Name: Amelia

Human – Healer – Level 154

Allen groaned inwardly as he glanced at Amelia’s nametag again. The Healer was sitting cross-legged on the other side of their lazily put together camp. It was really nothing more than a circle of mats laid out on the ground. They didn’t have any tents or even a fire. Amelia was focused on her bowl of stew, kept hot by her inventory, and so she didn’t notice Allen’s frustrated looks.

“She started about ten levels above me, so technically we both gained around the same number of levels… but that still means she got more experience points. How though?” Allen let a deep breath escape him. While true that he was the lowest leveled in the group, other than Nora, it was worse that he hadn’t expected it. “Experience categories…” he thought, clicking his tongue.

Allen swallowed a mouthful of his own food and leaned over to Christopher. “Hey, how do Healer’s get their XP?” he whispered, trying to mask his frustration with a casual tone.

The Mage looked up from his bowl and smiled. There was a certain miniscule level of cheekiness that Allen wasn’t a fan of. “Trade?” he said asked.

Allen rolled his eyes and sighed. “Sure. Me first though.”

Christopher hummed in thought for a moment before giving his wisdom. “Experience in the Damage category is just the experience you get for defeating an enemy, times the percentage of the damage you dealt. However, Healer’s don’t get their experience solely based on what the enemy drops when they’re defeated. They get experience in a similar way to the crafting classes; the amount of HP restored, the severity of the wounds, and of course, the level of the enemy that caused them all play a role. Healer’s also don’t get their experience until they’ve actually done their healing.” Christopher smiled. “I’m guessing Amelia hadn’t fully healed you and the others until just a few minutes ago after we finished setting up this camp. There’s a lot that goes into the calculations, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much experience for only healing minor cuts and bruises; Camila and Ty were beaten up badly, and you lost your arm.”

Allen blinked, and drew his mouth into a thin line. It wasn’t important; he was just being ornery. It was actually a very good thing that their Healer became more powerful. He grunted resignedly and nodded. “Alright, what’s your question?” he started.

The professor hummed. “What do you know about the Black Healer’s jobs and magic? If you can say.”

Allen considered for a moment. While Doc had talked about his magic quite a bit with him, most of what he knew was really just guesswork. Still, there was nothing keeping him from sharing what he knew; Allen trusted Christopher, so Doc would be fine with it too.

“Well, he has seven jobs that I know of, but his main job is from the Arcane Healer tree. Then he has two separate Life and Death related jobs that are about equal in power, or so he says. Doc uses his Death aspect way more than his Life aspect though,” Allen laughed a little. “I think he actually wanted to be a necromancer, but his old party forced him to be the healer instead.”

Christopher nodded silently, already in a trance of thought. Allen could tell by the way he seemed to be looking at empty space, that he was rifling through his status.

“Yeah, I mostly see him using Death aspect,” Allen continued, remembering the dream he had had that morning. “He somehow figured out how to teleport using Death magic, which is—”

“What!?” Christopher blurted incredulously.

“Okay, I don’t know much about magic other than the Dusk and Power aspects. I’m sure he’s able to use necromancy to teleport though.” Allen raised an eyebrow. The professor had already started muttering to himself under his breath and staring off into his status. Allen almost thought he had forgotten about their conversation when he suddenly asked another question.

“How does Doc, I mean the Black Healer, use Life and Death aspects at the same time? How does he even have both aspects at the same time?”

Allen looked up and groaned internally. Everyone’s eyes were on him as if he were about to announce lottery numbers. They all seemed to share the professor’s rapt interest in Doc for some reason, especially Amelia. Even Shoam, his junior of two years, looked minorly intrigued.

He didn’t feel any pressure, of course, but that wasn’t the problem. “Uh, fuck if I know,” Allen began, a stupid grin spreading across his face.

“The System will not even give you the option of jobs that are diametrically opposed to one another in aspect, Allen,” Christopher said.

Allen chuckled and raised his hands placatingly. “All I know is he likes his main job, which is evolved from Arcane Healer.

The group lost interest just as quickly, other than Christopher and Amelia that is. The two just returned to their thoughts, seeming even more intense than before. Once Allen was convinced that the professor really had forgotten about his conversation, he decided to move on to his status; he had a lot to work through.

“Okay then, stats, jobs, then skills,” he thought.

