Levi had pushed his mount into flat-out rushing for so long in their attempts to outrun the furious dungeon mob, it would take hours before they were back to the dungeon and the remains of the compound built around it.

In the meantime, he'd have plenty of time to go over the results of their hours-long running battle.

Levi himself had reached level 19, giving him another point to allocate. He dropped it into spirit for the stamina regen. This fight more than anything else had put his ultimate goals back into perspective.

He, the human, could not become strong enough to matter in the coming fight. His role wasn't to fight on the front any more, but to direct. He'd known this from the start, but it had taken a long time for it to really sink in. Too many layers of deeply ingrained habits and patterns to be easily swept aside.

Mana and Stamina were what mattered, for Tame, and for his other supplementary abilities. He couldn't keep letting the demands of the moment take precedence over the ultimate goals. Health regen as a Tamer was never going to equal what he'd had as a Swordsman, and he had to stop trying to pursue that previous peak.

This was a different timeline, different path, different Levi. New patterns, not the old ones.

Lucklily, those new patterns came with plenty of perks of their own. Of the minions who'd survived any length of time, nearly all had leveled at least once. Even those who weren't physically present for the fighting.

Skarm has reached level 16!

Skarm has 5 stat points available.

That one was easy. Skarm's new high-mobility evolution strongly incentivized stacking Spirit for stamina, and Levi had no problem spending all five points doing just that. That brought Skarm's stamina from 740 to over 800, and bumped his regen up to nearly fifty per minute.

Skarm: Level 16

(Flickering Gremlin)

Strength: 35

Health: 205/205

(+39/min)

Psyche: 0

Mana: 0/0

(+4/min)

Spirit: 45

Stamina: 815/815

(+49/min)

Some of the others had more involved decisions to be made, but he had plenty of time to think it over. For now he skimmed past anyone with a threshold level to finish off the easy ones first.

Sabercat has reached level 19!

Sabercat has 1 stat point available.

His newest acquisition already had a nicely large health pool, so he put that point into Spirit to boost stamina.

"Do you want a name?" Levi asked, leaning down to pat his current ride. "I feel like after all this you've earned it."

The cat let loose with a loud, indignant snarl, an echoing screech of demand.

"Okay, I think I'll call you Diego, then."

The cat hissed in what sounded vaguely like sinister laughter, but his gait smoothed out. "Glad you like it." Diego: Level 19

(Prowling Sabercat)

Strength: 18

Health: 71/930

(+30/min)

Psyche: 8

Mana: 57/160

(+20/min)

Spirit: 13

Stamina: 12/560

(+25/min)

Next.

Bladefin has reached level 13!

Bladefin has 2 stat points available.

Bladefin had done quite well for himself, even if he did end up dead. He couldn't assign points while the minion was deceased, so there was nothing to do for now.

Tink has reached level 8!

Tink has 1 stat point available.

Tink's point went into Psyche, as usual. When he would only gain 3 for either of the others and 45 mana, it seemed utterly pointless to do otherwise. Tink was never going to survive high damage, he'd always be a flimsy fighter with incredibly utility but little in the way of direct combat abilities.

Tink: Level 8

(Mirror Sprite +)

Strength: 0

Health: 50/50

(+2/min)

Psyche: 8

Mana: 480/480

(+20/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 50/50

(+2/min)

He didn't know where his little illusionist had ended up, but he'd clearly managed to survive the rampage. Probably be hiding somewhere waiting for Levi's return.

Firelord has reached level 9!

Firelord has 1 stat point available.

This one, he paused over and considered a bit longer. Firelord was, like Tink, very low in health and high in mana. But the kobold also would gain equally high amounts of stamina per stat point as mana. Would it be a good tradeoff to give his fireball-slinger a bit of backup movement capability?

No, much like Tink, there wasn't really a point. Psyche all the way. More fireballs faster.

Firelord: Level 9

(Kobold Magus +)

Strength: 2

Health: 50/50

(+4/min)

Psyche: 7

Mana: 310/310

(+9/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 70/70

(+2/min)

Though he had to admit, after taming the higher level monsters in the dungeon, that 310 mana wasn't looking nearly as large as it had before.

Storm has reached level 10!

Steelfeather Harpy threshold 2 attained.

Evolution threshold advancement progress: 2/6

Storm has 1 stat point available.

Storm has 3 ability points available.

All five of the harpies had leveled, hitting their second ability threshold, despite not being physically present for any of the fighting. If they weren't so slow they'd be the perfect striker team, but their low endurance continually held them back. What was the use of a flying tank if it was always left behind? Even their insanely high stamina didn't manage to offset their slow flight.

Harpy 1 has reached level 10!

Steelfeather Harpy threshold 2 attained.

Evolution threshold advancement progress: 2/3

Harpy 1 has 1 stat point available.

Harpy 1 has 3 ability points available.

Once again, he found the difference in threshold requirements between plus and standard types to be significant. Pluses grew much faster per level, but levels came slow and evolutions slower still compared to their standard cousins.

He started with the standard versions. Unsurprisingly, since they had identical builds by default, their upgrade ability options were similarly identical.

Steelfeather Harpy Abilities

Sparkfeather

Allows activation of Current on individual thrown feathers, the effect lasting even after no longer in contact, to electrify distant targets.

Discharge

Emit a very brief, powerful wave of electrical power, localized to the immediate vicinity.

Focused Feathers

Hurls a cluster of bladed feathers at a single target.

