It didn’t take long to see why Felix was happy to shush his lover. As the wyvern, higher level than the floor should have had but still not an irregular, began to attack, Astrid activated Hero’s Aura and protected her party as Felix grounded his stance, squared his shoulders, and hauled his axe back. Muti was the first to realize what he was doing, and she protested as he shook his head at her and grinned widely. As soon as the wyvern was about twenty ters away, he whipped his axe forward, and a hook that seed to be made of shimring mana flew up and wrapped around just behind its wings. Then, with his whole strength, as well as Skills and using his shield to pull and anchor himself toward the ground, Felix turned in a slow, wide circle as he smashed the wyvern into the ground.
The ground underfoot crumpled as Felix managed to ground the monster in a completely new way, and Astrid shouted her congratulations as she rushed past him. Without using Body Surge, she raised her hamr and crashed it into the wyvern’s head. She’d never used the echo stone hamr in actual battle yet and found that when she attacked, the hamr maintained contact longer than she expected, the spectral echo that smashed into it maintaining contact and crashing the physical hamr into the target for the second ti.
As the first hit smashed the monster’s head into the ground with a bone-shattering crunch, the second pulverized scales and flesh, piercing through the beast’s skin and making blood pool around the weapon. The wyvern wasn’t dead, but it whimpered weakly instead of trying to stand up. As its head slowly rose, swaying from the irreparable damage that its brain had just suffered, it opened its jaws wide in an almost comically slow attempt to attack her back.
She didn’t hesitate, letting the attack co her way and sidestepping it before raising her hamr again and smashing it down, the thump-thump rhythm like that of a beating heart. That second attack dispatched the beast, and Astrid grinned as she rolled her shoulders and dismissed the kill notification. Instead, she looked at her Status, her smile as broad as ever.
Status
Na: Astrid
Class: Immortal Champion (Steel)
Total Level: 51 (33,712/300,000)
Attributes
Current
Per level growth
Power
540 ( 114)
22
Alacrity
349 ( 57) [ 209]
12
Fortitude
539 ( 109)
20
Magical Potency
205 ( 39)
10
Self-Mastery
186 ( 64)
10
Acun
151 ( 24)
5
Astrid didn’t stop there, and since Olafson hadn’t given her any explanation about what attributes the hamr offered when he gave it to her, she did so quick math, glad to rember that her previous hamr hadn’t given her any additional attributes other than helping her to qualify for Steady Load. While Muti finished the harvesting of just the wyvern’s tail where the venom was, Astrid took out a paper and quickly scribbled out the bonuses that the hamr provided for her. When she was done, she was reminded of seeing how huge the boosts to her attributes had seed when she first put on her armor after evolving to Iron.
Power 60, Alacrity 20, Fortitude 50, Magical Potency 20, Self-Mastery 30, Acun 20.
She couldn’t believe it, that was way too much, wasn’t it? Olafson had explained that peak Steel tier equipnt was made off of the assumption that sobody had about 4,500 total attributes, with the bonuses from evolution. That safe range was 30% of that, so 1,350 total attribute points to be given by equipnt.
With that in mind, on the side of the paper, Astrid did a bit more math. Assuming seven pieces of equipnt—from weapon, offhand, underlaynt, primary upper body and lower body armor, boots, and helt—that ca out to 194 attribute points to be gained per individual piece of equipnt, more or less. So the 200 that her hamr gave? Only slightly above average. Astrid felt her eyebrows raise as she looked at the hamr and understood just why she was able to do as much as she had. After all, the materials themselves counted for more than just the attributes they granted her, so she estimated that the total “attribute value” of the hamr was probably closer to 250.
“Thank you, Olafson,” she muttered to herself as she smiled. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t know what the attribute bonuses were for everybody else with their new equipnt. She could still rember what the others’ statuses looked like, but as Muti finished chopping the last of the wyvern’s tail off with her thicker blade, Astrid asked, “Your two swords together, how many attributes do they give you?”
“ 65 to Power, 45 to Alacrity, 35 to Fortitude, 50 to Magical Potency, 30 to Self-Mastery, and 40 to Acun.”
“So two hundred and sixty five total,” Astrid nodded, feeling the faint spike of jealousy before she rembered that the benefits that she was getting were from a single piece of equipnt as opposed to two from Muti.
“And how about the rest of you?” Astrid asked. “I’ve figured out what mine does, but I haven’t thought to ask you all. I’m sorry.”
“I suspect that mine is the least impressive,” Felix said with a smile, looking down at the axe in his hand, “at least in terms of attributes granted. Or maybe the other two n have more impressive additional aspects to their equipnt that brings the attribute bonus down. Regardless, the enchantnt to make the hook is more than enough for . Beyond that, it gives plus thirty to Power, plus ten to Alacrity, plus twenty-five to Fortitude, plus ten to Magical Potency, plus fifteen to Self-Mastery, and plus ten to Acun.”
“So a total of one hundred attributes,” Astrid nodded. “That’s certainly not bad. It’s worth more than an entire level, plus everything else it can do.”
“Well, it’s seventy-five more than my old axe provided,” he said. “But honestly, I’m more than happy with what it does right now. When we’re not going against massive, flying monsters, it’ll do even more.”
Astrid reached out a fist and knocked their knuckles together, smiling as she turned to the two magically inclined n. “Well?” she asked.
“Mine are the least interesting,” Benedict grumbled, though the smile on his face betrayed his real emotions on the matter. “Like Felix, the bulk of the enchantnts and value of these boots is found mostly in the way it can help move. In fact, the way that they almost exclusively use stamina is really helpful for because most of my stuff only uses my mana, so having my stamina do more than just help run is nice.”
“I saw the way that you were running,” Astrid confird. “What exactly does it do, though?”
