Aalam
Aalam woke up and the first thing he did was use his sensory domain to check his own appearance, a part of him afraid he’d changed to look like an actual soul lord, huge, gaunt, and creepy. Thankfully, however, he looked mostly the same.
Sure, his almost orange eyes were now truly orange, and would glow with soul light to any magical senses. And, sure, his shoulder-length dark blue hair had become semi-translucent like Krysta’s. But his body shape and face were the same and all his body parts were in full working order.
Aalam unconsciously looked over at Mila, who’d seemingly fallen asleep in her bed in the main residence of the enlightenment zone, and then he belatedly realized his transformation had taken a lot longer than the previous times, over five days according to the time shown on Earth’s soul net.
Not wanting to wake her, Aalam just sat up in the isolation formation, and, having to hurry while the energy from his racial advancement was still permeating his soul, he initiated the process of choosing his two new racial abilities.
Awakening your sixth racial ability as a Sublime Soul Heavenly Spark Primal Soul Lord (D-Mythic).
Please choose from the following three selections.
1. Master of Creation (Fabled): Greatly increase the power of crafting category skills.
2. Primal Heart (Mythic): Seriously increase the normal flow rate of your qi, mana, and psyforce while greatly increasing their burst potential and ability to break down impurities.
3. King’s Aura (Mythic): Increase the effectiveness of the Aura stat by 200%
Aalam had received the chance to awaken to weaker versions of Master of Creation and King’s Aura before, but, as previously, he wasn’t that interested. Boosting his crafting skills would allow him to pour more energy into them, but that wouldn’t have much of an effect as his crafting skills would always be of the max possible grade for his rank and would always be boosted by one of his classes, so they would be able to take all the energy he’d want to pour into them almost every time.
Crafting wasn’t like combat. How quick the skill could use energy and how easily the energy would flow through the skill when uncontrolled didn’t matter much. The skills just needed to be strong enough to be able to accomplish what he wanted and then everything else would rely on his knowledge, affinities, and control.
As for increasing his Aura stat, Princess’s Aura was already the most useful of Mila’s racial abilities for him to shadow, so what would be the point of choosing the same ability line for himself?
Primal Heart, on the other hand, was from one of the most desired racial ability lines in the universe, the version he had access to able to more than triple his cultivation speed and increase his combat power by more than 20%. Even compared to Master of Creation, Primal Heart would have a greater effect on his future crafting capabilities, giving him greater control over his energies. And, most important to Aalam’s immediate future, it would drastically increase the rate at which he could absorb nascent energy from cultivation resources.
Without thinking much more, he chose it, and, like previous times where he could choose more than one new racial ability after being reborn, the upgrade wouldn’t start until he made his second choice.
Awakening your seventh racial ability as a Sublime Soul Heavenly Spark Primal Soul Lord (D-Mythic).
Please choose from the following three selections.
1. King’s Command (Mythic): Seriously increase the power of noble category skills.
2. Passive Daoist (Mythic): Gain insights into Laws through meditation with ease, but not at all through combat.
3. Master of Thought (Mythic): Seriously increase the power of psychic category skills.
This was a more difficult choice.
Master of Thought could be thrown out immediately, Aalam’s path, despite his early class choices, not one which would focus on psyforce more than qi and mana. But between King’s Command and Passive Daoist, he couldn’t easily decide.
King’s Command would add together with his first class and Emperor uniqueness to boost his noble category skills to a ridiculous degree, and he had already planned for noble category skills to be the core of his build, but Passive Daoist really interested him.
For Isaiah, Active Daoist, which had the opposite effects—boosting the ease of Law advancement during combat but making it more difficult during normal times—was a trap racial ability as normal Law advancement for combatants was usually done by gaining insights while fighting and then consolidating those insights during times of rest, something the racial ability made more difficult. But Passive Daoist was different, especially for Aalam.
