Minute Mage: A LitRPG Adventure, page 69
Luckily, it didn’t seem to project that light too far into the forest, so we wouldn’t need to worry about getting seen because of it.
Looking back at the Spell’s written effect, the fact that it just summoned the armor onto the ground made sense. The Spell never specified it’d put the armor on me, and it was a Summoning Spell, not an Alteration Spell. Alteration made direct changes to a person, so if the Spell was labeled so, it would’ve put the armor directly on, making the change immediate. Summoning Spells, on the other hand, simply created things. Some of them summoned monsters to fight for you, and others summoned objects, like stone or water. This one seemed to summon Enchanted gear that would only work on the caster.
That made it slightly worse than I’d expected—I couldn’t, say, cast the Spell and choose Dark Plate right as a battle began to avoid a lethal hit. I’d have to take the time beforehand to equip the armor. It was one of many times I bemoaned not being able to research my choices before having to make them. Still, the armor was useful. I’d just have to plan ahead when using it.
Anyway, I got Ethereal Armor all the way from Rank 0 to Rank 8—something that only took a couple casts, because of the ridiculous rate of Spell XP gain when working with Spells under "normal" circumstances.
And when I got Ethereal Armor to Rank 8, the changes were massive.
It seemed that the way the Spell Ranked up was that the Dark Plate’s downtime was decreased by 5 percent, and the Light Plate’s discount got 5 percent better too. The cost increased quite a bit too, of course, from 150 to 182 in total, but the rest of the increases more than made up for it.
Dark Plate’s increase was nice. After preventing damage, it used to be unusable for 60 seconds. Now, it was only offline for 40. I could see how nice it’d be once it was only disabled for a couple seconds and I could use it multiple times in a fight alongside Regenerate. Still, the current change wasn’t too big of a deal.
But Light Plate’s was much, much more severe. See, when the Spell Ranked up, the discount got 5 percent better. But how was that calculated?
Well, it seemed like it treated the 10 percent discount like a decimal multiplier. So, if a Spell cost 100 Mana, the 10 percent discount meant that 100 Mana cost would be multiplied by 0.9, making the Spell now cost 90. However, when that discount got 5 percent better, what that really meant was that the multiplier was being multiplied by 0.95. So, once the Spell Ranked up once, it’d go from multiplying a Spell by 0.9 to multiplying it by 0.855—a 14.5 percent discount. And that was just after one Rank.
Once Ethereal Armor reached Rank 8, Light Plate was all the way up to a 40.4 percent discount. And I still got Spell XP at the normal rate when casting the discounted Spells too.
That was absolutely massive. The specific way the Spell Ranked made its progression much more effective than I’d expected it to be—if it instead just took the 10 percent and increased it by 5 percent or something, it wouldn’t have even reached a 15 percent discount at Rank 8. Really, I’d gone from being excited about the sudden new prospects to being angry at the System for not telling me this. What if I’d passed Ethereal Armor up without ever knowing the true power it offered? Had I already done that with other Spells, ignoring them because I had no idea what their Rank-ups held?
It was just yet another moment that made me wish more than anything I could have a few books to look through about this stuff. Maybe my next Trailblazer threshold would give me info about Ranks. Who knew?
Though it seemed like Trailblazer was going down some other kind of path with its benefits. After all, back when I’d reached 16 Intelligence, it’d given me that strange notification telling me it was logging my thoughts and actions.
I was at 18 Intelligence already, so it seemed like I wouldn’t have to wait long to see what it meant when it said "logged data will be used." Presumably, that would happen at 20.
I just hoped it didn’t use it in a way that hurt me, or something.
I shook the thought from my head. There was nothing I could do about that for now. Instead, I just needed to get back to what I’d been working on. Which was, of course, practicing Noxious Grasp. With the discounted price from Light Plate, I earned Spell XP almost twice as quickly, and by the time the sun had set, I’d gone from 98/461 Spell XP to Rank 11 to 266/461. I was really feeling just how expensive the Ranks got after 10. If it took this long just to get to 11, how long to get to 20?
And just how sweet would the rewards be for doing so?
As we walked, sun setting behind us, I began to notice the forest’s look changing. The usual greenery was slowly turning a sickly yellow. Trees had more and more dead branches, the grass was thinner, and generally there was less and less vegetation. Instead of the vibrant brown dirt, the color of the ground turned into a dull gray.
Really, everything around me just felt totally dead. I realized I hadn’t seen a single animal in hours—not even a corpse. What was going on here?
But before I could even ask, I noticed something off in the distance, and stopped in my tracks. With the trees around us now dead and lacking leaves, I could see much farther than normal. And, off at the edge of my vision, there it was. A mountain. I could only see the very top of it, peeking out from above the brown tangle of tree branches, but there was only one thing it could be.
Kingdom’s Edge was finally in sight.
I took a breath and gazed up at the mountains. Our gateway to the Barinruth Empire. Back to society, able to get Spell Crystals, Enchanted gear, and able to work with others to fight off these Demons once and for all.
Fight through there, and we’d be free.
The story continues in Minute Mage 2!
