by Aleron Kong
What was not awesome was the extra powdered crystal required to get this new effect. Crystal was not something that could just be used willy-nilly. It was an expensive resource that greatly increased the cost of making enchanted items. That is, he thought with a grin, unless you had your own crystal garden or could make your own powdered crystal from bare rock… which he did have and now could do, so fuck it!
With a smile on his face, he pulled up the next window.
SUPPLEMENTAL ENCHANTMENTS
Normally creatures are limited to the number of standard enchanted items they can wear. 1 necklace, 2 bracelets, 8 rings. Exceeding these numbers negates the additional items’ magical effects. Purchasing this Talent will allow rings that you enchant to exceed a person’s ring limit by 2
Requires +1 extra measure of Powdered Crystal per item
Cost: 75 Talent Points
Even though he was stuck in a dark hole right now, Richter literally heard a “cha-ching” sound in his head. He could just see top-notch adventurers, fighters and magi selling their mother for his enchantments now. He’d personally hemmed and hawed over what combination of rings he would wear plenty of times. Magic items just provided too huge a bonus not to want to wear as many as possible.
Nearly every strong enemy he’d overcome had possessed a full complement of eight rings. As he’d gotten more spoils of war, Richter had needed to decide between a ring that gave instant healing vs one that increased his overall health. Should he wear a ring that boosted his summoning powers or another that protected his mind from spells like Charm and Sleep?
Rings could be incredibly powerful, something that was definitely stressed by his current situation. Without his weapons and armor, his rings were the main items that were keeping him alive. Without his Ring of Spell Storage, he might not have been able to pull the slime off his face. Without his Summoner’s Ring, his summoned creatures would have been far less powerful.
His rings were keeping him alive in the dark. The only problem was, the effects they offered were far too specialized. Choosing to gain one boost meant shutting yourself off from a thousand others. This Talent could fix that. Supplemental Enchantments increased the number of rings someone could wear by 25%!
The reason he was seeing dollar signs was because if a normal health ring would sell for one gold, then a ring that didn’t take up a ring slot could probably sell for five! Richter gritted his teeth a bit at the high Talent Point cost, but he was pretty sure he’d purchase it anyway. It could even help him down here if he managed to get his hands on any materials. Another two Rings of Health might be the margin between life and death for him.
Richter held to his promise to not purchase a Talent until he knew everything though. The fifth option of the first orbit made his eyes open wide in shock.
SHARED ENCHANTMENT
Harness the power of another enchanter. The soul stuff a second enchanter can harness can be used in your enchantments with a 50% loss of Soul Points from your helper.
Cost: 68 Talent Points
Richter whistled softly. One of the other main barriers to making stronger enchantments was that he was limited to the amount of Soul Points he could use. Richter could only use a finite number of soul stones for each project. That meant if he was making a stronger enchantment, he had to use stronger captured souls. The problem was, stronger souls came from stronger monsters, the type that could use your balls for jujubes.
There were never enough luminous level souls to meet demand. They only came from boss and alpha monsters. His village couldn’t even supply enough common souls for its needs. With the Shared Enchantment Talent, he could have the other village Enchanter access lower rank souls to augment his own work.
It would be like repurposing a Honda’s parts to fix a Ferrari. Honda parts were much easier to come by; they also cost a good deal less. This Talent could really help the supply problems he faced in practicing his Profession. Shared Enchantments didn’t have any immediate benefits, but the long-term potential was staggering.
Richter was starting to see a pattern to these new higher-tier Talents. They were meant to allow an Enchanter to move past the limitations of the Profession. From making your own enchantment components, the powdered crystal, to now allowing collaboration with other Enchanters, these Talents were built to set you free and help you reach new heights. It was easy to see how a Tier 1 Enchanter could be easily eclipsed by someone that possessed Talents of even this first orbit.
As great as all that was, it was the sixth Talent that was the holy grail.
EXPANDED SOUL
Not all souls are created equally. Tier 1 Enchanters may only use the smallest amount of soul stuff from captured spirits. Purchasing this Talent allows for Enchanters to squeeze extra soul stuff from soul stones. This has the potential to greatly increase the amount of Soul Points each soul provides.
Cost: 97 Talent Points
If there was one thing that slowed an Enchanter down, it was souls. Richter’s village had a crystal garden, so while that resource was valuable, given enough time they would always have more. Souls, on the other hand, could only be gathered from slain monsters. Souls powered enchantments and allowed him to make weapons and items of great power, but there were never enough.
That was because stronger enchantments required a greater number of Soul Points. There had been plenty of times that he’d wasted SPs because an enchantment required a certain amount of soul stuff and he’d had to use a higher-ranked soul stone to make the quota. If there were too many points invested, you didn’t get them back. They were just lost to the ether. If he didn’t get any other Talent, he had to grab this one.
Richter considered the six Talents of the first orbit. In addition to Expanded Soul, Crystal Touch was a definite must. Soul Flavor and Activated Enchantment were also potentially useful right now. The problem was, even if he wanted to get just those four, it would cost more points than he had.
