Chapter 15: Destruction.

Trent actually felt like there was a clear winner here. The best by a good margin was Catalyst of Cataclysm, which looked like it would both straight up increase all his damage and allow him to use DESTROY much more freely. The auras might allow him to upgrade Voiding, but they were still discarded from the running. Neither seemed like something he’d be super excited about putting in his favorite Skill.

Float was a worse Levitation, nuf said.

Break Illusion and Mind Tracking immediately improved his opinion of the Yellow Knights but were still off the table due to the lack of situations they could be useful in. Granted, Break Illusion might help against a future evolution of Yellow Knights--if monsters other than Morels got evolutions. But if Voiding failed, what chance did one Skill have? Probably pretty good actually, especially if he upgraded it with void.

But if he was doing all that work, he could just use that time to improve the mental defense aspect of his current Skill. So those two Skills wouldn’t be picked up anytime soon. That just left the three throwing Skills to compete with Catalyst. