Chapter 29

  Eve flinched, then again, and again. The force and sound of the clash between Ben and his cherubs was overwhelming. During especially violent clashes, Eve had to cover her ears. The battle was so intense that Eve didn’t feel safe even though she was out of range. She took a few steps further back and watched in awe of what she was seeing.

  Eve could hardly keep up with Ben’s movements. He wasn’t just perfectly coordinated, he was impossibly fast. He had to be in order to successfully dodge, deflect, and parry the blows of the three grandmaster-level cherubs.

  “Is this human?” Eve thought.

  Ben was doing something beyond what should have been possible for a normal human.

  It wasn't just that he was fast. Eve could tell by the force of his strikes how strong he was as well. Before Ben chose his class upgrade, Eve saw how his arms and hands shook from the impact of the cherub's blows. Now the exact opposite happened.

  The Cherub halberd masters could hardly hold onto their weapons whenever Ben struck. The cherubs were skilled enough to not take direct hits, but each hit, even when blocked, still dealt damage.

  Ben didn’t stay stationary. Despite being clearly stronger than the three cherubs, he took a few glancing blows when a cherub was able to attack him from behind. So Ben repositioned constantly to prevent himself from being fully surrounded. He even used the hook on the back of his halberd to toss the cherubs around and throw them off balance in order to land more precise strikes.

  The two cherubs without buffs were clearly outclassed. The third cherub that received buffs from the White Mage was near Ben’s strength. It was the difference maker and was one of the primary reasons why the other two angels weren’t defeated faster. It acted as a body guard for the other two angels by helping to block blows that its allies weren’t fast enough to deal with.

  At least it tried. When the empowered cherub blocked for its allies, Ben consistently took the opportunity to land a decisive counterstrike on it, which discouraged its interference. Ben was slowly whittling down the health of the three cherubs faster than they could widdle his health down with their glancing blows.

  “He’s really doing it,” Eve thought.

  Even with the Cherub White mage constantly refreshing the third Cherub’s buffs, the cherubs were still being overwhelmed.

  Eve knew the strength of those cherubs because she had witnessed how easily just one of them defeated Ben earlier. Seeing the reverse result was jarring, but Eve understood why Ben was so strong. She understood his attributes.

  The game of Eternity was optimized for balanced class builds. Players were heavily discouraged from min/maxing by the way that attributes affected combat. That Strength-focused Barbarian that wanted to do as much damage as possible needed to not only have strength to land a powerful blow, but the speed to swing their axe fast as well.

  Unlike games like Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs, where Strength was the only attribute that affected how much damage a person did with an axe, Eternity had a more intuitive system by the virtue of it being the most realistic virtual reality simulator to date.

  Bottom line, even a damage focused Barbarian wouldn’t put all their points into strength. An optimal allocation would be to split at least a few points into agility and dexterity. Agility to enhance the speed of the blow. Dexterity to enhance the accuracy.

  Eve had 51 points in her faith stat. That represented what the highest stat allocation would be for over 99% of players. But a strength focused Barbarian that allocated their stats wisely wouldn’t have 51 in strength. At level 10, they would have maybe 40 to 45 points in strength in order to optimize their damage.

  So Eve understood the math behind Ben’s performance.

  Ben was stronger than the strongest, most optimized Barbarian. So the cherubs couldn’t properly block his attacks. They were sent reeling with every strike. Ben easily threw them off balance by using the same type of hooking tactics that was used on him earlier. When he parried their strikes the angels stumbled, even while in the air. Eve could see that the cherub’s ability to fly had limits.

  Ben was also faster than the quickest rogue or archer that used agility as their main stat. If it wasn’t for the three cherubs blocking for each other, they would not have been able to deal with the quickness of Ben’s strikes at all. It wasn’t just Ben’s strikes. Everything about Ben’s movements was inhumanly fast. His footwork, his headmovements, his reflexes. He parried so fast that he could deliver a follow up strike before the cherub could respond, which required the interference of its ally in order for Ben not to deliver a killing blow.

  He was more dexterous than any assassin. That made Ben’s strikes deadly accurate. Even his defense was more precise. It allowed him to parry at perfect angles, with perfect timing. Every perfect parry opened up another opportunity to deliver a devastating counter strike.

