OverXelous
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13. Teams Event!
🕑 Added 2025-01-07 14:00:12 +0000 UTCSunlight streamed through the large windows of the new house’s spacious living room. The white and gray space looked immaculate, and Alex was still finding it hard to adjust to having Edwin around to coordinate things and Clara around to constantly clean through the week.
Alex sat cross-legged on the wide cushioned couch with one large book in his lap and another smaller one in his hand. His eyebrows came together as he used his newest skill, though he was quickly becoming frustrated with its particular limitations.
Beside him, Mark lounged in an armchair, his attention glued to the AG app on his phone. He scrolled through the latest updates and occasionally paused to read something out loud. Sam sat quietly at the other end of the couch, a leather journal open in his lap as he worked through Alex's recorded notes and training materials from their time in the Epic Rift.
“Dude, you’ve gotta check this out,” Mark said, drawing Alex’s gaze away from his books. “Did you know that you can train your stat points?”
His interest piqued, Alex felt his consciousness come together and focused on Mark fully. “What do you mean?”
“It’s one of the ones from Rylan, but this article talks about how you can increase your stats by a small amount just by training. Like lifting weights or running to increase your Strength and Agility. It talks about doing mental exercises, brain teasers, and studying to increase your magical stats as well.”
Alex perked up, and immediately, a handful of questions popped up in his mind. “Does it say by how much? Or how quickly they can increase?”
There was a pause as Mark continued to scan the article. “It says that there’s a limit, but the limit apparently increases every thirty.”
“So, with a rank advancement?”
“It looks like it’s more tied to levels. Wait, actually, can you explain that to me a bit more? I’ll get my class at level ten, right? So how does my class level up?”
Mark set aside his phone, and Alex had to change gears to keep up with the redirected conversation.
"Okay, let me break this down," Alex said, leaning forward. "Levels and classes are two separate things."
Mark nodded and was completely focused on the explanation.
"Levels are a measure of your overall power and stats. You gain experience for pretty much everything you do, and that increases your level. It's a constant kind of progression that’s easy to measure."
"Okay, and classes?" Mark asked.
"Classes are like a jobs. They have their own progression system, completely separate from your level. You gain class experience by performing tasks related to your class, just like you’d get better at your job by doing it more."
Alex paused, making sure Mark was following. "Classes have five proficiency ranks: Novice, Journeyman, Adept, Expert, and Master. These are the same ranks used for skills. Your class determines which skills you get and how many stat points you receive when you level up."
"So how are they connected?" Sam chimed in with interest.
"They're not really, except for one thing that I know of," Alex explained. "You can't get a class until you reach level 10. But otherwise, they progress independently."
“But why do people keep saying that your class advances around level 30 if they’re separate?”
Alex shrugged. “I’m guessing because it just gives us a general way to track things. Theoretically if you only ever had one class, and most of the experience you gained for your levels was by doing actions related to your class… yeah I guess you’d probably go up a proficiency rank around every 20-30 levels.”
Mark's brow furrowed. "What if you change classes?"
"That’s where the problem comes in if you try to think of them as the same thing. It just doesn’t work. You can change classes whenever you want, but you'll likely start back at Novice rank, but your levels and stats will never be lost.” Alex waved his hand and dismissed the topic. “There’s not a lot of reason for all the hypotheticals right now. Just know that the key to progress your class is to focus on activities that align with your class. Do that, and you'll eventually be offered an advancement.
"There's still a lot we don't know about how it all works. The System isn't exactly upfront with details. But that's pretty much the gist of it."
Mark nodded thoughtfully. "So, it's not just about leveling up, but you also have to think about how you perform in your chosen class?"
"Exactly," Alex confirmed, pleased with their understanding. "It's quality over quantity. Pushing yourself in your class activities likely counts for more than just going through the motions." Alex sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Honestly, I’ve been a bit worried about this because I gained my experience and levels so fast. Worse yet, I wasn’t really using my class when I gained half of those levels. It makes sense that Sam would be getting close to his advancement, considering he was healing almost daily for more almost two years. But I basically got boosted in the span of a couple of months.”
“So you feel like you haven’t done enough with your class yet to get an advancement in the same level time frame that you were talking about.”
“We’ll see, I guess. But yeah- that’s what I’m worried about.”
Sam spoke up, “But I really do think that doing things that are hard or push your class and skills get you more of that experience. Remember, we talked about this some with my healing skills?”
Alex nodded.
“Well, you’ve been adapting and modifying rituals pretty much nonstop since even before we met. That’s got to count for more than just practicing the same beginner rituals over and over, right?”
“Hmm,” Alex said. “That’s actually a good point. I still don’t think it’s going to be enough to balance out how quickly I jumped up there, but you’re not wrong. Maybe I’m not as bad off as I thought?” He thought on it for a few minutes and the two conversations so close to each other made a light bulb go off in Alex’s head. “Oh, shit.” He sat up straight before standing and running up to his office.
Mark called after him in confusion, but he returned to the living room after grabbing one of the advanced Ritual manuals that Eura had gifted to him. He flipped through the pages, and both Sam and Mark looked at each other in confusion.
“Here!” Alex found the section at the front of the Body Tempering Advanced Rituals Manual. “I hadn’t really put much thought into it since it says early on that these rituals can’t be used on anyone under the first star rank.”
“First star?”
“The cultivators in the Rift classified things differently than the System does. Basically, they called anyone who was E Rank an initiate, and anyone who was D Rank was one star. Then, the stars went up by a single count for each Rank. So, when this said it couldn’t be used until the first star, I thought it wasn’t worth getting into yet.”
