After they had finished their dual cultivation session, they lay there, settling themselves with Riseth and relaxing in Alistair's arms. Alistair let the bliss wash over him before he eventually took the time to check the last skill selection, which he had neglected up until now.
Skill Choices: Tier: Skill Name: Description: [Supreme] Arcane Control
Improves [Control] when using concepts involving arcane means by a large margin.
Very large increase in efficiency and power when creating arcane constructs.
Reduced required energy reserves or energy maintenance costs when dealing with magic involving the arcane. Reduces the focus required to maintain arcane constructs by a moderate degree.
[Epic] Mental Fortress
This skill passively increases the user's resilience against [Mind] attacks by a large degree, scaling with the user's own [Mind] stat. The skill can further protect the user by creating a series of mental barriers shielding the user at a slight energy reserve cost of either [Qi] or [MP].
[Uncommon] Hand to Hand Proficiency
Increases proficiency and reaction time when fighting unarmed by a moderate degree.
The [Power] of the user's attacks are increased by a moderate amount when attacking without a weapon. The user's [Power] is increased by a large degree when grappling opponents.
[Common]
Wendigo Slayer Expertise
Increases [Power] by a moderate degree when attacking wendigoes and impairs their ability to regenerate slightly. The skill also improves the user's ability to [Sense] wendigos by a large degree.
Alistair had wondered why the system had taken so long to offer the Arcane Control skill. He speculated that it might be due to the lack of specialized arcane skills in his repertoire. Most of his abilities utilized arcane means but weren't purely arcane, aside from his Arcane Energy Manipulation skill. He had received Kinetic Control without; however, that particular skill came from a specialized selection offered by the system and might not work like the others. Either way, he had immediately picked the skill up, as the reduction in focus alone would have been a big enough boon for him. As he was at level 97 and still had a lot of leftover skill points from his Nurturing Ward rewards.
Alistair had invested many of his free stat points into his Mind and Senses stats, aiming to hone himself for fights against Psykers and Illusionists, who were currently dominating the early Tournament brackets. He refused to be beaten by them. Fortunately, his research and efforts in steeling his mind had resulted in hearing of the Mental Fortress skill. The skill had quickly spread throughout the trial as people grew tired of watching Psykers and Illusionists earn easy wins. Picking the Mental Fortress skill was a no-brainer, and he kept its active component running at all times. This practice had by now reduced the amount of energy he needed to reserve to keep it running. He had also noticed how the skill had jumped from rare to epic after he invested over 100 stat points into his Mind stat.
The Wendigo Slayer Expertise had not been a big surprise. He strongly considered picking it up in the hopes of combining it with the Machine Slayer Expertise and turning them into a compound skill. However, he decided to wait until he had a few more Slayer Expertise skills, as he worried it could combine into something too specialized if he tried too early. As for the Hand to Hand Proficiency skill, he suspected he had gotten it mostly from his grappling and occasional kicks and body checks, as most of his martial arts did not work well against beasts. He decided not to pick it despite still having three skill points to spend after picking up Mental Fortress.
Stats: Power [826]
Increases physical and magical damage as well as general speed and the ability to lift heavy things. Provides a small bonus to self-healing and Qi recovery.
Mental [823] Increases magical capacity and determines the quality and quantity of mana [MP], increases memorization and comprehension capacity, and increases spell power by a large degree. Control [899] Increases motor skills and magic/energy control by a large degree and increases the ability to concentrate by a moderate amount, with a large impact on the efficiency of [Qi] and [MP] usage. Body [1286]
Increases robustness and vitality of the body large impact on [HP] and [Qi] capacity, moderate impact on damage reduction and environmental & magical resistance, and large impact on self-healing.
Mind [958] Increases the defense of mind and soul, as well as mana regeneration by a large degree, and also increases the number of tasks possible at a time. It also significantly heightens the efficiency of attacks targeting the minds and souls of others. Senses [945] Increases reaction speed and fine control of senses like visual smell, etc., by a large degree. It also increases instincts to a large degree, with a small bonus to [MP] and [Qi] expenditure reduction.
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Alistair glanced over his stats and was quite happy with its spread. The Body stat had jumped ahead even further due to the Wendigo Slayer title, but Alistair did not mind as it was, in his eyes, his most important stat. Staying alive had the highest priority, and the fact that it increased two of his energy pool capacities had always made it the most attractive stat to him. He knew Nessyra specialized in the Mind stat while Riseth had mostly spread out her stats, with Charm taking a slight lead due to its Sinergy pool capacity and Dual Cultivation refinement benefits, which helped them both to earn free stats and speed up their cultivation, allowing them to not fall behind on cultivation and even stay far ahead of the curve.
Both his and Riseth's levels had synced up, and they both needed only three more levels before reaching the threshold of Grade 9. They had plans to continue hunting the previously sealed beasts of the Slayer trial but found the monsters there lacking compared to their own power now that they were so close to advancing again.
They had nearly cleared out the entire Automata Trial, leaving only a few stragglers behind, and were now waiting for the timer to run out to claim their rewards. Alistair was relieved to leave that world, as its low mana density had become increasingly uncomfortable, especially as they approached Grade 8. It felt akin to being at the top of a mountain with thin air, making it difficult to breathe. This experience reinforced their belief that they needed to conquer a mana-rich world to settle down. Raising a low-tier planet, even with treasures like the Heart of Mana, would require substantial time and investment and might lag behind their advancements in the long run.
