The Zombies stood little chance of survival against Flare's attacks, and Twilight had yet to feel the drain since the two of them were one-shotting the Zombies. Elementals required their summoners to give them Mana in order to attack on their own. Otherwise, they'd need direct orders to fight.
They figured out fairly quickly that Flare had three main abilities in terms of combat. There was the obvious conjuring fire balls ability, but she could set things on fire from a distance if they were combustible, dry wood for example, and she was able to cause explosions by super-heating any containers such as water barrels or well-sealed rooms. Less inherently destructive, she could absorb and control flames.
She could also sense what was happening with any fire in the area. The other types of Elementals could do much the same thing with their Elements, though the usefulness varied according to Flare. An Earth Elemental could locate tunnels or anything ground-bound. A Water Elemental could sense everything in or around any amount of water, though this was dulled with ice or water vapor. A Wind Elemental could sense everything flying and detect the weather from miles away.
At any rate, her Elemental Summon and Fire Affinity Skills leveled up a few times by the time they fought and killed a Legion Zombie. Elemental Summon had been in constant use for the past hour, so it rapidly climbed to Level 12. This boosted Flare's power, and reduced the cost of summoning her by 6. Now she only cost 44/min. to maintain. It also granted her 2 extra summons at once, which she gave to Flare to increase her power by 200%.
Fire Affinity had also, technically at least, been used extensively since Flare used her MP simply to be summoned and was using Twilight's MP to attack too. It reached Level 15, granting a 16% boost to Fire-related abilities, reducing any damage fire dealt to her by 16%, and reducing the costs of fire-based attacks by 16%. This boosted Flare significantly as well.
Considering how much of a help Flare was being, she should look into getting the other types of Elementals. There were the obvious Water, Earth, and Wind Elementals, but Ice, Metal, Electricity, Light, and Darkness, probably existed too. The book had at least implied as much.
Since 150 per Zombie times 500 made 75000, plus the 41900 from the Legion Zombie, she had gotten 116900 Exp from this run, more than enough to Level up. Since it was so much quicker with Flare, she did four more runs, reaching Level 31 and getting the Elemental Summon and Fire Affinity Skills to Level 27. Mana Sense had reached Level 16.
'Level 31.
HP: 1940.
HP Regen: 25.4/min.
MP: 3663.
MP Regen: 381.46/min.
Str: 32.
Int: 183.
Agi: 35.
Vit: 34.
Wis: 40.
Lck: 27.
30 Stat points unspent.
322007 Bits.'
Elemental Summon only cost 37/min for each summon so she could have a total of ten out though the Skill only allowed 6 for now. This still made Flare a lot stronger than originally. Fire Affinity granted a 28% boost to Fire-related abilities, reducing any damage fire dealt to her by 28%, and reducing the costs of fire-based attacks by 28%.
Mana Sense could sense 20 feet around her passively, and 40 feet actively. She had very good situational awareness now too. At first, an object had to be at least fishbowl-sized to be sensed accurately, but now it only needed to tennis ball-sized to be sensed, and she could determine the intent of living things, or pseudo-living like Zombies.
However, instead of a Legion Zombie appearing, something else appeared. First, instead of one Legion Zombie showing up, FIVE formed, and joined together to create a single mammoth Zombie that towered over the castle.
"What. Is. That?" Flare asked.
'Well that's a problem... Oh Creator, we're all going to d- Calm.' As if reacting to the situation, she felt Gamer's Mind forcibly calm her far more quickly than with the Legion Zombie, and used Observe on the creature.
'Apocalypse Zombie. This entity was formed from thousands of individual Zombies in the form of five Legion Zombies. It possesses even greater strength and stamina than it's smaller counterpart the Legion Zombie. At it's current size, simply being stepped on could kill you. It can also fire a beam of life-draining magic from it's mouth.'
Since the Zombie was such a high Level, that was all she got. Even the other Zombies had fled in terror, so they wouldn't be harassed at least. She was aware that being this calm in the face of a hostile skyscraper was not normal to the point of being unhealthy, but that could wait.
"Do you have a plan?" the princess asked, more serious than Twilight had ever seen her, which made complete sense considering what they were facing.
