Since arriving in Emer’Thalis, I’d made giant strides on all of my class quests to the point where keeping track of everything was starting to get to be a chore. Knowing it was time to figure out what to do with my newfound wealth of class points, I grabbed some paper to do a quick accounting of them all.

Class Points gained since arriving in Emer’Thalis

+5 Learned Dark, Earth, Air, Death, and Frost Magic

+3 Reached level 10 in Fire, Water, and Dark Magic

+3 Reached Level 10 in Spears, Small Blades, Axes

+2 Leveled twice

+5 Hidden class quest (learn all the basic mana types)

————

Total Class Points: 18

Axes and Dark Magic had been the most recent skills to join the Initiate rank club, offering me augments that added more force to my axe blows and made it harder to dispel any darkness effects I cast. In addition, I was incredibly close to getting Life Magic and Light Magic to 10 as well. I’d gotten their corresponding cantrips up that far, but the actual parent skills themselves were still lagging behind.

It was, frankly, a ridiculous amount to me. More than I’d earned in all my time before arriving in Sylum. Considering my previous sum included the nine easy points I’d gotten from leveling from one to ten, that was saying something, too. While finals were rapidly approaching, these still probably wouldn’t be the last class points I earned this semester either. School life really did have some benefits.

On the flip side, Suds had forced me to spend a large portion of them on my most boring skills. I added two new lines, wincing as I did so, and then recalculated my total.

-4 to rank Bind Weapon from 1 to 5

-4 to rank Bind Armor from 1 to 5

————

Total Class Points: 10

That’s… a lot. More than I knew what to do with, honestly. Before the influx of seven surprise points, I’d been sitting at a solid three, all of which I’d earmarked for one specific skill.

Speaking of which, no point putting it off, yeah?

I went through the familiar motions of accessing my class space, the room around me disappearing behind a thick shroud of fog only to be replaced by the slate-gray floor and obsidian walls of the armory.

With little fanfare, I marched into the Arcane Augmenter room and strode over to the skill that both Suds and I agreed was worth it. A pair of gloves sat on a raised pedestal, and I pulled up their information one final time before making my purchase.

Gloves of the Arcanist

While greaves and gauntlets lie firmly in the domain of the Armorist, the simple glove is a matter for the Augmenter. Channel mana into your gloves to grant yourself bonuses in different professional skills. Effects may vary based on profession and mana type used.

Would you like to spend 5 Class Points to unlock Gloves of the Arcanist?

Without hesitation, I hit yes, officially the proud new owner of some glove magic.

I was of half a mind to duck out of my class space right then and there to test it out, but I still had five points left to spend. Considering that these ones weren’t already committed to something for Suds, I was going to enjoy myself a little.

The first thing I checked was the next tier of the Augmenter path. Wildly enough, though, when I went to the next step in the room, the corresponding pedestal remained dark.

You have not yet met the requirements to unlock this skill.

It came as something of a surprise, considering that I’d maxed out all the other three skills in the skill tree. I wondered if perhaps there was a minimum level for the skill, or if I was just missing something else. The message provided me with no hints either way, so, a touch disappointed, I considered my other options.

There were, as I saw it, a few ways for me to go.

The first was to double down on armor skills. I’d already maxed out Arcane Armory, with the result being that I was perfectly covered in the equivalent of plate armor whenever I had the skill activated. Or, in the case of me already wearing plate, it was the equivalent of wearing two suits of plate armor.

Sure, I’d found out the hard way that there were plenty of physical attacks that could still damage me: Getting tail-slapped by several tons of snake tended to do that to a person, after all. For smaller threats, though, I was nigh on invincible. The fair number of duels I’d fought with Daymon’Larin came to mind. A thin rapier just couldn’t damage me anymore.

I was still unfortunately vulnerable to magic, however. Considering how common mages were, along with the fact that even non-mages tended to have a magical skill or two, the logical next step would be to sink my points into Resist Magic and become significantly harder to damage.

There were two things stopping me. The first was that very few of the duels that I’d lost — or even the real fights that had come close to killing me — had been due to my lack of magic resistance. At least for me, fights were rarely decided by getting hit with some massive magic attack, and were more commonly lost by some form of control skill: getting frozen, wrapped up in giant vines, stunned, or in Alara’s case, smashed to the ground from having my mass increased.

Way back in Drawgin, my duel with the frost mage Brecker had almost ended from me getting my feet frozen in place. The shower elemental had almost ended me when I’d gotten stuck in its mud. Ephesis had essentially mind-stunned me. While he hadn’t tried to kill me (yet), Warram’s Law’s Embrace fit the theme as well.

In that sense, sinking all of my points into magic resistance might not help my most glaring weakness.

On the complete flip side, while I was already pretty strong defensively, I consistently found that my offensive options were lacking. If my weapons weren’t strong enough to damage an enemy, I had the somewhat limited first rank of Overload Weapon, and that was it. For every duel I’d lost to getting tripped up or bound, I’d probably lost five more from not having a decisive attack to end things quickly.

