Chapter 408 (1/2)

Over the past several days, Randidly had gained some small amount of Levels in things. But he had quite a bit of PP left over from before he obtained a Class, and that gave him the sizable amount of exactly 100.

Ultimately, Randidly’s attention focused on five choices: Path of Control 0/200, The Phantom’s Embrace 0/150, Fighting Proficiency III 0/???, Intermediate Soul Bond 0/125, the First Legend 0/???

What he needed now was a consistent source of strength. With his Class, he could grow more quickly than he had previously, but that didn’t mean that he could set aside these lucrative seeming Paths. Of them, Intermediate Soul Bond was likely the weakest, but Randidly still couldn’t help but be tempted by the possibility that it would do something to help Neveah, who continued to slumber.

Yet…

With a heavy heart, Randidly removed that option. Next, Randidly was able to remove Fighting Proficiency as an option, for although it was likely a Skill Path, and one that would provide a big boost to Stamina, it was probably a worse reward than he would receive for the Phantom Embrace Path.

Which left him with the Path of Control, the Phantom’s Embrace, and the First Legend.

The Path of Control had been with Randidly so long that it was starting to get annoying. Perhaps he had been spoiled so far because he had access to such a large amount of PP, but not being able to pursue some of the interesting sounding Paths was really starting to irk him. Plus, Control was a Stat that Randidly relied on a lot, both in its ancillary role as a way to make his attacks more delicate, but also by giving him a greater amount of control over his Spells.

On the other hand, Phantom’s Embrace was his greatest physical Skill, and an upgrade there would be extremely valuable. In addition, physical Stats that he would likely obtain from it would be extremely useful and would improve Randidly’s survivability. Thus far, he hadn’t encountered many things that could threaten him, simply due to his high Stats, but if that changed moving forward…

Death only needed to come once, even in the System. Then everything was over, and there was no way to make up that loss.

A middle ground between those two options was the reward Path, the First Legend. From Randidly’s experience with the previous reward Path, it would be extremely lucrative. But from Randidly’s other experience with the System, he knew that as things progressed, the rewards might get higher, but also the time between them would get larger. It was entirely possible that this Path would be something that required a very high amount of PP, perhaps something like 500.

Then his current PP would only be worth 1/5th of the total, and he might spend the entire time within the Raid Dungeon without able to finish a Path. But even so, if the rewards were high enough…

One of the downsides of being the first group to go into the Raid Dungeon is that they really didn’t have any idea how long it would take to clear. In terms of scaling, it was hard to imagine that it wouldn’t be higher than the Level 39 Dungeon that Donnyton possessed, that a skilled party could clear in a little over 3 weeks. Randidly believed that he could shove the number down, in terms of raw Stat and Skill Levels, but this was another tier higher, and would likely increase by a large amount.

It was possible that he would spend an entire month struggling through the Raid Dungeon, even with his higher ability. That was a slightly disturbing thought because over the past few days, Randidly was feeling the absence of Neveah with increasing sensitivity. Even before they had formed the Soul Bond, and they were both two things strangely attached to the Aether Crossroads, they had supported each other. He never had to wonder whether there would be at least one person who had his back.

Now…

Randidly gritted his teeth, resisting a sudden impulse to surrender his previous reasoning and just select Intermediate Soul Bond. No, of them all…

Randidly was supposed to be the reinforcements in this foray into the Dungeon. Although he could stand at the front with them all, and would probably handle more damage than most people, he needed to be ready at any point to bail them out. And the most effective way to do that was to rely on his Plant Dominance to forcibly support those who fought in front of him.

Path of Control it is.

Randidly dumped his 100 PP into it Path of Control, earning 1 Control and 10 Mana every 10 PP. He also received notifications from his Soul Skill, which gave him a certain amount of relief.