"I was thinking of letting Flare use all of my MP at once to blow the Apocalypse Zombie's head off, then dumping my 30 Stat points into Wis to boost my recovery rate and having her pepper it with attacks while you keep it distracted." Twilight responded.
She nodded her agreement, then took flight and began attacking the left side of the monstrous Zombie to distract it. Flare glowed as she absorbed over 3000 MP, then launched an attack that was so hot, it turned the air around it into plasma, and took out the right side of the Apocalypse Zombie's head, draining one third of it's HP. Less than she'd hoped, but workable.
Twilight hurriedly dumped her 30 Stat points into Wis, boosting her MP Regen to 525.64/min, though since she had Flare summoned 6 times over that left her with 303.64. Then she ran the heck away from a giant hoof crashing down on where she'd been 10 seconds ago.
She recovered about 5 and seven tenths MP per second, so she had Flare spam 5 single MP attacks every second, while she saved the remaining seven tenths to place a well-aimed Spiral Mana Bolt in the way of a swing at the princess. Of course, with less than 60 MP behind it, the attack barely turned aside the swing enough to keep it from hitting the princess.
The Apocalypse Zombie's HP finally dipped below 50%, then things went south very quickly. The Zombie opened it's mouth, and red energy began to gather in a swirling fashion. Remembering the description, Twilight ran as far from the spot it was aiming for as she could, but she still got caught on the edge of the attack's influence, she lost 500 HP just from being that near. She would have died from a direct hit. Worse, it began to charge again. It took about a minute after that first time, so she had enough time to dodge the attack completely, but only a five-second interval between each charge and firing cycle.
She didn't get exhausted as easily as a normal person, nor did she recover as slowly, due to a combination of her high 30's Vit and Gamer's Body. However, she was not incapable of becoming exhausted and the princess would also get tired or take a lucky hit eventually.
She needed to do something quickly. Flare wasn't doing enough damage to more than chip away at it's health, and she was barely keeping it from hitting the princess with the meager amount of MP she was saving for herself. She inwardly swore she was never doing this again if they made it out of here alive.
She inwardly slapped herself, she had 38 of the smaller Soul Stones and 4 larger ones from the Legion Zombies. That was enough to give her 1500 MP, more than enough for a Spiral Mana Bolt large enough to take out a leg. Without a leg, it would lose a great deal of mobility, and might even fall over if she were lucky.
She withdrew the Soul Stones one at a time and used them carefully so as to avoid losing any. Every point counted right now. By the time she had finished, she had 1525 because it took so long to take 42 Soul Stones out of her Inventory individually and use them, also individually.
She used Spiral Mana Bolt with 1500 MP, aiming at the nearest knee. Since 1000 MP had caused a massive explosion with a much lower Int, she was confident she could damage the leg in front of her to the point it was effectively useless.
When she fired it, the right front leg was damaged to the point where the moment the Zombie tried to put weight on it that it gave and caused the Zombie to collapse, it's own weight damaging it and... separating it's damaged leg from the rest of it. The Zombie's HP fell below one quarter.
Flare blasted it with fire fueled by her summoner's MP while it was down. Princess Celestia also took advantage of the Zombie's predicament to fire on it's head, which did more damage than any other place, but Twilight usually couldn't reach before a leg rose to block it. The Zombie struggled to rise, but it's sense of balance was thrown too far off for it to readjust easily.
The Zombie managed to stand when it's HP fell to one-tenth, but it couldn't attack or block with it's limbs anymore, so it only had it's life-draining beam attack. It rapidly lost HP since it could no longer defend itself with it's limbs and it took a lot longer to charge the life-drain attack now. Maybe it couldn't channel energy properly with a large amount of it's body M.I.A.
Even so, Twilight got caught on the edge of another attack that she'd timed dodging wrong and lost another 500 HP. She was still over 1000 HP since she'd had a little while to regenerate after the first time, but it drove home the fact that even on three legs it was lethal. Still, it didn't last for very long afterward before expiring.
She gained 250000 Exp, a pile of 10000 Bits, three Potions and a book from it, Leveling up twice. She sighed in relief, and destroyed the ID.
