Unchosen Champion

Coop ended up analyzing his skill options while laying on a bench in the herb garden. A new stone path traversed between the herbs, making a scenic cut through for anyone skipping between blocks. The garden’s leafy green plants had already grown all along the trellises, making tunnels that shaded the length of the path. The temperature was notably cooler, in sharp contrast to the muggy humidity of the mangrove forest.

He had his arm over his eyes as he lamented the difficulty in deciding which skills to take. Living up to any image of a confident leader certainly fell apart when it came time to make a permanent decision that influenced his build. He turned into an indecisive child struggling to decide on a single toy because he wanted them all. Planning ahead was a challenging task when all he had to work with were his own conceptual ideas. If only he had a comprehensive and dynamic skill tree planner that would lay out the consequences of his choices.

He was on his own to make a coherent build that generated synergies with whatever he was offered. Admittedly, he already had a perfectly solid foundation and he was now far more flexible in his ability to select niche skills that had the potential to fill gaps in his kit. Just about anything would work at this point, but he still bemoaned the system’s lack of support.

The problem was in properly identifying the current and future gaps of his build. Was he even using his current skills to the fullest yet? He finally realized he had the ability to shield throw using Retribution, one of his original skills, after almost a month of using it daily. It was possible that he would learn more about any one of his skills and realize the solution to a problem was there the entire time.

Not to mention how greedy Coop was when it came to his build. His kit may have come together for grinding, especially thanks to his titles filling in for his lack of regeneration skills, and the sky was the limit when it came to his brawling ability, as long as he developed his martial techniques, but he wanted so much more.

He was missing strong burst damage outside of what he could muster with his own Strength for ending duels quickly, he was envious of Charlie’s massive area skills, he wanted crowd control, and he still wished he had active stealth. He’d also take a healing skill for fights where on kill regeneration was limited and more ranged attacks outside of throwing his weapons at things would be nice, though both were lower priorities at this point. He could manage with his current setup. The only aspect he was satisfied with was the mobility granted by synergising Salvation and Retribution, especially in close combat, so he wasn’t particularly searching for movement skills anymore. That was one checkbox checked.

The main concern that he was turning over in his head was due to only having six skills to select from this time. When he first received his class he remembered having a lot more choices, maybe 25 in total, then he hit level 25 and selected from around 12 skills. Now, with only 6 skills to select from, he was worried about slowly being pigeonholed by the system. Would it eventually give him a single skill and say, “take it or leave it?”

At least he recognized most of his current offerings as skills he was interested in during previous rounds. The area denial skill remained, the crowd control skill was there, and both of the passive skills that gave bonuses to Intelligence and Acumen based on his Mind stat were once again offered.

The first of the other two new skills was called Stygian Spirit. It would transform his mana pool into a unique resource of the same name. It sounded to Coop like he would be able to mana burn his targets by expending the resource, and considering his massive mana pool that seemed like it would be a formidable tactic. Unfortunately, its efficiency was determined by his Intelligence attribute, so it would be stuck at its base value until he also took the corresponding passive skill.

The second was called Void Drop which appeared to be a simple attack spell in the form of a very expensive air strike. It sounded like a proper burst skill, but its effectiveness was also based on his Intelligence, so he had the same hesitation about taking it immediately.

Even though all the skills would be useful to him, with the potential of filling a role that he was specifically searching for, they were all scaled by his Intelligence attribute in one way or another. With his massive mana pool, something like Stygian Spirit might still be useful even without it being efficient. The same went for the area denial and the crowd control abilities. He wanted to make this choice count, with the settlement event looming, so he was looking for something that could be immediately useful.

Coop figured that Void Drop would be the only active skill where he definitely needed Arcane Comprehension to give him Intelligence before he selected it, which sucked, because it was a ranged burst attack, fulfilling two of his desires in one. He mentally discarded it, and also ignored Clarity of Purpose, the bonus Acumen skill, even if it would benefit all of his damage by granting his attacks the ability to ignore a portion of his target’s defenses.

The question he was asking himself was which of the Intelligence based utility skills would be the most useful without Intelligence: area denial, crowd control, or mana conversion. If none of them would be worth it, then he’d take the bonus Intelligence passive to set himself up for later.

Each of the active skills at least partially benefitted from his Mind stat even though they were all Intelligence based. Stygian Spirit directly impacted his mana pool which was increased by Mind, the crowd control applied ‘Terror’ as a debilitating debuff and its efficacy was based on Mind, and the area denial skill’s disorientation would be determined by his Mind stat.

He was leaning toward ignoring the crowd control ability as well. At first glance, it seemed more limited in its usefulness compared to the other two. Terror would be dispelled as soon as the target took any sort of damage and only lasted a few seconds. Coop thought it might be more of an interrupt than crowd control in that regard.

