One Part Wisdom

Log Elementally, Dear Alex completed. Experience gained. Level Up! You have reached level 9. You have reached an odd level Title Ability granted. One attribute point granted. Experience to level 10: 999/5000 Notable items gained. Gold gained.

Total wealth: 0p, 153 g, 12 s, 245 c

Items:

Ritual Tome: The Ritual of Goblin's Feast This ritual tome contains the details for performing the Ritual of the Goblin's Feast. When all thirty-nine steps are completed, the effects of the ritual come to pass. The ritual creates tables stacked with goblin food and drink, heavily spiced with goblin pepper and mysterious meats. A dozen ephemeral goblin bards play the statistically most popular goblin feasting song in the multiverse. The ritual creates sufficient food for 100 goblins, which is usually enough for an equal number of any other sapient species. Those who enjoy the feast in friendly company gain several magical benefits related to sneakery, trickery, and rumpus. The ritual requires the following reagents: 100,000 calories of edible matter of any level of quality or spoilage, 1 kg iron rust, one squealing pig (the pig survives and may be reused), 250 gold pieces, and 1200% of your maximum mana. The mana may be supplied by sacrifice or communal ritual as outlined in the tome.

Iron Key: This rusted iron key opens a lock somewhere in the area of the first challenge.

Abilities:

Level 9 reached. Helpful abilities unlocked:

Arcane Chat: Upgrades the chat function of your party chat, allowing you to transfer the sigils and incantations of your spells via chat. This relies on your Arcane Script skill being high enough to accurately transcribe the sigil, and the reader's Arcana attribute and spellcasting skill being high enough to cast the spell. The spell may only be cast by the recipient for as long as it remains on the page. Anyone in your party can transcribe spells this way so long as you have this ability.

Leadership I: When you are in a party and suggest a course of action, and the party successfully completes the goal, they gain 10% additional experience per rank of Leadership. Only the party member with the highest level of the Leadership ability can activate this effect. The Leadership ability and its higher ranks are prerequisites for many political, governance, and administrative abilities.

Innkeeper (Unlocked): You have gained level 9 with the Helpful title while having ranks in Brewing, Musical Instrument (Any), Socialize, or Mixology skills above level 3, while also owning a Lounge, Bar, Inn, or Tavern safe room. You gain 10% of the experience required for the next level and 10 gold every hour you work as an innkeeper in your lounge. Your customers receive a bonus to their health, stamina, and mana for 12 hours after spending at least 1 hour enjoying themselves in your lounge. Any hangovers from intoxication in your establishment only last 20% as long as they would otherwise. This ability becomes obsolete at level 20 and must be updated to retain its bonuses.

Chat:

You take that back. Mun <<<O are goddamned pioneers. -Zack

I'm just saying, I thought the speakers were malfunctioning or that there was a portable power generator going haywire somewhere by the stage. -Artemis

It is called Drone and it is art. -Zack

I believe we agreed that we should only use this chat for mission-critical information, as the space on the page is limited, and by talking of trivial things we risk reducing the chances that one of us may not be able to read an important text as it gets pushed off the page by a spam of drivel? -Clarence

You could reduce those chances by using fewer words. -Hannah

Gottem. -Zack

Hey, Artemis, do you have the Leadership ability? -Alex

Oh hey, Alex, I take it that means you're alright? We were getting worried. I have it rank 2. Works well with my class and quests and all. -Artemis

You should have let us know you're fine as soon as you could. -Hannah

I then drew an arrow to my original text, signing it

-Alex

How is your plan going? -Artemis

I have everything I need. All that's left is to face my fears and kill a giant monster. -Alex

Don't die. -Hannah

She'd know. Oh hey, I just realized you're pretty metal, Hannah. -Zack

No. -Hannah

I'll try my best. I'll be careful and come up with a plan, but I literally can't be too careful or this won't work. So, I guess, I'll just be as brilliant as I can manage. -Alex

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Don't get cocky, kid. -Zack

Good luck. -Artemis

The rest of the party gave me the same sort of encouragement, and that meant I was almost done with the level-up.

The Innkeeper ability looked impressive and took a lot to unlock, which I guess meant it was supposed to be really good as far as the Tower was concerned. And I could see it, kind of. I could gain experience while staying completely safe, provide a service for the rest of the people in the Tower, and even make some money. Even more impressive, the 10%/hr experience gain would definitely become incredibly powerful at higher levels.

Sure, here at single-digit levels it wasn't impressive, but I bet I'd kick myself for not taking this ability at level 19, when getting to 20 would take me a week or whatever. Even if the next tier of the ability only gave something like 5%/hour, I'm sure there was some part of the curve where the levels would come faster and safer than killing monsters.

I just couldn't afford to plan that far ahead. If I took the ability now and went straight back to the Lounge, I could only get two more levels during the first challenge and that was if I didn't sleep. Chum had been sure that what came after would require levels higher than 15. So, with Artemis covering Leadership, I picked the Arcane Chat feature, which I was sure would come in handy. I explained how it worked in the chat and asked everyone who hadn't yet to invest at least one point in Arcana, so we'd all have a chance to expand our tactics.

