Chapter 282: Steal
[Path of the Mancer (Fragmented) (Quest)]
[You have displayed a tenacious Will and a sharp intent for battle, but you are missing the final piece to your power. Following the Path of another is easy, following your own is much more difficult.
[The word Mancer has a storied history, deeper than you know. There are many complex definitions, but it can be boiled down to a single word: Control.
[Open up the Path of the Mancer or die trying.]
[Fragmented Reward Requirements]
[>Kill a Level 10 creature with the Path of the Mancer.]
[Quest "Path of the Mancer (Fragmented)" Completed]
[Clearance Level: Fragmented]
[Rewards]
[>Fragmented Mancer Class.]
Sylas wasn't surprised to see this notification. This was what he was hunting the Arctic King Cobra for in the first place. What did surprise him, though, was that he saw not just one clearance notification, but six of them.
He was confused at first until he realized something. He hadn't just killed one Level 10, he had killed five of them plus a Level 12 that was of dubious origins. He still hadn't forgotten the oddity of the Level 12 Arctic Emperor Cobra's Grade. There had just been a dashed line, which was peculiar considering it was usually question marks. Question marks were what appeared when he couldn't read the Grade of an existence, but this time, that wasn't the case.
Of course, Sylas had known that he had completed the requirements of this Quest several times over, but usually you could only clear a Quest one time. So when he had noted that he had done so, it was only perfunctorily. But it seemed the system didn't feel that it was so perfunctory after all.
Looking at the list of rewards, Sylas realized that this Quest was like this so that he wouldn't be locked into one creature should he accidentally kill one that he wasn't a fan of. It gave him a wide array of choices. Essentially, he could kill as many Level 10 Mancer creatures as he wanted, and he would receive the same chance to use them as a foundation for his Class. In fact, they even let him preview his rewards before he picked them.
In the end, Sylas just started off with the first.
[Arctic Guardian (Fragmented)]
[The tundra is your calling and poison is your wine. Stoic as the endless white plane, and timeless as its bedrock of ice, nothing gets by you.]
[+30 Constitution]
[+30 Intelligence]
[Stat Limit Increase: +10 per Level]
[Free Stats: +5 per Level]
[Class Modifier: 0.1 Constitution; 0.1 Intelligence]
Sylas read through it carefully. It seemed like a defensive Class mostly. Would they all be the same?
-
[Arctic Reaper (Fragmented)]
[The tundra is your calling and poison is your wine. Unavoidable as the endless white plane, and timeless as its bedrock of ice, your blade strikes true.]
[+15 Strength]
[+15 Dexterity]
[+30 Intelligence]
[Stat Limit Increase: +10 per Level]
[Free Stats: +5 per Level]
[Class Modifier: 0.05 Strength; 0.05 Dexterity; 0.1 Intelligence]
'Are these Classes all based on their skills? It seems so. This Arctic Reaper Class might be related to their scythe skill, and the first one is more in line with the nature of these creatures. They're definitely more defensive in type. But I can't really tell if one Class is better or not like this... On the one hand, it's probably better to have more modifiers. But on the other, being a jack of all is probably not a good thing.'
The only reason Sylas' stats were all pretty much equal now, at least in terms of his Physical, was because he was precisely that: a jack of all. However, Classes obviously helped people to specialize. A Modifier was a special tag given to a Class that would allow certain stats to grow faster than others. A 0.1 Modifier meant that with both of these Classes, Sylas' Intelligence would grow 10% faster than any of his other stats. Meaning, when he Leveled up and gained +10 to his Stat Limits, Intelligence would gain +11 every time instead. This was the same for Free Stats as well.
The other three Class descriptions were pretty much the same. They all emphasized Intelligence as the Arctic King Cobras were more mage-like than not. Though that made sense considering they were Mancers. That was the entire point of his Chain Quest.
There was only one left.
-
[Arctic Elite (Fragmented)]
[The tundra is your Domain and poison adorns your chalice.]
[+30 Wisdom]
[+30 Charisma]
[+30 Intelligence]
[Stat Limit Increase: +10 per Level]
[Free Stats: +5 per Level]
[Class Modifier: 0.1 Wisdom; 0.1 Charisma; 0.1 Intelligence]
Sylas' gaze flickered when he saw this. This was no doubt the Arctic Emperor Cobra's doing. Even though it was also a Fragmented Class, it was clearly on another level compared to the others. Even the best Class among the first few only gave +70 stats at best, but this one gave +90. At the same time, it had a Modifier for three stats instead of just two. And there was no drop in percentage like there was with the others.
The answer seemed very obvious. Even though some of the others were interesting, and he wanted to have improvements to his Physical as well, this was the only path he could take. Plus, there would be opportunities in the future to upgrade the Class further, presumably. Even if he was stuck on the path of the Arctic Royal now, that wasn't so bad either. His battle style still heavily relied on his Mental regardless.
He was very lucky this time. If he didn't take down six of these beasts at once, he would have never known that there were multiple opportunities to be had. He would have to keep that in
mind in the future.
Just as Sylas was about to accept this reward, his finger stopped. He felt an odd emotion, but he was used to it by now. It was his Luck again.
When he checked his notifications once more, he was happy that he listened to it.
[You have killed a beast in the process of evolving. Would you like to steal their Destiny?]