48

Alignment II

Rian stepped up to Sidna, and she placed her palm on his right shoulder.

“By the grace of Ulm,” she said, “all power stems from that which came before. By the memory of Altir, I grant you the power vested within me.”

Again there was the feeling of the air itself spinning toward him. A faint golden aura surrounded his body and converged into a hovering tesseract.

Your secondary Alignment has changed to “Altir”!

You have advanced to Monk!

Your Max HP has increased! (687→1474)

Your Max MP has increased! (455→791)

You have learned Spirit Fists!

New skills are available: Combo Attack; Counter Critical; Earthen Resonance; Meditate.

You have received 1 Gold Tesseract (Untradeable).

Sidna released her palm, then opened an inventory and retrieved a new set of equipment for him. As he accepted the trade, his current equipment automatically swapped out and the new items appeared on him.

Wanderer’s Linen Robe (Level 25)

Grade: C (Uncommon)

HP +50

DEX +3

Armor +3

Wanderer’s Linen Pants (Level 25)

Grade: C (Uncommon)

HP +50

DEX +3

Armor +3

Wanderer’s Rosary (Level 25)

Grade: C (Uncommon)

MP +50

SPR +3

Armor +1

Wanderer’s Moccasins (Level 25)

Grade: C (Uncommon)

DEX +4

Armor +2

Interestingly, the rosary was considered a helm item, as it filled that slot rather than the one for accessories. It was nothing more than some colorful beads in a large necklace, but it even managed to provide a point of armor. Sidna had given him a hand-wrap weapon as well, but it wasn’t as strong as the gauntlets he’d crafted, so he stowed it away for materials later.

Thanking Sidna, he nodded and stepped away, heading for the stairs. As he felt himself pass through various instances on the way down, he looked over all the notifications he’d received, as there were quite a few.

Subclass: Monk

Alignment: Goam/Altir

Difficulty: 5/5 (S-tier) (Very Hard)

Weapon Type: Hand-Wraps/Gloves

Armor Type: Cloth

Main Stats: STR(Power/Endurance), SPR(Resolve)

Role: Melee Physical/Non-Physical Tank, Utility

“In their seeking of mastery of both the body and mind, Monks forgo the use of weapons and wield the body itself to refine their spirit. An all-around subclass that can perform most non-ranged roles.”

Spirit Fists (Level 1)

(Passive)

Channeling energy into their fists, a Monk gathers spiritual residue from any living creature they strike. Grants +0.5-1 bonus Armor and Spirit depending on severity of the hit, up to a maximum of +10; depletes at a rate of 1 per second to the Monk’s original attribute levels.

[!] Secondary Alignment: Attribute Bonuses

Having obtained an additional alignment, your stats will now increase at a greater rate during level-ups and attribute allocation:

+1 Level → +40 HP and +40 MP

+1 STR → +20 HP

+1 SPR → +20 MP

[!] Secondary Alignment: Sub-Attributes

You can now allocate points to sub-divisional attributes which have branched from your base stats. When leveling, you will obtain Attribute Points which can be spent as usual; then, each point spent will provide two points to spend on the sub-attributes of that attribute. (Bonus stats from equipment will apply to both sub-attributes and cannot be redistributed.)

Strength → Power / Endurance

Dexterity → Accuracy / Agility

Intelligence → Cooldown / Perception

Spirit → Resolve / Attunement

[!] Secondary Alignment: Redistribution

After obtaining secondary alignment, once only, these sub-attributes can be freely redistributed between those of the same attribute; any subsequent changes will require the use of tesseracts. When redistributing, it is highly recommended to maintain a modest balance between sub-attributes.

[!] Sub-Attributes: Strength

Power (POW): increases direct physical damage.

Endurance (END): improves stamina and HP; reduces cooldown period for consumables.

[!] Sub-Attributes: Dexterity

Accuracy (ACC): slightly increases critical damage by allowing for more targeted strikes; creates a greater chance for ranged attacks to hit the intended target.

Agility (AGI): increases overall movement speed by condensing the body’s physical mass, reducing stamina usage, and increasing physical damage potential.

[!] Sub-Attributes: Intelligence

Cooldown (CDR): reduces the unusable time period of skills and spells after use.

Perception (PER): improves all physical senses and increases both the power and efficacy of cast spells.

[!] Sub-Attributes: Spirit

Resolve (RES): reduces magical damage taken and susceptibility to status effects.

Attunement (ATT): increases MP, the power of summons or pets, and elemental damage.

It seemed these sub-attributes did the same thing that the original stats did, and at first he wasn’t sure how this updated system affected the prospects of his build, but then it hit him: each leveling of a base attribute would now give him two points to spend on sub-attributes. By ignoring the sub-attributes he didn’t want now, it effectively doubled the rate of growth for whichever aspect he wanted to focus on.

Assuaging his fears of having spent his AP from earlier levels too soon, he found that he was able to reallocate points within a given attribute. According to the notification, it was a one-time-only thing after attaining his secondary alignment.

It was a bit awkward walking down a flight of stairs and dealing with all these windows and notifications, but he was starting to get the hang of the multitasking required.

