Chronicles of the True Wizard

At this point Felix felt more or less comfortable with all the sensations he felt. The sensations were still a little raw, like a layer of dead skin had been peeled back, but he was most of the way back to normal. He figured he would get the rest of the way there gradually as he simply went on with his life. With that done, he was ready to move on to looking through his old gear, which was rather disappointing overall. His Amulet, he already knew was useless so he saved it as a gift for someone. The energy wraps also seemed useless, he could still activate them, but they seemed unstable when he did so and they were not impenetrable anymore.

The Traveler's shirt and pants still offered a little protection, but they no longer increased his movement speed. His cloak looked fine, but also didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever. He could feel the cold around him, though it didn't bother him in the slightest with his much higher natural endurance. The earrings still seemed to work just fine but he suspected that depended more on the target and less on the wielder. His Diving Ring and Amphibians Belt didn't seem to work either, gaining a note on them when he identified them that they would provide no magical effects.

That's sad. I was hoping they would last even just a little bit longer.

Yeah, but now you have new gear.

Yeah, that's true.

Felix pulled the intricately carved wooden chest out of his inventory and placed it on the ground. It was just as heavy as it had been the last time he pulled it out.

Hey Grim, my stats are wrong, aren't they?

What do you mean?

My strength should be lower, shouldn't it?

Your energy buff seems to be affecting everything at all times right now.

Felix turned the skill off to verify and for some reason, it had defaulted to buffing everything. He also noticed that the maximum buff had increased slightly to 85% either due to bodily efficiency, core density or both. He turned the buff back on for everything, as he saw no reason why he shouldn't and upped the effect to the maximum across the board for now.

With that done, he bent down and simply touched the metal plate that sealed the chest, where a lock would be, but had no keyhole.

[D - Epic] Kraken Gear Set (Caster)

You have met all the prerequisite conditions to obtain the Kraken Gear Set (Caster).

Would you like to open the chest?

Yes.

No.

Yes.

The metal plate made a slight popping noise that reverberated a couple times. Felix lifted the top of the chest and peered inside finding a pile of fabric that was mostly black and incredibly soft. He pulled the pieces out one by one.

[D - Epic] Robes of the Kraken Slayer

These robes are made from Kraken leather treated to be thin and flexible like fabric but still retain the defensive and regenerative capabilities of the Kraken. They provide excellent defense without any hinderance on movement whatsoever. Given time, mana or energy, the robes can completely regenerate themselves from even the smallest scrap.

Felix ran the leather that really just seemed like fabric, through his fingers and found it was incredibly soft like a fine cotton even though it was thick and durable. Felix also found a shirt, pants, boots and gloves. They were all made of the same material, simply treated differently. The boots were harder and easily just as comfortable as his Traveler's boots that he had loved so much. The gloves fit tightly onto his hands and either through magic or expert craftsmanship, didn't seem to hinder his dexterity or sense of touch at all.

All together, the set made Felix look a little bit like an assassin with the entire thing being black with some small hints of grey and purple peeking out here and there. The shirt and pants fit rather tightly but in a very comfortable way. The robes wrapped tightly around his body and had little in the way of excess fabric, mostly providing extra defense across his whole body. He had expected the robes to be loose and open, these were still loose, but wrapped tightly around his body so when equipped, they didn't dangle or hang and were definitely not open. Felix felt like the only thing missing was something to wear on his head, and a cloak if he could fit it on-top. He figured he would have to find or craft those himself.

For now though, this seemed like a massive upgrade to him. He spent a little bit of time testing the durability and protection and found he couldn't cut through the material with anything he had on hand. Even a fair bit of blunt force was dampened to the point of being negligible. The best part, to Felix, was that it was completely unenchanted. He could enchant them all however he pleased without worrying about interfering or ruining any existing enchantments. The only minor setback was that he had no idea how to enchant fabric, or leather, but he was pretty sure he could figure it out. Walking around and testing the clothes he found that, though he could feel the material all over his skin, it wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest. He quickly performed the basic steps for his martial art and found it as comfortable as he had been when performing them naked.

He picked up his Cloak of the Explorer and put it on just so that he could feel like the outfit was complete. The shadowy black cloak draped over his body, half way down his thighs with no sleeves, simply fabric hanging down on either side covering most of his arms if they were at his side. The cloak was entirely aesthetic, but it also made him more recognizable now that his entire look had changed. The last thing he tried was the mask, unfortunately, it had also gained a note when he inspected it that it wouldn't function at all.

The next thing Felix had to do was find a way to enchant his new gear. He had enchanted the boots he wore before this so he could channel mana into them and fly. He wanted to do the same thing to these as well as adding his previous Mana Shield inscriptions on the front and back.

Any ideas on enchanting fabric?

You can draw onto it, but that only lasts a few days on fabric instead of a few years on plate. Just sew the enchantment into the fabric, that's what most people do.

Sew it in? So I need to find some mana conductive thread?

Actually… You could probably use one of the most mana conductive material in existence.

What's that?

Mana. You could probably create solid mana with enough flexibility that it matched fabric then just fuse it into the material.

Really? Would that work?

That's more or less how enchanting with a quill works, but quills have the annoying property of not fully penetrating materials.

Can I just put mana into a material?

You probably have to solidify it within the material, but it should be possible… I think.

Worth a shot at least. My quill is E grade so it probably wouldn't have worked anyways.

