Stat Gems

Thankfully, the process of catching the four magical orbs was fairly easy once they had four party members.

They followed the resonance of each orb, closing in on it and then seizing it. Once an orb was in a player's possession, they could add it to their inventory, so they didn't have to worry about one of the orbs fleeing again after they'd already caught it.

As Ignatius knew would happen, the orbs fled in the direction of hostile enemies, but none of these were particularly dangerous encounters.

At long last, the party had returned to the former location of the Immortal Shrine and the shimmering energy dome which now covered its remains. Ignatius distributed an orb to each of the two players and two minions, then instructed them regarding how they would need to press on either side of their orb and twist it apart when he gave the signal.

Ozyrus examined his orb carefully as Ignatius explained all this. "Fascinating," he said. "Because someone needs both hands to engage the mechanism, a single player with an AoE couldn't simply attack all four spheres at once to open the gate."

"Right," Ignatius agreed. "They really wanted to ensure everyone in a party was working together to get past this point. Ready?"

Everyone nodded—except the astral clone of the zombie woman, who just stood there obediently.

"Now!" Ignatius said, then activated his device.

Each of their spheres popped open, revealing a shining diamond core in the center, held in place with iron claws. A beam of light burst out from each of the spheres, striking the energy dome.

With a popping sound like a lightbulb breaking, the dome shattered into millions of specks of light, then vanished completely! At the same time, the diamonds in the center of the spheres lost their light. The claws holding them in place between the two halves of the device opened, allowing the now-dull gemstones to fall to the ground.

After a moment, text appeared above each of them! Three of them showed the same text: [✧Cracked Diamond]. However, one of them had a slightly different shape than the others and a different name: [✧Flawed Diamond].

"Too bad," said Ignatius. "I was hoping we'd get at least another flawed one. Oh, well."

Ozyrus raised an eyebrow as he inspected one of the diamonds. "Stat Gems? Their effects are fairly self-explanatory, but you seem to have a better idea than I do how much they're worth. How shall we split them?"

Stat Gems, of course, were one of the main ways of increasing a character's power. All equipment had at least one gem slot in it, and either a Skill Gem or Stat Gem could be fit into each slot.

The basic Stat Gems were amethysts, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and topazes. They came in one of nine grades of quality, broken up between Normal, Magic, and Rare rarities.

These [✧Cracked Diamonds] belonged to the lowest tier of power, while the [✧Flawed Diamond] belonged to the second tier. In fact, one could be crafted by combining three [✧Cracked Diamonds] in town, at the cost of some Essence. All Stat Gems provided a different effect based on whether they were equipped into head armor, a wielded item, or any other piece of armor.

Diamonds, in particular, could provide a bonus to movement speed or elemental resistances... or provide a tiny Energy leech effect to attacks.

"To put it simply," said Ignatius, "you can combine three cracked Stat Gems into a flawed Stat Gem. So the flawed one is worth slightly more than the other three put together, since you also have a crafting fee. Though, if you want the elemental resistance effect, the three cracked ones will give you a bigger boost than the flawed one."

Ozyrus nodded. "Then I'll take the three and you take the one. You're serving the role of my sherpa, after all. Agreed?"

They split the gems as he'd suggested. Ignatius immediately slotted the [✧Flawed Diamond] into the magic focus he was wielding, which Siegmund had previously fetched for him from town. This immediately gave him a 1% Energy leech effect on his attacks. It wasn't much, but it might be the difference between victory and defeat down the line!

Ozyrus also took a moment to equip his three diamonds, and they appeared as decorations on his various pieces of body armor. As characters found rarer and rarer versions of these gems, they would gain more and more divine brilliance, so that high-level players were obvious simply from the way their gear glowed with divine light.

This was, as with many other aspects of the game, intended to help players understand just how powerful Brightlord Temporix himself was. After all, the dragon's whole crystalline body radiated the same light!

But the gems which currently decorated Ignatius and Ozyrus's gear were far too weak to shine in the middle of the day. Those sorts of treasures would be out of their grasp for a long time.

By now, the astral clone's timer ran out, and it disappeared. The party was now down to Ignatius, Ozyrus, and Siegmund. The cultist sent a glare in Siegmund's direction, and Ignatius realized he was considering whether to kill Siegmund again.

"Hey," he said sharply, "leave my companion alone. If he's seen or heard anything, then nothing will change that now. He'll be useful to have along for the next fight, so please don't make our lives harder than they need to be."

Ozyrus shrugged. "If you said so," he said mildly. "With that in mind... what 'does' lie ahead when we step into that magical circle that we've just revealed? The evil dragon, ready to devour us alive?" He spoke in a mocking tone, clearly unimpressed with Path of the Immortal's story writing.

"Not quite yet," said Ignatius. "We have to defeat the gatekeepers first. Another encounter designed for a full party of four, as it happens." He gave a wry grin and raised a clenched fist. "However, they didn't count on us wielding Sarexia's items."

He explained the strategy, and then the three of them stepped on the magic circle, which had previously been covered by the energy dome.

They teleported into the Eternal Tower hanging high above—into the Eternal Tower in the future which also existed within the Eternal Tower in the present.

When it came to the laws of space and time, Path of the Immortal certainly had a sense of humor.