13 – Leveling Up

I had three goblin orbs, 226 mana, a practice staff that had seen better days, and I had to somehow get over the mountains to join the other wizards.

I pondered my options as I sat and smoked my pipe.

The halfling’s leaf that the wizards had given me had a leathery sweet taste that rolled over the tongue. They’d even given me one of those emberstones to light it with before we set out on this journey.

I was curious about the halflings in this world and if they had any relation to the gnomes. But that was a discovery for another day. Right then, I had more pressing matters to attend to.

The sun had set, and I hadn’t seen any other signs of goblins, luckily. It seemed that this grove of trees was relatively safe. Some searching rewarded me with a natural spring next to a crystalline pool. I slaked my thirst and was tempted jump in the pool to wash the gore off my clothes, but thought better of it. It was getting chilly, and I didn’t want to risk being spotted by a goblin hunting party if I started a fire.

I sought warmth and solace in the bowl of my pipe.

While I smoked, I decided to cultivate mana to clear my head. I envisioned the tobacco smoke swirling and mixing with the ambient mana as I inhaled. The resulting mana had a slightly dusky tinge.

The numbers ticked up to 227/512.

I had three spells, all of which were pretty limited at their current levels.

[Void Thread] was as piercing as a laser beam, but until I leveled it up, it could only produce pinpricks of damage.

[Void Blade] was deadly, but only lasted for one second and required that I get into close range with an opponent. The upgrade promised a longer blade and spell duration. I was considering that one heavily.

[Outer Dark] was freaking awesome, but until I made the sphere big enough to fight in, it was pretty useless.

I pulled one of the small goblin orbs out of my inventory. I had decided that my survival was the most important thing. The wizards could handle the quota, and if they wanted to chew me out afterward for using all the orbs I found on myself, then so be it.

But I didn’t think they would.

I pulled the mana into my orb, watching as the sphere of energy in my hand diminished into nothing.

I closed my eyes and checked my status.

Wizard – Level 3
Mana: 437/512
(Mana required to reach next level: 680)

The small goblin orb had given me 210 mana.

I wanted to test something.

I plucked the second small goblin orb out of my inventory, but instead of absorbing it right away, I just let it float in the glade.

It hovered there like an ethereal fairy light or will-o’-wisp, casting otherworldly blue light on the blades of grass and tree trunks. I wanted to see if I could still absorb the orb while wielding my staff and newfound goblin shield.

I picked up the shield and pointed my fist toward the orb while grasping my staff. It was a little harder than absorbing the mana through my palm, but it still worked.

The orb unwound, trailing its energy into my hand and adding another 210 to my mana reserves.

647/647.

I was fully topped up with less than forty mana to reach my next level. I was too exhausted to cultivate that much mana. Increasing the limit was always much harder than simply replenishing what had been spent, and I wanted to be prepared if something decided to attack me in the night, so I pulled out the last orb.

This one was from the goblin chief, and it hung huge and bright in the chilly air. I quickly absorbed it for fear that its light might attract unwelcome visitors to my little grove.

It felt like drinking luminescent, life-giving water through my arm. When I had fully incorporated it, I was greeted by a new system message:

Congratulations, you have gained two levels!
Level 3 → Level 5

Mana: 1047/1047
(Mana required to reach next level: 1140)

You have 2 free points. You may use them to learn new spells or upgrade existing ones.

Upgrade [Void Thread] → Level 2
Increases the diameter of the thread.

Upgrade [Void Blade] → Level 2
Increases the size of the blade and the length of casting to 2.0 seconds.

Upgrade [Outer Dark] → Level 2
Increases the size of the sphere and duration of the spell.

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Spell choices:

[Healing Water] water magic
[Ice Shard] water magic
[Overgrow] plant magic
[Spirit Herb] plant magic

[Summon Cat] and [Root Bind] had fallen off the list, only to be replaced by new spell options. That was a shame. I was partially hoping to learn [Root Bind] one day thinking that it could make a devastating combo with an upgraded [Void Thread].

It was quickly becoming clear to me that early spell choices would greatly affect my build later on down the road.

I decided to not even tempt myself by looking at the new spell descriptions. If I kept learning new spells, I could easily end up like Myrl with a hundred different level 1 spells. Besides, none of the options were even void magic.

Instead, I decided to upgrade my existing ones.

[Void Blade] was an easy choice because it was my most effective spell in hand-to-hand combat. I went back and forth between the other two but eventually decided on [Void Thread]. I wanted to upgrade it to the point where the beam was thick enough to act more like a bullet.

After I was done upgrading, I checked my spell list.

[Void Thread] Level 2
Casting Cost: 72 mana
Fires a slightly larger beam of void mana over long distances.

[Void Blade] Level 2
Casting Cost: 200 mana
Transforms your staff into a knife with a blade made of pure void magic for 2.0 seconds. Requires a staff to cast.