Allen took a moment to look over his status while deciding where to put his four-hundred and forty-five stat points. Strength and Focus were the two stats he needed to max, followed closely by Intelligence for when he started using illusions and other magic again. Endurance and Wisdom were also important, but not nearly as much as the other three. He simply didn’t need the increased casting times or the enhanced memory from Wisdom, and while Endurance increased both HP and SP, he didn’t need it any more than he needed Vitality. Although, the main problem with increasing his Vitality and Endurance was that they would decrease his Dexterity and Speed stats respectively. It was a balance that Allen had long since worked out.

Quickly, he distributed his points, mostly into Strength and Focus, less into Intelligence, then evenly into the other three, favoring Vitality. When he was done, Allen checked over his status to see how the Secondary stats had changed.

Status:

Jeremiah Allen Durand

Human – Rogue – Level 144

XP: 28485/44041 (3022041)

Stat Points: 0, Skill Points: 88, Job Points: 9

Jobs:

Silent Lurker

Basic – Tier 5

Breaker

Basic – Tier 4

Stats:

HP: 5950/5950

Regen: 208/min

SP: 14560/14560

Regen: 85/min

MP: 10150/10150

Regen: 180/min

Primary:

STR: 208

INT: 145

VIT: 76 (85)

WIS: 77 (70)

END: 56 (70)

FCS: 180

Secondary:

DEX: 187 (440)

PER: 41

RES: 48

STB: 145

SPD: 119 (534)

LCK: 33

---

“Hmm, that should be okay. Two-hundred and eight to forty-eight is still less than the five to one Strength to Resistance ratio that starts becoming dangerous,” Allen thought, pinching the bridge of his nose as a headache slowly formed. “Any more Strength and I might end up breaking my own bones under my own strength… Ah, the struggles of balancing stats.”

After a final once over, Allen moved onto his jobs.

Jobs available to class: Rogue

All…

Silent Lurker:

Basic – Tier 8: Power Slayer – You cull your way through enemies with calm, indominable strength.

Basic – Tier 7: Elite Assassin – An assassin with more than just skill in killing.

Basic – Tier 7: Suppressor – Command fear from the shadows, cripple and slow your enemies before they can act.

Basic – Tier 7: Silent Lurker – Lurk in the silence before the battle; become one with the lull of Dusk.

Breaker:

Basic – Tier 6: Destroyer – Neither bone nor metal stand in your way; destroy it all.

Basic – Tier 6: Power Breaker – Empowered, you break through flesh and bone; destroy your opponents.

Basic – Tier 5: Vital Striker – A well placed attack can leave damage beneath the surface.

Allen huffed to himself. “I don’t want power aspect, stop… Power Slayer does sound cool though.”

Despite the extra tier, Allen tossed out Power Slayer almost immediately, followed by the overly generic Elite Assassin. Then, after a minute, Allen settled on just choosing the tiered-up Silent Lurker. “I’m guessing Suppressor will be too focused on non-lethal attacks, and I don’t want Dark aspect stuff like shadow magic… I could just look at the job card, but that’s too much work for a basic job.”

For the upgrade to Breaker, Allen settled quickly on Destroyer. The name was familiar to him, and not just because of how simple it sounded. Many people he knew had taken that job at one point, including Glaedyr. It was a known job for the Monk class, and apparently for the Rogue class as well. The other two options were either likely Power aspect again, or just boring. Vital Striker was very circumstantial, and Allen already had the Vital Strike Skill.

He took both jobs and saved the messages for later. He had enough points to upgrade the jobs again.

Jobs available to class: Rogue

All…

Silent Lurker:

Basic – Tier 10: Suppressor – Command fear from the shadows, cripple and slow your enemies before they can act.

Basic – Tier 9: Silent Lurker – Lurk in the silence before the battle; become one with the lull of Dusk.

Basic – Tier 9: Shade Hunter – A hunter with command over the shadows and dominion over the night.

Basic – Tier 7: Elite Assassin – An assassin with more than just skill in killing.

Destroyer:

Basic – Tier 8: Chaotic Destroyer – Unpredictable and unstoppable, your blows bring destruction and chaos.

Basic – Tier 8: Spirit Breaker – Your damage runs deep, break even the spirit of your enemies.

Basic – Tier 7: Destroyer – Neither bone nor metal stand in your way; destroy it all.

Basic – Tier 6: Power Breaker – Empowered, you break through flesh and bone; destroy your opponents.

