EmEs_etherious
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Chapter 123- New Gains
🕑 Added 2023-12-26 00:05:41 +0000 UTCEating the Hydra’s core had changed Arthur almost as much as the enhancement of his previous ninety-four levels had. Consuming it had given him an upgraded affinity, his first epic skill and three new titles. Sure one of those represented a timer to his imminent demise, but it was still classed as a tier-4 title.
Calling up his status, Arthur took a look at his increased attributes.
Arthur Ward
Level 94
Unallocated stat points: 271-->383 (103 From jack of all trades)
Evolved: Rank F- Prodigious title bearer (Increase all title effects by 10%)
Strength- 153 (100->125) [1.2]
Vitality- 1188 (500->825) [1.4* or 2.8]
Endurance- 583 (500->525) [1.1*]
Constitution- 734 (485->510) [1.4]
Agility- 118->143 [+37 from boots]
Intelligence- 583 (500-525) [1.1]
Willpower- 250->275
Charisma- 95->120
Perception- 92->117
Health- 4301/40,511 (previous maximum 15,840)
Health regeneration- 4497 (1188)/hour (previously 1758(700)/hour)
Ether- 612/5830 (previous maximum 5550)
Ether regeneration- 583/hour (previously 555/hour)
Stamina- 5601/5830 (previous maximum 5550)
Stamina regeneration: 583/minute (previously 555/minute)
He was a completely different person from who he had been an hour ago. His healthpool had almost tripled. Looking at the new value, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Shouldn’t the numbers have been a little lower? It took him a moment to realise where the extra health came from. With his latest title, each point of vitality provided 15 health instead of the previous ten. Except with the benefits provided by his evolution, he was actually gaining 15.5 points of health instead. After all, at the end of the day, the increased health gain did come from a title.
As time went by, Arthur's decision in his evolutionary path was proven correct again and again. Hmm, doesn’t that mean my soul explosion will be ten percent stronger too? That doesn’t sound good. Arthur dismissed the useless thought from his mind. He wouldn’t be exploding any time soon if he had his way, so there was no point worrying about it.
Still, with the massive windfall of stats he’d received, Arthur was left spoilt for choice. 383 unassigned points could push any of his weaker stats, save perception, directly to the 500-point milestone and give him a final paragon title. Or he could shove them into constitution and get that attribute over a thousand too. The note that he most probably wouldn’t gain another source title disabused him of that idea very quickly.
His durability had been proven sufficient again and again and raising that value merely to cross the thousand-point threshold would be a waste of stats if it provided him with nothing special. It did make him wonder though, if it would have been better to choose another stat to get to a thousand first. What would intelligence have given him? There was no changing the path he was on now, but he couldn’t help but wonder where another would have taken him.
I made the right choice, Arthur thought decisively. Save constitution, none of his other attributes had a boost greater than 20%. Getting them to a thousand would’ve meant he’d have zero stats to spend right now. Even then, he’d never have gotten the stat anywhere near as high as he’d gotten his vitality to. The primary reason he was certain in his choice, however, was his twice-lived title once again. It meant that any boon he received in the healthpool department was twice as effective, or 220% when he factored in his evolution. A similar title for intelligence would have only given him 15,000 ether, a pittance when he compared it to his current health pool.
Considering he could now use it as an energy resource to fuel his skills at a 5:1 ratio right now, it was effectively the equivalent of 8,000 points of ether. This means I've got approximately 13,550 ether to work with when adding my two pools, which is a few hundred ether shy of what I probably would have gotten if I chose to focus on intelligence instead. No, even if a source of intelligence provided an altogether different result, Arthur had made the right choice.
Time till detonation: 29 minutes
Instead of worrying about what could have been right now though, he had more important things to decide, namely his unassigned attribute points. Currently, he was leaning towards Willpower to help him control his magic better. Intelligence wasn’t something he’d be focusing on anymore, not when vitality had replaced its effect. Charisma was easy to discard. He didn’t think he’d ever need it nor had he seen its effects on his person and he was charming enough already. Better to let other guys stand a chance.
