Chapter 25: New Skills and Preparations
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[Astaria]
Class: Mage - Lv: 16 – 79.2% [+6]
Race: ???
Gender: Female
Age: 20
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HP: 610/610
MP: 640/640
Fatigue: 14%
Hunger: 3%
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Skill Points: 141/421 - 60% [+144/-145]
Attribute Points: 0 [+30/-30]
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[Attributes]
VIT: 61 [+26]
STA: 19 [+6]
DEF: 16 (+1) [+6]
STR: 26 (+4) [+6]
AGI: 26 (+8) [+6]
DEX: 16 [+6]
INT: 41 (+23) [+6]
WIS: 81 (+34) [+36]
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[Equipment]
Enchanted Mastercraft Steel Staff [Rare+]
(34 ATK) (WIS+10, INT+10)
Enchanted Mastercraft Steel Short Sword [Rare+]
(52 ATK) (WIS +15) (Sharpness+)
Frilled Blouse [Rare]
(WIS+4, INT+3)
Steel Bracers [Rare]
(WIS+5, STR+4)
Skinny Leather Trousers [Rare]
(AGI+4, INT+3)
Steel Plated Leather Boots [Rare]
(INT+5, AGI+4)
Black Hooded Ornate Robe [Rare]
(INT +2) (DEF +1)
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Charisma: 10
Luck: 550
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Karma: 100,000
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[Skills]
Staff Lv 2
Short-sword Lv 2
Magic Arrow Lv 2
Fireball Lv 3 [+1]
--- Blast Lv1 [+1]
Lightning Lv 3 [+1]
--- Residual Burst Lv 1 [+1]
Earth spike Lv 3 [+1]
Freeze Lv 3 [+1]
--- Lingering Frost Lv1 [+1]
Evasion lv 3 [+1]
Mana Heart Lv 2 [+1]
Casting Lv 2 [+1]
Vitality Boost Lv 2 [+1]
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[Fame and Contribution]
Personal Fame: 16
The Temple: 330
Adventurers Guild: 380
Alennos Kingdom: 11
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[Titles]
-The First Immortal Warrior-
[Common Titles]
(+ To Expand)
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Looking at her status page Astaria decides that her magic damage will be the most important when fighting the boss, so she puts her 30 new Attribute Points into WIS bringing it up to 81. Briefly glancing at her other attributes, she can see that all of her stats have gone up by 6 points each.
After Lv 10 players start to gain an Attribute Point in all types upon levelling up. It is likely that the reason that additional points are not given on the first 10 levels is due to the situation the Pinecone Viking encountered earlier. Players gaining 8 status points per level alongside the 5 free points would undoubtedly send more people into a strange state, especially if they level up multiple times after killing a strong enemy.
Taking a moment, Astaria's curiosity takes over and she wonders how much of an advantage she currently has over the rest of the players in terms of attributes. Going through her memories, she estimates the current average level is around Lv4, meaning that most players will have around 130 total attribute points. Meanwhile, she currently has 276, over double the regular players, and that is not including the additional 70 stat points added by her equipment.
Inwardly trying to control her incredible joy at this revelation, Astaria thinks about how it won't take long for skilled players to enter the game and regular players to get used to fighting and catch up. As her thoughts give her a reality check, the internal excitement that is bubbling starts to calm down a little.
Returning her attention back to the screen in-front of her, Astaria looks at the available skills. Levelling up everything she can, she increases the level of her 4 elemental skills up to Lv3, unlocking their skill add-ons. She first chooses to buy [Blast] which will allow her to make her fireball explode, knocking enemies caught by it down to the floor, as well as causing high damage.
[Blast Lv1]
[Causes the skill [Fireball] to explode upon contact.
MP cost: 15
Cast time: 0s
Cooldown: 10s
Damage: (WIS x 200%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 50%)
Chance to inflict: {Knockdown} {Knockback} {Stun}]
Next Astaria buys [Residual Lightning], a skill that causes a second smaller lightning bolt to strike a location of Astaria's choosing, instead causing a shockwave of lightning upon impact. This add-on also has the ability to knock enemies down as well as cause high damage.
[Residual Lightning]
[Creates a second unstable lightning bolt to strike a targeted location after the use of [Lightning]. Upon contact the lightning bolt explodes in a small radius.
MP cost: 30
Cast time: 0.5s
Cooldown: 10s
Damage: (WIS x 310%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 120%)
Chance to inflict: {Knockdown} {Knockback} {Stun}]
Lastly, Astaria acquires [Lingering Frost], the addon for her [Freeze] skill, causing the target hit by [Freeze] to have their movement slowed by 5% for 5 seconds.
[Lingering Frost]
[Increase the effect of the skill [Freeze] and causes additional status ailments upon contact.
