I took a moment to look over my opponent before stepping in the ring. His shield would provide more coverage than mine would, but wasn't as durable. The man was also quite a bit smaller than me which would give me a nice advantage. I came up with a plan for the first round and stepped inside the ring. When I entered the ring, my opponent got into position. His shield was covering all of his body except for his head which was protected by a helmet. His spear was protruding out in front of him ready for an attack.
I positioned myself in my own defensive stance and waited for the horn to sound. As soon as it did, I dropped my spear and used both hands to hold my shield out in front of me and sprinted as fast as I could at my opponent. He wasn't expecting this at all and there was nothing he could do about it. His spear glanced off my shield and our shields connected. I pushed with all my strength and knocked him out of the ring, winning the first round. The horn sounded and we were sent back to our starting positions.
I walked back into the ring and my opponent readied himself again. This time, he was in a more relaxed stance, and I knew what I did in the previous round wouldn't work. I positioned myself again and waited for the horn to sound. When it did, both of us began to circle the ring, looking for any opening. I knew my spear had more reach than his did, so I aimed a quick thrust at his head. He blocked it with his shield and countered with his own spear. My shield easily blocked it, and we continued to circle each other. We tested each other's defenses a couple times, but neither of us could land a hit before the horn sounded, ending the round in a draw.
I walked back into the ring and waited for the horn to sound. I formulated a plan during the second round, but didn't want to use it right away, as it could be quite risky. In the second round, everytime I thrusted my spear at him, he would counter with his own spear. If he did the same thing in the third round, I would go with my plan.
The horn sounded and we started off circling the ring again. We traded a pair of spear thrusts but they were easily blocked. I confirmed that my opponent was still countering my spear thrusts with his own, however. It was time to go with my plan. I quickly aimed another thrust towards my opponent's head. He went to block it and return his own thrust, but I had already let go of my spear and was reaching for the haft of my opponents. I grabbed onto it, and my opponent held on, letting me pull him towards me. As soon as I pulled on my opponent's spear, I punched with the edge of my shield and hit my opponent in the head. He let go of his spear and fell down, dazed. I changed my grip on his spear, battered his shield out of the way, and impaled him through the heart, winning the round.
"Stage 4: Combat completed. You won two rounds and drew one round."
"Initializing Stage 5..."
I was teleported into a room with a small orb on a pedestal. I recognized what it was, and knew this would be an easy test.
"On the table in front of you is an uncharged mana crystal. Channel your mana into it and charge it up as much as you can. You will not suffer mana exhaustion here, so you are free to channel all your mana into it. Begin when you are ready."
I walked up to the mana crystal, placed my hand on it and began channeling my mana into it. After about 10 seconds, it was full so I stopped.
"Interesting.. You have filled the mana crystal and still have sizable mana reserves left over. That mana crystal is usually large enough to contain all of a young Scyftar's mana and have room for more. In fact, you have more mana than a Scyftar twice your age. Stage 5 is complete."
"Evaluation complete. Calculating base attributes."
"Calculation complete. Your base attributes are as follows: Strength: 8, Agility: 7, Intellect: 46, Constitution: 0, Endurance: 8."
I was impressed with my base attributes, particularly the 46 Intellect, but I frowned when I heard that my base Constitution was 0. I learned what all the attributes do in school, and Constitution is very important for melee fighters. Each point of Constitution gives 10 health and a small amount of physical damage reduction, as well as increasing health by 1%. For example, if my base health is 100, and I have 5 Constitution, then my health would be (100 + 50) + 5% = 157.5 health, which would be rounded up to 158 health.
"Why is my base Constitution at 0?" I asked.
"You did not take any damage during the combat portion of the evaluation, so your base Constitution could not be calculated. Because of this, your base Constitution is 0. Every time you visit a new dungeon, you will be required to undergo an evaluation. At that time, your base Constitution may be calculated, should you take damage during your duel."
Well that sucks. Without any base Constitution, I'll have to invest a bunch of attribute points into the stat for the first few levels so I'll be able to take some hits. If I was a mage or used some type of ranged weapon, I wouldn't really have to worry about it.
