Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

First, Flora set up the second healing turret. Now that she didn't have to sustain the coffin, she had resources open for it.

In the hot spring, Flora relaxed for a bit, but then remembered she wanted to get the lightning mage class.

She opened her spells window and looked at the diagrams. 

The first spell, the single target attack, was for most of the mage classes the same — a bolt like a spell.

She combined the bolt aspect of the kinetic blast with the lightning element and cast her first Lightning Bolt.

-----------------------

You gained a skill: Lightning Bolt.

You learned the skill without guidance: + 1 OV to the skill.

-----------------------

The next was the area of effect skill. It took shape in the form of rain or storm. She took the Energy-Storm spell and deleted the magnetism and kinetic aspects.

-----------------------

You gained a skill: Tempest.

You learned the skill without guidance: + 1 OV to the skill.

-----------------------

The third spell was the defensive spell. All elemental mages had a shield.

You gained a skill: Lightning Shield.

You learned the skill without guidance: + 1 OV to the skill.

The fourth spell was movement. Flora watched an experio of a player doing it, and it looked pretty cool and fitting to its name 'Riding the Flash!'. 

-----------------------

You gained a skill: Riding the Flash.

Description: A bolt of lightning carries you up to 10 m in one direction. Every enemy you touch gets jolted.

CD: 25 sec.

You learned the skill without guidance: + 1 OV to the skill.

-----------------------

You gained the class: Lightning Mage.

Class: Lightning Mage

Branch: Magic

Passive: +1 Training efficiency modifier for resistance/affinity Lightning/Shock  

Active: Bonus for lightning Spells  

-----------

'I should have done this first! I wasted hours of lightning affinity training without the efficiency mod!'

-----------

You gained a skill: Summon Lightning Elemental

Description: Summon an elemental with three random tier-1 lightning spells.

CD: 25 min. 

-----------

"Great! Remind me what is missing to connect all my important classes."

"Technomancer, Milady. Aitoshuri thinks there might be an opportunity to get it at the Magtech Institute after you acquired the quest by the Garage."

"I remember. I have to achieve a good placement in the Robo-Melee to get the quest." Flora thought about it while

lazily casting a few spells interspersed with messing around in the water. "I can't do anything about it at the moment, but I might get the training bonus for wood and fire and metal as well when I get the classes. Let's go for it!"

"Now might be a good time to speak about cooldowns, Milady."

"Sure, why?"

"Because all of the corresponding mage spells share a cooldown. If you cast a water shield, you can't cast any other mage shield in the next 25 seconds. Force-Field is a magic shield, as well. Fortification of Faith is not a shield spell and has a separate timer.

The same applies to movement skills. All the spells of the elemental mage classes share the same cooldown timer. Energy-Jump is not of this type, but a jump skill and shares a cooldown with Power Jump.

As a rule of thumb: When the base effect is similar, it shares a cooldown.

I'm mentioning this to warn: you won't get many advantages from learning different elemental mage classes. But I also have to add most of the S rated mages learn at least five elemental classes because of bonuses of the umbrella class Elemental Mage."

"That's alright. I do it mainly to acquire the training bonuses."

Because all of the mage classes were similar, Flora had no problem engineering the spells. 

A problem with fire and wood popped up: she had no spell-diagram in her repertoire to isolate the elemental aspects. 

Thankfully, Aitoshuri sent her a link with diagrams. 

Flora didn't get the + OV bonus for the spells she looked at, namely fire shield, light shield, metal shield, and wood shield, but for the rest, it worked well.

-----------------------

You gained the class: Wood Mage.

You gained the class: Fire Mage.

You gained the class: Metal Mage.

You gained the class: Light Mage.

-----------------------

"Milady, if you get one more elemental mage class and raise all the standard spells to level 25, you will get the umbrella class 'Elemental Mage'. This will give you another training bonus. I recommend air mage because wind effects are popular because they enhance other elemental forces. Water mage would be another good choice because you already have Refresh."

"Thank you, dear. Let's go for it."

-----------------------

You gained the class: Air Mage.

You gained the class: Water Mage.

-----------------------

"Got them! How many more elemental classes are there?"

"Just Earth and Ice is missing for the primary and secondary elements, Milady. Then there are the tertiary elements ..."

