Failed 1 - Chapter 38

After meditating back up to full health, mana, and stamina, Randidly distributed his PP, finishing the Potion Making I Path. As he had suspected, he earned a skill: Refine, which let him use mana to refine materials to more purified versions of themselves.

Immediately Randidly tried it, making more concentrated versions of the potion ingredients, and producing a mana potion that would restore 130 mana in a single drink. Over the course of it, Refine increased by 2 levels, and Potion making by 1.

Now he was really looking forward to obtaining more containers to hold potions.

Randidly then started on The Monster Slayer Path, which would take 100 PP. He was leery about it, but the fact that the previous rewards were regeneration rates made him commit to it.

He put the rest of his PP in, but was pleasantly surprised to find he also got 1 stat every 10 pp.

Even more pleasantly surprising was the gains from Spear of Rot Mastery. Like Green Spear Mastery, it gave out benefits every 5. But the rotation had changed, to 10 mana, +1 Vitality and Control, +10 Stamina, +2 stats. Basically the only thing that hadn’t changed was the 2 stats; everything else had doubled in effectiveness. Randidly once more pulled up his status screen, and this time focused on his stats.

Randidly Ghosthound

Class: —

Level: N/A

Health(/R per hour): 206/283 [+6] (120 [+9])

Mana(/R per hour): 139/291 (54.25)

Stam(/R per min): 105/267 (43.5 [+3])

Vit: 35 [+3]

End: 30

Str: 18

Agi: 42 [+3]

Perception: 22

Reaction: 24

Resistance: 9

Willpower: 52

Inteligence: 60

Wisdom: 30

Control: 37

Focus: 19

His current stat total was now at 378, which put him very close to gaining access to the Apprentice Path, and the related skills. What he needed to do now was focus, or at least make a decision in regards to how he wanted to distribute his stats from now on.

Recently he had been putting points into Intelligence, to keep the power of his spells high and to raise his mana pool. In addition, Spear of Rot Mastery would passively give him an acceptable amount of Vitality and Control. What was increasingly becoming clear was that the benefits of not having a class would become more and more evident, as he gained more and more skills, and could accomplish more paths.

It was frustrating that it seemed like most of the higher level paths gave out fewer rewards. In addition, unlike an individual with a few skills that they would polish repeatedly, Randidly spread his attention across a wide variety of things. His skills would be weaker, even if his bag of tricks was larger.

Sighing, Randidly settled back, leaning against a tree. That probably wouldn’t be true until the end game, but it was good to be aware of the drawback now. He needed to choose his direction.

Randidly spent a few minutes reorganizing his skills, sorting them into categories. Then he examined them again.

Skills (Soul Skill): Spear of Rot Mastery Lvl 35

Combat: Spear Mastery Lvl 38, Phantom Thrust Lvl 40, Spear Phantom’s Footwork Lvl 26, Eyes of the Spear Phantom Lvl 16, Phantom Half-Step Lvl 5, Heavy Blow Lvl 22, Dagger Mastery Lvl 10, Iron Skin Lvl 25, Dodge Lvl 27, Fighting Proficiency Lvl 28, Block Lvl 24, Haste Lvl 12, Phantom Onslaught Lvl 10, Sweep Lvl 11, Spear Deflect Lvl 5, Empower Lvl 9, Calculated Blow Lvl 11, Roundhouse Kick Lvl 6, Edge of Decay Lvl 3

Spells: Entangling Roots Lvl 29, Mana Bolt Lvl 28, Mana Shield Lvl 23, Root Manipulation Lvl 24, Arcane Orb Lvl 20, Fireball Lvl 3, Magic Missile Lvl 4, Healing Palm Lvl 5, Pollen of the Rafflesia Lvl 3, Summon Pestilence Lvl 10

Crafting: Potion Making Lvl 21, Farming Lvl 20, Plant Breeding Lvl 9, Mapmaker Lvl 4, Analyze Lvl 24, Refine Lvl 3

Auxiliary: Physical Fitness Lvl 26, Meditation Lvl 27, Running Lvl 17, Sprinting Lvl 13, Sneak Lvl 20, Acid Resistance Lvl 22, Poison Resistance Lvl 14, Pain Resistance Lvl 11, First Aid Lvl 12, Equip Lvl 16, Pathfinding Lvl 8, Mental Strength Lvl 8, Curse Resistance Lvl 3

All in all, he currently had a lot of combat skills, which meant that would be a good area to focus. At the same time, he recognized the utility that being a mage gave him, especially for now. No one else, aside from that girl Lyra with Sam, could use spells. It gave him a power that no one else had.