"There is one last thing to complete before your evaluation is over," the computerized voice said as I was teleported again. In front of me were 5 huge lottery draw type machines. Each one looked to have hundreds of small balls swirling within them, and were named A, B, C, D, and E.
"You may press the button on each machine one time. When you press the button on a machine, a numbered ball will float up. The number will determine which skill or perk you are awarded. After you leave the evaluation room, you can check the app on your phone to see your stats, attributes and your skills/perks. You may begin when ready."
I walked over to each of the machines and hit the button to cause a ball to float up. When I was done, the voice spoke, "You have drawn 726A, 962B, 348C, 421D and 157E. Please retrieve your phone and exit the evaluation room."
When he was done speaking, the room reverted back to how it appeared when I entered. I unplugged my phone from the socket and left the room to meet up with my friends. I guess I was the first one out, since I didn't see any of them waiting. I checked my phone and saw that it was 08:56, so only 52 minutes had gone by. There were a bunch of benches along the walls of the room, so I sat down to wait. I accessed the Adventurer's Guild app and looked at my profile.
Right away, I was able to see that my health was a lowly 100. Most people would probably finish their evaluations with 150, or so, if not more. My mana on the other hand, was insanely high for my level at 964, with very good mana regeneration to accompany it.
Scrolling down further, I saw my weapon damage, physical damage reduction, and attributes. My weapon damage wasn't that high, but was definitely respectable at 15.6. Most abilities have their damage modified by weapon damage, which makes it a very important stat. My physical damage reduction was non-existent, as a result of not currently having any base constitution. I tapped the plus symbol next to Constitution multiple times to spend all my attribute points on increasing my health and damage reduction. After spending all seven points, I scrolled back up and saw that my health was at a much more respectable 182, and my physical damage reduction was now at 7%.
I scrolled back down to take a look at my skills. First up was Barbed Spear, so I tapped on it, which brought up a small window with a description. Apparently the ability will extend the length of my spear, impaling my target when I activate it. Provided I'm within range of the target, of course. The interesting part is that when it lands, it will either pull me to my target, or pull my target to me, depending on which of us weighs more. That will require me to be pretty careful when using it.
The ability also had the effect of causing my target to bleed until they die, or heal the wound. The latter part would be tricky, since the the bleed carries a 50% health regeneration reduction, for the duration.
I was pretty happy with Barbed Spear and knew I would be using it a lot, especially against boss monsters. While the bleed damage is nice, boss monsters often had health regeneration that can easily outpace the damage over time. I would definitely need to test it out to see what kind of range it has. Closing up text window, I tapped on Shield Bash next.
Shield Bash does exactly what you think it would, based off the name. It would allow me to be offensive with both hands, and also stun my target for a short time when used. Stuns are always handy, so it's another good skill. Closing the window, I scrolled down to my perks.
Perks are different from skills, in that a skill is an active ability, while a perk provides a passive effect. The majority of skills can also rank up, where perks do not. I tapped on my first perk, Insight, to see what it does.
Upon reading the perk, I realized that it was both good and bad. Good in that it would allow me to level 50% faster, but bad in that I would rapidly outpace my friends, if they didn't get a similar ability. I wished there was an option to reroll skills or perks, but I would have to make do. I closed the window and tapped the next perk, Lesser Attributes.
While I wasn't happy with Insight, I was very happy with Lesser Attributes. This perk had the effect of allowing me to gain 2 additional attributes per level, applying retroactively. I was wondering why I had 7 attribute points available, since I knew the base was 5 attribute points per level. I now had my answer.
Also, another thing I forgot to mention about perks, is that they have their own ranking system, so to speak. There are 6 versions of each perk, one in each tier. They are differentiated from each other by their prefix, in this case Lesser. It goes Minor at tier E, Lesser at tier D, Greater at tier B, Major at tier A, and Legendary at tier S. Tier C perks don't have a prefix. Some perks stack, and some don't. Lesser Attributes does stack, so if I got Minor Attributes as well, then I would gain a total of 3 additional attribute points per level. Lastly, I closed the window and tapped on Minor Constitution.
