"[Good job back there, Cynthia. I know you were scared, but you did amazing despite your fear! That narcissistic player even got his just desserts for attacking you two.]" While they were trekking back to the mercenary guild, Dags sent Cynthia a message congratulating her. She did pretty well in the face of all that stress. It should help her overcome similar situations in the future since she's experienced it once now.
"Thanks Dags. I'm excited to see what rewards I'll get, but I'm even more excited to log off and sleep. Why is this game so exhausting to me?" Even though she hadn't been online for a long time, this game still seemed to take a toll on a User's mental state. Dags wondered if that was normal, or something about her helmet that caused her exhaustion.
"[You'll get too soon. Take a long rest and relax. You've had a very busy start for a new player, and you're nearly caught up with the average players who are only around level 16.]" With the kill on that boss shooting her up to level 10, she had narrowed the gap significantly between herself and those that started a week ahead of her. He doubted anyone had leveled up so quickly since the game's opening.
"Mm, I plan to. Ah, right, I should assign my stats as well since I leveled up so many times. How should I distribute it…" She had more points than she knew what to do with and contemplated the best way to split up the points.
"[Just do what you want. With that fight, I also got upgraded significantly and I'll likely need some time to process it all. After today, I should be able to assist you much more than I have.]" Dags hadn't checked yet, but he was sure that there was a crazy amount of upgrade points waiting for him to distribute.
Cynthia nodded without a word, staring at her screen as she walked.
"Hopefully she doesn't walk into anyone being distracted like that." Dags thought worriedly. He brushed that thought aside and opened up his own interface. The number that popped up on the screen made him think he was delusional. He pinched himself, and felt no pain from doing so. Then he remembered he was just a bunch of data, and that doing so wouldn't actually hurt him. After facepalming he looked at his screen again, confirming he wasn't crazy.
[Repair Progress: 0.5%]
[Upgrade Points: 57]
"Holy shit…" He had more points than he knew what to do with. He would have to spend a fairly significant amount of time investing into the Upgrade tree and deciding which paths to go. First of all, he went ahead and started upgrading all of his basic upgrades to get more energy, processing power, and regeneration. He only did them one at a time to avoid the influx of power that gave him an unbearable amount of pain. While it was slower, at least he didn't have to suffer. Several minutes later, they were all maxed out.
[Upgrade Points: 57 -> 49]
[Increase Processing Power 1/5 -> MAX]
[Increase Energy 3/5 -> MAX]
[Increase Energy Regeneration Rate 3/5 -> MAX]
After upgrading everything to the max, his stats now looked like this.
[AI Moderator - Dags]
[User - Cynthia]
Repaired Amount: 0.50%
Processing Power: 150 (i)
Energy: 160
Energy Regeneration: 2.7/min
With that done, Dags had 6 upgrades that he could choose from. Each path opened up a single new upgrade, except for [Magical Empowerment]. That one branched off into two. It looked like the paths alternated quite often between 1 and 2 paths, sometimes connecting to a different branch where you needed both or only 1. He now took a look at all his options for upgrades.
[Unlock New Process: Quest Giver]
Opens the NPC quest giving menu for use and provides a certain amount of XP and money to provide as a reward for either a singular quest, or through multiple. Total XP and credit allotment can be increased through further upgrades indefinitely. Amount resets daily.
Note: Quests cannot be intentionally made easy for AI's own User. If the system detects that such a situation has occurred, the quest will be discarded. XP and credits provided as reward will not be refunded to the AI.
PP Required: 30
Energy Required: 20
Initial Upgrade Cost: 5
Subsequent Upgrade Cost: 2
This one was quite nice to have. If he could give quests to Cynthia that suited her, she could rack in some easy XP and cash. Though judging by the note at the end of the description, he couldn't make it too easy on her or else it would just get wasted. He would have to fiddle around and figure out what the system considered too easy for the reward. The next one was also nice, an upgrade to the [Scan Area] process. Although he hadn't had a chance to even use that skill yet, the upgrades were amazing.
[Upgrade Process: Scan Area]
Upgrades the 'Scan Area' process. Each upgrade increases scan area by 15 meters, but slightly increases energy consumption. After reaching the maximum upgrade, the scan will negate the effect of name and face hiding effects. Maximum of 3 upgrades.
Energy Required: +5 each upgrade
Upgrade Cost: 5
This one would definitely come in handy to figure out who some suspicious person is or where some hidden treasure lies. Whenever Cynthia goes exploring, I'll have to try this out. Alright next one.
[Increase Energy Regeneration Rate II]
Further increases regeneration rate of energy. Increases regeneration rate by 1 each upgrade. Can be upgraded 5 times.
Each Upgrade Cost: 5
"Well, that one's quite boring, but still useful. I'm seeing a pattern here though… All of these upgrades are expensive." So far, all the upgrades would cost him 5 points just to unlock in the first place. While he gained a ton of Upgrade Points from Cynthia's rapid leveling before, it looked like they would all be washed away in an instant. He sighed and continued on.
[Unlock New Process: Hacker]
Hack your way into nearby terminals and gain access to their database. Must perform a series of checks to get through the firewall. If checks are failed, alarms will be raised.
PP Required: 100
Energy Required: 50
Upgrade Cost: 4
Dags scratched his head at this one. He was sure it would come in handy at some point, but Cynthia wasn't some criminal. Currently, he had no use for hacking terminals in the city. He left it for now to see what else was left.
[Unlock New Process: Friendly Relations]
When purchased, it becomes a passive skill for your User. Starting relationship with NPCs will be slightly higher, and it is easier to raise their opinion of you while being harder to lose it.
Upgrade Cost: 3
"Huh, I guess that's a decent support skill. I wonder how hard it is to raise an NPCs opinion of you normally. That TopKami guy sure was able to lose it fast though." He shrugged at this one. It was good to have and would surely prove useful for Cynthia in her journey. Finally he got to the last one.
[Unlock New Process: Basic Mana Sense]
Provides an ability to the User to sense mana. Although they will not be able to wield it, they can sense the mana in the air as it brushes their skin. The beginning for those that wish to use mana.
Upgrade Cost: 10
"This… So could Cynthia eventually use mana despite not being from one of the classes that use it? I wonder how that would work given the current animosity between technology users and magic users." It seemed like quite an incredible skill, and almost like a cheat for someone on the side of technology. After reading them all he thought for a moment to make his choices of where to allocate his points.
"Hm, I think I can ignore [Hacker] for now. Energy regeneration isn't super important right now, but I'll still upgrade it at least once. [Basic Mana Sense] is almost a must, so I'll get that too. Hm, that's 15 points spent, 34 left." After that, Dags finished off his spending spree by getting [Quest Giver] and upgrading [Scan Area] to the max, leaving him with 14 points. He didn't want to spend all of his points right now. He noticed a trend that each successive branch was costing more points to upgrade, so it would probably be wise to hold onto some.
[Purchased 1x Increase Energy Regeneration Rate II: 0/5 -> 1/5]
[Purchased Basic Mana Sense]
[Purchased Quest Giver]
[Purchase 3x Scan Area Upgrade: 0/3 -> MAX]
He was quite happy at being able to upgrade so many things at once, and these processes didn't hurt unlike the stat upgrade ones did. When he finally finished reading all of these and using his points, Cynthia was already back in the Resolute. She seems to have already allocated her stat points which he would take a look at in a minute. Right now, Darius was standing up front thanking everyone for helping. He finished soon enough and now it was time for the rewards to be divvied out.