"Okay, let's never do that again." Twilight said.
"I think that's a good idea." the princess agreed. "As long as you're talking about the Apocalypse Zombie rather than IDs in general, of course." Celestia added.
"Well, I think I'll take a break from the Zombie ID for a while, but yes." Twilight answered.
"You know, I was starting to think we were going to die for a minute there, but we lived, so I'm too happy about that to be mad at you right now." Flare said, sounding more than a little relieved.
"In fact, I'm going to stick with the Blank ID for a while and work purely on Skills. I might have been freaked out a bit by all that." Twilight continued.
"Well, that's probably all for today then. There's something we'll have to talk about tomorrow once you've recovered." Celestia said. "Are you alright?" she asked, concerned.
Twilight thought for a moment. "I think so. Gamer's Mind is keeping me from freaking out over it too much, and my higher Wis is helping me think logically. Speaking of which, my Wis went over 50, so I should be getting a Skill for that any sec-" a window finally showed up. "Oh, there it is."
'Enriched Soul. Passive. Lv. Max.
Having reached a new level of wisdom, you have begun to see things in a new light. Everything is less disconnected than you originally thought.
Reduces the interval of MP Regen from 60 seconds to 45 seconds.
Increases MP Regen by 25.'
"Well, that should really boost my Skill use. My MP Regen is effectively 734/min right now." Twilight said, after relating the details of the Skill to the princess. "Since it's so high, I could, theoretically, summon ten Elementals and still be combat-effective myself. Of course I don't intend to summon that many since I can only think of nine possible Elementals in the first place including Flare, but the point stands." Twilight mused aloud.
"Alright, I suggest you start with Earth and Wind, since they'll likely take the longest as they are quite different from Fire. If you manage those, you should have a much easier time with Water and the Elementals that aren't part of the main four. I'm certain Light and Darkness are there, but what were the others you were thinking of?" the princess asked.
"Ice, Metal, and Electricity." Twilight listed. "Ice is commonly regarded as a different substance than liquid water, but it's actually meant to represent cold, so it's Fire's opposite. Metal's not the same as soil, it's Water's counterpart, Metal is unyielding while Water adapts to it's container. Electricity symbolizes energy in general." she justified.
"That makes sense. I'm afraid that I have some political issues to take care of... and a small mountain of paperwork." the princess said, the faintest hint of distaste in her tone. The princess had a small amount of the almost universal dislike for paperwork among anyone who did paperwork.
Twilight didn't particularly mind paperwork, but she didn't exactly like it either. She hadn't had much paperwork, but it hadn't been that bad. She found politics unpleasant though. She had rapidly lost any respect for the nobility that had survived up to this point.
Twilight conjured a pot full of earth and began practicing with it to adjust her magic to the essence of the earth inside it. Normally this would be impossible or at very least suicidally stupid as one's affinity was almost as fundamental a part of you as your heart or soul, but between the nature of her power in general and Gamer's Body, she could do it without real risk.
She'd asked Flare about it beforehand, and while becoming very slightly possessive, she'd merely required that Twilight still summon her. Twilight had reassured her summon and kind of friend that since she could summon more than the number of summons she expected to have indefinitely with hundreds of MP Regen to spare, she had no reason to dismiss her summons unless they wanted to leave or she was asleep and would be extremely poor company, and she never slept anymore anyway. Plus when her Elemental Summon leveled up it would cost less and less MP per summon, so there was absolutely no reason not to keep her summons around.
It took a few minutes to get the hang of the process of creating an artificial affinity. It even created a new Skill.
'Soulforge. Lv 1. Active.
Allows the user to alter their very soul to some degree. This has some risk of damage if you take it too fast, but the maximum safe speed and degree of alteration increases with each Skill Level. The risk of damage is also reduced. Note, since you have Gamer's Mind/Gamer's Body, the degree of alteration is nearly limitless and the risk is small to begin with, but the speed is more or less the same as would be normal.
Speed and degree of alteration is determined by Int and Wis.
Vit and Wis determines the risk of damage to yourself.'
