There were many things to unpack from that statement. First and foremost was the fact that apparently Sarnakthros was Tier 100, which meant that he was 98 tiers stronger than the monster that Jonathan had heard so much about, Granath. Secondly was the stat bonus. At least he was getting something out of this exchange. It had come entirely out of left field, but now that the shock had passed, Jonathan realized the more wide ranging implications of this. Sarnakthros had died, and his soul had somehow made its way down to the Hells. Jonathan may well have been the last person that would ever talk to the god in person. Still, Jonathan was not beholden to the god. Perhaps initially, he was meant to be, but now he had a different purpose, one that was far grander. He was meant to break the Infinite Hells. If in doing that, he fulfilled his original objective, then that would be all well and good. If not, well by the time this was over, he would be too powerful for anyone to mess with.
Flashing one last curious glance at the intricately carved run on his side, Jonathan was jolted by a spark of intense pain. He had no idea how simply looking at the rune, without even using his Truesight, was so painful, but it was the creation of a being so far beyond him that he was nothing more than a bacteria in the face of his might. Well, technically he was just as strong as Sarnakthros, or at least at the same tier, but the god was in a highly diminished state.
“Well, I guess that happened,” he said, diffusing the tension within him. Shaking his head, he left his hiding place. He would not be able to fall asleep again after something like that.
He spent the next few days exploring the Ash Heaps, flitting between ruins, and trying to raise his level as quickly as he could. He also made quite a bit of progress on his Runecrafting and Truesight abilities, and even managed to get a few tiers on his martial arts and mana manipulation abilities. Neither of them leveled especially quickly, now that they were in Student Rank, but he still managed to bring them both up to Student Rank 4.
Jonathan had picked a majestic tower to upgrade his two abilities to their next level, and was in the middle of deliberating on the best way to do this. He knew quite a bit about the two concepts now, but only in the most basic sense. He was now able to use them almost effortlessly, but there was a lack of greater understanding that he sensed would come with a rank up. Instead of getting frustrated, he channeled his focus into pondering on the meaning of the two skills. Runecrafting was a derivative of his other skill, Truesight, and they were intrinsically linked. Without Truesight, Runecrafting was worthless, and without Runecrafting, he couldn't make sense of the runes that he found.
He first isolated the concept of Truesight in his head. It was an ability that allowed him to parse and use the runes that the System used to create skills, but it also seemed that it could be used for offensive purposes. He could also use those runes as well. At a basic level, the skill was simply what it said it was, a way to see beyond the veil of reality, and catch a glimpse of the hidden meaning of everything. However, there was far more to it than that. The skill was too closely linked to Runecrafting for them to be anything other than closely related things.
Over the next few minutes, he slowly realized that they were not just related, they were the two sides of the same coin. There was no reason for a skill to be broken up into parts that without each other, they were useless. It should be one cohesive entity, not two parts. As he began to direct his mind towards exploring the similarities between the two skills, he gradually found that the System had been deceiving him. In separating the two skills, it had placed a limiter by him, one that he had not been aware of until now. Neither could be used to their truest potential separately. However, the rigid skill constructions that the System created were already in place within Jonathan, and only editing the skills directly would achieve the result that he wanted. He knew that was a task that was far beyond his abilities at the moment, and he eventually gave up. Instead, he settled for the sudden rush of insight that he gained after studying the two skills closely. It turned out that the realization of how intrinsically linked they were was the key to Student Rank.
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You have reached Student Rank 1 with Truesight!
Your insatiable quest for forbidden knowledge knows no bounds. In continuing to explore your abilities, you have found an intrinsic connection between this skill, and the ability to create and manipulate runes. For they are one and the same,
+5 to Wisdom
You have access to a skill!
Focused Scry:Rare
Burn a larger amount of Divinity to empower your Trusight abilities beyond their natural limiter.
Accept?
Y/N
Surprisingly enough, the derivative skill was only Rare Rank, but Jonathan supposed that the System was refusing to admit that it had been stymied by him. This also showed that the System, while being extremely powerful, was bound by strict rules. Next up was Runecfraftng.
You have reached Student Rank 1 with Runecrafting!
Your insatiable quest for forbidden knowledge knows no bounds. In continuing to explore your abilities, you have found an intrinsic connection between this skill, and the ability to see the fabric of reality. For they are one and the same,
+5 to Intelligence
You have access to a skill!
Runes of Power:Rare
Increases the power and stability of your runes by a small amount.
Accept?
Y/N
Jonathan quickly accepted the skill, and closed his eyes, trying to see if he could detect a difference between his runecrafting skills prior to the skill and after gaining it. Feeling no increase in his comprehension, he assumed that it was a passive skill. The only way to test it would be to draw out a rune and see just how effective it was. It wasn't hard choosing which rune, since he only knew one to a degree sufficient to creation, and he got working on the Rune of Hatred. This time, his subconscious made subtle alterations to the rune, adding a few lines here and there that served no apparent purpose.
When he finished, and imbued it with Divinity, the rune glowed brighter than it ever had before. He had made sure to only use half of his Divinity pool, so as to create an accurate test of his abilities, since he had gained another Divinity point lately. The amount of energy that he had from his Divinity did not appear on his stat sheet, but he assumed that it was the same as his other resources, which was ten points per stat point in Divinity. Unfortunately, he could only raise the stat by special means, and he could not add points to it, but it seemed as if even the tiny amount that he had was capable of working great wonders.