Coop’s train of thought was interrupted by the clearing of someone’s throat. He sat up and found Ixia, the caretaker of the herb garden, with a watering can waiting for him to notice her. “Greetings, Champion. Does something ail you?” The moth-like insectoid wondered while her fuzzy antenna slowly shifted back and forth from where they poked through her straw hat.

“No, I’m just having trouble choosing a skill.” Coop admitted

The gardener put the watering can on the ground. “Perhaps, I can give you some advice. I may not be near the same level as Caisalya or your tavernkeepers, but I am quite experienced in my own right.” Ixia offered willingly.

“Are their levels that high?” Coop was surprised that she acknowledged a difference between them, he figured they were all more or less equally leveled, maybe reaching a threshold that was difficult to go beyond.

“All of the factionless contractors are formidable by necessity, but the gulf between your level and mine is smaller than the difference between my level and theirs.”

“Thousands of levels?” Coop asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Indeed.” Ixia confirmed. “What is your dilemma?”

Coop sighed in exasperation. “I’m worried about my options being limited in the future. I wish I could just take all the skills that I’m being offered.” Coop complained to Ixia’s amusement. “I’m trying to decide if utility skills based on an attribute I am not investing in are still worth taking.”

“You could allocate the attribute in the future.” Ixia suggested. “There are plenty of levels to be gained.”

Coop slowly shook his head. That wouldn’t work for Coop, as he wanted to continue maximizing his Mind stat. He tried a different tack. “One of my options would destroy mana, that seems really powerful to me. Another allows me to take control of an area, confusing targets and providing camouflage.”

Ixia considered for a brief moment before giving her advice. “You should remember that others may not rely on mana at all, and powerful enemies will have resources that dwarf your own. Denying an enemy mana could be very powerful, but it could also be useless.” She fluttered one of her wings and glittering specks of dust formed a trail before slowly sinking to the ground. “My most powerful and reliable skill is a zone ability. I credit it for my eventual enfranchisement.”

“How many skills do you have?” Coop queried. He had seven skills, but Presence of Mind had consumed the default Identify skill and his Salvation and Retribution skills combined to give him the Ethereal title which behaved like an active skill. Then there was his Reaper title which was effectively a passive skill.

Ixia seemed to consider for a moment before responding. “15 unique skills.”

“Huh?” Coop was confused. He was expecting an answer closer to 100 or more. Five skills to start with, then another every 25 levels for thousands of levels should have been a lot more than 15. “That seems way too low.” Knowing that more skills were coming would have eased his mind over potentially losing some offerings, but just a handful made him even more nervous about his choices.

“You won’t always select a new skill as your path develops.” Ixia explained. “Upgrading or evolving a previously selected skill is often the more practical choice, if granted the opportunity.” Ixia’s folded wings fluttered. “There’s also the possibility of skills combining to form something greater, racial evolutions consuming specific skills, or in extremely rare cases, a new affinity becoming available in lieu of a skill choice.”

“I see…” Coop took it all in, thankful for the library purchase releasing some of the system restrictions on information. “I’ve only been offered new skills so far.”

“The path will narrow, then it will fork.” Ixia stated sagely before she retrieved her watering can from where she had placed it on the ground. “The pattern is consistent. I will leave you to deliberate.”

Coop had only scratched the surface in developing his class, but he was glad that his foundation was solid. He may be missing specific utilities that he had hoped for, but he expected to be able to fill those more generic roles no matter where his choices took him. Surely something like crowd control as a general concept would reappear in several different iterations depending on archetype. If he had only partially collected his core skills, he would be right to be nervous right now, but as it stood, he was in good shape.

He wondered how specific the future paths would be, was it as significant as selecting another class, or was it just another skill that would steer the next few choices? These initial selections had been extremely flexible and had been based on his original Revenant class choice, but another class would have been more likely to railroad him down a specific archetype. He needed to think about what he wanted his future paths to look like, more like the Revenant or more tied to a specific role.

Coop tried to visualize the mechanics of these paths, imagining that there was a massive grid of streets with the forks represented by the intersections. His spectral mana affinity must have placed him in a neighborhood that bordered other undead related affinities which earned him reactions from those that detected his mana and recognized it.

He thought choosing a path might be akin to selecting a subclass. It would be an opportunity to build a package of skills before yielding to the next one. The question would be how much variety would be offered between the paths, and how the path options were determined. Synergizing his paths would be valuable, but having a way to develop a completely different direction over time was also enticing.

“Ixia,” Coop got the gardener’s attention before she left. “How clear are these paths?”

She turned back to answer. “The system makes them unambiguous, in my experience.”

