Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe sat in her tree and spent a few minutes calming down from the rush of pain the system caused her and thought about her plans. She had intended to start climbing back up again after she got to one thousand intelligence, but seeing how powerful the feat was and how simple it was to get, she had second thoughts.

Was there any real reason to not just spend a year or two and gather all of the feats for each of the stats? There wasn’t, not really. Not to Zoe anyway. The best argument was that Intelligence was closest to one thousand already, being her main stat that she used. But that was weak.

If Intelligence doubled her mana capacity, there was no reason to think that Vitality wouldn’t double her health. Not getting that would be stupid, she thought. The same for Endurance.

And Zoe’s best guess for the other ones would be a simple doubling of their effectiveness. Wisdom might double her mana regeneration, Strength might double her, well, strength. Dexterity might make her much faster.

Gathering all of those massive boons here, where she knew the dangers and how to handle herself, but was still able to get a decent bit of experience was the smartest decision. She laughed as she realized her misunderstanding from before.

This was what a lodestone dungeon was for. It wasn’t for simply climbing to the top and mastering your one class, it was to find your limit and build upon it. To continue refining yourself as you stepped up the difficulty with each class.

A part of her wanted to go back down the mountain and work on her Chrono Enchanter class, but she brushed it aside. There was just no reason to refine every single class yet, not when she still had so few achievements. She could go grab a new third class, accumulate some more stat points and keep repeating.

Or she could do the same with her fourth class, with even more stat points. Or even soon, her fifth class. Maybe even sixth class, and who knows how many more there were.

Though, for Moaning Point, maybe her fourth class would be the last one she got. The highest levelled monsters she’d heard of were at the very top and only just reached one fifty. Depending on what her fifth class requirement was, she might not even see it before she reached the top.

Zoe decided on getting one thousand Vitality, and spent some more months fighting the magical zombies as she pumped all of her points into Vitality. It was a strange feeling having so much of it. She felt so substantial, and even when a zombie managed to smash through her icy armour the damage they inflicted was just so meaningless to her growing pool of health.

A side benefit that Zoe hadn’t even thought of when she decided to gather all of the one thousand stat feats was that she had many more opportunities to fight the rarer magical zombies. She even found a few more wood and bone zombies to study while she fought, and felt like she was able to make decent progress towards an understanding of how their magic worked.

By the end of her tenth spring in this world, she managed to accumulate all of the stat points she needed and put the last ones left into Vitality.

*Ding* For reaching one thousand Vitality, you have been awarded with the [Unbroken] feat.

[Unbroken]

You stand strong against your opponents, their greatest strikes nothing more than a simple scratch against your incredible prowess. All classes gain a bonus to health affinity. Increased health.

Zoe smiled, and prepared herself for the pain that was to come from the system ripping out her health, then reset her Seasoned Cinders class. She spent the next few years wandering around Moaning Point and gathering the rest of the stat feats she had left.

*Ding* For reaching one thousand Endurance, you have been awarded with the [Unyielding] feat.

[Unyielding]

You power through what others consider impossible and are unending in your pursuit of power. All classes gain a bonus to Physical affinity. Increased stamina.

*Ding* For reaching one thousand Wisdom, you have been awarded with the [Endless] feat.

[Endless]

You are an endless spring of power, channelling power through yourself for as long as needs demand. All classes gain a bonus to mana affinity. Increased mana regeneration.

*Ding* For reaching one thousand Strength, you have been awarded with the [Giant’s Might] feat.

[Giant’s Might]

You have proven your strength stands heads above the rest. What to many may be an impossible challenge is to you a teacup. All classes gain a bonus to physical affinity. Increased strength.

It was near the end of her journey, and she had one more feat remaining — the Dexterity feat. Each of the feats was an incredible thing to gain, and she grew an appreciation for each of the stats. Vitality made her feel so real, so substantial in the world. It was incredible. The freedom she felt from the subtle pressures that pressed into her was amazing.

