It took so ti for to calm down. anwhile, Mom slept like a baby. Nenandil was keeping the {Water Breathing} spell going while I recovered my MP. Speaking of the fairy, she was also hit by the nerf. She gained one level of {Surpasser} and had another seventy-six Attribute Points withheld. All of her stats were at twenty-two now. Worse, her {Surpasser} scaled with rank so she needed one hundred and ten to break through the next stage.
This "patch" hit us right up our buttholes. And I didn't even have a butt. All of my carefully curated pinnacle perks, gone. I an, they are still there but deactivated. Maybe I could burn them and later pick them back... once I earn a couple hundred Attribute points. Damn.
But why was I getting so little Exp? What happened to {Fast Learner}?
Fast-Learner (unique): Multiply your Exp gains by (8 ^[ Enemy's Rank 1]).
Talk about mixed blessings. I drew a small table on the sand showing the Exp bonuses for several level ranges. Below level forty, it's rank zero.
1 ~ 39x840 ~79x6480 ~119x512120 ~159x4096160 ~200x32,768
It sacrificed the earlier progression for a massive bonus later on. A counter to the crazy ramp in Exp points as one ranks up. Was it another of Loki's changes? Probably yes.
I bet there were more changes. I re-read the nerf ssage and found that one Perk snuck in the middle of all that grueling Attribute-sucking session.
Ultimate Surpasser (unique): Get half the Surpasser rank in Attribute Points every 20 levels. (currently: 3 Attribute Points every 8 levels)
Cashback rebates, anyone? Theoretically, these {Surpasser} Perks would pay themselves off after four thousand levels. But each life had at most two hundred. At least twenty lives? My Attributes would co back after that many deaths? Damn, that's too far away. Was that the "endga plan" Loki had for ? Felt like a bad 401(k) without the employer's match. Worse, would Nenandil ever see her points back? She would take even longer to see any benefit.
Worse, would these Perks carry over? Because with Nenandil, every ti is a blank slate. She levels as I do and has no Exp tally. So, no professions for her. But her Attributes and Perks have to be rebuild from scratch.
Ti to check if I can solve it. I have Perks to spend, gotta fix them.
Your attempt at obtaining the Perk: {Share Item Box [Familiar] (ultra-rare)} failed. Selecting a random Perk from the sa family at a lower rarity.
You gained the Perk: Guardian's Return (very rare): Your familiar can instantaneously teleport to your location for 1,000 MP.
Right. My Luck score is less than a third and the human shop got nerfed. I need to cheese sohow and {God Slayer} is no longer available for selection. What did Bundeus use on ? {Divine Smite}?
Your attempt at obtaining the Perk: {Divine Smite (ultra-rare)} failed. Selecting a random Perk from the sa family at a lower rarity.
You gained the Perk: Arcane Smite (very rare): Once every 30 seconds, you can spend MP equal to the square of the weapon's base damage to convert your attack damage to Arcane and deal 3x damage.
Okay. Not this one. Make a {Demigod} then.
Your attempt at obtaining the Perk: {Demigod (ultra-rare)} failed. Selecting a random Perk from the sa family at a lower rarity.
Reporting to Administrator... reporting blocked.
(...)
No other available perks in the family. You have one free ultra-rare Perk selection.
Good. Found a new way too cheese the human shop, thanks Wyxnos for locking all divinity perks. I am sure that if soone tried to get one of these Wyxnos would co to smite the impudent fool. Too bad they forced into going completely underground. taphorically speaking.
You gained the Perk: Share Item Box [Familiar] (ultra-rare): Your familiar can access your item box, storing and retrieving items. When your familiar access the item box, you both pay the MP cost.
Five Perks to go. I opened the list of rmaid Perks. At the top of the list, I saw sothing completely new:
Third Path (uncommon): Allows you to follow a third path.
I don't think there was an uncommon Perk I hadn't seen yet. When I checked, it is a Perk available for all species. Fairies, beast-kin, silk-folk, all of them had it and so did the rmaids. It was universal. But what the fuck was a path?
The other rmaid-specific perks were geared to entice and please males, sing better (had that one already), swim, talk to fishes, talk to whales, talk to sharks (fishes and sharks were in separate categories, no idea why), gain dolphin companion (that one is interesting, so rmaids in the community have it), Water magic, Song magic, grow legs without selling one's voice to a squid witch, toss a spear with more range, accuracy, or power underwater, return tossed weapon, increase swimming precision...
Nothing that imdiately struck my fancy. I shelved these perks for later. I can pick them whenever I need them.
