Of course, the person Brandi had in mind to test her new invention wasn’t around yet. They were still out with Rayna, Jacks, and Stella. In the months that Derek had been gone, Stella had joined the hunting group with Rayna and Jacks. Jake, Jacks’s son, also joined them later on, then they ended up picking up Jensen, Walter’s son. They had a full five-man team now, and could run even harder dungeons.
Though Jensen’s level was lower than the rest, since he was more of a support healer, he was able to keep up. Their composition wasn’t the best, so they still had to be choosy when picking dungeons, and Rayna’s level still lagged behind the other three as well. But Brandi never heard anyone complaining about that.
The man had graduated from the Academy, and chose to take some time off before deciding if he wanted to take a spot in the King’s army or not. It worked out perfect because the man was a water element user, just like his father, which is why he would be the perfect test subject for her new creation.
Still, it was possible that she would have enough time to make a wind one for Rayna or a fire one for Jacks or Jake before she met them again. They were always busy with dungeons and beasts, especially since Jake had joined.
The young man had become somewhat of a makeshift leader of the temporary team. He had a lot of experience while running dungeons with Edgar, and he knew a lot, even more than his own father. He had stressed the importance of skill level over their actual level, and everyone listened carefully.
Though Brandi had also listened to him, it didn’t really help in her situation. She gained experience with every craft, so it was hard to limit her experience while increasing her skill gains. Though, she found that working on the high-level mana cores had catapulted her skill levels even with failures.
Then again, when she finally had a success, her new level caught back up instantly, and maybe even more so. She would probably even get more levels as soon as she upgraded her class. That was the only thing that had paused her level gains.
With that in mind, she looked over her new stats at level 50.
Stats
Strength
Dexterity
Endurance
Vitality
Intelligence
Wisdom
165
185
185
165
165
165
Her stats had grown quite well since she got four stat points each time she leveled. Now, she was facing the excitement that came with another class upgrade. She was hoping that her epic class would upgrade to legendary. She knew the chance was quite low at level 50, but she could dream.
Sure enough, the upgrade didn’t happen. Her All Smith class remained at epic rarity, and nothing else in her selection was even worth pondering over. It would all be a giant leap down from an already epic rarity growth type class like All Smith. It was too much to hope for receiving two actual class growths rarity upgrades in a row.
Still, she was happy with the upgrade. Unlike other classes, she didn’t receive new skills with the upgrade; she got Skill Upgrade Points. This time, she was rewarded with 25 upgrade points. Last time, it was 20, which meant that as her class grew, so too would the amount of upgrade points she would receive.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get an increase in stat points. She still received the base four points to each stat. That wasn’t a bad thing, as even if she was stuck with four points per stat per level for the rest of her leveling, she would be close to breaking the 1,000 point threshold Derek had talked about with every stat.
Plus, she still had gifts Derek had given to her before he left. The Void Beast meals and potions would provide her with many more stat points. And she still had a chance to get an even better class upgrade at both the level 100 upgrade and the level 200 upgrade, so she wasn’t sweating it.
The real problem she was facing was what she should do with all the Skill Upgrade points. Her first thought was to dump them into Greater Meditation and get it to level 20. However, the skill already did everything she needed it to do. With it, her regeneration was already out of this world, and since she kept it almost constantly active, it would surely level fast enough.
Which led her to her other skills. First, she crossed off a good portion of her skills. What was good about her class was the amount of skills and the crossover they had. Some Leatherworking skills worked on Blacksmithing, some Alchemy skills worked on Brewing… she had many skills like that.
So, the skills from crafts that she found she didn’t enjoy, and that didn’t cross over to other crafts, were immediately crossed off her list. It still left her with a daunting number of skills to choose from, but it was much more manageable.
However, she was gaining skills pretty rapidly as it was, so using her new points right away probably wouldn’t be the best idea. Skills got harder to level the higher they got, and if Jake’s words were correct, it was even harder when your actual level was higher.