Yeah, the enchantment probably would have just fallen apart or not stuck to the material at all.

How do you know so much about enchanting?

It works exactly the same way in my universe, or did.

Huh. What about spell casting, is it the same?

In my universe, people cast like you do.

Really?

Well, more similarly to what you do. Usually it takes a lot longer and very complex spells are completely out of the picture. With those, you simple inscribe them into a plate or something and cast that. Mana weaving, what we called what you do, tends to also be less stable. Your casting is very controlled and stable though. Remember when I first learned your language and told you to cast an overly complex light show?

Oh yeah. I thought it might have been summoning a demon, but it was only light nodes so I hoped it was safe enough.

Yeah, the ridiculous part was that you just did it. Most people from my universe would either take forever and have it be completely unstable or pull out a plate or scroll to inscribe it. You cast it and the lights all appeared in the perfect order.

So it was a test?

Kind of, it was me trying to figure out what the hell was happening and if you were lying about opening the cube and not knowing what I was.

I see. Back to enchanting though, what else should I enchant into the outfit? I should probably design the enchantment ahead of time.

Why? You should be able to remove it at will and even if it permanently affects the material, you can just cut it out and regenerate it. Then just try again.

Wait holy shit, you're right. That's sweet.

Yeah, materials with memory, regenerating materials, are great.

I guess that means if it gets damaged, I have to re-enchant it then?

Yeah but you probably aren't regenerating damaged armor mid battle anyways.

Why not?

Mana cost. Even for you, it would probably be a waste.

Felix spent a few hours replacing the basic spells he had previously used into his new garments. His boots had the flying and jumping spells inscribed into their soles for travel and dodging in combat. His chest and back had mana shields inscribed in them for quick defense if he needed them. Finally, he inscribed force blasts into his hands more to help with balance when flying and maybe even push an enemy back if they got too close. He mentally noted all of the other enchantments he wanted to add later including enchantments to deflect and absorb blows as well as maybe even some to increase the mobility of his new martial art. He wasn't completely sure what he wanted, and he wasn't very proficient yet with the Dragon Dance though so, he just made a note for when he enchanted the outfit later.

After that, he pulled out something he hadn't touched since he had acquired it a long time ago, the [E - Special] Major Restrictive Equipment. Theoretically, if Felix disabled his energy buff, he had 1257 strength or so leaving him a lot of room to use the equipment considering it maxed out at 2500 strength. With his energy buff, he would only get a hundred and a bit strength out of the equipment and using it close to it's limit might risk damaging it in some way. He was worried it might not work now that he was D grade, but it seemed like the grade was more about the materials and strength cap than anything else. He didn't even notice any enchantments that would suddenly fail so he felt comfortable simply using it.

Felix put the entire thing on his body piece by piece, which took a long time considering how many pieces there were. Almost 20 minutes later he adjusted the resistance to match his unbuffed strength and then increased it a little more to push himself. He made sure to eliminate all energy in his system so he could increase his strength and hopefully his body's efficiency at the same time.

He spent about an hour with the restrictive equipment, slowly increasing the resistance and manually forcing his muscles to repair as quickly as possible. He used energy for repairing the muscles but made sure, with his new found manual control over his body, that it did not get used for strength at all. Over the course of the hour he spent, he gained +4 STR, +1 DEX, +3 AGI, +2 VIT and +4 END.

Not bad for an hour of work.

Not a bad start.

What do you mean?

The lich race was the best one, other than dragon, and got 100 free points per level. Your race gives 80 total per level. If you do that same thing for an hour every day, you gain 14 stats. Assuming you level at about a level a day, on average over time, you will still be behind 6 stats per level excluding the 2,857 per stat you lost out on at the start. That's also assuming this rate continues. If I had to guess, it's probably gonna slow down soon.

I'll also have soul harvesting and that should be faster, right?

That's mostly to make up for your class. It would be great if that gave more stats than a good class would have, but that doesn't justify the race. You need to do more with it than just this. As for the rate of leveling, this is just an example. It could be accurate now but apparently it's exponentially slower at the higher levels, so you'll have more time then. The issue, is getting there. If your stats fall too far behind, you won't be able to keep up at all.

Got any suggestions?

Find creatures that you can use as templates and examples for each stat then try and replicate their body.

I assume you mean incorporate the cell structure or something and not turn myself into a chimera?

Exactly.

The biggest issue then is still Intelligence. No matter what I do, I don't know how I'm going to make up for that stat.

I don't think it's as hard as you're expecting. Your brain is vastly different from the rest of your body, but it's not some foreign entity. It's not made of some different material, it's still cells more or less. There are creatures out there with high intelligence that you can examine as well.

How do I examine the cellular structure of a creature? I don't exactly have a microscope.

You do though.

What do you mean?

Think about your familiar. It does essentially what you're talking about but on an even smaller scale.

My soul space?

You clearly need to experiment with your soul space more, but you can do a lot of things you can't normally do in a soul space. That's why it's one of the most important upgrades you can make. You are kind of like a god within your own soul space. You control the space and can do weird things within it.

Huh, guess I really need to expand my soul space then. Definitely moving that one up on the priority list.

What's up next on the list?

Figure out the body modification thing, but I guess that relies on hunting down creatures. Guess I can spend some time expanding my soul space, that seems like the most useful thing I can do right now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .