Chapter 112: A Short Respite
Erani, our newly-named companion Ainash, and I all sat and rested, taking a short break before moving to attack the wall. I used the last of my Stamina on Regenerate, trying to get my Health back up a bit, then sat down and closed my eyes.
Index reminded me that I’d Leveled up back there when I was fighting the Infernals, and I still had Stat Points to assign. So my first portion of the break was spent in meditation.
You have used 3 Stat Points to increase Conjuration.
Your Conjuration value is now 100.
Name:
Arlan Nota
Age:
20
Strength:
22 (18 + 4)
Class:
Minute Mage
Level:
17
Endurance:
41 (37 + 4)
Class Type:
Magic
XP:
893/1.9k
Dexterity:
23 (19 + 4)
Health:
196/410
Health/Minute:
0.149
Conjuration:
100
Stamina:
45/190
Stamina/Minute:
1.25
Intelligence:
22
Mana:
1082/1110
Mana/Minute:
57.6
Spells:
Talents:
Titles:
Expedite 9 - XP 355/355
Exponential Reclamation
Devastator
Ethereal Armor 9 - XP 51/355
Regenerate
Trailblazer
Gravity Well 9 - XP 6/355
Recursive Growth
Ray of Frost 9 - XP 35/355
Time Loop 17
+Extended Loop
Crippling Chill 9 - XP 238/355
Noxious Grasp 12 - XP 416/844
+Venomous Grasp
100 Conjura
100 Conjuration! I smiled, looking at the nice, three-digit number. It was the culmination of everything I’d been working for all this time.
I was just about getting 1 Mana every second at this point, which was extremely promising. Soon enough, my Mana/Minute would reach 100, and then I’d be able to get a full point of Spell XP past the Soft Cap every single minute. Quite the difference from back when each individual point of Spell XP gained was an accomplishment of its own. All I’d need were a few more Levels, and the extra Conjuration gained would be enough to push me there, when combined with Exponential Reclamation.
But then, the XP requirements for reaching the next Levels were speeding up, as well. To get to 17, it had cost 1600, now it’d cost 1900 for 18. I remembered the general idea of how XP costs ramped up; the first 10 Levels would start with a base 50 cost, and increase by an additional 50 each Level until 10. Those first 10 Levels were considered the “easy part” of Leveling, because after that, the rate the costs would increase at would start going up, itself.
From the 500 XP cost at Level 10, it’d start increasing by 100 each Level. Then, once it got to 1000 at Level 15, it’d start going up by 300. That was the part I was in. After that, once you got to Level 20 it’d start going up by 500, then at Level 25 it’d go up by 1000, at 30 it’d go up by 3000, and so on. It followed that same pattern forever, as far as Humanity knew.
At this point, I was just beginning to get a taste of the ever-increasing nature of Level requirements, and I could already see why many people stopped trying to get stronger after a certain point.
It’d be pretty easy to get to, say, Level 10 over the course of a year by just taking on easy, safe jobs and teaming up with a big group of other adventurers to make sure nobody was put in any danger.
Assuming you played things safe and the group got an average of 50 XP per outing killing random monsters that strayed close to city walls, split among five people, each individual would just get 10 XP each outing. And assuming they went out a few times a week between their regular jobs, to get the altogether 2750 XP to get from Level 0 to Level 10, it’d take a bit less than two years. That wasn’t bad at all, if you had the time and were dedicated.
But then, to get from Level 10 to Level 20, you’d need a total of 13,500 XP. Using that same method, it’d suddenly take over eight years of time and dedication to get to that point. And getting to Level 30 would take a lifetime.
Now, sure, as a higher-Level individual, you’d have the ability to safely take on higher-Level monsters. But higher-Level monsters were much harder to come by. You could easily find Wood Spirits and Trimps roaming around the wilderness, but finding a nest of Drakelings to kill every single day? That just wasn’t going to happen. And when you were trying to kill all the high-Level monsters in an area, you’d naturally start butting heads with other high-Level adventurers who also wanted that XP. And that was not something you wanted.
