Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 36: Level up - Part 1

I retired to my room soon after dinner, promising Brianne and Henry I would make myself available in the morning. Cedric took his role as Squire and Vassal serious, and not only escorted them out, but double-checked that the door was barred, and searched all rooms for intruders.

Gaining permission to use the office, he used the communication array and security protocols to contact his family and inform them of his promotion and his new position.

It was time to get a handle on the *pending* status for my rank and find out what Caraid meant about how experience worked.

"Status," I thought, giving a mental command to System and opening my character sheet.

Name: Mac De Belenos Prince: Level 1 (Pending)

Title: Summerland's Protector Title: Zeus' Bane

Danu's Kiss: You have been blessed by Wild Magic and the Goddess Danu.

The wee folk, sprites, and earth elementals will obey your commands.

You can call upon the Wild Magic to enhance any spell cast once every third day.

Sithern's created by you will conform and move to your will after creation.

Health Pool 2400 Magic Strength 3600

Strength 12 Agility 12

Intellect 18 Will Power 18

Affinities:

Earth Affinity 15% Air Affinity 32%

Water Affinity 15% Fire Affinity 85%

Nature Affinity 70% Death Affinity 15%

Mind 55%

Skill:

One-Handed Sword Master Rank Two-Handed Sword Journeyman Rank

Dagger Journeyman Rank Medium Shield Master Rank

Armor Master Rank Perception Expert Rank

Command Presence Expert Rank

Belenos Aura:

An ability associated with those whose lineage and bloodline trace back to the God Belenos, allows the user to create a fiery aura that protects the individual, heals damage, and inflicts burning effect damage to enemies. True sight is active within Aura radius, dispels all illusions.

Spells:

Nature's Blessing: Allows the individual to commune with and claim lands and bind with the land's spirit: warning the binding process works both ways. The individual is claimed by the land as much as the land is claimed by the individual.

Fire Fire Blast (Level 1) Fire Absorb Shield (Level 2)

Fire + Air (New) Fireball (Level 3) Nature Heal Self (Level 1)

Nature Heal Other (Level 2) Air Wind Blast (Level 2)

Air Gale Force (Level 1) Air + Fire Light Globe (Level 1)

Portal Summerland (Personal Lands) Portal Talahm

Faction:

Seelie +2000 (Liked) Unseelie +2000 (Liked)

Olympian -1000 (Not Trusted) Asgardian -1000 (Not Trusted)

"Caraid, the pending notification on my rank? How do I remove that?"

[Skills, spells, and aura's increase in level automatically as you use them,] Caraid explained.

[Your body is creating pathways. Integrating the muscle memory or broadening mental nuances that allow the system to report your progression in real-time, as they happen. Because of this, they are able to advance without any extra effort on your part.]

[You've already put in the effort and training by using them.]

[Ranks and levels are another thing. Something completely different.]

[Increasing Rank and level require you to use the experience you've gained and stored.]

[ Questing, fighting, crafting, there are many ways to gain experience. But that experience, once accumulated, is just potential. You should think of experience as your body's fat deposits. It permeates your body and magic channels, swelling cells and stimulating enzymes. They allow DNA and RNA to experience an augmented and accelerated replication sequence.]

[These experience pockets exist until you subsume them. Although each cell contains the potential to replicate and mutate, you must deliberately guide that potential, make thoughtful decisions on how to advance and what status characteristics you would stimulate.]

[By converting that stored experience, you transform the potential to the actual.]

[Every Level, each Rank the process remains the same. You collect and store experience until you hit a plateau. A bottleneck where you need to level up. The System notifies you of this plateau by adding a pending notification to your status sheet.]

"How do I convert the potential experience then?" I asked.

[Meditation,] Caraid answered succinctly.

[Looking inwards and examining yourself and your spiritual body until you can identify the potential that hasn't been integrated and made a part of the whole. Once you've identified what doesn't belong, you can begin cycling and directing that potential, subsuming what is possible and expanding what is real.]

[The System has calculated how much experience will be required for you to add an assigned number of stats points.]

[Peons and Commoners gain one point that can be assigned to 'build' their profile.]

[Squire and Knights gain two points.]

[Lord and Duke gain three points.]

[Prince gain four points.]

[Ranked Kings and Queens gain five points.]

[And Demi-Gods gain six points.]

[It is unclear if the Gods have the ability to level up once transcendence has occurred.

[Liken experience gains to a towel.]

[When you dip a towel in a pool of water, the towel works as a wick and slowly absorbs the water until the saturation point is reached. This new energy expands your bodies potential and prepares it. The process is an evolution in the matrix of magic and mortal that can be quantified and listed on a status screen. As part of the process, it creates a foundation to accept another round of experience to store and used to level.]

"Can enough experience be stored to gain multiple levels at once?"

[Yes and no. There are rare quests of kills that might gain an individual enough experience to receive multiple levels. But the experience if not used immediately at level-cap begins to disperse.]

[The stored potential is similar to radioactive isotypes. The cell lining of the wall acts like lead shields. But too much energy cannot be contained indefinitely, and the isotopes of potential begin to leak out until equilibrium is restored.]

[The higher the overdraft of experience to level, the faster the cells work to restore homeostasis.]

"Then just meditate? Look for the difference?"

[Yes.]

[Except remember you received a gift from SYSTEM. That ring of Hidden Depths you've been using as a glorified bag of holding also contains a training room.]

[If you extend your spirit and magic into the ring, you will meet with a trainer that can expand and improve on your abilities. He'll be able to lead you through a guided meditation and cultivation cycle that suits you perfectly.]

"Cultivation?

"Does harnessing experience rely on Qi, cultivation, and inner energy?"

[Not really, but the concepts are similar.]

[You don't have to worry about meridians or a dantian. There is no profound or secret cultivation technique that gives you access to an inner world of spiritual energy.]

[Don't get hung up on semantics. Cultivation Merging Expanding None of these words really encapsulate or explain the process.]