Endurance made her feel so awake, so lucid. Even though she never needed to sleep there was often a mild exhaustion that came from spending hours focusing on a single task. But with a full thousand Endurance? That was washed away. Hunger almost vanished and she found herself not needing to eat anywhere near as much.

Strength was fun for a while, but she didn’t mind losing it. Doing squats with her pinky toe was exciting, and stopping a zombie’s wild dash with a finger was great entertainment. But it didn’t fit how she wanted to live.

Dexterity though was her favourite. The control she had over her body as she sat at almost a thousand Dexterity, ready to put in the last few stat points to get her new feat was incredible. It made almost everything she did so much easier, so much smoother. Her woodworking was done with an incredible precision, trees that she clambered up to rest in felt like a pleasant walk through a park. And that’s not even mentioning the speed she got from having so much Dexterity.

With almost a thousand Dexterity, it felt like she had another Alacrity skill on top of the two she already had. The world around her felt like it was moving at a snail’s pace while she ran through the forests. Zombies almost stood still as she pranced around them and prodded them with her dagger.

The experience gave her a new appreciation for the stats she’d been neglecting, and she pushed in the last few points into her Dexterity for the final feat she wanted.

*Ding* For reaching one thousand Dexterity, you have been awarded with the [Expeditious] feat.

[Expeditious]

Your speed conquers all. All classes gain a bonus to physical affinity. Increased speed.

*Ding* The feats; Archmage, Unbroken, Unyielding, Endless, Giant’s Might and Expeditious have been combined into the Transcendent feat.

[Transcendent]

You value balance in all things and accumulate power like a crow may gather baubles. The peak is not tall enough to match your aspirations, and so you build it higher so you may climb even further. You are a river of raw power and bend reality to meet your desires. All classes gain +5 Stat Points every level.

Zoe shivered in the tree she sat in while the system’s power coursed through her being and then passed out from the pain. She woke up a few hours later as the sun was setting, still in her makeshift tree house with planks of wood on either side of her and felt utterly exhausted. Her head throbbed, and every thought that ran through her mind stung like she was pressing into a fresh wound.

She sat still and let the day pass. Zombies wandered through the forest below her, but they never looked up into the tree tops without reason so she let them be.

When her head stopped throbbing halfway through the night, Zoe checked her stats. It seemed that despite the feats combining into Transcendent which said nothing about increased mana capacity, she still had the bonus from Archmage. Which likely meant she had the bonuses from each of them, which pleased her. Extra stat points were great, but at only five per level that didn’t quite make up the multiplicative bonuses from the individual feats.

Zoe turned her focus inwards and checked on her class selections for her fourth class. She hadn’t checked at all through the process but was sure that each of the new feats were good for another new class. And as fun as having a thousand dexterity was, she didn’t feel like it was the best decision for her and wanted to reset her fourth class anyway.

[Giant’s Might] A pursuer of strength, eager to overcome their challenges with brute force. Increased strength.

Requirements: Has the [Giant’s Might] feat

[Expeditious] A pursuer of speed, untouchable by most and seen by few. Increased speed.

Requirements: Has the [Expeditious] feat

[Unbroken] A pursuer of life, damaged and worn but standing strong against their trials. Increased health.

Requirements: Has the [Unbroken] feat

[Unyielding] A pursuer of stamina, unyielding in your pursuit. Many can outrun you but none will outlast you. Increased stamina.

Requirements: Has the [Unyielding] feat

[Archmage] A pursuer of magical might, capable of feats unimaginable by the commonfolk. Increased magical power.

Requirements: Has the [Archmage] feat

[Endless] A pursuer of mana, powering your creations with your own power. Increased mana regeneration.

Requirements: Has the [Endless] feat

The classes for the individual feats were all interesting to her, in particular Archmage. Endless was also interesting to her, but mana regeneration was something that didn’t affect her all that much these days. Especially with the Endless feat doubling her mana regeneration on its own.

Zoe replaced her Seasoned Cinders class with the Archmage class and let the system’s power course through her.

*Ding* You have unlocked the Archmage class. Your body and soul will be adjusted to accommodate the change.