So the majority of people who wanted to avoid dying pointlessly would take things slow and typically stop trying to Level after Level 10 or so. Past that point, they’d just Level incidentally while on jobs, which wouldn’t happen often. Adventuring paid well, so most wouldn’t need to go out killing monsters more than a couple times a week.
Of course, there were people out there who worked to Level much, much harder and took many more risks, but they certainly weren’t common. Doing that would either be extremely expensive, since you’d want to protect yourself with powerful items and hired guards to step in if you ever got into trouble, or you’d go without the protection and have a high chance of dying. There were many people who fancied themselves a future Level 30 adventurer and ended up buried a Level 3.
Really, I’d been Leveling much more quickly than most people did when they first got a Class. Obviously, some of that was because of some of the inherent benefits I’d been given. I had Time Loop, which could get me massive amounts of extra XP throughout my fights, I had the Devastator Title, passively increasing my gains, and I had Recursive Growth working for me quite well at this point, more than making up for its sub-par performance for the first few Levels after I’d gotten it. Some of my strength absolutely came from outside my direct influence.
But I had no doubt that I knew where most of it came from. It’d come from necessity. There was no doubt in my mind that if I hadn’t taken every opportunity available to me to fight, kill, and work for more strength, I’d have died for good a long time ago.
Sure, the Demons were sending in their soldiers to try and kill me, that was one way of thinking about it. But another way to think about it? They were sending in little pouches of XP, ripe for me to claim. Through their own blunders and mistakes, they’d created the same person that was about to rip and tear his way through their forces, destroy their wall, and get the fuck out of here.
Me, Erani, Ainash, we’d all been tempered like steel by the Demons trying to kill us all. And by the gods, we were about to be forged into a blade that’d slit their throats.
I opened my eyes, taking a deep breath. Time to focus. I would not die so close to the finish line.
“Index, can you tell me any useful information before we go into this fight?”
“Hm… Well, I can’t tell you much about your Draconiad friend that you don’t already know, since you just haven’t been around her in her new form for very long yet. But you have been around this Dragon, especially when considering your multiple timelines dying to it.”
“What, does dying to something mean I get a bunch of new info?”
“Basically. Really, I wasn’t technically supposed to be used alongside your specific Class. I was just meant for anyone that had a unique one. So my limitations weren’t exactly designed with time-travel powers in mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Pretty much, there are hidden values only I know that constitute your ‘Familiarity’ with something. The more Familiar you are with it, the more information I can give you. Now, countless things can increase familiarity, so pretty much any interaction will do so naturally. Researching something, talking with people about it, just existing near it, and, most importantly, fighting against it. When you fight something, you’ll be given Familiarity with it based on how impactful that fight was. So, killing something is way more likely to give you Familiarity than just poking it once and running off.”
“...Right, so I can get this Familiarity with monsters by killing them, makes sense.”
“Not just by killing them. I said it’s based on how ‘impactful’ your encounter was. So if you’re the one that’s being trashed by a monster, it’ll also build up a ton of Familiarity all the same.”
“And Familiarity can be tracked along deaths,” I nodded.
“Exactly. Time Loop is very specific about its wording. It’ll turn back your current Health, Stamina, and Mana, and it’ll also reset any of your other Talent cooldowns, but nothing else relating to your Status. That, of course, means Levels and XP, but it also means stuff like building Familiarity. It also has some interesting interactions with that Bond you have.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Can’t say,” Index sighed. “That hint was already pushing it. But anyway, what I’m getting at here is that you’re pretty darn Familiar with Dragons, at this point. Especially Astintash.”
“Huh,” I said. I was careful about what I specifically said to Index, since I had no doubt Astintash could hear me no matter how softly I spoke. So far, I hadn’t given anything away – nothing that Astintash could put together based on my side of the conversation alone – so I wasn’t worried about anything, but mentioning the fact that I was talking about it specifically would probably not be a good idea. “What can you tell me, then?”
“Well I can’t tell you exact Health numbers or anything like that – you’d need to start dealing significant damage to it to start figuring that stuff out. But I can tell you about why Astintash cares so much about killing off these soldiers. You can probably do a good bit with that information.”
