What!? What kind of lousy stats were these?
They were nowhere near crippled, but in Faerûn, where dragons roamed everywhere and liches were as common as dogs, he probably wouldn't even dare leave the city gates.
The only stat that was remotely decent was Intelligence, which was likely thanks to the education he had received. His Strength and Constitution were passable as well, thanks to working out and his natural physique.
Without a doubt, the most tragic stat was Dexterity. Having lived a shut-in lifestyle for years with little outdoor exercise, Zhang Yuan really had nothing to do with the word "agile." With these stats, if he worked hard and got lucky, he might be able to become a wizard's apprentice and eventually a low-level mage, but his prospects were obviously narrow and limited.
As for becoming a warrior? A clumsy, frail warrior would probably be better off as a zookeeper—wouldn't one ill-timed slide tackle leave the animals overfed? The other classes were out of the question too. It seemed he could only place his hopes in this auto-chess system. Please, don't screw me over. orz.
Pleasant surprises always came so suddenly. As the die rolled once more, a new prompt appeared above the window: Please roll the die three times and select one result as an additional free attribute reward.
??? This was like forgetting to bring toilet paper after taking a dump, only to have the neighbor bring some over. Zhang Yuan, bursting with excitement, grabbed the die and was about to throw it at the ground, but stopped just before releasing it.
What if it breaks? Better safe than sorry. Zhang Yuan still chose to hunch over and gently roll the die across the ground in front of him.
Clatter, clatter, clatter... Three. Zhang Yuan nearly spat up a mouthful of blood. Little loudspeaker, are you trying to kill me? Not daring to touch the die again, Zhang Yuan furiously rubbed his hands together, stopping just short of scraping off a layer of skin.
He rolled again. Seventeen!!! "NICE! The Emperor of Luck has possessed me. While my luck is still going, I'll try one more time. Give me a critical success!" Zhang Yuan was full of confidence.
Facts proved that "luck" was indeed one of life's great illusions. The ⑦ on the upward face of the die felt as though it had kicked him in the throat, leaving Zhang Yuan speechless for quite some time.
Forget it. Seventeen was seventeen. It wasn't a loss. Zhang Yuan consoled himself thus. After unquestionably choosing seventeen as his reward points, the window skipped straight to the class-selection interface without waiting for him to distribute his attributes.
That made sense. How could he distribute attributes before choosing a class? As for which class to choose, Zhang Yuan had his own considerations. With his Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity, martial classes like fighter, paladin, and ranger were clearly out of the question. His low Wisdom also disqualified him from divine spellcasting classes such as cleric and druid.
Using the free attribute points to make up for that would be far too wasteful. He might as well strengthen his existing advantages. Besides, in the world of D&D, when had wizards ever not been a popular class? No matter how strong a melee fighter was, he was still just a melee fighter—just as an emperor who came from a beggar was still a beggar.
Facing the endless dangers and unfathomably treacherous methods that might await him in the future, he truly had no confidence that his flesh-and-blood body alone could withstand them.
He entered the class-selection interface in his mind. The wide array of classes did not dazzle him. Skipping those he had already decided to abandon, Zhang Yuan focused his attention on three options: wizard, sorcerer, and multiclass.
Humans could multiclass? Either this was thanks to his cheat, or Faerûn was not a game world bound by some fixed ruleset.
Come to think of it, as long as you had the energy and talent in real life, nobody would stop you from taking on multiple professions, even if you were mediocre at each one. Then again, without a cheat, how many people would dare decide to multiclass so easily? Since multiclassing was an option, Zhang Yuan temporarily cast a single-class build aside.
He opened the multiclass page and looked at the row of options he knew by heart. After hesitating for a moment, he firmly selected the fighter/wizard multiclass. It was true that ranger/cleric and fighter/druid were both classic and powerful combinations.
But divine spellcasters were inherently limited by their Wisdom, while the appeal of the wizard class was simply impossible for him to resist.
As for the classic fighter/mage/thief solo class, it was the perfect example of knowing a little about everything but being good at nothing. Even with a leveling system, relying on experience points would make him wait God knew how long before he could improve everything.
After selecting the multiclass, he discovered that he could even choose a school. This was a truly unexpected delight.
