~~

    Name: Christopher Zalenski

    Race: (E) Human*

    Class: (E) Hammer of the Jotnar(Legendary): Level 100 Evolution Available

    Profession: (E) Runesmith(Rare): Level 89

    Affinity: Arctic

    Faction: Frostheim (Leader)

    Title: Baron

    Strength - 1827

    Agility - 887

    Perception - 539

    Fortitude - 1349

    Endurance - 1064

    Vitality - 669

    Intelligence - 455

    Wisdom - 777

    Acumen - 436

    Free Points: 55

    Laws: Lesser Law of Ice, Lesser Law of Wind

    Body Stage: Body of Stone(Northern Wind Body)

    Mana Heart: Perfect Ignition (Stars of Primordial Frost)

    Spirit Stage: Anchor Formation

    Class Skills:

    Frostbound Hammer(Legendary)

    Jotun''s Resistance(Legendary)

    Frozen Rift(Legendary)

    Hammer Reverberation(Legendary)

    Meteor Strike(Epic)

    Heavy Armor Proficiency(Adept)

    Battle Fury(Epic)

    Glacial Heavy Plate(Epic)

    Weight of the Arctic(Epic)

    Identify Freeze (Epic)

    Shattering Hammer(Epic)

    Frozen Leach(Epic)

    Glacial March(Epic)

    Aura Detection(Rare)

    Pervading Cold(Rare)

    Icy Bastion(Rare)

    Heavy Weapon Proficiency(Journeyman)

    Desolate Blizzard(Rare)

    Ice Manipulation(Rare)

    Glacial Presence(Rare)

    Frozen Patchwork(Rare)

    Throwing Weapon Proficiency(Apprentice)

    Sweeping Snow(Uncommon)

    Body of a Barbarian(Uncommon)

    Cold Meditation(Uncommon)

    Ice Arrow(Uncommon)

    Shatter(Uncommon)

    Frozen Fortitude(Uncommon)

    Permafrost(Uncommon)

    Mental Freeze(Uncommon)

    Profession Skills:

    Sense Frequency(Rare)

    Mana Engraving(Rare)

    Basic Runecrafting(Rare)

    Runesmithing(Rare)

    Beginner Runic Language(Rare)

    Create Weapon(Uncommon)

    Create Armor(Uncommon)

    Metallurgy(Uncommon)

    Forging Proficiency(Apprentice)

    Mana Infusion(Uncommon)

    Forging Style: Rhythm Forging(Uncommon)

    Warding(Uncommon)

    Formations Mana Flow(Uncommon)

    Rune Strings(Uncommon)

    Coins: 0

    ~~

    My Status screen had a rather large number of changes happen to it during this trip. Five skill upgrades alone would have been a large enough difference, but there were even more than that. Four new skills. Three purchased and one chosen.

    Two skills were replaced this way, [Identify] and [Identify Blocker], but I was more than willing to see those go for their replacements [Aura Detection] and [Identify Freeze].

    The changes weren''t soon to end either. The Merchants hadn''t been able to start anything until they had their shops set up, but once we returned to Frostheim, it would start another round of buying some upgrades.

    They wouldn''t be as large, and not nearly as impactful either, but it would still be a needed boost. Since Rare and Epic skills were rare to be able to buy with money, it was only the more Common skills I sought to buy this way.

    Skills like [Wind Manipulation], [Dash], [Charge], [Taunt], [Wind Blade], [Wind Bolt], and a smattering of striking skills. I already had [Power Strike] and [Penetrating Strike], but others would come in handy as well. Especially if I were to upgrade them as far as I had with the others.

    [Sundering Strike], [Crippling Strike], [Extended Strike], [Multi-Strike], and even [Piercing Strike]. The last one, [Piercing Strike], didn''t sound very useful with my weapon of choice being a hammer, but I could see it coming in handy on certain occasions with others. A large Ice spear specifically.

