Chapter 48: Skills, skills and skills
Back at Sairal’s tree, I watch him peel back the mossy carpet, revealing the fresh earth beneath. Worms flee into their tunnels from the light and a multitude of insects scitter away in fright.
The dryad kneels down and digs small channels in the dirt with the tip of his finger. White threads of fungus spread out in the shallow channels. In seconds the threads snake out, wrapping around the upper roots of his tree and the moss around it.
Together with him, I watch the Mycorrhizal Network grow, connecting all the plants in the vicinity. I’m not certain how it will protect us from the Cave crawlers but it’s one of his skills. He’s decades old, so he must’ve racked up quite a few feats and thereby unlocked some good stuff.
Seamlessly he puts the moss back in place, covering up the rich earth beneath the canopy of his tree. He looks over his shoulder at me, “Thanks for waiting. Is there a problem?”
I shake my head. “No. I have a few questions about the System. I looked in the book but there isn’t much about it in there, and the few things that do discuss the subject are strange, to say the least,” I answer.
He grabs his bow off a branch and gestures for me to follow him, “Pestering me with questions?” he jokes, “The last time you did that was months ago. How the times change.”
A grim smile spreads on my face, “You aren’t alone in that. So much has happened or is happening.”
We stroll along the walls for several minutes in quiet, enjoying this moment between fighting Cave crawlers for our lives and building defences ceaselessly. But we can’t hang onto moments. There is always something else to do, be it raising mushroom guardians, creating spore concoctions, or building said defences.
“What did you want to talk about?” Sairal asks.
“Skills. The more I know about them, the stranger they seem to be.” I take my time gathering the words before continuing, “The book said that skills are like tools; that some are the equivalent of a hammer and others that to a scalpel. But that isn’t all, is it? There’s more to them. The descriptions the system gives are often vague and aren’t what the skill can do in its entirety.”
Mirth shines in his eyes as he walks along the walls, inspecting them for wear and tear, “So. What is your question?”
“I have several,” I admit. The mirth in his eyes brightens and I’m forced to speak the first thing on my mind, “I know that’s it’s long overdue but what are skills? I’ve sensed them in my mind as something physical for a while now.”
Sairal nods, “It might be a bit late, though, now you will understand everything, I think.” He waves to a set of mushroom guardians on the walls as we pass them. “Skills can indeed be compared to tools we use to shape the world, however, in my opinion, that approach is…basic.”
I nod along with him, having come that far on my own, “Why’s that?”
“Green, you have to understand that no approach or interpretation of the system is inherently wrong. We all perceive the world differently so therefore our perspectives are different as well. Mine is somewhat complex.” His cheeks grow flushed as the topic shifts to something more personal.
“Can I know?” I ask eagerly.
“Yes but don’t tell anyone else,” he says before continuing, “My view of the system revolves around rules and law. Be it magic, luck, or society, everything moves and shifts according to laws. Skills are for me like laws on their own.”
“You can bend skills,” I state, curious.
Sairal simply nods, “Indeed, though you should be careful with that. But tell me, Green, can’t laws be bent too? Through gold or sheer influence, we can change the law, and twist it around us in the ways we want to. Skills are like that. However, there is one key difference: Skills can never be broken. Do you understand?” the dryad asks, the mirth out of his eyes, replaced by a cold seriousness.
I give him a shrug, “Partly? I don’t have an understanding like yours yet. I barely know how skills work.”
The dryad waves at another group of mushroom guardians. “You don’t need to have one for now. It’ll become important later on. For now, only focus on the parts you don’t understand and you will reach a conclusion sooner than later.”
“It’s just strange. We can bend skills to our wishes to a certain degree. Does that influence the upgrades we gain? How far can we bend a skill? What are the repercussions?”
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He pats my shoulder, “Slow down there. Firstly, why shouldn’t we be able to bend skills? Be they laws or an extension of our bodies, they are as much a part of ourselves as the system. We can take, shape, at the cost of a faint warning, a loss of efficiency, or overtaxing our bodies.”
“I did something like that before down in the Depths with Cobalt. I somehow suffused the air with Stamina, letting bindweed grow over it all. Then today when the Cave crawlers attacked, I somehow added resources to a skill that didn’t need any. It’s weird.”
“Is it?” Sairal asks himself and me, “Is it strange that we can choose how to apply a skill and how we bend it?”