With all that in mind, I looked at my remaining options. In the Armorist room, there were only three left.

Resist Magic: 2/5 - Reduces incoming magic damage

Overload Armor: 0/5 - Temporarily channel mana into armor to increase defense

Mana Sink: 0/5 - Absorb mana from incoming attacks

In the Weaponmaster room, I had a few more options.

Arcane Armament: 2/5 - Summon and enhance weapons with mana

Overload Weapon: 1/5 - Temporarily channel mana into weapon to increase attack

Spellsword/Swordspell: 0/5 - Passively adds magic damage to all physical attacks and physical damage to all spells

Enhanced Weapon Skills: 0/5 - Spend mana when activating a weapon skill to increase its effects

A few more armor racks and weapon pedestals sat on the steps I had available to me, but much like the fourth tier of the Augmenter room, they were dark, with no hints on how to unlock them.

The only thing I was entirely sure about was that I wanted to spend at least a point or two on Overload Weapon. It was the only thing I had that could damage tougher enemies, but even still, I tended to use it sparingly and as a finisher. Considering that, with me still only knowing cantrips, it was my only seriously mana-intensive move, it felt like a waste not to upgrade it a bit. With how far my Wisdom had come, I was practically ignoring my mana in most fights.

The downside there was that I wouldn’t unlock any new options.

I mulled everything over for a while, worried I’d make some awful mistake that I’d regret years from now. Still, I wasn’t keen on hoarding them all and letting myself succumb to choice paralysis.

“All right. I want some new skills, and seeing new options might change my choices, so let’s do that first.” Figuring any anti-control skills would be further up in the Armorist room, I decided to throw a point into Overload Armor. I didn’t expect to be using it much, but Mana Sink was even more useless to me right now.

Much as hoped, a new option lit up on the next step of the room. Feeling a bit giddy to see what I was working with, I jogged over to the armor rack and examined it.

Enhanced Physical Hardiness: 0/5

While wearing armor summoned or enhanced by Arcane Armory, all physical resistance skills are amplified by (5 + /5)%.

Current skills which would be affected:

Bleed Resistance

Pain Resistance

Heat Resistance

Poison Resistance

Nice. It looked like a similar effect to the Hardy ability I’d gotten when I’d hit 25 Constitution, but stronger. I imagined that long term, it would be incredibly valuable to me, especially as I leveled up my existing resistances and got new ones. As it was, though, I didn’t see much use for it. It wouldn’t solve my main defensive issue, as it wasn’t like there was a Movement-Impairment Resis-

I paused.

Then, without spending the remainder of my four points, I hightailed it out of my class space and over to Suds’ office. Thankfully, he was home at the time, and after a quick knock, I entered.

“What? You need something?” He didn’t even pull his eyes up from the papers strewn across his desk.

The terse greeting was rude if perhaps a bit warranted. I was going to respond with something like “Can’t I just want to say hi to my dear grandfather?” but of course, I did need something, and, well, I wouldn’t really come to his office just to say hi. Guess he had me pegged.

“Is there a skill that lets you resist things like stuns or roots or things like that?” Given his level, I figured he had to know.

“Of course. Tons really.” Even while answering, he didn’t bother to look up, reciting the words as if they were common knowledge. “Entanglement Resistance. Impairment Resistance. Restriction Resistance. Freedom. Really just depends what variant and rarity you end up grabbing. Some are much better than others. They all pretty much require 25 Dexterity, though. And in any case, why are you bugging me with this? Just go consult one of the skill directories in the academy library.”

There was a… skill directory? In a… library?

Somehow registering my expression despite not looking at me, Suds’ attention finally strayed from his work.

“Girl. You’re not telling me that you’ve spent the better part of the entire semester over at the academy, and you didn’t even know they had a library, are you? It’s an academy based around skill training. For gods’ sakes, girl, why am I even paying for you to get a blight-cursed education if-”

I could feel my face grow red as he continued. Normally, having Suds rant at me was the sort of thing I mostly just ignored, but for once, I actually agreed with him a little. Look, it’s been a busy semester. And it’s not like they’re going to tell me about the library in my dueling class or anything.

Still. I probably should have assumed there’d be some sort of public skill list. I just hadn’t thought much about it.

Whoops.

Both deeply embarrassed and having no desire to hear the rest of his diatribe, I cut in with a “Good talk. Thanks, bye!” and rushed back out the door. A string of curses followed me, though these were much easier to ignore.

The skill directory, I’d have to find some time to look through at some point, but my main question had been answered. Once I was safely back in my room, I entered my class space again, exiting from the resultant fog back into the room of the Arcane Armorist.

“All right. So. The resistance enhancing skill probably can help me with movement impairing effects, except it’s not going to help at all until I hit at least 25 Dexterity.” Hopefully that would be next level, but given that I’d just, just leveled, that was still a long way’s off. By then, I’d have more class points to spend, so I didn’t feel the need to spend my current ones on the skill now.

