Chronicles of the True Wizard

[E - Common] Cave Troll (Lvl 22)

Oh shit, I really hope this only gives me one level. Also this thing is gonna take a thousand Fire Bolts to kill. If it's like trolls from fantasy, it regenerates pretty quickly, so should I just use giant supersized spells? They take longer, but the question is about damage per second. Ok mental napkin math time, I can cast a standard Fire Bolt about every four seconds, the cast time goes down slightly if it's smaller and goes up slightly if it's bigger. If I make the spell half size, the total damage I can put out, assuming the damage scales about linearly with the amount of fire, is around double. However, the damage per second is about 36% of what it normally is.

If I double the spell form dimensions, The total damage output is half as much, but the damage per second is over triple. So as long as I make the total damage higher than it's health bar, I should be fine. So, I need to maximize the damage per second while still having the total damage output be high. It would be really nice to know the damage numbers of my spells, I guess I can fire them at people and get them to tell me how much damage it did. Another thing I need to do at some point, great.

Back to the Troll, I don't think a single spell will take it out considering the spell form starts to leak and fall apart the bigger it is. I can cast a spell one hundred seventy percent bigger exactly three times, that makes the total damage a third of what it could be if I hit it with eighteen normal Fire Bolts. The damage per second is over five times higher though.

That means I would be betting on it having less than six normal Fire Bolt's worth of health. That should be between two and three times the health of the overgrown toad from last time I was here. That sounds about right. Well, if not hopefully I can get away and recharge mana, then I can try with a different number. All free points into agility. Just in case. Oh also I think head shots count as a critical hit, hopefully it's slow. Well here goes some mental napkin math that I am suddenly feeling a lot less confident about.

With a plan in mind and rough math to back it up, Felix quickly prepared the first spell behind the tree. He popped out and fired just as the Troll started to smack a tree nearby to scare away the intruder and managed to smack it right in the side of the face with his Fire Bolt. Fire poured over its face as it roared as it quickly turned to search for the assailant. Felix didn't bother hiding and just ran instead. Turns out, the troll was slow, but still just as fast as Felix.

Stupid long legs.

Felix quickly spun around and fired again hitting it in the face again, then switched directions and ran to the side. When the Troll opened it's eyes again it ran forwards a few steps before realizing Felix wasn't in front of it anymore and then turned its head and searched for him. By the time it found him, Felix had already fired the last Fire Bolt, so the Troll turned its head right into the Fire Bolt. Felix waited in anticipation and after the fire washed away, the Troll was still standing but it wasn't looking good. It swayed on it's feet a little and looked exhausted.

Shit it's still alive. It looks too hurt to give up now. Melee caster time? Ugh.

Felix pulled out and threw daggers as fast as he could leaving only one dagger left in his inventory, just in case. He pulled out the great sword and charged the Troll as it swayed on it's feet then swung as hard as he could into it's knee. He figured if he couldn't kill it he should at least be able to slow it down. Felix barely managed to scratch it's stony skin but it seemed that was enough.

Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Cave Troll (Lvl 22)

Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster

Oh thank god. It must have been at like ten health, I'm pretty sure I barely did anything with the daggers or the sword.

Combat Dungeon C

You have successfully completed 3 rounds. Would you like to continue, change the difficulty or exit the dungeon?

Continue.

Change Difficulty

Exit

Exit.

Combat Dungeon C

You have successfully completed 3 rounds of +6 - +9 difficulty. You chose not to claim rewards this time.

Congratulations.

Felix immediately pulled out batteries and drained them as fast as he could. He was almost out of batteries at this point.

I got to look into getting, or even making, bigger mana batteries.

I wonder if the Goblins were all only five levels up because the difficulty of the encounter as a whole with the outpost and the archers was meant for a party at level 16? Also it seems I did accidentally choose a higher difficulty than I intended, oh well. It worked out pretty well honestly. I have half health, that's health to spare if you think about it…

Ok, do I go back in now and claim the reward? I think I should prepare as best as I can then claim, so I can push for the best reward I can get. Hopefully I don't level on the way back. Oh shit, I really hope I am not right on the cusp. I will just have to avoid hitting or killing anything.

Felix ran back to the town stopping at the stream to drink, bathe and fill his canteens. He made it back slightly faster due to the increase in agility. When he was just under a half hour away, he pulled out the bath robe he had been graciously gifted and put it on. There should be more people in the town now and he didn't feel like giving them all the first impression that he was some kind of pervert, two people were already more than enough.

As he was approaching the town, Felix immediately noticed a new addition just outside the town, or at least, one in progress. People were currently working on preparing land for farming. Felix smiled at the progress and continued on into the town. It had been almost a day and a half already, mostly due to travel time, but he wasn't expecting the new citizens to have started any work yet.

Walking through the town he was initially disappointed when he didn't see any progress being made, but then he checked his mini map and was reminded that this was the commercial district. The area he was in was coloured in a green overlay with a border. Just below his mini map it read: "Unnamed Fort: Commercial District."

That is awesome. We really need a name for the town/fort though, in fact, if it appears on the map like that, this is priority number one. It makes it so that people who see the fort on their map have a named location, a waypoint. It also gives them something easy to refer to it as in conversation with other people. If it's a good name, it will keep it on their minds and encourage them to check it out too.

Felix made it through the commercial district and into the purple overlay of the industrial district. Close to the edge of this district next to the castle Felix saw where the real progress had been happening. A large chunk of buildings had been completely removed and it looked like their minimally damaged bricks were being salvaged to create a really big, long building. It took up the space of three small city blocks and the walls were halfway constructed already. There were clearly more people than Felix had even hoped for working on it's construction.

