Mature Content Warning: I got nuthin.

Author's Note: This is the last update for the weekend. I plan to work on finishing Origin ARS Volume 3 so that it will be released sometime between Monday and Wednesday. Anyway, moving right along. :)

Chapter 16.2: Shall I Become a Badass?

Dragon Scott waddled through his kitchen then hopped up onto his counter-top. He gestured toward the television with his remote then used the end of a wooden spoon handle to tap the buttons. His claws were too clumsy but with a little care he could manipulate his electronics using the thin but sturdy cooking utensil.

Training had gone well, and he was quite excited by the result. Though, he had discovered a serious problem close to an hour into his efforts. He had begun to develop an incredible headache.

It seemed that just like overuse of his metamorphic ability, overuse of magic caused stress. In this instance, it was probably some sort of mental stress. Idly, he wondered if he had a mental stamina pool that was hidden. It would make sense, though he would like to be able to see all of those so-called hidden stats.

He slowly cycled through the channels available then shook his head. There was nothing on television worth watching at the moment. He chose to check the Internet to see if anything had popped up that was worth viewing.

After a few minutes, he sighed. There had been few ground breaking discoveries lately. Either people were not sharing them as much as they used to, or everyone on the sites that he frequented had started to focus on building their skills instead of exploration.

He did find one incredibly useful bit of information. “So, mining skill doesdetermine how much material, and the type of material, that you dig out of a mine?”

His skill at mining would probably grow at a slow pace since it was neither magical in nature nor combat oriented. He might not even be able to learn the skill beyond the third tier due to that factor. Before he became a Mahorela Abaivonin dark lord he had the freedom to make any skill second or third tier, while only magic oriented skills would be first tier. It was sad, but he had to face the facts. His, production skills would grow at an extremely slow rate.

“Hmm, or would they?” asked Scott lightly. After reading that bit about mining, he thought about the various options for his personal dungeon.

“If I don’t populate it with monsters, I could use it as a dark army resource and training area.” said Scott.

The dragon scratched his scaly chin. If he made it a place to train production and resource acquiring skills, and then expended the money necessary to upgrade it to the highest point possible, he could enhance the experience gain and have a steady place to gather basic resources. Hell, he could own a copper mine if he wanted.

“Do I dare?” Yes, yes he did.

He glanced to the side then snorted. “I can’t learn new skills here, yet. I’ll have to work my ass off at the mine in order to learn the mining skill.”

The idea of learning production skills did not entirely sit right with him, however. He had wanted to learn them initially because they would give him a major boost to his development. However, jewelry crafting especially would be next less useful in the future if he did not spend an incredible amount of money to create a training area.

Honestly, he could use synergy a lot faster than he could craft something by hand. As a magical production skill he could probably even elevate it to second tier. Mystic chemistry might be the same. Enchanting would fall under the same category as synergy, so that was definitely worthy of reaching the second tier.

“I can’t fill up my skill selections with production skills, though...” While Scott would love to be able to do everything, skill points were finite, and he had no way of knowing whether they would become scarce in the future. In many games the characters would have a lot of options near the beginning to customize their character, but as time went on they would receive fewer of those options.

If skill points became scarce he would be stuck with a bunch of production skills and fewer combat abilities. His race and profession were not geared that way. He should play to his strengths more than he should try to shore up his weaknesses, at least for now.

“The ability to gather resources would be useful, as would the ability to repair objects.” said Scott. Skills such as mining, fishing, and foraging would always be useful. He could splurge on those skills, but anything else besides combat and magic might be too much of a distraction. He would need those skill points to create spells in the future as well.

Everything that he knew about games told him that stronger spells or skills might cost more skill points. He could either spend his efforts to have a lot of skills, or he could spend them to specialize in his strengths with decent support capacity as well.

Synergy would allow him to make most of his equipment and even act as a makeshift repair skill for basic items. His current equipment healed itself during combat, and he knew how to make replacements if they did break.

He made a decision to gain a few resource acquisition skills then spend the rest of his time and energy devoted to combat. If he really wanted custom gear, he could just hire people to work for him in his training dungeon. A dark lord did need minions, after all.

That was a definitely a worthy thought. “Hmm, crafting minions...”

He rather liked the idea of a small horde of people working to support his lifestyle, while they earned a reasonable wage of course. “Maybe I should hire a few storm troopers too...”