There were one hundred and ninety Talent Points in his pool. It had seemed like a lot, but with the price of these new Talents, it was about to be wiped out. He still didn’t even know what other Talents might be revealed by buying spheres on the first ring. They might be even more helpful than the first five. A Talent that hadn’t yet been revealed could be what ensured his survival down here. He couldn’t afford to spend all his points before he found out.
That was why he was about to do something in typical Richter fashion. Meaning it was equal parts awesome and stupid. It was something he’d half-promised himself he wouldn’t do again. The time had come to buy some Talent Points.
While being an Enchanter was powerful, being an Essence Enchanter was a gateway to nearly limitless power. Essence was a rare Specialty of the Enchanter Profession that let him convert his spells into enchantments, providing a versatility to his craft that other enchanters could only dream about. The downside to his Specialty was that it was a Talent Point hog. Luckily, there was a fix for that: Talent Point Conversion.
He could burn his accumulated XP to buy himself more Talent Points. The downside was that he had to earn it all back. Until he did, his level was effectively frozen. Even worse, there was a penalty to any experience earned until he paid back the debt. Right now, he’d upgraded Talent Point Conversion to rank four. Every seven thousand XP gained him one TP. He’d also suffer a 100% penalty to any experience gained after the conversion. That meant he’d have to earn twice as much experience as he spent just to pay back the debt.
That was the decision he was facing right now, and why he was having to do some quick math. Richter checked his total experience.
2,893,452/3,845,000 XP to Level 46
Looking at all his total experience was a bit of a surprise. He’d gained nearly three million XP. It might be more than that actually, seeing as how he’d paid back XP debts before. In his months in The Land, he’d come to enjoy battle. He’d even come to enjoy killing. Seeing millions of experience worth of death though, that sobered him. He was lost in hi
s thoughts for a short while before he forced himself to snap out of it.
Comparing his total to before killing the slime, it looked like the monster had earned him a few hundred XP. Despite the level discrepancy between him and it, the tough bastard had at least giving him a good bump. He did some mental math.
With his current numbers, if he burned all of his experience it would net him four hundred and thirteen TPs. The other option though, was to upgrade Talent Point Conversion again. He hadn’t done it before because the cost was prohibitive. It would require one hundred and seventy-five points. Once it was done though, it would only cost him six thousand experience to gain a TP. That meant he’d be able to earn four hundred and eighty-two.
If he was just looking at the number of Talent Points he could get right now, then upgrading Talent Point Conversion would be foolish. Using the conversion now would give him a total of six hundred and three. He couldn’t forget the penalty though. If the pattern held true, the 100% penalty would decrease to 50%. It would make it a lot easier to repay the debt. Even if he did upgrade the Talent, he’d still have almost five hundred TPs to use.
Richter thought about it for another few seconds before deciding to pull the trigger. He couldn’t just bank everything on right now. He was a leader, a lord, and he had to plan for tomorrow. Besides, he needed a goddamn million experience to level up again. By the time he earned that much he might already be out of here or dead.
Congratulations! You have upgraded Talent Point Conversion to Rank V!
XP/TP Conversion now: 6,000/1
Experience Penalty: 50%
Cost to Upgrade to Rank VI: 275 Talent Points
Total Talent Points: 15
Now that he was in, he went all the way.
You have used Talent Point Conversion V. By expending 2,892,000 experience, you have now gained: 482 Talent Points.
All experience earned will suffer a 50% penalty until this experience is repaid.
1,452/3,845,000 XP to Level 46
You have: 497 Talent Points remaining.
The first Talent he bought was the one that made everything else possible.
You have Purchased: CRYSTAL TOUCH
You may now use mana to convert loose rock into powdered crystal. The amount of rock required depends on the type of stone used. Chance of success dependent on the amount of magic contained within the rock.
Cost: 250 MP
Duration: 10 minutes minimum
*No further upgrades for this Talent
You have: 427 Talent Points remaining
He’d expected the fog to peel back after that, but instead, he saw a prompt he hadn’t seen before.
Checking if prerequisite Tier 1 Talent has been obtained: Increased Enchantment Strength…
Congratulations! You are qualified to reveal 3 new Tier 2, Orbit 2 Talents!
It looked like in order to access Talents past the Tier 2 first orbit, he needed to buy Talents of the first tier. That made sense to Richter. It ensured that a Professional couldn’t just buy ascended Talents without creating a foundation first. Luckily, Richter had already bought almost all of the lower tier Talents.
The fog peeled away from the Crystal Touch sphere. Three golden filaments filled with light, and the Talents they led to were revealed.
CONDENSED CRYSTAL
Combine 20 measures of powdered crystal created by Crystal Touch to create 1 measure of Condensed Crystal. Condensed Crystal increases the strength of a successful enchantment by 100%. Also increases maximum rank of active enchantments by +1.
