Chapter Seven - Rebirth

Waking up was a slow and painful process. The memories of my death were quite vivid, as the Curse wasn't going to pass up any method to try and suppress me, or purge my persona.

That was fine. I expected I came back at midnight, my Renewal, the point in time when my soul was strongest.

I grit my teeth at the very vivid memory of getting my head torn off, and slowly stood up from where I was sprawled on the ground.

Same basic shirt and pants outfit as last time.

But there was a difference. I had just fought above my weight, killed three creatures that would have killed me in a straight-up fight, and so I had reaped me some Karma.

"Fuck you, you damn Curse."

I was back in the misty circle, my 'cage'.

I pushed a mental trigger for Melee/3. More MAB, Techniques, Feats-

Nothing happened. Hah?

I was sure that had gained me enough Karma. Getting to Three was supposed to be the easiest to do, especially as a no-magic Melee, where it was basically learn really fast, or die…

Nada. I stood up, took a deep breath, and considered my alternatives.

What could I do with my Karma? Refine more Health and Soak? No, I had to "die" twice, getting wiped down to nothing and living, to spend that Karma. This being reborn shtick was going to really help me get to max Health and Soak, since I was going to die over and over again.

Grab another Feat, sans Class Levels? I'd done no training for it. Ditto a Skill point. Those were things you did after you maxed out…your…Levels…

Multi-classing?

I spun around in my head. I was building on Sama's achievements back in the game. Logically, that meant I was walking on Sama's road, which included a lot of multi-classing.

However, I hadn't taken any cross-Classes until Four, precisely because I wanted to be able to live through stuff, and had hurried and gotten beyond one-hit-noob-wonder stage.

That didn't mean I had to, or even could, progress on her road. Cross-classing followed strict rules.

One, no beginner bonuses. No weapon or armor profs, for instance, no bonus Spells Known if a Caster, or Techniques if a Chi-user.

You only got more Soak if the second Class had a higher HD then your original, and then just half the difference between them. So a d6 Caster would get +2 Soak if they took a Melee or Dragon Warrior cross-class level.

Exactly the Class's Skill Points, no Int bonus, and only from that Class's list… unless you had a Skill that was a Class skill for all classes, like a Human did.

If you gained any Feats or Stats by Level, they had to be focused and spent on that Class's primary pursuits. So, an Archer would have to spend the Stat point from Four on Dexterity, and any and all Feats from Archer Levels on Archery or subsidiary Skills that were directly relevant to it, such as Bowyer/Fletcher. In other words, you couldn't take off-class optional levels to gain stuff that was basically only good for your Primary Class.

After all, you were taking those Classes to broaden your abilities with their skills. Taking their benefits just to up your Primary Class abilities was nigh impossible from a logical mindset.

I'd had a lot of cross-Class levels in game, because that was how non-Powered diversified their skillset. We didn't get more spells or Techniques, we got more Skills, Feats, and Class abilities.

So… that wasn't a BAD thing. Did it mean I was going to be forced to pay for all those cross-classes before I could level my Primary Class of Melee?

That was definitely going to slow down my combat progress, as there wasn't going to be a lot of use for me in Artificer, Alchemist, Minstrel, or the like, as I had very little to work with here.

But… I could start building my Vajra, I suppose. That would be useful one way or another. To do that, I needed a lot of Ki and Essence, which meant cross-classing.

And taking Monk was oh so appropriate. It would be appropriate to save my Mastery Advance until after my Monk Level…

I flicked a different mental switch, and Monk/1 clicked through.

My next breath seemed to contain the energy of the world. I could feel the force of my life, my ki, thrumming in my blood, gathering under the force of Karma.

Standard Monk required Lawful Alignment. I'd be going with Enlightened Archetype, which allowed NG, as a Forsaken.

No weapon profs, the Monastic Group. That was fine. Monk weapons generally sucked.

Award AB and Saves. Useless, already had the same or better.

Improved Unarmed Strike. I already had this, so I used it to upgrade to SUS. IUS represented +1 ki, Superior Unarmed Strike meant another +1. The upgrade ignored requirements, so the +4 MAB was waived. My UA damage went to a d6… not much, but it was free, so I took it. Getting hit by me was like getting hit by a baseball bat now.

Stunning fist, the ability to stun an enemy if you hit them, required spending excess ki energy from a pool. It was useless, as I couldn't spend ki, a quasi-magical force. So, I could swap it out for something else.

Crystal Dragon Mastery/1. +1 Ki, gave access to the Crystal Dragon Disciplines, particularly the Iron and Stone Paths, which I could use.

Wisdom to Armor Class as a passive Insight bonus while conscious. By feeling the flow of combat, monks positioned themselves to minimize damage to themselves. It was intuitive instead of analytical, and so stacked with the Melee unarmored Int/Dodge bonus. +1 Ki, but it had to be devoted to the ability to apply, so few Powered Monks ever spent the point, or even realized it was there.

It improved by +1 every 5 Levels, +1 Ki gained and needed to maintain it each time, as the protection deepened.

Skill points, 4. I had to take them from the Class List, so 1 point to Heal, bringing that to 3, and 3 points to Knowledge: Religion, which had Martial uses.

Ki pool, equal to Wisdom bonus + half of Monk Levels. +2, maybe. The Ki needed to maintain a Monk's special abilities were generally never included in this pool, which they spent to use certain skills. For me, the Pool only meant a generally stronger life force, and a boost to getting and improving my Vajra.

Bonus Feat of certain Monastic Skills. As a Forsaken, I gained another one.

Way of Iron Mastery/1, and Roll With It.

The former was +1 ki, and opened the Way of Iron, which granted DR 1/- per Rank, extremely useful and stacking with all other kinds of DR you might happen to possess. It and the Way of Stone were normally only open to men, but Annis-blood meant I could ignore that restriction. Essentially, it turned your skin into mildly ablative armor, as your life energy dispersed incoming attacks over your entire body to resist them, and later on just sent the force out your feet.

Roll With It increased one of your DR's by +2. It was a Power Feat, able to be taken again once every three Levels… and as an Expert/3, I qualified to take it. Since it modified Way of Iron, I could take it as a monk's Bonus Feat.

DR 3/- didn't seem like much, but it was only going to go up in the future. And all I had to do to keep it active was not spend the Ki I couldn't spend anyways.

I took Way of Stone Mastery/1 as my free advance, +1 to Natural AC. I had enough floating Ki to support it, for now. So, my AC should be sitting around 22 or 23. Not great for what I was fighting, but not horrible.

My trouble at this point was having enough free Ki to empower what I was going to need. That would require multiple investments in Crystal and Ocean Dragon Mastery, as well as Ki Mastery.

Getting a Vajra required 10 Ki and 10 Essence for a Forsaken's hard soul. I had 7 ki already, wouldn't take too awful long to get more… maybe?

I wondered what it would be like for the persona the Curse had, having a body with a Vajra coursing through it from childhood. Energetic wouldn't begin to describe it.

Not my problem. Or rather, a problem that was all me that I couldn't do anything about.

I glanced at my Inspired Feats, and let them go for now. If I ended up fighting something else, I could Inspire and change them. If it was the constructs again, things might go very differently this time…