“Can you repeat a path? Would that be a waste? Are there dead ends that would stop progress?”

Her antenna bobbed rhythmically before she answered. “I have never heard of a dead end, but anything is possible.” She glanced at a vine and grazed one of its leaves with her fingers. “As for repeating a path, I walk through this garden everyday and discover new things each time.”

Coop watched the gardener disappear among the growing plants, gently tending to the various troughs and trellises. She had given him a lot to think about, even more than just what to pick for his next skill, and he would take all of her advice. If zone control was good enough to get Ixia to whatever level she was at, then Coop would grab his own area denial skill while he had the chance and leave any other archetypes, like spells, for a future subclass package. He was in the final doubling down period of his class choice and he believed the area denial skill would lend itself to his brawling style the most out of his current options, and it would continue to scale as his build evolved to use the other stats.

“A thick blanket sows the sleep of the dead.”

Fog of War would conjure disorienting fog that would also provide some limited camouflage as long as he remained inside. Most of the various aspects of the skill would be determined by Intelligence, but the disorienting effect itself was based on his Mind skill, meaning it should be reliable off the bat.

Coop had regretted not taking the skill in favor of Presence of Mind when he fought the Zombie Lord. The Zombie Lord’s ultimate skill seemed to be a cousin of Fog of War which made him wonder how close their starting paths had been. Coop may not be getting the powerful black lightning with his skill, but he still vividly remembered the disorientation of being trapped inside the cloud of smoke and the challenge that tracking the Zombie Lord had been. The skill was channeled, spending more mana meant a larger area or a thicker cloud with the cost and cast time both being extremely high due to his low Intelligence.

Before he experimented with his new skill, a cannon fired from the eastern fort wall. Coop jumped to his feet. Were they under attack? Maybe another elite monster raid had shown itself. Coop rushed over to see what happened, summoning his spear as he jogged across the still undeveloped fields adjacent to the herb garden. He tossed his spear all the way over the fort and mistjumped so that he landed on the roof.

The horizon looked completely clear, he couldn’t see anything that might have been a threat. He shifted his attention to which cannon had fired. There were three levels with cannons, so he was worried it would take him a while to find where the explosion had come from, but the smoke was a dead giveaway.

He dropped his spear to the ground and swung from the roof, gripping the edge. He flew right into the open cannon port while his weapon reappeared, manifesting in his right hand.

“Whoa!” One of the Cleary Brothers shouted in surprise.

“By the Great Golem, lad! Can’t you use the stairs like a normal person?” Balor exclaimed.

Coop found all three Cleary Brothers looking startled while holding all sorts of flammable materials, a handful of phantom soldiers picked themselves up from the ground, and an elderly gentleman that he recognized as someone who had been getting power leveled on the beach had pressed himself against the wall.

“Well, what’s going on? I thought we might be under attack, so I came running.” Coop dismissed his spear, letting it disperse from his hand.

Buck spoke up. “We’ve been conducting experiments with mana, just like you said, and we figured something out.”

Coop was surprised they had any results so soon. “Really? Tell me what you found.” He was certainly interested.

“There’s good news and bad news, I guess.” Buck started.

“There always is.” Coop shrugged noncommittally.

“We can’t really use the cannons like normal.” Buck started with the bad news. “But if the cannon is treated, a magical flame will work if it’s loaded with a conjured cannonball.”

Coop didn’t think that sounded too bad, but he blinked as he considered each modifier Buck had added. “What do you mean ‘treated’?”

“That’s where I come in.” Balor spoke up. “Mana reinforcement, just like the walls. You really want a metallurgist for something like this, but I can manage. These pre-mana relics just need to be converted.” He stated as he patted the cannon with a stone hand.

Buck explained further. “The Professor here had some theories already, based on the ignition process, so we were testing the cannons, but we couldn’t get anything to work. Balor ran into us and gave us some suggestions while we were fiddling with things.”

Buck put his palms up. “It all comes down to mana interacting with mana and interfering with everything else.”

He demonstrated by lighting a match, which successfully created a flame, then placed the match on the end of a wick that Coop assumed led to gunpowder. Coop anticipated a boom, but the flame wouldn’t catch. Buck stepped away and Coop touched the wick, finding that it wasn’t even warm despite being inside the small flame.

Buck nodded to one of the phantoms who conjured a flame at his finger and touched the wick with a completely different result. The cannon jumped with recoil as a conjured metal ball was launched into the ocean.

“So the cannons can be used, but it’ll take at least two different people to man each one. One to conjure the cannonballs and one to ignite it.” Buck concluded.

“Why did the pirate cannons work without Balor’s mana reinforcement?” Coop wondered.