I give him a flat stare, “Yes. Because then anything should be possible. With enough force, I should be able to make Solar Assimilation absorb shadows too. With a bit of power Dance of Death can be triggered anywhere,” I say frustrated. Somehow it feels like the system is falling apart here or being far stranger than it usually is.
That playful mirth enters his eyes again as we shift gears and muse about something beyond our grasp. “What you said is possible but you are ignoring the fact that skills will become weaker the further you stray away they are from what they were meant to be. Fire and I might still retain some control over hot air but water? The same goes for let’s say Sword Combat. With enough force, you can bend the skill to apply to a spear, but is the headache and the negligible advantage worth it?”
We pass the bindweed battlements, mist swirling over the walls as Cobalt takes on some threat beyond the walls. “What about the repercussions? Is a headache all we can get?”
“Well, the mind is used to bend the skill. For physical skills there might be some adverse effects, the same goes for magic-related ones. When you bend laws far enough they damage society or disturb the order of the world. When you stretch your arm in the opposite direction, you hurt yourself so it isn’t out of the question,” he happily says.
Sairal hops on top of the battlements, and I follow him, pulling myself up on the bindweed vines. We watch Cobalt duke it out with an (F) grade Cave crawler that decided it was strong enough to waltz over the walls.
The mist moves differently than it usually does, twisting around her in more natural patterns. It sits on her shoulders, coiling around her arms as she punches outwards at the monster, cracking its left mandible. “Look at that,” Sairal grins, “She reached her first Milestone.”
“Milestone?” I echo the words?
“A Milestone is achieved for each 50 levels in a skill. It gives you more control over it, making it more a part of yourself instead of the system.”
Cobalt finishes off the monster by tearing off the remaining mandible and finishing it by blasting the monster with frosts until the insect’s head freezes solid. Kicking the corpse once, she turns around and heads back to the walls.
Effortlessly she climbs them and greets us before turning to the mushroom guardians and explaining what she did, going over each of her moves and analyzing the fight.
We leave them alone and continue our stroll along the walls, greeting the five not-so-small mushroom guardians who all have reached (H) grade.
“Green,” Sairal says, petting Cinella before moving on, “I hope I have answered all your questions about skills. I have a few things to ask too,” he says scratching the back of his head. “Sure,” I say while looking out at the lake, seeing Leo and Aeru edge towards it before getting warned off by one of the (E) grade mushroom guardians.
Sairal sighs and looks away, “Asking you this goes against some promises I made to myself,” he shakes his head, “It needs to be done. You are edging closer to your next evolution and with the Cave crawlers beginning to test the walls, it won’t be long before you reach the level cap.”
I nod along as he continues, “I want you to pick an evolution that has Bindweed Manipulation and Bindweed Conjuration at its focus. Furthermore, it needs to focus on Stamina and not on Health,” his entire body sags further with each word he says.
“It’s fine,” I wave him off. “You aren’t infringing on anything. Besides, didn’t you throw a skill away for the same reason?”
He sighs once more before nodding, “Thanks for understanding. Naturally, I’ll help you with planning the evolutions after that so that you can get back to the path you want…if you want to, of course.”
“I’ll be taking you up on that offer,” I grin.
Cobalt catches up to us from behind and strolls along with Sairal and me, “May I enquire what you two were talking about?”
Sairal’s eyes flick to me, unsure if he should say. I answer with a shrug, “My future evolution that I can’t wait to get to.”
She nods, “Well, mandrake Green, should you want to expedite the process, there are always Cave crawlers beyond the walls.”
I turn to Sairal and he cocks his head to the side, thinking, “It isn’t a bad idea. Sacrificing your current Stamina generation for more levels and fast-tracking your evolution.”
In record time I find myself standing on the walls, being cheered on by Sairal and Cobalt. I stare at the torn-up ground beyond the walls, Cave crawler parts still strewn around from the frequent scouts that are sent our way.
“Guys, um, I’m not really sure if this is the best thing to do,” I hesitantly say watching a team of six Cave crawlers scuttle out of the underbrush not that far away to test the walls.
“Nonsense,” Cobalt waves me off, “You did excellent in the Depths, so taking on a few groups of pests should easily be in your capabilities.”
Sairal nods, “And you won’t be that far away, we can always rescue you when things get tough.”
I turn around to face them and see the playful smiles on their faces.
“Fine,” I scoff and step off the walkway and land on the ground beyond the walls.