Felix wanted to go check it out but he figured he should check in with Noah and Amelia first, if she wasn't currently working on the warehouse. With that in mind he made it to the castle and went inside. Inside the compound there wasn't anybody in the courtyard, but inside the castle Felix found dozens of people walking around. They all seemed like they had somewhere they needed to be, which was impressive to Felix, he expected people to just be loitering about.

Felix walked up to the throne room where he expected Noah to be but couldn't find him anywhere. He walked back down stairs and decided to just try and find Amelia, the only other person here he knew. He assumed she would be at the warehouse construction so he headed there.

He made the short trip out to the warehouse and walked around looking for Amelia. He saw pairs of people pulling stone bricks, salvaged from the fort's ruins, out of their inventory then carrying and placing them. The bricks looked like they must have weighed four hundred kilograms at least, making lifting and placing them a feat that would have been impossible pre integration. It was an odd sight, considering this would have been impossible just a couple weeks ago.

As he walked around the partially constructed building he spotted a large pile of bricks that had been salvaged from other buildings. Next to that he spotted a large pile of logs. He wondered if those were for the roof of the building, for posts and supports, for the scaffolding, or all three. Both piles were being filled by people occasionally and the bricks were being used actively to construct the wall. After walking around for a while and not being able to spot her he decided to just ask someone.

He walked up to someone at random and asked, "Do you know where I can find Amelia?"

They simply pointed towards the west then continued working so Felix shrugged and headed in that direction. He passed into the residential district and would have turned back to ask for more specific direction had he not passed people using logs as rollers to transport bricks in the opposite direction he was heading. They used a handful of logs as a platform pointing in the direction of travel then had logs as rollers beneath that. Whenever the platform passed over a roller, two men would quickly lift it over the platform and place it in front of them.

Why the hell don't they just use their inventory? Is there a weight limit I just haven't encountered yet? Maybe it's just a size limitation? I'll have to look into that.

They managed to transport an impressive thirty bricks at about walking pace. The pace as well as the contraption would have been impossible pre integration given the sheer weight of the brick and the logs. Felix was sure he would have trouble lifting either and didn't think the logs should be able to hold all that weight. He figured the logs were stronger for some reason, maybe they leveled, and the people just got strength from their professions. He only got strength from race levels and working out, which didn't amount to very many points.

He finally made it to a massive operation of deconstructing old buildings in the residential district. The useable bricks were loaded onto a platform of logs and the unusable rubble was rolled elsewhere on a densely packed platform of more logs. He spotted Amelia directing the operation, pointing people to which buildings they could start disassembling. In between that she consulted with Noah who, conveniently for Felix, stood right next to her.

He approached the pair of them, "How goes the city building? You guys have gotten a lot more done in less than two days than I ever expected."

They both turned around and jumped a little in surprise before quickly composing themselves.

"Yeah we've actually have almost fifty citizens now and twenty of those took builder as their profession. Quite a few of them didn't choose anything in the preparation room, then when we were talking about building out the city, they decided to help. We also managed to get a few farmers who are currently working on our first farm. Everyone else is trying to work on their professions as best they can in the castle." Noah explained.

"When we camped out in the forest, we didn't have anything to level our professions with so a bunch of us just made furniture. It's rough, and only possible with skills, but we made a lot of tables and chairs. Everyone who needed one for their profession got to take one, first come first serve. All the architects, alchemists and other professions basically." Amelia added.

"Oh cool. The warehouse looks like it's coming along well, it looks great so far. Wait a minute, all those people who didn't choose a profession, how did they choose builder now?" Felix inquired.

"You just open the profession selection screen? I guess you slept through that, sorry. You can even open it when you already have one cause you can choose a replacement or upgrade your current one. They only ever show you five options, but they are tailored to you for the most part. Oh also if you haven't, you should also have a class selection and skill selection screen. Class is the same as the profession, the skill is only different in that it shows fifteen skills, five for each of profession, class and general. Have you really gone all this time without any skills? What level are you anyways, if you don't mind, I still can't actually see your level." Noah responded.

"Shit, thanks. I managed to get rewarded two skills from showing proficiency with things but otherwise I don't have any. Man it's like the spells all over again. I am level nineteen in Caster and nine in General. I wonder if it's a setting to let you see it or if your perception just has to be higher or something, I can usually identify creatures higher level than me." Felix said.

They both looked wide eyed at him after that.

"Holy shit, you might be the highest level in the whole tutorial right now. I can't imagine someone else having leveled that quickly." Noah blurted out.

"I doubt it, it wasn't that difficult at all, plus without a profession I feel like I am already so behind where I could be. I completed a whole puzzle dungeon which seem like they are designed for professions. They give loot and experience and everything, I did the whole thing without a profession. Now I can't redo it, so I wasted it." Felix explained.

"Wait, there's a dungeon specifically for professions?" Noah asked excitedly.

"Yeah it's a puzzle dungeon, east-north-east of here. There are some trap rooms but there was no combat. Though the forest around it had some beasts in it, but they were low level." Felix explained.

"Can you share your map with us? I know quite a few people who would love to try that dungeon out." Noah inquired hopefully.

"Uh yeah sure… how do I do that?" Felix asked.

"You basically just will it or think it and then I can accept it. Also you can share it with the entire town if you want. Then the citizens can choose to participate and if they do, they contribute their map but they also get the updates from everyone else." Noah explained.

"Huh, let me go do that, that sounds awesome. I really need to go through the town management screen entirely at some point. Oh also, what should the town name be?" Felix asked.

"Up to you, you are the town leader. If you are asking for ideas, just do something like Felix's town, or Felixopolis." Noah said.

Felix groaned at that and thought about names as he walked back to the castle. . . . . .