It was night, falling a bit too soon for us to have made it back to the Capital a few days after leaving Thud, and we stopped in a clearing. Setting up a 'campsite' involved only a few things, mostly a small fire, into which Lucia tossed some dust that made it spark. Apparently it would help keep monsters away. Handy that. Shadow meanwhile bit his thumb and did something to a few rocks, before placing them in strange locations around us, likely the beastman equivalent of the powder, though I'd never bothered asking myself.
We talked a little, discussing that the beastmen were now past their thirtieth levels, and thus, nearing the level cap, which I'd been trying to get information about, but was having little luck. It varied, apparently, but tended to be forty or so for most. Only Heroes could go up infinitely, despite what I'd learned in the royal library of Melromarc, and in fact, even Lucia would need it.
Not for a while though. She had fallen behind the beastmen in levels, a consequence of how they worked compared to humans in terms of the system called Status Magic, which fueled the various things of this world. It was all fascinating honestly, and having them ask questions, and be surprised about things like healing naturally from injuries and stuff was so…weird.
That had been a shocker, actually. Turns out, while broken legs, and even lost limbs were things that COULD happen on this world, they were rare, and treated less as injuries and more as status effects, ones skills like my (Cleansing Arrow) could cure, as it turned out. Lost teeth, infected cuts, and even…whatever had been happening to Shadow when I'd met him, were considered 'Minor' status effects.
Major ones required more direct healing. Lost limbs, gangrene, mad cow disease, various other infections and the like. Those could only be healed via certain spells, and diseases were even worse. It was why they were so paranoid and told me all about Wave infection, as it was actually one of the few things that only a Hero or a church person could fight, and even then, only in the early stages, which led me to the biggest revelation that I'd missed through my excitement.
I didn't have allergies. Oh, I did, I totally did, I could wake up with a head full of snot, one ear blocked, and nose dripping on days when all those flowers around me were blooming. Pretty my as…I was saying, here, that didn't happen. Colds, fevers, even basic coughing and sneezing fits were status effects, not real things that happened because of germs and microscopic bacteria, though the conditions that would cause those back on my world still increased the chances of them here.
That…was not what I'd been expecting. Mind, I should have been, but it really made me doubt myself for a moment in thinking this was a real world. Magic had replaced basic physics here. Biology bent to the whim of the spell casters. How the hell did this world function, and was this a geocentric system, where the stars, moon, and sun spun around the planet, which was the center of the universe?
My party didn't have answers for me, only some vague creation myths, and things taken from them. Even the idea of the previous civilization that had left the Dragon Hourglasses sounded more like it was lore from a game manual. Not directly Dimensional Sign, but close. Heck, by the way it was described, it sounded like the 'Precursors' who left all these nifty tools weren't even native to this planet.
Of course, that wasn't all there was. Wounds still happened. I'd proven that myself when I'd cut my thumb to bleed for the seal, but looking at that digit, there was no scar. Meanwhile, my other arm had a small one, an indent in the flesh from where I'd cut myself back when I'd been a child messing with things I shouldn't. And when I showed it to them, they didn't act surprised by it, but merely asked after how much damage it had done.
So, there was some correlation between status magic and physics, but it seemed the former was the dominant one. That…left me disturbed, and when it came time to decide shifts for the night, I asked to take the first one. Normally, I took the middle watch, since I could fall asleep and wake up quickly, but tonight, I wanted to be with my thoughts a bit more, as I watched the others drift off, Strong reminding me to wake him in a few hours.
With them asleep, I brought up my status screen, going over the entries in it, slowly, moving my finger over each one, even though it was completely thought controlled.
Stats were…
Attack(Physical), represented by a sword. When I'd started, that had been a decent, I thought, twenty-two. At this point, it was still only in the low thirties though, a far cry from my companions, even Lucia, who were all at minimum fourty, and Strong was in the mid one-hundreds, and that was before my boosts helped him.
Attack(Magical), represented by a small dot with a circle around it. That was at least decently high, at fifty-two. Nothing compared to Lucia's nearly two-hundred, or Shadow's one-fifty, but higher than either Strong or Fast.
Defense(Physical), represented by a Shield. That one was my most pathetic, as it had started at ten, which I assumed was baseline, and was still below twenty right now, which wasn't even half as much as Lucia's natural, and the beastmen were ALL brick walls compared to me.