Aalam spent most of his free time working in his workshop, and this was where most of his Law advancements happened. Also, all of his Laws were of the order category, broad in focus and useful for multiple applications, but not ideal for any. For him, Passive Daoist, especially at the Mythic grade, would make a huge difference in how fast he could advance his Laws.
Aalam was starting to lean towards taking Passive Daoist as his seventh racial ability, but then he had an epiphany about how the racial ability likely worked and quickly decided against it.
The ease of a cultivator or monster gaining insights into a Law was based on three complementary factors, their affinity with the Law, their attunement with the universe, and the environment where they were training. Affinity was hard to change, mostly based on a soul’s race and bloodline while somewhat influenced by their natural talent. Sure, affinities could be increased by racial abilities, class benefits, and uniquenesses, but they generally didn’t fluctuate day to day. Attunement to the universe was then even simpler, directly represented in the System by the Attunement stat, and it rarely fluctuated as well. Finally, the environment of a cultivator was mostly based on the rank of the planet they lived on, albeit with most planets providing a better environment for training in some Laws than others, and the only ability Aalam knew of which could change the nature of the environment for a cultivator was the law wings line of uniquenesses, like his new uniqueness, Law Wings King.
Passive Daoist, in order to have the effect of making it nearly impossible to learn Laws while in combat, would have to do one of the following whenever he was fighting: lower his affinities with all Laws, greatly lessen his effective Attunement stat, or, less likely, alter his local environment to make using his Laws much, much more difficult.
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No matter how it worked, while it would likely make him a better crafter as that work was done outside of combat, it would drastically lower his combat power, and that wasn’t acceptable.
Aalam was Earth’s strongest, the one everyone else’s safety relied on, and his strength was the reason Mila could go out into the universe and do crazy things, as she knew he could come save her so long as she didn’t get in trouble with the universe’s highest powers.
Were he to choose Passive Daoist, however, not only would his future advancements likely be cut off as he wouldn’t have the strength to fight for the resources he’d need, everyone on Earth would almost certainly die in the relatively near future as well, killed off by his mother and her family as he wouldn’t have the power to protect them.
No longer considering any other options, Aalam chose King’s Command to be his seventh racial ability, and then he fell unconscious again, Primal Heart especially altering his soul quite a bit.
* * *
When Aalam woke up, another two days had passed and, as planned, Mila had already started her own racial evolution in his crafting hall, making use of the other C rank soul she’d gathered. So, without consulting her or Nana Xara, Aalam began the process of choosing his D rank classes so he could advance his rank, and he started with the advancement of his Heavenly Spark Psycrafter Prince class, for which he’d met the requirements of eighteen possible Mythic grade upgrades.
But, as Aalam already had a plan and all eighteen upgrades were expected given the information he’d earned from the War of the Chosen, he barely looked at the other seventeen and directly chose Heavenly Spark Tricrafter King.
Heavenly Spark Tricrafter King (D-Mythic)
Lord of Laws, craft, energy, and Territory
Effects:
Increase the effectiveness of the Aura and Attunement stats by 200%
Raise affinity with all Laws by 300%
Seriously increase the power of crafting and noble category skills
Seriously increase the normal flow rate of your qi, mana, and psyforce while greatly increasing their burst potential and ability to break down impurities
Skill slots:
6
May not learn skills of the following categories:
Offensive
Stat bonuses per level:
Strength: 540
Agility: 540
Endurance: 1,152
Toughness: 540
Vitality: 720
Perception: 720
Magic: 1,152
Spirit: 1,152
Soul: 1,296
Aura: 720
Attunement: 540
Luck: 0
Requirements:
3 early grade Law Pupae for each of the 12 elements, has the Heavenly Spark Psycrafter Prince (E-Fabled) class, has control over a huge amount of Territory for an E rank, has personally designed and then crafted at least three Fabled grade artifacts using triforce-based crafting skills
When he later advanced to C rank, Heavenly Spark Tricrafter King would form the foundation for three separate classes, but this was only because of the next three D rank classes he chose.
