CHAPTER 136: Skills
It was easy for Adam to use the Rift menu to clean up the pool, though he had to get more snacks and another floating chair. The pool also had to be refilled.
The girls had come in when they felt a flare of anger from his river and then pain coming through their connections. They had all been on edge, concerned about Adam over the last few days, staying close should he need them.
His un-tiered body seemed unable to handle even a fraction of the power that Tier 4 Gregor had. 25% was probably the most he could safely draw from it without needing to consume hordes of blood to regenerate from the damage.
That left him back at the beginning, needing to figure out how to get his own class so he could strengthen his body. Either that or to figure out how to create another skill, like he had done with [Body and Soul Shaping], that would allow his body to bear the power.
Rather than go back to experimenting or exploring, Adam decided he needed to comfort his girls some. Alissa snickered at seeing him without clothes and had Ashtala use a few skills on her before she forcibly pushed him down. He accepted it since he had felt the concern and loneliness through all of their connections over the last few days.
Not limited to Alissa, he also spent time canoodling with each of them, until they were all reassured that he was fine. Once they finished their good times and had grabbed some food, they fell asleep in various places around his condo.
Alissa and Brittney went into his oversized bed, where Ashtala, in Leputi fashion, slept tightly with them. Andrea fell asleep on a sofa, and Abbey hugged Adam’s arm tightly and fell asleep sitting next to him.
Adam was tired, but he had made so much progress unexpectedly. Finding out what was causing the soul corruption had brought him a massive amount of relief. Oddly, it didn’t make him any stronger or give him any new tools, but having this knowledge might set him on a path. If he could figure out how to draw those memory splatters into his area, then he could create more pseudo-skills based on the originals.
That left Adam too excited to sleep, regardless of how tired he was.
As he felt Abbey’s steady breathing next to him, he once more pulled up his status. It was still combined and blacked out. The race was once more the only thing that displayed correctly, probably because it was the only thing the same on all three panels.
Once more he peeled the displays apart, taking only a few minutes this time. He already knew the stats so he looked at the skill areas, starting with his own status.
[Body and Soul Shaping]
This skill allows the holder to manipulate the shape of the channels between his soul and body. The stronger the holder’s understanding of this skill, the greater control he will have over the power and variety of shaping that can be done.
The skill had a very vague description before and still did, but he had a greater understanding of what it did now. Gregor’s strength was more than his body could handle, so this skill made use of the future Adam’s skill set to contain the energy and protect him from it. Pulling too much would still bleed the power through the channels this skill created, but it allowed him to use a greater portion of that power and prevent a higher amount of damage to himself.
It also said there was other shaping he could do as well. So future experiments might be a good idea, though only with a healer or gobs of blood available to him.
Next, he looked at the Gregor status sheet. There were a lot of black lines under the skills portion, but a few skills were now revealed. Adam wondered if he had to discover the memory of the skill before he could see them or their definitions. That was both annoying and fun. Exploring and trying to unlock things in his skill set did make it feel more like a game. Though not having the skills already in life and death struggles was much less fun.
Adam checked out the skill names and descriptions that had been displayed.
[Intimidation]
Put fear into chosen targets. The stronger the skill, the more targets it can be used on at once.
Suddenly Adam was reminded of two days after the [System] arrived, when Andrea had mentioned his “scary face.” [Intimidation] must be what caused that. It was probably also why people said he was always so intense when speaking about invaders. That must trigger the skill.
The next few were ones he had been using for a while. The descriptions mattered less because he already had seen their effects, though his usage of the pseudo-skills did differ from the descriptions in some cases. Such as how [Gladiator’s Approach] didn’t allow him to release energy.
[Incapacitating Shout]
Force your will upon the surrounding people, preventing them from taking action. Time stunned varies based on the power difference between the user and target and their familiarity with the ability. Weaker targets will suffer physical and mental damage from the attack.
[Gladiator’s Approach]
Teleport to a target to complete an attack. Upon completing the attack, energy is released providing a knockback and damage affect to in-range targets.
[Kinetic Impact]
Add a barrier of energy to oneself or a weapon held by the user. This barrier uses force to repulse anything it strikes, increases the power of blows, or slow incoming attacks.
[Power Through]
Increases user’s Strength and Agility based on the level difference between himself and an aggregation of the nearby enemies at the cost of Intelligence and Wisdom.
There were also a few berserker skills that he had used but hadn’t known their names or even realized they were skills. What he thought of as the heat and river came from these skills as well. The descriptions helped him understand why his emotions were so different now. They also showed that his pseudo-skill versions were not completely under his control.