During the following weeks, Juliana discovered another solo dungeon and acquired a spell book specializing in space magic. This book helped her piece together concepts she had struggled with on her own and advanced their understanding of pocket dimensions and storage magic, which his mother believed would be immensely valuable in the future. Juliana had also made some progress with Isabella. With the start of the Ascendants Tournament, Isabella had to confront the harsh reality of her children and husband being dead. She did not take the news well and isolated herself but agreed to join them in their exodus on Juliana's insistence.
Zarrias had taken over most of Isabella's duties and was currently being trained by Nessyra. Much to the displeasure of Dexter, who was somewhat jealous of the attention the youngster received and loved to make things more difficult for him while pretending to be a cute and dumb beast. Nessyra usually played along and chewed Zarrias out after Dexter ate a due report, chiding him to be more careful about handling documents, particularly sensitive ones. The other two youngling demons, Levine and Karrus, spend most of their time practicing or training with Desily and Simon. Desily had taken a particular shine on Levine as they got along well. Levine had a much higher affinity for fire and could enact the techniques Desily had thought up but could not perform due to her lower affinity.
After some discussions, the Fichera family decided to join them on their exodus on the condition that all their family and friends could come along if they wished. It was an easy agreement to make, though the list of people was extremely long due to the Ficheras' extensive connections to what they considered friends and family. After the negotiation, they had to drastically increase the number of beacons they had prepared.
During this time, Alistair managed to watch his friend Remo compete in the Tournament for a while. Unfortunately, Remo was eliminated after just a few matches, as he was only in early to mid Grade 9. He wore what appeared to be self-made hide armor and pants, armed with an axe provided by the system and only a handful of other magic items. Alistair speculated that Remo's trial world was difficult to navigate and that he had not found any hubs and only a handful of dungeons at best. The formerly somewhat plump man had cut his black hair and beard short and looked much closer to what Alistair remembered from their childhood, minus the beard. He had evolved into some kind of half-fey based on the pointy ears and aura and used most of his magic intuitively, though it was hard to tell without being able to identify or talk to him. Remo would most likely have to stay with the Kaiakos and have Melissa and the others catch him up on magic and arcane methods while they gathered the spread-out members of the clan. Alistair hoped Remo would join them when he noticed another monster worth hunting; Alistair corrected course, getting lost in his thoughts again as he wondered what his brother was up to as he had not heard from him in a while and was still owed a progress update.
James smiled as he admired the progress of the Kaiakos. They had made significant strides in the past month and were on track to complete the spacecraft well before the trial ended. While he lamented not being able to incorporate some of the more experimental modules he had envisioned, he accepted the necessity of leaving several module slots empty due to time constraints. James also regretted not being able to accompany Alistair and Riseth on their mission to find a new home, as the prospect sounded exciting. However, he was content to stay with the rest of the family and travel with the ship he built while continuing to work on his projects without the pressure of a deadline. Staying with the main ship to upgrade it while they traveled to pick up members scattered across the universe was simply more sensible. This arrangement would give him ample time to work on those modules, continue enhancing the spacecraft, and read more of the information they had pulled from the more advanced societies from the sub-sections during their journey. He was already excited at the prospect of finishing the craft and earning the titles it would bestow. He had heard of the incredible titles others received for completing much smaller projects, and if the Zephyr's titles were anything to go by, his magicraft skills and stats would go through the roof. Many jealous demons and other species were already jokingly calling him a cheat or a skilled monkey, envious of his skill set and the skill point and choice advantage enjoyed by the monkey subspecies like humans.
James disagreed with this sentiment. While humans did indeed receive more skill choices in earlier grades and more skill points than most species, they had to work hard on their skills and crafts to get ahead. Other species enjoyed their own advantages, such as being polydextrous, having higher affinity and stat growth, or possessing innate abilities like polymorphing, flight, and regeneration, which he would have to work much harder to attain or imitate. As he frequently pointed out, other species could also run dungeons or acquire titles to close the gap in skill points.
James sighed as he sat down, watching spider demons attach adamantine alloy plating to the craft. He still couldn't get used to their creepy-looking legs, but he knew he would have to, as they were part of the standout shipwright crew he had picked to join them. He needed to send Nessyra a message about that and owed his brother an update on the Kaiakos. Alistair and Simon had thrown his plans into disarray by bringing in a massive haul of cores with the regeneration concept. James had melded these cores with adamantine, creating self-repairing armor plating alloy which he called Adamend; it took some attempts until the metal plates just perfectly restored themselves without mutating out of shape, but with Oconoe's insight, they were now producing and installing the plates at the most crucial locations. Although they would eventually have enough metal for the entire craft and some side projects, they lacked the time to armor the entire spacecraft with these special platings. It was something they would do during their wait time on planets, though the process would be much slower as they doubted there would be a space dock to work on it.
With another sigh, he took out a bottle of spirit orchid wine from his storage, which they had scavenged from the Deonida. He took a quick swig, and the stress washed away. The stuff tasted amazing and greatly helped to soothe the mind. He knew Nessyra was tapping every connection she had to acquire some spirit orchid for them to propagate, as Barton had started hounding her for the materials after tasting the wine. He really hoped she would succeed, as the wine and Jessica were the only things keeping him going. He could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.
"I god damn hate deadlines," James murmured before getting back to work.