Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

Flora was ready for a nap. She had woken up early in the morning, did three different scenarios, the last two, which trained Magical Perception, multiple times− all in time dilation to boot. Then, she had attended an art competition and the Remote Arms course. All in all, she spent fourteen hours hustling for the last precious skills and levels in Magical Perception.

Flora had earned a rest.

However, it was already fifteen o'clock, and she had only two hours left until she had to level, and her Magical Perception stayed stubbornly at level 99. One hundred was the goal.

Aidan could level Magical Perception while she slept in time dilation. But that wasn't as effective as training awake. The temptation was huge. Nonetheless, Flora decided to power through.

Flora sighed. "One hour, three in time dilation, I can do it. Let's choose the scenario with the least possibility that I fall asleep."

After entering the simulation grounds, Flora restarted Invisible Assault.

The scenario transported her to a 10x10m room. From the walls and ceiling protruded so many gun barrels that they resembled hedgehogs.

Although neither sound nor visuals gave the shot away, Flora felt something in front of her. The first thing she had learned this morning was to dodge first and doubt your perception later. Therefore she sidestepped.

"One dodged… three more hours to go."

---

"Milady, it's 15:50. If you want to attend the Elemental Master course, you have to go now."

"I'm not asleep!" Flora protested, widening her eyes comically to hold them open. Her lids fluttered in protest.

"I never claimed you were, Milady."

"I'm standing and dodging!" Flora said, swaying.

"Yes, Milady."

*beep, beep* Aito disagreed and displayed an arrow, pointing at the counter.

Flora cleared her throat while she sidestepped the next invisible beam. "Well, how close are we to level 100?"

"Hard to tell, Milady. You should reach it any minute."

"Okay, we'll sprint to the classroom and do the same thing as in the Animator course. You record and I sleep, um, I mean train, in time dilation."

Flora immediately logged out, ported to the Cradle Portals, went to Zauberberg, located the classroom, fetched Aidan's console, which worked even in non-technology areas, animated a Tolly and a Golly, and unboxed TheTollyWhoWillNotBeNamedYet. All within 8 minutes.

Before the teacher, a male Waterling with an impressive blue Elvis quiff, entered the classroom, Flora was already back to dodging beams.

Aidan relayed the teacher's voice to her room as soon as the Waterling finished one thought.

After the lecturer introduced himself and the syllabus, he continued: "I'll display the diagram of a prismatic spell for you. You don't have to cast it from just the diagram, of course." He laughed good-naturedly. "Who can say tell me what base spell the diagram depicts?"

"Logout!" Flora yelled and promptly got hit by a beam. "Exit Scenario! Cancel Scenario!"

"EXIT scenario EXIT, Milady?"

"What he said!" Nothing happened but another beam grazing Flora. "Exit scenario Exit, for toaster's sake!"

The auntie appeared in the simulation grounds and screamed logout commands until she sat in the classroom. Immediately, she drank in the diagram.

"So pretty!" Flora mumbled. It was a Bolt spell. In the part where the elemental affinity was located, two affinities sat. Wind was situated on top of the Water Affinity. In the three-dimensional map, they were perpendicular to the central plane. Still, Flora's brain automatically transformed the diagram to its eight-dimensional form, where they nested quite comfortably in harmony with the rest of the spell.

<Prismatic Wind Water Bolt>

Flora directed the spell to the floor under her desk—no need to distract the other students from this fabulous picture.

<Prismatic Lightning Ice Bolt>

<Prismatic Metal Earth Bolt>

<Prismatic Wood Fire Bolt>

"The lady in the last row is already busy casting. Could you enlighten the class about the spell?" The teacher focused on Flora.

"It's a Prismatic Wind Water Bolt," Flora answered. She wasn't too sure about the original question and hoped her answer fit. She still didn't stop casting, though. Now that she knew how to cram two affinities in one spell, there was no stopping until all her elemental spells had a prismatic version.

Flora started with the standard elemental mage skill set. After the Defensive Skill's notification, the class formed.

 

Next, she cast the missing skills from the elemental healer set. Bolt, Rain, and Ride were the same, only with healing effects, so she did the first two only for testing. Even combining a damaging element with a healing element worked! Not that she had an application for it… but good to know it was possible. Of course, Flora didn't use the movement skill due to the classroom environment. At last, she added Prismatic Re-Generate and Prismatic Halo to her collection.

Now, she had enough spells to assign them to her golems. Fiddling with their configuration, she noticed that the classroom was extremely quiet. When she looked up, she found the entire class and the lecturer staring at her.

"Sorry. I'll order my golems to cast only inconspicuous spells." Flora said. She didn't feel particularly guilty because she had chosen the last row and was casting only quietly, but the collective attention of all the people made her uncomfortable.

"Did the class Elemental Master form?" The lecturer said but looked as if he didn't believe his own words.

"Well, yes. No class for the healing versions, though." Flora shrugged.

"Well." The teacher echoed her but then got a grip on himself. "Let's resume the lesson that everyone can get the class."

Flora nodded and logged back into her scenario.

The most exciting spell combination she had yet to test!

<Elemental Crossing> <Divine Prismatic Ice Lightning Enhancement>

Flora danced around an invisible beam and counterattacked:

<Holy Bolt>

"And Aidan, what did it do? I expect Holy damage, a Holy secondary effect, and furthermore, the chance for Water, Ice, Lightning, and Metal secondary effects."

"Only Holy damage with a Holy and Lightning secondary effect."

Flora repeated the spell a few times, but only one element joined the Holy secondary effect. Then she reread the descriptions.

Elemental Crossing Description: Adds a weak secondary elemental effect to the next elemental spell. (Fire ↔ Wind, Earth ↔ Wood, Water ↔ Ice, Metal ↔ Lightning)

Divine [Elemental] Enhancement Description: Adds extra [elemental] and Faith secondary effects to your physical attacks. + Elemental Monk active: All divine skills that have a Faith secondary effect have a chance to apply an additional weak [elemental] secondary effect when Divine [Elemental] Enhancement is active.

"Milady, we have a message from the Administrator. He notified us that we received 100 VirDias for discovering the bug that multiple elemental secondary effects procced. Additionally, CentralTank has lowered the probability for the elemental secondary effects from Magical Power OV + Affinity OV in percent to just Affinity OV in percent. That gives you a chance of around 30% percent. So far, all of your spells had one secondary effect. Hence, I believe that they are rolled separately."

"Let's try a few punches. While the description said about holy skills 'to apply AN additional weak [elemental] secondary effect ' it says about physical attacks 'extra [elemental] and Faith secondary effectS'," Flora said, then she had another question. "Track the secondary effects on Reconfirm. I want to know whether the element switches on each tick."

<Re-Confirm>

Unfortunately, Flora's punches and kicks activated only one elemental SE, as well. Re-Confirm's SE changed with every tick. Here, Flora's four possible elements worked against her. Neither Metal nor Water stacked because the RNGesus decided that Lightning and Ice were more interesting. Of course, sometimes a lonely Water or Metal buff appeared, but until the elements procced next time, the initial buff had already vanished.

Flora tested whether she could stuff the spells with non-elemental affinities as well.

<Prismatic Holy Wood Bolt>

The skill formed but was shaky. It flew slower, and Flora guessed it had less reach, albeit she couldn't test it in the 10x10 meters room.

Prismatic Holy Death Bolt winked out. Flora couldn't remember whether she tried Death Bolts, so she cast it on its own. A black ball flashed from her hands to the wall.

"What does it do, Aidan?"

"In this case, nothing. I assume walls are immune to Death. On living beings, it causes damage and a secondary Rot effect."

Flora shrugged and tried the Prismatic Holy Death Bolt again, but the spell structure fell apart. Next, she attempted to double cast one element.

<Prismatic Acid Acid Bolt>

Neither Flora nor Aidan could see a difference to the ordinary Acid Ball skill, even though they counted the number of debuffs on the guns.

<Prismatic Holy Wood Immunity Bolster>

Finally, Flora found an interesting application. The spell was as shaky as the bolt version but with herself as the target, that wasn't an issue. She received the secondary effects from Wood, Holy, and, sporadically, the four other elements.

<Prismatic Holy Water Re-Generate>

Aidan counted the Water stacks, and she received a few more than with Refresh, and of course, the other Holy stuff as well.

"Very nice!" Flora exclaimed while dodging another beam. Her tests and exhaustion impacted her score, but she still used her Magical Perception to avoid as many beams as possible.

