The Fourth Secret: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Divine Apostasy Book 4) by A. Kay (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

Overlord has a nice ring to it, Rami said. And you’ve done the title proud today.

It’s almost like there are two of me.

The universe isn’t ready for that. And there aren’t two of you. Just you and a future version of yourself.

Thanks.

The conversation with Rami made Ruwen feel better about this newest coping mechanism. One, by Rami’s analysis, he’d been using for a while. He shifted his thoughts to his unspent points. With fighting tomorrow, he didn’t want to leave so many unassigned.

Starting with the fifteen spell points, Ruwen went over all his choices. The problem with the spells was their variety. The vast majority were situational. But some had already shown value, and he made a few adjustments.

Ruwen added three points to the level fourteen Commander spell Quartermaster’s Yell, bringing it to level five. For an hour, it now decreased the cost of his spells by fifty percent and increased the effectiveness of potions by fifty percent.

The level sixteen Commander spell Fallen Heroes created an apparition that duplicated Ruwen’s non-magical abilities. The spell also acted as a distraction since the apparitions looked identical to Ruwen. He brought the spell up to level three, which meant he gained three helpers whenever he channeled the spell.

Bodyguard, the level fourteen Commander spell, allowed Ruwen to absorb twenty percent of the damage taken by whoever he linked to. Helping keep Sift or Hamma alive in the fighting made sense for the group, and for him personally. He added two points to the spell, bringing it to level three, allowing him to take sixty percent of the damage.

Finally, Ruwen added one spell point to the level three Fighter spell Sucker Punch. He missed his Observer weapon buffs like Backstab and this would be devastating on his Heavy Walking Stick. Now, the level two spell would cause his staff to inflict double damage.

That left Ruwen with seven spell points and the flexibility to get new spells or level up existing ones to counter any unknown challenges. Staying alive through the battle was a high priority, so he used two of his four attribute points on Stamina, and then added one to Intelligence and one to Wisdom.

That just left Ruwen’s twelve ability points. He’d left abilities for last because spending these points made him sad. The coming battle, and the coordination it required, meant he needed to spend points on unexciting abilities. With a sigh, he began.

Currently, Ruwen’s level two Ringleader let him form two groups. He added three more points to the level ten Commander ability, allowing him to form five groups.

Next, the level eighteen Commander spell Battlefield Promotion gave one person in each of Ruwen’s five groups the ability to make their own group. Every time he increased the level of Battlefield Promotion, an additional layer of groups could be created. With his current level of one, he had given Hamma in his primary group the ability, and she had added the City Council with it. Ruwen’s other group, the War Council, he had given the ability to Elder Yana.

Now, when he added four more points, someone in Hamma’s and Yana’s groups could create their own group and so on until Ruwen had five layers below him. If he had chosen the Emissary Specialization, he could have spoken to anyone in that entire chain. As a Warlord, though, he needed to rely on the communication to funnel up to him one layer at a time.

That left Ruwen with a measly five ability points, and at least ten abilities he wanted to max out. The choices were painful: increased damage, increased Armor Class, stuns, slows, debuffs, increased attributes, added health to his followers, flexibility on group size, and all these were just his Fighter abilities. He had just as many Worker abilities that needed to be leveled.

It made Ruwen want to abandon his Ringleader and Battlefield Promotion choices. Once the war finished, they’d lose most of their value. Especially since with only one point in Chat, he wouldn’t even be able to communicate with other groups once he traveled too far away. Was it worth seven valuable ability points for a single battle?

But if Ruwen meant to lead, he needed a mechanism to communicate to his teams. Many of those abilities he desperately wanted made him better and stronger as an individual. But he couldn’t win this war on his own, so Ringleader and Battlefield Promotion needed to stay. Eventually maybe he would max out Chat, and these additional groups would become valuable again.

After agonizing over all the choices, Ruwen finally decided on the level five Fighter ability Buff. It added a ten percent reservoir of Health and Energy for every point. He had already benefited from the ten percent he had now, and added four more points, giving him an additional forty percent.

Ruwen accepted all his changes and lamented his single remaining ability point. Recasting all his buffs so it reflected what he’d look like going into battle, he opened his Profile and studied the stats that had changed the most.

Pools

Health: 2,027/2,027

Mana: 653/653

Energy: 3,226/3,226

Attributes

Strength: 73

Stamina: 110

Dexterity: 65

Intelligence: 59

Wisdom: 57

Charisma: 33

Ratings

Armor Class: 3,280

Regeneration

Health Regeneration per second: 5.59

Mana Regeneration per second: 5.01

Energy Regeneration per second: 136.53

The extra forty percent to Ruwen’s Health and Energy had made a huge impact. Now, even if his massive Armor Class didn’t mitigate all the damage, his Health pool could handle a substantial amount of injury.

Did you work through the night? Elder Yana asked through Chat.

Ruwen looked up the wall and found the Worker Elder looking down from the battlements. He turned to the right and found the sun had already broken the horizon. He turned off Glow and looked back up at Yana.

I guess I did.

That is a mighty fine display of work ethic. But we have a battle plan meeting in less than an hour.

Okay, coming up. Let me Melt this rock into place.

Ruwen finished the last wall repair and opened his notifications. Once again, they were all identical except for level. Working