Rabbits VS Ferrets

Looking through her storage ring, Astur looks to see if she has any skill books available to her. After a minute, Astur finds one that can be used right now and another two that can be used once the Skilled Alchemist Class hits levels 20 and 25. The Astur learns immediately is Alchemical Release, another supportive skill focused on buffing allies and debuffing enemies. Having the Skill Points to spare, Astur raises her new skill to the max level.

[Alchemical Release LV.10 Max (Active)]: Create a domain with a radius of 50 metres that follows you around. Within this domain you and all allies have all damage dealt and all damage taken reduced by 40%, enemies have a 15% decrease in damage dealt and increase in damage taken. This effect lasts 3 minutes. Cost: 5,500 MP and 5,500 MF. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

Using the rest of her Skill Points, Astur brings her only offensive skills to max level as well.

[Ether Blast LV.10 Max (Active)]: Ignite a target within a 50-metre radius, causing a small explosion and dealing fire damage. Cost: 2,700 MP and 3,600 MF. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Damage calculation: 540+(MND*0.3).

[Resistance Break LV.10 Max (Active)]: A single target within a 50-metre radius takes increased magic and elemental damage (10%) for 20 seconds, then they take a small amount of magic damage. Cost: 2,200 MP and 1,600 MF. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Damage calculation: 215+(INT*0.15).

Although this drops her skill points all the way down to 0, raising these three skills greatly increase Astur's combat capabilities. Currently, raising her combat capability is of high importance to Astur since she doesn't want to count on her poor luck to get something good when she lights a smoke and if possible she wants to lower the number of items used in combat. The latter part is the most important since her advancement quest only says she needs to defeat opponents to gain Challenge Points, meaning she can probably get away with just beating people into submission without the need to kill them. Thus she can spar some of the people around her and finish the Advancement Quest with relative ease.

Taking a seat beside her cauldron, Astur lights a cigarette, "*Sigh* Fighting a bunch of people… what a pain…"

Despite not wanting to, Astur knows that if she fails to keep her strength up, she might wind up dead at some point. Not to mention all the enemies she had on Vopal, who knows when some crazy players decide to gang up and kill her. While many Gamers are relatively predictable, and can generally be split into the hardcore crowd containing pros, no-lifers, and min-maxers, while the other side contains the more casual players. But there is one subset of players that Astur knows she needs to be careful around, these people just want to watch the world burn. Trolls and other kinds of people who actively enjoy sabotaging the fun of other people. Admittedly, Astur also falls into this group. As it stands, the players view her as a useful NPC that gives out good rewards, but who knows when some crazy bloke will try to kill her just to be a dick and prevent others from getting her high rewards. The players are Astur's fastest ticket to strength, but they're also an ever-present sword of Damocles hanging over her head.

A few minutes pass and Astur stubs out her cigarette. But before she heads out to find someone to spar, Astur decides to spend all the Free Stat Points she's been saving.

Astur has a much better idea of how to spend her stat points now compared to when she first arrived. From what she can tell, the most stats to raise in descending order of priority are Mind, followed Endurance, and finally Intelligence and Vitality. Mind and Endurance directly affect her Mystic Force and Stamina, both of which are very important for her synthesis, and the few offensive skills she has primarily scale with Mind with Intelligence being of secondary importance. The Alchemist Class was clearly designed to be a backline fighter with supportive skills while dealing high damage through consumable items.

Of the 260 Free Stat Points Astur currently has, she allocates 140 on Mind, 80 on Endurance, and 40 on Intelligence. Instantly her head feels refreshed, likely the result of her increasing her mental capacity by a decent amount all at once.

With no more ways to immediately increase her strength, Astur begins to go over who her possible opponents could be. The Quest requires she fight someone of at least level 50, gaining the max number of points at level 60. Basically, Astur isn't being allowed to beat up those who probably couldn't fight back. But there aren't too many people around Aeternum at this level. Most of the Oulvgar and the Warband is around the mid to late 40s, the people at level 50 and higher consist of the Forest Guardians, a few of the Oulvgar Chieftans, the Warband's veterans along with Asterion and Kretea.

"I know Kretea's at level 60, and the Guardians are also all level 60. But I don't know about the others. The old Warden definitely isn't an option, unless I roll something good while I'm high, I don't stand a chance," Astur thinks as she makes her way to the training grounds.

Upon her arrival, Astur finds Kretea and Ystur off to the side while Asterion is running the Warband and Oulvgar through standard training drills.

"How's it goin', she learn anything yet?" Astur asks approaching Kretea and Ystur.

"Yes, surprisingly fast too. I Only explained a few things and she was instantly able to utilise her Demonic Energy. Your daughter is quite talented," Kretea praises.

"Don't call her that. But yeah, I know she's talented," Astur frowns, however, her wagging tail betrays her words.

"And didn't you tell me that you were going to stay at home all day? What are you doing at the training grounds of all places?" Kretea asks.

"Her," Astur points to Ystur, deciding to use her as an excuse.

"Me?" Ystur asks, pointing to herself.

"Yeah, I thought it might be a good idea for you to see how a Demon fights, so I was just thinking I would ask Kretea to spar with me. It probably won't translate one to one, but you should still get a good idea of how to properly utilise Demonic Energy from watching her," Astur explains.

Kretea nods, "I agree that I would probably be a good lesson…" But her expression takes an odd turn, "however, you? Spar? Is it going to rain pigs next?"

Astur's left eye briefly twitches, "Has anyone told you that you lack tact? But if you want, I can make it rain pigs, or would you prefer to be drenched by frogs?"

"Does neither work? Why not make it rain rabbits if you can. Rabbits are cute," Kretea says, unperturbed with Astur's slightly disgusting comment.

"You know what, I'll actually think about that," Astur says, seriously considering Kretea's suggestion. "But I think ferrets are cuter."

"No way, rabbits are way cuter! Besides, ferret hunt rabbits!" Kretea argues.

"Nope, ferrets are cuter. They're small and can easily fit on my shoulder."

"Rabbits!"

"Ferrets!"

"What happened to sparring…" Ystur mutters, watching the conversation derail into an argument over which animal is cuter. "And Axolotls are obviously cuter than both rabbits and ferrets."

Hearing Ystur, both Astur and Kretea pause for a moment as they look towards her and shake their heads, "both rabbits and ferrets are far cuter than that."