The Skill Points, I placed fifty in {Surreptitiousness} raising it to ninety, the limit of Skill points. The other hundred I put in {Aikido}. Or what the System thinks is aikido from the few things it captured from my mind. It was at sixty and a hundred points rose it to eighty-four, breaking into Grandmaster levels.
You gained the Perk: Grandmaster Aikido (unique): You can use SP to deflect magical attacks that have a physical dium. Your defenses are not reduced when fighting several enemies at the sa ti.
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With that out of the way, I looked at the full description of my disability.
Epidermolysis Bullosa (ultra-rare, situational, disability): Divide your HP regeneration and the defense of your bare skin by 10. You require five tis more protein in your diet. Increase pain from skin wounds by 300%.
And that's why I, a moon-bound, was regenerating only fifty-three HP per second. Contrast that with the one hundred and forty thousand Lakerta had. It's still more than a normal person, though. I shouldn't complain that much. The reduced defense ans that even small incidents that were harmless to a normal person wound . Like bumping into sothing, or scraping against the coral. I have to be extra careful. {Skin SIght} helped wonders with that. Since I live naked.
Yeah, completely naked. Only rmaids with large chests wear sothing akin to a bra. And I'm too young to worry about breasts. That's a few years in the future.
That's it. A wetsuit! I retrieved the {Fox-Kin Disguise Kit} from my item box. The item was level 157 from being worn by Lakerta all the ti. I put the wig on my head and told it what I wanted. The living silk item beca a kind of artificial mimic. Like the chest monster, those kinds of monsters that can imitate objects. The threads extended and covered my tail and scalp, assuming the texture and coloration of a natural dolphin-rmaid and my hair. It should add so protection to my lower body.
It could cover my upper body but there was no way I the morphic silk to believably mimic skin. Half-naked then. Going topless was no problem!
Five perk wildcards in the bank. Eight hundred thousand Exp to spend. Let's pick a Class, shall we? I pulled the Class selection to see what I had available. A huge ssage popped up. One of those announcents when sothing major changes in the System.
By Wyxnos' Grace, you have been blessed!
Doubt it.
Now and forevermore, you may have two Class Paths. A Path is a series of Classes in which each is a rank-up of the previous.
Okay... what's the catch?
When outside combat, you can switch from one Path to another. The process takes one hour and entering combat will cancel the change. The Attribute bonuses and traits of the current Path will be unavailable after the change, replaced by the new ones. You no longer gain Skill Points from Classes but the difficulty to increase Skills through training was decreased. But the Attribute bonuses from your active Path can push you over your current rank's Attribute Cap. Traits from different Paths are Transient never add up.
I don't like where this is going. What the hell does he an by Transient? I felt a throbbing headache start to build. First my Attributes, and now the Classes? How much will they fuck up the System just to catch ?
But it explained what a third path was. You could have three Classes and their rank-ups, switching between them. The whole thing sounded very interesting if not for the dread word, "Transient". I an, people could have crafting, a magical, and a lee Class at once. The versatility was enormous.
I opened my Class selection. The two top entries were still [Calamity] and [Null & Void]. Wasn't the requirent for [Calamity] to be loathed by the Divine? Just as a curiosity, I picked it.
ERROR: [Calamity] is a restricted Class. Reporting to the Administrator... blocked. Searching for alternatives. None found. Aborting report. Class selection failed.
My {Summon Wyxnos} spell broke. I hate to admit but I felt a bit lonely. I was getting used to annoy the God of Logic. Just because I had nothing better to do and I feared the consequences of any other choice I made, especially if "Transient" ant what I feared it did, I selected it again. And again. And twelve tis more. I would've kept going until I got bored but sothing changed.
You failed fifteen tis at obtaining a Class. Searching for alternatives. Successful.
You were granted the [Wanderer (unique)] Class.
A wanderer commits to no particular style. They are truly masters of none.
This Class grants:
1 to All Attributes at level 0.
1 to All Attributes every third level.
1 to All Attributes at level 20.
5 ( 3) HP per level
5 ( 3) MP per level
5 ( 2) SP per level
20 ( 3) Skill Points per level.
1 Choice at level 0.
1 Choice every 4 levels.
1 Choice at level 20.
WARNING: This is a legacy Class. Alerting Administrators... blocked.
UPDATING ENTRIES... PLEASE WAIT.
Adjusting legacy Class to current paraters... Done.
Marking Attributes and Perks as transient... Done.
Populating {Choice} selection lists... Done.
ERROR: All traits are blocked. Removing {Choice} entries... Done.
Re-balancing Class. Attributes per level: 4. Category S. Resources per level: 15. Category: B. Skill Points per level 20. Category SS. Perks: Error. This Class has no Perks Progression: Category FFF.
