by Naosu N R
But that depends on if you can actually read their levels. The trouble is that its hard to read levels other than your own. And without magitek you can't even read your own level, unless you have a 'primal' or natural system of magic like our family has. Anyone with a dungeon adventurer job also has a status.
I stumbled upon one more piece of information before it was too late to read anymore in one of the books.
'All dungeons are part of 'The Dungeon Tower', and the hidden murim world are all over the world.' And also, all dungeons spread throughout the world connecting to it, and each other. They also near infinite levels within, until supposedly if you go far enough you cross over and end up in this other Hollow World.
There's no way of knowing how many creatures are inside this hidden Murim world. Virtually all the mythical beasts and monsters of legend are real.
(So where do I start?)
I sighed.
Its time for bed.
I need to find out what this 'Dungeon Tower' business means.
Chapter 5
Morning broke.
6:49 AM
Somehow pulled myself out of bed.
Then dragged myself to the shower and scrubbed myself off well. I also liked feeling the hot water and steam pouring over me.
It feels good to be clean and the smell of the soap is great.
7:11 AM
I went to the kitchen.
The others are there. The maid is cooking us hash browns and eggs with cold orange juice.
Wow, that's wonderful.
"Hey dad. You don't have to be into work early?" I asked.
He folded his newspaper. "Nope. We're good. I wanted to have a talk with you before going in."
"Eh? You do...?"
One of my brothers is at the table finishing up. He whispered something to dad and then left. I'm not sure what he said because I was farther away.
I crossed the room, going over to dad.
"So, please think about what you want. Whatever you do want, it will be much easier if you have a spot in the company and work for us. We can level you up on the weekends. Then you'll have company income and also dungeon income. It would be like you had two full paychecks, not to mention the prestige and benefits of many kinds," dad smiled.
"Thanks, but I need time to figure it out," I said firmly.
"Not even a power level? Come on, you can pay me back with loyalty later," dad said to tempt me.
"I want to go on my own steam dad. I...appreciate you and mom a lot. But I also want to be independent," I said.
Dad got pretty mad at that.
He left the room so mad I was afraid he was going to hit me. But he didn't.
But it was scary.
"Thanks for all your hard work dad," I said as he's leaving.
No answer.
In a way what I said was genuine. Its complicated.
Mom and dad did go through a lot raising me and make some sacrifices. But its also true they are evil.
But I can't also be ungrateful to them as parents. This means for some complicated decision making and thinking in how I approach choices.
...
I went back to my room. I have a half hour before I have to leave for school. But it won't be long before I graduate anyway.
I pulled up my status screen again to check it. This is the part I'm excited about. I haven't had access to this for long!
Status
Name; Jay Williams
Race; Type 349F human hybrid
Magic job; [Choose One]
Level; (Click to apply stats)
Health; 73/73
Mana; 174/174
Mana Regen; 11 (per hour)
Health regen; 3 (per day)
Element affinities; mind, enchantment
Str; 31Agi; 34Con; 41
Int; 91Wis; 81App; 97
Skills; athletics (+1 con), jogging (+2 agi), math (+2 int), physics (+1 int), mana affinity (enabled)
Magic skills;
Passive skills;
Unused stat points; 22 (Surplus XP detected, please allocate levels!)
So I can choose mind or enchantment?
Is that my only options?
Well...I guess that's not bad. And they are somewhat related to each other.
Let's see...
I want to know what the hell I'm doing before I start messing with stuff. This kind of thing has far reaching choices that I can't risk screwing up.
I went back to the library hurriedly. There's a book there on this stuff. I remember seeing them.
Now, where was that section again?
The section on magic in our home library is actually bigger than everything else here. So I went in, to find what I was looking for. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything, and also hoped maybe there was some secrets to help me exploit a little.
Time passed as I searched.
I ended up sorting dozens of books. I even forgot to go to school.
The thing was, there's no way I would have been able to concentrate on it anyway. And things were going pretty good with the information. I made logs using note books.