[Unquenchable Rage]
Increases the user’s anger. Reduces other emotions. The anger consumes the user’s Intelligence and Wisdom and becomes power to the user. The longer this skill is used the more permanently Intelligence and Wisdom are consumed.
This skill is necessary to use other class skills.
[Power from Rage]
Alters the user’s stats based on emotional state. Strength and agility increase the more rage is produced from skills.
Requires [Rage] generating skill to use.
[Unquenchable Rage] must be what he thought of as the heat while [Power from Rage] was the river. The skill descriptions explained why Gregor’s stat sheet had no Intelligence or Wisdom. He must have consumed them permanently when fighting.
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Adam frowned as he realized something. Since he couldn’t control the activation of the pseudo-skill [Unquenchable Rage], it constantly heightened his anger and then reacted to that uncontrolled emotion instead of being something he could decide to activate or not, did that mean he would lose all his Intelligence and Wisdom faster than Tier 4 Gregor did? What would happen once all his Intelligence and Wisdom were gone? Was it when his consciousness was subsumed into the river?
Adam’s base stats were only 4 and 5. That wouldn’t take long to permanently burn through. Or had they started higher and already been burned down? But that didn’t make sense either. He was using Tier 4 power on an unranked body, so shouldn’t he be burned out already?
Too many unknowns. He couldn’t know the answers to these questions. Did his pseudo-skill work differently enough that it wouldn’t consume them? Was he just not using enough of the power to cause a permanent burn, since he probably only received 20% of it before igniting his own body?
Adam let out a sigh, disturbing Abbey. He waited for her to reposition, cuddling closer to his chest. Then he looked at the last Grand Blood Berserker skill that wasn’t hidden from him.
[Life from Blood]
Consume the life force within blood to increase energy generation. This energy can increase stamina, self-healing, and mana.
The part about mana stumped Adam. Berserkers weren’t casters. They even consumed their Intelligence, the stat that increased spell power, as well as Wisdom, the one that determined their mana pool. Then how could this skill benefit berserkers by providing mana? Unless one of the locked skills used or was empowered by mana.
A lot to think about and explore. There was still one more status sheet to review though.
Older Adam’s sheet said he was a Tier 5 Soul Forger. It seemed that older Adam was doing pretty well for himself to get to Tier 5. Only one tier for him to go to be on top. Surely someone that strong would be able to protect the Earth with how rare Lashtam said it was to get that high. Especially in only 11 years.
His class was even an epic one. Difficult to get. Even more difficult considering that, according to Lashtam, soul manipulation classes could only be gained by the Red Clan. Had future Adam been bitten by those damn vampire like people and turned into one himself?
In a world of bizarre changes since the [System] came, this was stepping it up a notch. It was like all this just didn’t fit in. Adam could see why the Scyrric referred to him as an aberration. He was breaking so many rules.
Now Adam knew where his disparate skill sets came from. Conflicting builds. He had the berserker path that focused on physical stats and skills, banging against a soul and mind manipulation class that was even higher tiered. Odd that while the soul forger was one tier higher, he had more control and awareness of the berserker class.
Adam even realized that if he could unlock more pseudo-skills based on the soul forger class, then he could be an even stronger version of the mind witch. With a mental fist pump, Adam looked at the skills he had.
[Charm]
This skill allows others to think positively of the user, finding them attractive and trustworthy. Targets that are already hostile will be affected less or unaffected entirely.
It’s not like everyone found Adam attractive or trustworthy, but it could explain why people were so ready to follow him once he got on their good sides. Especially given that people were more likely to be scared of him due to his Scary Face, [Intimidation]. Maybe the two skills worked together effectively to frighten a person into submission so [Charm] could take effect. Or maybe [Charm] was just stronger than his [Intimidation].
[Soothe]
Calm a target so that they are less likely to attack or to think negative thoughts until you make a hostile move. Already hostile targets will be less effected.
And that would explain how he was able to bring people’s trauma down. A convenient skill, though once again not quite how his pseudo version worked. With both [Charm] and [Soothe] they seemed to be active all the time, not something he turns on and off. Just his presence caused them to affect people.
[Soul Resonance]
The user is able to sense surrounding souls, their intent, and qualities.
Upgrade skill to increase area of awareness or amount of info gained.
That sounded like Adam’s soul map. Too bad he couldn’t use skill points to boost that one. It was probably one of his most useful skills, preventing him from being damaged and allowing him to know more about the people around him.
