Nathan’s unfocused eyes stared up at the cloudless blue sky. That's strange. Nathan thought, only half awake, I guess I’m having a dream about being back on the manticore level? That's a first. Never thought that I would get this desperate for the non-library multiverse. Nathan lay there for a couple of seconds, feeling the wind blow through his scraggly beard. This is strangely vivid for a dream. Suddenly, the memories flooded back to him.
Nathan jolted into a sitting position, then legs shaking, stood up. “I–I did it.” Nathan’s face broke into a grin as he took in the grassland that surrounded him. The verdant rolling hills, one of which he stood on. The shrub patches that dotted his surroundings. The nearly complete absence of other animals that cause the only noise in the grassland to be the wind.
“I DID IT!” Nathan hollered euphorically at the grassy expanse that was, just like he remembered. Once he had calmed down, Nathan sat down cross legged and turned his soul perception inward, towards the former location of his soul wound. Nathan was puzzled when, instead of perceiving the spren, he saw a spherical empty space. No, empty wasn't the right word, it was more like there was an absence of energy, an absence that was waiting to be filled.
It seemed like that was all the prompting the Interface needed, as it interrupted Nathan's nascent train of thought before it could begin, immediately springing into his soul perception.
Interface
Personal:
Name: Nathan Holbrich
Age: Nineteen years, six months
Hight: 5’10
Species: Sapiens
Genus: Homo
Physical State:
Strength: Mediocre
Endurance: Mediocre
Perception: Poor
Reflex: Mediocre
Willpower: Great
Condition(s): N/A
Existential Tier:
Awakened Mortal: You have awakened and have gained an Ability. You have gained one rank in all attributes.
>>
Ascendant: You have awakened and have gained an Ability. You have gained one rank in all attributes. You have ascended and gained a Path. You have gained a second additional rank in each attribute. Your attributes have been adjusted to your existential tier.
Ability:
Prodigy: If you activate this Ability during an action, you experience yourself doing the action twice. This allows you to grasp the principles behind actions much faster. If you activate this Ability while doing an action that gathers knowledge, you experience two fold time dilation. This allows you to comprehend knowledge twice as quickly as you would have otherwise. This Ability can not be activated during combat.
Type: Master
Secondary Types: Knowledge, Mind, Time
Nathan frowned after reading his physical state. Did ascending make me weaker? I mean, getting rid of the soul wound is great, but not worth losing most of my physical power. Nathan decided to test his strength by attempting one of the hardest forms of his spike fighting style. He would jump up, rotating, and then plunge his air spike into the back of his imaginary target.
Nathan crouched and kept up into the air. Nathan overshot, jumping about twenty feet straight up. Oops. Because the fall was longer than he expected, he over-rotated and landed on his back with a thump.
Well, Nathan smiled as he picked himself up, I guess It just raised my power ceiling, not lowered my strength. As Nathan finished reading his Interface and dismissed it, an alert sprung into his soul perception.
Alert
Congratulations: You may choose a Path!
You have two Paths available!
Path of Spike Mastery: You gain the ability to cultivate the spike mastery concept. You will gain the ability to accumulate spike mastery energy by doing related actions. Once your energy crosses certain thresholds you will gain attribute upgrades. Through this method you may surpass normal tier attribute limits. You may channel the energy into any spike weapons that you wield.
Type: Weapon(Spike)
Secondary type: Master
Path of the Grandmaster: Through extreme soul control and willpower you keep your soul core from aspecting to any type other than master. If you do an action that you have a minimum level of Skill in, part of your soul core will temporarily aspect to it. These will be quantified as Skills. Some Skills can allow you to ignore your attribute limit. The power of these Skills will be quantified as levels.
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Type: Master
Secondary type: N/A
Nathan almost immediately selected the first option after he finished reading it. That’s so fucking overpowered! I could raise my power infinitely, just by training my spikes enough! I might actually be able to kill Knowledge if I raise my attributes high enough! Nathan schooled himself and finished reading his Interface.
Nathan weighed both options in his head. Spike mastery would allow it to be ridiculously overpowered, but the only thing that it can do is spikes.
Plus, Nathan had just realized, it might be really, really slow. I need a way to get strong quickly, so that I don't die in the power assessment area’s later levels.
Nathan groaned. You know, that name sucks. I’m just gonna call it the Gauntlet. Nathan nodded, happy with the name. Anyway, all I really know about grandmaster is that it lets me do more stuff. Buuut, it probably doesn’t have as much of an attribute boost potential as spike mastery does.
“Damn.” Nathan really wasn't sure which one he should choose. Nathan stood on the grassy hill for a little while before he decided that he should choose one. I can’t let the manticore get too much of a head start on me. In the end there was only one factor in which the two were differentiated that wasn't balanced out by something else. Grandmaster sounds cooler.
Alert
Congratulations: You have selected a Path!
Path of the Grandmaster: Through extreme soul control and willpower you keep your soul core from aspecting to any type other than master. If you do an action that you have a minimum level of Skill in, part of your soul core will temporarily aspect to it. These will be quantified as Skills. Some Skills can allow you to ignore your attribute limit. The power of these Skills will be quantified as levels.
