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Chapter 73: Tasty Titles
🕑 Added 2023-01-03 13:00:02 +0000 UTCErani helped me through the forest for about an hour before we had to take a break. I was burned, battered, burdened by notification sickness and couldn’t walk on my own, and Erani was in no shape to support my entire weight for that long, either.
Once we were a good distance away and sure we hadn’t been followed, we sat down. The moment I was no longer wrapped around Erani’s shoulder, she collapsed on the ground. I didn’t realize just how exhausted she obviously was, and felt bad for burdening her so much. But I was just as tired, so I lay on the dirt, rubbing my eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to remedy my headache. It reminded me of that stress I used to feel from my rigorous practice with Noxious Grasp – back when I’d first been lost in the woods.
The Dryad seemed to understand that we were taking a break, and sat down next to us. She closed her eyes, seeming to meditate in a similar way Erani or I would in order to manage our Level-ups. It was strange – I’d never seen her do that before.
But now wasn’t the time to ponder what our monster ally was doing. I had Level-ups of my own to manage, and I was excited to see what I got. First, I opened up my Status.
Just about everything had increased – and by a lot. My Mana/Minute was at 16, making it quicker than ever to get Spell XP. My Health/Minute had finally surpassed 0.1, so I was officially gaining a point of Health every ten minutes – still incredibly slow, but much better than before. My Stamina/Minute was approaching 1, which would make my Regenerate Talent much more efficient. And, of course, my maximum Health, Stamina, and mana had all increased by quite a bit, too. That milestone of 1000 maximum Mana was approaching more quickly than ever.
In addition to all that, my Intelligence had also passed 16. I’d noticed that my Intelligence Information Ranks increased at every 4 points of Intelligence, so I must’ve gotten something and missed it in the flood of other notifications.
Intelligence threshold reached. 16 Intelligence.
Your Intelligence information rank has increased.
Due to increasing your Intelligence information rank, you have been granted the following benefits:
-Trailblazer Title has begun collecting data on holder. All future thoughts, decisions, actions, emotions, and movements will be logged.
-Logged data will be used as Intelligence Information Rank increases further.
I read through this notification once, then again. It definitely wasn’t the same as the other Intelligence Information Ranks I’d gotten in the past. Those all had a definitive, noticeable effect, telling me what I may be offered in the future depending on my choices. But this…
What did it mean by ‘collecting data’? Thoughts, decisions, actions – how would it keep track of them? Could I see the log it was keeping?
I tried to coerce the System to pull open this ‘log’ of my thoughts, but couldn’t. Seemed like that wasn’t for my eyes. But would it really include everything? I knew the System had access to my mind – how else would I be controlling it – but it felt a bit intrusive for it to so explicitly say it could read my thoughts.
And what was it even doing with them? Presumably, for now, it was just keeping track. But it said that in the future, the data would be ‘used’. Used how? Hopefully in my favor, but how could I be sure? How could it even help me by knowing what I thought? I also knew what I was thinking. It wasn’t like it could give me any extra info in that regard.
For now, it effectively did nothing. But I was suddenly extremely conscious of what I thought. And it also brought up some safety concerns. What if this ‘log’ of my thoughts and actions could be accessed? Sure, it didn’t seem like I could do so right now, but what if someone else could access it? If the Demons suddenly knew my every thought and move, I was as good as dead. There wasn’t any precedent for something like that happening before, but this entire Class and Title were unprecedented.
I was suddenly unsure of whether I even wanted to increase my Level further. What if I got to 20 Intelligence and the Title started blaring my movements to everyone around? It wasn’t likely, but still. I had no idea what it would do, and sometimes the System would try to help in a way that really only hurt.
But, at the end of the day, I just had to take that risk. I wasn’t sure what this Title was doing, but I couldn’t completely stunt my growth just because I was a bit scared. For now, I’d just have to ignore it until it became relevant. Not much I could do about the fact it was ‘logging’ this information.
I tried to mentally move on to the realm of Spells, Talents, and Titles. There were a few big improvements. Of course, there was the notable Spell Choice and Devastator Title flashing out at me, but Time Loop ranking up as much as it did was also a big deal.
Previously, it would only take me back by an hour and a half. But now, thanks to Extended Loop, that had doubled – I could go back 3 hours per use. With two uses per day being allotted to me, that meant that, while everyone else lived through twenty-four hour days, I suddenly found myself living through thirty hours before a day had passed.
I suspected my sleep schedule would suffer – even if my body only lived through the regular-length days, my mind didn’t. It already felt strange adding on an extra couple hours, and now that had doubled. I’d just have to get used to it.
But that was a worry for another time. For now, I wanted to get straight to the meat of my gains. First was my Devastator Title. After that weirdness with Trailblazer, part of me was a bit nervous to see what this one did, but I ignored that feeling and looked over its description.
Devastator
You have taken a risk and killed enough enemies that, in a single minute, you have gained three or more Levels. For many, gambles like that cost them their lives. For you, it paid off. Greed is good.
All enemies you contribute to killing provide 25% more XP.
…That was good. Incredibly so. With this Title, the rate I Leveled would be increased an intense amount. And it wasn’t just me. The Title didn’t say that I earned 25% more XP, it said that the monsters I contributed to killing provided 25% more XP to everyone. So, if Erani and I killed a monster together, we’d both earn the extra XP. This Title would help my allies just as much as it helped me.