  Ben wasn’t untouchable. He was still facing three cherubs who had grandmaster proficiency in their chosen weapon. Despite them being individually weaker than Ben, they were able to coordinate in order to take advantage of even small gaps in Ben’s defense. So Ben took hits periodically, but now Ben had more endurance than the tankiest tank class. A proper tank would split their points between Endurance, Strength, and ideally a little agility, since Agility aided in dodging and parrying. Ben was able to more easily shrug off the glancing blows that he received.

  He also had the lifesteal effect of his halbert to supplement his health. The longer the battle went on, the more the fight shifted in his favor.

  Ben was winning, at least until something happened that made Eve frown. One of the cherubs took a devastating blow that knocked it out of the air and sent it hurdling to the ground. Ben moved forward to bring the axe portion of his halberd down to land a finishing blow, but the cherub was engulfed in a shimmer of white light. Its health was restored to half, which was plenty to endure Ben’s next strike.

  Eve looked up at the Cherub White Mage with a pout. Until now it was just focusing on casting consistent buffs. Now, just when Ben was going to finish off one of the cherubs, it interfered.

  “No fair,” Eve thought.

  The momentum of the battle shifted rapidly. The White Mage no longer hovered above the battle passively. It actively used its heal spells, including a powerful heal-over-time spell that rejuvenated the health of the three halberd masters. Not only did the White Mage begin to heal, it actively started to shoot ranged projectiles of white energy at Ben. Ben couldn’t block those ranged attacks while he fought the three cherubs. He just had to tank the hits. The hits weren’t strong, but the damage added up quickly, and they still hurt, which acted as an annoying distraction and served to counteract the lifesteal from his halberd. The tide had officially turned.

  Eve fidgetted uncomfortably. She typed a quick message.

  “I can help,” she texted.

  Ben read the message as he was hit by another annoying bolt of white energy. It distracted him enough to disrupt his block. He took the spear-end of a halberd into the side. He gritted his teeth from the pain and jumped back to put distance between him and the cherubs. Despite the increased difficulty, Ben smiled.

  “No thanks. That would defeat the purpose of this fight, but don’t worry, I got this,” Ben said.

  Ben took a moment to send Eve a confident wink. Eve was taken aback by Ben’s confidence. She had been watching the battle closely. Now that the Cherub White Mage was fully engaged, she didn’t see how Ben could win. The Cherub White Mage had a monstrous amount of mana and mana regen. It still had over 70% of its mana, and its spells were a fraction of its total mana pool because of its casting proficiencies, along with the attribute bonus it received from Ben’s faith score. Eve didn’t see how Ben could win.

  Ben charged forward and reengaged the three cherubs until his health dropped below 20%. Eve bit into her bottom lip nervously. At that low health, one wrong move and a powerful strike could potentially kill Ben before she had the time to heal him. Given that, Eve readied a heal spell in-case the worst were to happen. She never needed to use that spell.

  Ben was forced back by the relentless onslaught of the cherubs. He swung his halberd in a wide arc to put enough space between him and them in order to quickly channel a spell in his left hand. He cast that spell in the brief moment of reprieve that his swing gave him. Eve’s eyes widened in surprise.

  Ben’s health was restored to full with a single spell!

  Not only that. Ben channeled a different spell. This one wasn’t meant to heal, but to harm. Ben manifested a ball of white fire in his palm and sent it hurtling up towards the Cherub White Mage. The Cherub only had a split second to react. It was far too slow to dodge the ball of fire. The Cherub used its wings to cover itself in a make-shift shield and simply tanked the explosion of white fire that erupted in front of it.

  The cherub was immediately reduced to half health. In addition, its body was engulfed in a persistent white fire that slowly drained its health. Its next healing spell was directed at itself. With the White Mage pacified, Ben launched himself towards the three Cherub warriors to reengage them.

  Eve was amazed as the tide of battle shifted again.

  “He was holding back,” Eve thought.

  Eve recognized the spells that Ben used. Those weren’t the inefficient spells that faith-based classes got at level 1. Those were higher level spells, spells that she herself had access to. The healing spell was accessible at level 5, or with a skill book. Eve knew that Ben chose those spells as part of his level 10 spell selection.

  As a summoner, Ben’s spell progression lagged behind “full-casters.” A full caster was like a mage, druid, or cleric, like Eve. Eve’s spell progression advanced at a quicker rate, which is why she now had powerful buff spells. Ben was a summoner, so he just got access to spells at level 10 that Eve had received access to at level 5.

