As the days passed, they returned to Druid’s Grove. They had sat with the high levelers and received great honor as Vikas made him an official citizen of Druids Grove on top of getting 10 platinum marks for his great effort. In protecting the town Deacon made him an honorary guard captain and had written him a letter to give to Hollowridge’s Guard’s personal Rig Guild to allow him to commission a Rig. Apparently his mentor and cousin was high up in the ranks at Hollowridge’s Guard and allowed him some pull. He finally decided to get an Identity Lens so he could examine people.
He did meet with Khaliun again but decided against basically conscripting her as a Chosen. While she definitely was enthusiastic now, like Celeste said, she is much more valuable here. Maybe later down the line he could revisit the situation but not now.
After spending several weeks at his own house, he and Celeste had finally recovered and he started training with the Guards, focusing on sessions with Deacon. Although Deacon was significantly stronger, the gap wasn''t insurmountable. Having about half of Deacon''s strength, he was able to push himself hard and effectively improve his combat techniques.
During one of their last training sessions before Deacon had to clear out some A ranked missions near Druid’s Grove he spoke.
“You have the physical ability and even talent but you need actual skill. You can tag anyone slower or weaker than you sure but if you don’t have skill you will face monsters maybe just a little bit weaker than you. When you do they will mop the floor with you. You need to see my cousin Camila. She is a Paragon and can help you. Paragons tend to help each other out from what I understand.”
Over the few weeks he had spent with Deacon he agreed the ‘help’ he could get from the Guards and the Slayer Guild was terrible compared to where he was at now. At his current level of 77 his stats were easily comparable to someone more than double or triple his level along with his superhuman physique that most people amount from the stats he had. Deacon who was level 350 and considered an Exceptional, someone who had 4-6+ stat points per level and even he was beginning to feel comparable to Marcus after some intense training sessions.
What he learned from Deacon was a treasure trove of information. He learned that while any item could be reforged, it could only be reforged ONCE. If there was no guarantee that the item would be better, there were rare chances that it became worse. He also learned that once an item reached Mastery 3, 5, 8 and 10 that the attunement cost doubled at those mastery ranks.
That makes sense. My whip attunement doubled from 40 to 80 during the city defense. It will double again to 160 at Mastery 5 and again at 8 to 320. I have to be more careful about how I want to progress. I don’t have the attunement growth to just have an arsenal.
Unique gear were the only items that could reach Mastery Rank 10 and their attunement cost doubled every two Mastery Ranks. What was interesting was that if you did not have the attunement slots then you could not reach the next stage of mastery.
Guin also spoke to him as well about his body and bond with Celeste after crunching numbers behind the scenes as she did not have an answer for him when he asked immediately.
“You and Celeste are bonded together. What I did not expect was for The System to treat you two as one being and just give you all partial experience. So while your experience gain is ‘halved’ your ‘half’ should apply to all of your Chosen along with their half. You can have a large enough team so that they can kill monsters so you can level in your sleep.”
So half experience gain but we all have XP share? Seems like a good trade.
While training with Deacon he also thought about his next piece of gear. He had decided that his next weapons would be metal reinforced bracers with a leather fingerless glove combination to protect his hands as he opened over 25 loot crates before he got a Major Loot Crate he noticed that it had a Major Chaos Weapon Box.
While these were actually not that hard to get as most people valued consistency he wanted to get a better picture of how the system worked and had Vikas’s crafters work diligently for a few days before he received his Masterwork gauntlets.
Major Fists of Havoc [Masterwork]
Base Efficiency Bonus: 48%[+80%Masterwork] = 86.4
Skill Tree: Running Maelstrom
Base Ability: Feast or Famine
Trigger: Passive; Upon contact with a target
Energy Drain: Negligible
Description: As you strike your blows are infused with the power of Chaos. As you hit a target with any blows or abilities from this Skill Tree. Your techniques go from 25% to 500% efficiency range after all factors.
Attunement: 80[-10 Masterwork Bonus] = 70
The gauntlets were peculiar. They featured a sturdy, reinforced metal arm guard designed to protect his fists and wrists, with fingerless leather gloves beneath. Their gold color matched his Fortune''s Bulwark.
I have to test these out. The Efficiency range seems very favorable but then again potentially having my efficiency quartered seemed like a nightmare if I really needed a hit to connect.
With his new gauntlets he fought Deacon he had caught him a few times unaware that he hit a Feast punch with a massive bonus to efficiency for a clean hit.
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After Deacon finally left to go on his mission he decided to spend more time with Celeste getting ready to head towards Hollowridge.