And help it did. 25% more XP may have been small in the short term, but after some time, it could be equal to an extra Level or two, and only increased more and more as time went on. And, of course, in my situation, every point of XP was incredibly valued.
I’d never heard of this Title, but that wasn’t surprising, really. There were thousands of documented Titles – enough to fill entire dictionaries of the things that filled the shelves of libraries – and more were discovered every year. People theorized there were millions of them, some for general achievements, and some for much more specific, niche things.
I was sure that a Title like this had been found before – getting three Levels at once was uncommon, of course, but this probably wasn’t the first ever time something like that had happened. Especially when compared to other Titles that existed. There were things like a Title for learning a Spell of every single Spell School, or one for single-handedly killing one million monsters in your lifetime. Those had been discovered by people who literally dedicated their lives toward accomplishing those goals, just to see if there was a Title for doing it. So I was sure that someone had gotten a few Levels at once before.
But getting the Title was still incredible. An extra 25% XP, forever. I could practically feel the power crackling at my fingertips.
And, speaking of power at my fingertips, I still had a Spell Choice to go through. This was one of the biggest benefits of Leveling, I’d noticed. While learning a new Spell wasn’t technically a strict numerical increase to my power like getting Stats was, the additional options were just as – if not more – important. A single new Spell could mean the difference between a sure victory and a swift defeat.
So, with thoughts of maximizing this new boost in power as much as I could in my mind, I opened my Spell Choice and looked over the options.
Choose one Spell to learn:
Ethereal Armor
School: Arcane, Summoning
Type: Activated
Cost: 150 Mana
—
You summon one of two sets of magical armor – Dark Plate or Light Plate. You may dismiss it at any time. It will be automatically dismissed after 60 minutes.
While wearing Dark Plate, you cannot take more than 50% of your maximum Health in damage in a single second (155 damage). Preventing damage this way breaks the Plate, making it unusable for 60 seconds.
While wearing Light Plate, your other spells cost 10% less, though still gain Spell XP as though they weren’t discounted.
Intelligence information:
If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:
Ember Gale - School: Fire
Expedite - School: Alteration
Heartstone - School: Alteration, Summoning
Abrupt Decay
School: Nature
Type: Activated
Cost: 75 Mana
—
Choose a being you are touching. If it has less than 300 Health, it dies.
Intelligence information:
If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:
Damnation - School: Demonic
Mana Seism - School: Arcane
Contaminated Bond - School: Curse, Nature
Stasis
School: Curse, Arcane
Type: Activated
Cost: 280 Mana
—
Freeze time for a single being that you are touching for 10 seconds. The being cannot move, think, or otherwise perceive the outside world for the duration, and its body cannot be forcibly moved or damaged.
Reduce the duration of this spell by 1 second for each 10 Endurance the entity has. A being with 100 Endurance is completely unaffected.
Intelligence information:
If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:
Chain of Vapor - School: Aqueous, Arcane
Killing Wave - School: Arcane
Luminous Bonds - School: Curse, Divine
I could tell by now that my options were aimed toward higher-Leveled individuals. Between Ethereal Armor and Stasis, these options cost quite a bit. Even Abrupt Decay was up there, at 75 Mana. Compared to my first few Spell Choices, their costs were enormous. Even Gravity Well’s 10 per second was pretty up there. But with their high Mana costs came high power, too.
Ethereal Armor was flexible, essentially allowing me to choose between better survivability against high-damage attacks, or cheaper Spells – provided I was willing to pay its up-front cost of 150 Mana. Abrupt Decay was interesting. It would essentially allow me to deal 300 damage to anything I was touching for the relatively miniscule cost of 75 Mana, but only if that damage would kill them. Otherwise, it’d do nothing. And Stasis could freeze someone in time for up to 10 seconds – a great effect paired with a suitably great cost.
But, of course, I’d have to choose the best from among them. I just had no idea which one that was.
Comments
Frardowin
The description said being not object so that kind of shenanigan wont happen it seems. Honestly, if he doesn't take the armor he is a fool. it would stop him from being 1 shot by the demon doing 3k punches.
Yashakami
This is a great point, he would also know which type of armor to use and when after the first loop
It'sATap
Stasis is perhaps the most OP spell for so many reasons.. Do you know the amount of BS you can do if you have objects that can't be moved? Just the potential of enemies smashing or ramming into time stopped things is lethal. Makes me wonder if he gets a spell to delay the cast, then a spell to teleport something into space, then finds a massive creature like a blue whale, could be theoretically destroy the planet?
seth dauer
Stasis is a control spell. Pick one target and take them out of the action for a time. You CAN abuse it, by setting up a trap like a mine to step into when it ends, but it does both a little and a lot. Turning a 2v2 into two 2v1s is pretty clutch. But it's limits are harsh, weakening the spell as time goes on. Ethereal plays into his strength, training. Reduced mana is more casts, more often. Especially if it's duration or reduction goes up over time. And the heavy alternative is desperately needed tank. That worm wouldn't have killed him back in the town, leaving him clueless on what killed him, etc
