Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

After Flora accepted another slot of extra time, the slime on her clothes vanished, and she approached the exercise as recommended, scorching the blobs. For the last one, she needed two spells, but she had seen enough of Magical Power.

"Next Attribute!"

The first challenge consisted of blasting a target butt with five bolt skills. Flora had no issue with hitting the bullseye, but for the last spell, a column appeared between her and the target. She curved the lightning bolt around it. However, the scoreboard displayed that she only hit one of the inner rings.

"Good enough for the moment." Flora reminded herself that she wanted to be punctual for the Animator class.

The next challenge transported Flora onto the parapet of a castle. Below, a battle was raging. Flora's task was to place rain spells. She looked for congregations of fighters and cast Tempest on them. First, she went after the most people per spell, but then she spotted four enemy healers in the back, just within her casting range.

"Let's distract them."

When the lightning hit them, they dodged out of it, but everybody moved in the same direction, so Flora followed them with their personal storm cloud, cackling.

The last challenge returned her to the room. Flora had to stand on a platform in the center of a merry-go-round. The elephants, unicorns, and ostriches had health bars above their heads, and little pictures of them with their bars showed on Flora's HUD as if she were in a group with them.

The info board said that Smite was acting like a healing spell during the challenge, and Flora should use it to top off the damaged carnival rides. Flora frowned at the board.

"I don't feel comfortable using a damaging spell for healing."

When nobody reacted to her complaint, she ordered Aidan to display Smite, Fireball, and Healing Fireball next to each other. Flora tried to build a transformation for the damaging portion of Smite analog to the change of the diagrams from elemental damage to elemental healing. However, Spell diagrams and Prayer diagrams differed too much.

Flora closed the spells and opened Bless and Condemn. She knew somewhere in the chart had to be a projection of divine damage; she just had to find it. It didn't help that Bless and Condemn was an AoE spell and not Intent-based. Next, she studied Mantra. Although the prayer scaled with intent, Flora had no experience with dissecting channeled skills. Additionally, you could decide which pool to regenerate with it, and that section of the diagram left Flora's mind spinning. When she inspected Pray, she immediately recognized this part from mantra, but fortunately, there wasn't much else to complicate things.

Absentmindedly, Flora confirmed the prompt. She now had a few ideas on how to adapt the prayer.

Flora cut out the core part of Pray and integrated it into the Smite diagram. Then she filled the chart with mana. Before she had finished, the construct exploded in her mind. Needles attacked her brain, but thanks to the pain reduction Flora hardly suffered. Only her concentration bar took a big dip.

Taking a deep breath, Flora stared again at the diagrams.

"Let's be professional about it." Flora circled and numbered five parts of Pray's diagram, starting with the area she had transferred. "Aidan, record the results. Test 1 explosion and brain attack."

Test 2 and Test 3 resulted in the same effects. Test 4 brought a change. The spell formed sluggishly but left Flora's hand and a golden mist appeared around the ostrich ride.

"The combat log states 7 mana for the ostrich, Milady."

Flora marked three more similar areas in the diagram. "We skip test 5. I have a good feeling about test 6."

"The combat log states 7 health for the ostrich, Milady."

"Success! Now we just have to harmonize the chart." Flora adjusted the lines. She tried to capture the spirit of a prayer in the big picture without losing the form of the transplanted part. Combining mathematical intuition and art forgery, she refined the new skill.

Flora charged the diagram and let it fly.

"Congratulation, Milady."

"Thank you, dear. What is the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 skills?"

"You can only learn them from trainers when you are at least level 25. They only work if you have the corresponding affinity in tier 2. They have either a higher base damage or an increased secondary effect. If you are in a zone with a lower level cap than level 25 they decrease in effectivity and you can't use them on auto-mode."

"So, I can't train them inside a box in my lair, because I capped the zone at level 1. I won't change it because of security reasons. I don't want a level 200 smashing my place. However, I can raise the cap in the simulation grounds and train there." Flora paused. "Can someone rough up my lair? I don't want CoCCs thrusting into my church!"

"Your apartment is safe. However, the church part is open to everyone. The production hall and roof garden are accessible to all followers of Evailyn, besides the people you have authorized."

"Produce and install turrets. I want no blind spots, at least four turrets should cover the entry of the church and at least two turrets the rest. Put a turret every three meters on the generators on the roof. Buy and install better sensors as well−infrared, magic, and motion sensors, get as fancy as you can with a budget of 5k VirDos. Get some loudspeakers as well. Haidan should be able to communicate with guests and insult attackers."

"Yes, Milady."

"Yes." Flora shook her head and cleared her mind. "Let's heal some unicorns."

Flora went to the platform, and the carousel started to spin. Every two seconds a lightning bolt came from the sky and damaged one of the 18 mounts.

First, Flora looked at the damaged ride to heal it after she sensed the bolt, but then she figured out that she could just target the same spot with Redeem.

After eighteen bolts and eighteen Redeems she had won the challenge.

"That was too easy… Did I miss something?"

"No, Milady. Most people lose time searching for the right target. The users in the forums complained about the degree of difficulty of this test. Allowedly, they are whining about every challenge."

"I can commiserate." Flora laughed. "Next attribute!"

Flora had to channel a Razor Leaves for one minute then overcharge a Fireball.

Only for the last challenge, revolving her magical core, she did need a second attempt.

"Yes."

"Thank you, Mr. Administrator."

"I like this challenge the most," Flora smirked.

"Welcome to the world of masochists part three." Flora sighed. "I won't flinch this time!"

She held her promise and toughed out the magical assault.

Flora had no problem sensing magic and aced the challenges.

"Hmm." Getting the achievements for the regenerations lead Flora to a hypothesis. "Are there achievements with OV bonuses for each attribute?"

"What do you think? Is it worth the time to attempt to get them? We have spent several hours doing scenarios for just one point. I reckon we could acquire at least some OV much faster here. If the time gets tight for the Animator class, I'm willing to skip some of the other tests."

*beep*

"Yes, Milady. You won't have to set a record. Scoring in the top 0.01 percentile is enough."

"Please provide a list with the attributes I'm close, let's say those I'm already in the top 0.1%."

Flora started with Magical Micro-Control. She took a few attempts until she hit with all five spells the bullseye. That was enough for the achievement.

At the Magical Macro-Control test, she learned the spell Poison Lance without wasting time gushing over it and promptly modified it to Shadow Current, which earned her the next record.

Next, she annihilated the cute blobs without mercy and doused the flamethrower thoroughly.

Conquering Magical Perception and Magical Vigor proved to be harder. Flora spent 15 minutes on each of them.

For Physical Micro-Control, she had to practice the piano part so long that she memorized the keys and didn't need Aidan's help anymore. Then another good portion of time went by until all the knives hit the bullseye. Flora was sure the result was more fluke than skill and was happy to stop when the achievement arrived.

"Pooh! I learned much. These exercises are great." Flora grinned. "Dearest Test, could you access my logs again for Physical Vigor and both Defenses? I used them a lot in the last week."

"Alright, then I'm ready for the results."

 

"I protest! I had no fun at all at the Physical Vigor fish bait exercise!" Flora said grinning. "Okay, maybe a bit. However, not 92 points!"

"Regen is not a goal. The attributes are means to the purpose." Flora commented.

"I'm disappointed, though I don't know why."

"There will be an overall recommendation at the end of the Sweeping Blow Test. I'm disappointed with the test AI. This summary didn't bring justice to your brilliance, Milady."

Flora chuckled. "Next test!"