A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World-Chapter 210

It only took a few moments for Alice to feel overwhelmed by the mana swarming into her class seeds. It was a collage of color and mana that left her vision looking like a confused rainbow. Alice started desperately filtering mana, because if she didn’t, her magic seeds would get hopelessly clogged in seconds, and unclogging the whole mess would become a nightmare. Even more annoying, the mana didn’t stop for several minutes. Right after she unclogged a Class seed, it immediately got blocked by more mana, giving Alice the distinct impression that her Class seeds were trying to suck up everything in the room.

After nearly five straight minutes of managing class mana, the flow of mana finally tapered off, allowing Alice to process what had just happened. She opened up her System notifications to see what had changed.

You have leveled up!

Explorer of Magic: 91 -> 95, Scientist: 74 -> 79, Scholar: 72 -> 78, Careful Enchanter: 47 -> 50, Legendary Organic Healer: 10 -> 17

The first thing she noticed was the amount of levels she received for [Explorer of Magic]. Normally, Alice didn’t get very many levels in [Explorer of Magic]. Ever since she had passed level 75, her progress had slowed to a crawl. It was more than a little gratifying to see such a huge boost in levels. Of course, [Explorer of Magic] wasn’t the only class that had gained a ridiculous number of levels at once - almost every Class related to her research had grown by a huge amount. It had been quite a while since Alice had gotten even one Perk in some of her Classes. Now, she had… Four Perks to choose at once?

The boosts that Alice would gain as a result of this experiment might help her a great deal going forward… though what Alice needed from her Classes had also changed significantly. At least as far as she could tell, she had successfully built a very rough ‘workaround’ for the broken System. Now, she needed to focus on propagating her repair job, which meant she needed a very different set of Perks. She also needed to focus more on Perks that gave her immediate benefits, instead of ones that helped her grow over time. There wasn’t much time left anything before things really imploded, and in some places, things already had imploded. She didn’t have time to waste focusing on long-term growth anymore. She needed results now.

Alice sighed, before she turned her attention back to her System notifications. Levels weren’t the only thing she had gotten.

You have gained an achievement!

First Steps (III -> IV) (Rarity: 8 -> 10)

You have found an effective way to handle most of the problems resulting from the collapse of the System. While you have yet to find a way to propagate your ‘solution’ to the rest of the world, you have found a way to sidestep or replace almost every missing component of the System. Your version of the System might be notably inferior to the ‘real’ System… but that hardly matters in a crisis..

+100% -> +150% growth speed for Enchanter classes, +40% -> 100% growth speed for all Classes, +100% -> 150% growth speed for healing classes, +200% Growth for all Research based Classes, Better intuitive understanding of how ‘belief’ mana interacts with the world around you and how you can manipulate it to accomplish your own goals.

You can improve up to five objects by increasing the number of enchanting instructions they can hold by 1. Can be activated up to 5 times a month. To activate this Perk, place the item in your storage Perk and then focus on this Achievement. (can only be used on each object once.)

You may also ‘repair’ a magic construct instead of increasing the number enchantment instructions, but this is still subject to the five object limitation. Mana constructs do not need to be placed in storage to be repaired, but you must be in close proximity to them and/or be touching them. (If the mana construct is in another person’s body, you must also obtain permission from the owner before repairing anything).

The second thing Alice noticed was the Achievement {First Steps}. The Perk had picked up some new text. First of all, it now gave her a 200% growth boost for all research related Classes. With this boost, combined with her other progress and her current level, Alice wasn’t worried about hitting Immortality anymore - simple math made it obvious that unless something catastrophic happened, she would get there. Still, levelling speed boosts were always welcome. However, the second new line of text was quite a bit more interesting. It improved her intuitive understanding of ‘belief’ mana… a type of mana that Alice had started to realize was increasingly relevant to her needs, even if it took a lot of setup to use.

However, {First Steps} wasn’t the only Achievement that had received an upgrade..

Seeker of Truth (IV -> V) (Rarity:10)

You have seen most glimpses of the System. While you have yet to learn everything, you understand the foundation of it all. What you choose to do with this knowledge could reshape the world, for better or for worse.

Tread carefully.

+1 Primary Class Slot(s) -> +2 Primary Class Slots, 400% -> 450% class experience for all research-related classes, 25% -> 40% Effect of Intelligence, +30% Effect of Perception. Your ability to see Mana is significantly enhanced. You will no longer experience any interference at all when attempting to observe phenomena involving mana, and will be able to see perfectly clearly.

The third thing Alice noticed was the upgrade to {Seeker of Truth}. It looked like she had gotten an extra primary Class slot, which allow Alice to have seven Primary Classes instead of six.

Alice had a pretty good idea what she wanted to spend that extra Class slot on, too. [Legendary Organic Healer] was an amazing Class, and Alice was more than happy to have it as a ‘main’ Class instead of a side Class. Alice wasn’t sure whether this would give her three extra Perks from the Class [Legendary Organic Healer] had evolved from, but either way… Alice was either looking at two amazing Perks and three mediocre Perks, or two new amazing Perks. No matter what, it was still a good deal. After realizing what she could do, she moved [Legendary Organic Healer] to her new main class slot.

