Hylia had not evolved that night. When I asked her about it, she said that there had been some interference due to the upcoming battle. Fortunately, she was able to Continue to gain levels and experience at this point. The experience she had gained from our little excursion into the Lair of the Velocinids had boosted her up to level 20. Currently her stats looked like this.
Name: Hylia Morningstar
Race: Tarantula of War
Class: N/A
Skill points: 20
Stat points: 0
Coins:11,000
Hp: 5,075 MP 9,527
Age: 18
lvl: 20/??
strength: 314
dexterity: 29
agility: 162
constitution: 48
Vitality: null
Intellect: null
Wisdom: 29
Charisma: 15
Luck: 6
Talents:
[Berserkers Fury]
[War Goddess's Avatar]
[Divine Defense]
[Damage Nullification] lvl 5
[Life bound contract] (Yuri Morningstar)
[Natural Weapon Mastery]
[Bow Proficiency]
[Rapid Shot]
[Hammer of Fate] (crossed out)
Skills:
[Blood Rage]
[Holy Energy]
[Natural arrows]
She did not gain any HP or MP when she leveled up, she actually did not even have a value for her intelligence or vitality stats. This was an effect of her life bound contract with me. Her Hp and Mp were linked with my own.
As a beast she did not have a choice as to how her stats were distributed and simply got a +1 to all of them. That was not including her +1 to strength and agility that came with her [War Goddess's Avatar] blessing.
I had no idea what her future progression would look like, but from the stand point of an archer she would be able to do incredible amounts of damage. Her [Natural Arrows] skill used her own body's energy to make the projectiles. In this form it used the abundant hair on her body. I did not know how it would change in the future.
After some testing we found that her hair regenerated at the same speed as her mana regeneration. This meant it would be important for her to have a high wisdom stat in the future.
Archers already had to focus on 3 different stats, Strength for attack power, dexterity for accuracy, and Agility for attack speed. She now had to focus on wisdom as well. Not to mention she still had the trait from her previous class that doubled her Constitution growth. It would be a waste to not take advantage of that.
When it came down to it, her current stat progression was probably ideal for her growth. she would end up being an all-rounder, but if it allowed her to survive then I was ok with it. This is why I was ok with her taking on the role of an archer. I would happily put her in the back row if it meant she had less of a chance of dying.
This did not mean she would be bad at close range fighting. She had high strength and agility. She had a powerful night, and her front legs could be used like clubs. Unfortunately, her tiny size made this almost useless against most of the prey we would be fighting.
Her arrows on the other hand were rather useful for enemies regardless of their size. Her small size was actually an asset in this regard as she could easily move around. This made her a highly efficient mobile archer.
The talents she had purchased made this fact more apparent. Her attacks with her natural arrows now did 4x more damage and attacked 4 times as fast. She could theoretically lay waste to an opponent much stronger than me if she had some luck.
She also had 20 skill points to spend, but until she got a class, they were useless. She also had a total of 11,000 coins to spend at the shop, but decided to hold out on spending those. After all she would evolve after the battle and what was good for her now, might not necessarily be the case when she evolves.
.
.
.
A few hours later my mother knocked on the door. She looked exhausted, and it was obvious that she had been up all night working. she sat down on our couch heavily and immediately began to speak.
"We have received word from the scouts that the information you have given us is correct. We even went and communicated with several priests of the major shrines. All of them said the same thing, the bug god Ishra has declared war on the world. The battle here will be the first of many. If we cannot hold them back here then our city will be the first of many to fall."
"If we can stop them, then it will buy us some precious time. Time to gather resources, and lift the restrictions on the dungeons. We will be able to link the dungeons, so our teams can go into more difficult Instances. Instances that our level C dungeon would not normally have access to."
"Because of this, and to help ensure the survival of our adventurers who are less than C rank we have decided to implement a war time measure. This measure will combine two 2-man partnerships into a permanent party. Even when you reach C rank you will not gain other members unless someone dies."
"I know this information is rather sudden, and out of nowhere you will need to accommodate two more people, but the decision has already been made. It is not just out Slagstone City, but all of the cities."
"Your two new party members are waiting outside. For the time being they will need to camp out in your living room. I am sorry for the inconvenience..."
My mother trailed off as she seemed to stare off into space for a moment. She suddenly stood up. "I am needed at the guild. Do be kind to your teammate's. Not everyone has been as fortunate as the two of you to receive such an abundance of blessings...."
She hesitated for a moment before she spoke again. "They have already been informed of Hylia's... condition... So, there should be minimum awkwardness in that regard."
My mother looked at me one last before she headed to the door. As she left two figures walked in.