Magical Engineering

It hurt like hell, but not as bad as the last time. I forced myself to start eating more of the food in the room, giving myself a break to try to reduce the pain. I was sure this level would be manageable, even if I didn’t like it. Slowly, the pain receded as I forced the food down. My brain finally cleared enough for me to check my new-level situation.

I had shot up to level one twenty-two, which was great and all, but I was now pretty sure I knew what the new modifier was. At every ten levels, the experienced needed for the next level was increased by a factor of ten. This just wasn’t something I could keep up with. I had found a sweet spot, at the very least, where the modifiers hurt, but they didn’t hurt enough to make me stop. I could push this a little further by adjusting all the modifiers so I was only using the ones with the largest multiplier, but it still wouldn’t be enough to push me that far beyond where I was.

What I really needed was base dungeons that were harder. I did have access to the Basements of Shadow still, but as I had done no fighting at all the first time I was there, or even really explored it beyond what Elody had done, I wasn’t sure if I could tackle it alone. Even with my increase in levels, she still seemed to have been far beyond me, but there was only one way to be sure. I booted up the simulator, cleared all the modifiers, and started the dungeon.

I started back on the same floor where I had felt the dungeon begin the first time. This time, I could feel all the shadows around me without any of Elody’s magic to keep them at bay. I was surrounded and the darkness was pressing in on me. It only now occurred to me I had no way to counter that issue, so without a better idea of how to handle the problem I started swinging my mallet at every shadow that felt like it was moving. I managed to catch a few, but not nearly enough, as several claws raked their way down my back.

I screamed out in pain, and my mana began to rapidly drain and my skills tried to compensate for the damage. Several more shadows used that moment to attack me from all sides. I had no chance at this fight at all. Within moments, I felt my whole body torn to pieces, and I was back at the menu screen, trying to force the horrible memory from my mind. The difference in power between myself and Elody was now more evident than ever. I wasn’t remotely able to fight anything on her level.

Steeling my mind as best I could, I moved myself onto other topics. I had attribute and skill points that needed to be assigned, and I’d unlocked a few more new things as well. I had sub-attributes for heat and slashing resistances and one under disease for something called withering poison. I’d also gained a sub-attribute for generalized visual: night vision. Crossing level one hundred had done nothing to further increase my attribute caps, so I instead maxed out night vision and split the rest across my resistances.

Skills were an entirely different matter. Despite the constant cycling of my core, none of my mana orbs had ranked up, so I was still stuck with what I had there. Considering what had just happened, it was probably time for me to stop ignoring my elemental orb. I unlocked Fundamental Forces and moved it up to twenty-five ranks. That unlocked two tier-two mana skills, and they were different from anything I had seen so far.