After that round of thoughts, she chose to save her points for now. She would focus more on what seemed to be her best skills for Smithing, Runesmithing, and Alchemy, and only use her points when those skills became difficult to increase. There were also a few crossover skills she would focus on as well.
After those thoughts, she looked to see that her level had actually shot all the way up to 56 after accepting the class upgrade. That was another 24 points into each stat. She viewed the sheet once more.
Stats
Strength
Dexterity
Endurance
Vitality
Intelligence
Wisdom
189
209
209
189
189
189
She closed her stats with a thought. She would use the gifts Derek had left with her when she closed in on her next class upgrade. That would be right before she hit the first threshold at 500 points. She wanted to make sure she crossed them all individually, and didn’t want to risk a ton of stat points being dumped on her all at once. She would also slow down on her crafting and craft lower experience items as she drew neared to the class upgrade. With any luck, she would be able to stagger them all out.
With that, she put her head down and began working on another mana core empowered weapon. She pulled out an earth core and got busy. She still wasn’t planning on working on the wind core for Rayna or the fire core for Jacks and Jake until she was certain of success. She had already learned that lesson the hard way.
Another week passed as she perfected her technique to craft the mana core powered weapons. Rayna’s team was scheduled to come back today, and she had finally made a decent wind empowered sword.
She had also failed to hide her new ‘style’ from her mom for long, as she had made Brandi take off the cloth and goggles she was wearing one night while they were eating dinner. It wasn’t a fun experience the moment it happened, but the look on her mom’s face was something she could already look back on and laugh at.
Another event was happening as well. It was time for Thomas to move on to the Academy. He was leaving the next day. Jake and Jensen, as Academy graduates, had actually offered to take him to the Academy and get him enrolled. It was much appreciated by everyone.
For Brandi’s part, she had painstakingly crafted him another set of leather armor, this one much better than the last. The armor still looked basic, but it was durable enough to provide defense against creatures and beasts in the mid-90s. Her skills made it where she could craft items of a much higher level than herself.
Speaking of level, she had gained another four over the course of the week. Using the mana cores provided her with tons of experience and skill gain, even if it was much less than she got the first time she successfully crafted the weapon.
Still, she was a little sad to see him go. He was her best friend, even if they didn’t see each other as often as before. He was constantly training with his spear and she was always crafting. Her thoughts became gloomy as she thought about the emptiness of the building once Thomas left.
With Rayna and the others always going out, and now Thomas leaving, it would only be Brandi, her mom, Rudy, and Silvi left in the building. And Rudy was always so busy that he barely had time to eat anymore… at least from what Brandi saw when she remembered about food or her mom dragged her upstairs to eat.
She wasn’t sad for herself, but for her mother. At least she also kept busy with running everything after Derek left, so there was that.
Brandi came back from her thoughts and picked up the wind empowered blade that lay on her crafting table. This blade was nice. She had actually focused on making a top quality sword along with the mana core this time, and it showed.
The sword handle was made out level 130 Spiker Boar tusk, and the blade was made with a high mana conductivity ore called Melcium Ore. There were other materials, but those were the two most important. Both materials were chosen for their high conductivity properties. They meshed well with the mana cores.
In the handle, the small greenish blue gem sat in place. Intricate carvings ran from around the core and were etched deep into the handle and blade. These were the runes she had worked so hard on perfecting. The runes, that with one small error, could evaporite an unsuspecting girl’s eyebrows.
In her later creations, she planned to find elemental based material to go with the mana cores as well. She was sure the effect of the core on a blade with the affinity of the corresponding element would be even better.
Finally, she heard the door to the basement creek open and watched as her mother slowly and carefully crept down the stairs. When her mom saw that she wasn’t in the middle of anything, her speed increased and she soon stood before her.
“You wanted to know when everyone got back…” her mother said. “They are all here. Silvi just made dinner, you should join us.”
“Okay!” Brandi smiled and put her new weapon inside her storage ring before following her mother up the stairs. Her mom was the best. She understood everything she needed, and didn’t smother her, even if she was overprotective sometimes.
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