Chương 98: Book 2 Chapter 50 - Tier 3 Upgrade

The next month passed in relative peace for Kiara. The same couldn't be said for the rest of Easton. True to Kane's warning, the Benson district saw increased levels of tension for a week or two, before boiling over into fighting and even riots. Normally, the city lord would be responsible for intervening and mediating these types of conflict, but Baron Norshod was refusing to get involved. He claimed that doing so would amount to him 'taking sides', which he was refusing to do as a matter of principle.

Kiara's opinion of him dropped more and more with time. Maintaining peace and safety in the city was his responsibility. To let it go on like this, especially in such a publicly visible way, was despicable. She was also frustrated with the three houses leading the charge. The city was devolving into a mess, and yet they were plowing forward with reckless abandon. Entire sections of the Benson district had shut down either for safety reasons, or because all of the workers had gone on strike.

Dustin had still been maintaining House Yountal's distance from the situation, focusing more and more on the growth of their businesses in Portish. His trips out there seemed productive, and he always returned with good news. He had found willing business partners in the blacksmith and alchemy industries, but nothing yet for enchanting. He had tried contacting Victor about a possible partnership, but apparently Victor wasn't at his shop. The neighboring shops said they hadn't seen him in weeks.

Their other businesses in Portish were beginning to flourish. Renaldo's shop had been completely torn down and rebuilt, and was operating again like normal. The tier 2 guards Dustin had hired in Portish were working in shifts, twelve hours on then twelve hours off, making rounds and keeping an eye on all of House Yountal's shops.

As the number of shops grew, Dustin was worried they'd be hard pressed to find enough free agent tier 2s to fill their rosters, and so he'd started hiring tier 1 guards as well to keep an eye on things in Portish. Belliston was nearing the end of the original list of sign ups for his private magic tutoring. The estate guards had all rotated through, each of those sessions only lasting about an hour, and the rest of the servants had spent two weeks with him.

Only eight of the estate servants had been able to form their mana core, about thirty percent. Belliston seemed to think those percentages were normal. He informed Kiara that of those eight, maybe one or two might eventually make it to tier 2, but that process usually took a few months. As the original list of volunteers all had their turn learning from Belliston, Kiara added her family's names to the end of the list, starting with Ava.

She also discussed with Dustin that they should start allowing their employees that didn't live at the estate to start rotating in for lessons afterward. She still sparred a few times each week with Handel, and was now performing at about the same skill level as he did. Sometimes they practiced with two weapons, but for the most part they stuck to a single sword, since that was the tournament Handel was preparing for.

For Kiara's part, she alternated each time which hand she used, maintaining and improving her mastery with both. The next few weeks were a blur. Ava was able to form her mana core after just one week, which had Belliston excited for some reason. He said that type of speed might imply a high magical affinity.

Although he had originally implied he would only teach the basics of magic, and after tier 1 each of the servants would be responsible for their own continued learning, he made a special exception for Ava, and began tutoring her through her advancement towards tier 2. Kiara's parents also started their private lessons with Belliston, but it had only been a few days for them, and they hadn't had time to form their cores yet. Kiara awoke on a Monday morning full of excitement.

It was early, still dark out, but she was done sleeping. She had been watching her countdown to her tier 3 upgrade for weeks now, sometimes checking it multiple times per day, and today was the day. As soon as her eyes opened for the day, she bolted upright, immediately pulling up her class description. 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: 2 Advancement through the tiers of your class will be time based. Next advancement: 0 days. [Upgrade to tier 3] She mentally selected the option to upgrade to tier 3, and was rewarded with a new page of text. New/Upgraded abilities: [Magical Sense 4] 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 fairly accurate idea of the danger they present. Can accurately gauge the tier of other people, and distinguish between the signatures of their presence. Can sense the location and size of plants in the area. Range: 100 feet (modified). [Mind Sentinel] Can perfectly perceive mental probes and attacks directed at you. [Mind Fortress 4] A strong defense against mental probes and attacks.

Only the most skilled practitioners in mental magic will be able to bypass your defenses. [Artifact Compass] A perfect sense for where enchanted items are in your vicinity. Range: 20 feet. [Artifact Sage 3] Rudimentary sense for deciphering how magical traps and artifacts work, what their purpose is, and how to avoid them or disarm them. Success will be highly dependent on and directly disproportionate to the skill with which the artifact was made.

Rewards +1 reward point +290 Stats points Next advancement: 2 years That was a lot to unpack. Holy cow. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. First of all, 290 points this time for her stats? I mean, she wasn't complaining, that was incredible, but… 290? Why so many? She once again wondered if her upgrades were directly correlated to how a normal mage received upgrades to their stats.

Did they get the same amount of points as she was getting at each level, just without the ability to allocate the points manually? Did they receive similar abilities as well? What did the 4 in [Mind Fortress 4] represent? Why hadn't she seen [Mind Fortress 1] or [Mind Fortress 2]? Was the 4 indicative of something else, like perhaps her new ability was on the level that a tier 4 mage usually received? If so, why? Why was [Artifact Sage 3] at level 3 instead of 4 when the other new abilities were at level 4?

She had been a little bit underwhelmed with her tier 2 upgrade, as she hadn't received as many new abilities as she'd been hoping for. She remembered mentally complaining about it, and wondered if the World Engine had heard her and adjusted accordingly, or if this had always been the plan. She silently hoped that the World Engine would pick this as one of the times where it felt obligated to explain its actions to her, but her waiting proved to be futile. She was met only with silence.

