I wandered through the forest, trying to find a decent place to rest. It was dark out, and I was worried a nighttime predator would see me as easy pickings.
Unfortunately, I saw nothing that immediately jumped out to me as safe. There were hills and rocks and trees and sticks and grass, but none of that was really a shelter. And as the night sky got darker and darker, my vision only worsened – and with it my chances of finding somewhere suitable to sleep.
The ideal situation would be for me to just stumble across a city or village, but that wasn't exactly likely. This was a frontier forest; society had only recently been established here, so roads were scarce and people scarcer.
Name:
Arlan Nota
Age:
20
Strength:
10
Class:
Minute Mage
Level:
0
Endurance:
11
Class Type:
Magic
XP:
6/50
Dexterity:
10
Health:
110/110
Health/Minute:
0.045
Conjuration:
5
Stamina:
43/63
Stamina/Minute:
0.384
Mana:
50/50
Mana/Minute:
0.9
Spells:
Talents:
Titles:
Noxious Grasp- XP 9/10
Time Loop 0
Trailblazer
I was glad my Mana had finally topped out at 50, feeling comforted at the sight. I glanced down at my Spells list, and… hm? Noxious Grasp had its own XP gauge, different from my own. I vaguely remembered reading something about Spell XP, but I'd never really paid attention to all of that.
The equivalent of Spells that Melee-Type Classes got were Martial Arts, and their progression was different than Spells; you'd get to choose to make one of your Martial Arts a Signature Art once every few Levels, which would make it stronger.
Evidently, that wasn't how Spells worked. I thought back. I'd spent… 9 Mana? If I recalled correctly? I thought I remembered going from 11 Mana to 2 when I cast Noxious Grasp to kill the Wood Spirit, so I guessed that meant that I'd get one Spell XP per Mana spent.
Oh, but I killed the Wood Spirit twice, which meant I'd spent 9 Mana twice. So I must have gotten 1 Spell XP per 2 Mana spent?
This called for further testing. I was still very clumsy with my Mana control and the way I activated and deactivated Spells, but I was pretty confident I could turn on Noxious Grasp and then turn it back off a third of a second later – it consumed 3 Mana per second, so having it active for one third of a second would consume exactly one Mana.
I could just do that as many times as necessary to get Noxious Grasp's XP to 10, and then I'd know how much Mana was needed for one XP.
I did so. It still took quite a bit of time and mental effort to activate Noxious Grasp – and it was even more of a struggle to keep it active – but I worked my way through it.
I knew many aspiring Magic-Classers would train for years before ever getting their Classes, studying Magic theory and practicing their control of Mana flows using specialized items made by Enchanters. Casting a Spell was just as taxing as swinging a sword, except the effort was all mental. Hopefully I'd get better with practice.
You have usedNoxious Grasp for 0.3 seconds.
1 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 49.
I checked my Status. Noxious Grasp's XP was still at 9, so…
You have usedNoxious Grasp for 0.3 seconds.
1 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 48.
Threshold reached. Noxious Grasp XP has reached 10.
Noxious Grasp Rank has increased to 1.
Due to Noxious Grasp Rank reaching 1, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 3 to 3.08
Health Drain: From 10 to 10.5
Stamina Drain: From 5 to 5.25
Due to Noxious Grasp Rank increasing to Rank 1, Noxious Grasp has reached a Soft Cap.
Spell XP gain for Noxious Grasp is 50 times slower until your Level increases past the Soft Cap.
Increase your Level to 2 to increase your Soft Cap.
Hm. Well, I figured out that it was 2 Mana per 1 Spell XP. And I also figured out what happened when it increased in Rank. The Health Drain and Stamina Drain increased, but so did the Mana Cost.
However… I did the math in my head. The Mana Cost increased by two and a half percent, whereas the Health and Stamina Drain increased by five. So it was definitely worth it to increase the Rank of the Spell.
However, it seemed like Ranking Noxious Grasp up would be a lot harder from now on. That 'Soft Cap' didn't seem very soft.
If it was 50 times slower, then instead of 2 Mana per Spell XP, it'd be 100 Mana. That was double my entire capacity, all for a single point of XP! How much XP would I need for the next Rank?
I opened my Status and looked at my Spells.
Spells:
Talents:
Titles:
Noxious Grasp 1 - XP 0/1
Time Loop Rank 0
Trailblazer
Noxious Grasp 1
School: Poison
Type: Toggle
Cost: 3.08 Mana/Second
—
While active, any being you are physically touching loses 10.5 Health and 5.25 Stamina per second.
Well, at least the second Rank only needed 11 Spell XP, so it wasn't much more expensive than the first. But it would still need 1100 Mana to Rank up. That was… a lot of casting. It was very tempting to just wait until I Leveled up a bit more so that I could train the Spell without the Soft Cap blocking me, but…
I sighed.
This was a survival situation, and I needed every advantage I could get. If I could push Noxious Grasp even one Rank further than I'd normally be able to, then it'd be worth it. It'd take getting myself to Level 2 before I could Rank Noxious Grasp up again without worrying about the Soft Cap, and I was still Level 0.
And to get it to Rank 3, I'd presumably need to get two more Levels – up to Level 4 – which I didn't anticipate happening any time soon; Leveling up took quite a bit of time and effort, and right now I was just trying to not die. I'd need as much power as I could muster to survive out here, so I'd just have to push through the Soft Cap.
No easy way out for me.