76: Powering Up to Kill Some Dinosaurs With the Team

“First things first,” Ashtoreth said the next morning as they sat in the cramped living area of her tiny house. “I’m level 62. Is anybody else level 60?”

“Hunter’s highest,” said Frost.

“I’m 57,” Hunter said. “How are you only 62? You did a whole other tutorial. Er, scenario.”

“Uh-huh!” she said. “But tier 2 starts at 60. The progress slows very suddenly. Also… I sort of rushed that scenario. I just killed three bosses to leave. I didn’t even grab loot from the floating islands, but the tree made of teeth gave me an upgrade to my glamour clothes.”

“Does reaching tier 2 grant any sort of benefit?” Hunter asked. “Is it like, a huge hike in power?”

“Nope!” she said. “You just get new upgrades and abilities added to your advancements, and tier 1 cores stop levelling you up. Advancements keep getting slower, too.”

“How much slower?” he asked.

“Well, first tier and second tier both have about 30 advancements in them,” she said. “Not counting the fact that level 1 has at least three, and more if you’ve got a high grade race. Tier 2 has the same number, but they’re further apart. After 60, there’s an advancement every 4 levels. Then, at level 100, things really shake up. We’re stuck at one advancement per 10 levels until 300.”

“Feels sort of random,” Hunter said.

“Eh,” said Dazel. “Every tier has more levels, but around the same amount of advancements. A leveled tier 2 has twice the advancements of a tier 1, but five times the stats. It works out. Tier 3 winds up looking lumpy too, but ends with a similar ratio.”

“It should be very, very easy to get you all close to caught up with me,” Ashtoreth said. “I’m levelling much slower now—it’ll take a week of grinding out multiple scenarios a day to get to 100.”

She paused, then said: “So who wants to get started?”

“Me,” said Hunter.

“We can’t spend all our time in this cave,” said Frost. “I’m okay to get going, but let’s move slow.”

“Definitely!” Ashtoreth said. “In fact, I was thinking that I’d just watch over you today. You go out and make a good effort at doing the scenario yourselves, and I’ll just step in if something goes wrong. The enemies are strong, yes, but from what we saw yesterday, they’re highly unintelligent.”

“You’re saying this scenario is an easy one?” Hunter asked.

“About as easy as they’re likely to get,” Ashtoreth said. “And if things go badly, I can always just set the entire jungle on fire.”

“O-kay,” said Frost. “Let’s really put that one down as a last resort.”

“But you’re immune to the flames.”

“I know, Ashtoreth. Still, this forest got taken from somewhere, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And it’s going back once the scenario is done?”

“Yep!”

“Maybe let’s not send back nothing but ashes,” he said. “Not if we can help it.”

“Gotcha,” she said. “And great news on that account.”

Frost eyed her suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“Well, my new scythe lets me absorb [Bloodfire] at high distances and without actually having to move it into my body,” she said. “So I can just burn away very, very large swathes of jungle rather than letting the fire be totally uncontrolled.”

“You know what? I’ll take it.” He looked at Hunter and Kylie. “Everyone ready? I figure we’ll focus on getting Kylie some minions to start off with.”

“Oh, I’m not ready,” said Ashtoreth.

“What?”

“I’m level 62, but I haven’t chosen any advancements since 51. I’ve got 3 more.”

“All right,” said Frost. “Handle that and we’ll get going.”

“Okay….” Ashtoreth said, turning her attention to the system. “Advancements?”

{Reaching level 54 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Vampiric Archfiend].}

“[Armament], please!”

{Advance [Armament]}

{Choose an upgrade to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}

Upgrade [Conjure Rammstein] with [Rammstein: Rapid Ammunition]:

You halve the time it takes to conjure a round for Rammstein.

Upgrade [Conjure Luftschloss] with [Luftschloss: Hellfire Blows]:

Luftschloss now deals profane and fire damage to enemies. Some abilities, like your [Mighty Blow] and [Mighty Strike], will heighten the intensity of the damage.

Upgrade [Conjure Wanderlust] with [Wanderlust: Bloodfire Well]:

Your maximum [Bloodfire] is doubled while you wield Wanderlust. This does not increase the rate at which [Bloodfire] regenerates.

“Say,” she said. “Will [Bloodfire Well] increase the power of the [Bloodfire Bestow] I got from my class ability?”

“Nope,” said Dazel.

“You sure? [Bloodfire Bestow] says it’s based on maximum [Bloodfire]....”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Trust me. The upgrade is just a weaker version of the [Mana Well] that the [Spellcasting] aspect grants.”

“I knew that much.”

“It doesn’t work. If you want to increase your [Bloodfire Bestow], you need something that grants more resources per stat, like the vampire racial that grants you 20 [Health] per [Vitality] instead of 10.”

She sighed. “It’s still a really good upgrade.”

