Chương 39: Chapter 38 - Tier 2 Upgrade

Thursday she sparred with Henry, and lost five to zero. It was her first time scoring zero points in a spar since her match with Seltzer, but she had expected as much one she heard who she was up against. Friday she won her match, her first win of the week. With the teaching points included, she earned ten points for the week, ending the week with seventeen.

More importantly, by the end of the week she felt as if she had worked Forest Form flawlessly into the other three, and had begun working on mastering Air Form and Wind Form. Forest Form had come more quickly, since she had already studied it plenty, but she was sure it would take her a week or two to get Air and Wind Form to feel like second nature. Both were strong against Fire Form, and she felt they would round out her kit nicely while she learned the final three.

Friday night, Dustin also mentioned that Lord Grivalt had introduced him to the entrepreneur, and he had delivered 8 ruby coins, the equivalent of 800 gold coins, just as promised. The merchant was planning to leave town the following morning. With no classes on the weekend, and nothing else to work on, Kiara spent ample time practicing the sword, and thinking about her improvements.

She realized that the guards at her estate, while a good visual deterrent to robbers and bandits, weren't as skilled as they might appear. They didn't offer much in the way of true protection. She would prefer if her guards were as well trained as they could be. She decided to talk to Captain Soren about it. She found him in the guardhouse Saturday morning, playing cards with a few of the other guards.

"Captain! Do you have a minute?"

"For you, milady? Of course." He stood, saluted sharply, and led the way into a small side room for some privacy.

"What's on your mind?" Kiara sat in the chair across from him and got right to it.

"I've been rather enjoying my lessons at Handel's Sword Academy." He nodded.

"Good for you ma'am, you deserve it."

"What I mean to say is, I've been learning a lot, and my skill level has improved dramatically." He cut her off as she took a breath, "Well deserved ma'am, you train very hard."

"Let me finish!" she swatted him gently on the arm. He smirked. She continued, "Would you be interested in attending? Would your guards be interested?"

"Oh. Uh, some of the guards prefer spears, or other weapons instead of swords."

"We could find instructors that teach those weapon types too, I'm sure." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Not to put too fine a point on it ma'am, but those types of academies are quite expensive. I doubt many of my guards would want to spend their hard earned coin on it. Most of us served in the army for a stint or two, and the basic training we received there pretty much covers it for most guard positions. The only ones that can afford anything more are the wealthy. Noble scions, powerful mages, people such as yourself." Ah, I didn't explain well enough, she thought.

"I would cover the cost, of course," she clarified.

"I want my guard unit to be as well trained as possible. Even just a few months in a class like the one I'm attending could help improve their proficiency dramatically." Captain Soren stared at her blankly for a moment.

"That is… extremely generous of you, milady. How many of us would you like to give this opportunity to? I can pick out my best men and women."

"Oh, as many as would like to," she replied, waving her hand nonchalantly.

"Don't force anyone into it, but anyone that wants to improve their ability should be given the chance. I'll talk to Dustin about it, I'm sure we can work it into the house finances. If not, I'll cover the cost personally." His earlier joking demeanor now gone, Soren bowed his head solemnly.

"I'm sure that most, if not all, will jump at a chance such as this, Lady Shian."

"Perfect! For a little bit of extra incentive, let's say that in six months' time, we'll hold an in-house competition for each of the main weapon types that your soldiers are using. The winner of each competition will receive a five gold coin bonus." Five gold coins was about the monthly salary that most of these guards received. She expected it would stir up quite a bit of excitement and motivation for improvement. She hoped all of her guards would progress nicely during that time.

Captain Soren looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Five gold is a lot of coin, milady, are you certain?" She nodded. He continued, "The guards will be in an uproar when they hear about it. Before we tell anyone, I think we should confirm which weapon types we will be rewarding. Otherwise, I think we'll show up on the day of the competition and have twenty different weapon types being claimed as a 'preferred weapon'." She laughed lightly.

"That sounds about right. Let's say we'll do it for the sword, spear, mace, axe, and bow and arrow. How does that sound?" He bowed again.

"Wonderful, Lady Shian. More wonderful than you realize. And since I know they'll ask, can they participate in more than one event if they so choose?" She thought for a moment, then nodded.

"I don't see why not."

"Very good then. If any additional questions arise, I will take them up with Dustin."

"Perfect! Thank you, Captain Soren, for your time." He smiled.

"I assure you, Lady Yountal, the pleasure was all mine." * Monday brought about a day that Kiara had been waiting three months for. She pulled open her status to see that she was eligible to upgrade to tier 2. Class Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. As things tend to malfunction when you are around, you have been granted the class of Anti-Mage. Basic magic won't affect you in the same way it does other people.

As you grow stronger and advance through the tiers in your class, you will gain other abilities as well, pertinent to your new tier. Current tier: 1 Advancement through the tiers of your class will be time based. Next advancement: 0 days. [Upgrade to tier 2] It was early morning, and she was still in her room. Breakfast wouldn't be for another half hour, so she mentally selected the option to upgrade to tier 2, and was rewarded with a new page of text.

