by Nikita Thorn
The downside of this was that an unexpected number of options had opened up, perhaps slightly earlier than they were intended to, and Seiki was finding it very difficult to choose.
First-Rank Unit Chief (100-399 Combat Valor)
Maximum unit members: 20
New Utility Slots:
[Energy Slot]: 5 War Tokens. Replaces a Standard Slot. Increases the effect of an energy pearl assigned to this slot by 50%.
[Temporary Slot]: 8 War Token. Replaces a Standard Slot. Inactive formations, enchanted seals, energy pearls and consumables may be freely moved to and from this slot without going to waste.
Slot Upgrades:
[Greater Consumable Slot]: 6 War Tokens. Replaces a Consumable Slot. Increases the effect of the consumable item assigned to this slot by 50%.
[Formation Slot of Range]: 12 War Tokens. Replaces a Formation Slot. Extends the range of the formation saved in this slot by 20%.
[Formation Slot of Economy]: 12 War Tokens. Replaces a Formation Slot. Reduces the energy cost for the formation saved in this slot by 1.
New Consumables:
[Greater Healing Potions]: 2 War Coins. Heals up to 1250HP per unit member. 10-minute lockout.
[Potions of Strength]: 3 War Coins. Doubles the attack power of your unit for 5 seconds. 10-minute lockout.
New Enchanted Seals:
[Seal of Convenient Treasure]: 6 War Coins. Your unit automatically loots enemies, compiling the rewards in a treasure chest at the end of a successful war event.
[Seal of the Defensive Stance]: 8 War Coins. Decreases the damage your troops take by 5%.
[Seal of Energy Regeneration]: 12 War Coins. Your unit energy bar recharges 10% faster.
[Seal of Luck]: 18 War Coins. Every unit member has a 30% chance when they take a fatal blow to have their health reduced to 1 HP instead.
Seiki let out a sigh as he flipped back to the first page again. At the current rank, specialized slots really started to pay off, and extra range or a lower energy cost sounded very attractive. Still, he wondered if there were still more useful formations he could discover, or if he should start by recruiting additional troop members, or if he should try to find out first what energy pearls were, since he had never heard of them until now. Alternatively, he could also invest in a bunch of Standard Slots and spend his War Coins on these Enchanted Seals, which might be a sensible thing to do, albeit not very exciting.
At higher levels, however, there were also [Equipment Slots] to think about, which took extra weapons and allowed troops to switch out equipment—for example, between swords and spears, as well as siege equipment, like grappling hooks and ladders.
Deciding to take it one step at a time, Seiki inhaled deeply before retreating back to the beginning of the list. “Options,” he muttered.
Mairin looked up from her newsletter. “What’s that?”
“I’ve suddenly got options.”
The kitsune’s eyes contracted into a smile when she saw the trivial predicament he was in. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No, it’s great,” said Seiki. “It’s just a bit… sudden.”
Thinking back, the game had never given him any choices until now. But when it did, he suddenly found himself overwhelmed with so many at once that he had no idea where to start.
Wondering if he should not look at the end goal and work his way backwards instead, Seiki flipped to the highest rank of Commander. That particular list occupied three whole pages and came with a disclaimer that it was based on information from Beta plus some leaked information from the Shinshioka Nobles, and so ultimately it was still not completely reliable.
At least being able to see the full list answered his question about mounted troops. Under First-Rank Lieutenant, which was two more ranks above his current level, Seiki found this bit:
New Utility Slots:
[Mount Slot]: 55 War Tokens. Replaces a Standard Slot. Get your unit mounted!
Mounts:
[Standard War Horses – Random Colors]: 45 War Coins.
[Standard War Horses - Seal]: 70 War Coins.
[Standard War Horses - Brown]: 70 War Coins.
He found it rather amusing that it took an additional 25 War Coins just to have matching horses for the whole unit, or that black or white horses were not available until the Captain level and actually cost more than random-colored [Armored War Horses]. Mairin had told him once that fashion was expensive, but he had not expected it to be built into the design to this degree.
“You sure you don’t want to get into this?” Seiki asked Mairin. Watching her designing her kitsune troops would be rather interesting, although he had not seen one yet and had no idea how units made up of fox spirits could work.
Mairin shook her head. “Too much trying.” She laughed. “I mean, look at you. You’ve spent the last hour studying the thing.” Shifting her knees onto the stool, she leaned over the table to look at the list. “But let’s see if there’s something that multiplies my foxes.”
Seiki was not sure what she meant, but he doubted it would be something Ippei approved of. “This list is only for ronins,” he explained.
“Oh,” said the kitsune in disappointment, before shrugging. “Oh, well… Oooh, look, get this [Seal of Mental Commands].” She pointed to a line she just spotted. “It lets you command unit members who are out of sight so you can do the uni-mind thing. It says you need troops assigned to a, uh, [Command Slot]? What the heck is that?”
“No idea,” said Seiki. If he had to guess, the slot would allow him to divide troops into smaller groups and command them separately, like what he had seen Umiko do—perhaps one slot for each group. “I’m only at First-Rank Unit Chief, so I can’t buy those yet.”