A moment later, Alice grinned. She had gained 5 new Perk slots, not 2. 3 of the Perk slots came from [Student of Organic Magic], and 2 Perk slots came from [Legendary Organic Healer].

“Get anything good?” asked Jonathan, dragging Alice out of her thoughts for a moment.

“Lots of levels. And a new Achievement,” said Alice. “Lemme finish picking stuff, and then I’ll get back to you.”

Jonathan nodded patiently, and Alice returned to her System screens. This time, she opened up her Perk list.

The first thing she looked at was [Explorer of Magic]. It was her strongest class, and at this point, it was very, very close to evolving again. Alice was pretty excited to see what options she would get when it came for her class evolution, which was only five levels away. Knowledge about Class evolutions for more advanced Classes were scarce, because anyone who evolved a proper, non-apprentice Class was on the borderline of reaching Immortality. By that time, people’s path tended to be so individual and unique that there was no longer any real meaning in sharing information - no two Immortals had the same build, after all. Not to mention the risk of leaking vital information to hostile Immortals, or enemy nations. Information gathering was inevitable, since Immortals didn’t change their build very fast, but there was no reason to help other people with that information gathering.

In other words, Alice was uncertain what came next. All she knew was that it would probably be a massive upgrade.

Alice shook off her thoughts, and finally got to looking at her Perk combinations.

Absurdly enough, she only had one Tier 2 Perk left in [Explorer of Magic], {Combat Seed}. Every other Tier 2 Perk had already been used as fuel for Perk combination. The only two remaining Tier 1 Perks were {Broken Seed} and {Seeds of Magic}. {Broken Seed} was too important to give up, and {Seeds of Magic} didn’t give her anything she really cared about enough to combine with another Perk. Alice thought about whether she wanted to use {Combat Seed} for anything, before she decided she did. Her combat abilities might not be her primary focus right now, but she could still afford to boost them.

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Combat Seed (Tier 2 perk, level 60 Explorer of Magic) (Level 15 Explorer of Magic perk + Level 20 Explorer of Magic perk)

Perk costs: Combat Spellcaster + Improved Seed sacrificed to create this perk.

You may attach a small extra layer of mana to any object you use your kinetic seed to manipulate. This extra layer of mana has the ability to shred other forms of mana it comes into contact with, completely nullifying any attempts to heal wounds or interfere with objects your mana is stuck to until the mana is removed. If an object thrown using this seed becomes embedded in another person, it will fracture into pieces of shrapnel inside their body if it is possible for the object to do so. These pieces of shrapnel will retain your layer of mana-shredding kinetic mana until another mage removes it.

Note: Other mages may remove this extra layer of mana using their own mana, even without specialized perks. However, doing so will be mentally draining and require careful use of mana. It will be difficult to do quickly unless they are much stronger than you.

Alice could still see a lot of value in this Perk… at least in theory. The problem was that these days, most ‘ammunition’ she used during a fight was enchanted to do something similar already. This Perk was incredibly useful when Alice was using her environment to fight, but right now, Alice’s fighting style didn’t rely on her environment.

The other issue was that Alice had been fighting far more monsters than humans recently. Since monsters tended to have weird magic seeds, their ability to heal themselves was either nonexistent, or interacted poorly with this Perk - such as the fog monsters from the swamp. Since those monsters had essentially revived themselves after death, instead of healing themselves, Perks like this one were irrelevant in similar scenarios.

However, this Perk still had some use cases, so Alice hoped that a Perk combination would make it useful again. The question was what to combine it with.

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Alice started scanning the Perks from her other Classes, and after some consideration, found another Perk she was happy to use for Perk combination.

Touch the Untouchable

Requirements: Survivor level 70 or higher, Have fought an Immortal and survived, have killed a Magic focused Immortal, have at least 3 different magic seeds, have a magic stat of 150 or higher, have a focus on kinetic magic.

Any attempt to manipulate ‘motion’ around you will be understood by you on an instinctual level. This perk will also make it much harder for items to ‘shield’ themselves against manipulation, whether by Perk or by specialized types of mana. In practice, this means that you will encounter far fewer items or threats that you have a hard time ‘moving’ using your kinetic mana.

This Perk was pretty useful already, because it helped Alice negate most attempts to make it hard to manipulate other objects.

{Touch the Untouchable} and {Combat Seed} could even be considered two sides of the same coin. Both made it harder for hostile mages to interact with or cut off her own projectiles. Alice suspected that combining these two Perks wouldn’t give her a very powerful anti-monster Perk, but it would probably give her a useful way to seriously weaken hostile Mages, at least. Alice checked the predicted results of the Perk combination, smiled, and activated the Perk combination.

Broken Kinetics (Tier 3 perk, level 95 Explorer of Magic)

Perk costs: Touch the Untouchable + Combat Seed sacrificed to create this perk.