“Alright, that makes sense.”
“But, if what you were just saying about gaining stats being capped or limited to each Rank, then this makes a bit more sense. There are a few different body tempering rituals in here and just glancing at the schematics, they’re really complicated and will take a lot of materials and mana to start, but it describes the results as substantial. This makes some more sense if our bodies need to adjust and adapt by gaining more levels before they can undergo a big change, like what some of these rituals can do. Though the process sounds pretty gruesome in a few…” His sentence tapered off as he looked at the blood-tempering ritual.
The group all sat back in their chairs and thought more on the implications and yet another potential avenue for their growth. Slowly, Sam went back to reading through Alex's notes from the Epic Rift while Mark talked with Alex more about classes.
“How’s that new skill of yours, anyway?” Mark asked.
“It’s going well, but it’s a bit more limited than I thought.” When Mark raised an eyebrow, Alex answered the unspoken question. “Well, at first it was actually really hard to separate the two streams of information I was getting at once. While my mind is split to do two things, it took some practice on how to just focus on one and ignore the other one, letting it work until I end the skill.”
“Sound a little complicated.”
Alex shrugged in response. “I don’t see many uses for me to actually want to try and know what’s going on in two places at once. The skill seems most useful to focus on one thing, and then let the other half work through a problem or train in the background. Almost like a background process on a computer.”
“That’s so wild,” Mark said, chuckling with disbelief.
“Seriously… it get’s crazier. From there, I wanted to see if I could read two things at once. Then maybe I could study twice as fast or something… but, well- I can’t look at two things at once. So, I guess I could read the book and let half of my attention focus on the book's content, and the other stream of my consciousness could focus on a conversation with you. So, I could still study while we chat.
“There’s the huge benefit that the skills cost is a set amount and up front, so I feel like I’m almost encouraged to leave it running longer, but I pulled up my Status Window, and I could see all of my mental stats get cut in half while using the skill. I guess it’s literally parsing my mental capacity and using half for each half of the [Parallel Mind].”
“Damn, still. That’s so cool. There’s a lot you can do with it, even if you can’t physically do two things at once.”
Alex was nodding before he even finished the sentence. “Yeah, definitely. I think I’ll try to keep it running a lot of the time and practice shaping exercises or my cycling technique, even while I’m doing other things. At least that’s a form of training that I don’t need to do much physically. Also, in combat, I see it being really useful. I can focus on my opponent and fight or move while letting the other half of my mind lay down rituals. I’ll need to work on it a bit, but I think it will be a game changer.”
“Ugh, I want to just buy a bunch of stuff from the Auction House. Seriously, I need to try and get my hands on a skill manual or something.”
“Well, I can’t be the only one getting cool stuff. I tried to get you that shout skill the other day, but you kept telling me not to. Why don’t we look for something you think will work with what you want to do?”
“I want to get it on my own,” Mark said with a grin. “I’m looking forward to us getting into some of those Rifts so I can earn my keep around here.” His forehead wrinkled as he thought about the Rifts. “I know it’s only been a week since you said you registered us for some of those better Rarity Rifts, but why is it taking so long for us to get in? I know you want us to train until we get in, but how long are we going to wait? I haven’t been in a Rift since before you got home a month ago.” Mark rolled his head back to rest on the couch in a dramatic fashion.
Alex laughed. “Yeah, it is taking a while. I’ll need to look into why we haven’t gotten in. We shouldn’t wait too long. While I want you guys to train, gaining levels is important, too, especially if there’s a competition starting soon. If this goes on much longer, I’ll just put us in for a few Common Rifts. I was able to get Gabby and Edwin in without problems within a day or two.”
Mark nodded, happy with the response.
They spent some time in comfortable silence, and Alex watched as Sam meticulously worked through his notes, occasionally making his own annotations in the margins. It was good to see him taking such an interest in understanding what they'd learned during their time in the Epic Rift.
Alex felt a knot of guilt and anxiety well up in his stomach.
We really need to talk about his parents, though. The more time that passes, the more wrong this feels.
All three of their phones chimed simultaneously, and Alex was pulled from his thoughts.
***
[Adventurer's Guild Announcement]
Team Event: Rift Clearing Challenge
Duration: 30 Days
Objective: Clear and close designated Rifts to gain contribution points
Teams: 2-8 members
Special Note: Teams will be matched, accepted, or denied from Rifts based on power level and composition
***
Comments
OverXelous
I actually love this idea. It's not exactly the route I'd planned to take things, but I'm sure it could be worked in the story in some fashion, if not in this book, then in the next.
V L
Monetizing rituals yessss.
V L
Omg if he does that’s *beyond* crossing the line. That’s life or death. I hope that if he does do something it’s petty and non dangerous like limiting them to common rifts. Then at least they can speed clear them for gains.
V L
T h i s.
V L
Yessss so excited to see them get to closing some rifts.
aaab1422
Sam's situation is pretty weird yeah, but also what kind of a home life did he have that spending a year as a slave wasn't bad enough to make him want to go home to his parents immediately.
Ron
Good point about fighting and casting in the same round/turn/time slot. I think this will be a huge power-up.
small_brain_boy
Oh I bet that asshole is gonna use the last bit of information to fuck with Alex trying to sign up his team or something. I can feel it
Corwin
Ah. Sounds like Alex could spend some time in parallel mind to see how they could do body tempering for the initiative level. Reading the material than thinking of how to break it down so the newly Awakened can benefit. And if it works, he can open a club/store to have people pay to do it
Beeees!
Oooh ya, some good mechanics discussion, touching on the Sam issue, aaand preamble to some rift clearing. Let's fookin go!
