Owen hadn't ended up going to bed, he took turns between staring at the ceiling and the piece of paper with his friends phone numbers on them. There was still a part of him that new he wasn't at fault and that he was placing a lot of extra blame on himself for essentially nothing. He was never good with people and usually to avoid needing to be around conflict, would let himself take the blame for the situation.
His parents had used to fight often and he would try to calm them down, but of course it never worked. It often would just make them argue outside or upstairs while he sat downstairs unable to block out the sound of them arguing. All this led up to now where he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. He knew that his master wasn't upset with him, but the circumstances that he had landed himself in.
"I need a way to take my mind off of things." He mumbled to himself. Opening his notifications he couldn't help but smile slightly. Even if it wasn't the skill he had been supposed to learn, it was a nice one.
*You have upgraded Basic Spear Thrust to Polymath's Spear Mastery: Level 1. You have gained a partial understanding of how to use the spear technique's of a master. Grants the user a greater understanding of spear form and techniques. 5% additional damage dealt when using a spear. Can imbue your spear attacks with mana.
Mana charged attacks deal an additional 1% to 25% damage based on how much mana in charged into the attack. User can create an experience debt, minimum of 100 experience, to channel the spear mastery of the Polymath. Must have a mana stat of at least 50 for full effect. Can be used at a lower stat value, but will grant the user a lesser version.*
He would still need to talk to his master about skill levels. This had been this first skill he received that had a specific level tied to it and he was curious how high a level he could get with it.
He reread the skill and felt a little disgruntled. He had gained another skill that could cost him his experience, even if it would probably save his life, like his other skill had. He pushed the notifications aside and didn't even have the heart to be disappointed.
*You have channeled the memories tied to learning Polymath's Spear Mastery. You have accrued a 273 experience debt.*
He just sighed, it would take a long time to gather up that much experience, but he had gotten strong over the past week, he should be fine to stay level ten for a bit longer. Swiping away the last of his notifications, he just went back to staring at the ceiling. He wasn't in an awful mood this time, he was instead thinking about the future. Thinking about going home, He smiled at the thought of seeing his dad again.
He hoped his dad had gotten as strong as he had, but the only the he was still concerned about was how the rest of the world would do with every one coming back as basically superhumans in training. It didn't take him long to get back up and start moving back towards the courtyard. He still had time for training and he didn't want to waste it moping, he could do that back at home.
Xerxes was still lost in thought, sitting in the center of his room. He was not channeling mana into the orb or walls anymore, he was just sitting in the dark thinking. Not that sitting in an unlit room was actually enough for him to be unable to see, but he was concerned for Owen. The reason it was such a problem that Owen had the same inheritance he had was because of how inheritances worked.
Essentially when someone gains an inheritance, it combines with their body and soul and it becomes inseparable from them until they have gained a level of power that allows them to spilt sections of their soul off. These are then inextricably intwined with their soul and the original inheritance is diluted by the new holder. When they pass on the diluted inheritance, it is able to be just as strong, as it is up to the holder of the inheritance to power up their souls and body, thus strengthening the inheritance again, but it is still changed from the original.
Owen having the inheritance made by a god, will ultimately make him face harder challenges when leveling up. Xerxes was more aware of this than anyone else. His ear twitched and he heard shouting and the sounds of training and he smiled. At least his student had the drive to succeed required. He got up and teleport out of his room and into the main courtyard.
Owen was doing his best to copy the Monkey's paw spear technique, but his body just wouldn't move the way he needed it to. He had known it was listed by the system as one of the harder styles to learn, but he had wanted to see if the difficulty effected his skill enough to let it level up. So far, no luck. He had been trying for close to half an hour and was feeling relaxed and his body felt alive. When he took a chance to catch his breath, he heard his master call to him.
"Owen, come here for a moment." Owen nodded and rushed over. "How much of a debt did you accrue from upgrading your skill?" "273 experience," Owen said still feeling bitter about it. "Hm, that is much more than I had expected. Which means in order to pay off the debt, you need to fight something that has a minimum of twice that much since your 2nd grade soul will absorb some of that experience naturally." "Okay, can you explain that, we never got to it earlier. Why does half of my experience get taken by my soul?" His master nodded and said.
"We will go through it fast, but your soul temper is much like your body temper. Where your body temper effects the efficiency and durability of your body when it comes to stats. Your soul temper does that with the soul, but it is often times much harder to get a soul temper before a certain level of stats."
"Your perception, luck and mana are effected entirely by the soul. It will only make your mana more efficient, but as your soul increases in power, certain effects caused by skills are more effective. The stronger it is the less experience debt you create when using the Polymath skills"
Owen nodded, it made enough sense so far. "But why does my soul absorb experience, wouldn't it increase in power with my level anyways?" He could see his master was struggling to tell him. Either it wasn't something he could tell him, or something difficult to describe. "I am unable to get to specific as your body cannot handle this level of power, but if you look to your core, you will see itis burning a slightly different color now."