That was... convenient. She wasn't going to refuse a gift though.
Simply trying to create her new affinity was leveling her new Skill, increasing the speed of her affinity creation. She had carefully probed the limits of her new Skill, and based on when it had started to cause strain, she had pulled back to comfortable levels.
It took an hour to create her Earth Affinity, and a few minutes to summon her new Earth Elemental, Gnome. She had a yellow dress and a yellow hat resembling an artist's beret, a diamond-shaped piece of dirt set in her collar, short brown hair, chocolate-colored eyes, and no shoes.
She felt the flows of air in the room to create her Wind Affinity. It only took 45 minutes to create a Wind affinity since her Soulforge had leveled up so much. Her Wind Elemental was called Ventus. Her hair was light green, a white witch's hat rested on her head, and her eyes were a pale yellow. Her clothes were off-white and somewhat baggy, apparently to let them breathe. Her collar had a small tornado badge set in it.
She used a bucket of water to create her Water Affinity. Her Water Elemental was named Aqua. She had waist-length blue hair, ocean-blue eyes, a blue dress that stopped at the knees, and a pair of sandals. She didn't have a hat because it would get in the way while swimming. Her collar had a teardrop symbol set in it.
Finally, she switched to the Elements besides the main four. For Metal, she used a large lump of conjured iron. The Elemental that appeared had platinum blonde hair, silver eyes, a tinfoil hat (the Elemental had immediately been defensive, so she'd dropped the issue,) and effeminate full-body armor. The armor was made of steel, and had a circular piece of metal set in it. Her name was Ferrum, Latin for iron.
Ice was somewhat tricky since she had to forge a connection to a melting bucket of ice, but it worked in the end. The new Elemental called herself Zero. Her dress was white and rather tight, with a snowflake set in the collar. Her hair was white with streaks of dark blue and reached down to her knees. She wore glass slippers and had pale blue eyes.
Electricity didn't work with just a battery or her own bio-electricity, so she'd have to wait for a thunderstorm or something similar.
She switched to Light instead. It was easy enough to figure out from the sunlight and her nearness to the sun's master. Light was not as much like Fire as one might think. It radiated warmly in all directions, but it could be hyper-focused, unlike Fire, which spread indiscriminately. Light was also capable of healing, unlike Fire.
The Elemental in this case was a girl with golden-yellow hair, a sunhat, blue eyes, and a short-skirted orange dress with a sunstone that closely resembled the princess' cutie mark set in it's collar. She had no shoes because she liked running through grass barefoot, and shoes frankly felt uncomfortable. Her name was Flash.
She worked on her Spiral Mana Bolt until nightfall, combining it with the powers of her Elementals to create a new Skill. Since this was technically using Spiral Mana Bolt while adding a layer of Elemental energy, Spiral Mana Bolt leveled up too.
'Elemental Spiral Mana Bolt. Active. Lv 24.
The user prepares a Spiral Mana Bolt, then has an Elemental imbue it with their Element. Of course, this means only the Elementals that are summoned can contribute their Element to the attack. Also, an Elemental who imbues their Element into this attack can't do anything else at the same time. Power depends on Skill Level, Int, Elemental Affinity Level, and Skill Level of Spiral Mana Bolt.
MP cost: 100.
20% boost to Spiral Mana Bolt statistics.
50% Elemental damage.'
Unlike Spiral Mana Bolt, she couldn't just dump all of her MP into the Elemental version. She suspected it was because it was so much more difficult to control Elemental energy and your own.
At any rate, she used the darkness of night to create her Darkness Affinity. Umbra was the name of her Darkness Elemental. She had black hair. When she said black, she meant a dark inky black that seemed to absorb all light and snuff it out. Her eyes were yellow like a wolf's and she had a tight black dress on, along with gloves and high heels that were slightly lighter, so very very dark grey.
She and Flash were apparently in a sibling-like relationship. They weren't really related, but any attempts to say otherwise got vigorous denials and spheres of light and darkness to the face.
Besides the bond with Flash, Umbra was something of a loner. The others would play with each other or experiment with their powers as they were unused to having as much MP to draw on as they did. Umbra would sit down against a wall and draw in a notebook.
