The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

Considering that it was earlier than he usually finished up at the house, he decided to take his friends out for a light snack at the street vendors. He’d come to know that the foxes really liked the one who sold the meat skewers, but hold the veggies.

After dropping one silver and thirty bronze on the meal, everyone seemed to be pretty happy, so he leisurely led everyone back to Myra’s house where they all had a lazy late afternoon. Especially him, given how his head still felt stuffed full of information. So, while Asami and Myra lounged on the cushions in the living room, he stepped away and headed to his bedroom to meditate. Not just to relax, but for “rest & recuperation”, High Elan style… or Altaea style, since she was the once who came up with those meditation techniques.

Which wound up doing the trick. He left his room in time for supper and spent a pleasant evening chatting with everyone before once again heading off to his room.

He quickly reviewed his mental check list of things to do, then decided that it was time to start using [Psychic Reformation].

Knowing that he’d need to use Dust, he retrieved all eleven of the Dust Crystals he’d created the other night. He picked one up to admire it a bit more and felt his fingertips tingle at its touch.

Weird, he thought, trying to place the feeling.

‘Don’t cores also tingle to the touch?’ Avi asked, leaning over to look at the crystal in his hand.

And that was it. Cores always felt tingly to his touch, though other people didn’t seem to feel anything when they touched them.

On a hunch, he retrieved a Grade B core and [Analyze]d it.

Grade B Core (hobgoblin [Shaman])

This monster core came from a powerful hobgoblin [Shaman].

Useful as a reagent in creating magic items, arrays, formations, as well as being used in [Alchemy].

Contains Dust.

- Purity: 15%

Joram stared at how much more detail was now had in its description compared to when he’d first used [Analyze] on a core. Not only that, but the description now contained something that he wasn’t sure had been a term used in this world before he and Altaea had arrived. Dust.

‘Wait. Does that mean that monster cores all contain Dust in them?’ he asked Avi, getting strangely excited.

‘One would assume so, yes. Given the “Purity” rating, I would assume that various cores contain varying amounts of Dust in them,’ she said, looking thoughtful.

‘I wonder if I can extract the Dust from them?’ he mused, wondering if that would be particularly useful.

‘Probably. But you’re more likely to be able to produce more Dust by yourself than if you tried to extract it from cores,’ she said, seconding his thoughts on the matter.

‘But, if I can just hunt monsters all day, could I get more Dust in the form of cores that way?’

‘For as strong as the monsters would have to be, I’m not sure that you would survive,’ Avi said, bluntly dashing his hopes. ‘Now, if you were to take a Path and advance as fast as possible, then I’m sure that monster hunting might become a viable option in the future.’

Joram nodded at that, wondering if he should just bite the bullet and take a Path. The only thing stopping him was himself, after all. But. What if, like acquiring Skills, he could get access to even better Paths if he waited longer. If he continued to wrack-up Titles and Achievements? His [Pathless Slaughterer - I] Achievement was one example of one that might be useful to level up before taking a Path. Though, he wasn’t sure what kind of Paths would unlock for something like that.

Then there was the question of whether or not the level of a Skill would affect what Paths were offered. Would the fact that [*Improved Sculpting] was his highest ranked Skill give him access to some ridiculously overpowered Path that focussed on sculpting? Would he get something like [Legendary Moonlight Sculptor]?

Laughing at himself, the tucked those thoughts away for later. For now, he wanted to see if he had enough Dust Crystals to completely crystallize his Soulbolt class, and if that would then allow him to take another class, or maybe choose to be a Soulknife instead.

“Welp, here goes nothing,” he said as he took the handful of Dust Crystals and laid on his bed while entering his Head Space. Or his mental office space; but Head Space sounded better to him.

“[Psychic Reformation],” he said out loud as he manifested the power.

He didn’t know what to expect, but seeing a window pop up on his monitor wasn’t it.

He looked at the new window and just about laughed. It looked like one of those character editors you could get for an RPG, one that allowed you to change anything about the character you wanted. From race (which he wasn’t going to change even if that had been an option) to class to feats, skills, special abilities, and anything else that might be there.

This one, though, seemed to be limited to the “classes” he’d taken, which currently listed them as “Shaper”, and “Soulbolt”. Then there were the things he’d “learned”, like the skills that Altaea had left in his brain, as well as the “feats”.

Under the Shaper and Soulbolt listings he saw a dropdown menu. Clicking on them, he could see his various class abilities and their descriptions, as well as any other skills or feats that he’d learned, and at what “level”. It was beyond weird to see everything laid out as though he was in a video game. Or a tabletop RPG.

‘Focus,’ Avi chided him, causing him to look around to see if she’d entered his office again.

When he didn’t find her, he frowned. Is she invisible or something?