Owen did as he said and closed his eyes to get an easier view at his core. He was surprised, his core was still a fiery blue, but it was much closer to being between a green and blue coloration. It had the same type of what looked like flames dancing around the boundaries of his core looking like a mini sun. Every so often these flames would weave themselves together forming thick strands of power that would then rush through his meridians, before a greatly reduced amount of power returned to his core.
Opening his eyes, he saw his master beaming. "When your soul absorbs experience, you can think of it as fuel that helps you keep going and will slowly power up your core at the same time. Unlocking a 2nd grade soul temper is good, but it will make it that much slower to level up, but you will not be lacking in power." Owen nodded his understanding and with a gesture from his master went back to train his spear again.
He paused after moving slightly away from his master before turning back. "Don't worry about trying to find me a monster to gain experience from. You've made me strong, I can feel it, but it hasn't made me any better at fighting. If I don't have to farm monster for experience and slowly learn how to fight I'll probably die anyways." He then turned back and started training against the dummy again.
Xerxes was not quite sure what he was going to be able to teach Owen for his last day. Owen not wanting to immediately clear out his experience debt was admirable, but slightly misguided. Paying off the debt early would still allow him to farm, but it was possible he did not realize just how many monsters he would need to farm to pay the experience off. The monsters he had fought in the tutorial gave much more experience than normal monster of the same level would. He just shook his head amused and began coaching Owen's spear techniques.
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The rest of the day went by in a flash, during that time they had talked a little more about inheritances and how Owen would have a much harder time since his wasn't partially diluted. He would over time slowly learn all of the polymath skills and eventually upgrade them into his own slightly altered version as they fused more and more with his body and soul. Owen took the information that time around and was able to ask plenty of questions, but they always would switch back to training his spear mastery.
The night went by quick for Owen, it felt like he had hardly lied down, before the sun started to rise again. He had originally arrived at around noon the week before, so his best guess was that he would have a little more than 6 hours, before the system would whisk him away back home. He moved out to the courtyard as soon as he woke up and was surprised to see his master dressed in a training garb. Waving Owen closer, he ran forward quickly and and began stretching as well. "Today you will fight my echo." Owen sensed the seriousness of the conversation and nodded.
"If you can land even a single blow on my echo, I will make an effort to teach you a new skill, that you will be slightly familiar with already." Owen barely had time to nod, before a ghostly looking version of his master formed out of thin air and began stretching. As it stretched, it looked as if it was somehow becoming more real. It slowly began to color itself in as it began to look more and more like a faded copy of his master. He used Keen Eye on it and was surprised.
*Jeweled Monkey Emperor Xerxes' Echo Level 15. Cannot gain anymore information.*
Then they were fighting.
Owen was forced to dodge blow after blow as the echo danced through the different spear forms that Owen had been desperately practicing the day before. As they continued to fight he began getting upset. The echo was purposely pausing after making some attacks or leaving openings that felt possible to take advantage of, but now matter how hard he tried, he could land an attack. He would take advantage of a pause in the attacks to try to stab forwards and then swing his spear back in a wide arc, but each blow was knocked aside by the echo.
Suddenly a very familiar attack pattern began. The echo had begun swinging it's staff fast enough to break the sound barrier at Owen's head and he barely managed to get his spear up in time to deflect it to the side. For the first time during the fight, the echo began to form an earthen spike in it's hand but Owen was faster to react since the last time. He stomped down hard into it's hand before the spike could form and swung his spear in a wide arc.
He could feel his blood pumping hard enough to make his head pound and he took a half step back. As he went to follow up with a thrust infused with mana. The world had shifted. He had been moved several steps forward somehow and he heard a laugh from behind him. As he turned to look, a heavy blow slammed into his chest and sent him into the ground.
The earth shifted and seemed to come alive as it slowly began burying Owen alive. He launched himself back onto his feet and charged at the echo who was laughing manically.
Owen had to take a second to look to make sure his master was okay, but he was still just watching them fight a small smile on his face. Xerxes managed to barely shift his attention back to the fight, before the staff, covered in hardened earth was swung like a baseball bat at his head. Gritting his teeth, he imbued his head with mana and headbutted the staff. The end of the staff crumbled away, but Owen was sent back again his head ringing.
"Probably not the best idea you have had." His master shouted from the side lines. "Shut up, you're distracting me." Owen shouted back.
He wasn't quite as familiar with how his body temper was going to work, but he immediately flooded his body with mana. His mana pool dropping by half and continuing to drain slowly. He felt stronger than he ever had before and he rushed the echo. The echo had started to swing it's staff at the rushing figure, but a raised arm caused the staff to break once more. Spikes began forming everywhere as it just barely danced out of range of each of Owen's attacks.
