Chapter 116: Experience

I stare at my magic frameworks, thinking about the nature of the system’s ‘points’. A tangential thought catches my attention: I can’t see any indication of tier for either Race or Class. It could just be that I don't have the right breakthrough, but it's also possible that the tier is more akin to a divine rank than something magical. If that is the case, it explains why the tier gives power to the entire Class and Race: it is the power of authority.

Ting! Sense Magic has obtained level 594!

The system is a product of both magic and divinity. One provides the authority, and the other provides the complex structure to bring it all into a comprehensive form. Divinity itself can't form Classes and skills, but magic can. However, magic is only as strong as the mana that fuels it, so divinity gives the magic frameworks the boost they need to be more than the sum of their parts. As the Class grows with achievements – in other words, as it levels up – the structure becomes capable of holding more divinity, which takes the form of stat points.

However, the odd thing is legendary points; they are representative of achievements that I attained, but they’re not magic? I don't see other manifestations of my achievements, not even the lesser ones, so what are they? They are experience, but what is experience? It affects magic in some way, so I should be able to see it.

I stare into my soul; where else could experience be stored? There has to be something there; I just need to feel for it, like how I use any sensing skills. I don't know how long I stand there, with Safyr watching me, but I slowly start seeing something, little bundles of... experience. However, one overshadows them all, a massive collection of experience, or rather just a single really huge piece, My mythic point. It seems that the Guardian isn't entirely right about it being divine energy, but it should be able to provide a framework for sufficient divine energy to increase in tier.

Ting! Sense Magic has met the requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 740!

37th Breakthrough: You've sensed experience; this will help you discover how true magic works.

There is something odd about experience... it is something similar to... miasma. That is why miasma can be seen with [Sense Magic]: it is anti-experience! If experience is triumphs, accomplishments, and other such positive feelings, then miasma is the negative: suffering, failure, and oppression.

It all makes sense now! I got [Mana Manipulation] through my achievements, both in just doing it and knowing enough about mana to make that possible, and this fueled the magic to form the skill. However, because my Class hadn't formed yet and the skill was incompatible with my general skills, it didn't have a filter to remove the miasma generated by the frustration of failure, of having to try again and again, and of the desire to have something that I didn't have at the time. The magic used and consumed the experience but didn't use the miasma, possibly because it can't use both simultaneously, leaving a core of miasma in the skill’s magic circle.

Ting! Sense Magic has obtained levels 595-596!

So now the real question is: how do I remove the miasma safely? Can I neutralize the miasma with experience? No, that won’t work, producing experience for the cursed skill will produce miasma from the same actions, and just cancel out. Can I push it out with enough experience in one big hit? Possible, but I will need a legendary achievement, as it's the only type of experience I can control the destination for.

"What did you learn?" The Guardian suddenly asks.

I explain my newest breakthrough, and what I can now see, along with my few new theories.

"I see; it seems I was a little hasty in my judgment of what legendary points are," Safyr says thoughtfully. "It seems to me that if experience grows magic frameworks, then miasma should destroy them; thus, it cannot be truly used in the formation of skills. Have you thought of why Classes gain levels? Why does some experience collect and wait to be used while some does not?"

Now, that's a good question. How do magic frameworks differentiate experience?

"Here're my thoughts on it." The Guardian states. "The greater the experience, or the more impressive and high-tier the achievement, the larger it seems to your sight, yes? That means that the Class cannot readily absorb experiences larger than its ‘capacity’ and must be primed to do so. This would mean, for example, that a Major Class can only readily absorb achievements that would be of Major tier or lower. However, there are some problems with this, like how does the experience choose which Class to go to for those with multiples? But it would explain why getting achievements for higher tier Races and Class is harder, while the lower tiers seem to have a lot."

That seems to be on the right track, but it doesn’t quite feel right to me.

"Maybe the Class just takes a portion of the experience? For example, you get experience for killing legendary monsters, right? But you also get the point. Maybe each tier has a certain threshold amount that is turned into an ‘achievement’ or point, and any excess is immediately absorbed?" I counter with my altered explanation.

Safyr is silent for a few moments as she ponders the issue.

"We are in uncharted territory," Safyr finally says. "The best thing we can do is observe with an unclouded mind. You have given me much to think about, and the sun is starting to set; you should return home."

In other words, I should make full observations first, then theorize on how it works while Safyr busies herself with all the fun theory-crafting.

On my way home, I reduce my Bond presence as much as I can. Tomorrow I will finally be working on my Class again, so let's look at what I have to work on.

First on the list is [Fairy Empowerment]. At the cost of mana, I can boost the damage of my fairies; it's almost capped out for now, so I can just get that last level to start with. Next, [Summon Arms]; I replaced [Beauty Mark] for it, which in hindsight might not have been the best choice if [Beauty Mark] can eventually be used to render a foe more vulnerable to beauty damage. In any case, [Summon Arms] gives my fairies weapons, to more efficiently deliver their attacks. I will have to experiment with how my [Fairy Soldier] works with it. It's level zero, so I have a lot of work to do on it.