Shaking his head, he chose to take her advice and focussed on the task at hand. Changing out Soulbolt for something else. So, while he tried to decide what to take once Soulbolt was crystallized, he began the process of crystallizing Soulbolt.

He started with the “capstone” ability, [Mind Blade Mastery]. Once selected, a new field appeared at the bottom right of the window, showing a counter. Clicking on the next class ability caused the left side of the counter to increase, making the right side the total that he had to work with.

Frowning a bit, he continued clicking on everything under Soulbolt until everything was selected. The counter now showed just under twenty percent. He smiled, then clicked the “Next” button.

The next window asked if he wanted to select new options or to crystallize his previous choices. Remembering that the trick was to take what had been crystallized and assimilate it, he chose the latter option, then confirmed when it asked him if he was sure.

Then probably the weirdest feeling he’d ever felt came over him as he began to “forget” what he’d learned as a Soulbolt. But the thing was, he still knew about it because it was still in the archive that Altaea had left for him. It was almost like he’d had his library taken away and put behind a glass wall. He could see it, but couldn’t access it.

Then the process completed, and the power ended, leaving him to sit in his comfy chair in his mind office space. A moment passed before he stood up and left his head space.

Opening his eyes, he noticed his psicrystal sitting on his chest, holding another crystal in two of its… legs? Appendages? Shrug.

‘Here you are, master,” his psicrystal said, proffering the iridescent crystal that was almost half the size of its body.

“Thanks,” he murmured, then took the crystal and spent a moment just admiring it.

‘You can either assimilate the crystal now, or wait until after you’ve chosen another class to replace it,’ Avi said from beside him, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Joram nodded at that, debating those very things.

‘How hard would it be to get fully trained up in a completely new class?’ he asked, wondering if trying to try something completely different would hamper him.

‘About as hard as you’d expect,’ Avi replied casually. ‘But if it’s something that you’re relatively familiar with, like choosing Psion again, but selecting another Discipline, it would be fast. But if you were to choose something like Aegis, it would take longer to get used to.’

‘Marksman?’ he asked, getting his hopes up.

‘Once you assimilate Soulbolt, the two classes would synergize well, and learning the ins and outs of Marksman would be relatively easy for you,’ she said, giving him a rare smile that caused his heart to flutter.

‘Sounds good,’ he sent, looking away. ‘I’ll get right on that,’ he said, then closed his eyes again as he entered his Mind Space.

His computer was still on, so he… stopped and sighed.

‘Avi?’

‘Yes, Joram?’

‘Could you please help me access Marksman?’

‘Certainly,’ she replied sweetly as his mind was flooded with information that nearly caused him to black out.

The feeling was exactly the same as when she’d dumped the Soulknife information into his mind a couple of weeks ago. But this time, he had [Clear Mind] to help.

A short time later found Joram relaxing again. With everything… settled, he began going over the options available to him.

The first big one was the kind of style he wanted to focus on. There was [Finesse Style], [Sniper Style], and [Volley Style].

The first focussed on shock and awe, with an interesting addition of some crazy trick shots. While he wouldn’t probably bother with the shock and awe stuff, the ability to bounce a shot between targets a number of times each equal to his SPR modifier was beyond tempting.

The second, [Sniper], was also attractive. It did, however, focus a lot on adding damage to the first shot, but the ability to increase the chance to hit his target was pretty good. Not only that, but the ability to inflict several different status ailments on a target was very appealing, especially the one where he could inflict ability damage equal to his SPR modifier. And since his modifier was pretty damn high right now, that ability would be OP.

The [Volley Style] option appealed to him a lot. Crowd control, when fighting alone, was very important. Not only that, but the ability to hit more targets per shot would help him end fights much faster. Sure, the [Sniper Style] option would help with the cleanup, but when he was alone and fighting against a larger group, [Volley Style] was the way to go.

….

Crap, I can just take them all, can’t I? He asked himself, realizing once again how OP this was going to make him.

So, he did it.

An hour later, Joram was laying in bed, very thankful that he’d chosen to lay down for all of that. But he was grinning.

Not only had he taken [Marksman], but had also assimilated [Sniper Style] and chosen the [Volley Style] as the regular style for the class. Then he’d assimilated Soulbolt again, then switched things around slightly due to the extra ranged options he’d gotten from [Marksman].

In the end, not only had his mindbolt become significantly more deadly, but he’d also gained the ability to gain a mindblade by taking the blade skill [Telekinetic Blade], once again allowing him to fight with a blade in mêlée. Which, really, was an extreme last resort, because with [Marksman], he could fire while in close combat and not worry about provoking an attack of opportunity, as it were.

Now that he was… tricked’out, he was intensely curious as to how much damage he could do.

“All done?” Asami asked, leaning over his face and nearly giving him a heart attack.

“Gah!” he squawked, dropping the Dust Crystals as he reflexively spazzed.