She barely even interacted with anyone besides Flash. Frankly, Twilight was worried that Umbra had some kind of trauma in her past. She was hardly one to talk, but a person shouldn't be this anti-social. She'd give Umbra a few days in case she was just shy around new people, then Twilight would ask her if something was wrong.
She didn't know why she seemed so knowledgeable on the subject of people's feelings all of a sudden. Perhaps it was her massive Wis Stat. Int hadn't seemed to really affect her social interactions, even when given a massive boost. After a 75% increase in Wis on the other hand, she was noticing a much greater level of emotional awareness.
At any rate, she ought to take a look at the book she'd gotten off the Apocalypse Zombie.
'You have discovered a Life Drain Skill Book.
Life Drain. Active. Lv 1.
The ability to drain lifeforce from the target. Heals the user with he stolen energy. Higher levels will allow MP to be drained as well, and will make it possible to transfer the energy to others instead. Drain depends on Int and Skill level.
MP Cost: 30.
Would you like to learn the Skill? Y/N.'
She read the book instead. If she learned this, she could damage the enemy while healing herself, and heal her allies without having to use her Summons as a crutch. Though she was going to avoid the Zombies and Ghosts since they weren't actually alive in the first place.
She checked her Stats just to be safe. She might still be unnerved by the Apocalypse Zombie fiasco.
'Level 33.
HP: 2040.
HP Regen: 26.4/min.
MP: 3828.
MP Regen: 580.32/0.75 min.
Str: 32.
Int: 183.
Agi: 35.
Vit: 34.
Wis: 70.
Lck: 27.
10 Stat points unspent.
350691 Bits.'
She inwardly debated what to put points in, then decided that she was going to switch things up a little. She conjured up a plain broadsword, then dumped her points into Agi, bringing it up to 45. She had been almost helpless while her MP was low, and she hadn't been able to dodge all of those attacks the Apocalypse Zombie sent at her despite it's relative sluggishness. She'd be adding some sword-fighting into her repertoire so she wasn't so helpless without her magic.
She was using a sword for several reasons besides the reasoning behind her change in fighting style. First, her bare hooves would only do blunt damage. Second, she didn't want to be quite that close to her opponent. Third, of all the weapons she could think of, a sword was the simplest to use. Though she would admit anything fancy like cutting a substance of equal strength would require actual skill, a sword could be used like a fork if necessary, for stabbing. She would also get a Skill for it in all likelihood.
Right, now, to head into a new ID she'd gotten access to recently. The Mook ID which apparently had various cannon fodder enemies. What made this ID different was that the Level of the creatures generated could be set however she wanted and their gear could be customized. Of course, artificially strengthening or weakening them affected how much Exp, money, and the quality/rarity of items that they dropped.
She gave all of the Mooks a sword and made them Level 15 for this run. She'd noticed that Skills leveled up faster in combat than just practicing, so it stood to reason that if she fought people who were using something similar it would level up even faster.
She decided to let her summons run amok elsewhere while she fought the Mooks with her new sword, then destroy the ID in ten minutes before whatever this ID's equivalent to the Apocalypse Zombie showed up. She was confident that she could break out of the ID even with a first-tier Boss there, as she called the Bosses that showed up before the Apocalypse Zombie and it's equivalents in the other IDs.
The Mooks varied widely in appearance, and general form for that matter. They all carried some kind of blade though. She fought her way through the Mooks, gripping the sword with her teeth. She didn't want to stretch her MP with even Levitation.
Her Elemental Summon had Leveled up like crazy from having different types of Elementals summoned at the same time, probably because it wouldn't be possible for a normal person to do more than one type, but the cost hadn't dropped below 5 MP per summon, despite the fact that the Skill was in the 90's now.
That meant that she drained 80 MP per minute since each summon had been double-summoned to boost their power, leaving about 690 MP regenerated per minute. Divided amongst her 8 Elementals, that was about 85 MP per minute, although that was a lot more than it sounded with her Affinities. Though with a buffer of 3800, she could afford it if they got a little flashy.
