehow managed to form some sort of pact with an animal. The majority of the articles cited that this was with a long-time family or personal dog, and in one case, a zookeeper had bonded with one of the silverback gorillas. There was useful information in some of these posts, such as how companions share specific stats or skills. Alex returned to a few after finding more information on someone who had used one of these tokens.
He was only able to find two posts of this happening. Both of them confirmed something that bummed Alex out.
So, the companion that’s given has nothing to do with how you get the token. It has to do with which option you choose and what the System seems to think that you might benefit from.
Both posts went on to talk about the Awakened, who bonded with the token monster to receive animals or creatures that were not of Earth. They both also seemed to gain a great deal of power from the bond, which could not be said about those who bonded with their average house pets. While those bonding with normal or older animals might receive a few stats, it was unlikely that those animals had skills or stats comparable to a System-chosen beast.
While a part of Alex thought it might be extremely cool to have a wolf pet follow him around and aid him in combat, he had no idea how that would truly work.
He glanced around his living room. The wolves from that Rift were somewhere between the size of his coffee table and his entire couch.
Where would I keep an animal like that? How would I even pay to feed the thing?
Questions and complications continued to crop up in Alex’s mind. Regardless of how many potential hurdles there would be to overcome, one thing was clear. Bonding with the companion token would give Alex a boost in power and a potential ally in combat.
Should I look up how much the Token sells for?
He couldn’t dismiss the idea outright. Alex had played enough games to know how economies like this tended to go with a very limited supply and a high demand. Those who got their hands on rare items early and sold them for a huge profit could turn around and use that currency for even more gains than the single item could have benefitted them.
This was the kind of strategy that only worked at the launch of new games or seasons because as the economy leveled out and the supply was able to begin to match the demand, prices would quickly drop and level out. Those at the forefront tended to benefit the most, as they could use this to gain even more of an advantage and rarer items.
I need to commit. Whatever the consequences are, I’ll deal with them once I see what sort of companion it gives me.
Alex then accepted the quest reward. A small item resembling a poker chip shaped like an animal’s head appeared in his hand. The posts had described a need to break the token in half to activate it.
A new window appeared, exactly as he had read about. Three options were now before him, different for each person to break the token.
***
Option 1: Your companion comes from a category of highly durable and hardy creatures. Constitution and Strength are the Primary Stats from the beasts in this choice.
Size: (Small-Large)
Option 2: Your companion comes from a category of swift creatures. All options in this category will carry a Wind Affinity.
Size: (Small-Medium)
Option 3: Your companion comes from a category of mana-attuned creatures. Affinities can vary widely based on the Awakened One.
Size: (Tiny-Behemoth)
***
He read through each option multiple times.
It feels like the System is really helping me pick some options that are great for me here. The first option will have beasts that have high Health and Strength, which are two areas that I’m really lacking in. With every one of the companion posts confirming that there was some amount of stat sharing, this became a very enticing offer.
Alex was already quite scared to see his Constitution so far below his Willpower and worried that after a few more levels, things would be able to kill him with ease.
The second option seems to align with how I’ve been fighting over the last week. An agile companion, along with its shared stats or skill, could really help me keep ahead of the monsters I’m fighting. We could synergize very well together.
This was the first option that Alex decided to discard. While he thought there could be some synergy, and the Wind Affinity was interesting, he wasn’t sure that he’d continue with this fighting style in the long run. He hoped to turn into a full-blown spell caster after receiving his purchased material for rituals later in the evening.
This third option sounds perfect for me wanting to be a spell caster. While it looks like a random shot for the affinity the bond might have, I don’t really care. I don’t have an affinity at all right now, so maybe that will get me started down a good path.
The thing that troubled him about this option the most was the size range.
What does that even mean? Tiny, as in a bug? Behemoth, as in something like a dinosaur? Larger? How would that even work?
Even though Alex wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the idea, he was too nervous about the reality of the situation to do so. From what Alex had already seen the System do, he had no doubt that an extremely large monster could plop out of nowhere and into his apartment.
Should I even do this here? What if it’s huge and breaks the room or something?
This time, Alex really did laugh.
So what if it breaks something? I’m literally fighting monsters and using magic. If I need to move out of my apartment because my magically summoned companion is so large that it breaks part of the building… then so be it.
The thought was genuinely crazy and didn’t fit the reality that Alex had known all his life.
He mentally pushed toward the third option.
The broken token in his hand disintegrated into floating golden motes of light, similar to those that he saw when reaching a new level. The lights picked up speed and condensed into a small ball before flashing brightly.
Alex stood up and screamed. In his haste to back away from the two round eyes and sharp teeth before him, he flipped backward over his couch and onto the wooden floor beyond.
Comments
OverXelous
I changed this for the live RR chapter by the way! Thanks for leaving the critique! Always trying to improve.
OverXelous
Yeah, this may receive a small tweak before hitting RR. There were a few people who got frustrated at him for even using his wand indoors (and he had a general idea that wasn't going to be blowing holes in his walls). This does seem a bit drastic. I may change the option to no longer have Behemoth on there. Thanks for your comment!
Alucard Hellsing
Did hr just risk the lives of all the people living in the building because he was too eager to go to an out of the way place? It irks me.
Al
Not a rpg unless a pet is involved :p He probably shoulda prioritized his terrifyingly low hp but lets see what chicanery happens with this magic companion
OverXelous
I'm not sure you're remembering how the stats work here as explained in one of the earlier chapters. Intellect and Willpower have nothing to do with Mana / Mana Regen. There are other stats for those two things: Intellect is Magical Power (and comprehension) Willpower is Magical Control (and speed of thought) Mana dictates the total mana pool Wisdom dictates mana regeneration rages
lenkite
"Depending on how things went, it took nearly an hour within the Rift for his mana to recharge" EDIT: My bad I was confused that Extreme willpower would improve mana regen. But Willpower does not affect mana regen rates. It is only Magic Control and speed.