With all of the mana coursing through his body, he managed to deflect each spike as he continued chasing the echo down. The faded version of his master seemed to shimmer for a second and he could feel that it had also started to empower itself with mana as a vapor seemed to come off of its body. Deciding it was time to end it, as his mana had reached below 5%, he switched to defensive and began blocking and redirecting every blow sent his way, much like the echo had done to him at the beginning of the fight.
Finally, the echo overreached when making a stab with its staff and Owen caught it between his arm and side. The echo made an attempt to tug it free, but he released the hold he had on it, causing the echo to stumble back. Powering a charge with the very last dregs of mana he had left. He rushed forward faster than he had ever had before and managed to graze the side of the echo as it just barely couldn't dodge in time.
Owen's attack made it poof into thin air and he collapsed into the ground. Out of curiosity, he pulled up his HP and MP status page and had to fight back laughter.
*You have 860 out of 1000 health points. You have 4 out of 1430 mana points.*
He was still disappointed to see that he didn't get any experience points from the fight, but that would be super broken if you could just farm your sponsor's echo for a week. He was still surprised to see had gotten notifications during the fight.
*Congratulations, Polymath's Spear Mastery: Level 1 has leveled up to Polymath's Spear Mastery: Level 2. You have learned the skill Empowered Body, This skill allows the user to imbue their body with intense mana, increasing all physical stats based on the amount of mana imbued. Can imbue your body with up to 50% of your total mana pool, temporarily increasing your physical stats by 25% in exchange.*
Owen started laughing. After a week of imbuing his body with enough mana to make his skin and muscle tear, he had finally gotten a skill for doing just that. He saw his master approach and stare down at him while he lied on the ground. "I assume you learned the skill?" There was a smug satisfaction in his voice as he spoke, but Owen just nodded while grinning.
"Then I suppose we should take one last look at your status, before it is time for you to go home. They still had a couple hours left until Owen would be whisked away by the system and taken back home. Owen nodded though and shared his status page again.
Owen: Human - Level 10
Vitality = 10
Mana = 13 + 10%
Strength = 11 + 2
Perception = 10
Agility = 14
Resilience = 12 + 2
Dexterity = 10 + 1
Luck = 6 + 1
Skills:
- Self Creator
- Polymath's Spear Mastery: Level 2
- Tactical Retreat
- Sneak Attack
- Polymath's Keen Eye
- Empowered Body
Tempers
- 1st Grade Body Temper
- 2nd Grade Soul Temper
-244 experience out of 200
Owen had to admit his status page was looking good, there was still a small blemish at the bottom of his screen showing him having negative experience towards his level, but there wasn't much he could do about that now. His master seemed to like his improved status screen as well.
"You have come a long way in a single week. It is something to feel pride over. You have much potential and the inheritance you have will grant you incredible power. If you are able to master yourself, you will without a doubt become a powerhouse on your world. Just remember, having an undiluted inheritance will make it so that you collect less experience from enemies, combined with your 2nd grade soul and your skills allowing you to create an experience debt. It will be a long path you will need to walk before you can stand above it all."
Owen just nodded as his master spoke. He wasn't sure absolute power was going to be his goal, but it had given him purpose. "Now, I must leave you for a time. I need to find myself an inheritor before the end of the tutorial commences." His master seemed to pause for a moment after saying that before turning to him. "Anyone you might recommend?" Owen had think thing long and hard about who he thought might have not gotten sponsored and despite how mean he felt it was, Jared was the only person to come to mind.
"There was someone I used to work with before the system and then had the same tutorial with. I had left them to fend for themselves and I feel like I owe him for that, If someone named Jared from my same tutorial still has no sponsor, then he might be a good choice. He was strong when he first started the tutorial and has a skill that lets him gather followers that boost..." He was interrupted as he spoke when his master shook his head no.
"It appears your friend has already been sponsored by someone else. It is of no matter though. This will have to be our goodbye however, as I will be preoccupied by trying to find an inheritor. It was nice to meet you and granted and opportunity to speak with me again, I would be honored if you'd take up the chance."
Xerxes said, a warm smile on his face. Owen nodded and stuck out a hand for his master to shake. Surprised by the gesture his master chuckled and shook the hand. He vanished then, Owen unable to sense his presence anywhere. He sat down in the courtyard and began to replenish his mana. It felt like a hurricane of thoughts was whirling through his head, but he stayed in one place just focused on his breathing until he felt his body move and could feel air conditioning cooling his neck.
Owen opened his eyes and smiled, he was finally home. And sitting across from him was his dad who smiled back at him, blinking his slightly reptilian eyes.