Typical element specializations for magic;
Elemental (fire, water, earth, wind)
Darkness
Saint/Holy
Red magic (multi-spec)
War Mage
Mind Control
Shadow
Time & Space
Body Alteration
Divination (military intelligence & tactics)
Enchantment
Buffing Specialization
Debuffer
Necromancy
Machine Element
Summoning
Familiar Mage
Illusion
Creation
Protection
Mutation Type (+whatever its mutating of other forms)
I tried to get a basic idea of each one.
Basically they all are mostly self explanatory. All are magic elements can become powerful in their own way. And typically a mage doesn't have all elements but only one of them. Sometimes they can 1 or 2 later, but never gain everything.
But there are also disadvantages to each. The elemental types aren't as good at other things. And its the same for others. Like, its not uncommon for overpowered summoners who have such powerful beasts to not have hardly anything in the form of attack spells (they aren't suffering still).
In some cases, a mage could have two types of specialization, but that too is rare.
Wait a minute.
If I'm reading this right I can choose both my elements! I don't only have to choose one! So I've got something good if I already have access to potentially 2 choices. Good!
Choosing this way is the only way forward for me also it seems. Anything else would be a waste.
But how does getting access to an element work? That part I don't understand.
Wait...it suddenly clicked, at least for the elements I have but not for all my questions.
My screen had been in an efficiency and space saving mode. I realized that mind magic isn't in the list. But mind control is!
What...this is...
Mind magic, is mind control?!
This is a huge discovery! Its possibly a secret hidden element mutation of some kind within mind magic.
I'd thought it meand mind, as in like crowd control that was kind of minor, and not that big a deal. I'd certainly not expected mind control! And I think my parents also had a similar assumption, because they would have freaked out tons more if they would have known it was 'mind control'!
WOW!
Mind control is a huge cheat card!
So I have access to mind control magic?
So I have access to enchantment and mind control. After looking at the descriptions a bit, it seems that enchantment is like how to enhance or upgrade items to be able to hold magic in them. It also lets you build with them, or do all kinds of things, like having stronger than normal equipment or armor also!
&nb
sp; Wow.
And the good news is that I'd mistakenly thought I'd have to choose only one of my elements. But in fact I don't, because it seems that I'd gotten lucky with the mage inheritance system of our primal magic genes.
This...
I have too much, then don't I?
Its not like I'm objecting at all. But its giving me so much power as to be really, really tempted.
I probably will still have to work hard to compensate for not having raw combat power, such as fire element has however. And this will be something I'll have to work hard against. But in theory, the tool bag that can be opened up by access to these two elements would be substantial; and let me do this.
But I have to be careful also, because of how leveling up and level works, it would be possible for someone to resist the mind control skills. And if they did, I could be outed and become an enemy of the people really fast. That would be a major hurdle that could be highly damaging.
I looked at my job pull down menu. Then I looked at the guide.
OK, I better not screw this up. The job class line on my status screen has to be picked right or the benefits could be either enhanced or curb checked.
I better not do anything hasty yet.
It does want me to put one of the two as being more dominant than the other. But according to the guide, it should still let me also work up each as equally as the other, to the point of both being dominant even. Plus, according to our family system, after I hit level 25, I could potentially gain access to another element even!
(After level 25 its more unclear. Probably because less people can get to high levels, and when they do they get more secretive about the gains.)
OK, this is good.
It seems like I can do a lot with this kind of mage build. Plus, each element specialization mage is called more than just mage, and they have their own class title branches at that point.
This is so cool to think I could have access to these two elements first?!
So I ended up playing with the status screen settings for a bit. I also found I have to click on this 'confirm' button thing to finalize the changes; so its letting me see how to set it up right.
It let me pick both elements to work up first! Amazing!
After playing with the level and job bar I put the mind control job first. Then clicked confirm, with my job as a type of mind control mage.
Before I could even blink the screen is already changing.
[System updating...player XP allocating...configuring please wait...]
There was wrenching pain in my chest for a good 30 seconds. But then it went away and eased up. The status screen also had briefly pinged and also pulsed wildly then the text went fuzzy with vibration for a bit.
Then it stopped.
My status screen has entirely changed! And I think the brief pain was from it upping my stats from the level and XP to fast!