[Fairy Explosion]; it works just like [Fairy Empowerment], except it makes fairies explode rather than strengthening them. It also has only one more level until it's capped, so I can just get that out of the way and work on other skills.

Next is [Summoner’s State]. It empowers all my Class skills, like a state of focus breakthrough would empower them individually. I am very familiar with state of focus abilities, so this one should be easy to level.

The last active skill I have is [Triangulate Summon]… absolutely useless. It had some use before [Sense Magic], but now that I have such a long-range ability, I have no use for it... Unless I can't use my sense skills for whatever reason, in that case it might be very useful. However, I can just ping my fairies with a normal spell; I don't need to waste a Class skill on it, so it's just unnecessary. I'll switch it back to [Beauty Mark] until I get something better.

[Summoner’s Expertise] allows me to summon more fairies and clones than I could otherwise. It's the difference between only being able to summon two hundred fairies and being able to summon three hundred fairies. That extra one hundred helps a lot when setting up ambushes and preparing for fights. Since I have very good scouting abilities, I will always have a chance to prepare, making this skill vital.

[Summoner's Core] is my highest level Class skill and a super good one. It increases both my mana production and my mana reserve, and allows me to slightly alter what kind of waste mana my core produces. It's an all-round great skill to have, and it's possible that it can become far more amazing in future. It is certainly one I look forward to training, especially since there may be more insights into the nature of mana to be found through it.

[Fairy Commander] is about giving orders to my summons and is currently capped, so I don't immediately need to train it.

[Fairy Rush] allows my fairies to move faster. In the beginning this just meant my attacks moved faster, but now, with [Fairy Soldier], it may be even better if it allows my fairies to deliver consecutive strikes much faster. I dropped it temporarily so I wouldn’t accidentally get too many levels, just a natural downside for having to train my Bond so much, but I'll get it back soon enough.

Last is [Summoner's Affinity], which passively increases all (Summon) type power. It's sort of like [Summoner’s State] but active all the time and only for actual summons, whereas [Summoner's State] is referring to my Class name and boosts all my Class skills.

I will get a Class evolution opportunity at level two hundred, and again at two hundred fifty, unless I evolve the Class before two hundred fifty. So the goal is to get my Class's skills as high as I can, which will earn me levels, until I am around level two hundred forty-five. This will give me the best Class I can get.

I arrive home, and, as soon as I open the door, I am nearly tackled by Yafe and Yafel wrapping their arms around me.

"Aly's back! Aly's back!" they chant as they pull me into the house. I arrive just in time for dinner, and of course, Mom and Dad grill me for details on how the dungeon raid went. I tell them of the Dream Eater Arachnoid, but keep the Mind Eater to myself.

The twins ooh and aah at the retelling of some of the fights as I make full use of [Acting] to make it as dramatic as possible. Once we finish dinner, we go to the Lojyo, where several people ask to dance with me; I've been getting a lot more attention recently, now that everyone is getting over the cursed being disaster.

I am entering the age where people will be interested in me, but I'm not ready for any of that, so I turn my potential suitors down and join the musicians, playing a stringed cello-like instrument.

After the music and socializing, several people show off their Dedications to Myrou. Now that the village has been restored and some time has passed, people are finishing up the work that they poured weeks of time and effort into. Perhaps I'll make one too… a paintbrush that paints using mana, something like mana weaving, but layering on a thin coating of mana. The painting will be worn away by ambient mana, but it's a cool idea and seems like a good thematic Dedication to the goddess of creativity and beauty. I can have a clone work on it while I train my Class skills tomorrow.

The next day I work on my Dedication, a relatively simple concept that I won't stress out too much about like I did with the dress. The handle is made out of several identities of beauty essence, all swirling around in a pattern, while the brush is made out of mana-woven threads of differing elements. I enchant the paintbrush to layer on mana: although that is the hardest part and requires several experiments to get right, I eventually figure it out with the help of [Inquisitive Perfection].

This Dedication doesn't turn into a magic item, not that I was expecting it to. This project is just a simple whim, and I wanted to see if I could do it; there hasn't been anything like this before, as far as I know, so I thought, 'why not?'.

The actual mana paint is made by pouring mana into a chamber in the brush, which thickens it into a paste-like quality when enough mana has been put in and the pressure is high enough. The mana is then filtered through the threads and put onto a canvas. I suppose I can make modern pens like this too, can't I? Now all that's left is to solve the mana erosion problem… Perhaps make specific paper that can more permanently trap the mana? Whelp, I'll figure it out eventually; for now, onto my Class skills!