NOVPUBChris
Having watched my purchases add up already, I was giddy to keep the ball rolling. Watching my points dwindle had dampened that, but nothing compared to purchasing new goodies.
Especially new and shiny goodies that fit my needs perfectly.
Sadly, spending the Faction Points would be a little different. All 592,854,235 points had been allocated for and planned out exactly. There would be no browsing like I had with my Personal Points.
Even knowing I didn't get to window shop, I was still excited. There were a lot more points to spend and there were some big purchases we were set to make.
Getting right to it, I went for the big-ticket item first. It was the one I was most excited about. Abigail and the Water Affinities had the Heart of a River thing, Rachel and the Fire people had the Eternal Flame, but the Ice and Snow comrades were left with nothing.
It was a damn shame! A catastrophe of the highest order!
Sure, we had massive amounts of ice mana and if one went on a quick trip North, the Mana would become plentiful and pure, but that wasn't the same! A treasure to call our own, where Cold Affinities could go and work on Laws, Bloodlines, Mana Cultivation, and even rooms for Body Refining could be set up.
The possibilities were endless. I could even go there to recover. With my new bed along with a Natural Treasure gushing Cold mana into the surroundings, it would be perfect!
That being the case, we obviously had to remedy that fact and a Cold Treasure would do just the trick.
Seed of a Millennium Glacier: Born from the Glacier Core of millennium-old Ice and Snow. Once planted in suitable conditions, the Seed will grow into a Glacier with a portion of its previous Core's strength. If planted in favorable conditions, the Seed will grow into a Millennium Glacier itself. If planted in perfect conditions, the Seed will exceed its previous Core's strength.
Abigail technically cheated and had her assistant go into the Reward Store early to pick up a book on Cold Treasures. She then used it to pick the most suitable treasure that we could buy.
The Glacier was both the best for our own use and the easiest to work with of the many treasures we could buy. Some required strange conditions that we couldn't curate or have ready access to.
The Glacier Seed was one that we could. It would take some effort picking out the right spot, laying down some formations, and saturating it with mana, but we were hopeful to at least provide what the System said were 'favorable conditions'.
Plus, having a Glacier form around the Seed was to our advantage. The Seed would grow into the new Glacier's Core and strong, durable Ice would freeze around it. It had its own defense built in. We would obviously add to that, but having that at the get-go was a plus.
Maybe I can hollow out a place next to the Core for my own use?
Ever since reading about it, it was all I could think about. The Core provided mountains of Ice Mana that both flooded the area but also worked to grow the Glacier around it so there was a secondary effect.
That Ice could be used as material. We weren't sure how viable weapons would be from it, but buildings were certainly a possibility.
The Treasure was enough to make me swoon, but clicking purchase and watching the points drain remedied that. The Bones I debated on so heavily previously didn't hold a candle to how much I just spent.
Next up was a list of specific Runes that we needed to buy. There were some truly interesting ones on the list that I would one hundred percent be studying on the way home. That and the Communication device Tracy gave me were going to be thoroughly broken down.
Among those that interested me, Weight Reduction and Spatial Enlargement were the ones I was looking at most intently. Of course, we planned to use them for Wagons so they could carry more and Backpacks, but it was the first step toward Spatial Rings.
Even our Points in addition to Marcus's weren't enough for a true Spatial Ring. The best we could do were Spatially expanded backpacks, but why buy one when you could buy the Runes?
It was more expensive to buy the Runes, but making them was much more important. It wasn't guaranteed to be able to reverse engineer a backpack. Honestly, the chance of doing so was rather slim. We had no idea of the construction process or what skills were involved if we bought one at random.
For all we knew, the one we purchased could have been crafted by someone with a Strong Spatial Affinity and it was impossible to do so otherwise making it impossible to work out.
Instead, the base Runes would make it so that with some study, we'd be able to produce our own. Hopefully.
There was also a deluge of other Runes for crafting and Formations that I purchased. I had the basics already, Durability, Protection, Penetration, and Piercing, but these were a wider range of options.
Other elemental Runes were also on the list. I already had Frost and Wind, but I bought Flame, Lightning, Acid, Water, Gravity, and other elemental Runes I hadn't already learned.
While I expanded the amount of Runes we had in our Repository, I also Purchased stronger ones of those I already knew. Runes followed a similar ranking system as Laws and all the Runes I knew were of the Basic Rank, or Tier one.
Basic Runes were Tier 1.
Lesser Runes were Tier 2.