    As they were, the Common skills wouldn''t add much to what I could do, but it was better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them. Same with the other somewhat ''generic'' skills.

    Technically, there was a cap on how many skills I could have, but I could always drop them later if I needed something else.

    They were skills that everyone had access to and usually picked up early on, but it wasn''t too late for me to go back and pick them up. I could have made my job a little easier if I hadn''t wasted a choice on [Throwing Weapon Proficiency], but hindsight... it is what it is.

    The main reason I pulled up my status and was delving into it while we were marching on was because of my free points. I had 55 of them now and that would only grow as my Profession leveled.

    I only gained 5 Free Points a level from Runesmith, which meant I would end up with 110 of them to spend before I was capped. 110 ten left that I had to choose where they would go.

    Planning ahead, I wrote out what my stats would look like when I did finally hit level 100.

    ~~

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    Strength - 1876

    Agility - 975

    Perception - 594

    Fortitude - 1366

    Endurance - 1097

    Vitality - 669

    Intelligence - 543

    Wisdom - 887

    Acumen - 502

    Free Points: 110

    ~~

    My Agility was my main worry. It was floating under that 2:1 ratio that I liked to keep between it and Strength. I noticed my less fluid movements already, but I had held off on putting Free Points into the stat yet. I first thought it was because I was still recovering, but I was fully healed by now, and the jerkiness persisted.

    I knew Runesmith would even it out eventually, which was why I didn''t want to jump the gun.

    That being said, the urge to throw them all into Vitality was there. It was lagging pretty far behind the rest of my physical stats, but I held off on doing that, too. The Bed would help along with [Cold Meditation], but I mainly did it because of my Fortitude and [Frozen Patchwork].

    My defense, Body, and ability to persist after injury made any potentially fatal wound take a long time to eventually kill me. Enough time to either get to a Healer or to the Bed.

    It wasn''t foolproof, and I would have liked to have endless stat points in order to bring Vitality up in line with Fortitude or Endurance, but I couldn''t.

    The rest of the ratios that I liked to keep were fine, other than Strength: Agility. Agility to Perception was above 2:1, and Wisdom to Acumen was above that as well.

    My Mana Heart helped replenish my mana much faster than my Acumen stat would imply. The Heart piggybacked off my strong body and physical stats to regenerate mana much faster.

    It was one of the main things I liked about the Technique, no matter how hard it was to accomplish. It also made my Mana pool larger than my Wisdom would allow as well. Intelligence, on the other hand, was left way behind.

    My Heart compressed the mana in my veins and worked to increase its concentration, but I wouldn''t be competing with Mages near my level in magic.

    If I threw all 110 points into Wisdom, I would be only a few points away from 1,000. I could also do the same for Strength and be a few shy of 2,000, but that wasn''t of the same importance.

    With 997 points in Wisdom, I could think about taking the next step for my Mana Cultivation. Honestly, I probably didn''t even need to put any into Wisdom to start considering it.

    The Stars of Primordial Frost was... different. It was unlike any other Mana Cultivation Technique I had read, and by this point, I''d read a decent amount.

    It differed wildly from Techniques that Forged a Mana Core, rather than a Mana Heart, but that wasn''t all. It was even different than other Techniques that forged a Mana Heart!

    I knew that Mana Hearts weren''t unique to my specific Technique, but I hadn''t expected them to differ by so much when they started the same way.

    The next step for me was to forge my First Star, like the name implied. Like the Circles Abigail and the other Mages would create for themselves, my Technique described forging Stars around my Mana Heart.

    My first thought after reading about it was to imagine it like a solar system, but that picture didn''t really match. I was creating a sequence of Stars around my Heart, not Planets. The Stars were born from the Mana and Essence I took in and acted similarly to my Heart, but different.

    My Heart meshed my Physical Might with my Magical and used that to produce and store Mana. My heartbeat itself worked as a force to regenerate my mana, and it also worked to act as a Mana Pool, along with my blood.

