The first thing Lance did on his newfound journey was go home and rest. The next day, however, after waking up with a huge hangover, he took a ride up to Steincorp, which was conveniently only 30 minutes from Colin’s place.
Walking in, he immediately set off the alarm At the front reception desk. It was then that he remembered his stupid ‘attack’ on the Steincorp Technician many months back.
After explaining to a security guard what happened, and proving he only had a task he needed to accomplish and no ulterior motives, they let him use the automated machines.
[You wish to Reset your Internum V?]
‘Yes’ Lance thought, before the blue box with white text refreshed, turning green this time.
[Welcome To Internum V, Created by Steincorp! You are officially on your way to join the Rankers!]
[Would you like to-]
‘Pass. I would like to select my Path now.’
[Which Path shall you select?]
Without hesitation, Lance spoke. Erm, rather, thought.
‘I would like to join the Mystic Path’
Lance felt a warm energy fill his body as the effects took place. For the first time in a while, he smiled, because he had actually done his research this time.
The Brown haired man genuinely wondered what on earth he was thinking when he picked the Cultivation Path Before. Was he crazy? Did he lose a screw?
You see, not all of the Paths are built the same. Sure, statistically, Cultivators do better than Mystics or Warriors, but they require resources, Boss Cores, and good meditation spots. All of these things required either money or an Academy's support, of which he had neither.
At first, Lance planned to become a Warrior; It made sense since it synced up with his spear skill, garbage as it was, and he had heard a lot of good things about the path from its long history. Problem was, monsters are dangerous, and the only way to truly grow as a Warrior is to fight things stronger than you. This made it especially hard to grow later on in the Ranks, as stronger monsters were often rarer.
This left one path, the Mystic Path. It didn't require you to fight to grow, only for you to absorb ambient mana from your surroundings, something that could in theory be done anywhere. Sure, it cost a lot of energy, time, and focus to build a mana circle, especially for a rare magic theme, but it was the best alternative.
To give an example of the effort difference, you could look at the skill slot ratio. For every 25 Warrior levels, you gain a new skill slot. The same goes for every 10 organs purified or levels of core growth in cultivators. Mystics? They get one every 5 Circles formed.
Lance, still, was ready to put in the extra effort to give this a shot. If he failed, he could always change to the Warrior Path later. What's another wasted year?
…
The next thing Lance did was go to his local Skill Book Market. The Market was only open on Weekdays, but thankfully it was a Tuesday, giving ample time to shop for the next few days.
He at first planned to seek out Mystic Skill Books to build up his firepower, but all of them had requirements of a specific type of circle needed. As Lance hadn't even begun making his first circle, he avoided this for now.
Instead, Lance focused on Neutral Skill books, ones for any Class. He wasn't having much luck there either until he stumbled across a rather low priced one that surprised him.
[If at first you don't succeed- Rank B]
The skill was very much affordable, but that made no sense as C rank and higher skills were worth a lot more.
Seeing his confusion, the seller chuckled.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ah, that Skill has been sold from person to person for over 15 years now. Read the description and you'll probably understand why it's so cheap.”
Lance opened the Skill Book's description, frowning.
[If you fail at a task, for example an attack, your next attempt will Be 1% more likely to succeed. If you succeed, the applied effect will be equivalent to the amount of percentage added to succeed plus the original intended effect. Can stack up to 10 times.]
‘Ah, so it's a very small scale effect skill of some sort? I still don't see why it's so cheap?’
Lance turned to the man selling the skill, who smirked.
“Let me tell you, before you get excited, a lot of people have tried using this skill, and it's not worth the skill slot. Even if you can remove it later, it barely impacts attacks, spells, or whatever martial nonsense The cultivators use.”
The man shrugged after seeing Lance was still slightly interested.
“I'll sell It if you want it, but don't come crying to me when you realize you made a mistake. I know you're just gonna bring it back here like everyone else.”
Lance pondered it a bit. The man was right, the skill didn't seem very useful. However, something inside told Lance he should still buy it.
In the end, he did, and the Skill book went directly into Lance's skill slots.
…
Back home, Lance pondered his new skill some.
‘Everyone with this skill before seemed to focus on the usage for attacks and such. But it's considered B rank, meaning There should be at least some good use for it, right?’
Lance read the description again.
[If you fail a task, for example an attack, your next attempt will be 1% more likely to succeed.]
This was simple. You could get up to a 10% success chance added to your regular skill.
The other part however, was what puzzled Lance.
[If you succeed, the applied effect will be equivalent to the amount of percentage added to succeed plus the original intended effect.]
Lance pondered.
‘Hold on… So your saying if i failed 10 times, an attack would be 110% its normal potential? I guess that *could* be useful to go past your limits, but… Maybe this *was* a mistake.’
Lance sighed as he realized that maybe the seller was right. I mean, countless people before had failed to use the skill.
Before removing the skill, Lance read the description one last time.
*for example, an attack…*
Lance shot up.