Greater Runes were Tier 3.
Master Runes were Tier 4.
Ancient Runes were Tier 5.
Divine Runes were Tier 6.
There was also the supposed Primordial Rune at Tier 7, but nothing I had read indicated that was true, only speculation. Similar to Laws, Runes lined up with ranks quite smoothly.
It was no coincidence that it happened that way. Each Rune as it went up in Tier grew more and more complex. A Basic Frost Rune was a children's drawing compared to a Lesser Rune.
High Tier Runes were something our minds couldn't even comprehend without the required robustness. Increasing Evolutionary Ranks built that robustness along with other experiences. It wasn't impossible to be able to comprehend a Rune above your Rank, but it wasn't common.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Crafters dedicated to Runes could do it with monumental effort or study. There was also the possibility of being predisposed to a Rune. My affinity and experiences made me familiar with Frost and Ice Runes already, it made it a lot easier to comprehend those above others.
Affinities contributed toward how fast or slow someone comprehended a Rune.
Instead of thinking each Rune had a corresponding Rank, it was every Rank that allowed access to more Complex Runes.
I wasn't sure how long it was going to take me to learn and be able to carve the more powerful Runes, but I would get the hang of it eventually. It would also go a long way towards my Profession. Both in terms of faster leveling and a better rarity when I evolved.
If I managed to start crafting higher Tier Runes, it would push the Rarity of what I could make further. Crafting Epic gear wouldn't be out of the picture.
After going through and widening how many Runes we had knowledge of, next on the List came Techniques and Skills.
Techniques and Skills were the backbone of Factions and the rest of our Faction points were allocated mostly to them. Delegating most of it for individuals to purchase saved us points, but that didn't mean we were content with that.
Abigail was hell-bent on expanding our library and she was getting her wish.
The Common affinities got the most love. Nature, Fire, Earth, Ice, Lightning, Water, Wind, Metal, Light, Shadow. We dubbed those the Elemental Affinities and they were by far the most common.
There were also the Advanced or Derived Versions of those.
Nature had Wood, Plant, Forest, Jungle, Life, Growth, and others along those lines. Fire had Heat, Flame, Flare, Conflagration, Blaze, Inferno. Each element had further Affinities it could turn into or branch off toward.
Also, there were combinations of multiple elements and those were nearly endless. 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘱𝘶𝑏.𝑐𝘰𝑚
No one had enough points to buy everything and trying was a waste of time. Instead, we did what we could to get a firm base in the common ones and left it up to others if they needed something else.
Storm Affinity was so rare that spending points buying Techniques for it using Faction Points was a waste. It was better to have those with the affinity use their own points and then pay them to share it. Either in gold or something else.
It also helped that Marcus would be taking on some of the burden. He was buying a great number of Water Techniques anyway which made it so we could choose other affinities to work on.
Rachel was confident that with some negotiation and the right amount of coin, she would get Vanessa and the Eternal Flame Faction to share Fire Techniques with us as well.
I wasn't too knowledgeable about the relationship between Rachel and the other Faction, but we decided to trust her to get it done. It helped that we didn't have many Fire people in our Faction as they didn't like the Cold. If Rachel failed, not that many would be put out.
With those two affinities taken care of, we focused on Ice, Water, and Wind mainly. We also dipped into the combination of those as well. Weather, Blizzard, Arctic, and Snow.
We got both Body Refining Techniques and Mana Cultivation Techniques for those Affinities.
Skills were another we focused on. We could buy Skill Shards from the Alien Merchants, but those were a per-skill cost, and at a Faction level of thousands, it was expensive as hell.
There was the possibility to buy the skill once and hope the person mastered it well enough to teach the skill to others, but that was insanely difficult. Gabriel spent most of his time researching skills and even he found a hard time teaching them.
You could also write them down into books, but that took a mastery even above teaching. The positive about creating Skill Books in this way was it didn't depend on the student's learning ability. Skill Books worked like Skill Shards in that all you had to do was use them and the skill would be learned.
That didn't mean they were easy to make. Gabriel had ranted about how hard it was often enough that I got the picture. He had yet to make one, let alone enough to supply our Faction. Plus, you could only create Skill Books of Skills you knew, which was another limiter.
Being taught a skill, Skill Shards, and Skill Books weren't the only way to learn new Skills luckily. Other than making them yourself, there were also Skill Orbs. Skill Orbs came in a few different forms but they weren't one use like Skill Shards or Books.