She took her time going through each new or upgraded ability individually. [Magical Sense 4] had an increased range! 100 feet instead of 50. She immediately tried it out, extending her senses outward, and was rewarded with a flood of new information. Her room was centralized enough on the second floor that her [Magical Sense 4] range now covered the entire interior of the house. She could easily tell where each person was, and even noticed slight differences in the way each presence felt.

There was nothing about each person's signature that gave away who they were, but the signatures were different enough that she was sure she could learn to recognize each of them just by their signature if she tried. She easily located Zoey, Jaden, and Belliston, as they were the only tier 3s in the house. She wasn't sure at first who was who. She narrowed her field of perception, focusing on each presence individually. One of the three signatures simply felt older than the other two.

Like a great meal that had been left out for too long. It might look the same as a normal meal at first glance, but closer inspection would reveal that it had a different sheen, or perhaps a crust had formed around the edges. She assumed that signature was Belliston. It was also the only tier 3 signature that wasn't moving. Zoey claimed a tier 3 only needed three hours of sleep each night, and both her and Jaden seemed to already be awake. Or perhaps they hadn't gone to bed yet.

At any rate, Belliston defied that rule by sleeping ten to twelve hours each day. Maybe he didn't need the rest, but simply enjoyed the feeling of sleeping. Kiara focused on each of the active tier 3 signatures, getting a feel for how they differed. Unlike Belliston they didn't feel any different in a time-based way, but she did get a slightly different sense of danger when she focused on each of them.

Both signatures felt powerful, especially compared to the tier 1 and tier 2 signatures in the house, but one of them felt distinctly more dangerous to her than the other. The gap wasn't large, but it was noticeable. She wasn't sure who was who, but was very curious to find out. Not curious enough to skip finishing her upgrade though. She looked at the next two abilities, [Mind Sentinel] and [Mind Fortress 4].

Mental probes and attacks was a branch of magic she hadn't even known existed until she'd seen this ability. She was suddenly very glad that she had been doing her best to stay away from very powerful people. She wasn't sure if she had ever been subject to a mental probe or attack in the past. At least now she would be able to sense them and defend herself against them. [Artifact Compass] was intriguing to her. Twenty feet wasn't a very long range, but she was excited to see how it worked.

She pulled one of her swords out of her soul storage to see what would happen. As soon as it manifested in this dimension, a new sense immediately flared to life. The sword lit up in her mind, and she was absolutely certain, with no shadow of a doubt, that it was an enchanted object. This new sense didn't interact with her physical senses at all, instead it was like a sixth sense… or seventh sense, since she also had [Magical Sense 4].

She held the sword behind her back to see if she needed it to be in her line of sight, but her mind still pinged her furiously that there was an enchanted object behind her back. She put the sword against one wall, then walked to the other wall. Her room was just large enough for the sword to fall out of range, and it simply disappeared from her senses. She took a step forward, and it reappeared, as obvious to her as the sun at midday. It was an obvious alert in her mind, but not so loud as to be distracting.

Almost like walking into someone's house and smelling cinnamon rolls. You knew the smell was there, and you could identify it easily, but you could also ignore it if needed, without much inconvenience. She found that she could also do the equivalent of holding her breath in the cinnamon roll scenario, and simply turn off the sense altogether. Unlike [Magical Sense 4], which required her to manually toggle it on and off, [Artifact Compass] was just always on, unless she was consciously holding down the off button.

As soon as she let her focus slip from disabling the ability, it flared back to life. Luckily, it wasn't overly distracting in any way. She knew it paired well with her next ability, [Artifact Sage 3], so she tried that one out next. As she stared at her sword on the other side of the room, she focused on activating [Artifact Sage 3], and she was immediately rewarded with information about the sword and its enchantments. She immediately understood the purpose of the sword was to be a sword.

She realized it was a silly thought as soon as she had it, but when analyzing other artifacts, she was sure that the ability to determine an artifact's purpose would come in handy. Next she focused on the sword's enchantments. She almost immediately understood why the ability described it as a 'rudimentary' sense. She knew that the enchantments were geared towards durability and sharpness, but couldn't dig any deeper than that.

This was the sword she had purchased herself, and remembering what Victor had told her about the sharpness enchantment working mainly to maintain the blade's edge, she had been hoping to at least see that much with this new ability, but was disappointed by the result. She pulled Victor's gifted sword out of her soul storage to compare the results.

[Artifact Compass] immediately pinged her about the new artifact, and interestingly, the alert seemed brighter, like a second light had been turned on with enough luminosity to make the first light seem dim by comparison. [Artifact Sage 3] once again gave her information that the sword had enchantments related to durability and sharpness, but not much else.

She tried comparing the information coming from each sword, and could kind of sense some kind of difference in the enchantments on each, but not well enough for it to seem helpful to her. Maybe with practice her ability to decipher the information available to her now would improve. Finally, she pulled up her Stats page.

Unspent Points: +290 Strength: 289 (Suggested +40) Mind: 100 (MAX) (Suggested +10) Endurance: 58 (Suggested +10) Healing: 32 (Suggested +90) Sleep Fatigue Resistance: 22 (Suggested +10) Food / nourishment requirement: 22 (Suggested +25) Durability: 109 (Suggested +55) Life Expectancy: 67 (Suggested +50) She pondered on what to do.