Chapter 38: Chapter 38
[You have gained 5,140 EXP, 1 Berserk Potion, and 3 House Portal Scrolls.]
Darius was not excited per se. He had already calculated as much before he battled the Troll. Its level had been 8 and his had been 3. So far, the theme with experience gain had been that for every level higher than the user, the base experience would be multiplied by four.
Killing something on the same level as himself was 5 EXP, 1 level higher was 20 EXP, 2 levels higher was 80 EXP, 3 levels higher was 320 EXP, 4 levels higher was 1,280 EXP whereas 5 levels higher was 5,120 EXP. The reason the notification had an extra 20 was due to the death of the level 4 Plains Lioness through his Sparks spell.
Darius then scrolled past his level up notices.
[You have leveled up! You are now level 4. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[You have leveled up! You are now level 5. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[You have leveled up! You are now level 6. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[You have leveled up! You are now level 7. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[You have leveled up! You are now level 8. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[You have leveled up! You are now level 9. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[You have leveled up! You are now level 10. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[You have leveled up! You are now level 11. You have gained 5 Ability Points and 3 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
Straight up to level 11, wow! Darius was now more excited as he got a wealth of Ability and Skill Points to spend. However, what excited him more was the level increase, as he had been banking on that to enact the next phase of his plan.
Without personal strength, trying to act out phase 3 would be tantamount to suicide, especially given his lack of information. With this though, he needn't worry as much once he was done allocating all his points.
As such, Darius opened his Character menu and gazed at it solemnly. He fiddled with the modifiers for a bit before confirming his point allocation.
[Name: Darius Stone
Race: Human
Class: Itemancer
Sub-class: Magus
HP: 150/150
MP: 550/550
Level: 11
Experience: 60/1100
Strength: 15
Agility: 12
Endurance: 10
Intellect: 50
Charisma: 15
Luck: 20
AP: 0
SP: 0
Skills: Analyze - Lv.6, Skinning - Lv.1, Butchery - Lv.1, Cooking - Lv.1, Washing - Lv.1, Basic Lancer Arts - Lv.4
Spells: Sparks - Lv.20, Ember - Lv.4]
Darius allocated everything without holding back at all. 40 Ability Points and 24 Skill Points were spread out amongst his stats and skills, greatly increasing their values.
The first thing he noticed was his progressively higher EXP requirement to level up. It was now 1,100 for level 11, it seemed the trend was to add two zeroes behind his current level.
Seemed simple enough until he considered that it compiled on itself per level. Another question Darius had to ask himself was if he could kill a level 16 monster as easily as he had done with the Blue Troll?
That was a troublesome question, which directly reflected his choices in point allocation all around. Darius had learned what his strengths and weakness were in combat as well as what he had to focus on.
He had brought up his Strength from 7 points to 15, practically doubling it. Now that he was above the average threshold, he should be able to do some respectable damage next time he decided to wield a spear again.
Darius felt as if his body had been suddenly packed with muscles, but no visible changes had occurred to his body. He felt like he had just performed the workout of his life and was feeling supremely pumped as a result.
Darius had also increased his Agility by 2 points. The fight with the Troll had proven that it was not an unimportant stat, so he had used the leftover from his other choices.
Like before, he felt the difference immediately. It was always as if some gravitational force was trying to crush him into the planet, yet the pressure on him lightened slightly with each point.
His Endurance was left untouched, but his Intellect received the majority of his Ability points, doubling from 25 to 50 in one go!
He fell to his knees as he clutched his head. There was no pain, just intensity. It felt as if his mind had previously been like a dirty corridor full of debris that was cleaned up by a professional company.
With so much space and new passageways, things were able to move faster and more efficiently. Things he had struggled to recollect even with eidetic memory were becoming clearer and clearer.
He even felt the inkling of his mind power reaching out to the world around him, trying to establish a connection to things outside his brain. Unfortunately, it was weak and short, unable to make a firm connection, but at least it was there.
Darius guessed that 50 was an important threshold for stats like 10 had been. The change in his mind was more than just a simply strengthening, as it experienced an overall qualitative leap.
The system seemed to agree with him on this, as it produced what Darius felt was the hardest evidence to back his assumptions.
[Congratulations! You have reached 50 points in Intellect and have acquired the ability: Mind Power.]
[Mind Power - Basic Ability
Cost: 10 mana per second
Description: You are a budding psychic, able to gather the sheer power of your mental faculties in focus and lead it outward to affect the world around you. However, it takes a great toll on your mind and mana at this current stage. ]
Chapter 39: Chapter 39
Darius nodded in agreement with the description, at 10 mana per second to use this almost useless ability felt completely unnecessary. However, he was looking forward to the point in time when that would change.
For now, he continued with the self-assessment. Darius had not put anything into Charisma, as 15 points were fine enough for any endeavor he would partake in and he was confident enough in his verbal prowess to maximize his chances at successful seduction or persuasion should the need arise.
