The Next Level
Back to Willie's point of view.
The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. The logic for why levels were needed was sound enough, but I didn't understand the mechanism behind how they functioned.
With every new level, Arthur could summon an additional minion, which pleased him to no end. But the whole thing looked suspicious as all get-out to me. I mean, what changed about his magic at these seemingly arbitrary points in combat experience? Why would you suddenly be able to take such a leap in ability just from fighting?
It bothered me, but I tried not to think about it. However, as we progressed, I couldn't help but come back to pondering what levels really were. After a while, it finally hit me that levels must function like limiters on an engine. Except, in this case, they were subconscious controls put into place to keep the magic-user from harming themselves.
That thought wasn't very comforting. It all boiled down to some form of mind control again. The next thing I wondered was whether the level limiter could be bypassed. I was conflicted about explaining my idea to Arthur but felt foolish when he just dismissed it as nothing to worry about when I did.
"Sir William, I believe you suffer from overthinking. I am having a grand time and feel very much like myself. In life, too much freedom can be a dangerous thing. I gave up many freedoms to be taken care of at the tower. I think what you are describing is a rather paltry level of control by comparison."
And that was that. Maybe I was overly sensitive due to how I met Gilda and got dragged into all of this. On the other hand, maybe Arthur was just too easy-going. It was hard to say one way or the other.
Regardless of my misgivings, Arthur was contributing more and more to our fights. At first, he could only summon a single minion. But I had underestimated the value of an intelligent minion that did not fear death. He could use a lot more aggressive tactics than before because the danger to himself was almost non-existent. If it was destroyed, he could just summon it again, as long as he had the mana. Either way, it forced the goblins to actually fight the minions or flee the more aggressive attacks.
When he got to level three, Arthur could summon two minions at once, which meant even more flexibility and aggressive tactics. However, an even more drastic change came after he took Mind Magic 1 and the Trickster skill. Of course, with Arthur being Arthur, he used this new skill to create the illusion of an additional minion. Suddenly the goblins didn't know if the raven attacking them was even real or not.
Once he reached level four, he could summon three minions and create two illusions. Arthur was put out that I forced him to finally take Mind Enhancement 1 and Languages, but I wanted him to be able to read his own stats and pick his own skills. However, he was glad to have done it when he used his remaining skill points by himself for the first time. He chose Dark Magic 1 and Shadow Stealth with his remaining skill points.
Suddenly, he was contributing as much, if not more than, I was to the fights. Five minions were now flying into and out of shadows all over the battlefield, attacking from unexpected directions and often disappearing before the goblins could react. It was total chaos. Even if they couldn't do much damage, and the illusions did no damage at all, it was still a tremendous distraction. The only notable limit to this strategy seemed to be Arthur's relatively small mana capacity, which kept him from using this full-on attack for too long. Otherwise, he had to wait for his mana to recover.
When he hit level five, there was an unexpected change in the available skills. And even though he could read it by himself now, he called me over anyway to get my opinion on the new skills.
Current skills:
Dark Magic 1 - allows you to learn basic dark magic skills.
Mind Magic 1 - allows you to learn basic mind magic skills.
Summon Magic 1 - allows you to learn basic summon magic skills.
Mind Enhancement 1 - allows you to learn basic intelligence enhancement skills.
Trickster - create illusions to fool your enemies (requires Mind Magic 1).
Shadow Stealth - disappear into shadows (requires Dark Magic 1).
Summon Minion - create duplicates of yourself, which obey your will (requires Summon Magic 1).
Languages - learn to read and speak languages (requires Mind Enhancement 1)
Available Tier 1 skills (1 skill point each):
Space Magic 1 - allows you to learn basic space magic skills.
Wind Magic 1 - allows you to learn basic wind magic skills.
Earth Magic 1 - allows you to learn basic earth magic skills.
Body Enhancement 1 - allows you to learn basic body enhancement skills.
Inventory - store up to 10 items in a personal subspace attached to your soul (requires Space Magic 1).
Razor Beak - enhance the penetration power of all beak attacks (requires Wind Magic 1).
Steel Talons - enhance the hardness and sharpness of your talons (requires Earth Magic 1).
