Free Origin ARS (Origin A.R.S. Book 2) by Scottie Futch Page A

wide.
     
    ***
     
    The forest did not seem as beautiful as before. Scott could not help but notice that without Rhea’s presence he felt a bit lonelier than he would like to admit. It was a fleeting sensation, however. She would return in a few days. Until then, he had a few things to take care of and he wanted to get to them.
    “Alright, let’s see. I need to sell my loot, but there is no way that I’m going back to town while that bonus is in effect.” Scott unequipped his survival lore ring then stretched a little. He would not head back into the mine just yet. There was one more thing to take care of first.
    He had not gained any levels, but he had gained a lot of ability points. It had been extremely difficult for the ability point obsessed part of his brain not to immediately spend those points as soon as he could upgrade something. However, he had persevered.
    After the last few days and the random battles on the way to the mine, he had over thirteen hundred points to spend. He intended to use them all so that he would be as strong as possible before heading back inside to hunt alone.
    “Hmm, I need to go ahead and upgrade my level-up bonuses for attack and defense. That will give me all my leveling passives...” He spent eighty points on that then took a hard look at what he had to work with.
    Scott considered his options now. Both his health and his agility would take quite a few ability points to increase. His health would require one hundred seventy points, and his agility would require one hundred forty points.
    Thinking out loud, he said, “I’ve been agile enough to avoid the monsters for the most part... what I am really lacking is mana and attack strength.”
    The sorcerer considered his options for the moment. He could nearly double his mana pool if he spent most of his ability points in that direction. That would be enough mana to increase the level of his spells several times before Rhea returned. In fact, he could increase the level of his freeze spell without even going into the mine. He only needed to use it eleven more times.
    “That would be a waste of the bonus time, though. I’ll hunt and use my spells normally until time runs out...” Scott made his decision. He dumped a large portion of his ability points directly into his mana pool and increased it eight times, bringing his mana to a whopping one hundred one.
    His strength was a bit lopsided compared to his true agility. He opted to increase that as well. Scott increased his strength by five, which in turn increased his attack by twenty points.
    “Only eighteen ability points left?” He could increase one of his other stats, but there was little point in that at the moment. He was about as good as he was going to get in that regard. Scott decided to check his status to see how things had changed.
     
    <<< Status >>>
     
    Name: Scott Jacobs | Class: Sorcerer | Race: Human
    Age: 18 | Level: 7
    EXP: 1308
    Next Level: 1232
    Ability Points: 18
    Health: 90[90] | Mana: 101[101]
    Attack: 30[213] | Defense: 30[315]
    Strength: 34[34] | Agility: 31[20] | Accuracy: 22[22]
    Intellect: 35[35] | Luck: 16[16]
     
    <<< * >>>
     
    “Much Better.” Scott smiled happily at his stats. Things were quite a bit better balanced now. His accuracy could use a little work and his luck was on its own at the moment, but he really did not have much else that he could do till later.
    The sorcerer closed down his status screen and unequipped his armor. He removed it from his inventory piece-by-piece and visually inspected it. He did not want to waste any more time from his bonus period that he had to, but he needed to assess whether his armor and weapons needed repairs. He had taken a few hits during the last few days, but they seemed to be reasonably intact. He should be good for one more day, he hoped.
    After logging his gear back into his inventory, he said, “Equip all.”
    He could tag primary armor, weapons, and accessories to auto-equip. Only one item per