Shin stood at the edge of the training grounds, purple mana swirling and cracking in one hand, white wisping light flickering in the other. He fell deep into himself, pulling the image of a skill into existence. An immovable shield against magic, an unbreakable shroud against might. The two energies reached out to each other, meshing as the part repulsing twisted and reformed back into the center. Light swelled around him and shattered into slowly falling shards, a purple glean flashed over him into a transparent veil.
[Greater Buffer and Greater Mystic Wall have fused into Mystic Protection.]
‘Veil a target in protection against spells and martial arts.’
Shin rose in a state of concentration, thoughts of protection giving way to something else. Speed, overwhelming speed, the fastest movement possible. Nothing but that urge raced through his mind as he relaxed his body and bent slightly, readily his muscles like a coil. And he erupted into a sudden burst as his kick tore the air.
[Greater Quickstrike and Greater Quickstep have fused into Rapid.]
[Achievement: Skill Fusion II. 50 Attribute Points rewarded.]
‘Fuse 5 skills.’
With his second fused skill of the stage, he had finally freed up two skill slots and could achieve his much needed advancement. Shin put 50 stat points into Strength.
[Rank has advanced to Intermediate Lord. 200 Attribute Points rewarded.]
With the recent gains, he had points to spare. 64 went into Willpower immediately. He had had several encounters with skills that attacked his mind and his personal resolve could only take him so far. Should he faced another opponent stronger than that satori his mind wouldn’t be able to hold. He put 15 into Vitality and thought for a moment before putting 15 more. Rapid seemed quite draining.
145 went into Agility, maxing his potential speed based on his current Strength. Before he continued allotting points, the swirl of Quicken enveloped him from his Fleethide Boots and he took a leaning stance. His muscles flexed and overstrained, and he burst forward as fast as he could, attacking erratically in all directions, sonic booms from breaking the sound barrier more than ten times over blasting behind as he went.
He assessed himself, oblivious to the looks aimed drawn to his direction. He could handle twice his base speed. Rapid on top of that made the bones of his legs creak slightly and overstraining himself wasn’t viable in a long fight but it was nothing he couldn’t handle if he controlled his body precisely and carefully. The problem he actually found was that once again, his Perception was sorely lacking.
For the instant he burst with all his speed, the world became an indistinguishable blur. Not impossible to fight in, but it was a severe liability. He put 25 points into it and darted into basic agility training movements. There were no problems at all at base, and although a bit unclear he could see sufficiently when using either Rapid or Quicken alone. But it was just barely enough for everything he had.
That said, it was not a problem he could fix at the moment. There was a cap to his point total and he had to make compromises. Shin would have liked to increase it more but the remaining 37 points all went into Spirit, the far more important of the two. With that settled, he turned his attention to the skill option notifications, scrolling through the long list. Failing to find anything he was willing to fuse into his existing skills, he came to a quick decision over a pair.
[Acquired the uncommon tier skill Spirit Orb.]
[Acquired the uncommon tier skill Spiral.]
Shin focused and mana rotated at a center point in front of him. Faster and faster he willed it, the pressure drawing air into a surrounding whirlwind, and pushed it towards a wooden training dummy. The wind byproduct broke against the disrupting emanations, leaving the raw center spiral scrapping against the target. Shin let it persist for a short time before dispelling it away. Shallow scrape marks across of the surface of the dummy and some of it had been shaved away, but Shin had expected little more, the skill tied to Force after all.
He turned his attention to his other skill, a head sized orb of solid yellow light formed in the air near him, followed by two more. At his will the orbs shot forward bashing into training dummy several times each with considerable impact relative to the tier and level of the skill before the orbs shattered. Not as sturdy and thus not as reliable as he wanted but that would be fixed with upgrades and fusions. And most importantly, like Ripple the potency depended on the amount of mana used. Shin checked over his new and improved status.
[Human Shaman (rare) - Intermediate Lord]
Strength - 200 (260)
Agility - 600 (780)
Constitution - 50 (65)
Vitality - 115 (149)
Dexterity - 33 (43)
Perception - 175 (227)
Force - 24 (31)
Spirit - 503 (654)
Control - 150 (195)
Willpower - 100 (130)
Skills:
Greater Cure Wounds lvl. 10, Mystic Protection lvl. 1, Summon Mystic Kitsune Guardian lvl. 10, Grand Martial Combat lvl. 4, Rapid lvl. 1, Befriend Spirit lvl. 10, Meditation lvl. 10, Galvanize lvl. 10, Harvest Spirit lvl. 6, Spirit Possession lvl. 2, Ripple lvl. 10, Condense lvl. 10, Spirit Orb lvl. 1, Spiral lvl. 1,
Traits:
Body Supremacy, Eyes of the Spirit King, Ethereal Soul, Spiritkeeper,
“Why even bother being a summoner when you can just go full speedster and blitz everything?” Yen stepped out of her form of flames and walked over, seeing him done with the matters of ranking up.