“You mean it isn’t just about…”
“Pride?” Index read from my mind. “No, not just that. At least, I don’t think so. I’ll admit what I’m about to say is technically speculation – I can’t read anyone’s mind but yours – but I know enough from knowing Astintash’s mental conversations with Ainash and knowing literally everything about the Dragon species that I’m pretty confident.”
“Sounds good to me. Any information is good information, even if it isn’t totally certain.”
“Well, do you know how Dragons reproduce?”
“Eggs, right?”
“Yes, they lay eggs, but the process isn’t exactly typical. When a Dragon lays an egg, that egg still needs to be fertilized. Without fertilization, it’ll essentially sit around forever, waiting for that to happen. The eggs can last effectively an eternity while waiting for fertilization though, so as long as they aren’t damaged, there’s no rush once they’ve been laid. So what Dragons will do is, the moment they reach maturity, they’ll instantly find a place to roost and lay a batch of eggs.”
“And then, what, just find another one?”
“Find another Dragon to fertilize their eggs? No, no, Dragons are much too proud to go to another for help. Especially when that other Dragon’s own essence of self will be half of the makeup of the original Dragon’s offspring. You may forget about this because you’re a Human, but Dragons aren’t only proud as a species. They believe that they’re naturally superior to all other species’, yes, but they also believe that they, as an individual, are superior to all others of their own species.”
“Wait, so what do they do, then?”
“Dragons are sexless – there aren’t male or female versions of the species. They can all both lay and fertilize eggs.”
“So does that mean…”
“Yes, a Dragon will fertilize its own eggs. But it doesn’t do so immediately. Using the exact same genetics to both lay and fertilize an egg won’t work. Instead, Dragons utilize another unique quirk of their biology – their genetic makeup shifts over time. Or, rather, it shifts with Levels. As they Level up and evolve their bodies, the genetic fabric making them up will slowly change. So, after laying its eggs immediately upon reaching maturity, that specific set of genetics is frozen in time, awaiting the fertilization from a new ‘version’ of the same being.”
“And then after a while, it comes back?”
“Exactly. It’ll come back after hundreds of years, once it’s at a genetic point it’s particularly proud of, and fertilize the eggs, finally completing them and readying them to hatch. It essentially combines a Dragon’s own past and its present to create what they consider to be a perfect being. The combination of one’s origins and one’s accomplishments. From that point, it’ll take a good few years for the eggs to actually hatch, and during that time, they’re especially vulnerable since they’ve got living beings inside of them now.”
“And so right now…”
“Yeah, right now, I’m pretty certain Astintash has got a batch of eggs it’s protecting. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from the way it was talking privately with Ainash.”
“Huh, interesting.” So it seemed like it may not have just been that Astintash was protective of this place out of convenience, but rather because it had to stick around to protect its vulnerable eggs.
Having knowledge of that bargaining chip was certainly good, but it also meant the Dragon had more reason to get angry and kill us if we didn’t cooperate. In any case, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to bring it up now. But if anything went wrong, maybe I could find a way to use it then.
I spent the rest of our hour-long break resting physically and mentally as I used my excess Mana regeneration to practice Noxious Grasp. I’d been spending so much Mana on Expedite, it almost felt like I was neglecting the Spell. Probably not a good idea to form emotional attachments to words on a Status screen, but it made me feel a bit guilty to overlook the Spell that’d been with me for so long. It also still gave me a bit of a headache to not cast it for an extended time like that, so it was nice to get rid of that.
I’d have liked to try and test out some of my theories on how, exactly, the Bond with Ainash worked, but quite honestly I was way too tired to do that. And it seemed like she was, too. I was sure evolving and then instantly going into a massive fight put her body under a huge amount of strain, and she was in no shape to be spending our precious hour on that. Figuring out how the Bond Ranked up would just have to wait, it seemed.
So, after a much-too-short sixty minutes, Astintash growled and rose to a full stand, nodding its head to motion for us to stand as well.
“We leave now,” it said, “to finish what those filthy intruders started.”
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