He had 32 points in Strength, giving him an even distribution of 32 Power and 32 Endurance. As much as he liked punching things to death, he still wanted to err on the side of caution and have slightly more Endurance to give himself more HP. But the thought of taking out even a third of his Power had him second-guessing. It wasn’t the only factor in his damage output, but it was probably best to change just a few points to avoid ruining his build. He could imagine dumping everything into Endurance and becoming a powerless boulder of a character, as impractical as that would be.

He took 5 Power and put it into Endurance. Sure enough, it was as if he’d gained 5 Strength the old way, but the resultant HP gain had increased dramatically.

-5 POW (32→27)

+5 END (32→37)

You have gained +100 Max HP! (1474→1574)

Your stamina has increased! (560→648)

Moving down the main attributes to DEX, the choice between Accuracy and Agility was an easy one. At close range he had little use for the Accuracy stat, and skewering his build toward Agility would return plenty of the damage potential he’d lost from putting points of Power into Endurance. Of his now 35 DEX, there was 10 bonus DEX he was getting from his armor that he couldn’t redistribute, and it was entirely possible that—if he took off his armor after dumping all 25 available points into Agility—he would be walking around with 0 Accuracy.

That didn’t sound like a good time, so he settled for 15.

-15 ACC (35→20)

+15 AGI (35→50)

Your stamina has increased! (648→925)

To his delight, he’d almost doubled his stamina already. The green bar was now occupying a decent amount of space on his HUD.

Onward to INT, having a mix of inherent Cooldown and Perception seemed fine, so he held off on tampering with any of it. For SPR, he saw no reason not to dump most of everything into Resolve—it was one of the main stats for his class, making him tankier, and he didn’t have any summoning abilities or pets to worry about to make Attunement worth considering. The MP costs weren’t that much of a concern.

-4 AT (11→7)

+4 RES (11→15)

-80 Max MP (841→761)

With his decisions made, everything locked in. He looked over his stat page to see everything.

Cobalt

[Moonlight]

Level 27 Monk

HP: 1547/1547

MP: 791/791

Armor: 9

Weapon ATK: 17 (+5 Lightning)

—

STR: 32

[Power: 27]

[Endurance: 37]

DEX: 25(35)

[Accuracy: 20]

[Agility: 50]

INT: 11

[Cooldown: 11]

[Perception: 11]

SPR: 8(11)

[Resolve: 15]

[Attunement: 7]

—

PVP rank: C (Silver)

(1-0)

Lastly, leveling up the rest of his skills, he spent the Gold Tesseract on Earthen Resonance. Turning the extra movement speed into a party-wide buff was something he could look forward to sharing with Kat, and the armor bonus was sure to help.

You have learned a new skill: Earthen Resonance (Lv. 1)

Achievement unlocked: “A Compounding Power that Compounds” (Learned a subclass skill)

Earthen Harmonics level up! (Lv. 4→5)

Parry level up! (Lv. 3→4)

Vital Strike level up! (Lv. 2→3)

Charge Punch level up! (Lv. 1→2)

As the rest of his skills finished leveling up retroactively from the Gold Tesseract, he reached the end of the stairs. Taking the same path as before, he passed by the auditorium of people studying PVP matches. When he approached the end of the hall to step outside of the building, he heard someone—Kat—call his name.

There was a room down a short hallway across from him: a lobby with half a dozen other players lounging on comfortable chairs and sofas. With hanging chandeliers and a grizzled marble floor and walls, it looked like the entrance to a classy museum. Through the windows, the sun was beginning to set.

Entering the lobby, Rian spotted Kat. She’d advanced to Rogue just by the look of her new outfit: all suede leather with a hooded garb. It wasn’t the equipment that the subclass trainer had given out, as there was even a keyword on Kat’s footwear: Suede Boots of Quietness.

Seated at a table beside her was Corvis in the midst of playing a game of chess with himself. No one seemed to notice the pieces moving by themselves—or if they did, Rian supposed it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary here.

Rian stepped up to Kat, noticed the scrolling text on her open window into guild chat. He checked his own.

: ayyy they did it

: grats yall

: wait what happened

: Kat just hit 2nd job

: Cob too

: been watching their levels climb all day

: gratz!

: grats

: u did it

: gj you two. didn’t Cob just start like a few days ago? That’s some quick powerleveling

: yeah lol. Kat’s trying to catapult me into the endgame or something

: oh, well gl. We could always use a Monk. We’re in need of Spirit tanks for an upcoming thing we’re doing

: Oh?

: er, can’t really divulge any details yet, sorry

: we’re not supposed to talk about it lol

: Shhhh

That was…odd, the way they were leaving him out of something.

Kat jumped up and high-fived him. “Great job, dude.” When she checked the time, she seemed rushed for something. “All right. Looks like that’s it for today. Just gotta take care of a few things with Maia now.” She closed the hovering windows around her. “See you tomorrow, Cob!”

“See you,” Rian said.

As she logged out, a swirl of blue particles surrounded her. Moments later, a notification caught Rian’s attention. In his guild information, he saw that someone else had logged in: Katrin, a level 40 Zephyr. Kat’s main. Her wind mage.

Corvis got up from the chess table and hovered over to Rian as if awaiting orders. “So what comes next? More training? Crafting?”

“Actually,” Rian said, “there’s something I want to tell you.”