Maiz opened his eyes. They felt dry. He almost immediately stood, wondering if he’d even slept that long. His solution to the scorpions had been to toss up the sand with his staff, then use several Flaming Strikes around the perimeter of his little patch of sand. That was probably more than enough, since the things living in the shaded area would be highly averse to the heat and loud noise that his spell created. While he couldn’t quite melt the sand into glass like the two dragons in the training field had, his spell created a sizable cloud of sand and superheated the ground around the point of impact. It seemed louder than he remembered, but that was likely just the silence of the desert.

He couldn’t make himself all that comfortable with sleeping on the sand, where any predators could hide effectively. Still, the heat precluded his moving, and quite frankly, he was exhausted. Not to mention that his judgement had clearly been somewhat clouded. He’d missed something so obvious, it was somewhat embarrassing. Again. He really needed to stop doing that.

You have killed Journeyman Saurian Irontail, rank 41! +1122 exp (800*1.6 knowledge modifier, 159*.01 feat modifier).

You have achieved ranks 7-15 in Nameless! You have unassigned attribute points. (1/170 to next rank)

You have improved Flaming Strike to ranks 11-15! +0 exp (25*.01 feat modifier)

You have improved Fast Feet to ranks 9-15! +0 exp (35*.01 feat modifier)

You have improved Illusion Strike to ranks 2-15! +0 exp (70*.01 feat modifier)

Further improvement in Flaming Strike, Fast Feet, and Illusion Strike is impossible at current proficiencies and title rank.

Maiz blinked. Then he blinked again. A Journeyman? How was that even possible? Of course, it made sense that the lizard thing he’d killed wasn’t a beginner like himself, but how had a Novice managed to slay a godsdammned Journeyman? Killing combatants above one’s station wasn’t impossible--it was in fact a rather popular plot point of many contemporary adventure novels. But he really shouldn’t have had any chance of killing a Journeyman monster in a straight fight. He couldn’t beat Lila for heavens’ sakes. But then, perhaps the fight hadn’t been so fair. He was seriously downplaying the power of his combination of abilities--a combination literally impossible for anyone else to obtain. Lila’s Warrior Monk skills were clearly focused around evasion and grace. Fast Feet alone was absolutely incredible in this regard, allowing him to match up well against any Strength-based fighter. But Lila had shown him already that she wasn’t particularly strong in the classic sense. She couldn’t down Hugan without about a dozen blows, and she even had trouble against Maiz unless she hit the right spot. Yet Maiz’s Flaming Strike did huge amounts of damage, even more when hitting critical areas, as Lila had taught him. The combination was potent to say the least.

But thinking of Warrior Monk skills recalled a chilling memory to Maiz. He opened the skill description for Illusion Strike, just to check.

Illusion Strike (Warrior Monk): Creates an illusory attack based on the existing motions of the user’s weapon or limbs. The target becomes unable to perceive the user’s true movements for a short time.

Rank: 15

Cost: 120 stamina

Effect: Illusory attack can be perceived by targets with Wisdom 40 or greater. If the target has less than 40 Wisdom, they cannot see the user’s true movements for 2.4 seconds.

The skill’s description had updated with the new ranks he’d gained, but he clearly remembered that the effect portion had said ‘25 Wisdom’ at rank 1. Which meant he was incredibly lucky that the Journeyman monster hadn’t seen right through the illusion and murdered him on the spot. Many Apprentice and Journeyman level combatants would likely put some points into Wisdom, and considering that Maiz himself was already at 15 Wisdom, he really was fortunate not to have died there.

Right. So maybe I won’t try to go and find more Journeymen to kill then. But it was hard to really feel that much apprehension, because he had just gained nine ranks in his title. With 36 attribute points to assign, he had a good many choices to make.

Maiz-Spellsword (Rank 15)

Title Status-Hidden (Default)

Bonus Titles-

God-Chosen of Viselys (Hidden)

Arcane Scholar (Hidden)

Title Options Available

Health-260/260

Mana-260/260 (+ 1.5 pts/second)

Stamina: 260/260 (+ 1.7 pts/second)

Attributes:

Age

16

Constitution

26

Intelligence

26

Wisdom

15

Strength

26

Dexterity

17

Agility

25

Charisma

11

Luck

9

Skills:

The Mask

Printing

Shield Stance

Fast Feet

First Search

Flicker Strike

Illusion Strike

Spells:

Flaming Strike

Mana Sense

It had taken most of the rest period to decide what to do with his points. His first instinct was to spread them around each of his attributes to give a slight boost, but he quickly discarded that after realizing that the benefits to each attribute were far too small. Then he leaned towards boosting his relevant combat attributes, but there was a pressing problem--he was stuck in the middle of the desert with no food or water. Honestly, his 15 Constitution--boosted already by his combat training and first rank up--was still not nearly enough to survive that endeavor. He brought that up to 26, only praying it was not too little for what he had in store.