[Soul Vision]
Allows the user to view the inside of souls.
This skill is required for many other class skills to work.
Such a basic sounding skill, but this seemed like the core of everything in this class. This was probably what allowed him to dive into his own soul or to follow connections he created to explore other people’s souls.
[Soul Combine]
Allows the user to create conduits between their own soul and a target’s, enhancing the skills that work directly on other souls and allowing power to be siphoned from the target. This skill can merge parts of souls when being reshaped or bind two soul pieces together.
This was the connections that Adam formed, though it seemed like there was a lot more to this skill than he realized. He would need to experiment to see if he could do all that it said or if his pseudo version was more limited. Adam wasn’t sure where to find targets to experiment with. That sounded dangerous and he didn’t want to do anything to harm his friends or allies.
[Environmental Control]
Allows a user to increase or decrease the presence created from their soul. Increasing allows people to feel the power contained in the user’s soul, sometimes to a physically affected degree. Decreasing will reduce the presence up to the point of imperceptibility. A high level in this skill can mask the present of the user entirely.
This sounded like something Adam used without realizing it. Mainly increasing his presence and threat level. The decrease didn’t often trigger, but if it could be controlled, then this class’s kit felt very keyed to infiltration, not just soul manipulating. Making yourself unnoticeable and trustworthy would let him walk into anywhere.
In this case, the subtlety that this skill provided would easily be overridden by his berserker skills. A touch of anger and his fury, his presence, would flare. Especially with that voice always telling him to conquer. Adam doubted he’d be able to use this skill in the decreased way around invaders.
[Memory Manipulation]
This very rare skill allows the user to manipulate the memories within a soul they have breached. They may watch, lock, or replace memories of those without mental defenses.
Requires a Soul Sight skill to activate.
Obviously, this was what he had done with Brandon, replacing the self-twisted memory of the goblin stabbing him. Adam frequently used this to check people’s memories and spaces to make sure they weren’t being affected like the police had been. Hopefully it didn’t make Adam a creepy voyeur. He would definitely keep knowledge of this skill to himself.
Thinking of when he helped break Detective Baker and the other police from the control of the mind witch, what she did felt like a different type of skill than this one. The mind witch could only be Tier 3 at most, so [Memory Manipulation] was probably more than she could do.
[Emotional Manipulation]
Replace a target’s emotions with ones of your choosing. Can be used to create a dependence from the target to the user.
Requires a Soul Sight skill to activate.
Wow, that made it sound rather despicable. That was closer to what had been done to the police. This one probably paired well with Charm. Get them to lower their guard and then the skill [Emotional Manipulation] binds them to you emotionally. Adam shivered at that.
He also began to feel a little guilty. What if he was unintentionally manipulating the girls, his friends, or even the whole Sentinel Army? He didn’t think that was what he had been doing, but it concerned him that it was a possibility.
To Adam it felt more like sharing emotions. Allowing another person to know what you are feeling real time. He could tell which emotions came from which connection and could choose to ignore them. The girls said it didn’t override their own emotions, so until he saw evidence otherwise, he would stick with this.
[Soul Bolt]
Attack a soul directly. Damage can be done to any feature kept within the soul. The power of the attack varies based on the strength discrepancy between the user and target’s souls.
Can only be resisted with soul fortifying skills. No innate resistances can apply.
Wow. The one attack he could see on older Adam’s status, and it required specific skills to block. No wonder the Red Clan was so powerful. This attack was ranged and didn’t cause physical damage. Adam could picture it being used to cause a distraction or to assassinate someone without leaving evidence, as long as the caster had a stronger soul than the target. He figured that if this skill was limited to the Red Clan, then it would usually be obvious where it came from, but as a human, he would be unknown.
He had used this skill enough times, on the goblin chief, the elf prince, and the big rock Petramus. It hadn’t worked at all against the Scyrric base commander. It wasn’t powerful enough to take someone out quickly, but maybe he needed to learn how to use it more effectively. Maybe by targeting a specific part of the soul he could do more damage.
There was a lot for Adam to think about, consider, and discover. For now, he felt a cocoon of satisfaction surround him as he finally learned more about what had happened in his soul. He had learned a lot, but this was just the tip of the iceberg.
There was so much more he could get. More pseudo-skills, memories of the original skills being used, understanding about the make-up of the soul, and more.
With a sense of accomplishment, hope in future growth being possible, and knowing that there was a far distance he could still go, Adam smiled. With both arms he wrapped Abbey up, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and then closed his eyes. The exhaustion and stress from the last few days released as he drifted to sleep.