Unchosen Champion

Coop checked his class options with renewed purpose.

[Phantom Blade]

[Edgerunner]

[Revenant]

[Harbinger]

[Ritemaster]

He tried not to jump to any conclusions as he took in his choices. Of course, he would scrutinize each option, starting from the top of the list.

“Phantoms speak through the silent blade.”

Phantom Blade was described as a master of assassination, utilizing intangibility to catch enemies unaware. The skills were said to aid an acrobatic combat style that takes advantage of the elusive nature of the Phantom Blade.

Coop’s first option sounded strong already. It seemed tailor made for stealth, evasion, and burst damage which were a few of the many tools he hoped to accumulate. He considered whether it would be pigeonholed into becoming a glass cannon, or if he could transform it into a dodge tank with stealth and high burst damage. Moving on he checked the next class.

“Few dare to walk the edge of life and death. Fewer run.”

Edgerunner was characterized as a ranger, expert in hit and run tactics. Its skills would help with tracking, opening strikes, and escape when tormenting stronger opponents or chipping away at more numerous enemies.

Coop’s first ranged option sounded a bit risky to him. He didn’t expect escaping to always be an option, and it seemed like a core archetype of the Edgerunner class. However, it did seem like it could yield some of the same advantages that his first option brought. Plus, he expected it to at least come with plenty of movement options and held a bonus for being ranged. He wasn’t ready to dismiss either of his first two options yet. He continued to the third class.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Revenant was called a relentless combatant, focused on single-mindedly chasing victory with unflinching resolve. It appeared to be the first class offered with an emphasis on defense, but in this case it was magical defense instead of the overpowered physical defense. The class’s skills would capitalize on the defensive investment by providing necessary flexibility, allowing the class to remain undeterred and uncompromising in its pursuit of its goals.

Coop thought this option sounded interesting in that it was the first to directly address his primary qualification, durability. The class description implied that it would be heavy on the defense and sustain. Maybe it could be the tanky skirmisher he was looking for, but he continued browsing.

“Even immortals die when it is foretold.”

The Harbinger class was proclaimed to be a deadly spellcaster that none could face unscathed. Its skills were primarily spells that would work by applying afflictions and significant damage over time.

Right away, Coop could tell that his first spellcaster option was not what he was looking for. The description implied it was a glass cannon without the cannon, it didn’t even address its own survivability. It sounded like the damage would be impressive but, because it was not burst damage, Coop would be vulnerable at the start of every single fight. Coop had horrible visions of afflicting spells on monsters and running around in circles waiting for them to inevitably die, hopefully before they caught and killed him first.

Then again if he could force it to be tanky enough he could see potential viability. He thought the grind ability would be promising since damage over time abilities invited an efficient combat style; no reason to wait for enemies to die, just continue to the next one and so on. It was an effective but risky tactic in video games, not one that he wanted to try with his life on the line. He checked the fifth class.

“Control the forbidden.”

Finally, the Ritemaster. Its description called it a versatile summoner that chained the spirits of the defeated, temporarily forcing them to serve. Its skills would provide it with curses and rituals that would allow it to bind spirits and weaken enemies.

Coop once again had some doubts right away. The description implied that it would be another weak caster on its own with power that would escalate as he defeated enemies. It sounded nice to have meat shields, but Coop didn’t want to be so vulnerable to need to rely on them. The other issue he saw was that it wasn’t a typical summoner, but instead used the spirits temporarily. He figured that meant the summons would have a limited duration and any time spent without fighting was diminishing his capability. A snowballing class would probably have high power spikes, but he didn’t like that it was tied to a summoner playstyle. He would rather the power have gone to himself like some kind of bloodlusting warrior that was personally strengthened each time he defeated an enemy.

Coop shifted against his second favorite palm tree. The slight movement caused pain in his abdomen that reminded him of his rather grievous wounds. It was another clear, dark night in paradise. Coop began to weigh his options.

His first two options, Phantom Blade and Edgerunner, were evidently both Agility based. Jones had recently argued that Agility was a uniquely valuable stat since it increased physical speed. Being fast would be a nice boon in just about every scenario Coop could imagine. Edgerunner further emphasized speed since one of its core features was the ability to escape. The fact that it was also ranged was another point in its favor. But would he need to learn to use a bow or some other weapon? He could have a bowyer installed in the settlement, but he wasn’t sure if the ability to actually use the preferred weapon would come with the class or not.

On the other hand, Phantom Blade, had the weapon in the name. He was already using a bladed weapon most of the time, that being the machete, though it wasn’t looking so good after the last few days of combat. There might be plenty of room for improvement, but it was hard to misunderstand hitting enemies with the sharp side. He considered the simplicity of tools a point in Phantom Blade’s favor, and easily added several more when considering the almost guaranteed stealth and burst damage. Furthermore, the Phantom Blade class specifically emphasized the intangibility of his spectral affinity. He wasn’t sure if that meant he would be able to phase through solid objects, but it sure sounded like it.