Shin glanced over.
[Human Wizard (rare) - Lesser Lord]
Yen flinched a bit sensing the skill. “Don’t worry about me, I have everything planned out.” Her tone a bit defensive but mostly of genuine confidence.
“I like spirits.”
“Well… summons get better long term, I guess. How many do you have anyway? Just the kitsune, siren, and shug? Ah… Do you still have the siren?”
“They won’t die.” Shin’s tone didn’t change but he answered rather quickly, throwing Yen off a little.
“That’s good…” She fell silent for a moment feeling a bit awkward. “The monkey’s a rare elite, right? How much does it cost?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“24 mana a minute.”
“Fucking steep… Explains why you don’t use them much. What about the bodyguard of the year?”
“Inari was 225 for two hours before. Maybe 260 now?”
“Two… How much are your malakhs now?” Yen called out to Kamala, standing within the center of a lush grove.
“...175.”
“Is it elite too?”
“Variant.”
“50% more expensive for a quarter bump is a rip off.” Yen seemed to be reconsidering something until a realization interrupted her. “Hold on. It has a personality, how is it a summon?”
“I fused her with a radiant guardian.” Shin glanced down. “She doesn’t like you saying ‘it’.”
“Is… she here?” Yen glanced around.
“They live in my soul. They see through me.”
“...like all the t-?”
A thunderous crash interrupted Yenny. Over on the other side, Donny stood at the center of impact, the last wisps of aura draining from his shield held in front. Pieces of a training dummy slid down the wall of the grounds, struck straight off their stands. Donny relaxed his stance with a satisfied, eager smile, obsidian axe in hand.
“Fusion?”
“Yeah. Next one won’t be that easy though.” Donny had no trouble hearing Shin’s question with his perception.
“Quickstrike and Quickstep make Rapid. Attack and move at the same time.”
“I’ll take that into consideration.”
“Try not to get left behind.” Yen bantered as she returned to her own training.
Shin glanced at the three. They all had more than enough gold to remain in the grounds permanently, even after a few upgrades to their gear, with no need to take on quests. Just as well as every moment not spent training would be felt in the dungeon. Shin too had more to train, even if it was only for the upgrade to his skills, but for now he flickered away, finding Grenda’s store in no time.
The old gnome didn’t even bat an eye at Shin’s routine trespassing. A book appeared in her outstretched hand and Shin took it. “Types of rare tier origami are listed at the front. Pick which one you want to focus on first. One.” She emphasized.
Shin’s eyes ran down the list. “Scout.”
“Got a form in mind?”
“Floating eye.”
“I’d recommend something easier to start with but you’re the difficult type…”
Grenda put a talisman slip on the counter and drew a square much like the uncommon tier ones but this time added a circle just within the borders. Her hands flourished painting simple but aesthetic symbols around it, lastly two curved lines forming a horizontal oval within the circle, connected by dots on the end of each, and a single dot perfectly in the center of it all.
“No second demonstration. Since you have the talent, best hone memorizing and precision early on.”
Shin hopped over to his desk pulling a slip from the higher tier stack and getting straight to work, the formula fresh in his mind.
---
Yen slammed three silver coins on the counter in front of the arrogant elf. “75. Make me a journeyman now.”
The elf sighed and walked over to the crafting area. Yen followed and sat down in front a spinning wheel without needing instruction. She wetted her finger tips and took hold of a matted thread from the clump on the pole above, the end becoming smoother and finer as it went down and wound around the reel.
She worked the pump with her foot, the reel starting to spin and wind more of the matted thread. She held her hands in place, smoothing it finely as it slid down her fingertips as she carefully poured mana into the tool and the tool imbued the threads. The delicate fibers in her fingers broke and she stopped her foot without fuss, pinched a few more fibers down from the clump and teased them into hers to form a thread, and started the wheel again. This continued until she had a thick bolt of yarn on the reel, free of flaws and imbued with mana.
“Two more.”
“Why?” Yen pressed, somewhat annoyed.
“You may have shed the fingers of an ogre but those of an orc remain. It is an insult to the art for one such as yourself to even dream of creating something beautiful. Three bolts is the minimum needed to ensure you at least make something functional.”
Yen scowled but suppressed the deluge of words she had at the ready, and resumed her work. Half an hour in total passed and she finally had her three bolts. The elf tailor walked over to the next tool, a loom this time, and Yen followed.
“Simple, no medley of colors, I shan't have rumor spread I take coin for shoddy mentorship of no produce.”
Yen had half a mind to jam one of her bolts up the insufferable elf’s ass but sat without a word and loaded her yarn. The loom leaned more modern than medieval. There was no need for a tedious shuttle, instead a pair of rapiers served to needle the yarn through the weaved sections. She peddled the loom and the shafts containing the bulk of her yarn bobbed up and down, and the two sets of loosely spread out threads bobbed with it. The rapiers needled through the patterned weave and the finished product tightened into a fine sheet of fabric.
