I've been here alone for quite a while. I'm not quite sure how to react to another person appearing down here.
"I thought... Only criminals were sent here?" I quietly mutter. "If it's a true convict this time instead of a falsely convicted one like me... I need to be careful."
The person walks around 20 meters away, and I quickly slink out of the ruins and prepare to follow them. Although at this point I could probably handle most people who come from the kingdom... Oh wait...
"Dammit!" I forgot about that notification from earlier. My Mana Pool got destroyed from that scumbag monster that tried to torture me!
I quickly realize my mistake and decide that I can in fact not handle most people who come from the kingdom.
Mmm... I need to figure out how to use that class skill and grow powerful only then will I take the chance of following that person. if I ever do see them again... Putting aside my reservations, I start walking in a separate direction than the person, and attempt to find myself a suitable place to live for now.
"But first... Status!"
Name: Sirius
Level: 34
Class: Swordsman of Wrath
Profession: Sinner of Wrath
Stats:
Strength: 24
Agility: 23
Stamina: 15
Wisdom: 10
Sight: 16
Vitality: 21
Active Skills:
[Class Skill: Series Creation]
Passive Skills:
[Infection Resistance]
[Pain Resistance]
[Intuition]
[Flames of Wrath: Cuts from this sword will ignite wounds with the flames of your rage. (Rune-Inscribed Iron Bastard Sword)]
Looks like my points in wisdom went to waste as I don't have a mana pool anymore.
I have gained around 9 levels since being tossed in here, mostly from trapping the monsters in the spike pit and hunting those boar’s for food. Not very impressive but it's okay for now.
Ignoring the other skills for now, I focus on the Series Creation skill. I've been putting this off for a while so I finally decide to give it a complete read.
[Class Skill: Series Creation
Description: By practicing and refining physical motions, you gain the ability to transform perfected physical movements into instant-use skills, when a certain number of similar theme skills add up, a {Series} is formed, further improving the ability of the created skills and categorizing them into a group]
So to simplify what the system is saying, I believe if I train up certain physical moves, such as slashing downwards, to absolute perfection, it should change itself into a skill and If I make enough 'similar' acting skills, they should combine into groups, increasing the power of each individual skill.
I abruptly stop walking and lay my eyes on a cave digging into the side of the cavern I am walking through.
"Hmm. This could serve as a suitable living space for now." Walking inside and looking around, it looks to be a pretty ordinary cave. I set down my things and get back to thinking about the Series Creation Skill.
"I have to test this at some point anyways so might as well do it now, as for which movement I'll be practicing... I will just do a downwards slash as I used as an example before, after determining how it works I can try to make more advanced skills."
And so I get to slashing.
-Later in the day-
[Skill Created: Vertical Slash
Description: A basic downwards slash honed to perfection
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Grade: F]
That took forever. I've been slashing so much my arms feel like they are going to fall off! Time to see if it was worth it though.
"Vertical Slash!"
The sword in my hands instantly flashes downwards, much faster than any of the times I managed to do whilst trying to create the skill. It looks like making the physical movements into skills also improves them to some degree. All this with just a 'Grade F' created skill.
I look at my other notifications.
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
"Amazing..." It looks like creating a skill also gives me a large amount of exp, I can only imagine how much exp higher grade skills will give me if a Grade F skills made me level up thrice.
"Sigh, I still have to create more similar skills and make a skillset." Just making this skill has already exhausted me, but if I want to get stronger, exhaustion will have to be my constant companion.
I begin training other basic motions.
-Three Days Later-
[Skill Created: Horizontal Slash
Description: A basic one-handed sideways slash honed to perfection
Grade: F]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Skill Created: Diagonal Slash
Description: A basic diagonal cut designed to kill, honed to perfection
Grade: F]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Skill Created: Straight Stab
Description: A basic stab honed to perfection
Grade: F]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Skill Created: Adrenaline Rush
Description: Temporarily flood your blood with adrenaline to increase your speed and strength
Grade: E]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
I've leveled up 10 times from creating 4 more skills. This is really good for leveling even though I don't even have to fight any monsters.