At any rate, she had some trouble with the Mooks at first simply because holding her sword like this was awkward. Her strength and speed were easily superior to theirs, but her swings were somewhat clumsy until she got used to it. Within moments of defeating the third Mook, she got a trio of Skill windows.
'Through continuous use of a sword, the Skill Sword Mastery has been created!
Sword Mastery. Lv 1. Passive.
One's Skill with a sword. All swords are affected by this, from short swords to the mountain-sized swords used by True Gods in battle. Note that this Skill does not affect knives.
5% boost to damage with a sword.
5% boost to attack speed with a sword.
5% boost to chance to block with a sword.
5% boost to chance to parry with a sword.
5% boost to overall skill with a sword.
Through continuous dodging (yes, this is a thing) the Skill Dodge has been created!
Dodge. Lv 1. Passive.
One's ability to dodge attacks and projectiles.
5% boost to ability to dodge.
5% boost to chance of partial dodge. Remember that partial dodges only stop some of the damage.
Through continuous taking of damage from physical attacks, the Skill Toughness has been created!
Toughness. Lv 1. Passive.
Reduces the damage you take from physical attacks as well as the pain you feel and how long it takes to recover. This does not apply to magical attacks in any way.
1% reduction to physical damage and related pain.'
Huh, those other two must not have shown up before because she didn't take a lot of physical damage or dodge many attacks before. She'd usually wiped out anything that attacked, or avoided the attacks entirely. She'd never had to dodge a lot of attacks in quick succession before either.
Still, she wasn't complaining. Her various Affinities were leveling up, albeit mostly the non-Fire ones since they had yet to reach the dropping-off point that was Level 10. Sword Mastery provided a noticeable improvement. With it, her attacks acted like she had 5% more Str and Dex (33.6 and 47.25 respectively.) Her attacks were also more fluid, leaving fewer openings.
She was only planning on getting the Skill to Level 10 though, as this was supposed to be last resort. She didn't need to be a master swordsman, just decent. After all, who expected a unicorn to pull a blade out of, from their perspective, literally nowhere and start swinging it around with any degree of Skill? Nobody, that's who!
Most unicorns relied heavily on their magic, often almost exclusively on it. This left them helpless if they ran out of magic though. She'd had the same weakness, but she intended to remedy that.
At any rate, Sword Mastery gained a 5% boost to each bonus every time it leveled up. By Level 10, it granted a 50% bonus to it's benefits. That is to say, her attack speed with a sword was 50% higher. Her high-speed combat had given her an extra Dex point about an hour in. Apparently combat made those grow faster too.
She'd also gained a Level, and her Elemental Summon was almost at Level 100. At 99, she could summon 19 summons in theory. Was 20 going to be her maximum? Ah well, she could use the extra summons to help her Electricity Elemental catch up to the others.
At any rate, she would wait on spending her Stat points for later, she'd get her Int up to 200, and then her Dex to 50. She wanted to see if her Stats got her new Skills at the 200 mark, and the extra 170 MP didn't hurt. As for Dex, her magic was well beyond what any normal being could defend adequately against (the Apocalypse Zombie didn't count, for so many reasons) so right now she needed to improve her ability to dodge and tank hits.
She would put her primary focus on the former, since all the power in the world was meaningless if she didn't get hit by the attack. Of course, if she did get hit, she'd need to be able to handle it, so Vit was also a concern.
They continued to fight the Mooks, when Elemental Summon reached Level 100.
'Elemenal Summon has reached Level 100, and evolved into Weak Elemental Summon!
Weak Elemental Summon. Active. Lv 1.
Long ago, sentient life realized the power of nature, and sought to harness it. A small number of those who were successful in summoning the very lowest Elementals were able to summon stronger Elementals, though still very weak compared to the Elemental Lords. The previous version of Elemental Summon could be considered 'Basic Elemental Summon.'
20% boost to the effects of Elemental Summon.
30 Elementals may be summoned at once.
MP cost: 50/min.'
"... Well darn it, a little warning would have been nice." Twilight said as she recalled her Elementals and desummoned their second summons. That was still more than half her MP Regen just to keep them here.
"What was that? I suddenly feel more important." Ventus asked.