    The Stars I would Forge increased that effect, but they also acted like miniature Hearts themselves. They were like fusion reactors that helped provide Energy to my Heart in the form of Mana.

    Did I really just compare Stars to Fusion Reactors and not the other way around? God, I feel dumb.

    Anyway, with that being the case, the book Abigail had that listed the certain stat points needed to take the next Steps didn''t apply exactly. Especially not one-to-one. A certain amount of Wisdom was still required, but it wasn''t as stringent as the 1,000, 3,000, 10,000 that her book stated.

    Along with Wisdom, it required a certain degree of Physical stats along with exceedingly stringent external aids in the form of Mana and Essence.

    Forging my First Star would take far more than just travelling North for a few months. It would require me to find a source of Frost Essence, which was easier said than done.

    It was why I had chosen the Bones I had for my evolution, but those wouldn''t help me until after I evolved, not before.

    But I digress.

    If it was just the Frost Essence I was missing, I would have just purchased it from either the Merchants or the Reward Store, but that wasn''t the case. It was the area I needed more than the Essence itself.

    Well, technically, I needed both, but I wasn''t going to get one without the other. Anywhere that had Frost Essence had the quantity and quality of Mana I also needed. They came hand in hand. Essence produced Mana, and anywhere that had Essence, there was a deluge of Mana of the same aspect.

    I didn''t have the funds to buy both the amount of Frost Essence I needed and all the Mana I would need. With losses and inefficiencies, it just wasn''t feasible.

    Not if I wanted to spend money on anything else.

    Plus, it was a waste if I could just venture North to find all that I needed without wasting to opportunity to get things that we wouldn''t be able to find, no matter how hard we looked.

    Fuck it, I''ll just keep saving them.

    I knew I would probably end up putting them into Vitality or Wisdom, but I couldn''t decide right now. I had other things on my mind besides where to spend my Free Points.

    Like getting home.

    We left the Twins near the end of November, and it usually took around two months to get to Frostheim from there, but I was trying to do it in one. We were rushing through the snow at an untenable pace, traveling through the night when we could.

    We didn''t need to, and there wasn''t an emergency we had to get back for, but I was just fed up with traveling. The closer we got to Frostheim, the greater the urge became to just sprint off ahead of everyone.

    I couldn''t have done it before because my powers were needed to keep the memorials frozen, but that wasn''t the case anymore. It was cold enough now that they wouldn''t melt, but I still couldn''t bring myself to do it.

    I''d come this far, I might as well finish it out.

    I also couldn''t leave the treasures. We were far from any other settlement, but I still had itchy fingers. We were carrying a tremendous amount of wealth, and no matter how many times I told myself that no one would attack us, I still couldn''t help looking over my shoulder.

    Traveling with Marcus made it easier to put those worries to bed. We were over a thousand strong traveling North. Now that he wasn''t with us, we were a few hundred.

    It didn''t feel nearly as safe.

    Even people inside the caravan were beginning to get antsy, looking at others suspiciously. It was like everyone had turned into a potential thief in their eyes, even though we hadn''t had any problems with that.

    There were a few, as there always would be, but by and large, theft wasn''t a big problem we had to worry about. People still kept an eye out anyway. They would be remiss not to with their newfound wealth at hand.

    The urge to get home, the growing anxiousness, and the phantom worry that we might be attacked had everyone on board to push through the night. It had been months and everyone had been seen to by the Healers. Every limb hadn''t been regrown yet, but no one was on death''s door or struggling.

    That being the case, and with everyone being high in E-rank, sleep wasn''t necessary every night.

    The horses and bison weren''t pleased with the arrangement, but they were more than powerful enough to weather what we asked of them.

    My goal was to be home by the Solstice.

    It was aggressive, and there would be plenty of nights we skipped sleep, but I wanted to be home. Everyone else did as well.

    Maybe getting home will allow me to decompress.