Defense(Magical), represented by a filled in circle with a dot taken out of the center. This one was…weird. It had a number, but clicking on it would show things like percentages of resistance to various effects, including psychological ones, which implied my own brain was being affected by this world, given it listed some of my own deep-seated fears and terrors that I knew I had. Interestingly, other than one, the resistance was fairly high, which was surprising given I still had a low forty score, and even Strong was ten points my better there.
Agility/Move, represented by a foot. This one was both how fast you could cover ground, and governed reaction speed all under the nebulous banner of 'movement'. Fast's was nearly triple the score of the next highest person's, and to be fair, we were otherwise all about the same in the mid-thirties to mid-forties with that, so I figured that was okay, for the level we were at, though it promised we could go faster, and was one stat I was keen to work on.
Beside those were my elemental resistances, listed out as Fire, Water, Ice, Wind, Earth, Electricity, Light, and Dark. The fact that Ice and Water were different elements, and that Light and Dark were listed was interesting, at least to me, and I'd asked a few questions about those.
Turned out, despite what I'd have figured, all elements were open to everyone, even Light and Dark, if you knew the skills. No priest restrictions on them like in some systems, and they weren't exclusive either. Magelight, for instance, was a Light spell, and Lucia knew a 'Shadow Dome' spell that did the opposite, though she'd never had any reason to use it in our fights.
Mind, the 'Resistances' in this menu were flat numbers, and I had to go to individual skills to find out specifics. That was…odd to me. In Dimensional Sign I could switch between numbers and percentage modifiers on a screen like this so I could compare and contrast. Here, I had to go deeper, as it was like every spell and effect was individual, a law of physics with a numerical interaction base.
Above all that I had my three meters. HP, MP, and SP. Which were Red, Green, and Blue respectively. Health Points, Magic/Mana Points, and Stamina Points…though one of my help menus actually had a long distance argument about that last one, calling it Soul Power, Spirit Points, and a half a dozen other things from three different wielders. I was sticking with Stamina, because that was what it had been in Dimensional Sign.
Health Points were obvious, and were apparently in everything in the world, not just those who'd touched the Hourglass or joined a Hero's Party. Mana Points too, though they were barely above single digits for most beings, unless they naturally used magic themselves. Nothing had ZERO in that slot mind, as like with HP, if you could empty that, it would kill some creatures, and severely weaken anyone else, implying Mana was something like life energy.
Stamina was for heroes only, and fueled a lot of what we did. For the others, it was special attacks or defenses, like literally slashing at the air and 'throwing it' at the enemy, or pointing the Spear and firing a laser beam out of the end. The Shield could even protect at a distance, with things like orbs and projected shields, though they could also still operate without it, at a reduced efficacy.
My Stamina was different. My Bow WAS a Bow, and could fire an arrow or bolt in the mundane fashion, but firing it how I normally did required Stamina. Every shot was different in cost, with the basic attack being the cheapest, and going up from there. Mind, every shot cost at least 1 SP, even with some Skills to reduce it, and that was why I'd been focusing on raising that stat specifically.
After that, I went to my transformation menu, which was laid out in a web, listing the various forms I could have my weapon take, as well as unlock conditions of for them, some of which were esoteric, like placing a certain apple in a shrine to a certain god and praying, and others were as simple as feeding the Bow the required materials, which varied from monster bits to even coins.
I'd unlocked only a few so far, though the list of them was…extensive. Some of them even had question marks in their descriptions, which, while my help menu was vague on it, I assumed meant no prior wielder of the Bow had obtained them before, which left me wanting to get them all, just to try them out, but I soon swapped the list for a drop down of my obtained forms.
(Beast Bane Bow), one that gave me a buff for mild accuracy enhancement against 'Beast' type monsters, I assume that was the tracking ability, as well as decreasing the fire rate, and increasing cost of each shot. Not the best, but the higher it went up in Mastery, the more it would improve tracking and the other two penalties would go down.
(Bubble Burst Bow), this one coming from balloons fired…well bubbles. They fired slower than my normal one, and cost more, but they did damage over a small area for normal shots, and even allowed me to use buff or healing abilities over a few targets in close proximity. Mastery promised faster firing rate, and wider area of effect, though no cost reduction.
(Precision), the Bow I was maining right now. All it did was a slight increase in accuracy and range. No tracking, but it was still very precise as the name implied, and it also came with a cost reduction, though a firing speed decrease to compensate, unlocked by the eyes of the yatagarasu, a kind of three eyed raven(or was it crow?) demon from Japanese myth. Mastery of this one would increase the cost reduction, and increase to range, though that firing speed penalty would remain forever.
