“What are you talking about? Of course, it’s pretty clear Mala is pretty talent–” Korridan’s weak reply was cut off. Losing momentum in the conversation really made his voice contain similar emotions to Jaren’s when asking an unnecessary question.
So, Icy cut off the man to make things clearer. It wasn’t just dragons who reportedly had to make this fact quite clear, numerous magical beasts mentioned this as a problem of almost all the races that used the warrior and wizard evolution pathways.
Ironically, the Eternals may be one of the rare few who best self-identified their talents.
“If you want a harsh opinion, then I disagree… Mala isn’t talented at magic, she has an insatiable magical appetite. That alone, combined with opportunity, will take her to being a Sage,” Icy gave a brutal comment on Mala, rather rare for him as he often sugar-coated his words after spending so much time with them. And with that, he couldn’t hold back from facing her and following up with, “Nothing personal to you as well, your grasp of knowledge is excellent by draconic standards, I’m just trying to get some facts through their suddenly stupid heads.”
“No offence taken… I agree with the assessment. I made a similar conclusion some years ago.” While she spoke calmly with a pure tone, a slight reveal of a smile occurred as he spoke, and confirmed that she hadn’t been upset by his comment.
“Now, you three. Jaren, you’re pointlessly diligent to the point I see you hitting Primordius rank out of pure stubbornness. I wish I was joking. Rebecca is already ridiculously talented at stealth, and her spending 12 hours a day in it only perfects it. Her limit is harder to guess, and then there’s you…”
Icy fell to silence whilst staring at Korridan, going through memories outside of his Mind palace to try and get a better feel at what exactly the team leader did that stood out well.
He was exceptionally stable? Well, his body’s defence wasn’t amazing, but his ability to wear insanely heavy armour and equipment made up for those gaps. He didn’t really use much weaponry, and when he did, it was mostly to apply pressure in combat.
Outside of personal situations, in group battles, he usually led everyone by providing commands and taking the initiative to block attacks such that it set up others better. And in general, while Mala was far more analytical, he generally took control of fights better with intuitive considerations and strong instincts. He held a few aspects from each member of the original party and then utilised his own specialisation to assist what he knew about them intimately.
In fact, he’d adapted to Icy’s agile spellcasting combat style as well, the past few months, going so far as to intentionally keep enemies in place to allow his generally non-homing spells to strike more.
“Tactician” completely diverged from Korridan’s defence-oriented bloodlines though. The man’s real talent laid in that direction, but he could only make use of it alongside his primary developments. It was a strange situation, to say the least.
“I might be a bad judge of this, but you know how to lead the best. Not just leading us specifically. Also, it seems like your body completes transformations faster than usual for some reason.” He didn’t seem all that surprised by this fact, perhaps after so long, he had some suspicions but always chalked it up to other, more logical, reasons. Mala probably did the same.
In fact, Korridan’s face almost relaxed at that, perhaps it was the first time he received a clear indication of possessing a sort of talent, although it was far more likely a mutation he acquired many years ago but remained mostly dormant.
That was generally the situation for most humans with specific talents.
“How great is his pain tolerance?” Icy had first-hand experience of watching Korridan take a beast’s claws straight to his chest, or holding off a bite with his arm as teeth left dents in his metal arm guards. It was extremely rare for him to scream or shout in pain.
“He once had the spittle of a Laveete beetle burn a few holes through his legs. All about an inch deep, some like a pinhole, with one nasty one that could fit his thumb… He just scrunched his face a bit.” While Korridan rolled his eyes at the story, everyone else clearly looked towards his right leg, likely the place where the thumb-wide hole was created.
“Have you ever considered element refining? It’s normally unpopular due to taking years to transform yourself physically… But if that’s also sped up, you might finish it in one or two at the most. Put up with the pain and continue finding stronger elemental sources, I can see you hitting Primordius rank if you stick to it.” Well, that was a slight exaggeration.
The evolution path actually worked pretty well up until Starlite rank, at which point further growth was hard if you stuck to a single planet.
“I’ve never used elements before.” A simple reply, but enough to consider giving things a go.
With some basic idea of a direction, it didn’t take long for them to focus on amassing wealth to buy the manuals they needed. There was also the fact that Darak needed more too, but the scarcity of churches of Manus increased with proximity to the continent's centre. Fortunately, they knew that a normal city not too far back had a church.
One interesting factor would be whether Darak could purchase any manuals he wanted at a church. Like most techniques the warriors needed, there was a limit on what could be bought through normal channels. In other words, why priests required a cathedral to go beyond Mature priests.