“Damnit, I don’t want shadow magic!” Allen shouted internally. He groaned to himself as he chose the tiered-up Silent Lurker again, then a for a third time after nothing else showed up. “It’s not a big deal, I guess,” he rationalized. “I can’t expect much from basic job, I’ll get something good when I hit two-hundred.”

Allen moved onto the upgrade to Destroyer. He disregarded Power Breaker again, and then tossed out Spirit Breaker. He didn’t want to go back to Breaker, and he had no idea how to use spirit magic. He didn’t even know its aspect. “The Chaos aspect is pretty powerful, I think. I want this job to be focused on dealing massive DPS, so Chaos aspect might be the move. It’s not too different from Dusk either.”

Three points went into tiering Chaotic Destroyer to tier ten, leaving Allen with two job points left. For a moment, he thought to himself. “Do I go for a third job now?” He considered for a moment before shrugging and putting both of his remaining points into the Mentalist Job. It was probably the job tree Allen had put the most effort into testing; he knew exactly how to get to the job he wanted by level five-hundred.

Nothing related to Silent Lurker had changed since it was a basic job and had no attributes or modifiers of its own. It almost felt like a waste of points to Allen, but just changing jobs wouldn’t necessarily make him any more powerful. All basic jobs were fairly similar after all.

Chaotic Destroyer, on the other hand, had changed quite a few skills.

Job: Chaotic Destroyer

Unpredictable and unstoppable, your blows bring destruction and chaos.

Class: Monk/Rogue – Type: Basic – Tier 10 Max

Description:

Chaotic energy energizes you. Your power is no longer limited to the destruction of flesh and bone. You destroy anything in your path with indominable burst strength and chaotic magic. Your strength has come at a cost, as chaos takes great concentration to control.

Requirements: None

Modifiers: Mana Shift: Chaos

“So it is Chaos aspect, as I thought. Moving on…”

Skill: Break has become Skill: Chaotic Destruction

Skill: Chaotic Destruction

Release chaotic mana in a single attack to cause devastating destruction and chaos.

Category: Destruction Magic – Type: Active – Tier 5

Effects: Charge an attack with mana to the base minimum to release a physical burst of destruction. Overcharge by any amount to deal additional chaotic magic destruction; overcharged magic is chaotic and difficult to control. Damage dealt is proportional to strength, intelligence, and the tier of this skill.

Cost: 50MP/min – 200MP Base – 500MP Max

“So now I deal only physical damage when minimally charged and chaotic magic damage when overcharged?” Allen pursed his lips. “That’s the opposite of how Break used to be...”

Skill: Heavy Accelerate has become Skill: Accelerated Chaos

Skill: Accelerated Chaos

Accelerate your magic into a chaotic maelstrom.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Passive – Tier 5

Effects: Instantaneously increase the charging and casting speed of your skills at the cost of stability; magnitude of 200%. Accelerated skills will become chaotic and difficult to control.

Cost: 100MP/s

“What the hell?” Allen thought, reading over the next skill change. “That’s nothing like Heavy Accelerate, it’s not even movement related at all… Still, it seems pretty good. I’ll have to see what exactly ‘difficult to control’ means. The job card said something about concentration, so maybe Dead Calm can counteract that effect?”

Skill: Sure Footed has become Skill: Chaotic Synergy

Skill: Chaotic Synergy

You become more in tune with chaotic miasma despite its nature.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Passive – Tier 5

Effects: Chaotic miasma is 20% more stable under your control. You are able to more easily predict the effects of chaotic miasma by any means; effect proportional to focus and the tier of this skill.

Cost: None

“The fuck?...Okay, no movement skills then.” Allen didn’t bother wasting another moment trying to connect the dots.

Skill: Crippling Blow has become Sill: Chaotic Blow

Chaotic Blow

Weaken your enemy’s stability with a chaotic blow.

Category: Chaotic Magic – Type: Meta – Tier 1

Effects: Take more than 80% of an enemy’s HP in a single attack to decrease their synergy by 5%. Duration proportional to the difference in level between you and the target; max of 1s.

Cost: +25% MP use per attack.

“Okay, I like this one.” Allen leaned back on his mat and stared up at the dungeon’s fake sky. “…And now I have to go through eighty-eight skill points… fuck.” He winced as his headache got worse, a side effect of increasing his mental stats too quickly. “Might as well get started.”