The undead horde approached quickly after their appearance, showing the benefits of their lack of concern, not caring about the lives of their soldiers — a meaningless description when zombies were concerned — or their stamina.
Still, the horde was more impressive than the previous force. Not just the numbers, but also the mana radiating off them.
It didn’t take long for them to enter into the range of the elves, their arrows flying with impressive accuracy and speed. I kept monitoring them even as I continued to feed the tree, only to notice that, with every arrow that flew, some of the mana that was a part of their body disappeared.
Making their arrows almost a spell, though a dangerous one. No wonder they were treating the guardian trees with such reverence and worship. Their dependence was even stronger than I had realized before.
Luckily for them, with my ability to convert mana from the Aether, I wasn’t lacking in some extra I could pump into their defensive encampment, pushing them to peak performance.
More than one elf had sent glances filled with worship as they turned back, looking at the tree, which they assumed to be responsible for their victory. I didn’t care much about the credit, just glad that they maintained to keep their focus on the battle rather than starting to worship the tree again.
I turned my attention to the undead force, and noted that the necromancer force chose to stay behind quite a distance, already establishing a defensive perimeter of their own, a staggering number of wards appearing.
By the number of nodes that were being built independently, I could sense that the number of necromancers was much greater than I expected, and their competency was greater as well. The biggest signal was the amount of mana they were using.
As they established their wards, they used all the mana the stream had been carrying, leaving the water as nothing but a muddy flow.
I used the tree as a medium to send a bolt of life energy, strong enough to crack the defenses they had been busy establishing, but weak enough that I was sure of its failure before sending it.
I had no intention of routing their serious attack, because if I did so, there were two options for them, abandoning the battlefront, or sending an overwhelming force…
And, at the moment, neither was to my benefit. I much preferred to slowly pull the focus of the battle to my location, with both forces reinforcing to allow me to focus more.
And maybe gather even more Divine Spark in the process.
The realization that the tree could be used to gather Divine Spark was nice, but stealing some from Elven mages promised much higher returns. Especially if the sole mage that was busy establishing the wards was not their strongest in terms of the Divine Spark they possessed.
However, while the prospect of increasing my abilities was nice, I suddenly found myself facing a different problem, this time with a personal nature.
I lacked the ability to numerically track the increase in my capabilities.
Technically, it wasn’t supposed to matter, as I could easily sense the increases and decreases on an instinctual level, but after a life spent looking at an illusionary screen, I found the lack of numbers telling my growth unsettling.
Like it wasn’t real.
It was ironic considering the effort I had put to find a path alternative to the System, but ultimately, my problem with the System was not the numbers, but the realization that it could be taken as easily — a concern that turned out to be the truth, as evidenced by my current circumstances.
It wasn’t too difficult, especially since I had the time.
The first challenge was determining the unit of measurement. What better way to measure that rather than stats, to do that, I turned my attention to my stats.
I had used my purified Divine Spark rather accidentally at first, which, in effect, spread the effect of the stats rather evenly. I used my own mana to diagnose my body more in detail, carefully measuring the various capabilities, and crossing those capabilities with what I remembered from my own growth and what I observed from others.
Only to conclude with the point, a simple self-targeting illusion spell, creating the familiar burning letters...
{Strength: 8 Charisma: 7
Precision: 7 Perception: 8
Agility: 7 Manipulation: 8
Speed: 8 Intelligence: 8
Endurance: 8 Wisdom: 8}
Admittedly, the numbers were a little lower than I had previously expected, but I realized that, once again, the even distribution of the abilities worked wonders, and my casting capabilities had benefited greatly from the unlimited mana I could generate, with different structures as needed, optimized for the spell in mind.
Not the mention, the lack of a system, constantly devouring every single scrap of mana that was generating also helped. That, and casually spending thousands and thousands of mana with no concern of waiting for it to regenerate.
I turned my attention to the next stage, the relationship between the stats and the purified Divine Spark that was necessary to enable it.
And, to do so, I first focused on my stats, playing around a bit until making sure I could change only one stat.
As I tried, I made sure to pay attention to the battle, occasionally sending blunt bolts of nature energy toward them, other times intervening at the last second to save the life of an elf — not wanting to lose any precious source of Divine Spark.
After playing with my stats for an extended time, I succeeded, but not great. I wasn’t able to push any stat significantly higher than the others, a few points of difference enough to give me a sense of imbalance — along with a sense of danger.
Still, playing around a bit was enough to understand the relationship between the Spark and the Stats. There was a quadratic relationship, with each increase costing more and more.
I decided to mark the smallest unit, one that required pushing a stat from zero to one, as a unit of Divine Spark, while pushing a stat from one to two, occupied four points of Divine Spark, and from nine to ten took a hundred points.
Of course, it meant that, increasing from one to ten required three-hundred-and-eighty-five…
And, my old score of fifty points of charisma would require a whopping forty-three thousand points — well, forty-two-thousand, nine hundred, and twenty-five if I were to be exact, but a mere seventy-five points of difference was not that great.
A great, suffocating number, especially when compared to the other sources around me.
The amount that was currently in the tree was barely half a point even after the worship ritual, while the elven mage’s Chosen Spark was barely more than four points before I stole half of it.
Of course, it was enough to put the capabilities of the System to a suffocating level in comparison. Either the System had a different way of supporting the stats — which was likely — or had an unbelievable amount of Divine Spark stored in its unknown depths.
Which was scary…
“One thing at a time,” I murmured as I slapped my cheek, distracting myself from the oppressive feeling of helplessness. It didn’t matter how strong was the System as long as I didn’t fight against it.
Which I had no intention to do. What I wanted was to find my way back — and escape again with my girls if things reached a dangerous point.
After all, after faking my death, the mysterious faction of the Eternals that targeted me had no idea I was alive — and with my performance, had other priorities to deal with.
And, the System itself … was a problem for a later time. Much later…
I turned my attention to measuring my capabilities. After a few more spells, a new line joined the rest, representing the amount of Divine Spark I had been keeping in reserve to aggressively break down the Aether to match my excessive mana usage.
{Purified Divine Spark: 43}
“Excellent,” I muttered. It wasn’t a great amount I had in storage, not enough to boost any of my stats by another point. If it was one disadvantage of my numerical adjustments, it allowed me to directly compare my current state with my previous one.
And the difference was suffocating.
Of course, the power from the System was just burrowed while my strength belonged to me, but it was a bitter consolation.
“Spending borrowed is not smart, but it is fun,” I admitted with a murmur before I shook my head, focusing my attention on the next stage rather than lamenting about my lack of metaphorical wealth.
{Pseudo-HP: 450 Mana: 7220}
Since I added others, I decided to add a real-time indicator of the converted mana and pseudo-HP I had in my storage as well, allowing me to keep an eye on my reserves at all times.
Then, I turned my attention to the next aspect. My fake Chosen nodes. It wasn’t as helpful as the others, but still, it was better to be comprehensive about such things.
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 2.1}
“All complete,” I murmured as I put my hand on the solitary root that was passing through the cave, about to turn my attention to the battle. Then, it hit me. “Oh, how can I forget you, little buddy,” I murmured in amusement as I added another category, along with a mana link.
{MINIONS
Guardian God Tree - 0.6}
“Now, it’s complete,” I said as I turned my full attention to the battle that was going on above the ground.
{Strength: 8 Charisma: 7
Precision: 7 Perception: 8
Agility: 7 Manipulation: 8
Speed: 8 Intelligence: 8
Endurance: 8 Wisdom: 8}
{Purified Divine Spark: 43}
{Pseudo-HP: 450 Mana: 7220}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 2.1}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Tree - 0.6}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]