Mairin continued to browse back and forth through all the available options. “No wonder you’re stuck,” she said. “Well, if you ask me, don’t think. Do. You know, just go with what will make you immediately happy. That’s my shopping policy. Although that means you’re always going to be broke,” she added with a giggle.
She might have meant it as a joke, but the statement took Seiki by surprise.
“I think you’re right,” he said quietly. “You’re completely right.”
“What? You mean the part about being broke?”
Seiki chuckled. “Yeah,” he said, glancing back at the long list of options.
Maybe he was trying too hard and had his sight set much too far into the unknown horizon that he kept forgetting that he deserved to be immediately happy.
The thought was strangely relieving, as if a little bit more of the fog had lifted. “Okay,” he said. “I think I know what I want.”
With Ippei’s ridiculously effective strategy speeding them through the first two events, Seiki had amassed enough currencies for several upgrades at once. If he went with what he really wanted right now, he would spend 5 Tokens to upgrade his Standard Slot to a Formation Slot, and another 12 to upgrade that straight to a Formation Slot of Economy—which would drop the cost of his current Stun formation to 1 and give him four single-second stuns in a row. That would still leave him with 4 Tokens, which he might just spend on slightly better gear for his villagers, or maybe purchase another Standard Slot to give him a bit more flexibility.
His War Coins, on the other hand, he would save for his experiments with formations, since it took a Coin every time just to save. It also cost 3 Coins to enter the training ground at the Palace Soldiers’ Quarters, which meant he would need to pick up more daily quests around Muraki Fort to get more of them.
At the thought of more currencies, Seiki was already restless again for the third war event. Since they had cleared the second event Togatsu Village on their first try, they were now eligible for yet another Progression Run. Ultimately, perhaps it was a good decision to limit players to only three runs a week, or Seiki was quite sure he would be out in Muraki Fort looking for any random group to join just to play and try things out.
Seiki went through the list again. “You wouldn’t know what energy pearls are, would you?” he asked Mairin.
“Nope.” The kitsune slurped her red sugar ice. “But it sounds like something you would want, being the energy fiend that you are.”
She was right. Anything that had to do with energy meant more things he could achieve, and that was a comforting feeling. Skimming the list, he found more clues in the [Greater Energy Slot], available at the Captain level, which doubled the effect of the energy pearl assigned to the slot.
“So an energy pearl has to be an item,” he guessed.
“Yeah,” came Ippei’s confirmation. “Rare drops from war bosses.”
The samurai had appeared at the entrance of the kakigouri shop, wearing his usual Shinshioka set, which had now been completely repaired by Kentaro. “Energy pearls give you a flat increase in your unit’s energy bar,” he explained as he made his way toward their usual table. “The lowest one is a +2, and I’ve heard it can go up to over +10 in higher instances.”
“Oh,” said Seiki, his mind leaping to the rather far-fetched possibility that if he could get a +10 energy pearl and assign it to an Energy Slot that doubled the pearl’s effect, he would be in possession of twenty stuns in a row. “So that’s how you increase your max energy. Now this changes everything,” he muttered. A twenty-second stun would make him more than immediately happy.
Ippei sat down on a free wooden stool beside them and ordered double servings of matcha kakigouri. “Don’t think about it until one actually drops for you,” he said.
Keeping their word to Kentaro, they had agreed to mind the shop for the rest of the evening, which meant the third war event would need to be pushed back till the weekend. But of course, like Kentaro had correctly observed, War Games seemed to have taken over all their conversations, and Ippei never missed a chance to use this downtime to strategize.
The samurai went straight to business as soon as he downed his first bowl of ice. “So, next is the real thing: the Battle of Kehara. I’m trying to convince the West Defenders to run it with us. They said they would get back to me.”
Mairin yawned. “I thought the real thing already started with your invisible lizard.”
“The first two, Muraki and Togatsu, are more for you to get a hang of how to move your unit around and work with other people. The third one is when it actually starts to feel like war,” said Ippei, pulling out a piece of post paper from his chest pocket.
“So, Kehara has two stages. The demon lieutenant is straightforward, but the second boss the captain is a real pain.”
He started drawing the rough layout of the instance for Seiki with the ink brush on the table. After a winding path at the beginning, the instance expanded in a wide open space with patches of trees scattered around. “Usually, it’s best to pull the demon’s scout unit over here and finish them off in the trees,” he said, marking the spots. “That way you avoid alerting the main army before you’re ready.”
“What’s that X?” asked Mairin, pointing to the crudely-drawn map.
“The location of the demon lieutenant boss,” said the samurai. “And the captain boss is over here at the back, with his troops in three groups here, here and here.”
Mairin cocked her head as she tried to picture it. “And then your five hundred men just charge ahead and clash in the middle over here and you start hacking away with blood splashing on your face and stuff?” She sounded unimpressed.
“That’s just in war movies,” said Ippei. “There’s slightly more strategy to it than that.”