With the various money they had, Celeste had been selling all of their food and beverage boxes as quickly as a large sum of money and they would need it for what they were looking for. They needed roughly 90-120 Platinum Marks for a decent Rig.
While he had a lot of money he didn’t have as much money as he needed but he was close. He thought he could sell off their resource boxes or at least trade them to crafters in exchange for a quality vehicle.
They had around 50 Resources boxes between the both of them and with them going from 1-2 Platinum here, he would not be surprised that they went for around 2 Platinum Marks in the capital. There were less chances to level near Hollowridge as Deacon told him that with it being in the center of Silveroak most of the outer cities like Redcreek and Druid’s Grove got the most action.
As Marcus and Celeste continued to spend time together their…..situation or connection approved. It was clear that Celeste was a bit more of a “Free Spirit” when it came to relationships.
While Marcus and Celeste did enjoy each other''s company on a pretty regular basis after their return to Druid’s Grove she had made it clear that they were…..friends with benefits as she valued her freedom.
What he truly cherished was their connection and the closeness they shared. When he visited her place, they would settle into their favorite spots, the gentle hum of the city outside a comforting backdrop as they delved into conversations about anything and everything.
In those moments, the world seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of them. It was one of the rare occasions, aside from his talks with Guin, where he felt he could truly unwind, peeling back the layers of his emotions and confronting his feelings with a sense of peace and understanding.
While he was not the most experienced and never had friends with benefits he took it in stride to the best of his ability. He could laugh and joke with her, go dancing, just enjoy the company of others.
Celeste pushed him to come out of his shell and live. So far he had be just surviving and moving forward but spending time with her gave him what he could not punch or gain from living his life back.
While he agreed that he needed to be a beacon for humanity he also needed to actually experience humanity to foster and cultivate it. He also met with Marissa a few times as well. Despite telling Celeste about it she encouraged Marcus to explore other options and not lock himself down to the first women he saw. While he did go to the various shops to get various stuff for his house he had run into Marissa and she had invited him over several times over the past few weeks and he also enjoyed talking with her, Jamal and Ila about how the battle went for them.
They had each gained 3 levels. Ila had lost a foot and needed about a month before Lifegear could regenerate her foot completely.
While Marissa still rejected being Chosen she did think he was a good man and that the world needed people like him. It wasn’t until almost a month had passed before they had decided to rent a Rig Caravan for a month to travel towards Hollowridge. They had loaded up over 20 platinum marks worth of currency and stuffed hundreds of food and beverage and resources as they began to take off.
Rig Caravans in Ervasta were interesting, there were little to no beasts of burden as caravans here could be powered up using energy directly from the body or Energy Crystals. While anyone could use vehicles that were created from tools the most powerful Vehicles were combinations of weapons, tools and equipment and were infinitely more complex. Their Rig Caravan was built like a normal caravan but had a steering wheel and large crystal like shards inside the carriage.
As soon as the vehicle was loaded they made their way North to Hollowridge to see about a builder. With his massive Stamina stat he was able to fill all four crystal shards inside without his stamina dropping below green.
What surprised him was how fast these things were able to travel. If he had to guess these carriages had a Top speed of 60 mph and after 12 hours into their journey they had reached Hollowridge. He could immediately tell the difference. Druid’s Grove was a city built for repelling monsters and armies. Hollowridge was built like a traditional city that was wrapped around a massive lake under a ridge face. The walls around Hollowridge were nowhere near the wall surrounding Druid’s Grove and seemed to be made from carpentry instead of just plant and earth based abilities.
There were also more people than he had ever seen in his life. There had to be millions of people in Hollowridge.
The road to Hollowridge that was mainly just worked earth had turned into blocks of worked marble like stone, Unlike Druid’s Grove, Hollowridge did not have a Tollmaster and as the gates were wide open so people could come and leave freely.
As he looked around he decided to wear his actual gear just in case as he didn’t want to be caught unaware in a place he didn’t know. While Celeste didn’t wear her gear she did decide to wear her gloves just in case. She spoke up as she was driving for the last hour as they slowly began driving through the city.
“Listen up buttercup, We need to unload a lot of these resource, weapon and equipment boxes here, We have to go to the Capitol Buildings to see the guards but also to get a permit to sell our stuff. I can handle the selling of stuff and get some leads on things I need to catch up on. Talk to Deacon’s uncle, cousin or whoever and secure rights to a proper vehicle and maybe a driver. You got this, meet me at The Wandering Stag around dusk.” Marcus hopped off the carriage as they passed the entry gate and Celeste continued on.
Time to go to the Guards.