Skills.....
Still within the Temporal distortion, Walker considered the idea he'd had long ago.
Monsters, as in those monsters of which Symphony would become known throughout the multiverse, grew in power as they gained higher tiers. Each tier brought different new strengths and abilities that the entity could develop. The greater the tier, the higher the plane of magic they could touch upon, and the larger the breadth of their abilities.
To counter this, he had long ago decided that Sapients needed skills. They wouldn't have all the same magical prowess that monsters would have—as the creatures were born with the inherent ability to use it. Instead, Sapients would be able to choose their own classes. But classes never fit as the right word.
It wasn't a school, and he didn't want there to be "archetypes" that his people would pick. That was for board games. No, he needed his citizens to control their fates more. More agency. So, before he even started working on skills, he first needed to decide on the overall term his Sapients would come to understand as their own power. Their strength.
Professions wouldn't work. Even though they would be tied to skills as well, that would be a wholly different system that, to a degree, countered the soon-to-be-named class system. Roles and specializations wouldn't work either; neither would orders, guilds, or fellowships.
Walker searched his powerful lexicon. He went back into his mind to define the one word that would most fit the entities and the skills they would master. Names hold power, and this would be the system that stretched and bound all combat-focused sapients and higher-tier monsters together.
Sitting on his bed in his own stretched time, Walker ran through dozens of names. He tried hyphenating, and although powered-proficiencies did sound nice in his mind, it wouldn't work. Talents weren't true, as their skills would be something they chose, whereas talents were an inborn trait. Expertise wasn't bad, and he sat on it for a long time. He even said it out loud as if he were a newly minted sapient first discovering their skill set.
"I'm a spear expert."
"I chose the sword expertise."
But it didn't fit. They had to master these things to not only fit within themselves but mold them into their own unique skill set.
When he stumbled on Authority and Sagehood, he sat on them for a long time. He liked the idea of Symphony having Sages, as the word had an old Latin root, and he continued to enjoy bringing Earth's history and the good parts over to Symphony's root language. The problem was that it failed his "OOmph" test. It didn't have power by itself.
The longer he thought of it and redefined what he wanted the value of the system to bring, the more a singular word appeared.
"Masteries...."
Mastering the skills and forming their own mastery ticked all of the boxes for him. He tried it out loud.
"I am a Master of the Spear...."
"I chose the Shield Mastery..."
"Hold, Cretin!" He said, pantomiming a potential future hero on Symphony's soil. As no one could see him, he jumped up and threw a single palm forward as if he were facing an evil villain in an old story, "Place down that damsel and prepare yourself to face my Mastery of Speed!"
He held the pose for a moment, happy that he had no watchers to snicker at his attempted acting. But still, it felt right.
"Masteries......the Mastery system." He said with a final nod.
An old memory resurfaced: Walker sat in a collegiate classroom while his professor droned on before him. He had mostly tuned the elderly man out because he had a tendency to say "um" after every third word, making it very difficult to listen in without spacing out completely. But one day, he had said something that stuck in Walker's mind: "You have to know the end before you can write the beginning."
That was why he spent so much of his precious time now thinking of something as simple as names for a system. The endgame was important, and he couldn't design the skills without first understanding what they would add up to.
"Masteries," He said with a final nod.
Now, he just needed to figure out the skills that came with them, not to mention leveling. Skills should level; there was no doubt about that in his mind. If Magic would gain power and strength the more you understood it, and Chipper's actions in the second battle surely proved that, then Skills had to have a fair and equal increase. Only, it took fifty years for an outlier monster like Chomp to reach tier four. He had to decide if skills should take a similar amount of time to build up, or if there was a better way of going about it. Thinking of the flower-rolling dooter brought him low for a moment.
"Poor Chomp," Walker said with a sigh. He still didn't grieve like Rimi, but it had been a sad moment in Symphony's early history. The golden Battlefrog had been unique in its control of Earth and Space magic. He still didn't know where the monster had found enough Space magic to include it in its kernel. More and more Walker wished he could walk around Symphony and enjoy the sights, sounds, and fights contained within it. Instead, he was stuck in a cabin, marooned in his own temporal distortion, trying to figure out how best to help his people.
He knew he was biased against the monsters a little. Even the name Monster created negative connotations for him. But he also knew that mindset would change as they gained Sapience and interacted with the world as equal citizens. Thinking on it, he resolved to give them a fairer shake in the future. His reading and experiences had taught him that the best way to combat racism was to recognize it when it was found within. He would need to apply that to his views of Monsters as well.
Shaking his head to get back on track, he reviewed what he wanted skills to do.
Skills needed to level; that was set in stone for him. But did they need to continue past 100, or should something else occur? He thought on it for a moment, then put it in the back of his mind for further review after he got the system started.
