As soon as they were well underway, Levi leaned back and closed his eyes to review everyone's stats. He'd been ignoring level notifications throughout the day as the minions gained experience, but he did remember seeing Becca's first threshold in there at least. He brought up the overall sheets first, checking through everyone to see who had leveled.

Levi himself had reached level 9, despite doing nothing combat related at all, which meant at least some fraction of minion experience was definitely channeled to him. It did make him wonder if the experience bonuses to gremlins would also transfer to him, or if it only counted for the gremlins themselves.

He put his point into Psyche, since his sub-100 mana pool was a severe detriment.

Levi Morrison, Secret Seeker + Unassigned Levels: 0 Primary Class: Tamer Tamer Level: 9 Subclass: None Minions: 6/7 Strength: 2 Psyche: 3 Spirit: 4 Health

169/169 Mana

89/89 Stamina

139/139 Health Regen

3 /minute Mana Regen

4 /minute Stamina Regen

5 /minute

Still low, but there was only so much he could do. Hitting the next threshold at level 10 should help a lot. The incrementing gains for sticking to a single class added up nicely, compounding to fairly ridiculous numbers at higher thresholds.

For now, on to the minions. Skarm reached level 6, and Two had hit his threshold at 5. Levi put Skarm's point into Strength, increasing his health, and Two's into Psyche.

Skarm: Level 6

(Horned Gremlin)

Strength: 3

Health: 65/65

(+5/min)

Psyche: 0

Mana: 0/0

(+2/min)

Spirit: 3

Stamina: 80/80

(+5/min) Gremlin Two: Level 5

(Horned Gremlin)

Strength: 2

Health: 60/60

(+4/min)

Psyche: 1

Mana: 3/3

(+2.5/min)

Spirit: 2

Stamina: 70/70

(+4/min)

He wanted to see if Two could actually use the manablade capabilities of his dagger. Even if it was a tiny edge, any advantage could matter.

"Hey, Two?"

Gremlin Two poked his head awkwardly up between the seats, a bit squished between Centoo's body and the cup-holders.

"Did you really name your gremlin Two?" Gordon asked, snickering a bit. "It was silly with the centipedes, but this?"

Two bared his teeth at Gordon, narrowing his eyes and hand going to his dagger.

"Do you want a different name, Two?" Levi asked, and Gremlin Two hissed something unintelligible.

Skarm poked his head up, tearing a thin gash in the back of Gordon's seat with his horn that Levi decided not to mention, and gestured in an uncertain shrug.

"Anyway, that's not what I wanted to ask. Do you have any preference for power stone in your dagger? I have a Dark stone available, or we can keep looking."

Two shrugged expansively, then pulled his head back down behind the seat and out of sight.

"Guess we'll keep looking for now."

He moved on to Two's abilities, which were quite a challenge to narrow down. He had the same options as Skarm, but a very different fighting style.

Horned Gremlin Abilities

Sharpened Claws

Increase damage dealt by unarmed attacks.

Sneaky

Increased stealth, and increased damage from stealth.

Gorer

Horn obtains barbed protrusions, inflicting more damaging bleeds.

Leap

Ability to jump is doubled, and attacks landed from the air deal significant additional damage.

Levi put one point into Sneaky, to see how well stealth bonuses did, but none of the others seemed applicable to Two, since he fought with a weapon instead of unarmed.

He looked over the Tamer options again. He'd foregone them with Skarm, but wanted to try them out at some point. No time like the present. They'd cost two points each when purchased by a minion, as opposed to the one point if he bought them himself, but affect every creature of that type in his party.

Horned Gremlin: Experience Increase (0/5)

Horned Gremlin minions will level at a 20% increased rate

(2 ability points)

Horned Gremlin: Stat Boost (0/5)

Horned Gremlin minions will gain 1 extra stat point on level up

(2 ability points)

Stat boost, or increased experience. Experience was tempting, but if gremlins couldn't keep up with the other minions in combat they'd be left behind no matter what percentage of experience they gained. He elected to start with stat boost. Immediately, Skarm had 6 unspent stat points, and Two had 5.

The next level of the ability would increase it again, moving from one bonus stat point per level to two. Levi chuckled aloud, staring at the numbers for a long moment. Doubled stat points could go a long way towards making up the gap between them and the more powerful creatures. Tripled would go even further. He did want to try out the experience one as well, though 20% was looking less tempting compared to a +100% stat gain. And it would stack for every level.

He gave Skarm two Strength and four Spirit, and Two got another Psyche and the remaining four to Spirit.

Skarm: Level 6

(Horned Gremlin)

Strength: 5

Health: 75/75

(+7/min)

Psyche: 0

Mana: 0/0

(+2/min)

Spirit: 7

Stamina: 120/120

(+9/min) Gremlin Two: Level 5

(Horned Gremlin)

Strength: 2

Health: 60/60

(+4/min)

Psyche: 2

Mana: 6/6

(+3/min)

Spirit: 6

Stamina: 110/110

(+8/min)

6 mana was a pitiful amount, but it would be enough to power the dagger for a second or two. Combined with his new increased stealth ability, he could be a decisive striker at key moments.

The total numbers weren't terribly impressive, but the regens were more than enough to make up for gremlins' lackluster numerical gains. Another few levels of double stat points, and they'd be notably more dangerous. There was a big difference between regenerating stamina every 15 seconds or every 6 seconds.They may never be able to stand up to a boss in a one on one fight, but as ambushers and skirmishers they would be incredibly valuable.

The centipedes hadn't managed to level, which made Levi suspect that there was a scaling element to experience gain. Perhaps more powerful creatures needed more to level each time? Not that leveling or experience had ever made sense to him. Sometimes things went exactly as you expected, other times it took far longer or far shorter a time to reach an increase than anticipated.

Another thing he'd made his peace with. The system was strange, and inconsistent, and yet the most powerful and helpful weapon humanity had to work with.

Becca and Shadevine had both leveled. Shadevine to level 3, Becca to threshold 1 at level 5. Levi considered a moment, then put both of their stat points into Psyche. The dark-based creatures had special abilities powered by mana, and increasing their flexibility would never be a bad decision. They had enough health to get by, and their stamina gains would be utterly abysmal.

And here it was that their plus status really showed its value.

Becca: Level 5

(Rift Cat +)

Strength: 2

Health: 370/370

(+14/min)

Psyche: 3

Mana: 190/190

(+8/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 70/70

(+2/min) Shadevine: Level 3

(Shadevine +)

Strength: 2

Health: 45/45

(+9/min)

Psyche: 1

Mana: 110/110

(+7/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 40/40

(+5/min)

Becca's regen had jumped with her threshold, even though he'd hardly put any points in Strength. If her growth continued at this rate, she'd quickly become unstoppable.

All that was left was to decide on her abilities.

Rift Cat Abilities

Flicker

Invisible for a brief time directly after teleporting.

Shadow Bite

All bite attacks gain a chance of inflicting a blinding darkness effect on the target.

Flurry Claws

Claw attacks can be performed much more quickly when chained together

Shade-Stalker

Can hide in any available shadow with increased efficiency.

He struggled through to his Tamer abilities for Rift Cat, though they were harder to access without being at a threshold yet himself.

Rift Cat: Enhanced Stamina (0/5)

Rift Cat minions will have all stamina totals increased by 20%

(2 ability points)

Rift Cat: Drift (0/5)

Rift Cat minions can adjust falling speed by up to 10% at will

(2 ability points)

Plenty of fine options, though none really stood out as the ideal. He leaned back in his seat to consider. They had several hours left to go, and he had nothing better to do. Best not to rush into things.