The next move brought Will back to Sarlisa and Bob’s Elixir and Enchantment Emporium. And this time, Will actually had enough money for some serious shopping.

  The first aspect Will bought was Shadow, which went directly into his Mage skill, where it merged with Darkness, and then with Thunder.

  The result was, in Will’s opinion, absolutely worth the cost.

  Unfortunately, Will didn’t have the XP to bring the aspect up to level three, which meant a temporary loss of the chain and shatter effects.

  Next came a Stamina aspect and a Health aspect, both of which went into Will’s Compound Resource Pool. There wasn’t any synergy between them, or between either of them and the Mana aspect Will already had on that skill, but there didn’t really need to be. Each of the aspects would just boost the regeneration rate of its respective pool.

  Both aspects remained at level one for the time being, but would still be useful.

  Ice was also bought, but went into Will’s inventory. Ideally, Will would get the full Defender skill and merge Ice and Air with the Magma aspect on his Passive Defense skill, to form the Elemental aspect and give him protection from all four basic elements.

  But it also gave him the option of attaching it to his armor, in case he moved into one of the ice Spaces and needed the protection. It would be something of a waste, but it would at least let him move safely in any environment.

  After that, however, Will needed some advice.

  Those were the ones I already knew that I’d want. I’ve got a decent amount of money left though. Can you give me some advice on what might work?

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I can certainly do that. Which skills or items do you want to buy aspects for?”

  Let’s see. Skills first. I’ve got Unstoppable Lance Charge, which currently has Slow on it. Might be good to upgrade that to Advanced somehow. I also have Claw Proficiency, Least Cure Wounds, and Lesser Mana Beast.

  “For Slow, you can add Fast to boost your own speed when charging, or you can use Clumsy to hurt the target’s chance to react even further. Alternatively, you can add something that will boost the actual hit, but none of those aspects would merge with Slow.”

  Clumsy sounds good. But won’t it harm me if I add in the rest of the Cavalry skills later?

  “It won’t. But it won’t help any of those either.”

  I see. In that case, I think I’ll take Clumsy, but I’d like to hear about the rest of the skills first.

  “For those, I’ll need to know what direction you want to take them. There are far too many options otherwise.”

  I guess that makes sense. OK, for Claws, I’d like something that can hit things that are immune to physical damage.

  “For that, you’ve got two possible directions. You can add elemental damage to your attack, using any of the four basic elements, or even others like Electrical or Sonic, which you’ve already used. Though you’d probably want a damage type you don’t have already.”

  Yeah, that makes sense. What’s the other option?

  “You can use a Mana aspect. That lets you translate the full damage into magical, when you need it.”

  Which option is better?

  “Neither. Mana would give you better damage against magical beings, but won’t do anything for your basic damage. It will also burn some of the target’s mana. Elemental will give extra damage against regular enemies, but won’t translate your base damage.”

  And what are the future merging options?

  “Elemental types will merge up to give more extra effects, depending on which you choose. With Mana, you can work up to Astral, which ignores armor and burns stamina and mana.”

  OK, I think Mana is the way to go on that one. I can always add the elemental aspect to the weapon, right?

  “That would work. You’ll want Stamina, Ghost, and Disrupt to get up to Astral.”

  Yeah, but it’ll be a while before I raise its tier, I think. So just Mana for now.

  “One Mana and one Clumsy so far then?”

  Yes. Now, for Least Cure Wounds, I’d like it to either heal a higher amount or work on more serious wounds.

  “The first option is Health, the second is High. And before you ask, those two would merge into High Health if you get both.”

  Yeah, that’s if I can actually find more Healer skills. I think I’d rather take High first. There’s no point to healing more damage per cast if I can’t cast it on wounds serious enough for it to matter. But I’ll take Health too. I’m sure I can find a use for it, even if I can’t find another Healer skill soon.

  “You buying more definitely works for me. That just leaves your Lesser Mana Beast.”

  Yeah. And I have no idea what to use for that one. Can you give me some options?

  “Of course. Health would let it regenerate health so that you don’t have to resummon it or burn mana on healing it. If it has skills that use mana or stamina, the appropriate Aspect will work too. Any elemental aspect will give it offensive and defensive boosts, but the details would depend on which element.”

  Hmm. I’m tempted to get the Health aspect here. But I’ve already got a not insignificant amount of resources sunk into boosting my mana, so I think I can deal with healing it. I think I’ll go with the elemental option. Something that won’t overlap with my Mage skill, maybe?

  “That leaves a lot of options.”

  What about Light? If there’s a Darkness aspect, there should be Light too, right?

  “There is. And it has several options to merge later.”

  That would work then. I’ll take Light.

  “Very well. Anything else you’d like?”

  No, I think that’s it for now.

  “In that case, we have two Healths, one Stamina, one Shadow, one Ice, one Clumsy, one High, and one Light, correct?”

  Yeah, that’s right.

  “Then that adds up to forty silver marks.”

  Will winced at the cost, but then he realized that it actually added up to less than half of his money. Which was definitely a whiplash after the last time he’d bought an aspect shard. Much happier about the expense, Will paid Bob and took the eight shards.

  Clumsy merged with Slow into the Fumble aspect.

  The Lesser Mana Beast skill changed to Lesser Light Beast, which boosted the beast’s damage to slight.

  Least Cure Wounds changed to include minor wounds, and would increase by an additional category per level of the High aspect.

  Claw Proficiency just gained the ability to deal magic damage against enemies immune to physical.

  Before I go, one last question. I’ve found a mastery shard, and I’m not sure I understand what’s its point, precisely.

  “It’s not that complex. It takes a skill and raises it to the next tier, as long as the skill is below Master tier.”

  Yeah, that much I get. What I don’t get is why I would want it to. Higher tiers get more expensive to level up, but they don’t actually get any better, as far as I can tell. I mean, you get more space for aspects, but is that really worth the higher XP costs?

  “Ah. I see what your problem is. Raising the skill’s tier will increase its power, by a not insignificant amount.”

  Where is that increase then? I’ve raised Mana Bolt from Basic up to Expert, and it still does the same damage, at the same range, and for the same cost.

  “That’s because you didn’t raise Mana Bolt up to expert. You merged it up to Mage. Each skill has a basic tier. For Mana Bolt, that tier is Basic. For Mage, it’s Expert. The skill gets stronger when you raise it above its basic tier. So that a plain Mana Bolt, at Expert, will be stronger than the Mana Bolt part of your Expert tier Mage skill.”

  Wait, doesn’t that mean that I’m better off raising a basic tier up instead of merging it?

  “Not necessarily. You’ll get a stronger single skill, but you lose out on the rest of the set. Or you get the rest at the cost of more skill slots.”

  And can I merge it after raising its tier?

  “Yes. But you can only merge skills of the same tier. So if you’ve spent an shard on one of them, you’ll need to spend an shard on the other skills too. It’s cheaper to raise the tier after you’re done merging. And mastery shards are fairly hard to get, usually.”

  I see. I’m going to have to think about what to do with it. I’d like to boost Mage, but the XP costs are getting really high.

  “That’s always the tradeoff. But if you spend long enough on adventuring, eventually you get more XP than you can use. And more money, which you can use to buy skill shards for the XP boost.”

  That’s a good point. Still, it might be too early for me to use them.

  Happy with his shopping spree, Will thanked Bob for his help and left the Space.