SoK Chapter 209

Sorry forgot to schedule this.

Days and weeks passed, with TJ growing more and more acquainted with his Shaman Occupation and ritualism as a whole every day. He’d gained, across Class, Race, and Occupation, 39 levels in 35 days, over one a day on average. His Attributes continued to soar, and his three new Skills were helping him to continue to bolster his followers’ strength while also helping himself. As TJ finished channeling and applying Storm Serpent’s Awakening to the party who’d been blessed with the opportunity to have the ritual bestowed on them today, he watched as faces spread wide in gratitude as several of them uttered vocal prayers for that additional bonus to accompany them on their hunt that would soon begin.

With only 20 days remaining until the System event, which nobody had received any additional information about, TJ stopped thinking that he’d be able to reach Silver in time. He hadn’t discovered, much less surpassed, the requirements for evolving to Silver, beyond the one that he’d long since acquired: Silver (II) tier advancement requirements progress: Expand a Copper (I) tier Divine Authority. There had been a couple things that he’d done in the past weeks that he hoped might be one of the other four requirements he would have to, but to no avail, not even crossing 1000 in Fixation. He pulled up his Status Sheet as he scratched at his growing beard.

Status Sheet

Name: TJ (Thiago Jorge) Harris IV

Race: Semi-Divine Human – lvl 46

Class: Storm-Calling Neophyte lvl 41

Occupation: Savage Shaman lvl 51

Level of Divinity: Copper (I)

Divine Bloodline: Kukulkan

Health Points (HP): 12,380/12,380

Mana Points (MP): 12,950/12,950

Stamina: 10,380/10,380

Attributes

Strength: 900+25(+180)

Agility: 700+20(+140)

Endurance: 840+30(+168)

Vitality: 1000+38(+200)

Toughness: 750+35(+150)

Wisdom: 850+35(+170)

Intelligence: 1050+35(+210)

Perception: 850+20(+170)

Willpower: 1000+35(+200)

Fixation: 1450+35(+290)

Free Points: 4

Skill List: Hidden

Titles: Irregular
Nascent Deity (Copper (I))
Elite Hunter (Copper (I))
Evolutionary Frontrunner

Current total maximum Divine Transformation time: 22:01:30
(End+Vit+Will+Fix)/4 Current cooldown: 0:00

Status Sheet

Name: TJ (Thiago Jorge) Harris IV

Race: Storm Coatl – lvl 46

Class: Storm-Calling Neophyte lvl 41

Occupation: Savage Shaman lvl 51

Level of Divinity: Copper (I)

Divine Bloodline: Kukulkan

Health Points (HP): 24,380/24,380

Mana Points (MP): 25,550/25,550

Stamina: 20,460/20,460

Attributes

Strength x2.5: 2250+25(+450)

Agility x2: 1400+20(+280)

Endurance x2: 1680+30(+336)

Vitality x2: 2000+38(+400)

Toughness x2.5: 1875+35(+375)

Wisdom x1.5: 1275+35(+255)

Intelligence x2: 2100+35(+420)

Perception x2: 1700+20(+340)

Willpower x1.5: 1500+35(+300)

Fixation x2: 2900+35(+580)

Free Points: 4

Skill List: Hidden

Titles: Irregular
Nascent Deity (Copper (I))
Elite Hunter (Copper (I))
Evolutionary Frontrunner

Divine Trial Records (Copper (I)):
2 Minor, 0 Moderate, 0 Bitter, 0 Celestial

Thinking about it, TJ’d… quadrupled, he thought, his Status from when he’d left the Tutorial. All of his Attributes had continued to grow, Fixation and Strength most notably, and there was a reason for that. With so many levels, TJ had gotten three Skill selections, and the single opportunity to take a Skill as a Neophyte was an easy choice.

Storm Fang (Silver (II)): This Skill is an upgrade to your existing Skill: Shredding Bite (Untiered). Your fangs have ripped into Copper (I) tiered Bosses and Elites. You have proven yourself a dangerous predator, one whose mouth deals death and dismemberment with ease. This Skill will further strengthen and broaden your fangs as a coatl to teeth meant to tear creatures apart. It will also grant you a better understanding of how best to maim and disable with tearing attacks, both as a coatl as well as a human. You have also found that the maw of a Storm Coatl is their greatest weapon, as their divine workings are concentrated in and most powerful from their mouths. As such, your fangs, tongue, and mouth will gain a 20% bonus to all Skills and divine workings applied using them. In addition, this Skill will grant an additional +6 Strength and +6 Fixation per level of Neophyte, to be applied retroactively (subtracting whatever bonus has been provided before). This Skill is added under the umbrella of the Skill: Storm Serpent (Silver (II))

TJ’d been tempted to take the Shredding Bite Skill at Copper earlier, given that it would give so many Attribute points, but eventually decided against it, taking Wind Scythe instead. In retrospect, he wasn’t so sure if that was the right decision, but now that it had become Storm Scythe, he supposed it probably wasn’t so bad of a choice. Maybe it was just buyer's remorse, but when he’d thought of the hundreds of Strength he was losing out on by not having chosen it, he felt his heart twist a little. Then, when he’d seen Storm Fang, there was no doubt in his mind that he would take the Skill. 