Duration: 25 minutes
Cost: 65 Talent Points
Jesus! The Talents of this tier just got better and better. He’d just found a way to double the strength of his enchantments! The only thing was the amount of powdered crystal it would take to make it. If each measure of the plain stuff took 10 minutes, it would take almost four hours to make a single unit of the better version. Still, this was exciting.
The only other substance he’d found that could augment his enchanting like this was the concentrated crystal from the crystal guardian. That had an even stronger effect, but the resource had come from an almost unique monster. Such a creature arose only from a centuries-old, well-established crystal garden. It was because of that scarcity that Richter had avoided using the powerful resource. Now though, all he needed was time to greatly increase the power of his Profession.
As great as the Talent was, it didn’t help him right now. His hunger and thirst debuffs notwithstanding, he didn’t have time to make twenty measures of powdered crystal. That was even assuming that the process worked each time. He still had no idea what his success rate would be. If he failed even half the time, that would increase the time required to make condensed crystal by up to seven hours. It just wasn’t a feasible option right now.
The second revealed Talent, on the other hand, was an automatic “Yes, please!”
PERSONAL TOUCH
Enchantments you create with powdered crystal obtained from your Crystal Touch Talent will be 25% stronger and 25% more likely to take hold.
Cost: 45 Talent Points
The Talent was too good to pass up. There was an analogous purchase on the Tier 1 spheres called Increase Enchantment Strength. It cost less, but only provided a 5% bonus. To get a 25% total bonus, Richter would have to pay 75 TPs and he still wouldn’t have the boost to his enchantment success rate. Looked like Personal Touch was a bit of a gimme after paying the high price of Crystal Touch. At only forty-five TPs, he scooped it up without hesitation.
You have: 382 Talent Points remaining
The sphere lit up and the information updated. He could purchase the next rank of Personal Touch, which increased the enchantment boost to 50% and made enchantments 50% more likely to take hold. It cost ninety TPs though, and Richter wasn’t sure it was worth a quarter of his remaining points. What captured his eye were the filaments that led off into the fog. The impenetrable gray peeled back and two new spheres were revealed.
Buying this second orbit Talent might have been a bit rash, but there was a secondary benefit. Richter wanted to know what a third orbit, Tier 2 Talent looked like, and how much they would cost. On the first tier, higher orbits always cost more. He wanted to know if the same thing held true here.
Just like with the second orbit, his Profession checked to make sure he had the requisite knowledge.
Checking if prerequisite Tier 1 Talent has been obtained: Increased Item Enchantment…
Congratulations! You have revealed 2 new Tier 2, Orbit 3 Talents!
GENTLE SOUL
The flow of soul stuff from captured spirits now transitions into enchanted items much easier.
Effect 1: Materials you enchant have a 25% higher Enchantment Capacitance
Effect 2: Materials you enchant have a 25% higher Enchantment Coefficient
Cost: 64 Talent Points
Definitely not the sexiest one he’d seen so far, but Richter could see the benefit. When he’d started enchanting rings, he’d tried to substitute copper for wood. The wooden band had immediately exploded. The same thing could happen with enspelled weapons. He’d almost blown his face off once, trying to put too strong of an enchantment into a high steel mace. That catastrophe nearly put every village smith in the hospital.
Both of those near-calamities had happened because every material had a maximum amount of energy it could hold. That was called enchantment capacitance. The next effect dealt with another aspect of what the chaos lord thought of as the science of enchanting: enchantment coefficient.
Not only did a specific material have a max threshold of energy it could hold, its capacitance, it also had a resistance to being enchanted at all. Materials that were very resistant to enchantment, like iron, were said to have a low coefficient. Elementum, which almost drank in enchanted energy, had a high coefficient.
Gentle Enchanting seemed to be perfect for Enchanters that were tackling high level enchantments or were using subpar materials. He wa
s humble enough to admit that the first category didn’t fit him, but the second very well might. Gentle Soul could definitely come in handy, but it didn’t hold a candle to the other revealed skill.
LATENT POWER
Tier 1 Enchanters rely solely upon the quality of items to determine the maximum enchantment potential. Purchasing this Talent allows a Tier 2 Enchanter to use the potential of the material itself as well.
Cost: 58 Talent Points
It was the counterpart to Expanded Soul. While that Talent let him squeeze more Enchantment Points from captured souls, Latent Power increased the number of EPs the item he was enchanting could contain. Both third orbit Talents could wait, however. Richter went back to the other must-buys in the first orbit.
The first cost as much as five other Tier 1 Talents put together, but he had to have it! Ninety-seven TPs later, it was his.
You have Purchased: EXPANDED SOUL
Not all souls are created equally. Tier 1 Enchanters are bound to the lowest value of captured souls. Purchasing this Talent allows for Enchanters to squeeze extra soul stuff from soul stones. This has the potential to greatly increase the amount of Soul Points each soul provides.
Captured souls will now provide a range of Soul Points.
Soul Rank
Original Soul Points
Expanded Soul Points
Poor
1
1-3