Shards

Skillshards, Classshards and Raceshards are usually referred to as Shards. Shards must be Sliced into a person's aura before their use. Skillshards grant an active or passive skill to the user, Classshards grant a class, which bestows stat bonuses, special abilities and extra Shard slots, and Raceshards physically change the user to a humanoid creature, giving stat bonuses and special abilities.

Most people can safely Slice up to 2 open shards, but some rare people are limited to one, or capable of Slicing up to 3, but a person can only have one race tree and one class tree, and will reject a second Classshard or Raceshard.

Shards drop from monsters in the Labyrinth, and are extremely rare before floor 5, becoming more common the higher a delver is in the Labyrinth.

Shard levels

Shards of any tier have 5 levels, and will always drop at level 1. A Raceshard, Classshard or passive Skillshard will absorb essence whenever the delver is involved in killing a monster, and an active Skillshard will absorb essence whenever it is used in fighting a monster. Utility Skillshards will absorb essence when used.

Impedement Shards have no known way to absorb essence other than direct application of alchemically extracted free essence.

A Skillshard will require 100*level*10tier essence to reach the next level, while a Classshard will require x3 essence and a Raceshard will require x5 essence.

Closed, locked and sealed Shards

When a Shard reaches level 5, it will no longer absorb essence, and will no longer count against a delver's Shard limit.

If a Shard can be ranked-up and the delver has a free Shard slot, it will become Closed when it reaches level 5.

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If a Shard can be ranked-up but the delver is at their maximum number of Shards, it will become Locked instead of Closed. A Locked Shard can still be ranked-up, but will cause the delver to enter a state of breach.

* A Shard Sliced inside a Classshard's bonus slot will never become locked.

If a closed Shard has no possible rank-up option, it will become Sealed.

Tiers and rank-ups

A Shard's tier is a measure of its overall power. The lowest tier a Shard can have is 0, and Shards of as high as tier 6 have been recorded.

Classshards, Raceshards and some Skillshards can rank-up after reaching their maximum level, increasing in tier and power.

For Skillshards, the rank-up process is fairly simple. If the Shard has multiple tiers, it will become Closed when maxed, and can always be ranked-up to the next tier. Notable examples of Skillshards which can be ranked up are Manaflow and Endurance. If a Skillshard is ranked-up, it will change to a level 1 Shard of the next tier, and the delver will lose all benefits of the previous tier.

Classshards can be ranked-up in the same way as a Skillshard, but will retain all benefits of the lower tier. Alternatively, most Classshards can be ranked-up into sub-classes, assuming the delver can fulfill the subclass's requirements. In this case, the original Classshard becomes Sealed, and a new Shard is spawned within the delver's aura.

* For example, a tier 0 swordsman class, upon reaching level 5, can be ranked up into a tier 1 swordsman. If the delver has an agility-related Skillshard, like dodge or leap, they will have the option to rank-up into a fencer

Raceshards evolve when ranking up, becoming a stronger race within the same race tree when they reach tier 1, 3 or 6. The abilities granted by lower tiers are kept when the Shards ranks-up.

Breach

A delver's aura is formed from their personal essence. Whenever a Shard is Sliced directly into the aura, it creates a reservoir in the aura, into which the Shard can absorb essence from combat.

When a delver has too many reservoirs in their aura, the reservoirs start to interfere with the flow of essence through their aura, causing a state of breach.

The more extra Shards a delver has Sliced, the higher the stage of breach they are in. There are five stages of breach currently known.

1. A first stage breach reduces the ability of a delver's Shards to absorb essence to 25% of the normal rate.

2. A second stage breach reduces a delver's mana recover to 10% of its normal rate.

3. A third stage breach causes all bonuses from Raceshards to be lost

4. A fourth stage breach causes all bonuses from Classshards to be lost

5. A fifth stage breach causes the delver to lose access to all Skillshards.

It is impossible to Slice Shards when in a stage 5 breach.