  Despite Ben’s spell progression being 5 levels behind, the power of his spells were undeniable. With a massive Faith score of 101, Ben’s heal spell healed for more than even a min/maxed cleric like Eve could replicate. His Intermediate Holy Fire spell hit much harder as well.

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  During the battle, Eve got the opportunity to witness the use of the 3rd spell that Ben chose upon hitting level 10. The cherubs tried a new tactic to deal with Ben. They tried to focus on grappling him with the hooks on the back of their halberds to slow his movements. Ben allowed them to attempt it only because it opened up vulnerabilities in their defense. Two hooks dug into his shoulder and calf but instead of trying to wrestle himself free, which he could have done easily, it was easier to simply cast a spell.

  Cleanse.

  It was the same spell that Eve used during the fight with the Eagle players. The hooks were violently repelled from Ben’s body so quickly that it threw the cherubs off balance. Ben cast that spell extremely fast. Faster than Eve could cast spells. That was the influence of his heightened agility.

  Eve barely even saw him cast the spell. He lifted a single hand from his halberd for the briefest of moments to release the spell. He returned his hand to the haldberd and regained his grip to deliver a devastating counter-strike that took advantage of the brief moment that the cherubs were knocked off-balance by the repulsion effect of Ben’s cleanse spell.

  Eve had conflicted feelings while she watched Ben fight. He was perfect. He had no real weaknesses. He even had an effective ranged attack. A simple thought was once again reinforced in Eve’s mind.

  “He doesn’t need me,” Eve thought.

  Eve clenched her fists and grew a determined look in her eyes. She shook that thought from her head.

  “No. He doesn’t need me to help him fight, but I can still be useful. I’ll show him,” she thought.

  Eve took a deep breath to calm herself and quiet her mind, which was often so filled with self doubt. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together to whisper a brief prayer. That little gesture helped immensely.

  When Eve concluded her prayer and opened her eyes, she was surprised to see how the battle had morphed.

  The cherubs hovered higher in the air and poked at Ben at the very edge of their halberd range. They prioritized using the spear portion of their halberds to take advantage of the fact that they could fly, and Ben couldn’t.

  “That’s smart. I wonder why they didn’t do that from the beginning?” Eve thought.

  Eve looked over to Ben to see the elated smile on his face.

  “Is he actually controlling them?” Eve thought.

  Ben was delighted to see the cherubs change in tactics. They did that on their own, without any input from him.

  “They can learn,” Ben thought.

  To him, that was a revelation. That was another thing he wanted to test out by sparring with them.

  Ben could have just entered the Orc dungeon to test out his new strength and the enhanced strength of his cherubs, but Ben knew that the orc dungeon, despite being a raid that would usually require 20 to 30 players, would be no match for how overpowered he and his cherubs had become. It wouldn’t be a real challenge so Ben wouldn’t get to test the limits of his power.

  Ben wanted to see what his cherubs would do when they faced a superior opponent. He got his answer. They learned.

  Even the cherub white mage changed tactics. It learned the range of Ben’s Holy Fire spell. It began to fly back and forth out of range in order to deliver heals and buffs to its allies. As soon as it was done casting spells, it flew out of range so Ben couldn’t attack it. It also could no longer use its basic ranged attacks, but that was the best option for it. In addition to the cherubs taking more advantage of their ability to fly, every once in a while, one of the Halberd Masters would retreat into the air, out of range of Ben’s attack. It would wait until the Cherub white mage healed it before going back to rejoin the fight.

  That was a trade-off. When one of the cherubs retreated, that gave Ben the opportunity to put more pressure on the remaining cherubs, but the tactic made it so none of the cherubs died.

  Ben kept the pressure up by using the spiritual extension ability of his halberd to land cleaner strikes. Despite the adjustment of the cherubs, they still couldn’t deal with Ben’s relentless pressure. So they didn’t. Once they all got to low health, all three Cherub Halberd Masters retreated into the air out of range of Ben’s halberd and his holy fire spell. They just waited while the White mage regenerated mana and healed them slowly over time. Eve saw this from the side and pouted. She typed frantically in annoyance.

  “That’s cheating,” she texted.

  Ben read her message and chuckled.

