Jack idly wondered if he was getting in over his head. He wanted to show off the new system skill to Jeler and get some feedback, but he seemed to have accidentally agreed to be the guinea pig for the mercenary. The two walked into the sparring area while everyone else in the group gathered to watch.
"Alright," Jeler said excitedly, "what do you have for me?"
Jack had the three skills Deis had given him, named with Jack's input. [Point Defense], [System Buff], and [System Debuff]. The buff and debuff skills served the purpose of strengthening and weakening system-related abilities. Eventually, when things like increases to stats and purchasable skills were implemented these abilities would serve to moderate this. [Point Defense] on the other hand was something totally new to Jack as a concept. The skill was supposed to make a screen appear at a place of Jack's choosing within a radius around him.
Jack activated the skill, only needing to use a trigger word and the barest hint of mana. "Point defense!" A small, blue, translucent screen appeared in front of Jack, vaguely where he had intended. It was slightly more see-through than the status screen and a bit smaller as well. Six inches on each side, it was a square instead of the rectangle shape Jack was used to seeing.
Jeler eyed it expectantly, then closed the distance quickly and kicked at the screen. Similar to the status screen, the defense screen seemed to ignore inertia entirely and Jeler only succeeded at pushing himself backward with the force of his own kick. It was then that Jack noticed his mana dropping slightly, the feeling of emptiness becoming more apparent. He asked Jeler to kick it again and the man obliged. Once again Jack's mana drained slightly. Well, it seemed that the skill wasn't completely overpowered. Jack had Stone the biggun come over and punch the defense screen which caused his mana to drop way more than when Jeler had kicked it.
It seemed the skill used mana the more it was struck, but it didn't seem to take too much overall. Jack still hadn't tried to quantify mana amounts with the system, so he couldn't be sure how much he was actually using. that being said, he was getting low on mana. He could feel the effects slowly encroaching on his mind, having experienced it multiple times now. If this kept up, he wouldn't be able to experiment more with this skill, let alone [System Buff] and [System Debuff].
"Jeler, is there some kind of mana recovery skill you could teach me? I'm starting to feel low but I think I can cheat myself into getting the skill using the system."
Jeler seemed disappointed that there was going to be a break but answered Jack's question. "Sure, there are a couple of things you can do. But Zrez could probably teach you better than I could. Hey Zrez, come here!" Jeler called out and the Draconid turned his head and walked over to them.
"How may I be of service?" The draconid bowed slightly, his tone flat.
"Can you help Jack with some mana recovery skills? Either by giving him some or teaching him how to use the necessary skills?"
The draconid paused. "I will bestow some mana to him for now. I believe it would be best for Glimm to teach him mana recovery skills given his...unique nature."
Jeler nodded. "Makes sense to me, I don't really know much about bore-bot internals."
Zrez approached Jack. "May I touch you? I require contact for the passing of mana."
"Please do," Jack agreed.
Zrez placed his hand on Jack's shoulder and then frowned. He moved to Jack's other shoulder, then frowned again. He touched Jack in several areas before settling his hand on Jack's head. Then a steady flow of energy began flowing onto Jack's body. Jack was still new to mana, his only gauge of it was the feeling of feeling empty or full of energy. This felt like someone was pouring espresso down his throat non-stop. The sudden rise of energy in his body was intense and honestly quite scary.
Jeler eyed the two of them for a moment before telling Zrez to stop. The draconid glanced at Jeler before slowly removing his hand, the flow of energy coming from him halting as well.
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"How're you feeling Jack? Didn't give you too much did we?" Jeler asked. "Zrez might've kept going, he probably didn't know you don't have a ton of internal mana stores."
Zrez bowed his head slightly. "I was not aware. The flow of energy in your body is rather interesting and I grew lost in thought. Please forgive me." His tone remained flat and unemotional. Jack almost thought he didn't mean what he was saying, but it didn't really matter, he had mana again.