Instead, he had dropped 5 points into his Luck, bringing it from 15 to 20. Since it decided his genuine luck and the drops he got from kills it seemed like a worthwhile investment. Were it not for his need for more battle power, Darius would have happily dumped all points into Luck.
There could never be anything wrong with being too lucky, only that people would find it aggravating if he accomplished everything in his life too easily. However, Darius cared little for the opinion of third parties, for no one going through a perilous journey ever thought 'let me suffer some more, so that I may forge myself into something greater for others'.
As for his skills, he had pre-planned to upgrade Analyze in order to see any changes in its development, so he generously allocated 5 of his points to it. 3 of his SP went into Ember because it was a very useful attack.
While Sparks was his mainstay, Ember seemed to be trying its best to perform well, where even in two dire situations, its usage had indeed scared his foes. Well... despite being common, fire was fire after all.
As for his number 1 spell, Sparks, Darius had generously placed everything else. 16 points were greedily swallowed by the spell, but that was it.
In truth, he had tried to place everything into Sparks since he had learned from this battle that he should only use his spear to support his magic, not the other way round.
However, after it had reached level 20 he was unable to add to it, making him understand that it had to be the max level for a basic spell like Sparks. Darius wondered if Ember also had the same level limitation, since it and Sparks seemed to generally be of the same tier.
Darius had rightfully ignored skills like Cooking and Washing because they were only misc skills he had picked up along the way. As for his Basic Lancer Arts, it was doing well enough at level 4, so he had ignored that as well.
He checked his skills and how they had grown after his 'nourishment'.
[Analyze - Level 6 Skill
Cost: None
Description: Deduce the characteristics of any item or person. The effectiveness of this skill is based on 1.6x your Intellect stat.
[Sparks - Level 20 Spell (MAX)
Cost: 5 MP
Description: Send out a sparkle of electricity that can zap foes into a significant paralysis. This deals 100% lightning damage.]
[Ember - Level 4 Spell
Cost: 1 MP
Description: Send out a shower of fire that burns all foes within range. This deals 20% fire damage.]
Darius was greatly impressed. Analyze showed marginal growth by adding a multiplier that increased its practical effectiveness while Ember reached the same stage Sparks had been at up till now.
20% of his 50 Intellect would equal 10 damage per cast! Quite nifty truly, as about 9 casts would have waylaid the same Troll.
Not exactly exemplary as combat had many changes and permutations, but he would soon adopt his role as a backline fighter when he found a suitable candidate for his System Brand.
Of course, it was still unable to contend with Sparks, which was on a whole different level now. With 100% damage, it meant every bit of his high Intellect would work as practical damage.
Every cast of Sparks now did 50 damage to all enemies!
The Troll from before would have died with two casts!
The part that thrilled Darius was the low MP cost. His MP was now at a whopping 550, and a mere 5 MP per cast meant that he could cast Sparks 110 times before he bottomed out.
This was it!
This was the capital Darius had been looking for to secure his power!
With this, he could deal with beast, monster, and hopefully, human alike. He wasn't sure about other races like Elves or Dwarves, but surely they should also suffer the same fate?
Darius quelled his childish excitement. He now noticed that the more he got comfortable with this body, the more it took a hold of his mind. While his Intellect stat was high, it affected his mind, not his body.
He was 13 years old, prone to emotional outbursts, and in the prime of his puberty. Darius would have to consciously control himself in order to prevent any 'mistakes'.
He knew better than anyone how… 'hungry'… boys at this age were. The slightest sniff of a female and they would turn into beasts. Darius had enjoyed a long andropause in his seventies, so he hadn't had to deal with such a thing for a long while.
Whatever the case, Darius checked his other loot.
[Berserk Potion - Consumable
Durability: 15/15
Description: A good quality creation of Alchemy that grants a 30-second Berserk state, increasing damage and defense by 5% and lowering intelligence by 15%.]
[House Portal - Scroll
Durability: 10/10
Description: Return from any location to one's main homebase.]
Darius raised an eyebrow. The Berserk potion meant little to him because he would never trade power for his intelligence… as that was the source of his power. However, the House Portal scroll seemed too good to be true.
A warp scroll that took him from anywhere to their homebase? First of all, how did the system identify what his homebase was?
He hadn't set any location as his homebase and he doubted it was kind enough to just take him to Poleria's Homestead since that had been the first location he had visited.
Case in point, Darius attempted to activate one of them.
[Error, no specific location has been set as the homebase.]
Darius frowned, then smiled. He opened his system menu and checked the Settings. In the tab for the map functions, he saw an option for the homebase settings.
Rubbing his chin, he exited the Settings and opened the main map. He then zoomed in until he spotted Poleria's Homestead in a tiny corner of the Plains of the Green, where he then pointed to it.
[Set this location as your homebase?]
Darius assented while also taking out his House Portal scroll.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
6 Power
stone 
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