However, things were easier for the others as they could even buy things to reach Starlite rank and Blossoming wizard in Fragheim.
For now though, Icy sold another three of the white crystal coins for 315 crowns, enough to buy a fair selection of skills and spells at their level.
But, unfortunately, they worried that it might not even be enough to buy the techniques required to get the three warriors to evolution. Mala would need to integrate further mana into her body as well, but those manuals are rarely that expensive. They were effectively just skills, like all the warriors used, but had no effect besides transforming the body to store more mana. She bought one which could theoretically increase her max MP as a Sapling wizard by 30%.
That much is already considered excellent as wizards received most of their boost in mana upon evolution.
More mana meant that more bloodline energy could be produced by the body over time, and that’s why merely breathing in a mana-rich environment can be so beneficial.
Even for regular people, some bloodline energy is acquired by consumption of any food containing it.
* * *
He stared at the prompts in front of him, nodding his head in contented agreement with what they told him. This only taking two weeks certainly left him surprised, but no way would he ever reject the situation.
[Mission 3 completed, Nexus Aid Bonus has been upgraded
A new list of missions is now being made]
As expected, the title increased by a single percent,, but that alone meant a large boost in power.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
[Nexus Aid Bonus III: All stat fields offer +3% bonuses. Can be upgraded through completion of further Nexus Missions]
This came through as he finally killed a few more beasts with Advanced rank bloodlines and assimilated them, an easy enough prospect when they carefully chose the more elite gold tiers nearby. Not only that, but he guessed another evolution was upcoming. Along with him assimilating a Rare rank bloodline a day, with the slight chance of them being higher on some occasions, the tens of bloodlines that he swallowed like air almost didn’t seem like near-mystical things which he practically revered!
To think there was a time, not too long ago, when Advanced+ was an incredibly powerful bloodline. Now it didn’t even reach the minimum bound for something he considered worth taking.
Oh well. Some more weeks of the routine hunting ended up delivering exactly what he’d been waiting on for months now. This was technically his eleventh evolution now, too.
And with the surroundings absolutely filled with hundreds of various beasts, he wouldn’t be running out of bloodlines in the upcoming months. Though he was unlikely to get any more mutations for a long time to come, there was no easy way to not only find beasts close to evolving but also feed them his ice cream over a long period.
[Bloodline energy has reached an evolutionary threshold. Prepare for evolutionary measures to begin]
The few Advanced+ bloodlines that he happened to come across meant that unless he set the filter a lot higher this time, he’d have around 25 evolutions minimum to pick from. It was probably going to be around 35 in actuality, which is why he took the drastic action of removing all assimilations below Extreme rank this time.
Then, as always, he removed the standard list of evolutions that he’d never reasonably take.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t actually anyone at home today besides Raccelline, and all Icy could do was move into the basement, where some simple arrays blocked sudden releases of mana.
It was very disturbing for others when a massive wave of the stuff passed through your home, and it stood out immensely as he’d seen back on the island. Every single evolution could be sensed regardless of where they were at the time. As for the room itself, it was just adjoined to the cellar, cut from the earth and then supported with large bricks to create the shape of a simple cube.
And here it was. The eleventh evolution…
[Evolution imminent. Your possible bloodline pathways are the following:
Innate Confectionaire Ice-cream
Manatech Visor (Ice-cream)
Merged Trifecta Ice-cream
Universal armament Ice-cream
Fate whisperer…
Divine Mental Space…
Source Seeker…
Dragon Devourer…
True Auric assimilation…
World-shaking Dragon…
All-sight…
Elder Skinned…
Legend-blooded…
Divine Mountain’s Descension…
Breaker of Cosmic Lifecycle…
Aegis-borne Ancient Rules…
Please make a selection in 5 minutes, or a random pathway will be used]
“Didn’t I remove all the food evolutions? Also, why the brackets for that one?” He asked about the two things which immediately caught attention. Additionally, the term ‘manatech’ was a strange one. Its existence pretty much revolved around the Nexus, and with some inventors claiming use of the term, few actually knew what it meant.
What distinguished technology and manatech? Were they not, in fact, the same? Some argued that the Nexus referred to a specific aesthetic when it talked of manatech, but even that failed to hold up as the range of designs was rather great.
[As Innate Confectionaire did not modify your body inline with ‘food’, the Nexus deemed it outside the filter’s scope and of interest to you. The brackets are required as the bloodline has no effects on your body, mind, or soul, and thus fell under ‘Special Evolutionary Protocol’]
That wasn’t a term he expected to read, but there were actually records of it in his memories. No one knew what those protocols were though.