“What if the Description is misleading? It says attacks are an option, but not the only thing you can do. Tasks… tasks apply to anything you do, technically?”
Lance spoke out loud.
“What if… I used this while for example, making a Magic Circle? Would that mean at maximum failure, I'd get a Magic Circle 10% stronger than the norm?”
Lance smirked, pumping his fist and lighting a fire in his eyes.
“Only one way to find out!”
…
It was a regular Monday morning when Colin woke to the smell of smoke. Racing downstairs, he let out a sigh when the only thing he could see was his friend Lance awkwardly holding a fireball.
“First Circle?” Colin asked.
Lance smirked. “First Circle!”
Colin smiled, before grabbing his coat.
“Wanna do a dungeon run buddy? We can finally do some justice for that eye of yours.”
Lance didn't say anything in reply, simply grabbing his spear and a hat from the coat rack.
Colin raised an eyebrow. “I get the spear, but why the hat?”
Lance stamped His spear on the ground like a staff. “I'm a wizard now, and every wizard needs a cool hat.”
Colin chuckled. Good lord his friend was weird.
…
“Fireball!” Lance cried out as the strange fish-headed men raced toward him with swords and spears. In his hand, a warmth grew as the fireball formed. As it presented itself, Lance willed the small fireball forward at a rather fast pace.
It was difficult for the awkward out of water fishmen to move, so the fireball hit the first one right on the mark. Shrieking from the burn, the fishman threw his spear in retaliation, barely missing Lance's ear.
Lance smiled, despite everything. Sure, the F rank dungeon was still difficult At this level, but now he could actually fight back.
Added to that, he knew that the skill he picked up had worked. Compared to a normal fireball with one circle of support, his was ever so slightly bigger and faster. Not really that noticeable to the naked eye, it still meant everything for him.
‘At this rate, for every 10 circles I'll get one free if I just auto fail the circle creation. And since there's no real cost to failing early in the process, I'll have no issues on that front either!’
Lance laughed, feeling like a genius from one of his stories. Cheats were always the best.
Still, the fishmen were gaining on him, so he conjured another fireball. Hitting the same fishman from before, it dropped to the floor rolling around in pain before finally dying.
“Nice! My first kill!”
Lance felt proud. Then he felt anxiety as all 5 of the other fishman in the room turned to the shrieking dead fish, then to him. Suddenly, 3 fishman turned to 2 and then to 7. Lance pulled his spear from his back and began to awkwardly chuckle.
“Uh… guys, the Fishmen just all started to stare at me, and now they are slowly approaching. What do I do…?”
Nobody answered.
“Colin? Anthony? A-Anyone? I could use some help right now-”
Still no response.
The first of the 7 Fishman Lashed forward with a spear, ripping Lance’s sleeve but thankfully not drawing blood. Lance countered by stabbing the Spear in his hands into its head. That was one down, 6 to go.
two fishman now appeared, each wielding swords. They wobbled awkwardly at first, but suddenly one dashed forward with renewed grace.
“F-Fireball!” Lance cried as he stunted the Fishman's charge with a flame to the face. Blinded but not hurt much, the fishman flailed around. Lance dashed at the second swordsman and quickly stabbed it in the chest as an arrow whizzed by.
Turns out, the 3rd of the 6 remaining fishmen was an archer.
“What the fuck, what is this luck!?!”
He quickly pulled his spear out of fishman 2 and stabbed it into the blinded fishman 3's eye. Both went down, flopping on the floor.
Now 4 remained, the archer and 3 mace wielders. one of the mace fish rushed forward, and Lance parried it with his spear before cutting its neck open. Macefish 1 went down quickly, but macefish 2 and 3 were more cautious, and worked with the archer.
Actually, the Archer was clearly the leader here, by the looks of things. It was cautiously directing the fish from the back. Making a hand motion, it fired an arrow that finally struck Lance, right in the arm.
Lance cried out in pain, dropping his spear for a moment.
The two mace fish rushed forward, and Lance panicked.
“F-Fuck! Fireball! Fireball! Fireball! FIREBALL!-”
Fireball after fireball struck the two fish that were rushing Forward, and thankfully, it seemed to halt them as one burned completely to a crisp and the other burst into flames,rolling on the floor To put it out. picking up his spear, Lance stabbed the final mace fish to put it out of its misery.
Looking ahead, the Archer was now panicked and began running. Lance tried to run after it, but quickly became winded.
‘I need more training on the exercise front.’
Luckily, as he arrived in the next room, he found Colin along with the dead archer.
The group leader turned to Lance.
“Where the hell were you?”
Lance rubbed his face.
“Apparently I pissed off Poseidon.”
To this, everyone laughed, including Colin.
Later, Lance learned the danger of Shrieker Variant Monsters. Turns out, they'll turn every nearby enemy on you, and the only way to tell is a star pattern on their skin somewhere.
Lance made it a mission to study dungeons more when he got back home so this wouldn't happen ever again. And with that, everyone left.