“I’m not really sure,” Benedict laughed. “Olafson’s explanation about the creature whose hide these are made from didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Sothing about a half-step toward spatial magic, but not quite, semi-compressing space, but not really, I don’t know. Regardless, I can make my steps sowhat faster and sowhat longer with a thought, which will help get to where I need to be, as well as to evade attacks much better.”
“How did you not ask more questions about that?” Astrid laughed disbelievingly. “That’s one of the most interesting things you could’ve said, and you don’t have any details for !”
“He said sothing along the lines of it being from a creature called a pocket ermine? I guess their materials can be used to make spatial pouches, but the boots were a result of an experint instead of trying to make another pouch,” Benedict shrugged. “Anyways, the attribute bonuses are ten to Power, forty to Alacrity, ten to Fortitude, twenty given to Magical Potency, and fifteen each to Self-Mastery and Acun.”
“Gives slightly more than my axe, then,” Felix nodded. “Just ans that my hook is better than your running.”
Benedict picked up a rock and threw it at Felix, who swung his axe and manifested the hook to spin the rock around and then slap into Benedict’s ribs. The Bard groaned and bent over, giving Felix the finger as he laughed. “Not gonna try that again.”
“Well, while they figure that out,” Astrid pointedly ignored the joking between the two n, “I wouldn’t mind getting so information about your new staff. You’re the only one out of all of us that isn’t replacing an existing piece of equipnt at all. Is it worth it?”
“I don’t know,” Skandr said, shrugging. “The attribute bonuses are all right, but the secondary effect of the enchantnts is certainly different from other things.”
“Yes, you’re being coy, we get it,” Astrid shook her head. “Now give us the details!”
His faux indecision dripped away at that as he smiled widely and explained, “The attributes are really well focused. Only ten to Power, then twenty each to Alacrity and Fortitude. Then there’s sixty, fifty, and forty to Magical Potency, Self-Mastery, and Acun, respectively.”
Astrid blinked several tis, waiting for him to continue. After all, he seed most interested in the other effects, so she gestured for him to explain.
“According to Olafson, Wizards typically don’t have as many pieces of equipnt as most other Classes. As such, the attributes and effects given by each individual piece can be much more impactful than on other pieces of equipnt. As an example, we can see what my current robe does.
“This staff gives the ability to call up a storm without having to establish a spell for it. On top of that, the storm will be whatever is best suited to the current area, so I can have more flexibility without having to develop individual spells for each type of storm I might want to summon for the first ti in an area. It almost serves as a guideline that I can reference to different types of storms and is almost a secondary grimoire.”
“You’ll have to better explain to why that is better than learning how to do those spells yourself,” Astrid said. “Isn’t it better to develop spells than to rely on a piece of equipnt to give you sothing? Like you said, you’ll be able to reference what it does, but isn’t self-discovery better?”
“Good question, but no,” Skandr shook his head. “There are aspects to storms that I simply don’t understand. I would have to go study and find things to even begin to experint with these different storms. Part of becoming a Storm Archwizard and having my Skill beco Storm Wizardry gave understanding about how there are many types of storms that I’ve never thought of. For to understand how to cast these spells, though, I would have to find another example and reference the differences between different types of storm summoning spells. For example, I’ve heard of a firestorm, but I don’t have the first idea of where to start with creating one.
“Instead of going to try to find an explanation of how to do it and then experinting until I have so asure of an idea, the staff bridges the gap in my understanding and shows how to convert ambient mana into storm mana of that sa type. If we were at the top of the fiftieth floor of the Trials and fighting the Boss again, I probably could make a lava storm. In one of the massive crypts from the Trials? A deathly storm, maybe. I don’t know what kind of things can be made into storms, and this will allow to peek into the functions of mana interacting with storms without losing tons of ti and money paying to see what kinds of things other Wizards have done in the past.”
“That’s aweso,” Astrid said, shrugging helplessly. “I wish I could better understand just how impactful this is, so that way I could be happier for you. Regardless, it sounds great.”
Skandr nodded, his face excited. Then he asked, “Is it all right if the rest of us get an opportunity to test out our new toys?”
Astrid laughed and, despite wanting to continue to experint with her new hamr, stepped back to allow the rest to use their new equipnt. After all, even Muti, who had gotten the first piece of steel tier equipnt, had sothing new to try out. Well, other than Felix, who had also tried his, and Benedict, who had been playing around with his and didn’t need to be in a fight to truly test it out.
Without another word, Muti led the party to the next monster, the one closest to the passage down to the second floor. It wasn’t long, as the wyverns, higher level than they should be due to the surge, were more than eager to find their next prey. As it swooped closer, Skandr planted his stance, swirled his staff around him once, twice, and then planted it in the ground. With each movent, a tornado scread into existence until it whipped up from his position and into the sky. His pet cloud surged up and rged into the spell as well. Lightning crackled there, and Astrid could tell when he sohow supplied the staff’s working with his health and stamina as the lightning tinged from bluish-white to red.
Seeming to think better of running headlong into this, the wyvern pulled out of its dive and flapped its wings backward, desperately looking to escape. It was too late. The tornado separated from Skandr, flying into the air before snaking back down and striking the wyvern from the air to the ground. Wind and lightning ripped through the stumps and earth, throwing debris everywhere with deadly force. The tornado started to die off just as a kill notification appeared.
Muti began complaining, given that she wasn’t going to be allowed her opportunity to prove herself as well, while Skandr rolled his shoulders and grinned at Astrid. “Do you mind topping up with a charge of Physique?”
She didn’t answer verbally, just shaking her head and gesturing for Felix and Muti to co close as well. Then she used the charge and gestured for the party to continue onward. After all, they had to test their new abilities against the irregulars found deeper below. This was just the beginning.
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