Also, like Randidly had discovered previously, it wasn’t difficult to practice Mana and Stamina things at the same time. The issue would be to integrate them well.

From the combat type skills, he would continue to focus on the spear, and the Spear Phantom Skills. In addition, working on Haste and Empower would yield benefits all around.

Crafting was a separate category, and when he had spare time, he would work on farming, plant breeding, and potion making to provide utility for the rest of his skills.

The other decision would be what he would focus on for spells. Randidly really enjoyed his new spells, and suspected that they would level up to become increasingly powerful. In addition, Entangling Roots and Root Manipulation were the things that lead him down this path, and he would continue to work on those.

What it really came down to was which of the offensive spells would Randidly focus.

After quite a bit of thought, he chose fireball, even though it didn’t make sense. No, perhaps he chose it exactly because it didn’t make sense. A green mage spearman who also wielded fire? That was almost counter productive.

Randidly smiled to himself. It also seemed really cool. And he supposed after all of his hard work, he could choose to be willful at a time like this.

With those in mind, he would concentrate his stats on Agility, Intelligence, and Control. He would harass and dominate with skill levels of spear skills, and follow it up with restrictive spells. Finally, he would have a high intelligence to unleash powerful flame spells to crack enemies with tough defenses.

Randidly nodded to himself, satisfied. Looking at the sky, it still seemed like it was before noon. Inwardly he wavered, but then his eyes narrowed. He could not run from danger. He would go back beyond the boundary, seeking more challenges. That was the only way he could grow.

****

Randidly returned to the camp at around 4 PM, hungry and exhausted.

Within him he had two cat bodies, two lizardmen, and a strange scorpion the size of a large dog. Of them all, the scorpion had been the most dangerous; it had stung Randidly before he had even seen it, and a creeping paralysis came up his leg. Luckily his poison resistance was so high to begin with, because he was barely able to crack the scorpion’s shell and burn its brain with a fireball before he had become almost rigid from the poison.

The paralysis had lasted several minutes, and had put an end to the adventure beyond the boundary. After that, Randidly was ready for some rest.

He had gained 2 levels in poison resistance, 1 in Running, Entangling Roots, Summon Pestilence, and Meditation, and another 6 in Fireball. He had focused on fireball, using it to secure most of his kills.

When Randidly returned to his cabin, he was surprised to find several men tending his fields. After watching them for several minutes, determining they weren’t doing that badly of a job, Randidly retired to his cabin.

Strangely, it was already occupied.

Lyra sat on the pallet that Randidly used as a bed in those rare moments he actually rested, moving multicolored balls of mana in strange patterns. He coughed lightly to get her attention, and she sat up and gave him a withering look.

“Get mugged on the way home? You look like you lost a fight with a homeless man.”

Randidly ignored her, dumping the bodies in the corner of the cabin. They would probably smell eventually, but for now

Actually, would they rot faster because of his edge of decay skill? That was slightly worrisome for providing good materials for Sam to craft. But Sam had mentioned something about a way to preserve the bodies, so…

She gave the bodies a glance, and hopped up, flouncing past him. “Sam wants to talk to you. And Donny. And Daniel. And Decklan has been making eyes at your cabin. Is it nice, being popular?” And with that, she left.

Sighing, Randidly rubbed his head and grabbed a glass for water.

He had noticed that there were a lot more people hanging around the village, seemingly almost 100. Although he wasn’t sure why this was, if they all got a class, and tried to hold off against a wave of over 1000 enemies

Shaking his head, he picked the bodies back up and went towards Sam. One thing at a time.
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