"Let's get back to the experiments!" Jack called out. "Jeler, I'm going to give you the [Point Defense] skill and let you play around with it. I'll also need to try and give someone the [Appraisal] skill."
Jeler gladly allowed Jack to add the skill to his status, while several people volunteered for the appraisal skill. The twin with the crazy high [Wisdom] stat had volunteered, Jack thought her name was Skol. He typed in all of the skills onto everyone's sheets and began to explain how the skills worked. To his surprise, however, all of the people could instantly use the skills he had given them.
Jeler was instantly able to create defensive screens, though he noted that he would need to practice with it. His screens were placed more or less where he wanted, but he was pretty sure he could aim them a bit better. The [Appraisal] group were all able to instantly begin appraising those around them, opening other's status screens and observing them. Jack was surprised, the other skills they had tested needed to be taught before they could be used. He wondered if system skills just worked differently.
A quick test with [Appraisal] showed that the person using the skill could interact with the screen the same way they could with their own status. However, the people who were being appraised could not interact with the status screens. He had someone be appraised, then had them call up their own screen. There were now two copies of the same screen, one in front of its owner and the other in front of Skol, his helper for this experiment. He plugged his keyboard into the volunteer's screen and typed some things in. The changes did not appear on the appraised screen. He had Skol close the screen and use [Apprasial] again. This time she could see the changes.
It seemed that the skill took a snapshot of a person's current status, but didn't track it in real time. So if a person could alter their status before or after being appraised, then they could trick someone with [Appraisal]. When he got around to creating skill levels and other things he might need to look into that. Then he had Skol use [Appraisal] on him. Nothing happened. She frowned then tried again, concentration on her face. Jack suddenly felt a small dip in his energy, like he was using mana. Suddenly, a screen appeared in front of Skol. She looked smug for a moment before frowning at the screen. The status screen didn't have any information listed, only the categories for information.
Jack mused on this, [Appraisal Block] wasn't a perfect counter by any means, but it appeared to be a flexible skill. Jack had been surprised when Skol had succeeded, she shouldn't have been able to bring up Jack's screen at all. Could these skills be affected by more willpower or mana? If Jack had manually put more mana into [Appraisal Block] could he have prevented even the blank screen from emerging? Well, the only way to find out was more testing!
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Jeler was having a great time. The new [Point Defense] skill was right up his alley. Currently he was having his helpers throw rocks at him while he summoned screen after screen to block them. The skill required a lot of attention to visual depth, he had to know how close or far he wanted to put the screen almost exactly. It was easier the closer he made them, but the further he put them away the more inaccurate he was.
The max range as far as he could tell was about five feet in any direction from him. It was an excellent tool, the only real downside was that he could only make one at a time. The screens didn't move either, every time he wanted one in a new spot he had to dismiss the one he had summoned and make a new one. That was workable though, they could just suddenly appear in midair and block things which made them much harder to keep track of.
He had figured out that if he moved more than five feet away from them they disappeared all on their own. He idly wondered if there was a way he could increase the range...
A rock suddenly broke through his defenses and came hurtling at his head. He quickly formed a new screen to block but his body had already reacted, trying to dodge the projectile. His aim was slightly off, and the screen formed in the middle of the rock, stopping it in midair. Jeler and all of his assailants paused, taking in the strange sight. They came over to it and looked at it, just a rock floating in midair, seemingly trapped in the middle of the defense screen.
Jeler released the screen and the rock fell to the ground, with no visible damage or other markings on it. He thought for a moment, then pulled out a knife and tossed it into the air. He caught it midair with a screen, the blade pointed straight up and the screen completely horizontal. The knife should have been able to slide out by itself, but it remained firmly in place. He tugged on the knife and it didn't budge, his mana decreasing a little. He had Stone come over and yank on the knife, and his mana dropped a little bit faster.
It seemed like the knife had become part of the screen somehow. Jeler paused, an idea coming to mind that seemed a bit dangerous. "Anyone got an arm I can test this on?" he called out cheerfully.