"Um…dude while I'm not one to judge someone on how they spend their days, is this really the time to get wasted?" he asked, and I, despite myself, actually barked a laugh at that one, wondering if he knew what I was about to do, or was simply setting up a good joke. Regardless, I shook my head, and tossed two of the three towards them.
"Wait, are those from Fitoria's place? Do the-?" began Naofumi, but I held up a hand to stop him from speaking.
"Now, Mr. Iwatani, this is for science. Please allow me to indulge my curiosity here, before you give away the game," I told him, and he actually puffed out his cheeks, looking quite annoyed with me, but waved his hand, so I could continue without him saying too much to ruin this experiment.
"Oookay. So if this isn't about getting high, then what is it?" asked Ren, staring at the mushroom in his hand, not even bringing it to his nose to sniff it. Smart boy…especially when Motoyasu did just that, and started coughing and gagging because the thing smelled awful.
"Well, first off, I want you and Motoyasu to place that mushroom, on the gems on your Weapons," I told him, and both of them looked at me like I'd gone crazy.
"I know it sounds weird, but please, this is so we learn something," I added, and they both looked to each other, shrugged, and did as instructed, holding the fungus against the shimmering jewels and…absolutely nothing happened, even with Ren quickly repositioning it a few times. When he was done, they both looked at me expectantly, neither saying anything as I tossed the third one to Naofumi.
"Alright, Naofumi, if you would, do the same thing," I instructed, and he did so without a word. The mushroom, an instant after it touched the gem on his Shield turned into glittering motes of light, green like the color of his gem, and were sucked inside, shocking the other two, and the royals present, to silence.
I didn't even have to ask them to try again, both of them tapping the mushroom against their gems, but finding they got nothing out of it. Even when Motoyasu started to press it in, almost smushing the cap of the thing into paste, it stubbornly stayed where it was, however, leaving them to look up at me, confused, but now very interested.
"Okay, so, just showing you it had no effect. Well then, allow me to explain," I said, holding up my own weapon, and pulling a small crystal from my pouch, along with another mushroom.
"When I was offered a choice of rewards by the Guild early on, one of the prizes on hand was a stone of some value that, when set in a piece of gear, would give a bonus. However, I noticed it also came with one if I 'used' it on my Weapon in some way. At the time, considering rat pieces did the same, I thought nothing of it," I began, tapping the crystal with a finger.
"It was only later that I learned other bits of monsters could unlock forms in the same way, so I figured the crystal was just like those somehow. Made sense to me, and given the rest of you talked about it when we were together comparing notes before the Chimera Wave, you talked of similar things. Monster parts, and certain crystals, are literally made of magic in a way, so our Weapons process them into the Forms we unlock, in the same way EXP works," I explained.
Getting some nods from the others in the room, before I picked up the crystal and tapped it against the gem on my Weapon. Like with Naofumi and the mushroom, it turned into motes of light, yellow in my case though. Still, with them holding the mushrooms against their gems, nothing happened, even though I could see in Motoyasu's eyes that he knew where this was going.
"Meeting with Naofumi when I went to get Lucia and Fast from Lute Village after the battle with the Chimera, he explained while we talked that HE could make it work with anything that had magic in it. At the time, I figured I'd just mis-," even before I finished, the pair found their mushrooms turning into light, blue for Ren, and red for Motoyasu, the gems on their weapons devouring them, and leaving the two staring at what I presumed to be their menus for a moment.
"And there it is. If we tell someone else about our specific power up methods, we share them," I said, the experiment over, and I smiled, watching as the other two read through the unlocks they'd gotten, Ren even quickly scrolling through the web of forms to boggle at some of the things he could unlock, while I could actually see Motoyasu mumbling, probably writing in the memo part of the menu to remind himself of things for later. When they were finished, they looked at me, curious, but I motioned towards them with my hand.
"Okay, well then, let's see what you guys have that's different. Is there a system or ability that lets you power up outside of Levels? Some way to supplement your abilities?" I asked, and Ren immediately slammed his fist on the table.
"I knew there had to be a reason you guys kept switching Weapon Forms in fights," he said, sounding annoyed, with himself mostly, before he continued.
"My method's got to do with the Form Mastery system. You guys all have that too, right?" he asked, and we nodded.
"Okay, well, in my menu I can 'reset' form levels. It lowers their power a lot at the moment, but so long as I get them back to the level I was at before, the stat bonuses I get are stronger than ever," he tells us, and instantly, I look at my own form menu, and find a reset button is suddenly on every one. When I press it, the passive ability of the form says it will go down, but then gives me the original, plus how much it goes up per level after that.
"Woah, that's a power up I can get behind. It cuts what I've got in half, but if what I'm seeing is right, it'll be at almost five times what it is if I get it back up to the level it's at right now," said Motoyasu, and I nodded.
"Likewise. My forms don't give stat buffs, but even a quick and dirty bit of math says this is an exponential method of increasing power," I added, and we looked to Naofumi, who was still thumbing through his own menu, waving his hand in front of him, and seeming to boggle. We let him continue until he was done, as we did a few bits of menu housekeeping, including me 'resetting' a few of my most common forms. When he was done, he started a bit as he came out of his menu, and then cleared his throat.
"Yeah, that's…a lot more interesting than just getting some junk forms," he said, but Motoyasu smacked that table and shook his head.
"Dude, ANY forms are kick ass, and powering them up like this at the same time? This shit rocks! Better than my system anyway," he says, as he licks his finger like he was going to turn a page in a book, before turning his menu towards some other page.