They allowed more than one person to learn the skill. Some were inferior and broke after a certain number of people used them, but there were also those that were rechargeable.
Those were the ones we were going after. It would allow us to provide skills to our family and Order members indefinitely. Saying infinitely wasn't exactly true because they recharged only so fast, but it was essentially a buy it once and have it forever kind of thing.
Obviously, such Orbs were expensive as shit and the specific Skill inflated the price by a significant degree. Skill Orbs for [Power Strike] and [Penetrating Strike] were a lot less expensive than something of higher rarity.
Skill Orbs also fell into the same boat as Techniques, in that purchasing them on the market was insanely hard. It was only through Rare Dungeon drops that they were put up for sale at all, unlike Techniques.
Techniques were never dropped unless the Dungeon was special.
We had to be picky with which Skills we chose and were limited to Common ones. Anything above that was out of our price range. We could maybe get one or two, but we deemed it better to start low with more than high with few. Now, one might say buying Skill Orbs for such Common skills was a waste of money and on an individual level, they would be right.
But this was for our Faction. A person only got 6 skills in H-rank. From level 1 to 10, you only got 6 in your starting Class. New Mages or Warriors would be able to learn skills from the Orbs while also being more choosy with the ones they received from their Class.
There was also the chance they could upgrade them. My own [Mighty Blow], now [Meteor Strike], upgraded from the Common Skill [Power Strike].
With a wider base and possibly upgrading them to be more personal, their power would rise and higher rarity Class evolutions would become easier. That would feed into our Faction and create stronger people, pushing things even further. All because of a Common skill at the start.
More options at the start of the journey would make it easier for them to reach further.
The Skills I picked up Orbs for were a generic set for all the starting Classes. [Power Strike] and [Piercing Strike] for the Warriors and Rogues. [Power Shot] and [Piercing Shot] for the Rangers. [Mana Bolt] and [Mana Shield] for the Mages. [Healing Hands] and [Body Scan] for the Healers.
After the Treasure, Runes, Techniques, and Skill Orbs, our Faction Points were hurting. The last thing on the menu was Professions.
Beginner Profession Books for those we didn't already have. We had Blacksmith, Leatherworker, Carpenter, and those like it already but this was for Rarer Professions. This was also an area where the Alien Merchants could help.
Information on the more Common Professions was easier to get and we would be getting most of the Books and Starters from them instead of the Reward Store.
But, there were a few that weren't so easily bought. The main one being Dungeon Curator. It was long overdue and something we needed urgently. Having a Professional Curator would make our Dungeons grow much faster and remove the risk of them breaking.
Including Curator, I bought Artificer, Arcane Engineer, and Golem Smith. Professions specific to Magic combined with Technology were some of the ones harder to buy as some Cultures didn't care for it. Every Race had its own disposition and some were ill inclined for magi-tech.
I wasn't sure how well Golem Smith would go, but Gabriel and Abigail were convinced it was a good choice. They won me over by saying they could make training dummies that we could spar with.
In my head, manpower would always be better than golems, but I could see the appeal.
Lastly for Profession Books, we expanded on Beast Tamer. Beast Handler, Breeder, and Beast Commander would help in expanding that devolvement. I knew we would never have the sheer population of some Cities. Hell, New York probably still had millions, while we only had tens of thousands.
In that case, instead of numbers, we needed quality. Cavalry on strong bests, whether that be horses, bison, or something else. Hal wanted a Griffon eventually, as his bloodline was related to them and being it being an Aerial force.
My goal was Bears. Bear Riders both sounded awesome and would be insanely powerful, but that was getting ahead of ourselves. I could still barely withstand the aura of a Bear, let alone tame one.
For all of that to come to fruition, we needed a strong base in breeding, rearing, taming, and handling various beasts.
By then, our once overflowing Faction Points were nearing their end. Even delegating some things so they could stretch further could only do so much.
With a phantom tear in my eye, I spent the last of our Faction Points on Profession Knowledge.
Forging Styles, Alchemy Recipes, Specific non-Runic Enchantments, and Cooking Recipes.
We didn't have a lot of Points left by then and these were available through Merchants, but it was more efficient to get them here than from somewhere else.
Stuff like this was also something Abigail delegated out, but it didn't hurt to go a little further. Knowledge was power after all.
After selecting and buying the last of what Abigail had on the list, my eyes glanced at our Point Totals.
Personal Points: 0
Faction Points: 0
Well, it was fun while it lasted.