The other issue was that his abilities had gotten much more costly. Illusion Strike had gone from 50 to 120 stamina, and Flaming Strike was now 130 mana. To be fair, he would likely need the improved effects of both abilities, but he’d been forced to invest heavily in Strength and Intelligence simply to keep up with the cost. He was beginning to see an issue with his ‘Mask’ ability. He was certain that it was an incredible power, but being forced to spread out his attributes like this seemed like it would hamper his ability use in the future. Either way, it was a problem for another day. Apparently, he wasn’t going to be gaining more ranks any time soon.

Maiz had winced a little at reading the experience ‘gains’ he’d made past rank 15. Almost 300 experience had become 1 measly point, just because he hadn’t completed his feat yet! And apparently whatever force governed his experience gains, whether Nomenadon, Viselys, or some other god, rounded down when calculating the modified value for his experience, so he had to make at least 100 points at once to gain anything at all from now on. No wonder Lila hadn’t advanced past rank 15 without her feat completed.

Ah well. He had a vague idea of how to go about completing his own Apprentice feat. Riala had said he’d need to do the Apprentice feats of a Common, Rare, and Epic title he possessed in order to qualify. Of course, the trouble was that he didn’t actually know what type each title was. He’d guessed that the Scholar title was likely Common, and that feat had been absurdly easy to accomplish. He knew for a fact that Spellsword was Epic, and it was likely that Warden was as well. That left the Rare title. He had no idea what Warrior -Monk qualified as, but he’d never seen anyone except Lila with it, so it might also be Epic quality. And of course, he didn’t actually know what its feat was.

In the training grounds, finding Rare titles was incredibly easy, simply because all combat titles were at least Rare. Maiz had intended on simply spying on a Slasher or Cobrakin--both relatively common in the area--and learning a skill or two of theirs, then completing their feat. But he hadn’t been in any particular rush, since he hadn’t thought he’d be leaving the training grounds any time soon. Idiot. He supposed it didn’t matter much at the moment. He had to survive and escape the desert first.

Time to get started on that. Maiz took a quick glance at the cloudless sky. The sun was lower now, so he set out from under the dune. Unfortunately he needed the sun’s position to guide him as he walked, otherwise he might have risked making the journey at night. Of course, he would also need somewhere warm to sleep at night, but he just had to hope he could find something. Mentally thanking his occasional childhood perusal of his father’s atlases, he turned to face the sun and set off.

******************************

Mana swirled, forming a spiral and wrapping the staff in silver. The next layer took over, first the lattice of diamonds and then the fluid loops, intersecting to form a perfect whole. Finally, a pattern of ridges and sweeping lines, like waves or flames. Maiz formed this one the same way he did the others--he pushed his mana out through his hand, then thought hard about the pattern while allowing his mana to flow forward. It felt like digging a trench for water to flow through. When the pattern was complete, Maiz tried to push harder and force the mana to speed up, but the glow of the top layer only intensified until one of the tighter loops broke, releasing the mana stored in the staff in a harmless puff of silver.

“Gods!” Maiz shouted. In his head. Best not to open his mouth and dry it out even further. He’d finally gotten the pattern correct, he was certain of it! But when he allowed his body to naturally cast the spell, the mana sped up and shifted colors to orange at the end. Hakim had said this was because the mana was changing to fire mana. But every time he pushed his mana through the staff and made it accelerate, it just destabilized the pattern! Sighing, he cast the spell without attempting to guide the mana flow. Just as he had done, mana moved through three layers, shining silver. And then, more mana was pulled through his hand and… it went right back in. More and more mana was pulled, but the same amount went back in to his body creating--well, creating an actual flow instead of a buildup of pressure. Oh. I can’t believe I didn’t get that.

Step. Step. Brush. The brushing had become second nature, as he trudged forward through the desert landscape, constantly moving towards the sun--it wasn’t getting any closer. Sand had a tendency to get everywhere here, every gust of wind or accidental kick resulted in the little grains invading his tunic. Maiz had stopped focusing on the walking hours ago; his magic was much more interesting. And less terrifying.

Mana moved through the staff, moving through every pattern until the entire thing glowed bright silver. Then Maiz made the familiar effort to push more mana into the weapon. At the same time, he tried to remain… open, for lack of a better word. It was difficult, because in order to move his mana he had to focus on it to the exclusion of all else. How could he command his magic to do two different things at the same time? The pattern exploded, and Maiz tried again. And again. Each time, he was completely unable to simulate the flow that happened so easily when he simply ‘let’ the spell be cast. The last one, he managed to let all of the mana back into his body, but nothing flowed out to replace it.

He glanced up. The one nice thing about the desert was that he could easily see the landscape and the horizon. The sun looked like it would set in an hour or two. With a start, Maiz realized he’d been walking for at least six. He supposed that his improved attributes were having an effect, even if it seemed somewhat muted compared to his first massive boost. It looked like there was a cluster of rocks in the distance, somewhat in the direction he was trying to walk. Excellent. As he once again guided his mana through his staff, he walked with an increased vigor, his goal for the day in sight. Hopefully those rocks weren’t home to some kind of monster or dangerous animal, but either way, Maiz just looked forward to something that wasn’t sand.