Knowing I at least had some sort of path forward to help me with movement debuffs, I felt more confident shoring up my existing skills.

Two points immediately went into Overload Weapon.

Overload Weapon has reached rank 3.

Mana-to-damage efficiency increased.

Maximum amount of mana usable for this skill increased.

The description wasn’t quite as precise as for some of my other skills, so I’d have to do a bit of testing. Hopefully it would be worth it, though.

The remaining two went into Resist Magic. As much as it hadn’t been a deal-breaker in my fights up till now, it still felt like a glaring weakness. Plus, it seemed like a must-have for the Mana Sink skill above it, which I’d eventually want once I learned some spells that actually took more mana to cast.

Resist Magic has reached rank 4.

Magic resistance increased to 20% + /2 flat reduction.

Having spent all my points, I considered immediately jumping into my class trial — theoretically, I had a shot at finishing it now that I’d picked up my final mana type — but there were more pressing things to do.

I had a new skill!

I exited out of my class space and immediately activated my new Gloves of the Arcanist skill, curious to see exactly what the effect would be. Translucent blue mana rushed to my hands, coalescing into a glassy, crystalline pair of gloves.

Gloves of the Arcanist

+20% leveling speed to all professional skills

Chance to increase the quality and rarity of any item made while using these gloves. Chances increase for items with mana that match the mana type channeled into the gloves.

Secondary effects vary based on mana type used and profession being practiced. To see more, use the gloves while practicing a profession. Note, some combinations of mana types and professions may not yield results, and some effects may require certain conditions to be discovered.

I raised a brow as I read the prompt, surprised to find that things weren’t quite as simple as the previous skills in the Augmenter path. Even so, 20% was already a pretty good deal. Combined with the increased skill-leveling speed I’d gotten from hitting 25 Intelligence, I now had a massive advantage over the average person.

Curious to see what else the skill had in store for me, I grabbed a piece of wood — normal wood, not the mana-infused variety — from my spatial pouch, along with one of my wood gouges. With the gloves still active, I started shaping it.

Instantly, the gloves reacted, growing thinner, more delicate. By the end of the transformation, I could hardly tell that they were there.

Nimble Gloves of the Arcanist

The standard variant for any dextrous profession.

+/2 hand Dexterity

“Ah! Fuck!” I dropped both the gouge and the wood, only for my hands to swoop down and snatch them out of the air almost of their own volition. Unfortunately, once I grabbed the two, I dropped them again, complete with another curse.

Apparently, my hands were not meant to jump a full 17 Dexterity all at once. It was like I suddenly had double the joints in all of my fingers. On top of that, it was as if the uptick in Dexterity had somehow interfaced with my Perception, increasing the number of nerve endings in my hands. Everything was sensitive, and far too much to handle.

Luckily, it seemed that my Intelligence helped here, and I wondered if people with high Dexterity and Perception but low Intelligence ever found themselves overwhelmed by all the physical feedback. In a few seconds, my hands were usable once more, and I tested them out on the wood in question.

I gouged a little pattern into the wood, then as an experiment, tried to recreate it on a smaller scale. Then smaller. Then smaller. The precision in my movements was absurd, and I got the sense that when I finally failed to make a smaller version, it had more to do with how large my gouge was than anything else.

“All right. Mana type experiment?” I swapped from using neutral mana to life mana, hoping it would complement the wood.

And quite clearly, it did.

The gloves took on the appearance of wood, with delicate vines and leaves etched into them. When the transformation was complete, the description updated.

Synergy Discovered! New skill variant: Gloves of Wooden Rebirth

Though no longer living, the wood you work with is granted a shot at a second life through the skill of your carving. Any piece created while wearing these gloves will have an increased affinity for life enchantments and effects.

Additional effects may be discovered on meeting the conditions for them.

This variant grants ¼ the Dexterity bonus of the basic, neutral gloves.

Well, that was sufficiently vague. Still exciting though. I had no idea what the “additional effects” might entail, though hopefully I’d find out eventually.

Unfortunately, the life version of the gloves lost the bulk of the Dexterity bonus, although considering how overwhelmed it had made me, perhaps that was a good thing.

Out of curiosity, I flared some fire mana into the gloves and repeated the experiment, but save for my hands growing red and fiery, nothing happened. I wasn’t sure if that meant that fire mana was never useful during woodworking, or if this just wasn’t the right circumstance for it, but I received no additional bonuses.

All in all, though, I was extremely happy with the new addition to my skills. If the “Wooden Rebirth” variant was anything to go off of, I’d only barely scratched the surface of how versatile it would be. Possibly even more so than Mana Feet or Arcane Vision if I was lucky.

That was in theory, at least. I had plenty of classes to try the gloves out with, and only time would tell if they were worth the points.

With my new influx of class points dealt with, there was only one thing left to do.

I had all the basic mana types now.

There was no reason to put things off.

All right. Let’s finally beat a class trial, shall we?