MP cost: 10
Cast time: 0s
Cooldown: 10s
Damage: (WIS x 20%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 50%)
Additional Effects: Targets movement speed -5% for 5s]
After acquiring these skills, Astaria moves on to level up her [Evasion] skill which reduces the mana consumption per use, as well as levelling up [Vitality Boost] and [Casting] which increases her VIT by 20 points and reduces her casting speed by a further 5.5%.
With her status now fully updated she can feel her internal mana quality improving. Within Caelus online, you can feel a strange form of warmth whenever you cast spells or use skills. The warmth is the flow of mana through your body as you use it, and this was applicable to all classes and not just magic casters.
Astaria previously concluded that this was the game getting players used to the feeling of mana and how it flows within the body when using it before mana became usable in reality, in effect training the players. Having now travelled back to the past and meeting Fortuna, she is completely certain now that this is the truth. It also explains why after the Great Upheaval players were able to freely manipulate mana in-game.
Moving her thoughts back to the present, Astaria is quite happy the that she helped Ash progress further than her planned target, certain that after killing the boss he will at least reach Lv 20.
Previously when making plans for when she enters Caelus Online Astaria's expectations were that her speed of killing would be much slower that it turned out to be. It has been over 2 years since she was last this low in level causing her perception to be off, meaning her estimation of their progress was rough at best.
With her status updated, Astaria closes the window and leans back against the tree behind her with closed eyes, resting for another half an hour with the background noise of her friends casually talking before finally rousing to make the last preparations to fight the boss.
Since her fatigue value has reduced, Astaria's worries about a prolonged fight subside. Checking her inventory, she confirms she still has 4 mana potions remaining then stands up to get everyone's attention.
"Right, before we head over to the boss, I want to confirm a few last details. Firstly, I will be running as main tank and damage dealer. Russel, Tyrell, just in case pay attention to me and be ready to step in as the main tank. I might need to take a moment to drink a potion, so you only need to hold out for at most 10 seconds."
Seeing the two give nods in affirmation, Astaria looks towards Ash.
"Ash, you will be covering Roxanne and Ben if that happens, so stay alert."
With his usual gesture of a thumbs up, Ash gave his conformation.
"You guys will all be dealing with the add's that will come to help the boss. They are lv 15 goblins, and there should be a total of 20 of them. They will appear every time the Boss loses 25% of its health. The indication for this happening is the boss roaring, so make sure you move to the corner to not get surrounded."
Pausing and looking at everyone who are paying close attention to her words, Astaria continues her briefing.
"I will help with some of my skills that hit multiple targets, so the pressure won't be too high. If they are nicely grouped, I might be able to kill quite a few of them at once, so try to keep that in mind."
Folding her arms Astaria smiles thinking about the uncertain information she was about to share.
"Last of all, the first time kill for a boss are always slightly different from the regular bosses that spawn afterwards. Since not much was shared about this in the past, I sadly don't know much outside of the fact that this boss dropped a purple item that was announced in the server's news feed. It may have had an increased drop chance or a confirmed drop chance since it was the first time, but that's not something I know."
Hearing Astaria's comment, the eyes of her friends light up hearing the mention of purple grade equipment.
"There may be other loot like the purple equipment that is outside of the loot table I have given you for the regular boss, so this should be quite interesting."
Hearing this, Russel expresses his enthusiasm with a massive grin, just barely visible in the moonlight filtering through the canopy.
"Man, I'm so ready for this fight, I can't wait to give it a go! This is honestly so exciting compared to the other VR games!"
With a laugh, Tyrell also comments.
"For real, this is going to be fun. Maybe painful, but I am still with you in excitement."
Hearing the two, Astaria can only smile while remembering back when she was like them attempting her first boss in Caelus.
Flapping her robe around, Astaria frees the fabric from the stiffness of the dried blood that coated it, returning some of the mobility she lost while resting.
"Oh, who has the light stone I asked you guys to get?"
Tyrell, remembering he had the stone pulls it out of his bag and activates it.
The light stone is a type of crystal carved into a perfect sphere that when activated produces a pale white light. It is an important item for fighting at night or moving around in the dark, especially when there was the chance to encounter wandering enemies. The stone lights up the surrounding area, allowing them to clearly see the surroundings.
Accepting the stone from Tyrell, Astaria makes her way toward the boss's cave at the very centre of the forest. Luckily not encountering any wandering enemies, they quickly and safely arrive at one of the 5 entrances to the cave.
The cave entrance is quite large leading underground, easily able to fit four people walking shoulder to shoulder inside, its two sides flanked by crude braziers that clearly highlight the entrances' location.
Now in an area that had decent lighting from the two fires, Astaria put the light stone into her inventory causing the nearby area to become viably darker.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone