Chapter 8-223: Entitled (1/2)

Three active Titles.

The Star Mage, the first person on this world to assemble Five Stars of Wizardry. Naturally Sustained by the conjoined powers of multiple branches of magic flowing with such power through my Matrix.

Technically, I had Six Stars, but there was no extra benefit, other than the blanket +6 total base Caster Level bonus. I didn’t know of a Seventh Star, either, as the other branches of magic weren’t full Casting Classes...

The Perfect Halvyr. First Halvyr/3 to actualize with a fundamental 18 Stat line. It was basically setting me as the genetic leader of the Halvyr species.

The Ringlord. The first Ring-maker, and so the Lord of Rings on this world. Primary benefits: being able to use and make any Rings, being able to identify any Rings on sight, and be able to suppress any Ring with a swift action, as if it was Dispelled.

There could not be another being on this planet with those Titles while I was here, and at most they’d get a successor version of the Titles. Being the first set the standard for all who were going to follow.

The High Wizard was a passive Title, no active benefits for me. It meant I was clearing a road for those behind me.

It was all still pretty gratifying, and I’d be getting more... in time.

I thumbed through the Assay to find out the totals of my Caster Level bonuses. They were extensive, and that was totally by design.

Base Eleven, from both Wizard and Sorcerer now.

Six Star Magery, +6.

Snowcaster, +2 to +4. +1 to all Cold Spells by Druid Domain.

Good Spells, +3.

Aligned Theurgy, +4 to all Bloodline and Spell Focused spells, meaning Good, Cold, or Evocation spells.

Mage of the Wild, +2 while under a Shroud or the Haze.

Healing Spells, +1. Hmm. Still had to get the Reserve active. Active on all Vivic Spells.

Force Spells, +3 via Force and War Reserves.

Lightning and Fire spells, both +2, via Reserve and Druid Domains.

+1 to Acid, Earth, Water, and Air spells, by Druid Domain.

Silver Magic spells, +1 base, plus another 4 if a contested Dispel check.

Shards, +2.

Druidic Theurgy, +Druid Level to spells on both Arcane and Druid lists, notably the Cures, Wall of Fire and Dispel Magic. +4 currently.

+1 to Divinations and Darkness spells, by Clerical Domains.

Sing the Sublime Chord, at base +45 to the check. +4 Morale Bonus to Caster Level, Good magic doubled by Words of Creation to +8.

Shard Casting Level, at least 48 to 50. Dispel Casting Level, 43 to 45.

Single-target, non-Area of Effect spells like Shards could have higher damage caps than AoE spells of the same Levels; the main problem was having a Caster Level high enough to take advantage of them. Because Shards were a no-save, no-miss Force Effect, the spell topped out much later than, say, an Orb.

That was fine, Caster Level was not something I had a problem with. For this fight, I would be taking things to the next level.

Improved Shards II was Valence III. Literally a useless spell at any Caster Level below Twenty, as Shards was the best to use at Ten or less, and Improved Shards until Twenty. With Delimit, this got even crazier. You didn’t use IS II unless your Caster Level was above 30, as all it did is raise your Shards cap by another five, to fifteen base, plus another five with Delimit, maxing out at twenty Shards at Caster Level 40.

There were other Shard variants, and they even did more damage. Greater Shards, also a III Valence, created massively powerful Shards at a d8+8 each, forming 1, +1 for every 3 Levels above 5, max of 6 of them. 6d8+48 was considerably higher than the base 10-60 of Shards at Twenty, which meant for a single target spell, it was unquestionably better... except it didn’t scale as well.

Delimit wouldn’t work with Greater Shards, because of its uneven advancement paradigm, so Improved Shards actually got to 15-90... but importantly, that was more Shards with more per-attack Kickers, more targets you could hit and potentially Chain on through, and the like. Heck, with Topped and Consecrated, I also operated near the top of the damage range, instead of the middle, and that basically narrowed the advantage to nil.

I didn’t need the extra base damage of the Greater spell, as I had enough damage going on top to do that. I needed as many Shards as possible, so I could either stack them onto something and totally abuse the per-die Buffs, or I could spread them out and abuse the per-Shard Kickers.

Being able to use Improved Shards II was my goal, but it was running into the reality that I had a Metacap of VI. Getting five more Shards was not as important as fitting in Chain, Burst, Paired, Admixtured, Repeat, and Fastcast.

My targets were all undead, so the full +36 damage from the Holy Metas was going on the stack, along with all the other kickers. A Baneskull, Token, Blessed, Vivic, Noquar-capped Shard was another 6d6 of Kicker damage. Add on the Shard itself, even with its damage divided by Chains, and I could wipe away chaff at a hugely unreasonable rate.

There were millions of dead creatures out there I had to sweep away. Just using Rays wasn’t going to cut it... it was time for some true explosive multipliers to do the job.

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My mental preparations were done. I walked over to Sleipner, bowed to him courteously, and gifted him with his own custom Ring.