(Double Shot), unlocked via the orthros' infection gems, this one was neat. It cost nothing extra, though it lowered range and accuracy, but it doubled the number of projectiles, and thus effect, of whatever I fired. Close range option only, though Mastery promised the range and accuracy penalties would go down with use. Better, the effect on my buff and healing skills varied by skill, increasing either the duration or strength of said buff. Useful to my build.
The ursa thing, some kind of armored bear creature with bony plates on its body, had promised me a bow with a defensive passive ability, but I had declined. The (Sense) skill had told me that thing's loot was worth more than any single group of our other hunts combined, and money would be useful in the coming days, so I forwent that bonus for now, as I looked to my status screen and saw the Gold, Silver, and Copper dots, sitting next to a nice big number that was in the 6 digits, and made me feel really good about that decision.
Mind, it was still…strange. The Mastery system, the way it worked, was right out of Dimensional Sign, which made sense…except, my help menu had differing information than what I was seeing. The Journal feature had entries that referenced gaining skills FROM the transformations, and nothing about differing shot types, though they did reference cost of shots, and complained about the other heroes having free attacks.
The Help menu even had some confusing bits to it, things I hadn't noticed at first. Greyed out text that was illegible, and even a few things that just made no sense given how my abilities worked. There were entries for a Weapon Copy System, which had writing in it, I could remember reading it, but I couldn't seem to keep that information in my head, so the moment I closed my menu it went away.
Perhaps the weapons, being empathic, which was the only way the menus could work the way they did, somehow…adjusted how it worked within the physics of the world? It was magic, right? But then why do that for me and not others? I could think of a few reasons…not the least of which was that the old system sounded like one of those old tabletop systems with all the beautiful exploits and loopholes(Locate City, Cast with Force Component) through the rules that would have let me tap dance on a god's grave after level five
That was…not a happy thought at all. I had yet to find out what was behind the Waves. To be fair I'd had a week or two to look into it, and this world had had a millennia, so it wasn't like I'd expected to find a simple answer right away. Still, the difference in my weapon implied that someone wanted the game this world was playing to continue, and that implied intelligence behind it all, and I didn't like that thought at all.
Putting it out of my mind, I shifted to the skills menu instead. These I could unlock with points earned via leveling or 'through extraordinary victories' whatever the hell those were. Luckily, unlocked meant unlocked, and I could use the skill whenever I wanted. No conditions on use, or transformation. Nothing that I could only 'use on a windy day' or had to have the Bow in a particular form.
Mind, these are all 'Active' skills, and had a cost to activate them. I could get passives from various Bow forms, but they were tied TO those forms. Stat buffs as well as other things like damage reduction and things forced me to keep my Bow in a sub optimum form. In Dimensional Sign, it was how the developers balanced combat, creating the various forms that could fill various combat roles.
That, of course, brought me back to my skills. Those leveled with use, just like my Bow forms, and could even 'evolve' in a way the Bows couldn't, allowing me to unlock higher level skills of the same sort. All in all, a system that encourages you to pick a role and stick to it. Fine with me, given I'd picked the role that let me differ my approach depending on my opponent, and I went through them.
(Sense), my first skill, was already in spitting distance of its evolved form, (Insight). For now it gave me positions on local life forms, which it designated by if they had a character sheet or not, with a range that was just over one-hundred meters. The sheets were mostly basic stats, with maybe a few notes left over from other Bow users, while (Insight) promised more detailed information on not only them, but also the areas I was in.
(MP Transfer), which had begun as a 1 to 1 transfer of points, and was a touch skill besides. I'd not gotten much use out of it, since I had better options, but I'd at least gotten the ratio up to every 1 point I spent, the receiver got 3 in return, which wasn't bad…or wouldn't have been if I had even a third the MP of our casters.
(Auto-Loot), which was a pseudo-passive. It cost nothing to use, but it tied into other sub-skills, mostly dissection, appraisal, and a few others, all of which I had to use actively to make them go up, and…I had leveled the first of those up to the point where it wouldn't miss anything on a corpse according to its description, and that was all I planned to do there. Guts and gore were not something I delighted in, thank you very much.
(Loot-Cache) was useful, and cost me some Stamina, but tied into the Auto-Loot, allowing me to designate a spot or container into which my loot would be deposited. Nice, useful, simple. I'd already tried to abuse it by designating the inside of an enemy that, and then 'looting' a rock, but sadly, it didn't work like that. Still, it was slowly gaining levels, which was reducing the cost, and extending the range/weight it could transfer, which worked on a complicated formula that I chose to ignore, as long as it worked for now.
