Minute Mage: A Time-Traveling LitRPG

Chapter 24: Anticipation

Threshold reached. 250 XP.

Your Level has increased to 5.

Due to achieving Level 5 in the Minute Mage Class, you have been granted the following benefits:

-You have gained 1 Endurance.

-You have gained 2 Conjuration.

-You have gained 1 Intelligence.

-You have gained 3 Stat Points.

-Time Loop Talent Rank has increased to 5.

-You may choose a Talent to obtain.

My eyes grew wide with excitement as I looked over my Leveling benefits. Not only had I Leveled up twice in a single day, one of those Levels had gotten me a new Talent! I resisted the urge to sit down and begin meditating immediately. I at least needed to check on Erani first.

“You good?” I called out as I walked over to her, wincing in pain as I stepped over the corpse of the Anacap I had killed.

“Yeah,” she called back. “How about you?”

“A bit cut up,” I said as I lifted my shirt to reveal the puncture wound in my gut. It was still seeping blood. Luckily, the Anacap’s claws were small enough that it was a narrow hole, and my Health had kept it from going in far enough to damage my internal organs, but the bleeding would be a problem. “Do you have any bandages?”

“Yeah, I do,” she walked back over to our campsite where we had originally been eating lunch. I had honestly completely forgotten that we were supposed to be taking a break right now, our backpacks off and lying next to the logs we had been resting on. She reached in and brought out a kit with basic medical supplies. “Take off your shirt.”

“Ooh, how forward,” I winked as I stripped the blood- and sweat-soaked cloth off of my chest.

Erani blinked at my comment, cheeks turning red, and froze in her advance toward me, obviously unsure of how to respond.

I laughed. “How is it you’re a badass Spell-slinging Sorcerer one moment, but then seconds later you flounder against a single flirtatious comment?”

She stammered before finding her voice. “I told you to stop messing with me like that!”

“Fine, fine, sorry,” I held up my hands in surrender. “You just bring it out of me.”

“Here,” Erani rolled her eyes and began wrapping gauze around my wound.

“Thanks.” I winced as the cloth made contact with the hole in my body. “But seriously, that was awesome. Well, and a little scary.”

She blinked. “What was?”

“That Explosive Firebolt thing! The Anacap stood no chance the second it got debuffed! I mean, look at me, I’m all wounded and shit, and you’re totally fine. I can definitely see why you said Firebolt is the most popular first Spell to choose.”

“Oh, well, it is a pretty powerful strategy. It’s very Mana-intensive – I can only do it because I’ve been putting every Stat Point I get into Conjuration – but yes, it can absolutely allow you to dominate fights against single opponents. However, at higher Levels, its power falls off quite a bit; once your enemies have a high enough Strength or Endurance to withstand the blast, or enough Dexterity to get back up before you can hit them again – or, gods forbid, dodge the Firebolt itself – it stops being so effective. In fact, most of the different guides for Sorcerer Leveling focus on finding a new way of dealing damage once the Explosive Firebolt method stops being so good.”

“Yeah, but at these lower Levels, it seems like it’d be insanely useful to have. Honestly, it kind of feels unfair.”

“Oh, it absolutely is. There’s even a term for it coined by the guy that invented the strategy – his name was Walloth Cornwell – it’s called ‘stunlocking.’”

“Ah, because you’re essentially locking your opponent into that stunned state?”

“Exactly. Honestly, among a pretty large group of Classers, the method is actually seen as so unfair that they refuse to work with anyone that uses it.”

“Really? What, do they think it’ll hurt the monster’s feelings? Why wouldn’t they want to work with someone that has access to such a powerful Spell? ”

“Well, I’ve only ever met a couple people who act like that, but some of the Sorcerers I’ve spoken to in Carth have had similar experiences. Seems like most of the people say it’s because we’re ‘going against the integrity of monster hunting,’ whatever that means. But really, I just think it’s because the method is so effective it makes people feel insecure in their own fighting style.”

I thought back to how scary it felt to watch her completely dominate the fight with the Anacaps. “There’s probably some merit to that theory.”

“Plus, since it’s kind of a one-person operation, people probably don’t like that it takes away their chance to get contribution for the XP. It’s really not that effective at all, though! I really need other people to back me up, because the moment I have to face two or more monsters, the entire method falls apart. Besides, killing something like that can be pretty boring. I’m just doing the exact same thing over and over again.”

I laughed. “Well, I sure wish my fights were boring. I feel like it’s the hardest struggle of my life every time.”

“Well, you are fighting monsters more than quadruple your Level. I get that monster Levels don’t perfectly line up with Human Levels most of the time, but generally a gap of ten indicates you’re in over your head if you’re alone,” she chuckled as she tightened my bandage. “Of course you’re struggling.”

“Well, actually, they aren’t quadruple my Level anymore,” I smiled. “I Leveled up!”

“Oh? So you’re Level four now?”

