Damien gave it a thought before answering.
He came to the conclusion that in this partnership, it wouldn't hurt to show some honesty.
His reasoning for this was pretty straight forward — Theresa has shown her capability by managing to keep up with his call out as well as planned strategy in that brief battle.
Her action was swift and flawless. Thinking about it again, she actually exceeded his expectation.
Damien doubt that there were many [Forsaken] players in the first place, and Theresa was definitely not an ordinary player by his standard.
Over all, he had a feeling their partnership will continue for some time, and he felt that it is better to gain some of her trust with some truths.
"Special achievement," He answered indirectly.
As for Theresa, how could she not grasped the truth?
She didn't pry too deep into his answer, noticing that he was not willing to share the entire truth.
However, she did noticed a particular detail from the status condition.
"Why is it corrupted, and 50% increase? is it not normally 25%?" She murmured quietly, her gaze blinking repeatedly at Damien's direction.
Damien face lifted into a smile, guessing that her stats window is opened.
"My holy blessing is a little special… You take 25% more damage, don't say I didn't warn you."
"25% more damage?!" She jumped on her feet, staring at Damien as though he was a freak of nature.
"T-This is useless!" Her voice trembled slightly, while her eyes darted between the [Bone 1] and Damien.
Damien sighed, shrugging his shoulder.
"No big deal to me, it's worth it for the experience," He said.
His nonchalant attitude only made her more speechless.
'How is a Necromancer this indifferent to taking 25% more damage?!' She couldn't understand Damien playstyle.
As an experience player herself, mage seldom use skills or items that would cause them to take more damage.
This is due to their innate weakness of being less tanky. A mistake would easily result in death.
Because of this, close combat is off limit, and ranged spells are prefer.
Any item and stats are simply to enhanced a mage offensive capability and sustain, yet Damien had a skill that contradict this.
'Those play style are too boring, it lacks creativity and freedom. Forsaken has always reward those who take risks.' Damien thought to himself while allocating his stat points.
However, Theresa was still occupied with Damien previous words and remained distracted.
Seeing this, he quickly reminded her.
"Use your stat points, we don't have time to waste here. Don't forget, food is almost impossible to find in the catacombs."
He was right.
In the catacombs, water is possible if you find a spring, but food? Perhaps those mushroom growing off the corpses are edible, but Damien didn't want to bet on it.
Still, if desperation calls for it, he wouldn't mind eating them to survive. After thinking about it, he looked at Theresa's clean face, shaking his head.
"What?" She blurted out, noticing his peculiar glances," Something on my face?"
"No." He sighed, turning his head away. Even then, he could still tell that she was touching her face in a clumsy manner.
'Strange lady.' Of course, he didn't speak his thought and focused back on his stat.
Damien stared at the stat once more, making sure it was correct.
Name: Damien Clementine
Class: (C) Divine Saint ★★★★★
Species: Human
Race: N/A
Level: 6
Faction: N/A
Experience: 20/250
Health: 100
Mana: 400
Stamina: 12
Strength: 20
Intelligence: 40
Agility: 20
Luck: 7
Stat points to allocate: 17/32
With the increase in his strength, he could feel a change to his body.
'This feeling is pleasant… I'm not as weak anymore! ' He noted with no particular expression on his face.
After much consideration, he believe that this was the optimal allocation of his stats for now.
As for the 17 extra, it was better reserved later.
There was two reason for this.
Firstly, the [Great Scythe] he aimed to obtain had a strength requirement of 20. Thus main reason for his increased strength.
'And secondly, my intelligence is now 40, that means!'
[Ding! You have reached 40 intelligence.]
[Ding! You have unlocked [Book worm]. ]
[Book worm: You are suited to be a librarian. Or mage, either one.]
Passive effects: Increase mana by 50. Chanted spells cost 10% less mana.
Immediately, Theresa noticed a change in his expression.
"Did you unlock a passive?" She asked in a muffled voice.
"Yeah, a passive," He nodded and turn his face to get look at her condition.
Theresa appearance is naturally pale, but right now, she was much paler and chalked than their first meeting.
'She's exhausted.'
Even right now, Damien could see that Theresa struggles to keep her eye open and remain lucid.
"You rest first, I'll have my skeleton stand watch," He coughed lightly, then gestured for [Bone 1] and [Bone 2] to move toward the entrance of the passage.
Theresa nodded with a stiff smile and closed her eyes," Thank you."
If this was before their first battle together, she would have held some reservation and be wary of his intentions.
But throughout their journey, she carefully observed his character.
Besides his strange and eccentric personality, she truly believe that Damien isn't a bad person.
With that concern out the water, she drifted into deep sleep.
At this point in time, Damien was also exhausted. However, as the leader of this party, he couldn't show display that weakness on the surface.
Only after Theresa fell asleep did he relaxed.
His body condition wasn't good in the first place, growing up in the undercity. Fortunately, since his increased in stats, it has improved significantly.
'No food or water… I can't waste my energy being awake, but I can't afford to sleep either.'
Damien sat down in a meditative position, his breathing gradually slow down, to the point that his chest stopped moving.
This was something he learned in [Forsaken].
Often, his pathing or luck would be miserable, causing him to deal with hunger. And at times, its not possible to rest either due to a number of reasons.
So he created this method in order to reduce the energy used by the body without the need to sleep.
With his breathing slowed, his heart rate began to stagnant as well.
After a minute or so, Damien body temperature dropped considerably. He remained in this state until Theresa woke up.
Just like that, an unknown amount of times passes.
"Damien! Damien!" Theresa called out.