Thinking of what he’d tried to do to the Thunderbird patriarch Boss by biting it and how much stronger his bite was now, TJ finally felt like he understood what the niche he could fill as a more magically inclined Neophyte could be. He had a great Strength, Vitality, and Toughness, and those would allow him to be sturdy and dangerous in melee, while building up more strength from his followers and to his followers with his growing reservoir of rituals. After all, he wasn’t ever going to be like Sarah, who had her Ascension Skill that focused entirely on her physicality and something like four other Skills that directly gave her greater Strength and Agility and so on. This, instead, strengthened his body, as well as his other Skills, and gave him other options for fighting up close and personal as well as with Storm Manipulation.

He had continued experimenting with rituals, having discovered the general methodology for creating others, though he hadn’t quite gained the Skill for one of them without using an opportunity for a Skill selection on them. Two had been offered when he’d reached levels 40 and 50, but instead of taking the offered rituals and not continuing his experimentation, TJ had turned his attention to other options. For the two Skills he’d elected to take at levels 40 and 50 as a Shaman, he’d chosen two that were familiar but slightly different from what I’ve been offered before.

Improved Ritualism (Silver (II)): You have embraced the path of the Savage Shaman, creating new rituals and dedicating the first central pillar of your worship to the improvement of your rituals. This Skill envelops the effects of the Skills: Mobile Ritualism, Strengthened Ritualism, and Inclusive Ritualism at the same tier as Improved Ritualism.
Mobile Ritualism (Silver (I)): A leader must always lead, and leading requires movement. However, rituals are made to be stationary and are weakened by moving. Thus, this Skill allows for any rituals up to Silver (II) tier to be moved without suffering any ill effects. Skills of Silver (II) tier and above will experience a decrease in the reduction to their efficacy.
Strengthened Ritualism (Silver (I)): A leader must guide their people to victory, and the greatest way to assist your people to victory is by granting them greater strength. This Skill empowers the effects of all rituals performed by you by 10%.
Inclusive Ritualism (Silver (I)): A leader must lead by example. This Skill allows you to benefit from 50% of all the benefits of any ritual you channel and create.

Divinity Mastery, (Silver (II)): Your Race is well-suited to, and, in fact, is designed to allow those of this Race to be better suited to acquiring Divine Authorities and to do so with greater ease and speed than other Races are capable of. This Skill grants you a static 100% increase to the rate of Divine Authority acquisition up to the Silver (II) tier. After the Silver tier, the increase to Divine Authority acquisition rate is cut by two thirds every tier. 

Improved Ritualism was an overarching benefit, something that applied to his Occupation as well as the way he was helping his followers, and that it was, effectively, three Skills in one made it nearly an imperative choice, though each aspect of the Skill wasn’t as flashy as other Skill options. Except for the last. With even stronger rituals, TJ continued to fill his Ziggurat with the excess resources from his rituals. If it was a battery that glowed the more it had been filled, nobody in the little settlement (that had been named North Tempe as a joke that eventually just stuck) would ever be able to sleep. Regardless, TJ had yet to find any ceiling of resources that he could store in the stones. There was, however, a certain limit of how much ambient resources could be generated through the exploitation of Ritualistic Transfer, but such a benign way to gather strength allowed to have stored over 1,000,000 in resources worth of points inside the Ziggurat.

The possibility of live sacrifice had occurred to TJ, and several other members of the town. He knew what Ritualistic Transfer could do, it’d been one of the first things he’d thought about when he read the Skill’s description, and with the will of dozens of people bearing down on a single or several captured enemies, they could drain the entirety of their captives' lives into the temple. That was still a little too grotesque for TJ’s taste, and he had refrained from doing so until now, but he could feel the possibility and was, again, reminded of human sacrifice of old. He suppressed a shudder.

And, of course, there was the Inclusive Ritualism. Even though he only received a portion of the benefits of the rituals he performed, gaining another 10% of his Storm Coatl Attributes whenever he used Storm Serpent’s Awakening was an insane benefit. Right now, his lowest Attribute was Agility, and it was nearly 1000!