  “Yea, pretty much. But it is smart,” Ben said.

  A notification drew Ben and Eve’s attention.

  [You have gained Apprentice Aerial Tactics]

  Ben looked at the notification in shock.

  “What?” Ben said.

  Eve was just as surprised.

  “How did you gain new proficiencies?” Eve texted.

  Eve and Ben both looked up at the cherubs in astonishment. They had a similar, amazed thought.

  “The summons can gain proficiencies too!”

  Ben was flabbergasted. That wasn’t right.

  “Even from my last life, the actions of my summons never gave progress to proficiencies. For good reason, that would be broken. What does this mean?” Ben thought.

  Before Ben could fantasize too much about the possibilities that that realization had unlocked, the three cherub halberd masters descended to reengage Ben in battle. Ben was put on the defensive as the cherub engaged in notably superior tactical, aerial coordination.

  The cherubs weaved and danced in and out of range. Ben had to constantly use his spiritual extension to land meaningful strikes. He also had to weave Holy Fire spells between his strikes to try to outpace the healing of the Cherub White mage.

  His mana and the Cherub White mage’s mana were draining rapidly. It was a battle of mana. A battle that Ben won.

  Eve understood the math. The cherubs scaled with Ben’s faith score, but they lagged behind him.

  Ben’s summons had about 35% of Ben’s faith score to their attributes, based on their speciality. Plus the additional 25% boost from his recent class upgrade. That put their effective focus attributes at around 44. Weaker than Ben, but stronger than the vast majority of optimized level 10 players.

  Each angel was specialized. The White Mage had reduced physical attributes but high mental attributes. The halberd masters had high physical attributes but reduced mental attributes.

  Ben would always have stronger scaling on his spells than his cherubs, unless he advanced further in the Summoning Master skill trees.

  Since Ben’s attributes had increased, his total mana pool and Mana regen were slightly higher than the White Mage’s.

  Similar to the relation of his other attributes to other players, Ben’s Intelligence would be higher than most Mages, since an optimized mage also splits their attribute points between Wisdom and Agility. So Ben had a higher mana pool than the most optimized Mages.

  Same for Wisdom. He had higher wisdom than the most optimized druids, so his mana-regen was immense, relative to his level. Despite being at reduced caster-scaling because of his class, few would be able to keep up with the efficiency in which Ben casted spells and regenerated mana. That included his own cherubs.

  Ben had the whole package. When combined with his ability to use special effects from his equipment, like the spiritual extension and lifesteal, Ben would have a notable advantage over his summons going forward.

  When the Cherub White mage inevitably ran out of mana, the three cherubs simply rose back into the sky to wait for the White Mage’s mana to regenerate. Ben chuckled.

  “Alright, enough of that,” Ben said.

  Ben forced his cherubs to engage him with a simple command. He acknowledged the effectiveness of the tactic.

  “I can’t believe I have access to fully flight-capable summons so early. This really is broken. Still, there will be times where they can’t use their flight as an advantage, like when they fought the dire bear in the cave. Lets see what they do when they are forced to fight,” Ben thought.

  Ben regained the upper hand as the three cherubs moved back within melee range. They still stayed at the edge of their range, and Ben still had to use his spiritual extension, but now they wouldn’t all retreat when the White Mage ran out of mana. They still weaved in and out of range, but they wouldn’t all retreat at the same time. That allowed Ben to whittle them down slowly. When the cherubs collectively got to about half health, they changed tactics again.

  The cherub white mage stopped casting Holy weapon and Frenzy. It now only cast Haste and Heal. That allowed one of the Cherub Halberd Masters to use its additional speed to focus entirely on defense. It no longer attacked. Instead, it dedicated all its energy to covering the gaps in the other two cherub’s defenses.

  One hasted cherub was all defense, while the other two engaged normally. That significantly reduced the amount of damage Ben could do, and the amount of health he could steal because more of his attacks were blocked and parried by the hasted Cherub. Another notification appeared in front of Ben.

  [You have gained Apprentice Squad Tactics Proficiency]

  [You have gained Apprentice Aerial Maneuverability Proficiency]

  [You have gained Apprentice Polearm Defense Proficiency]

  The notifications kept rolling in. Ben was amazed. The proficiencies that he received were relatively low-level proficiencies that he rarely had the opportunity to train in his last life.

