Soon after talking with the kexids, I found myself in my tent in the forest. With Cal, Hartha, and Rock all gone, and Amak off informing everyone about our new neighbors, I doubted anyone would disturb my peace.

With that in mind, the time had finally come.

It was at last time to read my notifications.

While nothing too earth shattering, they started with a number of skills, some of which had grown, some of which were new.

Light Magic has reached level 4!

Detect Trap has reached level 6!

The first was likely from using my light armor and light bow on the shades prior to Ephesis. The second was from the traps I’d spotted as we walked through the dungeon. Ultimately, pretty standard stuff. From there on out, however, the skills seemed to be things I’d gained from my encounter with Ephesis, or from directly afterwards.

You have learned a new skill: Pain Resistance

Allows the user to handle and work through pain with a clear head.

Prerequisites: 20 Endurance

You have learned a new skill: Bleed Resistance

Decreases all bleed damage by 1%.

Increases natural blood coagulation speeds.

Prerequisites: 15 Endurance

Though a slightly grim reminder of what I’d been through, these two were a welcome addition to my repertoire. While perhaps a bit obvious, I generally did not like being in pain or bleeding out.

It was a bit of a surprise, actually, that it had taken me so long to get the Bleed Resistance considering its prerequisite was only 15 Endurance. Then again, My serious fights, like the Shower Elemental back in Drawgin, hadn’t been very blood-heavy. As for sparring with someone like Cal, I was in the habit of healing any cuts before they bled for long. I likely had just never bled enough to earn the skill.

That, of course, had not been a problem when I’d faced Ephesis. In fact, the next notifications made that abundantly clear.

Pain Resistance has reached level 2!

Bleed Resistance has reached level 2!

Bleed Resistance has reached level 3!

Bleed Resistance has reached level 4!

Maybe I’ll have to try getting ritually sacrificed some other time? Good leveling.

The difference in the levels likely had to do with the mind magic involved. I had been in pain, especially towards the end once the chains had worn off, but for most of the ritual, I was too mentally numb to feel it.

Speaking of my mental state, my notifications had plenty to say on that front as well.

Mental Resistance has reached level 3!

Mental Resistance has reached level 4!

…

Mental Resistance has reached level 7!

I let out a long whistle. Honestly, don’t think that’s from Ephesis. Probably from when I was freaking out and could feel Hex in my head.

Or scratch that: It was just as likely that it had been Aarris who’d helped me level. Her mental magic had been powerful, but clunky, setting off mental bombs in my head just by trying to speak to me. If I still had a functioning mind afterwards, something told me that having a full mental conversation with her would cause the skill to skyrocket.

Still… 7 levels all at once. For a brief moment, I worried that maybe my mind had been messed with more than I’d realized, but dropped it. I would go crazy with that line of reasoning, and besides, it would have been stranger for it not to level considering two literal gods had been inside my head.

Life Magic has reached level 6!

Minor Healing has reached level 7!

Those two were likely from me playing healer during the shade fight, and later my attempts to keep any of us from bleeding out.

Only one skill level up remained, and it was… well, a doozy, to say the least.

Trauma Suppression has reached level 10!

Congratulations! You have reached the Initiate stage in Trauma Suppression.

Based on your skill usage, your skill has gained a new effect for achieving a new skill rank.

Augment of Mundanity

Trauma has become (concerningly) commonplace for you. You now find it easier to remain calm and collected during traumatic events, as opposed to simply recovering faster after them. Additionally, increases resistance to all fear and awe effects.

NOTE!

Trauma Suppression is not considered a class-aligned skill for the Arcane Arsenal class. Now that you have reached the Initiate rank, leveling speed of this skill will be reduced.

Trauma Suppression has reached level 11!

Trauma Suppression has reached level 12!

Even as I saw how the skill had been augmented, I cursed.

I had one hour where Trauma Suppression wasn’t my highest skill. One hour!