"Don't tell me about them!" Flora interrupted. "I have a slight OCD problem. If I know about the elements, I want to have them. The ice element had impressed me in the fight with the Icemaster, and I'm an earthling, so I have to get earth because of patriotism. Those are perfectly reasonable explanations for acquiring them! Right?"

"Yes, Milady!" 

Aitoshuri beeped doubtfully, but Flora ignored her.

-----------------------

You gained the class: Ice Mage.

You gained the class: Earth Mage.

-----------------------

"Aidan, change the binding of the gesture which is currently Overcharge to the lightning spells. Whenever the spell hits level 25, change to the next lightning spell. In the off chance, we will go through all the spells during the night, take the spells of the robot handler class, next metal, then wood." Flora paused. "I'm so stupid... you can change the binding. I built the new pulley mechanism for naught!"

"No, Milady. You can only change a binding every 25 seconds. The reason for this might interest you. Therefore we have many more options now."

"Please tell!" Flora got excited. She smelled an exploit.

"People ordered their AI's to bind skills in a specific order or priority to their standard attack. These orders are called rotations and are part of the metagame. They just had to hit the targets dumbly, and the skills would get cast in the perfect sequence."

"Fascinating! I'm enlightened! We have to look into rotations before we enter the Cradle. Write it on the list." Flora exclaimed. 

Preparation for the Hero's Entrance:

• Sheep
• Traps and Detect Traps
• Reading the spell descriptions 
• Understanding cooldowns
• Box: health potions, mana potions
• Warm clothing, wet-suit, underwater breathing 
• Torches
• Connect the classes
• Understanding rotations

"How is the mana budget?"

"I just was about to talk with you about this topic, Milady. You have mana to spare in your workshop."

"Give me numbers, please."

"Mana-Income per minute:

  Mana Reg 29  

  WS Buff 25  

  Consecrated 3  

  Crit 11  

  Refresh 108  

  Pray for mana 50  

= 226

Mana-Spending per minute  

    Focus 31  

  Plasma Sword 1  

  Multi-Tool-Shield 11  

  Refresh 10  

  Pray 10  

  Thaumaturgy 5  

  Overcharge 20  

= 88  

Free Mana: 138"

"Burned Toast and stale Jam! Wasteful! And if I read it right, Refresh gives me back over 100 mana! Wow!"

"Only because of the workshop buffs, Milady."

"On what did you use the excess mana while I was crafting?"

"You ordered us to get creative, that isn't our strong suit. Therefore we asked Aitoshuri. She indicated to rotate the binding with the other robot handler skills, Tinker, Lure, and Bear Trap, and exhaust the rest with Smite."

"Excellent choice!"

"After smite reached level 99 ..."

"What? Burned Toast and Stale Jam!" Flora interrupted Aidan and opened her skills. There it was in blue and white! Smite reached level 99!

"Because we consumed all the mana, Refresh produced even more mana. Smite has no cooldown, which resulted in casting it around 20 times in one minute. We linked the pupil class to Priest, therefore the rapid growth." Aidan explained. "But afterward, Aitoshuri recommended changing the link to Tinkerer and concentrate on leveling the Trapper and Robot Handler spells. For exhausting mana, Aitoshuri insisted on Detect Traps, because she wants to reach level 200 in it. Then easy traps will glow in your HUD even without casting the spell. Because of your order to stop before level 100, we switched to leveling all of your combat spells to level 25. We haven't reached that goal yet."

"Burned Toast and stale jam! Excellent work! I agree with Aitoshuri. This feature of Detect Traps sounds incredible, especially when you think about hidden compartments. How long will it take to raise it to level 200 when we use it purely to dump the excess mana?"

"39 hours of casting it 20 times per minute. But we were able to squeeze up to 29 times in a minute when Thaumaturgy resulted in good buffs. We reached then the limit of spells cast per minute even with using both hands." 

"Holy toaster! Give me a minute to digest the information!"

Precisely one minute later, Aidan asked: "May I continue, Milady?"

"Let's solve the open issues first. Casting more spells per minute should be possible if we use another binding in the workspace. See to it. Additionally, I give you permission to raise detect traps and pray without limit and casting the healing cantrip when Deriga is with us because she needs it to survive.

The trapper and Robot-Handler are high enough. Cast 30 times per minute Detect Traps, use the rest for the essential spells and spells with a high cooldown. Start with raising the elemental spells with 25sec cd with one prio lower. I believe the biggest hurdle will be getting Summon Elemental to level 25 because of its CD of 25 minutes, any suggestions for that?"