Flora cast the rest of her [elemental] and [magical] skills with the "Prismatic" modifier. To her relief, they integrated into her already existing skills, and she didn't need to level them separately.

Next, she tried integrating all the Affinities she possessed with Bolt and buff skills. Some didn't work out, like a Magical Body Control Bolt, and some were difficult to judge because a wall and guns weren't valid targets for a Mind Control Bolt.

Aidan still forwarded the classroom activities to her. Although Flora had all the spells she needed, she profited from the discussion. Until now, she had decided the element of her shields on a whim. Now, she learned that Acid and Wind Shields were strong against projectiles and Fire Shields more an offensive option. Because she was entirely self-taught in elemental magic, a lot of the basic information was new.

"Congratulations, Milady! You reached Level 100 in every attribute!" Aidan exclaimed suddenly.

"Yes!" Flora said, more relieved than happy. "Exit Scenario Exit. Only wake me up for something significant."

Flora fell into her coffin.

"What about leveling, Milady?"

Flora started up. "Oops. Yes, level now! Suppress non-time-critical notifications until later."

Blissfully, she closed her eyes again. Unfortunately, the blue popup worked despite it.

Flora groaned and reopened her eyes.

"Hello, Flowing Flowers." The Administrator, a guy with Mediterranean skin, black hair, and an awesome black and blue jacket and sunglasses, said.

"Hello, Mr. Administrator. Please, get to the point. Dreamland is waiting for me." Flora mumbled into her pillow. While she contemplated sitting up and meeting her visitor like a lady, she hadn't the will or energy for it.

"Congratulations, the following bug was discovered by you: Users can't distribute their Free level-up Attribute points when their Attribute Level Value is at the cap. You earned 100 VirDias for disclosing the bug."

"Okay. I don't mind. Bye."

"The developing team decided on the following actions to remove the bug: They permitted users to increase their LV cap with free Attributes points."

"Great. Thanks. Bye."

---

"Milady. The participants for the next course have arrived. You either have to vacate the classroom or pay 100 credits for the course 'Lightning Mage'."

"Pay," Flora mumbled and fell asleep again.

---

A while later, Flora woke up. For a moment, she wondered why she was in her bedroom and how she got there, but the recollections trickled into her mind.

"Level 2, woohoo! Show me the goodies, Aidan!"

"Great! Show me my stats."

Flora's enthusiasm waned the longer she stared at the sheet. "Are there any changes besides my more than meager training gains?"

"No, Milady. You haven't distributed your free points yet."

"I don't want to be ungracious, but, well, um… I thought I would be doubly as powerful at level 2… you know, 2 is two times 1?"

"No, Milady."

"On the other hand, I should be thankful that the progression doesn't work that way, considering we have to compete with the level 5 champion candidates." Flora went back, scanning her tables. Now that she had digested the biggest disappointment, they looked pretty nice, especially the attributes. Not only were they all capped at level 100, but even her bonus row also was full: + 5 OV boosted every row. "What should I do with the level up points? I'm thinking about Faith for getting more information out of Evailyn and acing the champion competition, Ambidextrous for better golems and Re-Generate, no explanation needed."

"Solid choice for Affinity and Ability, Milady. I would take Tinker or another long cooldown skill instead Re-Generate. Which attribute to take is a difficult choice. Your melee combat styles, either with hand-to-hand, wrenches, or shields, depend on Strength. I noticed that you have a hard time training this stat. So if you want to weaken your weaknesses take strength. If you want to strengthen your strengths, take one of the Regenerations. On the other hand, those are easy to train. A fourth option would be Magic Vigor. You waste too much precious time casting mana-regeneration skills like Righteous Strike, Pray or Re-Generate. A bigger mana pool gives you more buffer to end the fights before your mana runs out."

"Good analysis. What do you think, Aito?"

*beep…* Aito's beep trailed of. Flora translated it as 'It doesn't matter…'.

"Yeah, I think so too. In the long run, that stat would rise a bit slower than the others and they will catch up. Look what happened to Physical Reg. Although it is the easiest stat to train, and I had it more than… I don't remember exactly… maybe 40 levels more than the other stats, the other stats nearly caught up with it. So Strength might really be the best option."

Flora distributed the free points as they had discussed them.