As much as Arthur loved fighting with his body, it was time to wake up and move on. He had 4 ether affinities, five if you considered his poison/healing as two. There were few people in the Milky Way galaxy, perhaps the universe even, with his potential as a mage. And what's to say he wouldn’t find a way to enhance his bodily movements with magic anyway. Alyssia knew how to already and he was sure to find his own methods in the future. Maybe a few more soul-bound items would do the trick. Sure, they were rare as hell, but he’d find them eventually, especially if he became as powerful as he was planning to.
Mira, the poison mage had a skill that enhanced her health regeneration by making ether flow through her body in a specific way. There were sure to be other methods that enhanced your strength and agility. He was ninety percent decided on his decision already but getting a second opinion didn’t hurt.
“Hey, Alyssia. How should I spend my stats-”
“Willpower,” she replied before he could even finish asking his question. “Your magic pool's already covered and your physical stats are more than good enough for your level. No, you need to work according to your strengths and greater control over magic will make you exponentially stronger.”
“Should I put everything into it or get it 500 and put the rest in something else?” He asked. Alyssia was quiet for a second as she pondered the question. “We have no idea what the dragon core's going to give but I doubt it's going to be any extra stats,” she began. “To get the best class possible, you should enhance your greatest strength and that's your insane vitality. It always will be. Unless you have enough stats remaining to get another paragon title after willpower, I say put the rest in vitality. That's my take on things. You don’t have to listen but I think you’ll get the best possible results doing that."
Arthur considered her advice and took another look at his stats, even considering the remaining 5 levels he’d yet to gain before his class selection, he wouldn’t be gaining another paragon title. Considering that, Alyssia’s advice was sound. If he felt his willpower was too low even after getting it to 500, he could increase it later after he’d gained a class. Right now, it was better to enhance his strengths as she’d suggested. Taking a deep breath, Arthur allocated his stats and waited for the relevant title to form on his soul. It didn’t take long.
Willpower- 555(275-500) [1.1]
Vitality- 1416 (825-983) [1.4*/2.8*]
Health- 4370/48,269 (previously 40,511)
Health regeneration- 5358 (13762)/hour (previously 4497)
unallocated stat points: 383->0
Congratulations you have gained the (tier-2) title Paragon of Willpower (Possess a willpower of 500 whilst below level 100 as a human being. This is a KNOWN Title, meaning that it is one of the few whose conditions allow an unlock for every member of the human race) Increases willpower by 10%
The influx in power gained felt… underwhelming. Anyone else would have found a sudden increase of 383 stats incredible, and it truly was, but Arthur had undergone changes in the past 10 minutes that put the feeling to shame. It was a little disheartening. He’d always looked forward to the thrilling rush of increasing his stats but it looked like he’d grown too powerful to enjoy the sensation anymore which was a shame.
He was pulled out of his melancholic thoughts when Alyssia thrust the wooden box at him. “Hurry up and make the elixir. We don’t know how long this will take and I don’t trust the timer the system gave us. You can go supernova any moment now and I’m quite attached to this life.”
Taking the sealed dragon core, Arthur immediately realised he currently didn’t possess the fine motor controls required to open it. She took it back from him and he watched as her fingers flew across the complicated clasp, far too fast for his eyes to keep up with. She handed the box back to him, now unsealed but still unopened.
Even then, the smell of the dragon's core hit him like a punch to his nose. He used a quick identification on it.
Fragmented Fire Dragon Core [Mythic- Pseudo Divine]- A monster core extracted from a stillborn Fire dragon. It is fragmented due to inherit problems that prevented the creature from fully forming, hence the monster core is a fraction of what it could have been.
Nonetheless, it makes for an incredible crafting component and has numerous alchemical usages the effects of which will be permanent.
Warning: Should a beast feast on this core, immediately warn your nearest system authority and engage evacuation protocols. It is highly unlikely that a creature can properly metabolise this potent energy source and thus the resultant monster will most likely fall into madness.
A pseudo-divine item, taken from the still-born corpse of a dragon, it possessed enough power that the kings and queens of multi-planetary empires would still covet it. If Lady Sleyca knew he had this in his possession, he had no doubt that she’d drop everything to come and claim it for herself, from his dead fingers if she had to. It made him wonder just how powerful Ayesha’s subordinate was, to accurately predict that he’d come across a place where he could safely open the special box. Opening it anywhere outside the locus would be nothing short of madness.