"Apparently, my Elemental Summon evolved to the next stage and you all got promoted a rank in the Elemental hierarchy as a side effect." Twilight deadpanned.
"I- But- That is not how that's supposed to work!" Ferrum complained.
"The Gamer power warps reality around me, it's not entirely my idea when it does something that the rules everyone else follows shouldn't allow." Twilight countered blandly.
"Are you okay? You seem... off." Aqua asked.
"When the Skill evolved, it reset the MP cost so keeping you all here is draining 400 MP per minute instead of 80, even after desummoning your secondary summonings. Even with Gamer's Body, the shock of the sudden involuntary shift is taking a second to recover from. Remind me to put some points into Vit later." Twilight said.
After about a minute, she shook her head and said "Sorry about that, I think I defaulted to Gamer's Mind for a second there." she apologized.
"...Your what?" Zero asked.
"Oh, it's a Skill that keeps me from getting afraid or panicking while in danger. It keeps me calm and able to think logically even in the direst of situations. Like facing a Zombie that's the size of a skyscraper and able to shoot lasers from it's mouth. I was able to perform complex calculations in my head, while dodging attacks that would have been instantly fatal." she paused as she noticed the others staring at her with a mix of pity and horror. "What?"
"Your power deadens your emotions?" Zero asked.
"Well yeah, but only the negative emotions until now. It's not like I'm going to lose all emotion and start killing people in cold blood. Besides, I've had his my whole life, so I'm used to it." Twilight answered.
"Well, if you're sure..." Flare said, uncharacteristically without her usual haughtiness. Flare has become unofficial leader of the Elementals Twilight had summoned as the first one to be summoned. If she was alright with it, then the others would be okay with it too.
"Trust me, I'm fine. Now, you'll have to work harder at being efficient with your magic since there's 405 less MP Regen to draw on." Twilight explained.
"Don't you mean 450?" Gnome asked, confused.
"Nope, I got 5 Level up screens for the Skill while we were talking, so summons only cost 45 MP each again. I guess that it goes down by one with each Level." she answered.
They kept going, trying to Level up her Weak Elemental Summon to the point it wasn't crippling her MP Regen, and just Level up in general. Twilight took the opportunity to train Toughness as well.
She'd let the Mooks pound away at her until her HP entered it's last 100, then wipe them out and keep going at them with her sword to Level up her Sword Mastery.
She was understandably surprised when her sword got a Title for it.
'Mook Mower. 10% boost to effectiveness against Mooks.'
"Okay, that's useful. Maybe I should do some crafting like some of the Items I got off these guys mentioned." she commented.
She'd gotten mostly pieces of Equipment from the Mooks, but there were also more than a few Items that were for crafting. Namely Iron Bars and Wood Boards.
She would have to look at that later, but for now, training montage!
*** One Night Later ***
Twilight had managed to get her new combat Skills to Level 15 each. Toughness reduced physical damage by 15% now, Dodge had a 19% boost to her success rate, and Sword Mastery now had boosts of 150%.
She was of the opinion that Sword Mastery was a completely broken Skill, but had a thought. What if it was because of her ties to the Elementals and the sword's function as a force multiplier were having a synergistic effect with her Skill and affecting it's benefits? That would mean that the Skill wasn't normally like this and she had, if you'll pardon the pun, gamed the system.
At any rate, she was correct in her assumption that she accelerated Stat training while in combat. The Zombie Bosses hadn't gotten her points because she'd been mostly spamming magical attacks, and her Int had been stupidly high even then. She'd gotten a total of three of each.
She'd also reached Level 37, and had decided to get to 200 Int, with the three points she had left, she got Dex to 50 and Vit to 38.
'For reaching the heights of 200 Int, the Master Mage Skill has been created!
Master Mage. Passive. Lv Max.
Your skill with the manipulation of mana is surpassed only by your reserves.
1000 MP boost.
25% reduction to MP costs.'
"AAAAAnnnnd... Broken. Let's see what the Dex one is."
'For reaching 50 Dex, the Extremespeed Skiil has been created!
Extremespeed. Active. Lv Max.