  Flight was a possibility in the world of eternity, but it was very limited. Also, as a summoner, Ben rarely had the opportunity to use Squad-based tactics because he fought with his summons, and in his past life, the activity of his summons did not count towards proficiency advancement.

  Now that it was confirmed that Ben’s summons could advance his proficiencies, a world of possibilities opened up.

  “Just how far can I take this?” Ben thought.

  A shock of pain interrupted Ben’s thoughts. The cherubs took advantage of Ben’s momentary distraction to deliver a coordinated spear strike to his chest and stomach. Ben’s health plummeted. He gritted his teeth and used the last of his mana to heal himself.

  “Time to end this,” Ben thought.

  In classic Ben fashion, he wouldn’t end it the easy way. Ben refocused on the battle until he saw the White Mage enter the range required to send out a heal. Since it was low on mana, it had been casting its heal as soon as the mana was available. It stayed in the air, out of range the rest of the time.

  Ben took advantage of that moment of predictability. When it entered its heal range, Ben feigned a strike towards one of the cherubs, which the hasted cherub moved to intercept. Instead of continuing that strike, Ben slashed towards the air where the Cherub white mage was. He strained his stamina reserves to force the Spiritual Extension of his halberd to shoot out 4 times further than normal.

  The drain on his stamina was immense, but Ben’s increased Endurance attribute, in combination with his Athletics proficiency, gave him the energy that he needed.

  He drove the back of his halbert into the White Mage faster than the White Mage could react. The hooked blade on the back of the halberd dug deep. He then shortened the spiritual extension like reeling a fish. With a decisive swing, he dragged the White Mage out of the air and slammed it to the ground a few feet away.

  Surprisingly, it didn’t die. It still had a sliver of health remaining.

  “Impressive,” Ben thought.

  The 25% buff to their attributes truly was powerful. The three cherubs moved to guard the white mage but Ben didn’t give them a chance to save it. He finished it off with one final Holy Fire spell.

  The hasted Cherub tried to intercept the spell. It blocked the explosion with its body, but the splash damage of the blast was enough to finish off the White Mage. The Cherub White Mage disappeared in a sprinkling of white light.

  With the White Mage defeated, the rest of the battle was only a matter of time. Within moments, Ben finished off two of the Halberd Masters, which left only the hasted one remaining. It survived only by virtue of the Haste-effect, which remained for a while after the White Mage’s death. Ben could see the timer ticking down. Once it hit 0, Ben immediately swung a blow that would have decapitated the angel, but he stopped.

  Ben and the last cherub backed away from each other. The angel stood at attention. Ben inspected it. Despite being at low health, the angel wasn’t battered or bruised. It looked to be in pristine condition. Angels didn’t bleed nor break. Ben acknowledged this with a nod.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The angel didn’t respond back. It simply stood stoically at attention. Ben wasn’t discouraged. He made the sign of the cross and whispered a small prayer of appreciation. He was still learning about all the power that he had been blessed with.

  When Ben concluded his short prayer, he saw Eve approaching. Her amazement was obvious.

  “Summons aren’t supposed to advance proficiencies, right? I have watched summoner Beta streamers. They always complain about that,” Eve typed.

  Ben smiled.

  “Yep,” he said.

  Eve stared at Ben.

  “Why are you different?” Eve typed.

  Ben looked at her knowingly.

  “You still have to ask?”

  Eve hesitated. It was still hard for her to believe that God was on Ben’s side, specifically by helping him be more powerful in a videogame. But the more she saw, the more she believed. Ben chuckled and walked next to Eve.

  “Anyway, I have spent enough time sparring and learning my limits. Now that I know what me and my summons can do, that should increase our farming speed and more than make up for the time spent sparring. We just have one last thing to do before we hit the Orc Dungeon,” Ben said.

  Eve looked up at Ben curiously.

  “What is that?” She texted.

  Ben raised a brow.

  “What? You don’t think we need anything else? Now you’re confident about us doing the dungeon?” Ben asked.

  Eve bowed her head in embarrassment. She felt a little silly for doubting Ben earlier. She avoided his gaze and looked over at the remaining cherub.

  “I’m confident now,” she typed.

  “Good. Then let's not waste anymore time. You still have your level 10 class upgrade to choose,” Ben said.

  Eve’s eyes widened in realization.

  “Oh.”