Applying weights... Done. Final rating: {Common}.
Your primary Path is [Wanderer (common)]. You can select another Path.
That was... confusing? Yes, confusing is the term. "Legacy Class"? I added everything I learned about the System and ca to one conclusion. Wyxnos was using a second-hand System. One he had only so rights. Otherwise, he could ss up with . It was sohow patched up and modified to suit their needs, but they still hadn't cleared up everything. I bet it was awfully complex, even for the God of Logic. And Loki had a deep knowledge of how this System worked because he basically hacked it to send here.
For example, these letter grades aren't used anywhere else, yet they exist in the System, maybe as hidden values.
But enough pondering. I didn't have infinite ti. I applied the eight hundred thousand Exp to this Class, leveling it up to fourteen.
You reached Wanderer level 14.
You gained 4 to All Attributes.
You gained 322 Skill Points.
Of the Skill points, 175 went into maximizing {Pain Resistance}. I had to offset my disability sohow.
You gained the Perk: Master Pain Resistance (very rare): Whenever an event hurts you enough to feel pain, your next attack deals double damage to the source of the pain if done within 3 seconds.
You gained the Perk: Grandmaster Pain Resistance (ultra-rare): Whenever an event hurts you enough to feel pain, you double your Strength score for the next 3 seconds.
The rest went into {Accelerated Moonbound Regeneration. It reached Grandmaster 84.
You gained the Perk: Master Accelerated Moonbound Regeneration (ultra-rare): Whenever you are below 50% HP, your regeneration rates double.
You gained the Perk: Grandmaster Accelerated Moonbound Regeneration (ultra-rare): Whenever you are below 20% HP, you instantly recover 20% of your HP pool. This effect may only trigger once every hour.
Level 29
Strength 25 8/25- Dexterity 25 8/25 - Endurance 25 8/25
Mind 37 5/37 - Willpower 37 5/37- Charisma 37 5/37
Magic 50 5/50
Ego 50 5/50 - Luck 50 5/50 -Soul 50 5/50
HP 1,064,006 (127 HP/s)
MP 460,790 (88228 MP/h)
SP 253,995 (35606 SP/h)
I laid next to my mother, watching her sleeping figure. I sensed danger and saw a carp swimming my way. A salmon. That didn't show up in my detection abilities.
"Greetings, Loki."
I had no idea if the salmon was Loki but why would a fish co toward ? If he wasn't, nobody around would hear and I could save face.
"Greetings, Lakerta. Or whichever na you're using now," the salmon replied. It WAS Loki.
"What brings the Trickster to this sandbank?"
The salmon accelerated toward and made a circle around .
"I have a vested interest in your wellbeing, now that you've proven useful in draining energy from the Gods of this world. Don't go after them, though."
I wanted to eat sushi. And this 'maguro' looked very fatty. While I was sure the Gods of this world couldn't hurt , I had no doubts Loki could. I was beholden to Him.
"Nine hundred Attribute points lost. Is that your notion of care?"
"A long-term investnt. One that will take the Gods off your neck and pay off greatly in the future. It seems you are fine. Look, I have an offer. I can grant you a curse to lower all your caps in the first rank to five. You take it, that investnt will bear fruit even faster. There's another Perk when you reach {Surpasser Twenty}. You ought to take it before Wyxnos figures out my true intentions in suggesting the change and blocks it. Let see your Status... Damn, I was sure they locked. If I knew Wyxnos kept the Spiritual Attributes, I would've added even more curses to you at the start."
That was the last drop. "You want to curse even more?"
Loki-salmon shrugged and deadpanned, "Sure. It's for your own good. I can even add so Attribute Points to offset the curse. Yes, that's a free {Surpasser} level. Look, we need to min-max your build, twink it for the end ga. That's where the gold is."
Then the fish paused and asked with genuine confusion, "Did I say it right?"
"Can I--"
"There's no ti. Wyxnos knows I ca, he's searching for us. Do or do not. There's no try."
My patience with the Norse God of Trickery and Change was at an end. I shoot at him, angry. "Why five? Make it Four or even lower. If you are so intent into fucking over, set my cap to one."
The salmon grinned. I had no idea fishes could grin, "Great! That's the spirit! I knew you were the guy for this mission. It was well worth causing the accident. You are going to be unconscious but 'Miss Silent Fairy' there will keep watch over you. I'm giving her a blessing too."
"WAIT, ACCIDENT? MOTHERFUCKER, IT WAS YOU ALL--"
He used so spell on . I blacked out.
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