I sighed. At least it came with a nice effect? Previously, the skill had mainly worked after the fact, taking experiences that should have put me into fetal position, and helping me stay on my feet. Its effects during the act in question had been fairly minor, meaning that I was constantly in a state of being freaked out about something, only to not worry as much about it later. The fear and awe resistance seemed like a nice bonus too, although I had no idea how common those effects were.

Still seems pretty unhealthy to me, but maybe now that I’m not off trying to save the forest from a not-actually evil dark god, I’ll find time to grab a therapist.

One could dream.

While the augment was appreciated, the note that came afterwards was decidedly less so. The skill’s leveling speed was reduced?

That was new. The only other skill I’d gotten up to level 10 was Archery, and that note hadn’t appeared back then.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?

Well, duh, they probably thought I already knew it. Sure, some of the shadows theoretically knew I wasn’t used to this whole system, but information like this was probably so widely known that no one would think to say it.

I guess it made sense, though. A Fire Mage, after all, would probably have a lot of Intelligence and Wisdom. Sure, their class skills would make them want to focus on fire spells, but what was stopping them from training up all the other schools of magic just as high? They’d have the stats for it.

It looked like if they tried, though, their skill leveling speed would make such an endeavor much harder.

In that light, the Arcane Arsenal class seemed even stronger than I’d initially imagined. Likely, just about every weapon skill and magic skill would be considered class-aligned. I wondered how common something like that was.

Regardless, while this encounter had netted me the most skill-ups out of anything I’d ever done, that part of the notifications seemed to be over now.

Your party has defeated a High Priest of Light.

Based on your contribution, you have earned 16,312xp.

I gaped as I saw the figure. It wasn’t even like I’d killed the guy by myself! Jason had broken his shields, Rock had jabbed the guy with obsidian, and the god squad had practically drained the guy dry. It was true that I’d dealt the final blow, but for me to have gotten that kind of experience…

Yeah. I’m glad that Hex and Aarris stepped in. That would have been… bad.

Well, no sense dwelling on that! I let Trauma Suppression file that thought away in the appropriate mental cabinet and moved on.

As expected from that sort of windfall, I had another notification waiting for me.

Congratulations! You have reached level 9!

+2 Constitution

+2 Endurance

+1 Strength

+1 Dexterity

+2 Intelligence

+1 Wisdom

+1 Perception

+1 Luck

God’s Mind Activated:

+1 Intelligence

+1 Wisdom

And with that new influx of stats, I at last had one more stat that had hit the 25 point!

What’s it going to be? I paused for a second, humming while thinking of all the cool upgrades I might have gotten this time around. It was one of the few perks of not already knowing everything about the world: I could still be surprised.

Ready at last to see what I’d won, I read on.

Congratulations! You have hit 25 Luck and reached the first Luck threshold.

Nice!

I kept reading. Then I backtracked. Then I read the notification again.

Was that… it?

“What the hell?”

I mean, I hadn’t been expecting too much. Maybe just some ability that made loot drops better. But really? Nothing at all?

Well, whatever. Maybe something had happened, but it was just hidden to me. Honestly, besides loot, I still had a pretty foggy idea of what Luck did in the first place, so not having it power up wasn’t as big of a letdown as I would have imagined.

Perhaps it would have been more of a bummer if it was the only one of my stats to hit 25. And from gaining level 9, it was.

With the absurd amount of experience I’d received, though, level 9 wasn’t all I’d just reached.

Congratulations! You have reached level 10!

+2 Constitution

+1 Endurance

+1 Strength

+1 Intelligence

+2 Wisdom

+1 Perception

+2 Luck

+1 Charisma

In some sense, it was an unlucky break: Endurance and Strength were right on the cusp at 24, and had I been able to assign my own points, I could have gotten them over the hump too. Still, I had no room to complain, especially considering that two more of my stats had hit 25.

Congratulations! You have hit 25 Constitution and reached the first Constitution threshold.

Each point in Constitution above 25 will now raise your total health by 50 instead of 10.