Then, the moment of truth. I put an attribute point into my Enlightenment attribute. As before, it didn't seem to do much while I was actively thinking and focusing on the world, but the depths of mindfulness were closer and easier to reach. I had a feeling that, not too long from now, I could probably slip in and out of a slightly meditative state even during other activities. Then, more scratching from the Journal.

Log

Mind: 4 attributes filled. Highest capacity attributes filled. Mind-based classes unlocked: Wizard unlocked Scholar unlocked Artificer unlocked Infernalist unlocked Unlocks overridden: Coward class cannot be changed without hidden requirement unlock. Face your fears, Coward.

And it was time for that, wasn't it? I found myself in a remarkably preserved classroom that looked almost exactly like the one where I had first woken up nearly two days ago. The timer on the blackboard read 31:10:10. I supposed I still had time to investigate more, gain more experience, and maybe find more magical items. I wanted to prepare more. But then I also didn't.

The stale air of the room, the distant noises of violence, the slight smell of lead-based paint all of these things that had become familiar warned against complacency. I was a rat trapped in a maze full of snakes, but that was becoming less true with every passing level. I had new friends, many questions, and a nemesis. It was time to act not as the fresh-faced, naive nerd who had been so hyped to find himself in another world, but as the fresh-faced, naive nerd who had seen some of the horror in a life of constant battle, and was getting kind of good at it.

I was still a Coward. The class wasn't lying. I had been doing things that weren't cowardly. Hell, here and there I'd even managed brief flashes of downright heroism but that wasn't the point. I still only had two modes in this Tower. Either I had everything planned out in detail and controlled every element, using reason and precise thinking to overcome my challenges in which case, there was no real risk. Or else, I was backed into a corner, thinking fast, lashing out, and getting out by the skin of my teeth. That wasn't bravery. That was just the best use I could make of adrenaline.

I was getting better, but it wasn't wisdom that drove me yet. So yeah, credit to the Tower the class still fit. Maybe only by the most uncharitable of definitions, but I saw the truth of it and got ready.

It was not that I was not prepared. I had cast spells to prepare, I had several tactics in mind, and I had a plan of approach. But there was simply too much power, too many variables, too much emotion to control the situation I was now walking into.

It was not that I had a choice. Ever since Chum had explained what getting rid of the Coward class would entail, I knew that I needed to do this if I wanted to have any chance of any long-term success, and everything I had done up to this point had led me here. I had to go after the monster. Hell, I had to go after it if only for the chance to avenge the two kids I'd gotten killed by bringing them into the monster's lair.

Even so, this was the first time since I'd gained the class that I was choosing, on my own terms, to go into danger for my own sake. I would have nobody to back me, no quest leading me there, no friends encouraging or demanding that I do it. There was nobody to save to focus on, only me, and the enemy that had caused me and mine so much harm. Clever tricks wouldn't do. I just had to get in there and use all my Tower-granted powers and skills in a fight to the death. So, I was a Coward for now, but by the end of today it would be death or glory.

I had a few more things to prepare. I was in one of the classrooms nearest the borders of the Goblin Market. I had made quite the detour from the Library in order to grind levels and explore more of the Tower, and would have to go back past the Library to reach the Cafeteria. I had bought a basic sewing kit and a few leather straps on my way out of the Goblin Market, and I used those to sew a loop on my spellbook so that I could keep hold of it, even if I was tumbling around and exposed to forces beyond my control. I had also bought a sheath for my kitchen knife. It was a miracle I hadn't stabbed myself with it yet.

I went into one of the bathrooms. They were still the same sterile white that they had been when I first came out of my classroom, but the man looking back at me from the mirror looked different. So I washed the blood off my face and out of my hair and beard. Yeah, that was better. That look in my eyes had probably always been there. It was fine. So, with my ridiculous shirt and my trusty cargo pants, and my strange ratskin boots, I set out into the halls once more with my staff in my right hand, my book dangling from my left, and I walked towards where this had all begun.

There were no battles between the Goblin Market and the Library, only speedbumps. The common monsters of the halls had no effective tactics against my barrier and conjuration combo, and most of them didn't have enough power to damage me via the 10 percent damage overflow. It was almost like they got the state of my mind, or perhaps the Tower did, and I didn't encounter anything powerful enough to smash me in a single grotesque blow. I still kept a look on nearby occupied classrooms, which were still the majority, filled with a wide variety of monsters, constructs, and humanoids, but I never needed to dodge into one.

I found myself in front of the Library once more, and I took several deep breaths. There was still every chance that I'd freeze when I saw the monster again. I could survive with the Coward class. What the fuck was I doing, even making life-changing decisions based on some Journal whose creator had kidnapped me? Why was I so obsessed with the word "Coward"? It was just a name. It had proven to be far from a useless class. I took a step past the Library door, then another, and then I was walking toward the Cafeteria. I didn't remember exactly how far it would be, as I had been in a dead sprint and panic the time that I had fled in the opposite direction away from it, but I didn't think I was all that close when the entire hallway changed.

The first sign was, as Jaquis had said all the way back yesterday, the vibes. A grotesque, pressing, organic weight came over me from the atmosphere, and the tint on the corners of the shadows on the walls turned toward scarlet and pink. I remembered the smell of fresh meat before I smelled it, and when I smelled it, I could smell nothing else. When the shambling, spiked wretches of bone and meat stumbled in a horde out of the mist ahead of me, I was already expecting them and ready for the fight.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.