At first, I was confused why I didn't start at level 1. But that's because I had a lot of 'XP' saved up! The system had just been bottle necked with 'where to apply the XP to'.
So this is because I hadn't applied the previously earned XP to anything, but I'd already owned it.
Status
Name; Jay Williams
Race; Type 349F human hybrid
Magic job; Enchanter
Level; 5
Health; 73/73 → 93/93
Mana; 174/174 → 252/252
Mana Regen; 11 (per hour)
Health regen; 3 (per day)
Element affinities; mind, enchantment
Str; 31Agi; 34Con; 41
Int; 91Wis; 81App; 97
Skills; athletics (+1 con), jogging (+2 agi), math (+2 int), physics (+1 int), mana affinity (enabled)
Magic skills; Seduce, Charm, Mesmerize, Enchant, Enhance
Passive skills; demon lord clan heritage (bonus starting mana +50), demon lord heritage (mana +2 mana points per level)
Unused stat points; 22 (Surplus XP detected, please allocate points!)
Weird...it didn't register my title as 'mage' or 'mage lord', nor as a mind control title; but as 'enchanter' instead.
Is that a glitch, I wondered?
Or maybe a way of hiding out?
So its not a glitch, I reasoned next.
Its possible if the whole town knew you had mind control, they'd batter down your house and castle like in those old school Frankenstein movies, due to fears. Fears that wouldn't be entirely unfounded for most people in the same situation.
Hm...because of the family heritage, my mage build came with a few free starter skills. But a lot of them I don't know what they do. Also, I'm pretty sure, my build is based on needing a lot of intelligence, and wisdom. I also do get some bonus mana also. But it could also use the appearance score a bit also for the mind control skills. (If they want to be in your power then its easier to accept?)
I have to now also figure out what these skills do.
But one problem is that there's going to be a mana cost with each one of these skills. And my mana regeneration stat per hour isn't very good, which means I'll have to be really careful.
Already I can feel my spine tingling with excitement.
Charm?!
Seduce?!
Mesmerize?!
These sound like fun skills!
They don't sound very offensive however. Don't I need an offense skill?
But I don't have any defensive skills either, which is a problem.
There's also enchant and enhance, but they are starting with almost no power to them, and very bottom tiered. This might be a thing where I have to use these basic simple skills all the time forever, and work them up like a trade almost.
I began going through the library fast, trying to find if there's a spell book or spell database of some kind.
Wait, I could just try to experiment with this stuff couldn't I?
I found out quickly that both the enchant and enhance skill are 'item target able' skills, and not 'people target able'. I can't get them to work on people, and maybe trying so might have horrible effects also. But similarly charm and seduce are people target able only.
For now I am looking at the enchant and enhance skills first.
So, what should I try them on first?
I picked up a ceramic drink cup.
First, I tried the enhance skill. But it failed on the first try.
(-10 mana)
Shit.
The cup shattered, broken.
What did I do wrong.
I went over to my laptop. Can I enhance that?
No wait. Let's not risk it on that.
Also, I'll figure out why the cup was broken. It shouldn't break the item if it fails right?
I need to find out what I did wrong, so I don't break all my stuff first. And it was lucky that I used it initially on something cheap and not expensive.
Damn...
I went over to my closet.
I have a golf club. But that's no good. It feels too flimsy and in bad shape.
I went out to go to the garage. We don't have a ton of tools laying around but there might be a few.
Within minutes I'd found several useful objects to practice on.
Big red pipe wrench
Long crowbar
Flashlight
Old backpack
I went back to my room.
In theory, the murim world involves combat.
That means, I need to build and acquire weapons and gear. And also prepare for what if I got attacked by others also. And I need to do it as fast as I can. Plus, if I'm right I'll have less skills like other mages with raw attack power like flame bolts and stuff.
So I'll have to be ready.
Quickly I went back to my room to test things.
So I can use the enchant and enhance skills to make super gear maybe? Probably that's my version of combat power for this kind of build. But its probably not as easy as that to just reach out and grab it.
I continued to experiment.
I fi
nd it costs me 50 mana to enchant an object, but only 10 to enhance. Also they don't do the same thing. One makes the item slightly better, and I suspect the other alters it quite a bit more.