The Bladesinger/wizard class, which he had previously needed to rely on the great Shadowkeeper to achieve every time, could now be obtained with a single click? No trick appeared. As Zhang Yuan confirmed his choice, the class option on his character panel was rewritten as Bladesinger/wizard.
Having obtained such a powerful class, Zhang Yuan naturally struck while the iron was hot and clicked on. Then he saw: Portrait and appearance are determined by the host and cannot be changed. This left Zhang Yuan, who had secretly hoped for a cosmetic makeover package, bitterly disappointed.
Whatever. If it couldn't be changed, then so be it. Was I really afraid it would affect this handsome guy's aura? Someone resentfully rubbed his cheeks, then sucked in his breath and pulled in his little belly.
What kind of lousy system was this? It couldn't even uncover the host's inner beauty. After complaining for a moment, he suddenly remembered that he was also the system's creator and could only give up dejectedly. Setting those farces aside, Zhang Yuan came back to himself and refocused his attention on the character panel.
At the most crucial stage—distributing attributes—Zhang Yuan genuinely wished he could split each point in half and spend it twice. He became as miserly and calculating as Grandet. He raised Constitution and Intelligence to 18 without much hesitation. One was the foundation of his body, while the other was the wizard's most important attribute. He couldn't afford to be stingy with either.
The remaining seven attribute points truly stumped him. Should he complete his Strength to improve his melee damage, or make up for his weaknesses? He did not hesitate for long. Remembering that he still had the auto-chess system, and that Bladesinger was itself a school focused on flexibility and high damage, Zhang Yuan distributed the remaining points evenly among Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma.
Weapon proficiency? After thinking about the magic weapons that were relatively easy to obtain early in Baldur's Gate, the best among them were the Asmodeus's Warhammer and the Vascana Longsword.
Both were +2 enchanted weapons with elemental damage. The former dealt lightning damage, while the latter dealt cold damage.
As for Flash, Ice Death, and that set of Mithril Chain Mail on Kagain? Heh! How much courage—and nerve—would it take to dare target Lord Kagain?
Even if the gods of the dice blessed him, every strike he made burned like fire, Kagain suddenly stepped in dog shit and fell flat on his face into another pile of it, and Zhang Yuan somehow managed to claim Kagain's head through heaven's favor and obtain the entire set of equipment, the consequences would still be more than a lone man like him could bear.
After much consideration, he still chose the longsword. It wasn't because it looked cool. As a fighter/wizard multiclass, Zhang Yuan had never planned to follow a pure-Strength route. Furthermore, although the Bladesinger school could technically use all eighteen types of weapons, in reality, without sufficient Strength, there was no way to wield heavy weapons with speed, precision, and force.
Besides, were Cyric's priests really that easy to provoke? Wouldn't it be great to take down one mere mercenary and walk away with the Vascana Longsword? After selecting two stars in longsword and two stars in dual wielding, the panel continued by displaying the selection of first-level spells.
After some deliberation, he settled on seven spells: "Magic Missile," "Mage Armor," "Lesser Malison," "Grease," "Burning Hands," "Find Familiar," and "Identify." His current character attributes were as follows:
Owner: Zhang Yuan Race: Human Identity: Auto-Chess Courier Class: Bladesinger/Wizard Age: 24 Alignment: Lawful Neutral Strength: 15 Dexterity: 11 Constitution: 18 Intelligence: 18 Wisdom (Perception): 10 Charisma: 10 Weapon Proficiency: Longsword **Dual Wielding** Spellcasting Proficiency: Ignore Material Components (system function) Learned Spells: Magic Missile"" Mage Armor"" Lesser Malison"" Grease"" Burning Hands"" Find Familiar"" Identify
At the very bottom of the character attribute panel was a button labeled Confirm Import Character Template. When Zhang Yuan confirmed it in his mind, all the beams of light converged into the die. Immediately afterward, a deep-blue beam shot straight toward the center of his brow.
Deep blue? Maxed out? For some reason, this strange thought surfaced in Zhang Yuan's mind. Before he could think about it further, he felt as though someone had slammed him over the head with a massive mallet, and he promptly blacked out.
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