Thrown feathers are temporary and will disappear when no longer needed.

Bladeclaw

Claws are elongated and sharpened, allowing for much more damaging melee attacks. Then there were the species-wide options, which both looked helpful.

Steelfeather Harpy: Flight Speed

Steelfeather Harpy minions’ aerial movement speed is increased.

(Unlock: 2 ability point)

Steelfeather Harpy: Feather Size

Steelfeather Harpy minions’ feathers will become proportionally larger, allowing for heavier impacts.

(Unlock: 2 ability point)

He hadn't had so many of the same type of creature to level before. This would be a chance to test various builds and options. First, he could disregard Bladeclaw entirely. He had plenty of physical attackers, what he needed was ranged and flight.

After some consideration, he decided to focus Harpy 1 and Harpy 2 into the ranged paths. He upgraded Current and unlocked Sparkfeather for each of them, then upgraded Harpy 1's Feather Arc and unlocked Focused Feathers for Harpy 2. That gave him both a wide-area and signel-target ranged attacker with extra lightning for good measure.

Harpy 3 and 4, he gave each of them one of the species-wide upgrades and put their remaining point each into Discharge. Their stat points, he assigned all to Strength. With +100 health per point, it was impossible to justify anything else. Their mana gains were so utterly useless it wasn't worth considering, and he doubted stamina would be the deciding factor in any fights.

That left Storm, the boss. He had a different build than the others, meaning he had different options for updates.

Steelfeather Harpy Abilities

Current

Activates your inner storm. Power can be focused to any part of your body at need.

Discharge

Emit a very brief, powerful wave of electrical power, localized to the immediate vicinity.

Feather Arc

A sweeping slash of the wing, throwing bladed feathers in an arc. Thrown feathers are temporary and will disappear when no longer needed.

Bladeclaw

Claws are elongated and sharpened, allowing for much more damaging melee attacks. That was interesting. It seemed Storm had unlocked abilities out of order, somehow? Or else the rules for abilities were more nuanced than he'd imagined, even if until now they'd been entirely predictable. Well, once again, Bladeclaw would be entirely useless, so he put one point into each of the others. He'd be very curious to see what options came up next time, since Focused Feathers was already unlocked for Storm. Would they be the same as the other harpies, or did plus types have their own ability tree? It hadn't seemed so in the past, but pre-assigned abilities seemed to disregard the rules. Either way, that only left one more.

Crackle has reached level 10!

Rust Scarab threshold 2 attained.

Evolution threshold advancement progress: 2/4

Crackle has 2 stat point available.

Crackle has 3 ability points available.

Levi knew exactly what he wanted to give Crackle, but he took the time to look through the options anyway just in case he was missing something better.

Rust Scarab Abilities

Burning Bite

A Rust Scarab can directly inject its corrosive through its fangs in concentrated doses, dealing continual damage over time.

Regenerate

Killed duplicates will revive after 1 hour unless dismissed from the swarm. This does not require additional mana upkeep, but regenerating scarabs will continue to reserve their original upkeep cost.

Silent Flight

Scarab’s wings become much quieter and more difficult to distinguish from ambient noise. This is most effective at low speeds; faster movement still generates sound.

Tough Shell

Increase the sturdiness of the protective chitin to decrease likelihood of death.

The new options were interesting, sure, but nothing impressed him enough to change his mind. He did scan over the species-wide abilities and did some quick math to confirm he wasn’t making a mistake.

Rust Scarab Abilities

Rust Scarab: Eternal Swarm

Rust Scarab minions will gain an automatic duplicate every 5th level. Killed duplicates will return at a rate of 1 every 24 hours until the maximum is reached. Eternal Swarm duplicates do not require mana upkeep.

(Unlock: 2 ability points)

Rust Scarab: Potent Paralysis

Rust Scarab minions’ venom will increase in potency by 15%.

(Unlock: 2 ability points)

Just as he’d thought. Eternal Swarm. Numerically, it would be an inefficient choice for a single scarab compared to maxing Duplicate, but Levi didn’t plan for Crackle to remain single for long.

He needed more scarabs. A lot more. The ability to coordinate multiple teams with a single minion shared between them, the utility of having a copy to watch out for each of his family members and allies at all times, their scouting capabilities…

Bladefin, while similarly capable of creating copies, was limited by the control radius of the creature itself, while Crackle’s only range limit was Levi’s own - which covered several states.

The remaining point, Levi put into Duplicate.

Crackle Abilities

Duplicate

Tier: 3

Cost: 40 mana

Create a duplicate of itself. Duplicates share a mana pool, and the mana cost of the duplicate is a sustained upkeep cost until one is killed. (Other resource pools remain distinct.)

As long as one survives, the swarm survives.

Corrosive Claws

Tier: 1

Passive

Even a scratch from a Rust Scarab can leave lingering damage.

Lastly, he put Crackle’s stat points into Psyche, and watched the minion screen populate.

At 240 mana total and 50 mana per copy, Crackle could sustain up to four copies.

With the increase to Duplicate the number had jumped to six; eight with Eternal Swarm.

The numbers would only keep going up from there.

Levi was about to close his minion management screens when something flickered in the corner of the page.

Harpy 2 has reached level 11!

Harpy 2 has 1 stat point available.

Levi squinted at it. He’d already leveled the harpies. He definitely had.

A new level? How? Levi hadn’t done anything, so…

What had the rest of his team gotten into?