Effects:

- Archmage: Gain twenty-five stat points and one intelligence for each level in this class.

- Mystic Might: Magical power boosted by 50%.

- Mana Sight: You can see mana.

- Mana Spring: Mana capacity boosted by 300%.

- Mana Mastery: Mana aligned effects are boosted by 200%

Available Skills:

- Mana Affinity: Increased mana affinity.

- Mana Manipulation: Manipulate the raw mana of the world to your will.

- Spell Creation: Form spells to cast magical effects.

- Mystic Armour: Cover yourself in a sheet of raw mana to protect yourself.

- Mana Blast: Blast raw mana outwards.

- Devastation: Rend apart reality with your mana.

- Mana Amplification: Create a sphere of mana that amplifies magical effects that pass through it.

- Mystic Familiar: Summon a being of mana to perform tasks.

- An Archmage’s Study: Remove dirt and grime from objects.

Zoe looked through the details with a quizzical expression on her face. After so much effort to get the feats, she had expected them to be better. But with the five extra stat points from Transcendent, it only just caught up to her Seasoned cinders even before Transcendent. If her theory of stat points being tied to class quality was true, then that meant that Archmage was a worse class than Seasoned Cinders.

Was Patient Decider truly that much better of a feat than Archmage was? Or was there something else that Zoe was missing? And for that matter, why was there a class for each feat, but not one for the Transcendent feat?

She tried out some of the skills. Mana Manipulation was identical to her Chrono Enchanter skill when it was at level one. Spell Creation did absolutely nothing but she was able to feel a power within herself that was new. She just had not the faintest idea of how to use it.

Mystic Armour was a worse version of the Seasoned Arsenals, though it wasn’t weak to a counter element. Or, she supposed it was, but maybe Mana’s weakness was less common than fire or ice.

Devastation was exciting to read, but ultimately did not live up to the hype of its description. She was able to take out a zombie with it, but rather than rending apart reality with her mana it felt a little more like pressing into a zombie with her mana until it was sliced in half.

Useful, but worse than her current enchanted objects that she used. Mystic Familiar was interesting, but a massive drain on her mana pool even with the capacity boosted so much. It created an invisible form of whatever shape she chose, and would do simple tasks for her. Pick up a dagger, stab a zombie in the leg, clean up the treehouse. But anything more complicated than simple instructions and the familiar just remained motionless.

Mana Amplification was the most interesting by far, it created a sphere of Zoe’s mana and anything she cast through it was noticeably more powerful. Her icy balls that she shot through it sped up and exploded with greater intensity.

But at the end of the day, something about it just felt so lacklustre compared to the Seasoned Cinders that she’d gotten used to. There was no flashy cinders flying about as she ran through the forest, no explosions of brilliant flame and clouds of coal. And the benefit of losing Seasoned Cinders’ flashiness wasn’t made up by the power of Archmage, since it didn’t even give her stronger benefits anyway.

Zoe checked out the other classes for her new feats and found them all similarly lacking. Their bonuses were all the same but themed to the stats they were from, the skills were exciting to read but nowhere near as great as she hoped they would be.

She scrunched her face as she leaned up against a tree. It felt strange working for so many feats and then not getting anything out of it. But that wasn’t right either, she thought. The feats themselves were incredible, and benefited her Seasoned Cinders class just as much if not more than the stat feat classes.

Zoe settled her fourth class on Seasoned Cinders again and looked through her stat sheet. Another Alacrity skill didn’t make much sense so she settled on Scorched Arsenal for another elemental option instead. But more importantly were her stat points. She had six more from the three years she spent working on the feats, but that paled in comparison to the three hundred she had from the new Transcendent feat upgrading all of her classes.

Two hundred twenty four of those she dumped into Intelligence for more mana capacity and power. The remaining eighty two she spent bringing Wisdom up to two hundred and Dexterity up to one hundred. Then the last two points she tossed into Intelligence.

Zoe smiled at her new stat sheet, and started making her way up the hill to the next section of the dungeon.