Still, when comparing the two agility classes, he wasn’t ready to commit to one over the other. Honestly, he thought he would be happy with either one, but if the initial, admittedly minor, hurdles could be overcome, he would lean more toward Edgerunner. He didn’t think anyone should underestimate the combination of range and speed. Especially when considering that Coop’s primary purpose at the moment was to be grinding levels in order to accumulate more power. No matter what he chose he just hoped he’d never make enemies with a Phantom Blade.

Then there was the Revenant class. In retrospect, it checked the most boxes of any of his offerings. A tanky skirmisher with sustain and flexible skills. The real question was how flexible the skills would actually be. Would he have ranged options? Stealth? Area of effect or crowd control skills? And crucially, would having such a variety of abilities prevent it from having good damage potential? Coop had a lot of questions about the Revenant class, but he had to give it credit for realizing a few of his primary hopes right off the bat.

The last two classes were both casters, though they appeared to be different archetypes. The first, the Harbinger class, had a lot going for it despite Coop’s initial skepticism. When he considered his most immediate goals, to level himself and the settlement quickly, it was certainly in the conversation for the best option. But when he layed out his hopes for a class they definitely did not include a glass cannon with ramping damage. In the end, his first Intelligence class offering would be the first that he declined. If he could negotiate with the AI to give him this very class but make it scale off of HP as some kind of blood mage he would be selecting it right now. Give him the high damage of the class with the survivability of scaling with the overpowered Body stat as a choice and he’d take it all day.

The Ritemaster was another class that he nearly dismissed right away. Even now, while trying to weigh the pros and cons of each class, he found himself doubtful that it would be for him. In terms of raw power, he predicted that the Ritemaster class would have the highest highs and the lowest lows. He could imagine fighting with an army of spectral summons, each enemy defeated only fueling his army, but he was sure that he would be particularly vulnerable, even compared to the previous Harbinger class. Most of the power scaling would be in his summons, both from the number of them and the vitality of them, so when he had none he would be exposed. He didn’t like the thought and would decline this class as well.

He returned to the Revenant class. It didn’t take much more consideration, from the starting point of all the classes, he thought this class fit the best. He admitted to himself that he was asking for way too much from the classes themselves, but even then, Revenant still held the possibility of fulfilling his requests. The only way he would really find out would be after he selected it when he could view the skills offered.

With only a few trepidations he went with the Revenant class. If only he could have combined several classes instead of settling on one. Once his selection was confirmed he now had a list of skills to select from. He could only choose five total, regardless of which ones he picked. Briefly scanning the list, he thought that now he was cooking with gas.

He had been offered 25 skills total. 15 were active skills and 10 were passive. He wouldn’t choose any until he had decided on all five. He wanted to maximize synergy between his skills and he would try to identify potential combinations where the sum would be greater than the parts.

First, he mentally put aside the skills where he simply didn’t understand what they brought to the table. As an example, one offered him aura control, but as far as he knew he didn’t have an aura yet, and none of the other skills provided one. He wouldn’t waste one of his five skills gambling on that much of a shot in the dark. Half of the passive skills were pushed to the side along with a few active ones.

The other five passive skills were jackpots as far as Coop was concerned. Each one would give him bonus attribute points relative to his points in Mind. One for each of the other stats. It was so perfect he would have jumped up to dance if dancing wouldn’t have caused him extreme discomfort due to his wounds.

He believed that these passive skills would be the basis for whatever combination of skills he chose. And it would all start with the first passive skill that he targeted as a must have: Mind Over Matter.

“Defiant Mind, Defiant Heart.”

First, Mind Over Matter grants one point in Body for every two points spent in Mind. Also, 50% of HP damage is taken as MP damage instead. This would be a huge skill for Coop’s pure Mind build. He thought this one passive skill was too massive. He supposed the only downside was that he wouldn’t be maximizing the physical defense that comes with the Body stat, so initially he would be taking more physical damage, as a baseline, before it was cut in half. But still, if he understood it correctly, it meant he was going to have a truly ridiculous magic defense. If he was hit by a magic attack, his magic defense would be high thanks to his Mind stat reducing the initial damage, and then the HP damage that he received would be cut in half again with half dealing MP damage. He was already giddy with this one skill.

He would scour the active skills for a pair of skills that could work in conjunction and be used consecutively. Then he would take those two active skills and take the two passive skills that granted either Strength and Agility, or Intelligence and Acumen.

Until he progressed to level 25 when he would gain an additional skill, he would be reliant on this one skill sequence, so he needed to make sure it could be the basis for his entire build. Then the passives that specifically scaled his chosen combination would slide in, giving him the perfect start. This build would allow him to funnel his attribute points into Mind and rely on the passive skills for all the sweet, sweet bonus points. Coop wouldn’t be calculating proper distribution ratios, he was going all in on Mind, assuming he could find the active skills to make it work.

Unfortunately, the active skills were raining on his parade. The problem was that, even though they seemed strong, they were strong individually or situationally. An attack skill that interrupted the target was something he wanted to take, but it wouldn’t work as one half of his two-skill rotation.

