[Congratulations on completing your mission.]

[Mission Difficulty: Extreme]

[You have received 20 AP.]

[Your class has responded.]

[+2 AP to Psych Attribute.]

[Select 2 Attributes to receive +5 AP.]

[Select 1 Attribute to receive +2 AP.]

As I had promised myself, I gave the first +5 bonus to Stamina. Then, on Bruzigan’s advice, I put the other into Mana Pool and gave the +2 to Sturdiness. Then, I put 7 AP into Regeneration, bumping it up to 20, then another 7 into Magic Power and 5 into Mana Pool, bringing them to 30 and 35. I put the last remaining point in speed.

I finally allowed the reward messages to roll on.

[You have received a spell book.]

[Analyzing Mission...]

[Congratulations. You have made an exceptional achievement.]

Description: First of your race to complete the second floor’s mission as an or .

AP +25

[Congratulations. You have made an exceptional achievement.]

Description: Exposed the Saboteur before they were able to kill anyone directly, and by using only one Interrogation out of three.

Reward: New Personal Trait

Evolving Trait | White

When sleeping, occasionally experience dreams that show visions of a certain time. You will always remember these dreams perfectly upon waking.

Upgrade Criteria: Experience all available visions. Current progress: 0/?

Well that was weird. This wasn’t going to be easy to upgrade, either. If I went to the virtual world while I slept, I wouldn’t dream. And I always went to the virtual world in my sleep in Area 1. It looked like this wouldn’t even have a chance to trigger except on Floors.

That one I’d been hoping for, but I hadn’t expected the Racial First. Even considering that category only counted humans from Earth (another factoid gone over in Bruzigan’s training) I was very pleased with myself to have actually gotten two of them.

[Mission analyzed. Gathering data...]

[Data gathered.]

[Mission Rating: 4.5]

[Your has responded.]

[Current Upgrade Progress: 75%]

I was torn between being ecstatic and disappointed. I figured I hadn’t performed very close to perfectly, but I had hoped outing the Saboteur on the first day of the game had counted for a little more.

Probably I’d have had to do something like, incite the Throskarts to attack each other so that the game ended even earlier to get a higher rating than that, so it didn’t bother me for long.

[Mission Rewards]

1) Magic Rod of the Psionic Pyromancer

2) Magical Map (White Grade)

3) Unidentified Potion

4) Memory Gem (Bronze Grade)

5) 5.28 G2 Coins

The amount of money I earned had increased again. As per my contract, Grosstin had first claim on all item rewards and I was obligated to not keep any secret, though I could either appeal for permission to keep any or all of them for myself, or pay a fee equal to the reward value to keep an item without appeal. However, the money I made from clearing a floor was mine, and I’d be further compensated for turning in anything genuinely rare and/or useful. With this much, I would be able to upgrade my personal account with the Federated Area 1 Bank to Diamond level.

If I wasn’t obscenely rich before, I was now. I’d be able to take Mewi on a date to Dille’s every week without whatsoever sweating about the bill. That is, if our schedules actually allowed for that, which they didn’t.

I suspected I’d get permission to keep the first item without a fee with no trouble. It was the only item I’d yet seen that carried both the Psionic and Pyromancer keywords at the same time. Among my classes’ many starting traits, there were two that were relevant to those: and Each one doubled the stats of any item I equipped. Or rather, they “gave +100%” to them. Sorry I didn’t mention that before, by the way. So, their actual stats when I wore my helmet were:

Magic Power +2%--4%

Mana +200--+400

Regeneration +5--+10

The bonus did not apply to the Force Multiplier passive, sadly. With the effect of both keyword traits, the stats of the rod were:

Magic Power+10%--+30%

Magic Attack 150--450 (Magic Attack, I’d learned by then, was an amount of damage added to the base damage dealt by a spell. It didn’t mean that even my weakest spells would deal 450 damage minimum, the way it worked was more complicated than that, but 450 was still exceptional for Area 1.)

Piercing +20%--+60% (This meant that 60% of damage would ignore normal defense. It wouldn’t ignore things like barriers such as Fiery Deflection. A Piercing attribute of more than half was really good all by itself, and bonkers when on top of everything else.)

So yeah, it’d be a waste to give this thing to anyone but me. Combined with the 4% from the helmet, my Magic Power was boosted by over 1/3rd from equipment alone.

I’ll be sure to reflect equipment boosts accurately when I show my stats here from now on. But this weapon was absolutely insane. It was substantially better than the one I’d had before, even without any multipliers. Grosstin had long since added my old rod to their stores to possibly bestow on a lesser member; they said it wasn’t good enough for me, but I’d still chafed at lacking a weapon during the Second Floor.

Hopefully this one met their standards for me to keep. After all, since it had both keywords, the stats weren’t just doubled, but tripled. Part of me wished the trait descriptions had said “doubled” instead of “+100%” because then they’d have been quadrupled, but I was still happy with this. This baby would add a lot of damage to fire spells that were already extremely potent.

The next two items I was willing for Grosstin to glom onto, but the Memory Gem I’d keep even if I had to pay them for it. From its description, it acted as a magical recording device that, when it was connected to a suitable viewing device, played back memories that the holder had recorded with perfect clarity and with—theoretically—no possibility of doctoring or falsification.

As for the Life Force Shard, the contract only gave Grosstin first dibs on normal mission rewards. With special items gained from floors that were not mission rewards, or hidden mission rewards when applicable, I held the decision power of whether to keep them or turn them in for a reward.

Thankfully, there was still enough time to check the spell book before I returned to the Pantheon.

1st Circle Spell

Required Intuition: 41

You will be alerted when the target lies to you. Duration: 1 minute.

I bumped my Intuition up by just 2 points, then attempted to learn the spell. As I suspected, it fell under the category of spells that one of my better Class Traits, Psionic Insight, had an effect on.

When learning certain Null spells, effect of Intuition +50%.

At 28 points, that meant my effective Intuition for learning the spell was 42, so the judgment succeeded.

I’d go ahead and turn it for Grosstin, now that was done. They already had a copy, and they hadn’t considered it a spell I needed to learn (which is why I learned it now,) but they’d trade well in money and/or favors selling it to another faction, so the reward for turning it in would be decent. I wasn’t obligated to do this with the spell book, but it was expected since I had no practical reason to need to keep it.

Finally, it was time to return from the Floor. I couldn’t wait to see Mewi again.