Ayesha’s invested so much in me. Sure, she said she wasn’t powerful enough to hold onto the core or trade it for anything, but I’m sure she could’ve come up with something. Just what did her pet seer tell her that made her so willing to part with it? Did she want his loyalty? Because Arthur would pay her back with interest. He practically owed the woman his life and even if she’d done it for her personal gain, that fact remained true. He wasn’t ungrateful enough to scorn his saviour, irrespective of her intentions. All she'd asked for was his cooperation in the future. Ayesha hadn’t made him sign some ether-enforced contract, she had absolutely no guarantee that he’d follow through on his promises. I guess it’s easy to trust when someone tells you the future. Smiling wryly, Arthur dropped the core into his blood.
~Dimension 82KLD43~
Captain Arencia stood behind a reinforced wall created with wood magic. It was further supported by stone and steel, carefully integrated into the massive structure for maximum defence. Behind him were the remnants of his mercenary group, 'The lucky blackbirds,' not a single member left uninjured.
He himself had lost an eye and the index finger from his left hand in their fight for survival against the lich, the caustic energies sticking to the wounds preventing his natural regeneration from recovering him. Everything had gone to shit the moment Regina, their greatest healer, had been knocked into a magically induced coma. She was the only one who could deal with such injuries and she still hadn’t woken up, even after a month. He was starting to worry that she never would.
“Arencia,” Lagertha called out from beside him. She was the only one who addressed him by his name, his company always called him captain. It was at the behest of this ice-elf noble that they had come to this strange pocket dimension and even she hadn’t been spared from injury. A portion of her left ear was missing, taken by the deadly shot of a [Dread-Archer]. She'd changed a lot in their time here, a completely different woman to the spoiled brat she’d been four weeks ago. Being confronted by your mortality tended to do that to you. What was nobility to a death of piss and blood, where you wouldn't even have the honour of a proper burial?
“What is it?” he asked gruffly, throat parched. Their water mage had been assassinated and their stored water reserves poisoned four days ago. Even with his advanced physique, the dehydration was getting to him. Not for the first time, he cursed the fact that they couldn’t extract water from the elf’s ice. It just didn’t work, no matter what they did.
“Your scouts spotted an army on the horizon and the lich is leading it. She’s about a day's march away and we need that long to complete the dimensional transfer array."
That was another thing they’d learned, the lich was female, not male as they’d initially assumed. In their defence, it was hard to tell when all you had to look at was magically reinforced bones. Captain Arencia sighed. He’d go out and meet the undead army, delay them for as long as he could and pray that the teleportation array was made in time.
And that he lived long enough to use it.
“Any change in our destination?” He asked. The array was a crude thing, with no means to fine-tune where it would take them. It was all random. A look of deep sadness came over Lagertha's face and he felt his heart sink. “No, it’s stayed the same,” she replied sombrely. “It’s locked in now.”
For a fleeting moment, he thought of nullifying the array and making their final stand here. The ultimate sacrifice. He dismissed it immediately. He was a good man, not a saint. He would value the lives of himself and his men over others always, no matter how cruel it may be.
“I guess we're going to Earth then,” he whispered. He did wonder what kind of people it took to name their world after dirt, he highly doubted his team had read the magic wrong. Hopefully, they were smarter than he thought. Stronger too.
There was no point deceiving himself though. A planet that had just crossed the threshold into tier one. Their dimensional membrane was unusually weak for some reason. That was the only reason why it had been selected as their destination, it was the path of least resistance. A tier-one planet, though, with people who probably hadn’t even gained their classes yet.
He would face the truth and stop lying to himself.
They were bringing death and destruction to the vulnerable planet, a catastrophe on an apocalyptic scale. Millions would die. Maybe billions.
We’re going to need a miracle. An apocalypse of our own.
Going Forward, my new release schedule will be on Tuesday and Thursday. This is a schedule I'll be trying my best to stick with, and as of now has been made official. This is last weeks Saturday chapter so you'll be getting your chapter tomorrow.
