City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

fifty points into it, I’d have a one-in-ten chance to blast through fucking armor with it! I had a vision of idiots in full plate armor getting skewered with a casually tossed Flamespear… then I considered what a Fireball would do to a charge of knights on horseback, or to an entire regiment of soldiers...

I wanted Flamespear, damn did I not, but gaining the AOE without pouring all my mana into it? Hell yes.

You have chosen ‘Fireball’ as your spell’s evolution. For a cost of twenty-five mana, you can throw a ball of superheated flame at your target, covering a distance up to one hundred meters. The Fireball will explode on impact, doing between 50-250 damage to anything inside the first radius of impact. The secondary radius, starting at five feet out from impact, will inflict 5-50 damage, depending on distance. Secondary status effects of ‘Fire’ and ‘Hydrostatic shock’ are possible but will lower depending on distance from impact.

This spell will increase or decrease in damage depending on mana input. 

I nodded to myself, already second-guessing my choice, but it was done now. I brought up the next prompt and grinned again.

Congratulations! You have raised your weapons skill ‘Staffs’ to its first specialization. You must now pick a path to follow. Will you choose the path of DEFENSE, or concentrate on OFFENSE on the battlefield?

Choose carefully, as this choice cannot be undone.

DEFENSE:

Your many battles have taught you that a defensive fighter lasts longer than a damage dealer. Perhaps a shield would help? Selecting this path will enable the use of a shield in your offhand, with only a 10% damage reduction penalty on attack.

Ability Learned: Tank!

Once per fight, you can force stamina into an AOE ability, ‘Taunt,’ pulling all attackers in a ten-meter radius to attack you directly for thirty seconds.

OFFENSE:

Surviving the fights that you have has taught you one thing: if you want to win… ATTACK! This path will increase damage dealt to your target by 5-25 points, depending on force, vulnerabilities, and speed used.

Ability Learned: Gore!

Once per five minutes, you can force double the stamina of a normal strike into twisting your blade inside your enemy. This creates a much larger wound and has the chance to add a ‘Heavy Bleeding’ debuff.

“Hell yes,” I thought to myself. Comparing the options, it was pretty clear what was being offered. I could either go Tank or go DPS or ‘Damage Per Second’. DPS was the term we’d always used for a damage dealer, which is what I normally fought as, but tanking? I glanced over to the tightly wrapped body of Cam, laid atop the pile of softly glowing wood, and I knew what I had to do.

I didn’t particularly want to. I’d deliberately created Bob so that he could perform the role. When I’d realized he wouldn’t be any use to me while sneaking around in a city and I’d had to leave him behind, I’d then given Lydia the tools she needed to become the Tank…

But Cam had still died.

Others would, as well. More of my people would die in the future, I knew it. This ability, this ‘Taunt,’ was the bread and butter of the Tank skill set. It let you control the fight. While I could think of countless uses for ‘Gore,’ especially considering the monsters in this realm, not to mention the assholes I seemed to find under every rock... I chose Defense. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to save every person that I could.

You have chosen DEFENSE as your first battle specialization, selecting the path of the mighty Tank. Your muscles will change, enabling higher-impact handling, faster twitch reactions in your tendons, and powerful boosts of speed to help you get where you need to go. Shields are your friends! You are the bulwark that lesser creatures hide behind, the wall that protects, the bastion that shelters the innocent!  

You have learned the Ability: Taunt!

This Ability will enable you to control the battlefield, pulling attention from your allies and directing your enemy’s hatred directly at you. Better armor is a must with this skill!

“Well fuck-a-doodle-doo,” I muttered, realizing what I’d just done. I was the Tank… that’s fine, I’m a big boy, I can live with that choice… the problem was, as the last notification said, I needed better armor. Shit, I even had a shield specialization, and no fucking shield!

I sighed and pulled up the last notification, grinning as I did so.

Congratulations! You have reached Level 15! You have 5 points to invest in your stats and one additional Meridian point to use. You are now at 48,203/165,000 Exp toward Level 16.

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Congratulations! Through hard work and perseverance, you have increased your Constitution by one point. Continue to train and learn to increase this further.

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You have been assigned a new Class!

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Your Patron has assigned you the Class ‘Champion of Jenae’!

As a Champion of one of the Elder Gods, you will gain two additional stat points per level to assign, and you can now select an ability:

Seeker of Knowledge:

As the Champion of the Goddess of Hidden Knowledge, once per 24 hours, you can activate the ability ‘Seek That Which is Hidden’. The Goddess Jenae will provide a hint that can lead you to knowledge that has long been thought to be lost, or is yet undiscovered by any mortal. Beware: just as the Gods see your reality differently, so the hint may be different than you may expect.

The Soul of Fire:

As Jenae’s Champion, you have a fraction of a fraction of her power. It fills your soul, infuses your blood, and burns along your nerves. Selecting this ability will grant you a 1-point increase to all stats…

Choose now, Champion of Jenae

“Well, fuck,” I groaned to myself, skimming through the prompts and comparing the changes. “So, I could accept the one-off ten-point increase, bumping all my stats by one, or I could get a really nebulous ability…”

“Think carefully, my Champion. I did not enforce the Class change lightly. Consider your needs