Chương 457: Status Report

The procurement of my next spark went without a hitch. Just like when I acquired my first spark, my father led me to the local [Priest], who brought me to the Ember, and helped guide a little spark of flames from the ember into my body. From there, I dragged it into my heart, where the world's local System helped integrate into my body. Nothing unusual happened during the process.

After gaining my second spark, I did see a new, rather important notification though, in addition to the notification that I had gained a level. First of all, I got a few more stat points than I had gotten when I was working on my first Spark. This served as a confirmation that with every additional spark, the stat rewards for each level increased quite significantly. You have leveled up! Ice Mage has advanced from level 20 to level 21! You have acquired a secondary Spark!

+5 Free Stat Points +2 Sense +2 Mind +2 Vitality +4 Mana Originally, I had gained a total of 8 stat points per level while I was working on my first spark. I had also done some rough calculations, and had come to the conclusion that people probably got around 16 stats per level for their second spark, 24 stats per level for their third, and so on. I had been surprisingly close, although not quite right. For the first level of my second spark, I got 15 stat points instead of 16.

I decided to ask the [Priest] about it, and he confirmed that this was normal for someone's second spark. Every single secondary spark gave someone 15 stat points per level, just like everyone's first spark gave people 8 stat points per level. The distribution changed, but the total amount never did. However, the [Priest] also gave me a rather interesting tidbit of information. The third spark gave people 25 stat points per level…

unless they got a compound Spark, since the weakest and smallest compound sparks only needed two sparks to combine into a compound spark. Compound sparks were always better than regular sparks. They gave more stat points per level, and usually gave better skills than regular sparks. Sometimes, compound sparks even gave people multiple skills, unlike normal sparks, which only gave one skill per spark.

This was also why people of this world put so much emphasis on compound sparks - they were where people started to differentiate their build significantly from their peers, and where people with better builds or better planning started to gain huge advantages over people with weaker builds or poorer long term plans. Compound sparks were where the elites differentiated themselves from people with more ordinary progression paths.

That information made me somewhat eager to see what my own compound Class would look like, once I reached level 60 and had 3 [Ice Mage] sparks at maximum level. According to the [Priest], while rare, people occasionally got feats that gave them access to unique or unusual compound sparks. Usually, those sparks tended to be a bit stronger than the average combination - although it still varied a lot from one spark to another.

I would need to wait until level 61 to see what my compound spark did, but I had high hopes for it. The second thing I got upon receiving a new Spark was expected, but no less welcome. It was my second Skill. You have Acquired a Skill: Born of Winter's Hold (Tier 0) Unfortunately, that was all of the information I had about the Skill. My first Skill, {Basic Ice Manipulation}, had made it easy for me to manipulate ice and snow using the System's assistance, even when the Perk was at tier 0.

My second skill didn't have anywhere near the same level of assistance or detail. Instead, I got some very, very vague mental concepts associated with it - but I had a very hard time making out exactly what my new skill did, or how to use it. I just got the strong impression that I needed to spend some time in a giant pile of snow, and then I needed to draw in the concept of the 'cold' in order to activate my Skill. This was far from the enlightenment I was hoping for.

When I asked the [Priest] about the Skill, he said that most people who got a spark got one of a few different Skills - but the further they advanced, the more likely it was that they would get an unusual Skill, based on their accomplishments, feats, personal characteristics, or any number of other oddities that could cause quirks in the advancement process. He had never heard of {Born of Winter's Hold}. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

After hearing his words, along with the realization that the Skill relied on the conceptual side of reality, it didn't take me very long to figure out where this bizarre skill had come from. Clearly, the local System had noticed some aspect of my eldritch nature, and this skill was created as a result. As far as I could tell, eldritch beings were at least partly conceptual in nature, rather than physical - and this skill leaned heavily into that aspect of the Eldritch.

In any case, while the Skill was weird, the fact that it was eldritch also made me feel excited. Eldritch-related abilities and powers seemed to be quite strong, and strength was what I needed to keep myself and my friends safe. I would just need to spend a bit more time exploring my Skill to get it online. The final thing I did was finish building my third rune. Shortly after I acquired my second spark, I felt my third rune snap into place, making the day one big festival of upgrades for me.

After I finished recreating my defensive-boost rune, I overwrote the third rune I had stored in the {Brand of Miria}. Then, I took the fourth through tenth runes, which I had acquired in our previous world, and copied them all onto my body, thus bringing me back up to ten total runes and rebuilding a huge portion of the strength I had lost after our last death. After that, I took a moment to look over my overall Status Screen.

I had put the stat points from my first ten levels into Vitality, and my stat points from my next 10 levels, as well as the points for going from level 20 to level 21, all into mana. Name: Miria Age: 3 Spark: 2 Current Spark: Ice Mage Previous Sparks: Ice Mage Level: 21/40 Stat points: 0 Basic Attributes Strength: 38 (+19) (-80%) Resistance: 37 (+27) (-80%) Vitality: 69 (+21) (-80%) Sense: 79 (+227)(-80%) Agility: 17 (+21) (-80%) Mind: 40 (+40)(-80%) Mana: 179 (-80%) Traits: Child: All stats are reduced by 80%.

This Trait will constantly decrease in effect as you get older, until it completely fades away at the age of 16 Unusual energy: You have two unusual forms of energy, both of which are different from the standard two forms of essence that create 'mana.' These strange forms of energy act as completely separate mana pools, and may allow you to do odd and unique things.

Strange Runes: You have ten mysterious runes inscribed on your body, each of which provides you with a unique spell and a substantial boost to your Mind and Sense stats, and a partial boost to your Resistance stat. This also gives you a variety of other unique abilities, such as enhanced sensory perception beyond what your [Sense] stat would indicate, unique combined abilities, and unique interactions with spatial manipulation.

Mind: +40 Sense: +227 Resistance: +27 Strength: +19 Vitality: +21 Agility: +21 Unique Spells: Miniature Gate, Abyssal Perception, Oceanic Void Shield Skills: Basic Ice Manipulation: Stage 1 Born of Winter's Hold Feats: None I found the interaction between the runes of the Market's Ability System and the world's local stats to be quite odd. As far as I knew, when using the Market's System, each time we advanced from one grade to another, that respective stat would get about a 1. 5X multiplier.

That seemed to be somewhat reflected in the way my stats got boosted - [Sense], for example, got about a 1. 3X boost, which made sense since I knew that past grade ten there were reductions on how much a stat got boosted per grade. However, the stats I would have gotten from my physical runes in the rune magic system seemed muted - it was as if they had totally failed to take into account the fact that I was now at a much higher [Vitality] stat than when I had first entered this world.

my [Vitality], for example, looked almost as if the Market had multiplied my original stat by 1. 5 times, but had failed to take into account all of the stat points I had added to [Vitality] during my time levelling up in this world. This comparison between Systems also made me appreciate the Market's System a bit more.

It started out a bit slower than this world's System, but its exponential nature meant that eventually, our group would have absolutely absurd base stats compared to other forms of development that were accessible in other worlds. After all, the Market's System relied on exponential growth rather than linear growth. Still, I did wish the two Systems were a bit more compatible with each other.

If the stat boosts from the Market's System were able to take into account the stats I had added from the local world's System, my stats would have reached truly incredible numbers. Sadly, it didn't work like that. I could only shrug this off as one of the oddities that came from using two different Systems at the same time. It was a bit disappointing that the boost wasn't as dramatic and large as it could have been, but at the very least, I could still use multiple magic systems at once to grow stronger.

That was worth something.