Skills can be awarded through milestones, events, and the titles he still had to make. But, if he allowed Sapients to unlock skills through those systems, they would be non-standard. A Spear Master could, after completing an event, unlock a skill that has to do with climbing trees faster or swimming better. To compliment his current naming conventions, he mentally called skills earned outside of the Mastery system as Extra Skills, so that he would have a divider in his mind. That, in turn, forced him to name the skills that Sapients unlocked with their mastery as Kernel skills, which brought a smile to his face. His Sapients wouldn't understand the value of the word Kernel until they unlocked magic. It would foreshadow the heights of their power as they moved along.
Skills should be offered as soon as a Sapient chooses their mastery. Once the Mastery was selected, they should appear in a set that thematically fits the sapient's choice. It wouldn't make sense to unlock Spear Mastery and then get two skills focused on arrow angles and maintaining a shield. So that meant each skill, as it was created, had to be maintained with a specific pattern. That forced him to consider that he would have to combine the skill and adaptation systems. He'd need an Advanced AI, at the least, to make sure each individual....Master, got the right skill allocations.
Walker workshopped what a Spear Master might get when first choosing their mastery. Off the top of his head, he thought up three different skills they might need: Fleet-footed, as in the ability to move quickly and surely; something pertaining to gripping the weapon; and, of course, knowing how to use a spear in the first place. Each would be necessary for a Spear Master to move forward within their domain of combat.
But the serious question was how that domain moved forward and where he'd been stuck for some time now. How would Sapients' skills become powerful over time? Should he find a way to combine them, as he was considering with the Title system? The Fleet-footed gripping spear Master?
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Walker shook his head, "That sounds ridiculous."
Skills were important, but what was their point? As he'd done since the beginning of the protocol, Walker questioned the purpose of his work. He knew that the skill system he developed would work for Professions and Masteries, but he didn't know how to make it work.
For several hours, Walker scanned through the System designer, hoping someone before him had attempted what he was trying to do now. A few showed a little promise, with one, in particular, showing him the likely way that his Primigenials had gained their bloodlines.
The Talent System:
A system designed to instill unique talents within each entity born under the Creator's domain.
This system allows Creators to build unique talents directly into the genetic line of their entities.
Flexibility: Very Low
Difficulty to modify: Medium
Resources used: Primordial Energy
Limits: Some Talents may be detrimonious to the entities. Random evolution of talents must occur, exascerbating the issue.
Note: This system was designed by Creator Manti S. C in Rendition 1PA
It was likely that the Creator of Earth had modified the system heavily to remove most of the detrimonious talents. The system itself would be fine if he hadn't already created most of the Sapients he wanted to seed initially. Sure, it was only the first two hundred and fifty out of ten thousand, but each had an attached bloodline built into them already.
Walker continued through the System designer, not enjoying the next two, which had slightly similar builds to what he wanted to do.
The Lineage-Capability System:
A system designed to allow future generations to build upon specific skills within their family.
This system allows Creators to select direct abilities for their entities that can be passed on and enhanced across each new line of descendants.
Flexibility: Medium
Difficulty to modify: High
Resources used: Primordial Energy
Limits: Once a family line is given a specific ability or skill, it cannot be removed without terminating the entity's life.
Note: This system was designed by the Charlie Protocol Council, and is a combination of multiple older systems
The Absorption System:
A system designed to give specific entities the ability to absorb physical traits from their opponents.
This system allows Creators to select entities, giving them the ability to absorb matter and mass from those they have defeated in combat.
Flexibility: None
Difficulty to modify: High
Resources used: Primordial Energy
Limits: Once the entity is selected, it will always absorb the properties of the defeated, whether it wants to or not.
Restriction: This system was designed by the Omega Protocol Council, and is restricted to Omega Members only.
Note: As a System Administrator, you may overrule this restriction.
"What the ever-living fuck." Walker said as he scratched his head while looking at the last one. Absorbing matter and mass? Like....some kind of physical vampiracy? What do they do, compact their muscles and make themselves stronger?
He thought about it for a moment, finding uncomfortable connections between the Absorption system and the awakening of his soul. But the key difference, for him at least, was that he didn't take it away from other people. It was his soul empowering the rest of his body.
The Lineage system was interesting, and very similar to the Talent system before it. He still wasn't sure what it was that the Charlie Protocol did, but based purely on the system they'd designed, it likely had to do with the defense of the Evolver's multiverse from outside factions. The only thing he didn't like about all of them was their use of Primordial energy. He had a few thousand units in his resources, but with how big Symphony was going to be, that would drain him immediately. They wouldn't work.
The best thing he could do was create the skill system from scratch using the System Viewer. But if he did so, he knew it would somehow warn the Evolvers that a System Administrator was messing around with their harmony.