Type: Master
Secondary type: N/A
Skills:
Active Skills (Maximum five):
N/A
Skill reserve:
N/A
Nathan cracked his neck. “Let's get this party started.” Nathan glanced at the setting sun. “Tomorrow. Let’s get this party started tomorrow.”
////
Nathan yawned, stretching from his position in the center of a shrub. He had decided to sleep there on the off chance that the manticore would find him if he stayed in the open. Alright, now I need to find some of the manticore’s quills to fight with.
Nathan walked over to an animal trail he had seen the previous night. Over the next few hours Nathan followed the trail of various animals, attempting to find where they intersected the manticore's trail, at which point they were eaten. Once Nathan had found the maticores trail, he had followed it until he found some quills that the manticore had shed.
As Nathan was in the process of picking up two of the quills, an Interface alert appeared in his soul perception.
Alert
Congratulations: You have fulfilled the requirements for the Skill Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1)!
Would you like to Equip the Skill Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1) as one of your Active Skills? (The Skill can be transferred to your Skill reserved at any time at the cost of losing all levels within the Skills tier.)
Yes. Nathan affirmed, curious as to what would happen.
Alert
The Skill Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1) has been placed in one of your Active Skill slots. You have four Active Skill slots remaining.
Basic Land Animal Tracking (Tier 1) Level 1: You instinctively know some of the signs to look for while tracking animals on dry land, and can learn about an animal by looking at its tracks. This effect scales with the level of the Skill.
Skills :
Active Skills (Maximum five):
Basic Land Animal Tracking (Tier 1) Level 1
Skill reserve:
N/A
Nathan read through the Interface screen, and immediately studied the manticore’s tracks, attempting to use his new Skill.
Unbidden, the silhouette of an eight or nine foot long creature with claws and a mane of quills that was the general shape of the manticore popped into his head. Damn, that’s awesome.
After Nathan used the Skill a couple more times he got an alert.
Alert
Congratulations: You have gained a level in The Skill Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1).
Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1) Level 1: You instinctively know some of the signs to look for while tracking animals on dry land, and can learn about an animal by looking at its tracks. This effect scales with the level of the Skill.
>>
Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1) Level 2:You instinctively know some of the signs to look for while tracking animals on dry land, and can learn about an animal by looking at its tracks. This effect scales with the level of the Skill.
So that's how it works. His query satisfied, Nathan began walking back to the spot where he had left the quills. Nathan got there in a few minutes, having noted a more efficient path back as he attempted to level his Skill.
Picking up the quills and doing some quick stabbing motions, Nathan identified a problem. The quills were very smooth, which, combined with the fact that Nathan could only barely fit his hands around them, made them difficult to hold.
If I use these to fight the manticore, they're gonna fly out of my hands on the first impact. I’ve got to figure out some way to prevent that from happening.
Nathan tried a few different things before he realized that the tips of the quills were harder than the bases. Leveraging the fact, Nathan used one quill to carve out the sides of the other quill’s base.
As a finishing touch, Nathan carved furrows off the front of the handle for his fingers. Repeating the process on the other one, Nathan felt satisfied with how the quills, no, the spikes, had turned out.
Nathan walked to the top of a nearby hill and began his katas.
////
Nathan sprung diagonally to the left, turning while in midair. His right heel delivered a crushing strike to the temple of his imaginary human opponent and he fell into a crouching stance, one leg behind him like a loaded spring.
Kicking off the ground, Nathan dashed forwards and plunged his left spike into the chest of his imaginary opponent, his shoulders nearly perpendicular to the ground, his right spike ready to deflect any final strike the enemy might have made.
Nathan panted, having just finished his tenth repetition of all of the techniques in his style. Nathan wiped his brow and began walking down the hill, waiting expectantly.
“Finally.” Nathan groaned as his Interface gave him the long alert.
Alert
Congratulations: You have fulfilled the requirements for the Skill Intermediate Holbrich Spike Style(Tier 2)!
Would you like to Equip the Skill Intermediate Holbrich Spike Style(Tier 2) as one of your Active Skills? (The Skill can be transferred to your Skill reserved at any time at the cost of losing all levels within the Skills tier.)
“Yes.” Nathan affirmed.
Alert
The Skill Intermediate Holbrich Spike Style(Tier 2) has been placed in one of your Active Skill slots. You have three Active Skill slots remaining.
Intermediate Holbrich Spike Style(Tier 2) Level 1: You have practiced the Holbrich Spike Style for years and are quite proficient with it. All movements that use the holbrich fighting style operate as if your Reflex, Endurance, and Strength were ten percent higher than they actually are. Each rank in an attribute increases the related capabilities by fifty percent. Each level in this Skill causes the power increase to go up by two percent. The current power increase is ten percent.
Skills :
Active Skills (Maximum five):
Intermediate Holbrich Spike Style(Tier 2) Level 1
Basic Land Animal Tracking (Tier 1) Level 2
Skill reserve:
N/A
So that's what a tier two Skill looks like. That's really powerful. Nathan began stretching his arms and legs.
Nathan picked up his spikes and jogged up the hill that he had been practicing on previously. I’m coming for you, Manticore. Just you wait.
But in the meantime… Nathan cracked his neck and grinned. “It's time to grind.”