Chapter 60
The Innate’s government finally allowed civilians to enter the Grandsky Realm. After all, now that the Elemental Nation knew of Innate Dimension’s existence, there was no point in restricting their movements any longer. As a result, New Hope was unprecedentedly packed with people, and plans to build more cities in Serenity Canyon were underway.
Meanwhile, inside Frisk’s personal time-accelerated Pocket Dimension, Keith’s clone was hard at work. Sitting down at a desk, Keith leaned over a microscope, scrutinizing the arrays on the sword conjured from Arsenal of the Desert.
Like now, he had spent the past week passionately pursuing his goal of attaining level 1,000 in the Arsenal of the Desert skill by analyzing the arrays layered on its surface.
Converted to accelerated time, he had spent over two months engrossed in his research.
Keith’s progress was significant.
Currently, his Arsenal of the Desert skill sat at level 824, making it his highest leveled skill by far.
Based on Keith’s understanding, the skill used ordinary sand formed by earth element mana. The sand wasn’t the important part. The arrays were. From what Keith could tell, the arrays compressed the sand to the extreme before reinforcing it via a series of layered arrays he was still trying to decipher.
Keith did not doubt that once he unraveled the mystery of the layered arrays, he’d have a complete understanding of the skill. A complete understanding meant it’d be level 1,000. He wasn’t far off from reaching that point. Maybe another week or two.
For his research on Arsenal of the Desert, Keith refrained from asking Frisk for help.
He needed to do this on his own.
Frisk might be able to provide the answer, but Keith wouldn’t understand how he arrived there. The process of problem-solving was just as crucial as the result, perhaps even more so.
For example, during his research on Arsenal of the Desert, Keith learned several new methods on how arrays interacted. The newfound knowledge increased his array crafting skill by a significant margin. It was now level 602.
At this point, Keith was no longer a novice to the craft.
He could be said to have reached the middle tier of array artisans.
In retrospect, it was a good thing Arsenal of the Desert’s conjured weapons had arrays on their surface. As an array artisan himself, Keith could reach level 1,000 in the skill far easier compared to a skill that didn’t have arrays so blatantly displayed. It made Keith wonder if he should find similar skills.
But that could wait.
He first needed to level Arsenal of the Desert to 1,000.
And so, ten days passed inside the time-accelerated Pocket Dimension.
Keith’s clone, besides eating and sleeping, spent all that time tucked away in the corner of the Pocket Dimension Frisk allocated to him.
His research had reached a bottleneck.
Even though Keith had learned all the arrays, no matter how many times he attempted to layer them, they collapsed once there were too many runes so close to each other. This was a common problem when using layered arrays – too short a distance and they destabilized.
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At Keith’s current skill level, although he could form two-layered arrays with some difficulty, Arsenal of the Desert utilized three layers and involved over a hundred arrays. The requirements for his control were high.
Pacing back and forth, Keith fell into thought, and after several minutes of contemplation, he decided to change his approach. Instead of forming the arrays one by one, he’d do it layer by layer.
Standing up, Keith raised his hand, divided his mind, and utilized his Mana Manipulation skill to barely form a layer in one go. While forming the next one, Keith delegated one of his minds to keep the first layer intact.
The second one.
The third one.
Beads of sweat rolled down Keith’s face as he formed all three layers.
Now for the final part.
Furrowing his brow, Keith stacked the layers one by one, acting swiftly before they destabilized. With a visible tremble, the layers locked into place. Earth element mana congregated within, forming a longsword made of sand. The three-layered array then attached itself to the weapon.
Success!
Without using the Arsenal of the Desert skill, Keith had replicated the skill through the use of arrays. The only way he could do that was by completely understanding it.
At that moment, notifications piled up one after another.
Congratulations! Your Arsenal of the Desert skill leveled up to 1,000.
Congratulations! You unlocked the Skill Master title.
Congratulations, you leveled a skill to 1,000!
Reach level 1,000 in three more skills to attain additional benefits.
Congratulations! By reaching level 1,000 in a skill, the System has blessed your innate gift, causing it to evolve.
(Title) Skill Master
Description: The skill you reached level 1,000 in now has a 50% reduction in mana cost, cooldown, and cast time. If applicable, it also deals 50% more damage.
Back at the Blockade where Keith’s main body was, it was currently night, and he was deep in sleep. Suddenly, the surrounding mana grew agitated and poured into his body, jolting him awake. Briefly dazed, he was then delighted by the memories coming in from his clone.
“I did it!” He exclaimed in joy.
Closing his eyes, Keith sensed millions upon millions of units of mana rushing into his brain, where it disappeared to who knows where. Minutes went by, yet the torrent of mana was unending. Keith started to grow uneasy.
Just then, it ended, and a notification appeared.
Congratulations! Your innate gift has evolved.
All shop functions are 50% cheaper to purchase!
Leveling a skill to 1,000 had awarded Keith numerous benefits, making him so excited he jumped out of bed and punched the air, overwhelmed by emotion. After dancing a little jig, stood still, relishing his achievement.
A moment later, Keith’s clone sent over a message, telling him to try something.
Keith gasped in alarm.
Without delay, he formed a sand longsword through arrays and then activated Quickdraw. Following a flash of light, the arrays vanished, reappearing inside Quickdraw’s unique space in his mind.
“No way,” Keith sucked in a breath from a sudden realization.
Normally, Arsenal of the Desert had a hard limit on how many weapons he could conjure. Now that he had replicated Arsenal of the Desert through arrays, he could use Quickdraw to bypass that limit. Although Quickdraw itself had a limit, he could effectively double or triple the amount the number of conjured weapons.
Keith tested it right away.
Two swords hovered before him.
One came from Quickdraw and the other from Arsenal of the Desert, appearing completely identical. Holding one in each hand, Keith clashed them together and was stunned when one broke.
Thinking briefly, Keith soon understood why.
The Skill Master title enhanced the weapons from Arsenal of the Desert but not from Quickdraw, resulting in one being stronger than the other. While somewhat disappointing, Keith was still happy he could summon more weapons. It was the skill he relied on the most recently.
No matter what, Keith was too excited to go back to sleep, so he ended up staying up the whole night browsing the magic network, searching for another skill to level to 1,000. He wanted one that showed the arrays it used.
Speaking of which, what stopped him from using Quickdraw on a teleportation array?
It usually took fifteen to twenty minutes to draw a teleportation array with array crafting, making it unfeasible to use in live combat.
Not with Quickdraw.
With Quickdraw, it became instant.
The only problem lay in the fact that a teleportation array drew mana from connected mana gathering arrays. However, with Keith’s current expertise in array crafting, he could easily modify the teleportation array to have it accept his mana instead.
That way, should Keith encounter fatal danger in battle, he could simply create a teleportation array to teleport hundreds of miles away in an instant.
I’m a genius, Keith thought with a smile.