He panicked a little, feeling like an artist that witnessed his own masterpiece before his vision went blurry and couldn’t bring back the clarity. Mind Over Matter had individually taken care of half his build, but he couldn’t piece together the rest with his limited skill slots. He considered altering his plan, but shook it off, remembering the flavor text of both his class and the one skill he had decided on. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

The sound of the slap against his forehead broke the silence of the courtyard. He had just realized something so obvious he was embarrassed of his limited brain. How had he gotten to the point of choosing his class? Was it by relying on a skill rotation? He didn’t have any skills to rotate! He and Jones had just been swinging weapons around like the amateur fools that they were. He could keep doing that!

This realization convinced him to abandon the spells and the passives that would grant Intelligence and Acumen. He needed to supplement his regular attacks. If this was a video game, he would be making an auto attack build. Maybe he was gamifying his new reality too much, but he didn’t really have any other life experience to base his decisions on. He viewed the passive skills for Strength and Agility, Adamance and Practical Application.

“Unyielding. Unrelenting. Unstoppable.”

Adamance was the simplest of the passive skills. Every point of Mind applies one point of Strength. It had no other effect, but it provided twice as many bonus points as the other two passive skills that he intended to take. He thought it was fitting for the Strength skill to be the simplest.

“Practice makes perfect.”

Practical Application grants one point in Agility for every two points in Mind. It also gave the additional bonus of reducing the mana cost of active skills as they are repeatedly used, based on the mastery of the skill. The synergy with Mind Over Matter made him excited once again. He didn’t want to spend too much mana on skills since his mana pool was, at least partially, a bonus health pool. A cost reduction to his skills would be welcome.

Next he looked through the remaining list of active skills. He could just take two of the most situationally useful skills, but first he would try to find a way to supplement his regular attacks. If he couldn’t find something, he was leaning toward the interrupt skill and a movement skill. He would probably need to decide on a specific weapon and learn some technique somehow. He figured the settlement service options would help him decide on a weapon after consulting with Jones.

Eventually, sparked by his weapon dilemma, he settled on a pair of active skills that he had initially put aside because they wouldn’t work in a rotation. He wasn’t sure they really should qualify as active skills but there they were. The first was called Retribution, which he felt was nicely on theme for the Revenant class.

“Onslaught of the immaterial.”

The Retribution skill summons ethereal weapons with damage values that scale with the Mind attribute. Coop thought it would fit nicely with his new plan. For good measure he thought he would commit and take Retribution’s apparent counterpart: Salvation.

“Fortifications of the immaterial.”

Salvation summoned ethereal armor with armor values that scale with the Mind attribute.

He figured taking care of both his lacking armor and weapon would be a good investment to begin with. He thought it was only a minor gamble to see how both skills would work. He reasoned that it would be an even greater gamble to continue without weapons and armor. It was unpredictable how crucial the more situational skills would be for now. In the meantime he wanted to take things that would immediately pay dividends in combat. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to design his weapons and armor, and if he did, he hoped he wouldn’t have to each time.

With the plan set, he accepted the five skills. The foundation of his build was complete.

[You have acquired a new title!]

The notice surprised him. But he was about to check his status screen anyway. He was champing at the bit to spend all the unallocated attribute points that he had saved.

[Status]

HP - 87/150

MP - 100/100

Class - Revenant (Level 5)

Profession - Basic Scavenging (Level 3)

Affinity - Spectral

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - None

Strength - 10 (+10)

Agility - 10 (+5)

Body - 10 (+5)

Mind - 10

Intelligence - 10

Acumen - 10

Unallocated - 40

Titles - Champion, Haunted, Ethereal

Skills (Active) - Identify, Retribution, Salvation

Skills (Passive) - Common Language, Mind Over Matter, Adamance, Practical Application

Quests - Defeat Ancient Defenders II (24/25), Scavenge Defeated Enemies II (18/50), Upgrade Camp to Outpost

Basic Credits - 232

Coop was so happy to see his attributes already being affected by his passive skills a grin spontaneously appeared on his face. It hadn’t even occurred to him that it would apply retroactively to the stats he had gained from his title. His only concern was that the stat increases were indicated in a separate column, he wondered if they could be negated somehow. He’d have to keep an eye on them and make a note if any enemies influenced his bonus stats in any way. He put all of his unallocated points into Mind.

HP - 287/350

MP - 500/500

Strength - 10(+50)

Agility - 10(+25)

Body - 10(+25)

Mind - 50

Intelligence - 10

Acumen - 10

The increase in his stats made him feel incredible. It was indescribable, like he had just been resurrected. His only regret was not spotting any visible changes. He was in good shape, but nothing had changed when his bonus Strength went up. He supposed that might actually be an advantage, since his stats would be harder to guess based on his appearance.

His health total had jumped up massively. Numerically, he was more alive now than he had been at his previous full health. How bizarre, considering he still had injuries in his abdomen and forearm. Both had noticeably improved after his health gain though. Unfortunately, his crippled limb status remained as he hadn’t actually regenerated enough health yet. He’d have to sleep it off. He’d head back inside after one more thing.

What the heck were these new titles?