“Five, actually,” I grinned. “You don’t remember it, but we killed those monsters twice. Once in this timeline, and once in another. And if you recall, Time Loop lets me keep all of my XP and Levels, so I got two for the price of one!”

She blinked. “I still don’t believe you about that time travel thing. You were probably just close enough to four that the two monsters were enough to push you over the edge and bring you up to five in one go.”

I just laughed and shook my head. I didn’t know if she actually believed me or not. In the timeline before, she seemingly bet with her life that it was true, so I couldn’t imagine she really thought I was lying about everything. Maybe she just didn’t want to admit it to herself; time travel was theorized about, but never actually seen in practice. It’d be difficult for anyone to accept without actually witnessing it firsthand.

“Okay,” Erani said once she was done with my bandage. “We should head out and eat somewhere else. The noise might attract some other monsters, and I’m not too keen on having another fight like that. Especially if you can’t ‘go back in time’ anymore.”

“Sure,” I nodded. We grabbed our stuff and got back to the trail. We’d head down for a bit until we figured we were safe, then we could stop and take an actual break. After the loud, explosive battle – or, battles, at least from my perspective – it seemed downright serene out here. Though, the stab wound in my gut ruined the atmosphere. My Health would regenerate over time, and once it was high enough, it’d accelerate my healing. But for now, I’d just have to deal with it. I was glad I at least had enough Endurance to mitigate the pain a bit.

“So, Level 5, huh?” Erani said while we walked. “You getting a Talent?”

“Yeah,” I smiled. It was exciting – Talents were quite a big deal to get, most of the time.

“Which do you think you’re going to take?”

“Uh, no idea yet,” I chuckled. “I know nothing about my Class, remember? That includes Talent choices.”

Erani blinked. “Shit, you’re right. I kinda forgot about that, honestly. It’s been such a huge part of my own experience with my Class, it seems insane to think you can’t plan ahead. What was the Class you were aiming for before, again?”

“Swordsman. My instructor was one, so I wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

“Well, you’ve got a pretty melee-focused fighting style now, so at least all that instruction wasn’t wasted.”

“To an extent,” I laughed. “So, what, you’ve pre-planned every single choice you’ll make already? Seems a bit boring, doesn’t it? What if something happens and you have to change your mind?”

“Well, it’s not boring precisely because I don’t have anything pre-planned. I know everything that’s coming up for me, but that doesn’t mean I’ve set anything into stone yet. Hells, I already told you about how I don’t even know what my next Spell Choice is going to be. And I get that at my next Level.”

I shrugged. “Well, at least you’ve got some excitement.”

We continued walking, looking for a nearby spot that would be good to rest. I really was looking forward to finishing my sandwich. And making my Level-up choices, of course. A whole new Talent – I could only imagine what they would entail.

Currently, my only Talent was Time Loop, which was a pretty weird one. Normal Talents were static and didn’t get any better as you Leveled, and also, of course, didn’t mess with the flow of time. They also weren’t always an activated effect. Some were passive, like permanently increasing your Health/Minute by a certain amount. Some had more generic effects, while others were incredibly specific. Warlocks, for example, famously got offered Talents in the later Levels that would increase the effectiveness of one specific Spell they’d taken, and nothing else.

“So, you said your sister’s an Enchanter, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. Though she’s mainly working as a researcher. Doesn’t do much selling of Enchanted items unless it’s for some special reason.”

“Why’d she go with the Class, then? Couldn’t she have just stayed Unclassed, if she wasn’t going to use it?”

“Well, the way she talks about it with me, it feels like she considers Enchanting to be more of an art than a means of profit. She’ll pretty often come up with some combination of enchantments that, functionally, are pretty useless. But it’s still neat. One time, she figured out how to use an Increased Weight Enchantment, a Vulnerable to the Elements Enchantment, and a Wind Enchantment to create a self-launching cannonball. Of course, it was insanely expensive, and pretty redundant with simple Force Enchantments, but still pretty cool to see in action. Honestly, I feel like she just wants to have a ‘hobby’ that still feels productive, research-wise.”

“Seems like an expensive hobby,” I chuckled.

“I guess being a researcher pays well,” Erani shrugged. Then she looked over at a flat rock sitting by a road, and gestured to it. “Wanna stop here?”

“Sure,” I said.

We sat. The rough stone wasn’t incredibly comfortable, but felt a bit more civilized than sitting on the ground. Not that I could really talk about being ‘civilized’ – I could still taste the raw, stringy monster meat I’d had a few days ago.

“Well,” Erani said, “I’m gonna finish my lunch. I’m sure you want to be left alone to manage your Levels, anyway.”

“Yeah, let me know if there’s any trouble.”

“Sure. And let me know what you end up getting. I’m a bit excited to see the choices you’re offered.”

“Yeah,” I smiled with anticipation. “So am I.”

It was time to pick a Talent.

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