All my spells seem to cost 10 mana, no matter how high level it may be. Some need a continuous supply of mana to keep active but it's never more than 1 mana a second.
I suppose I should use up my last bit of mana and get out of here. Raising my hand I use the last slither of mana I can gather and fire my last spell.
'Long Range Spell activated: Chain Lightning'
A bolt of lightning crackles from my palm and descends towards the unsuspecting rabbit. Upon making contact, the lightning jumps towards another Horned Rabbit a few feet away, then towards a small den beside it. The lightning seems to flow beneath the ground for a short while before finally extinguishing.
'You eliminated 7x Horned Rabbit'
'Experience has reached the required level. Level 2 acquired.'
I killed a total of 15 Horned rabbits to level up. The average mage needs about 10 to level up so I guess that means it's going to take a bit longer than normal for me to level up.
My mana is finally fully drained so there's no longer a need to be here. I should head home and rest for the day.
When I exit the gate a new pop up appears from the status window giving me a summary of my hunt within the gate.
'15x Horned Rabbits Defeated'
This is clearly what I need to show to get my payment so I take it to the man behind the table.
"15 is quite a lot for your first hunt. I assume you leveled up in there so a quick warning, make sure you don't waste your skill points and really think about it before distributing them."
I take a mental note of his words and decide to spend my time thinking about it when I get home.
I hand my license across to the worker after he prompts me for it. After he scans it with a device next him then hands it back.
"15 Horned Rabbits at 12 credits each is a total of 180 credits. The money should be in your account within 2 hours. Thank you for hunting at the Horned Rabbit Tower, we hope to see you again."
180 is not an awful lot for 3 hours work…
43 years ago on new year's day in the year 2000 when the gates first appeared caused a lot of panic from people but it didn't take long for governments to combine their forces and create the System Association. With the system Association came the introduction of a universal currency called credits. Credits quickly took over the world allowing people from all areas a fair chance to make money. Those with strong combat classes quickly rose to the top of the world gaining millions of credits from hunting strong monsters while lesser developed countries quickly caught up to the rest of the world from the mass hunting of low and middle level gates.
100 credits an hour is minimum wage for utility classes so earning 180 in 3 hours isn't the best but for my first hunt I guess it isn't the worst.
I should check out the System Association website when I'm home and see if there are any more safe dungeons like the Horned Rabbit Tower nearby that could give me a little more money.
My home is empty when I arrive, my parents must still be at work. My father is a combat class but he doesn't work as a hunter. He was a warrior but he was never made to fight so he just uses his above average strength to help in construction work while my mothers class is a chef so she owns a small cozy restaurant in town.
Utility classes are special in the way they gain experience. Simply using your skills will gain you experience at an extremely slow pace so as long as they continue doing their jobs, they will level up. She is level 9 after working as a chef for nearly 16 years so the leveling must be extremely slow.
Once reaching level 10 though all classes receive a second ability. This happens every 10 levels. The highest ranked hunters are normally the highest level considering you have to kill monsters to both level up and increase your hunter rank. The first ranked hunter tends to keep to himself, spending more time in the gates hunting than his own home. Lots of teh top ranked hunters tend to keep to themselves but there are still a few that do interviews and even less of them that make their status windows information public. The highest known level is the 14th ranked hunter. He is a tall muscular man that would be easy to mistake for a giant. Standing over 8 feet tall, long thick black hair tied back into a loose bun and a careful personality. A monster of a man who is the only known user of the shapeshifter class. His level was 186 last time he was interviewed but it's been a few months since then so he must be a bit higher now. I wonder if he or anyone else has passed 200 yet…
I think it's about time I check out how many stat points I got for leveling up.
Unassigned points: 20
20?! The average is 10 points per level but I have double? Even higher level classes dont get more than 14 points… This class really is something else.
I guess first i should confirm whether or not my intelligence is tied to my mana.
Intelligence - 16 + 4
Confirm?
I press my finger against the screen and the number blurs before clearing.
Intelligence - 20
Mana 14/200
I see so I was right. But i guess it doesn't instantly give me the mana, it only increases how much i can hold so i still need to wait for my mana to regenerate. The walk home allowed me to recharge 14 mana so if I do the math it takes about a minute to recharge 1 mana so over 3 hours to fully recharge my mana…
Unassigned points: 16
Where should I spend the rest? I'm a mage so intelligence seems like the correct answer but it would be foolish to focus entirely on one stat and ignore the rest. Wouldn't want to be a glass cannon.
Safe to say i shouldnt put any points into luck as it doesn't do anything so let's focus on the rest for now.
Stats:
Strength - 8 + 2
Stamina - 11 + 4
Defense - 4 + 6
Intelligence - 20
Luck - 14
Mana 26/200
Unassigned points: 4
It took over 10 minutes of debating in my mind over it but getting all my stats to a nice round number seems like a good idea. Pressing confirm makes a warm surge of energy flush over me, giving me a renewed vigor.
Where should the last 4 points go? With everything at a nice round number it makes it harder for me to put them into anything. I guess I should put the rest into intelligence since more mana will let me hunt for longer.
But maybe I should put one point into luck… just to round it out to 15, then I won't even touch it again but having it as 14 is going to bug me.
Intelligence - 20 + 3
Luck - 14 + 1
That should be enou-
'Luck increased. The chance of getting the desired effect from your abilities has increased.'
What… wait so my luck stat affects whether or not i get a useful spell or not. This is crazy, I should have put more points into luck.
Well now I know so I guess that luck and intelligence are my 2 main stats so that's what I will focus on for now.
So in the mornings I will go to the Horned Rabbit Tower and hunt until my mana runs out. Once my mana is recharged i will go back in the afternoon. If I keep to the schedule then I should be able to get 2 full hunts a day.
Name: Miles Ires
Class: Wild Mage
Level: 2
Titles: None
Skills: Long Range Spell
Stats:
Strength - 10
Stamina - 15
Defense - 10
Intelligence - 23
Luck - 15
Mana 33/230
Unassigned Points - 0
END OF CHAPTER 4