Balor volunteered an answer. “Probably because those ships were rebuilt by mana in the first place… I admit, I don’t know for sure, because what I’m doing is turning these artifacts into magical tools, and they are dependent on your shard’s resources to function at all. If you brought one of these weapons outside of your territory, it would lose its connection and go back to being a hunk of human metal.”

Balor rubbed his beard as he worked through his thoughts. “I guess it’s possible that the ships are technically the settlement’s territory instead of an instrument of the territory…” Balor grew more agitated as he tried to figure it out. “Bah! It’s best to just accept that ‘mana is as mana is’ and leave it at that. Damn human inquisitiveness is like an infection.”

Fundamentally, none of them knew exactly what mana was, not even Balor. Yet it was the essential component when it came to producing any type of reaction. Mana was gatekeeping them from using basic technology and they were trying to discover the limits. Coop had really dropped a doozy of a task on the brothers, but they seemed game to continue their efforts.

He left them to their discussion after giving the soldiers the task of updating Shane on the status of the cannons. Coop headed back to the courtyard, planning to spend the rest of the day in the library.

As he passed through the town circle, splashing in the canal drew his attention to the water. Elly and Olani’s grandkids were jumping from the elevated bridge, splashing and laughing as they took turns. Balor had apparently carved ladders directly into the stone pilings of the bridge, letting them climb out and jump again.

“Coop!” Elly shouted before she took her turn, running over to Coop. “Come swim with us!”

Coop let himself be pulled over, mostly out of concern of children drowning while swimming in his fort unsupervised, or even worse, being eaten by a shark monster.

“You guys don’t have sentry duty anymore, huh?” He asked as the grandkids climbed back onto the bridge. Elly jumped into the water with a shriek and a splash.

“The soldiers took over, but we still get a shift in the mornings. We run and stretch every day!” They proudly announced. Coop was kind of jealous they were able to keep his own routine better than he was, and they were just kids.

“Does Olani know you’re swimming in the canal?” Coop asked like a responsible adult. The kids pointed to the edge of the canal where Olani was sitting. They had a lifeguard after all. She waved as he went over to have a quick chat. Apparently, she had set up rune nets on both ends of the canal more than a week ago. There was no chance of any monsters being in the water as long as she recharged the runes periodically.

Coop ended up jumping in a few times himself. He couldn’t let Elly challenge his ability to make a bigger splash than her. It only took a few gainers for him to assert his dominance. Children stood no chance against the Champion of Ghost Reef.

The kids wore themselves out climbing in and out of the canal and Coop accepted his victory with grace. Mostly because Elly threatened to get her brothers when he started gloating. Coop noticed that Olani had been joined by Charlie and Camila, spectating the divers, so he joined them. They all sat with their legs hanging over the edge.

Charlie poked him when he sat down. “Watching you scramble to get out of the water as fast as you could reminded me of when you would jump off the bridge in the times before.”

“It’s scary!” Coop defended himself. “The moat is really deep, who knows what’s lurking at the bottom. This thing might even be deeper.”

They all leaned over to look into the depths. Olani grunted, amused at their naivete.

“It is kinda scary.” Camila admitted with a slight nod.

“See!” Coop felt recognized, at last.

“You don’t have to jump in, you know.” Charlie argued with unnecessary logic.

“I couldn’t let my honor be sullied.” Coop firmly declared.

“By a little girl?”

“Especially by a little girl!”

“I’m not little!” Elly yelled from behind them.

“Yes you are!” Coop responded without missing a beat.

Elly just harrumphed and kept arguing under her breath.

Coop changed the subject to more serious matters. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be.” Camila claimed with uncharacteristic pessimism in her voice. “You got people all nervous, you know? The Empire had us believing the settlement events were when you get free levels, and everyone else’s factions left them with the same message, more or less.”

“Sorry.” Coop didn’t want to make the apocalyptic scenario any more stressful than it already was. “Jones’s faction told him to basically hide out inside a settlement and let other people deal with everything, but we were here by ourselves, so it was up to us to deal with anything that came. I’m still thinking that way.”

Camila dismissed his apology, “No, you’re right. There really aren’t that many of us compared to Empress City. We’ll all need to do that much more.” She acknowledged.

Coop nodded. “I’m gonna head to the library and do some research on events, you wanna come?”

Camila laughed. “It’s not a final exam, I don’t think cramming will help.” She stood up and Charlie followed. “We can’t anyway, we’ve got a date with Charlie’s parents to grind some monsters as a party.”

“Ah, well, have fun.” Coop said his goodbyes.

Olani went back to Sojjah's alchemy shop now that her supervision duties were complete. She was producing as many health tinctures as she could, so they would have a decent supply to share among the fighters.

Coop was going to do some last minute research on previous assimilations before he readied himself for the event.