Accelerate - enhance your speed in flight (requires Wind Magic 1).
Eagle Eye - your vision becomes clearer, enabling you to perceive more and further (requires Body Enhancement 1).
Feather Armor - automatically harden your feathers on impact, providing a natural form of armor (requires Earth Magic 1).
Available Tier 2 skills (2 skill points each):
An Unkindness 1 - boosts all stats by 1% for every additional minion currently under your control (requires Summon Magic 1 and Summon Minion).
One More Shiny - Increases the storage space of your inventory by one for every shiny object stored inside (Requires Inventory).
Nest 1 - Teleport once per day to a single location you mark as your nest (requires Space Magic 1).
Slipshadow - Allow attacks to pass through by temporarily becoming as intangible as a shadow (Requires Dark Magic 1).
Bad Omen 1 - Inspire irrational fear in weak-minded targets (Requires Mind Magic 1).
Arthur had already seemed to be jealous of my Inventory Skill, but what pushed him over the edge was the tier two skill, One More Shiny. However, he couldn't afford to get it along with the required lower-tier skills because he currently only had the three skill points from leveling up. So he chose Space Magic 1 and Inventory. Saving the last skill point for later.
However, there was a new problem. The arrival of level six seemed to take much longer than either of us expected. Even with four minions and three illusions at his disposal, the points from several battles didn't seem to be enough to bring him up to level six. We put our heads together to figure out what was going on. And after poking around a little, we found another screen for level history.
Current experience - 1,556 points
Level 1 - 50 points
Level 2 - 100 points
Level 3 - 200 points
Level 4 - 400 points
Level 5 - 800 points
Level 6 - 1,600 points (44 points remaining)
That explained the delay. Getting levels seemed easy at first but got progressively more difficult each time. All of a sudden, skill points seemed a lot more valuable than we had assumed.
Also, checking his logs, it seemed he was getting less experience per enemy defeated now. After digging some more, we found out that your level, relative to the enemy you fought, determined the amount of experience gained.
It turned out the raw experience value of an average goblin was fifty points. I had only been earning ten, and Arthur had started out getting twenty-five points for each and was now earning only fifteen. With a little more digging, we figured he got those twenty-five points initially because he was only helping out rather than killing the goblins all by himself.
Out of curiosity, I checked my stats, finding the same somewhat hidden screen showing my levels.
Estimated equivalent experience measured at the start point - 18,936 points.
Current experience - 21,330 points
Level 10 - 25,600 points (4,270 points remaining)
Now that I saw some light at the end of the tunnel for getting some skill points myself, I was even more motivated. Arthur had felt sorry for me not getting any levels or skill points... that was until I told him I got the Inventory skill for free.
As a result of our discoveries, Arthur decided to take a more active role in the fights. He filled his new inventory with daggers left behind by the defeated goblins.
At the start of the next battle, while his minions were distracting the enemy, as usual, he silently flew overhead before dropping a dagger from his inventory on the head of an unlucky goblin. He was far more agile than I had expected, passing the weapon between his beak and talon midflight with a precision I wouldn't have imagined. This new strategy yielded his first solo kills.
On the other hand, I took on several orcs at once, weaving through their attacks and no longer holding back with my lightning magic. We were both taking out enemies faster than ever, but for some reason, they just seemed to keep coming. There was no end in sight, and Arthur had to stop using his magic because he ran out of mana. And without the illusions and Shadow Stealth to help them, his minions were destroyed one by one. It would be a few minutes before he could summon any more.
We found ourselves alone on the battlefield once again. Arthur was still active, occasionally grabbing another dagger from a dead goblin before dropping it on a new target. A quick glance at my mana showed I was floating at about half full, which seemed manageable enough. Just as I started thinking I could sustain this level of exertion for a while, I heard a loud roar come from my left and an unintelligible squawk from the overhead Arthur. While pulling my sword free of the chest of the dead orc in front of me, I quickly spared a glance toward the apparent source of the noise. Only to see a massive, hunched-over humanoid figure stomping its way toward me, gleefully trampling or kicking away any unlucky goblins or orcs in its path.
The notification above the new monster's head simply read: Ogre.