All objects that you manipulate using kinetic mana are cloaked against hostile magical perception. (This effect works by ‘cloaking’ the objects in question to ordinary magic senses and similar, lower level Perks. An enemy might be able to override this with the right Perks, or with a high enough [Perception] stat). No extra mana is needed to fuel this ability, though a minimum threshold of mana must be spent on the object’s movement in order to trigger this Perk.

Any objects you throw using kinetic mana and which touch the flesh of another human being will release an extra burst of kinetic mana upon impact, which will attempt to shatter nearby bones, ligaments, flesh, and muscles. This mana burst is based on the initial amount of mana used to manipulate the object, and is subject to the same mana resistance that all living beings innately possess. This also does not cost any extra mana to use.

This Perk’s effects may be partially or fully disabled at any time.

Alice blinked.

This was new. It was also excellent.

Most Perks that worked against other people had several caveats and asterisks attached to them. The previous version of {Combat Seed}, for example, made it harder for people to remove mana from objects she had thrown… but it didn’t outright stop them from sensing the objects using typical Perks. It was like a layer of shielding. On the other hand, this Perk seemed more like if the other person didn’t have a high enough [Perception], objects she had thrown around with Kinetic mana that had used a ‘certain threshold’ amount of mana would basically bypass weaker [Kinetic Mages]. Alice was sure that there were probably plenty of Perks that could counter this, and it would also be useless once she ran out of mana. Still, it was a very scary Perk for people who didn’t have the right counter for it.

This Perk alone would make her a massive threat on a smaller battlefield - especially because it didn’t need any extra mana or focus. Unless she turned it off, it would just work. That would give Alice a huge level of sustainability and threat in most mage versus mage fights. The only thing Alice was still missing from her toolkit, at least for combat against other Mages, was a way to fight against Thermal and Electromagnetic Mages.

In one Perk combination, Alice had neatly addressed most of her weaknesses as a Mage, and created a new, devastating threat.

Were these the kind of Perks that combat-focused Immortals considered normal? If so, Alice could see why they were such huge threats on the battlefield.

Alice spent a few more minutes staring at her new Perk in glee, before she turned her attention back to her Perk selections.

Due to the absurd number of levels and achievements she had just gained, Alice still had eight Perks to go - a truly absurd quantity of levels and Perks to sort through.

Most of them were in her various [Organic Mage] Classes, so Alice decided to focus on that next. Perks from Classes below level 50 tended to be simpler, and also matter less, so they were easier to make decisions on.

The next three choices were for [Student of Organic Magic], level 15, 20, and 25. Alice wasn’t really expecting much from these, since [Student] and [Apprentice] type Classes weren’t very exceptional.

True to Alice’s suspicions, the next three Perks she chose weren’t that exciting.

Resistance Avoidance

Requirements: Student of Organic Magic level 15 or higher, Magic stat 150 or higher, have treated at least 5 patients using magic.

Your ability to penetrate magic resistance is considerably improved, especially for those who you intend to heal or help in some way.

Alice took this Perk the moment she confirmed there wasn’t anything better available. Trying to interact with Jonathan’s Class seeds was a huge pain in the neck, because his body was just so darn resistant to external manipulation. This Perk wouldn’t even come close to solving the problem outright, but it would certainly help. Even a small boost was better than nothing.

The next Perk was mostly the same - a minor boost to Alice’s mana resistance penetration.

Enhanced Patient’s Consent

Requirements: Student of Organic Magic level 20 or higher, Magic stat 150 or higher, have a lesser variant of ‘Patient’s consent.’

Patient’s consent can now punch through 40% of a patient’s mana resistance (consent is still required and this does not modify the other Perk in any meaningful way).

There wasn’t much reason to avoid this Perk - Alice highly valued {Patient’s Consent}, and trying to punch through an Immortal’s mana resistance for experiments was nightmarishly draining. This Perk worked well with {Resistance Avoidance} to help Alice actually make a difference while operating on Immortals. It would also make it far easier to heal other patients, since she would waste less mana on each patient. There wasn’t much reason not to take this one.

Finally, Alice took something to boost her regular healing abilities.

Healing Correction

Requirements: Student of Organic Magic level 25 or higher, Magic stat 150 or higher

For a small extra quantity of organic mana, while healing, all smaller ‘errors’ in the healing process are drastically reduced in severity, and smaller errors are outright healed.

While Alice didn’t use Organic Magic to heal people very often, it had happened multiple times in the past. Even if it wasn’t her focus, she still wanted to be better at regular healing as well. This would help her avoid making any major mistakes that harmed her patients instead of healing them. Even though Alice already had enough training to avoid bigger mistakes, having an extra Perk as a guarantee never hurt.

After that, Alice turned her attention to her remaining Perks. She still had two [Legendary Organic Healer] Perks left, one from [Scientist], one from [Scholar], and one from [Careful Enchanter]. She grinned.

She was going to need a lot more time to finish choosing her Perks. But she had made a huge amount of progress so far.