Virtuous Sage (D-Fabled)
A virtuous creator of arrays
Effects:
Greatly increase the power of angelic category skills
Increase the speed of mastering skills by 300%
Class slots +1
Skill slots:
6
May not learn skills of the following categories:
NA
Stat bonuses per level:
Strength: 432
Agility: 432
Endurance: 432
Toughness: 432
Vitality: 432
Perception: 432
Magic: 432
Spirit: 432
Soul: 4,320
Aura: 0
Attunement: 0
Luck: 0
Requirements:
3 sets of opposing Law Larvae at peak grade or higher, has Soul as the highest stat, has personally invented at least 6 new arrays with E rank effects, has never once given into his sin of highest inclination
The best aspect of Virtuous Sage was that it allowed for an extra class, and, following the plan he’d made as far back as when he hadn’t even started the first challenge of the tutorial, Aalam chose his third class immediately.
Sinful Sage (D-Fabled)
A sinful creator of arrays
Effects:
Greatly increase the power of diabolical category skills
Increase the speed of mastering skills by 300%
Class slots +1
Skill slots:
6
May not learn skills of the following categories:
NA
Stat bonuses per level:
Strength: 432
Agility: 432
Endurance: 432
Toughness: 432
Vitality: 432
Perception: 432
Magic: 432
Spirit: 432
Soul: 4,320
Aura: 0
Attunement: 0
Luck: 0
Requirements:
3 sets of opposing Law Larvae at peak grade or higher, has Soul as the highest stat, has personally invented at least 6 new arrays with E rank effects, has completely fallen for one of the seven sins
After Epecteos’s death, Aalam had completely fallen for the sin of wrath, and, while Mila had removed most of the karmic sin which had resulted from that, it didn’t matter much as he’d fallen into the sin again for several months after Diana was killed, so he still qualified for the class without having to do anything extra.
Now, normally, having both the Virtuous Sage and Sinful Sage classes would be pointless. Other than Mila, Aalam didn’t know any cultivators or monsters who used both diabolic and angelic skills—as doing so was just asking to hit a bottleneck for those without the Sin Eater racial ability—and, given the overlapping nature of the other two effects, one wouldn’t see much gain. Instead of a 600% increase in the speed of mastering skills, there would only be a 450% increase, and, instead of being able to choose two extra classes, a cultivator or monster would only be able to choose 1.
This last part, however, changed if one had a strong soul variant race, allowing for an extra class option, though its effects would be halved. And, with a sublime soul variant race instead, Aalam could choose a fourth class and not have the class’s effects halved, only its stat gains upon leveling up.
So, as planned, he chose the third class which he could later merge with Virtuous Sage and Sinful Sage when he reached C rank, Elevated Void Sage.
Elevated Void Sage (D-Fabled)
An elevated creator of arrays, yet empty
Effects:
Increase the effectiveness of all stats by 25%
Increase the speed of mastering skills by 300%
May freely fuse mastered skills
Skill slots:
10
May not learn skills of the following categories:
NA
Stat bonuses per level:
Strength: 432
Agility: 432
Endurance: 432
Toughness: 432
Vitality: 432
Perception: 432
Magic: 432
Spirit: 432
Soul: 4,320
Aura: 0
Attunement: 0
Luck: 0
Requirements:
3 sets of opposing Law Larvae at peak grade or higher, has Soul as the highest stat, has personally invented at least 8 new arrays with E rank effects, has no skills
When he reached C rank, he would be able to merge all three classes together into the C rank class Sage (C-Empyrean), using the class path route Nana Xara would have chosen for herself if she’d had at least a strong soul race and known the path existed when she reached A rank, but there were more advantages to the three sage line classes than just how they could be merged during his next race advancement.
Aalam’s increase to the speed of mastering skills from the three classes was in total 600%, and, when combined with his oath, his total increase was 1200%. Combined with the fact all his sage line classes had no limitations with skills and Mila’s new uniqueness, which would give her several extra skill slots he could make use of as well, and Aalam was going to be merging a lot of new skills at D rank, several of which had never been seen in the history of the universe.