"Yes, Milady. You get a bit of training XP when you command it to do something. You can bind the command to some of your other actions."

<Summon Lightning Elemental!>

The spell failed.

"You need five mana regeneration unassigned, Milady."

After Flora got rid of the potion guzzler, she tried again.

<Summon Lightning Elemental!>

The air crackled, and a lightning bolt-shaped creature appeared. It only reached to Flora's hips, and flashes blazed through it.   

"Aren't you a cutie?" Flora asked, fascinated. She poked a finger in it, and little bolts flashed to it.

"Should we activate friendly fire for the elemental, Milady? Furthermore, I recommend blending in pet skills."

"No, and yes, thank you, Aidan."

Name: <hidden>

Type: Lightning Elemental

HP: 35

Level: 1

Rating: D

Pet Skills:

Lightning Bolt

Fires a bolt of lightning toward an enemy target and damages it. Minor chance to jolt.

CD: 2 sec.

Tempest

Rains bolts of lightning toward an area and damages enemies inside it. Minor chance to jolt.

CD: 10 sec.

Lightning Shield

Major Protection against plasma attacks.

Minor Protection against elemental attacks. 

Minor Chance to jolt upon touch.

CD: 25 sec.

"It will be hard, keeping it alive with only 35 HP. I believe I need to cast Refresh while sleeping to relieve the healing turrets." Flora sighed. "Please analyze my sleep pattern. Hopefully, I don't have to wear a glove."

"I found a very distinctive snore, Milady. We suggest you level another Re-Skill with an element you have higher affinity."

Flora blushed when she heard the first part, but had to inquire about the second part.

"Those spells have the same primary effect, namely doubling the regeneration, but have a different secondary effect thanks to their element. 

Refresh - Water - removes a debuff 

Rekindle - Fire - cauterizes wounds & physical reg buff 

Reground - Earth - stability & physical def buff 

Redraft - Air - physical macro control & magical defense buff 

Regrow - Wood - increase health over time 

Recut - Metal - armor penetration buff & physical defense buff 

Recharge - Lightning - reduces CDs 

Refrigerate - Ice - increases buff length."

"Oh!" Flora vibrated in the pool in excitement. "I fancy Recharge and Refrigerate. What do you think?"

"Excellent choices, Milady."

But Aitoshuri opened a forum side on Flora's HUD with the title: "Stop casting Recharge on me, Moron!"

The author of the article complained the buff destroyed his rotations.

"I guess there are different viewpoints on all subjects. We go with Recharge."   

After binding the command to the lightning elemental for attacking the Stehaufmaennchen to her casting of Recharge, Flora was ready for the night.

Flora reduced all the stacks of 'Unwelcome' and went to bed.

When Flora woke up the next morning, the usually gloomy cliff was illuminated in the soft morning light.

"This is nice! It didn't look like this yesterday!"

"The effect is from one of your new spells, Milady. Dawn, the signature skill of the Light Mages."

Name: Dawn

Description: The first light of the new day reveals hidden dangers (counters stealth, hide, and invisibility) and lifts the spirit of all friends (doubles regeneration, removed debuffs, immunity to mental debuffs).

CD: 25 min.

Too soon, the light vanished. Flora checked the duration of the buff: Only one minute. 

The lightning elemental was hard at work, pelting the Stehaufmaennchen with lightning bolts. Flora commanded it to use Tempest to mix it up.

"Four of the elementals left their names, Milady. You can summon a specific elemental if you know its name. They were only B-rated with standard spells, so I don't recommend summoning them again."

"Interesting. What suborns an elemental to reveal its name?"

"Our short research was inconclusive. Do you wish a deeper analysis?"

"Sure. Aito, look into it if you have some free time. Write it on the list with prio D, Aidan." 

Then, Flora looked at her stat sheets. The last day had been wild.

Two nights and one day had passed since she looked at her attributes, but the stat gains were immense. The unholy cliff seemed to work well, and the training plan of her AIs was too overpowered. Especially the magic attributes had jumped up like a finished toast. 

Flora checked on the sleeping Deriga and reduced her debuffs. Then, she noticed Deriga's workshop was still at the coffin where they put it last night and decided to use it again, at least until the owner woke up.