“Of course it is. It’s a resource pool doubler. [Spellcasting] can get 5 ranks total—I’m not totally sure, but I think you can get 3. The system likes synergies, but did you really think it would hand you a four times multiplier to an ability that can almost double your highest stat?”

“I guess not,” she said plaintively. “I’ll pick up [Bloodfire Well] soon. I can fly now, so I’m gonna take [Rammstein: Rapid Ammunition]. With a bag of hearts and a good position, I can kill enemies as fast as I can make rounds.”

“Reasonable.”

{You upgrade your [Conjure Rammstein] ability with [Rammstein: Rapid Ammunition]}

“Thanks!”

{Reaching level 57 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Armament].}

“[Drain], please!”

{Advance [Drain]}

{Choose an upgrade to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}

Upgrade [Devour Flesh] with [Satiated]:

Buffs from [Devour Flesh] last 18 hours, not 12, and no longer fade in intensity before they expire.

Upgrade [Energy Drain] with [Theft of Power]:

When you affect a target with your [Energy Drain] debuff, you may choose to gain bonus stats equal to the stats you drain rather than gaining [Bloodfire].

Gained stats are limited to 50% of your target’s total stats. Gained stats expire when the [Energy Drained] debuff expires on your target, but will last 1 minute longer if your target dies with this debuff on.

Upgrade [Energy Drain] with [Draining Bolt]:

For a low [Bloodfire] cost, you can form a dense missile of draining energy that you can launch with high accuracy.

“Well I already knew I was taking here,” she said, choosing to replace [Draining Bolt] and retain [Satiated]. “[Theft of Power], please!”

It was just another upgrade that would make her an even stronger boss killer.

{You upgrade your [Energy Drain] ability with [Energy Drain: Theft of Power]}

“Thank you!”

{Reaching level 60 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Drain].}

“My first tier 2 upgrade,” she said happily. “[Armament], please!”

{Advance [Armament]}

{Choose an upgrade to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}

Upgrade [Conjure Luftschloss] with [Luftschloss: Hellfire Blows]:

Luftschloss now deals profane and fire damage to enemies. Some abilities, like your [Mighty Blow] and [Mighty Strike], will heighten the intensity of the damage.

Upgrade [Conjure Wanderlust] with [Wanderlust: Bloodfire Well]:

Your maximum [Bloodfire] is doubled while you wield Wanderlust. This does not increase the rate at which [Bloodfire] regenerates.

Upgrade [Conjure Luftschloss] with [Luftschloss: Proximate Telekinesis II]

This upgrade doubles the force you can apply to Luftschloss using the [Proximate Telekinesis] upgrade.

“Oooh,” she said, her eyes widening. “If it isn’t an immediate upgrade for my main weapon. Don’t mind if I do—I’ll take the telekinesis, please!”

{You upgrade your [Conjure Luftschloss] ability with [Luftschloss: Proximate Telekinesis II]}

“Is that the near telekinesis?” Dazel asked.

“[Proximate Telekinesis],” she said.

“Sure,” he said. “That one. I never even notice you’re using it.”

“Check it out!” she said. She conjured her sword, then let it hang in the air beside her. “No counterforce! The second rank lets my [Magic] and [Psyche] function push the sword as much as if they were [Strength]!”

“Yeah,” said Dazel. “I guess I can see why you’re excited.”

“Still won’t be faster to fly with my sword out,” she said. “Unfortunately. It’s just too massive. I’m still going to end up dragging it behind me even counting its own acceleration from the upgrade.” Then she smiled. “Still, flying around with it at all is pretty good! I could even use it as a bench for eating lunch on!”

“It’ll be like a cultivation novel,” Hunter said.

“Oh,” Ashtoreth said.

At the same time, Dazel went, “Mm, no.”

Hunter frowned and looked between them. “What?”

“Those are wrong,” said Dazel. “We don’t know where those came from.”

“Huh?” Hunter asked. “People write them, that’s where they came from.”

“Yeah, but most myths are reflections of the inner realms,” said Ashtoreth.

“Cultivation isn't real,” said Dazel.

Ashtoreth nodded knowingly. “Only western LitRPG with elements taken from anime were successful approximations of reality.”

“Uh. Okay…” said Hunter.

Ashtoreth paused, then added: “Meditation is for nerds.”

“She’s wrong,” Dazel said to Hunter. “It’s a great tool for becoming more aware of your mindstate and general emotional and cognitive self-perception.”

“See?” Ashtoreth said. “For nerds.”

“And anyone with an attention span greater than that of a reanimated goldfish,” said Dazel.

“Speaking of changing the subject,” Ashtoreth said. “I’m all done here. So.” She grinned around at all of them. “Who’s ready to go out and meet dinosaurs in real life?” She smiled for a moment longer before adding, “And killing them all?”