Melding the mana of each thread into a whole was just as important as this junction as the cloth itself. Done poorly and the mana will unravel, leaving behind mundane inferior cloth. The thickness of the cloth was key. Too thin and the mana would break more easily, too thick and it would become congested and clump. Yen’s focus intensified as she controlled the melding of mana and physically guided the threads into cloth. It was the hardest part of tailoring.
The cloth suddenly thinned in one section and snapped into a hole, rendering the parts of the cloth around it inert and thus cutting off the length of the usable cloth to that point, limiting what could be done with it. She glanced at the elf’s unmoved eyes that seemed to tell her failure was only to be expected. She cut the bad cloth away and reloaded her yarn, sitting back down with ignited determination.
It took her two hours to turn the bolts of yarn into cloth readying for the final stage of tailoring, sewing. It was the easiest part, wielding a needle and mana enriched thread to fashion the cloth into a design of choice, but it didn’t mean there was room for error. Sewing must be done carefully and in compatibility with the mana imbued or it would quickly ruin the cloth she had just spent so much effort to produce, sending her back to the starting line.
Yen breathed in a collected herself, envisioning the result she wanted, and her hands went to work. She stitched and cut and stitch again, slowly but surely bringing it into form. She pulled the needle and cut the thread raising her work with a smile.
[Velvet Dress - Uncommon]
The system would assess and recognize the type of article of clothing it was. One couldn’t make a mantle and call it a sash. She looked at her red velvet dress with a smile. An alluring top revealing the shoulders and cleavage, tight around the upper arms and loose around the lower, snug on her torso and waist into a skirt that hung just right. It wasn’t fit for adventuring nor did it possess the furnishing and flair she would have liked, but she had made a dress of beauty and she was proud.
“I suppose it would serve well as a whore’s heirloom.”
Yen would have burned him alive had she not still needed his tutorage and her mood not been more resistant to such annoyances with the message from the system.
[Achievement: Craftsman II. 50 Attribute Points rewarded.]
She put in the points immediately and advanced to Intermediate rank. The whopping 200 points Kamala had reluctantly informed her about went straight into the distribution she planned out in advance without hesitation, and she began scrolling through the uncommon tier skills available to wizards with something specific in mind.
---
Shin painted another talisman and toss it in front. The puff of smoke brought with it a tearing burst and a ripped talisman fell to the ground joining the few dozen others. Grenda hadn’t exaggerated the difficulty. Shin had only one success in the 23 attempts he made so far. His failure was such that Grenda had turned him in the direction of the books around to read the words of accomplished scribes and general guidebooks. It bored Shin honestly, despite the help it provided. He much preferred exploring the art on his own.
“I’m sorry…” A beautiful voice pleaded from within his soul, having just fully restored. “Don’t leave me… I’ll be strong…”
“I know.” The soft consolidation seemed to have an effect as Mara fell silent.
Those were no empty words. Shin had no doubt she would advance and upgrade, his feeling from their first encounter unchanged. Although he thought back to legendary reward list he hadn’t bothered to look through before. It wouldn’t hurt to lend her a hand.
---
In a medley of blood and violence, Bjorn cut through the charging lizardmen, wielding his greatsword with his only arm. His terribly scarred face wracked with rage and grief unpacifiable. Claws and crude weapons injured his body even further but still he pushed through the pain and looming death with no regard for himself.
He came across the boss before he knew it, a lightly armored lizardman barbarian, and charged just as any other. The monster swiped his sword away and spun with a lash of its tail sending Bjorn crashing into the wall. Bjorn rolled away as the lizardman’s cleaver carved deep into the rock and lunged, his sword parried again, this time off the boss’ one pauldron.
The monster raised its weapon of slaughter, and Bjorn smashed his head into the creature’s fanged jaw, blood spurting from the both of them. He swung his sword wrapped in aura and cleaved its arm in half. As the monster recoiled in pain he stepped in, draped in rage and swung again, claiming its head and the conquest of the dungeon with it.
Bjorn stood there, bloodied with heavy breath, none of the guilt and hatred consuming within abated at all. There was no joy felt with his reward nor peace of mind found from venting his anger. Only a base violent desire. A message appeared before him which he accepted without much thought and found himself in a dark space. Before him stood a giant bearded warrior, his very presence brutal and merciless.
“Do you wish vengeance, boy?” A deep grim voice asked. Bjorn did not answer. Not because he did not know, but because he could not find the words to express his rage truly.
“I asked if you crave vengeance!”
Emotion swelled up from his core until he could contain it no longer. A terrible agonized roar left his mouth, hatred and rage slowly overtaking the grief. And the blessing was granted.
“Then walk the bloodied path.”