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ARLAN’S FULLY-EXPANDED CHARACTER SHEET
Minute Mage Basic Progression Path
- Every 1 Level: +1 Endurance, +2 Conjuration, +3 Stat Points, Time Loop Rank-Up
- Every 3 Levels: Spell Choice
- Every 5 Levels: Talent Choice
- Every 10 Levels: Time Loop Usage Increase, Time Loop Upgrade
Name: Arlan Nota
Age: 20
Class: Minute Mage
Class Type: Magic
Level: 14
XP: 341/1k
Health: 310/310
Stamina: 139/139
Mana: 920/920
Health/Minute: 0.112
Stamina/Minute: 0.93
Mana/Minute: 17.6
Strength: 16
Endurance: 31
Dexterity: 15
Conjuration: 83
Intelligence: 18
Spells:
Ethereal Armor 8 – XP 22/130
Gravity Well 8 - XP 0/130
Ray of Frost 8 - XP 0/130
Crippling Chill 9 - XP 101/355
Noxious Grasp 10 - XP 266/461 +Venomous Grasp
Talents:
Regenerate
Recursive Growth
Time Loop 14 +Extended Loop
Titles:
Devastator
Trailblazer
Spells:
Ethereal Armor Rank 8
School: Arcane, Summoning
Type: Activated
Cost: 182 Mana
—
You summon one of two sets of magical armor – Dark Plate or Light Plate. You may dismiss it at any time. It will be automatically dismissed after 60 minutes.
While wearing Dark Plate, you cannot take more than 50% of your maximum Health in damage in a single second (155 damage). Preventing damage this way breaks the Plate, making it unusable for 40 seconds until it reconstructs itself.
While wearing Light Plate, your other spells cost 40.4% less, though still gain Spell XP as though they weren’t discounted.
Gravity Well Rank 8
School: Arcane
Type: Toggle
Cost: 12.4 Mana/Second per Being Affected
—
While active, increase gravitational pull by 55% for any number of beings within 30 paces of you.
Ray of Frost Rank 8
School: Cold, Curse
Type: Activated
Cost: 24.4 Mana
—
Shoots a beam of icy energy from your hands, traveling up to 25 paces and dealing up to 59.1 damage, depending on where it hits, on a direct collision with a being. Upon being hit, targets are cursed with Frostbite for 5 seconds. While they are frostbitten, their Dexterity score is lowered by 7.4.
Crippling Chill Rank 9
School: Cold, Curse
Type: Activated
Cost: 56.2 Mana
—
Choose a being within 40 paces of you. It becomes coated in frost for the next 15 seconds. For as long as it is coated in frost, it loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and its Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.
Noxious Grasp Rank 10
+Venomous Grasp
School: Curse, Poison
Type: Toggle
Cost: 4.7 Mana/Second
—
While active, any being you are physically touching loses 16.2 Health and 8.15 Stamina per second.
Noxious Grasp Festers beings it damages. While they are Festered, beings lose double Stamina from all sources. The Fester remains for 5 seconds after you stop contact with the being.
Talents:
Regenerate
Type: Activated
Cost: 20 Stamina, plus twenty minutes worth of Stamina regeneration. (Currently 38.6 Stamina)
—
Greatly increase your body’s recovery speed, at the cost of your Stamina. When activated, your Health/Minute is multiplied by 1,000 for 10 seconds, then returns to normal
Recursive Growth
Type: Passive
—
Whenever your Level increases, you gain 4 additional Stat increases, chosen at random.
This Talent improves every tenth Level you reach, incrementing the number of random Stat increases you gain each Level by 2.
Time Loop – Rank 14
Type: Activated
—
Go up to 3 hours back in time, resetting your Health, Stamina, Mana, and other Talent cooldowns – as well as the rest of the world – but preserving your memories and the rest of your Status.
This Talent activates at will, or automatically when you would die.
This Talent may only be activated twice per day.
Titles:
Devastator
You have taken a risk and killed enough enemies that, in a single minute, you have gained three or more Levels. For many, gambles like that cost them their lives. For you, it paid off. Greed is good.
All enemies you contribute to killing provide 25% more XP.
Trailblazer
You are the only person in the world with your Class, and as such, cannot rely on the findings of others to make your decisions. Instead, you must forge your own path.
If you do not already have it, you gain access to the Intelligence Stat. It will improve the information given to you by the System regarding your Class and what might become of it in the future.
Whenever you Level up, gain 1 Intelligence
ERANI’S FULLY-EXPANDED CHARACTER SHEET
Name: Erani Wos
Age: 23
Class: Sorcerer
Class Type: Magic
Level: 13
XP: 222/900
Health: 100/100
Stamina: 39/60
Mana: 1170/1170
Health/Minute: 0.042
Stamina/Minute: 0.36
Mana/Minute: 14.04
Strength: 10
Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 10
Conjuration: 78
Spells:
Angelic Shield 9 - XP 171/355
Firebolt 14 (8) - XP 14/130 +Explosive Firebolt
Talents:
Primal Might
Expanded Capacity
Spells:
Angelic Shield Rank 9
School: Divine
Type: Passive
Cost: 2.5 Mana per 1 Damage Prevented
—
Automatically casts upon taking damage. Attempting to prevent more than 35.4 damage this way in a single second breaks the shield, making this Spell unable to activate for 23.2 seconds.
Firebolt Rank 14 +Explosive Firebolt
School: Fire
Type: Activated
Cost: 53 Mana
—
Shoots a small ball of fire that travels up to 59.4 paces, exploding when it collides with something. Deals up to 148.5 damage, depending on where it hits, on a direct collision with a being.
Firebolt explodes upon impact, damaging and knocking back all beings within 5 paces, with severity depending on how close they are to the source of the explosion.
Primal Might
Type: Passive
—
When a projectile Spell you fire would deal maximum damage due to having perfect accuracy, it deals 50% more damage.
Expanded Capacity
Type: Passive
—
Your Mana reserves become more plentiful. Maximum Mana is increased by 50%.
GROUPS