Mairin shrugged. “I kinda prefer encounters with more of a… personal touch.”
Ippei laughed. “Personal touch as in a ghost hand reaching out and strangling you in a dark hallway.” He was referring to one of the kitsune’s favorite instances with an infamous corridor that involved guessing which floor boards were safe to step on, like Russian roulette with very cold ghost hands instead of bullets.
“Oh, ya,” said Mairin, before being reminded of something and reporting that she and her friend had recently played a prank on the Social Guild during their outing to a haunted mansion instance. “You should have seen them all scream when Koharu stuck her hand through the shoji door and went for Hirota’s throat.” The obake girl had been wearing Imported Lady’s Long Gloves rented from the Society, and since obake cast no shadows in the first place, the effect had allegedly been rather eerie.
Seiki had always thought it funny that in a world where ghosts were an actual playable class, they still had the same effect on people.
“You might like The Ruins of Hitsu Temple then, since it’s haunted,” Ippei said. “And your troops have this tendency to let out a blood-curdling scream when the dead get to them, usually right behind you when you’re not looking. The whole thing is a maze and you have to split up and herd the spirits around until they combine into a big mini-boss spirit and kill it.”
“Decently interesting,” said Mairin. “But not worth it if I have to level all that troops through, what, ten previous events?”
“The higher events are really fun. Like, there’s a real trick to this maze.” Ippei had already started drawing the map to the Ruins of Hitsu Temple on a different piece of post paper. “You see, with these dead ends—”
“Wait.” Seiki looked at his friend. He was sure this particular bit with combining spirits into a mini-boss was new. “You didn’t tell the West Defenders that.”
Ippei looked up from his drawing. “Of course not.”
Knowing his friend, Seiki suspected something else. “And you’re not planning to tell them when we tag along next week,” he said slowly.
“No,” said Ippei. “Why would I? I’ll innocently claim to have figured it out at the end. And if they want to know how, they’d better send a dedicated team to clear all these remaining events with us until we catch up. We’ll go first-level challenges on the rest to be safe, and that will get us up to speed in… about six weeks.”
Seiki was not sure what to say to that. When Ippei had mentioned starting their war careers, he had not expected the samurai to have meant having the best war clan at their beck and call.
Mairin’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the samurai. “You’re… kinda scary,” she said.
Ippei smiled. “Hey, I don’t mess around in war.”
“Regrettably only in art.”
Seiki looked up. Kentaro had showed up behind them while they were busy inspecting Ippei’s hand-drawn maps. Tonight, the houshi was in a new royal blue robe with silver trimmings, which had some set bonus stats.
Snatching up the piece of paper, Kentaro shook his head. “That’s the worst drawing of an angler fish monster I’ve ever seen,” he declared with a little smile. “You know this is not how you level your Painting.”
“If you think I’m trying to level Painting, you’re giving me way too much credit for cultural sophistication,” Ippei said.
Painting was a vanity sub-skill of Calligraphy, awarded every few levels. It allowed players to recreate several existing famous paintings or to assemble standard elements of Japanese art to create their own pieces—a technique Ippei was clearly not using for his drawings right now.
Kentaro raised an eyebrow as he continued to observe the maps. “But, judging from these half-decent ‘maze’ characters, somehow you’re already Level… I’d say, eleven, in Calligraphy?” The houshi sounded surprised. “Not bad at all, samurai-san.”
“Twelve,” said Ippei.
Mairin frowned. “Since when are you even interested in Calligraphy?”
Ippei shrugged. “Collateral damage,” he said, before turning to ask Kentaro. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were busy.”
“Oh, a special delivery for Seiki just came in.”
“That quick?” Seiki perked up.
A bit earlier, he had consulted the houshi about changing the appearance of his Crimsonfire Tekko to make it less conspicuou
s, since the orange glow when it charged up was a little too distracting at times. The houshi had estimated at least a week to gather all the required materials for the process.
“Crowdsourcing yields fast results.” The houshi had apparently taken a real liking to the term, to the point he now considered it one of his expertise. Carefully, and like a merchant showing off exotic goods, he slowly retrieved several items from his long sleeves. First was an Enchanted Scroll of Mirrored Illusion [Level 24 item], followed by two small and thin Seals of Linking, a bottle of Alchemist’s Utility Potion and lastly an item marked Tanaka’s Black Leather Glove.
“The best I can do with the glove,” said Kentaro apologetically, perhaps because of how generic it looked.
Seiki observed the rather ceremonious-looking collection of materials. “It’s perfectly fine.” he reassured Kentaro.
“How much did this cost you?” Ippei asked.
“Five trips to mushroom mountain with Kentaro and his Crafters’ Guild friends,” said Seiki. The highly-coveted Kumotake [Level 26 ingredient] was guarded by ferocious Level 18 mountain boars, so gatherers were always in need of bodyguards.
“And Level 5 Calligraphy,” said Kentaro. “So my sales reports will start to look tidy. If this self-declared culturally-unsophisticated samurai can get to Level 12, you can too.”