(Cleansing Arrow), allowed me to cure basic status effects, and when leveled, even healed a percentage of HP when closing wounds. It was also the most expensive skill I currently knew, and the cost went UP as it leveled. Healing skills often worked that way, to keep them balanced, and given this one was percentage based, that made it even more necessary to keep it in check. The cost per percent went down as it leveled at least.
(Elemental Arrows) were next. They'd been cheap, so I'd grabbed one of each element…save Light and Dark, at least until I was told I wouldn't be locked into one path by picking it over the others. They were…useful in a pinch, but my low attack compared to the rest of my party meant they were mostly for doling out status effects like Drenched, Shocked, or Burning, over doing the damage directly. Still, I could see the ways I could use them, and their cost went down with every level, and future versions promised more damage and even more effects as I got better with them.
Then we came to my babies, and the centerpoint of my ideal strategy in this particular version of the system I was working with. The Buffs.
(Attack Boost Arrow), each shot of these did a percentage boost to the attack(physical) of the target. It was, as we'd learned the hard way, NOT friend of foe compliant, and boy had that been embarrassing to find out, even if we had killed the bird I'd accidentally hit it with. Still, with a boost that lasted, 'until the end of action', and the ability to stack the boost additively, it was probably the most generally useful of the bunch, especially since it gave a general 'strength' boost when used, allowing you to carry more weight.
(Magic Boost Arrow), did for attack(magical), what attack boost did for physical, though to a lesser degree. The percentages were off here, likely because magical boosts affected skills as well, at least according to the others. So it was like a multiplicative factor when used with the other one. A good thing, and similarly, they'd last until the end of combat, though whether that meant a single battle or an overall engagement was still open to interpretation.
(Mana Boost Arrow), which despite the name, did not do anything to heal the MP, though it looked like it did. Instead it raised the amount of Mana the other person could store, and that resulted in the bar appearing to refill. It was costly, to be fair, but the boost was worth it, especially since it increased the regeneration rate as well, though it was the first of my boosts that had a time limit, five minutes a shot, and then it would fade, with more shots increasing the effective time, rather than the effect itself.
(Defense Boost Arrow) were next, and they did double duty, counting for both physical and magical damage. Sadly, they were a boost that was timer based as well. I could hit someone multiple times, but it would just increase the length of the buff, not its potency. In Dimensional Sign, that was a balancing mechanic, can't have someone storm in invincibly and never take any damage after all. Here it was ten minutes a pop of some decent percentage based damage reduction.
(Movement Up Arrows) were the most interesting due to their mechanics. They were a sort of…perception enhancer. For one minute of time for your body, you would be moving at double speed, allowing you to attack faster, and cover more ground. To you, it was technically no faster than before, but those around you slowed down, which led to Fast needing several shots to last even a full minute in battle, but in that minute he could do a lot of damage.
Mastery, for the buffs, increased the effect of the buffs, in a very odd way though. When the buff went up in power, its cost stayed the same, but I could mentally 'adjust' the potency of them, lowering it down and reducing the cost. I'd even run the numbers a bit, though the cost vs size of buff analysis always said the largest ones were the most efficient, so whoever had designed this system was already one step ahead of me there.
All of these were my tools, my weapons, and I already had ideas on how to make them better, and had left notes on my 'Unlock' tree for what I should be aiming for next. An (Up Scale Arrow) was one whose description was quite enticing, and to be fair, I could afford it…barely though, and I didn't want to risk wasting my points by going all in right now, so I held off. But soon, I'd be able to grab it, along with some more power ups.
Still, it wasn't all good news. I couldn't self buff, for instance. My arrows, bolts really considering the wrist mounted crossbow form I had it in, were utterly worthless against me. I still shot myself with them, when wanting to 'power game' a few more increases in the skills or Bow forms, but that did nothing for me personally. A shame, but it just meant I'd need to fill my party out with people who could take advantage of it.
It was only as I flicked away all my menus that I realized the time. The moon was almost right overhead, and I soon woke Strong, who went to his post, right outside the edge of the fire, as I laid down, thrilled once again that Shadow's work meant no bugs, so all I had to worry about was the hard ground, as I snuggled up against a log, and was almost instantly deep in sleep, a 'skill' from my college days, and not one that had anything to do with magic or legendary weapons.