"Mine is a lot less useful than that, since it's not a scalable thing, but I get bonus stat points instead," he began, and that made sense suddenly why his power was so high, given he was a lower level than myself or Ren, as his journey with Myne didn't quite see him fighting boss monsters like I did, or whatever it was Ren had been doing.
"How it works is, I have these bars under the stats, and as I make use of what they do, you know attack, defense, and the like, the bars fill up. Like that game from old school. You know, where you could hit yourself and gain stat points?" he offered, causing me and Ren to look at each other. Ren seemed vaguely aware, but I nodded.
"There's one like that in my world too, but probably called something different, so I get it," I told him, scrolling to my menu, and finding my stat sheet now did indeed include tiny bars at the bottom, which were all empty at the moment, but had examples given of how to fill them, either by hitting things, or getting hit, or dodging 'damaging' attacks.
"Yeah, right, not the same worlds. But yeah, it's useful to a point, but it doesn't help as much when it never scales upwards, so one point is the same as any other, meaning the higher you are, the less effect it will have," he explained, causing me to nod as I scrolled through some things, and even started to mumble myself into the memo to make some notes, planning how to power myself up…if Lucia let me into a battle and didn't force me to sit out every time.
When I finished, I found everyone looking at me as the room faded back into my primary sight, and I realized that I was the last one left to share my method, as I quickly thought of if I should lead with the Vassal Carriage stuff, just to see if it would work, or the Skill Point system I had been given. Idly, I did wonder how the latter would work since they got their active and passive skills from the forms they unlocked, so I decided to start with that one.
"Right, so, whenever I level up, I get Skill Points, which I then have a whole other menu to spend them in that's like the form menu, the whole web of designs branching out from my base, but with things like active bilities, which I don't get from Weapon Forms, and stats," I explain, and they quickly open their menus and go to whatever pages they see. That also makes me wonder, if only for a moment, if their menus look like mine, but I decide not to ask, since I could only describe my own menus as 'standard'.
Regardless, I could see them looking contemplative at their menus, as they seemed to find the spot where the skill points were, with Motoyasu mumbling again, while Ren made motions in the air with his hands showing he was using the calculator function…which was neat to find out he had one too. Naofumi, however, just rubbed at his chin, and then looked ready to push something, only to have Motoyasu slam his hand on the table.
"Dude! Don't spend any of those yet! We should talk about what kind of builds we're all going for first!" he shouted, causing Naofumi to look at him.
"And why should that matter? Shouldn't we distribute them evenly?" he asked, sounding annoyed, and all three of the rest of us scoffed.
"Gods, he is such a loser," said Ren, rubbing the bridge of his nose in annoyance, while Motoyasu buried his face in his hands…not just from annoyance, but you could actually hear him laughing beneath them. The Royals, for their part, looked confused, as Naofumi shot to his feet and slammed his hand down.
"What?! Are you making fun of me?" he demanded, and before the other two could rile him up anymore, I held up my hand, drawing all the eyes, including Naofumi's glare, to me. Strangely, he seemed…far more pissed off than one might expect. I wasn't sure why, but given what Fitoria had said about his 'Curse' it was perhaps best to cut him off before he said something we'd all regret.
"Mr. Iwantani, it isn't that they're making fun exactly, it's that, most systems, almost all of them in fact, and we've already seen this one is not one of the expectations, find such builds, with equally distributed stats to be less than optimal," I explained, and Motoyasu, sniffing and wiping tears from his eyes(It wasn't that funny blondie), nodded as he looked at him.
"Yeah, heh, man. Almost no game likes it when you try to be good at everything. Master of None and all that. Like I said, roles are important," he began, still snickering periodically, as he pointed at me with his thumb.
"Take our tactician here. He can teleport, short range and at cost, but still. That means that he shouldn't be taking physical defense. His points there would be wasted," he explained, and I nodded.
"Heck, as a support, ANY stats would be a bit of a waste, as I do buffs more, so it's best I save mine for abilities," I say, and Ren nods.
"Or like Motoyasu and myself. We HAVE plenty of attack power, so we should decide what to do as either split that between the two types, or maybe focus on speed instead," he said the last while rubbing his chin, and Naofumi, seeing what we were saying, still poked at something in the air, and immediately seemed to be thrown backwards, causing us all to stand up, thinking something had gone wrong. Luckily, he waved his hand at us as he climbed to his feet, and set his chair back in place, before sitting down in it.
"Okay, well, my science experiment was a failure…I tried to put a point into physical attack. Figured it might work, but the system says no. Rather forcefully in fact," he said as he sat down, and we all nodded. No one made fun of him for it, and over the next half hour, we discussed where the others should put their points, with everyone, even the Royals, having a moment to speak.
As it turned out, my five points per level was actually the high end. Naofumi only got two, and Motyosau and Ren got three. That still gave them a lot to play with, and after our discussion, and knowing how to level up the stats thanks to Motoyasu's system, they put them in place, actually glowing for a moment, keeping ten points each in reserve for 'emergencies', in case they needed a quick boost to something.
"Now that that's settled, should we start, like, listing out our forms and skills, or what?" asked Motoyasu, but I shook my head.
"That should come later, and in fact, I should probably observe you guys in action like I got to do for Naofumi so I can see what you can do. Maybe we can track down some bosses," I suggest.
"Before that, however, I have one more grinding system to spread, one that, I think you'll all find interesting, as it comes from the Vassal Carriage, which apparently had been storing it for us to find, indicating the other Vassal Weapons are similar, and we should probably set tracking them down as our next big quest," I add, before pulling down my menu, with a list of more than one-thousand names and gently start it scrolling.
"Until then, let me tell you about the 'Follower' system," I say with a smirk.