New abilities: [Magical Sense 3] Sense life forms around you, down to the size of insects. You have a general sense of the size and location of each life form, as well as a general idea of the danger they present. Can roughly gauge the tier of other mages. Can sense the general location of plants in the area as well. Range: 50 feet (modified). Rewards + 1 reward point +170 Stats points. Next advancement: 8 months [Magical Sense 3] increased her range by 20 feet, with a few additional perks.

She didn't have any plants or mages in her room, so she would have to try those new features out later. She wasn't sure why, but for some reason she had been expecting a bit more for her upgrade to tier 2. An improvement on an existing ability and some improved stats were great, but not as much as she'd hoped for. Next, she jumped to the stats screen.

Unspent Points: +170 Strength: 126 (Suggested +50) Mind: 100 (MAX) (Suggested +10) Endurance: 56 (Suggested +10) Healing: 31 (Suggested +35) Sleep Fatigue Resistance: 21 (Suggested +5) Food / Nourishment Requirement: 21 (Suggested +20) Durability: 84 (Suggested +25) Life Expectancy: 64 (Suggested +15) She considered the possibility that Lord Grivalt might not ever agree to release her family from their debts. Or, something urgent might come up, and she would be required to fight her way out of a situation.

Those were the most pressing matters on her mind right now, as she considered which stats to upgrade. She was tempted to put all of her points into her Strength stat, just for the increased speed that it would give her. Her improved Endurance helped with her training, but if she paced herself properly she was already able to train for hours, so that stat was probably ok where it was for now. Healing might help after a fight, but if she was fast enough she could maybe avoid any injuries altogether.

Sleep Fatigue Resistance and Food / Nourishment Requirement both seemed nice, but were more of a luxury than a need right now. Less need for sleep meant that she would have more hours to train, but with Dustin running the estate she already had enough training time as it was. She already knew that she didn't want to put any more points into Life Expectancy right now, but she was strongly considering putting some points into the Durability stat.

While increased speed from her Strength stat would help her avoid damage in a fight, so would Durability. Any hits that landed would have a harder time damaging her. She was also still mildly worried about increasing her Strength stat too high without improving Durability enough to keep up, increasing the stress it would put on her organs and other parts of her body to move so quickly.

Then again, she had already put quite a few points into Durability, so maybe that wasn't something she needed to worry about for some time yet. Due to the effects of the dueling collars, none of these improved stats would help her in her sword class, so she was really just optimizing for the possibility of an actual life or death fight.

She decided that some extra Durability might be nice, and allocated her points like this: Unspent Points: +0 Strength: 126 => 276 (+150) Mind: 100 => 100 (MAX) Endurance: 56 => 56 (+0) Healing: 31 => 31 (+0) Sleep Fatigue Resistance: 21 => 21 (+0) Food / Nourishment Requirement: 21 => 21 (+0) Durability: 84 => 104 (+20) Life Expectancy: 64 => 64 (+0) Satisfied with her decision, she looked at what was next.

With one unspent reward point, she checked the available rewards: Reward Points: 1 [Upgrade Stats (tier-based)] cost: 1 point. Gain +170 points to spend on stats [Guaranteed Advancement] cost: 1 point. The normal advancement times for each tier of your class will be capped at 1 year. Advancements that happen before that are unaffected. [Stat Checker] cost: 1 point. Gain the ability to view other people's stats. [Limit Breaker] cost: 1 point.

Gain the ability to upgrade your stats up to double their original MAX value. [Soul Space 2] cost: 1 point. Your soul can function as a spatial storage device, accessible only by you. The space itself will be spherical, with a diameter of 10 feet. Anything placed in the soul space will enter a time stasis. As a bonus, this space can serve as a coin denomination exchanger for a 5% fee. [Early Personal Aura Negation] cost: 2 points. Others' magical auras will have no effect on you.

The [Early Personal Aura Negation] cost had come down again. She was now more and more certain that she would gain some version of that ability when she reached tier 4. Interestingly, the [Upgrade Stats (tier-based)] reward had changed. For both previous upgrades, it had offered her 130 additional points for her stats, and now it was offering her 170. That matched exactly with how many stats points she had received for each upgrade. The 'tier-based' qualifier made more sense to her now.

That reward was simply offering her a second round of stats upgrades based on whatever her most recent tier upgrade had given her. While the extra stats would be nice, she didn't think that reward was the best one on the list, and certainly not the best one that she might see in the future. She still had her eye on the [Limit Breaker] reward, but didn't want to spend her point just yet. She was careful as she stood up, not trusting her new found power yet from her increased Strength stat.

She stumbled around for a bit before becoming accustomed to her updated speed and strength. By the time she went downstairs for breakfast, she could walk like a normal human being again. She was excited to test out her increased stats.