Scott’s draconic mouth opened in a toothsome smile. He would have to make certain that they practiced with their weapons frequently. No storm trooper of his would be on the payroll if their accuracy so low that they had trouble shooting even a shiny slow walking robot that moved like it had crippling arthritis.

Thoughts of storm troopers and crafting minions faded from his mind. He had seen something interesting. “Highest confirmed level is twelve now, huh?”

Two months had passed in the other world. During that time people had spent a great deal of effort in an attempt to increase their levels and to explore. Yet, after that much time they had only reached level twelve at the high-end.

He knew that there were probably at least a few people who had grown beyond that level, but it was not like a real game. The other world could only be accessed while you slept. Without strong drugs it was harder to stay asleep for long periods of time than it was to stay awake. Even the laziest person in the world could not naturally sleep for several days straight without waking up.

Scott decided to log off then considered what else he should do. After a moment, he realized that he had not checked to see his skills and stats yet. He had gained several levels in his dark magic skill, and that should translate to a great deal of increase in his spirit stat.

<<< Status >>>

Name: Scott Blackthorne

Race: Mahorela Abaivonin

Title: Gentleman of Darkness

Level: 7 [Hatchling] Skill Points: 88

Vitality: 145[145]

Weapon Attack: 71[71]

Durability: 110[110]

Speed: 61[61]

Spirit: 234[234]

>>

<<< Skills >>>

Primary

Dark Magic Level 10

Conjuration Level 2

Mahorela Abaivonin Magic Level 1

Mana Sense Level 11

Mana Manipulation Level 3

Metamorphosis Level 3

Secondary

Heavy Armor Usage Level 2

Sword Mastery Level 4

Ring Mastery Level 1

Tertiary

Synergy Level 6

Jewelry Crafting Level 5

Enchanting Level 4

Mystic Chemistry Level 1

>>

“Damn, tearing those skill tickets gave me a shit ton of skill points.” said Scott. He eyed his stats for a moment then blinked.

“I wonder if my personal durability is similar to the durability rating on weapons and armor.” He was not certain how they related. What exactly did a durability of one hundred ten mean? He doubted that it meant that his durability was higher than low-grade steel armor.

Scott thought about things for a moment then decided to search the Internet once more. He searched for information on durability and stats experiments. He figured that someone, somewhere, must have been crazy enough to allow monsters and other people to beat the snot out of them in order to test things.

It required a bit of search-fu, but he did find a few listings of somewhat suspect but believable information. “So, defense completely defeats an attack or it does not?”

Scott nodded slowly. It did make sense. Defense counted as the ability to completely stop an attack. Durability was the capacity to absorb damage from an attack. If an attack is weaker than the value of the armor, it will result in no damage or lessened damage depending upon the weapon.

“Ah, that makes sense. Heavy swords and blunt weapons do at least some damage through armor due to the force of the blows.” said Scott.

From what he read, Scott concluded that durability related to how much physical damage he or an item would suffer if an attack broke through his defense rating. He could withstand an attack rated at one hundred ten points that broke through his defense with little to no real injury, though he might lose a little vitality. Anything over that amount would deal far more serious damage.

“Damn, that’s insane... If it’s true, some level one human scrub with a sledge hammer could wail on me all day and I wouldn’t even feel it. Might not even leave a mark... Hell, people could become bullet proof over time.”

“I wonder how high my natural defense rating is? Do my scales count as defense, or do they just add to durability?” He would honestly like to know that information. He should have a natural defense or armor rating.

Scott rubbed his scaly chin again for a moment then shook the index finger of his other hand. “I should run my own tests. Right now I probably have one of the highest physical damage outputs available to people from Earth. That doesn’t mean much, though.”

Everyone from Earth was a Noob at the moment. That included Scott. He happened to be a dragon Noob, but he was still a Noob.

He could probably kill almost anyone from Earth with one or two sword swings even if they wore armor similar to his, but what about people who had given up their humanity? Who was to say that there were no other dragons, or perhaps a troll, maybe even a perverted tentacle demon? He needed to become stronger as quickly as possible. If nothing else, he wanted to be able to shrug off small arms fire so that he could walk the streets with impunity. He had durability several times higher than even a level ten human might expect to have, and that included heavy armor training. It still was not enough.