Anyways, TJ had found himself pouring more and more into the battery that was his Ziggurat, and along with that, experimented with more rituals. There was little progress, other than the one that was showing promise, something he hadn’t come up with a name for, but was effectively a Storm Serpent Awakening lite, which, instead of granting a large amount of Attributes to every participant, up to fifteen with the use of the Ziggurat’s assistance, the ritual was much shorter and gave a somewhat limited version of the boon from Valkyrian Ascension. That was, the ability to infuse attacks with certain aspects of a storm in exchange for resources. 

Unlike Valkyrian Ascension, this nameless ritual gave every participant a static addition to every one of their attacks, some aspect of storm, but they couldn’t choose what it would be with every attack nor how much of their resources it would take. Instead, at the initiation of the ritual, TJ made the decision of the aspect of storm to be utilized and that’s how it would remain. Beyond that, due to the people who enjoyed the blessing being unable to choose how potent to make the enchantment, only whether to apply it in a single attack or not, the ritual was a small bonus instead of totally battlefield changing like Sarah’s was.

On the other hand, TJ’s most recently acquired Skill, Divinity Mastery, was something that he couldn’t help but take when it was offered for the third time. It was largely the same as it had been at Copper tier when it was offered to him the first and second time, just that it now only started showing diminishing returns at the Silver tier. In the weeks since TJ had been able to advance one rank in his Divine Authority, he hadn’t seen any notable growth, at least to the System's perspective. He’d never seen anybody else really have a Divine Authority, since Leilani had one, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it. It was… Spring? Or maybe not this season but springs, like water from the ground? 

He couldn’t say, but she’s been good at killing the Chindis and that had been her responsibility. Frankly, TJ hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to the teen, more focused on just surviving through the end of the Tutorial. He wished he’d asked for the information and the details of her own Authority, so at least he could compare generally what hers did compared to his, but he hadn’t. Now, as he worked to evolve his Divine Authority, there was nothing specific he could anticipate. Even so, the evolution of any and all Divine Authorities he gained was going to be a primary focus of his moving forward, since it was more and more becoming one of the few most key parts of his path towards the divine throne.

TJ could feel that certain Divine Authorities were tickling as possibilities for him to begin to seize with the addition of Divinity Mastery, things he couldn’t quite place. Something to do with pressure, he thought? Not quite gravity, but something to do with how he created clouds. Not moisture, maybe. It was frustrating, to have these briefest flashes of near inspiration that instead faded like déjà vu instead of providing real growth or learning. Despite that, TJ was glad to have taken the Skill, as he felt more understanding of what he might be able to do to pass through the next four steps to evolve his storm authority to Silver. If he was able to do that before he himself evolved to Silver, he knew that that would heavily impact his growth, especially his Class and Racial options. The only issue was that he had absolutely no idea what he was missing. That said, he didn’t mind having waited these extra levels to take Divinity Mastery, because a mere 33% increase in his ability to take steps to evolving his Divine Authority wasn’t going to do much.

As the thoughts all crossed his mind, TJ sighed. His original plan had been to channel Storm Serpent’s Awakening, and then lose himself in a long meditation at the top of his Ziggurat, but obviously that hadn’t happened. Instead of being productive, he’d gotten wistful and unfocused, and the brief opportunity for potential enlightenment was gone. He un-crossed his legs and stood without any strain, realizing that there was no creaking in his joints, and the movement was as easy as breathing for him. All of his Attributes were approaching or past 1000 now, and TJ truly didn’t feel like a human anymore. Of course, he didn’t think that he really had been human ever since the Integration, but now he didn’t feel it. At least he was gaining levels pretty quickly, and was swiftly approaching Silver, wherever that would be. The only real problem for that was that there weren’t many enemies nearby that were giving him enough of a challenge to be worth taking the opportunity away from his followers. As such, Neophyte continued falling behind Shaman.

Even with his more narrow focus on leveling, TJ maintained or increased the gap between himself and most of his followers, especially the newest ones who wandered over in the past weeks. Each level everyone gained was harder than the last, but TJ‘s constant experimentations and everything he did to advance as a Savage Shaman as quickly as he did continue to spread that gap wider, even if they gained the same amount of levels.

Regardless, it wasn’t TJ’s responsibility to concern himself with the efforts of those too shocked and terrified to go hunting with any regularity. Instead, his was—

A piercing cry came, something that had become something of a weekly occurrence that reminded TJ that all was not well in “paradise“. The familiar sound of an approaching Boss had TJ grin as he looked at the followers of his that it had just barely been granted Storm Serpent’s Awakening.

“We finally have the perfect timing! Everybody gather up, Ritualistic Transfer beginning now! We’re finally gonna kill the bastard that’s been giving us all this trouble!”