Laughing at him, Asami leaned over and picked up one of the Dust Crystals.

“What’s this?” she asked, then grew increasingly intent on the crystal.

“That’s, a, ah…” he stammered, reasonably sure that it wasn’t wise to reveal what it was, let alone how he’d gotten it.

Which didn’t seem to matter, because Asami was staring at it as though it had sucked her soul right out of her body. A little concerned, he quickly stored away the other Dust Crystals before doing the same for the one in her hand by pinching it between his thumb and forefinger.

When the crystal vanished, Asami seemed to snap out of her trance-like state and frowned at him.

“What’re you doing?” she asked, though she seemed happy that he was so close to her.

“Ah, just thought I saw a fluff in your hair,” he lied, hoping that it would slide.

It didn’t.

“Oh~~~? Are you lying to hide that you really just wanted to do something with me?” she asked, and before he knew it, her arms had somehow wrapped around his neck.

“Ahhh…” he said, a bit brain-locked before he slipped into [Clear Mind] and managed to calm himself. “I think-,” he stopped talking, hearing something that he hadn’t heard before.

Bells. Lots and lots of bells.

“What’s that?” he asked, turning his head a bit to hear better.

“Alarm bells,” Asami said, suddenly deadly serious. “Kirkwall is under attack,” she said, then bolted from the room faster than he thought possible.

Not wanting to be left behind, he started running, then found the Manelle family getting ready by the front door.

Celys had her large staff in hand and was waiting by the door. Kal was already there, a staff in hand, Myra coming around the corner a moment later.

“An attack?” he asked, hoping that maybe it was a fire instead, as that would likely be less deadly to those in town.

“Yes,” Celys said, looking at Nalun as he approached with a very sturdy spear in hand. “It sounds like the south gate is under attack. We’ll go as a group, so stick together,” she said, then opened the door and hurried out.

They all wound up moving at a fast jog, likely because Celys didn’t want them all winded before they arrived.

As he ran, he loaded up with his standard buffs, then added [Force Screen] for good measure. While he followed, he formed his N7-90 and checked on his [Astral Ally]s.

They were fine, so as he moved, he manifested [Astral Construct] to get himself a 9th Level astral construct. Feeling inspired, he shaped it to look like a dragon. Not one of those ones that looked like drakes, who just had two wings and two hind legs. No, like a good old dragon you’d see in Pathfinder. Two wings, two fore legs, and two hind legs. And, of course, the tail.

Knowing that it would be an absolute terror if anyone saw it, he accounted for that in the abilities he gave it: [Improved Slam Attack], [Power Attack], [Extra Attack], [Improved Fly] x2, [Rend], and [Natural Invisibility]. Then he made it an [Astral Ally] to both free-up his power pool, but to also give it some free [Fast Healing] that [Astral Ally]s seemed to get now.

He then instructed it to follow him from above the building line.

As they got closer, sounds of fighting started to be heard, which was bad. Then they rounded another corner and saw that the southern gate had been smashed to pieces, allowing goblins to enter Kirkwall with impunity. The guards were doing their best to hold the goblin horde back, and more were streaming in from all over, but they were ridiculously outnumbered.

To stem the tide, he instructed his dragon to plop down in front of the gate and destroy any monster trying to make its way through.

“Nalun, go help the guards,” Celys barked, then turned to the rest of them to continue barking orders. “Myra, Kal, you both stay with me. Myra, you take any shots that you can. Kal, buff us as best you can. If you see someone that needs healing, and if it’s safe, heal them.

“Joram? Can you do that trench thing you do? We need a defensive line that we can try holding,” she said, glancing back towards the gate just as a loud *thump!* was heard from it.

“Can do,” he said, then jogged forward as he took aim and started firing on his way to the front lines.

He started off heavy, using [Block the Sun] combined with [Quick Volley]. Though the [Quick Volley] reduced his accuracy, it wasn’t terribly hard to hit his targets from less than thirty metres away.

His N7-90 then lived up to the second half of its name, releasing shots so fast that the areas he’d designated were hit practically all at the same time. The gobs and hobs were blasted like nothing he’d seen before.

If he were playing that “catch ’em all” game, he was sure that a “Super Effective” banner would have shown up. More than half of his targets fell while the other half looked varying degrees of confused. Thus encouraged, he did it again, this time felling the rest of them and giving the confused but glad defenders some breathing room.

And him too.

He then used [Foxhole A], creating a trench across the street between the defenders and the invaders, piling the dirt on the defender’s side. Then he did it three more times to first get across the rest of the street, then to deepen the trench to three metres deep.

With the main thoroughfare taken care of, he turned left and ran down the connecting avenue, looking for any goblins that might have slipped though, but to also stem the tide from that direction.

On his way there, the “Go destroy the goblin dungeon” on his to-do list got bumped to the top.