It still isn’t very hurt. I’m not sure I can even kill it this way. I have to think of something different.

  Except that he didn’t. Clayton heard a scraping sound from nearby, and turned to see a still-blinded turtle-man approaching, dragging his massive sledgehammer behind him. With the monster’s attention fully on Clayton, Alvin had all the time he needed to make a massive two-handed swing at the general direction of the noise of the battle.

  The results were a catastrophe for the monster. Alvin was stronger now, it seemed, and the sledgehammer was still remarkably effective as a mining tool on surfaces the system saw as mineable rock. One of the legs was immediately shattered, demolished forever into a pile of sharp, glassy shards. Alvin jumped back then, still unable to see but smart enough to know he’d be drawing the Crystal Roper’s fire after doing that much damage.

  The monster chased after him, dragging itself forward on three legs despite everything Clayton was doing to stop it. Alvin was still not in good rough shape to move fast, and staggered backwards as quickly as he could. It wasn’t fast enough until a sudden burst of light much smaller than Grace’s all-out attack exploded inside the monster’s head, rocking back its eye and once again giving it a scorched, ruined look.

  Whatever the rope had been, its effects had apparently worn off on his friends. Tom had been by far the most injured, but he was also the only true tank in the group. He was a mass of bloody feathers, but his high-vitality build allowed him just enough healing to get back on his feet, clubbing like a maniac at one of the monster’s joints.

  No enemy had truly unlimited health, but the Crystal Roper was close. Grace spared what magic she could, but it was only enough to make one of her new blinding flares every minute or so. Tom’s attacks did next to nothing, but he peppered the monster with everything he could while blocking the majority of its attacks, regardless of where they were aimed. In the context of blocking, he was as fast as lightning, and picked perfect angles of travel to make his shield take the brunt of the damage the monster could still deal.

  Clayton was still dealing the direct damage he could, but it was really Alvin who ran the show from then on. When he was able to, he’d land a shot on any unexposed part of the Crystal Roper’s body, taking big chunks out of the crystal and sending the thing reeling. It took a while, but the time came when the monster was on its very last leg. Several coordinated stabs from Clayton forced it to lower its head, where Alvin crushed the crystal around its eye.

  “Kill is yours.” Clayton huffed. “You earned it.”

  “I can’t kill this thing. The eye isn’t rock.” Alvin swung his hammer again, clearing more of the crystal away but leaving no lasting damage to the eye. “Do it. Before it learns new tricks.”

  Clayton took aim and stabbed before anything could change. The spear flew true, poking all the way through the eye and hitting the crystal still left at the back of its skull. The monster jerked, then collapsed into a pile of normal rocks. It was over.

  “Phew.” Clayton sat down, suddenly dizzy. “That wasn’t good.”

  “We should all be dead.” Grace croaked from the ground. “Six times over. Why did we get all those levels?”

  “I found whatever was making the time wonky and broke it.”

  “Lucky,” Tom said. “Too lucky. I’ll talk to you guys later. I have points to put in vitality, if you don’t mind.”

  “Gloat about it, why don’t you.” Grace flopped over on her back, rubbing her arms with four-fingered hands. “I won’t be healed for hours.”

  Clayton was curious about what had happened to his levels. He had become a lot stronger, but had no idea how much or why. It seemed like more than mere stats, judging by how hard it had been for the monster to stab him after it happened. A quick look at his status screen proved that suspicion correct.

  That’s… a lot.

  The way Clayton’s class worked was similar to everyone else’s. The system enforced a bit of guidance on where his stats went, giving him three points to intelligence and two points to dexterity and strength at every level whether he liked it or not. That twelve point increase was the same for everyone. The system simply didn’t let someone’s class get more off track than that. The five points per level he got to assign were free to go wherever he wanted them to.

  Some quick mental math told him that his dexterity being where it was a result of three levels worth of free points and six auto-assigned points, apparently what they had earned from the Chronales. Since then, he had three levels worth of auto-assigned points already in his stats, and another whopping fifteen points ready to be stuck wherever they’d do good.

  More importantly, his combat skill and fate skill had leveled. With twice as much dexterity feeding into massively improved skills, it finally made sense why the monster couldn’t touch Clayton. Taking his skills into account, he was twice as strong at the end of the fight as he had been at the beginning.

  Maybe more.

  “Oh, yes,” Tom said. “I’m level eleven now. I’m a monster.”

  “Level eleven is still pretty low. But I know what you mean.” Grace was busy with her screen. “Remember how I was telling you guys I didn’t have a spammable offensive option? That just changed a little. It’s called Scorchflare. It’s not as distracting and it’s not very strong, but it does real damage.”

  Alvin looked over and smiled through his obvious pain.

  “I’m a slightly better smith,” Alvin said. “Not much better at fighting, though I’m a bit stronger. Most of my points are going to vitality for now. That’s almost as good for the class, and it might help me not to die.”

  It didn’t take a lot of thinking for Clayton to know where his stat points should go. He put five of them in vitality straight away, which was a gap he had needed to close for a long time. At ten points, his regeneration would move up a tier on top of whatever increases to his overall durability he got from the raw points.

  After that, everything went to intelligence. Spirit wasn’t closely related to his class, and he had no spells with which to spend his magical power. Eventually, he’d have to throw some points in there to increase his spiritual defense. Today, though, his dexterity had badly outpaced his primary stat. He needed to bring that back into balance to get the most out of whatever Fate Sense did now.

  With his points assigned, he took a look at the skills. Combat Medium was unchanged, but fate sense had just a little more information for him, finally.

  “I’m level twelve,” Clayton stated. “I’m much faster now.”

  “That’s good. I just wish anything had dropped any loot.” Tom looked depressed. “All that for nothing but the levels.”

  “Why not cash in the loot that’s waiting? That’s what I was going to do.” Clayton hovered his finger over the screen, then noticed three heads had just whipped up to stare at him in shock. “What?”

  “Reborn. I swear.” Grace shook her head. “Clayton, the system gave you control over the loot drop. Stuff like that means it’s made a decision.”

  “I don’t understand. About what?” he asked.

  “About who’s in charge of this party. It usually doesn’t make that kind of decision. If it’s saying you get to decide when we all look at our loot, it thinks it’s pretty clear.”

  “For what it’s worth, I do too,” Alvin said. “He’s been making more decisions than anyone else, and keeping us alive better. I’m not going to be leading any time soon. Were you two?”

  Tom shook his head. “No. It’s a bad idea for the defense to be the leader. Blocking tends to limit the visibility of the rest of the battlefield.”

  “And I’m making pinpoint tactical decisions from afar if everything goes well. Yeah, I guess it makes sense.” Grace shook her head. “You’re the leader now, reborn. Don’t argue with it. You are outvoted four to one. Just know that I’d like to see my loot as early as possible.”

  Clayton got the hint. Pushing down on the loot notification in his status screen, he felt something click and watched as four rings fell down on the ground. He reached down and picked one up, noting it was made of a heavier, slightly shinier form of what looked like the same crystal the roper had been comprised of.