Strategizing with the three machines he had unlocked was downright addicting for Theo. He had 65 base Mana, so he could summon one barricade turret and two sniping turrets at the same time, plus a maintenance node if he waited a handful of seconds before engaging an enemy. They made for a great team all on their own, with the maintenance node healing the barricade turret handily, and the the sniping turrets making short work of most enemies.
Theo would spend the two minutes they lasted quickly gathering up groups of enemies and then pathing them through the barricade's flames. The turret wouldn't attack unless there were enemies nearby, so it was an efficient way to ditch the attention of the hordes of monsters chasing after him. After that, he would either stand back and enjoy the show, or lay into the monsters from his turret's flank to speed up the process. Just ten minutes of repeating the strategy put him 75% of the way to level 5.
He opened his menu to admire his progress when he saw a flashing alert icon. Theo slapped his forehead, he hadn't even picked his Basic Skill. He selected the icon:
Theo whistled. The first skill was super tanky. He could not only heal his barricade, but he would also be rewarded for doing so by dealing 4 more damage when the enemy attacked. It had a condition that would make it useless if the enemy was too weak, but that seemed like a non-problem.
The second skill was the high damage option. He imagined it was meant to be used to keep the enemy's attention on the barricade, but with his, uh, secret powers, it could be even more incredible. His attacks on the battlefield would subtract cooldowns from all of this different machines, so his barricades would fire every 8 seconds instead of 10, and his sniping turrets would get off two shots every 5 seconds. That was a lot of damage!
The third skill was also an interesting damage skill. It would let him attack from range, a huge plus, and it would probably trigger constantly with all of his turrets up, basically 1 bolt per second! That would be a gigantic amount of damage. It had an... interesting drawback, one that could potentially do a lot of damage to him if he was somehow unable to spend the effect. He shuddered as he imagine being frozen solid and slowly dying as his turrets battled on his behalf. Definitely high risk high reward.
Geez! They were all so tempting. The second and third would absolutely benefit from his lucky break, and that was too good to pass up, so he struck the first option from consideration. As amazing as the third option could be, he didn't have a lot of health himself, just 48, so 12 missteps would kill him. That was a lot of missteps, sure, but with three turrets active it was really more like just 4 missteps, which was a lot easier to imagine if he got stunned or something. He decided to play it safe and chose Field Training. It would be amazing to tear through the battlefield as his turrets gained momentum and began to blast away!
For some reason the menus didn't close, and he frowned. He wasn't even lagging right now. He almost selected the middle option again when he noticed that all the choices had changed. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. Was this because he had three Identity Skills? He careful asked his AI, "Are there three Basic Skills per Identity Skill?"
The AI responded in a neutral tone, "Correct, each Identity Skill grants access to three Basic Skills unique to the chosen path."
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Ah, so I'll get three total then. He skimmed over the new set. These also seemed really amazing. One was sort of like a relay attack that would send homing arrows towards him and then attack a nearby enemy, extending the range of his turrets by up to 4 additional yards. Another one would charge up the turrets with attacks in a way that was very similar to the Ironworks Triage skill for his barricade turrets, but with a more offensive focus. He didn't even consider them, though, because the third skill was perfect for him.
Theo was so excited about this skill that he started to kick up snow around himself in a circle as he whooped. The only thing keeping him from having 5, 6, 7... infinite turrets... was that they were expensive to cast. Well, no longer! As long as he was fighting near his turrets, which he already would be in order to trigger Field Training, he would be regaining mana! After 15 seconds, and 4 casts of Scavenging Blow, he could drop down another barricade, or after 20 seconds he could drop down a third sniper turret! Not only that, but after the first refund was spent, the next one would be even faster because there would be another machine there to supply him with mana! He loved this skill!
He still had one more set to go through, but he minimized them. He had to see what would happen if he got 4 sniper turrets running from using Salvaging Blow and then fought near them with Field Training. Immediately. It would be like a machine gun was going off! He spent a few frantic minutes trying out his plan on unsuspecting spirits, but they were all way too weak to survive long enough for even the first refund. Theo was exasperated. He needed something stronger to try this on. He had killed enough ice spirits to earn a summon token, which was called [Ice Spirit Token - Ice Anima]. That'll do.
He looked for an open clearing and setup his initial 4 machines, then pulled out the token and crushed it. A rumbling beneath his feet told him the summoned special creature was coming fast, and soon a pillar of ice erupted from the ground with a glimmering spirit swimming around within. The turrets immediately fired on it, and it split apart into long crystals as it transformed into a surprisingly robotic looking creature. It raised two tapered arms and slammed them down on the barricade, dealing 6 damage with either hand. Yikes! That's a lot of damage. The maintenance node was immediately on top of restoring the turret, but it would be fighting a war of attrition that it couldn't keep up with.
Theo quickly rushed forward and clocked the ice anima across its spindly legs with his axe. He felt four drops of mana surge into him and he took another swing, clipping the ice anima as it lunged towards the barricade while trying to avoid his attack. That attack was enough, however, and series of clicks signaled that his machines had surged a few steps closer to attacking again. A second later another duo of magical arrows cracked through a layer of ice on the monster's chest geometry. Theo swung a few more times while he waited for the cooldowns on his two Basic Skills to reset.
The fire enhanced attacks from his class weapon were powerful, and he quicky stole the attention of the creature away from his machines. It lanced him through the shoulder with a long shard of ice and he groaned, then ducked around his barricade. The machine wasn't going to attack for another few seconds, but it still worked as a makeshift barrier between the monster and himself.
The monster couldn't stab him easily as it tried to push though the surprisingly sturdy turret and was rebuffed, so Theo retaliated just in time to use his skills. That was enough to let the barricade unleash another inferno and reclaim the attention of the ice anima. I need to be careful. I should only attack to use my skills after it has been hit a few times by the flames.
He circled around and slashed at the anima's back a single time to draw in the free mana, then waited while the anima systematically hacked away at his tanking machine, which was already down to about half health. I should probably summon another barricade... bleh. He wanted to have three Piercing turrets instead, but this choice would be safer.
A few blows later, and, just in time, he created a second barricade to the anima's flank. The creature was starting to look pretty rough, with cracks running up and down its smooth frozen armor. The arrow turrets were still firing rapidly thanks to Field Training, and the monster only took one more pair of fire attacks before it laid the first barricade to rest for good. Theo had only reclaimed 5 mana from it, so it wasn't as efficient as he had hoped. Still, the strategy was working well, and after a few more rounds of skill activations the ice creature toppled over and died. Theo sat down and thought over his battle performance as he waited for his health and mana to refill. He was analyzing turret positions when he noticed that the rare monster had dropped a green sparking item.
"What? That's awesome! This is perfect for my class!" Theo shouted, and then he equipped it immediately.
The axe was, as the description suggested, a horrible jagged mess of crumpled metal that was broken apart into multiple pieces. The entire object was held together with veins of glowing blue ice that formed sharp barbs all over the axe head. Woah! It had some unique effects, too. He squeezed some floating handle-shards and a burst of frost skated away from the blade and clipped through the branch of a nearby tree.
He immediately found another ice spirit and knocked it out of the air with the axe. Just one swing was enough to take it down to half health. Wait! This should make turrets stronger too! He threw down an arrow turret and it swiveled on the spirit. The first two shots dissipated the ice spirit into a swirling burst of fresh snow after hitting for 10 damage total. Woah, up two whole points. Getting three turrets up at once would shred...
"Bah, I need to see it! I'm just going to funnel spirits into the meat grinder until I have four up at once!" Theo raved as he throw down another turret and took off at a dead sprint toward another victim.