Phew, I wipe the sweat off my forehead. It looks like the adrenaline that came when I was killing the boars earlier was recognized as a skill too!
Suddenly another notification pops up.
[Create Series 'Basic Swordsmanship'?]
I click 'Yes'
[The Skills: Vertical Slash, Horizontal Slash, Diagonal Slash, Straight Stab, and Adrenaline Rush have combined to form the Series 'Basic Swordsmanship'. All of the aforementioned skills have experienced a power increase. Series Ability Manifested: Skills from this series can be activated from your mind.]
"Finally!" I was wondering when a Series would be created, and it looks like I've finally got one, and it even came with a super useful ability! At this point I should be ready to battle a monster face to face without trapping it.
Rushing outside in my excitement, I look around for a suitable monster and spot a 4-meter tall double headed Minotaur looking monster.
"Identify!"
[Earthen Twin-Headed Bull
Level: 89]
I unsheathe my sword and rush towards it while activating Adrenaline Rush.
"Gyahh!" I speed up and reach the bull in no time at all. I activate 'Diagonal Slash' and feel all my hidden wrath resurface and flow to my blade. My sword's edge suddenly bursts with a purple tinted flame as it travels towards the body of the monster. It quickly reaches its stomach and slices it open, but the attack doesn't end there. When my sword leaves its body, my flames of wrath still remain and seem to be dealing great damage to the monster.
Dodging its feeble attempt at a counterattack, I run back at it and quickly stab it multiple times, each wound burning with the red-purple flames. It slowly succumbs after making many a pitful sounds.
"Level 44 and I can already kill monsters double my level." I grin and sheath my sword.
Thankfully it was only a physical type monster, I’m not sure whether or not I can handle magic monsters yet.
I deactivate Adrenaline Rush, suddenly huge amounts of strength leave my body and I stagger.
Looks like I shouldn't use this for too long.
I walk back to my camp.
Although my sword skills did a moderate amount of damage, the 'Flames of Wrath' Passive skill on my sword did a lot of damage to the bull. If I could learn to somehow harness the flames of wrath without using the sword and make it into a Series...
I try to recall the sensation I felt while swinging my sword. It felt like rage was coursing through my veins not unlike blood and rushing through my arms and into my sword.
I try to recreate this without the sword, I recall the injustices done to me, my mind blazes with my anger. But instead of letting it flow free, I attempt to let it flow up my arm like it did while I was wielding my sword.
At first, it seems it doesn't want to flow like it did before, but to solve this I merely shove more and more of my raw hatred up my arm. I'm effectively attempting to brute force the issue, and whilst this is probably a bad idea, I go through with it anyways in hope of more power.
Suddenly a familiar red-purple flame bursts into my open palm whilst at the same time I receive a system notification.
[New Skill Gained: Manipulate Wrath Aura
Description: Manipulate your intense hatred in the form of flames to suppress, attack, and defend]
Suddenly I can feel that it's much easier for my hatred to flow up my arms, now it almost feels effortless.
I throw a large fireball of the rage flames between my hands, soon after, I change it into a shield, a sword, a plate, a fork. Wow it looks like I can use this skill to create anything with the flames.
I try to deactivate it. Nothing happens.
"Uh oh" I repeatedly try to cut off my connection to the skill but nothing happens.
[This skill cannot be deactivated]
"Fuck!" Does this mean I have to keep this around me all the time!? Where am I even going to put it? I may be invulnerable to the flame, but my clothes sure as hell aren't!
I attempt to rub my eye in annoyance, suddenly I exclaim, "Oh! I can just shrink down the flame into a ball and put it in my empty socket!"
I manipulate the flame into my eye socket, it doesn't burn me but releases a somewhat pleasant warming sensation. It doesn't take much effort to keep it there, if any at all. "Heh!" I chuckle to myself at how insane I probably look.
I have made huge progress in quite a short amount of time, hopefully it's enough…