Walker stood up and began to pace, thinking through the situation. He couldn't use an old system; it wouldn't work. The only option really available would be to create a new system from scratch and possibly alert everyone to what he was doing and his role within their multiverse. They'd find out eventually; he was pushing things up a bit...right?
Walker shook his head, "No, even Kwaya said not to piss them off." Knowing the answer was right in front of him, Walker stepped into his memories. He spent hours combing through all of the experiences he'd been through since first arriving, cataloging them as if they were books and he was a librarian returning them to the shelf. He finally landed on the moment Neus received his upgrade from subsystem assistant to the full thing.
"Wait a second....the notification was delayed.....they couldn't find him...." Walker said in wonder, "If they couldn't find them, it means that dimensional rifts, like the AI's use, are exempt from the system's management...."
Walker eyed the dimensional strand in his resources. It numbered in the low thousands, much less than the others, but it was still within the limit of what he could do. He started to plan out what needed to happen.
First, he'd have to either enter an AI's dimension or make his own.
Second, he'd have to punch a hole using the System viewer, then perfectly build his intent around the skill system, what it was, how it would work, and find a means to hide it.
Third, he'd have to somehow bring it back from the alternate dimension to this one, and integrate it into the current renditions system without being found out.....
"Piece of cake," he said with a sardonic smile, his eyes still on the Dimensional strand in front of him. The other strands, Karmic, Kinetic, and Nullification, stared out at him from within his menu, but so did Consciousness.
Consciousness......Consciousness.... he thought, tapping his chin. All of the other systems used Primordial energy, probably burning through them at a fast rate, but if I used a different strand right at the start, it could work.
What would happen if he imbued skills with strands of consciousness? He had thousands upon thousands of them. Thinking over Caddy, he knew that adding enough consciousness to anything would give it a minor form of life—thought, instincts. Isn't that what the point of skills was? To imbue certain talents and prowess into the hands of the entity it was bestowed upon? If every skill gained parts of consciousness as it grew in levels, it would be more effective. And, if the entity the skill were assigned to used them in unique ways, the consciousness would likely recognize that and adapt to better fit what was needed.
That could work.
But, if a singular genius managed to gain all the skills, every skill they could find, from events and milestones to Masteries and Professions, they would be unstoppable. Thus, his earlier thought of level restrictions made sense. He thought about that dilemma for some time, trying to see the ins and outs of the problem. Who could stop them if they gained every skill they could and went on a rampage? There had to be some form of limitation, something to slow progress for the Sapients just like Symphony's Monsters were restricted by how much magic inundated the area.
Then he had it.
In order to increase the level of each skill, the Sapient needed to find a new way to use it. Moving back to his idea on the Spearman Mastery, for Fleet-Footed to reach level 100, the entity assigned that specific consciousness-fueled skill would have to find one hundred different uses for it. Sure, a lot of Sapients would never move beyond the forty and fifty level mark, but those who have truly earned it would reach the peak goal of 100.
But, then what happens?
He was still staring at the Strand screen while he thought about it. He had given Caddy the consciousness strand for thought, but the little Monster hadn't truly been able to move and take on a life of its own until he'd added the life strand itself. Was that the trick? Should he build in, strand evolutions? Awakenings?
But if every skill could awaken, then wouldn't that also create a possible over-empowerment of Sapients?
Walker decided to imagine a hypothetical situation so he could test it out. Closing his eyes, he sees a small brown-headed child no older than eleven.
A small child huddles in an empty house. Their parents are gone, taken by Monsters in the night, and he only manages to finish one off that his parents have fought before they left in force. Inevitably, because of the Milestone system, he's unlocked his Mastery early due to killing a Monster. The boy chooses the Survivalist mastery and decides to learn all of the tricks to the running skill. They reach level 100 in the skill before they hit the ripe old age of fifteen. When they run, it's like the wind is carrying them. They're faster than everyone around them by leagues, moving from place to place before anyone gets a good look at them. But, they're angry, and their level 100 skill has awakened. It's taken on a life of its own, and the child has mostly modified the skill by running into people, Monsters, on Monsters while wearing cruel spikes, into the paths of those who couldn't protect him and his parents. The skill begins receiving the life strand and evolves as he continues to level it. Now, the skill that has only ever been used in anger, is advising the child. Moving him directly into the paths of others for no other reason than to cause harm. The child starts to wear armor as he runs.....
Walker shook his head, "What the fuck was that?"
Nothing answered him, but he did feel a warmth in his chest. Rather than call out to the Book of Souls, he considered what had just happened. Every time he'd used the Book of Souls directly, he'd seen the past. Now, it was showing him potential futures. Mirrors of what could be. Walker was stumped on what had just happened for the first time in a while.