“Just show it to me then.” He ignored the lower bloodlines for now simply due to curiosity about the first bloodline’s title.
[Innate Confectionaire Ice-cream: Sugar and candy form your world, and you wish to spread that joy with all those far and near. Not only can you identify the potential of various ingredients for things you know how to make, but a delicate palette makes flavours far more vivid and greatly increases your pickiness. When cooking, you rapidly develop a sense of understanding for that recipe which allows you to modify and fix it at will, potentially integrating it for entirely new recipes as proficiency increases. Two permanent bonuses are given for this bloodline, +0.1% max MP per ‘Beloved Recipe’ created, +50% memorisation speed for all cooking]
[Beloved Recipe: An original recipe which earns an approval rating of at least 99% by those who taste it. Those with biases to the creator or its ingredients are not included in the rating]
That was rare. To state just how rare these permanent Nexus bonuses are from evolutions. In over 100 evolution options, this was the first he ever received. Perhaps one of the many filtered out also contained permanent bonuses, but he would have struggled to take anything from a weak assimilation.
Rather than ponder on it for too long, he just spoke his mind, “I love the idea, I truly do… But there’s no way in hell I take this now. Nexus, if I reawaken this evolution, will I still receive the permanent bonus?” He actually didn’t mind taking something like this compared to focusing more on combat-oriented bloodlines, mostly because in the next few years, he’d evolve more than enough to justify a single lifestyle-focused bloodline.
[It is not guaranteed, but due to the bloodline’s unique effects for the Bestial Evolution Path, it is likely]
That was more than enough. This bloodline did not come through an evolution, so he could try to obtain it once more in the future, but the method is far from cheap or easy. BEP and HEP, two very common terms by the Nexus used to distinguish between the rapid evolutions of beasts and the powerful ones of the bipedal races… Why exactly did the Nexus call it the Humanoid Evolution Path though?
Humans were hardly the first species in the eight worlds to evolve using it.
Pointless thoughts aside, he began to read through all the evolutions, as usual, filtering out the obviously weaker ones at first sight. This time he found that a lot of the natural evolutions were pretty bad. Only True Auric Assimilation appealed to him besides Innate Confectionaire.
“If it’s simulated, can the Nexus show me what the Manatech Visor looks like?” To obtain an evolution with not only ‘manatech’ in its name, but follow a special ruling garnered great interest. It wasn't even worth analysing in depth, unfortunately. At best described as a glorified utility spell selection, the aesthetics interested him far more. Many dragons were like this, and it stood with reason that they liked experiencing various cultures as adults.
[Simulations revealed 12 major designs, we shall provide the two most common]
The first was actually a near perfect match for what was generally called manatech. A dark, reflective helmet made of a sort of navy blue metal with lines travelling along the surface almost to show off the helmet’s individual plating. From there, the long helmet wrapped around his snout and left space for his jaws to move freely. Two glowing lines matched where his eyes were, these shaped as thin slits that slanted upwards to give off an oppressive demeanour.
The other though, was a thin loop of metal that hooked around his head. A thin square of transparent crystal, at the front, could easily be used by his right eye. Besides these two parts, the chrome band contained no interesting details, although he wondered where the metal for either of them came from.
This alone showed why the ‘manatech’ aesthetic had never truly been figured out. He wasted 15 seconds for this bit of fun, but time was far from a worry.
Then he finally moved his eyes down to the evolutions granted by the World-shaker elephant. It took about 25 seconds to read all seven of them. His initial thoughts on them rather simple in reality.
“Fuck you,” He sneered at the Nexus.
[That’s hardly a nice thing to say. We did the best possible with limited resources]
“I thought completing missions was meant to grant more power for those simulations! So, seriously, what the hell is this?”
He did not get a reply to this question, perhaps even the Nexus realised that of the seven World-shaker’s evolutions, half were useless.
Seven bloodlines. One was written clearly with fair information and some flowery description; Three were poetic with a hint of what they achieved, but clearly over-exaggerated their effects… And then the last three. They made the almost joke-like description of Frigid Water of Boundlessness seem relatively normal.
“You arranged them in order of how well you understood their effects?”
[Yes. With your Authority we can delay the generation of additional bonuses such that they are actually of use to the bloodline]
Authority?
The word hit him like a charging bull. Several problems with the Nexus finally made sense and slotted like a stupidly simple puzzle. He even knew about the term for well over a year now, long before he’d been told that completing missions would allow him to receive information on ‘Exeter’. How didn’t he piece it together beforehand?
That could be left for later though.