You can move at a speed that would only be possible with three times your actual Dex for a few seconds, but this is extremely hard on your body. Note that the HP cost is before the Vit deduction.
HP cost: 500.
MP cost: 50.'
"Right... checking my Stats again."
'Level 37.
HP: 2330.
HP Regen: 30.3/min.
MP: 5235.
MP Regen: 783.22/0.75 min.
Str: 32.
Int: 200.
Agi: 50.
Vit: 38.
Wis: 70.
Lck: 27.
687534 Bits.
0 Stat points unspent.'
"Alright, I'd work on this stuff some more, but the princess said she had something important to talk to me about and I don't want to be fighting a Boss again when she arrives." she thought aloud.
She decided to read some of her books while she waited, engaging in conversation with her Elementals at the same time. Her cognitive function was so high at this point that she could do both simultaneously and not lose any efficiency.
Since her Encyclopedic Memory doubled her memorization ability, she could essentially store the books in her mind permanently since her memory was effectively 40 times as good as the average person's.
When Princess Celestia came, she found her student reading a stack of books at lightning speed and, based on the look on her face, fully retaining the information. She was also holding conversation with multiple of her summons at the same time, which should be impossible for a sentient life form as it would require too much processing power. The brain simply couldn't handle that kind of a burden.
Yet, here she was, doing something that shouldn't even be possible without completely rebuilding and restructuring the brain. Based on how The Gamer operated, that wasn't what happened when Int was increased. She shook her head. After breaking a law of physics with no conscious effort, Twilight accomplishing this shouldn't be that surprising.
"Oh, sorry Princess. I was distracted." Twilight apologized, noticing her mentor less than a minute after she arrived.
Celestia was completely willing to forgive not being noticed when Twilight was reading and holding simultaneous conversations, besides which, she didn't particularly like being worshiped or put on a pedestal. She just couldn't do much about it.
"It's fine. I brought someone to see you." the princess said, before bringing a baby dragon forward. Dragons aged quickly for the first three months of their lives, then slowed down immensely. As such, his faculties were developing faster than they would in any other type of being. This was to the point where he could form crude sentences despite being less than a week old.
"Hi!" he waved.
Twilight blinked, then said "Not to be rude or anything, but why would he want to see me? I have literally been your student for less than a week."
"Yes, well, he actually has to do with your Entrance Exam. He's the dragon you hatched." the princess said.
"Ah, so you want to discuss arrangements for my taking care of him. Since I hatched him, that makes him my responsibility, regardless of intent. Cutting into training time is unfortunate, but I'll raise him properly." Twilight said.
'That was even easier than I thought, but we'll have to work some kind of schedule out and-' it finally sunk in that Twilight had 8 Elementals with her.
"Although first I'd like to be introduced to your companions." the princess said.
Once introductions were over, a flexible schedule was drawn up, and Twilight proceeded with her studies and raising 'Spike' as she'd decided to call him. For the moment at least, she had to be in the same room with him or he couldn't sleep soundly and usually couldn't fall asleep at all.
Twilight had virtually no time for training between Spike, lessons with the princess, and the ludicrous number of books she had access to. She might have been able to do a little training if she'd been less busy with the several thousand books on every topic one could think of. Weak Elemental Summon kept Leveling though.
She only realized how much time had passed when 6 months after becoming the princess' student, her parents all but demanded a family reunion. She threw herself into her studies so they wouldn't be disappointed in her if they tested how much she'd learned. Logic told her that she was overreacting, but since she was in no real danger, Gamer's Mind didn't help much and her lifelong OCD struck full-force.
She didn't neglect Spike or her Summons, but that was really all. She apparently didn't need to eat either. Her enormous MP reserves should be fine, so knowledge was all she needed to work on.
On the day of the event, she tried, and failed, to stay calm. She'd desummoned her Elementals to avoid freaking her parents out, but would be showing them later after easing them into it. At this point, they were Medium Summons with over 50 Levels in the Skill, and significantly more powerful than their original forms. She knocked, then went in, followed by Spike. 'Well, if things go really south, I am staying at the castle either way.' she thought as she walked towards the living room.