Increases the effects of most physical and environmental resistance skills by a multiple of (Constitution/2)%. (Affected skills: Bleed Resistance, Poison Resistance, Heat Resistance.)

Each point in Constitution above 25 will now slightly harden your skin.

Aging speed reduced. Lifespan extended.

Gain the ability: Hardy.

Hardy

Your body has been baptized in mana. Even should you suffer an instantly lethal blow, you cannot die until your health hits zero. This ability gives the user a small window in time in which they can survive after most mundanely lethal attacks (beheading, missing a heart, etc) should a healer manage to get to them.

Whew. That was by far the longest of the thresholds that I’d seen so far. To some degree, that made sense though: Constitution was the stat that everyone increased as they leveled up, and just about anyone level 16 and up would hit the threshold. This was what separated most lower level people from those that were, for lack of a better term, superhuman.

I was particularly curious about how Hardy worked, but also had very little desire to test it out. Even if I had a healer on standby, getting my head chopped off didn’t sound like my idea of fun.

There was one effect that I could immediately test though. I poked at my skin.

Yup… Still feels like. Well. Skin.

Evidently a Constitution of 26 wasn’t enough for that effect to come heavily into play. Either that, or it only activated when I was attacked.

The next threshold was a touch simpler, all in all.

Congratulations! You have hit 25 Wisdom and reached the first Wisdom Threshold.

All utility cantrips (novice tier spells) with a mana cost of 5 or under can now be cast for free.

Upgrades Internal Mana Manipulation to Advanced Internal Mana Manipulation.

ERROR: User has not learned Internal Mana Manipulation. Upgrade will take effect when the user has learned the skill.

“Why do I get the feeling that I was really supposed to learn that by now…”

I’d never really sat down with any spellcasters and gotten a full rundown on how they did things. In fact, my magical education was practically nonexistent still. Two of my spells I’d learned from reading spellbooks, and the other two had been pushed into my head by Elphaea.

I had full faith and confidence in the dryad’s spellcasting abilities, but I had to admit that an ancient mystical creature who hadn’t spoken to a human in who-knows-how-long might not have been on the cutting edge of pedagogical theory. In other words, it was possible that she was just a sucky teacher.

Well, whatever. I’m sure I can find someone to teach me, or really how hard could it be? I had Mana Sense. I could find the mana within me and try to manipulate it… probably.

With my stats taken care of, there was, surprisingly, still a host of notifications left for me to read through. While the experience and the skills had been largely expected, I had to admit that I wasn’t sure what was left for me. Curious, I turned to the next one.

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE SLAIN A PROTAGONIST! FOR YOUR FEAT, YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED THE MARK OF THE ANTAGONIST!

The what now? That did not sound nice or friendly! And frankly, I was hoping it was pretty weak — I wasn’t thrilled to learn that people could get a new mark if they killed me, after all.

“All right. No big deal. Let’s just see what it grants.”

I made to flip to the next section and read the effects, but fate sadly had other plans for me.

Before I could read another word, of all things, a root suddenly poked up out of the earth in my tent.

“Um. Hello?”

Well, that was strange. I wondered what that was abou- OH SHIT!

The root in question burst out of the ground, snatching my leg and coiling up around me. Faster than I could even let out a shriek, I was unceremoniously yanked from my tent and into the forest.

As my tent was with all the rest of the shadows’, a few of them were out and about to witness me getting dragged off like in a cheap horror movie. Alarmed, they moved in to save me.

A voice like windchimes carried through the camp. “Leave her.”

Recognizing the voice, they froze.

It was a voice I recognized as well, of course. Only a few short moments later, I was dragged off into the woods. The root around my leg climbed higher and higher from the earth until it draped itself over a low-hanging branch. The end effect was to leave me ignominiously dangling upside down.

One particular dryad formed from a nearby tree, its bark rippling like water as she exited.

“Hello, child. Is there a reason that no one has seen fit to tell me what happened to the Heart?”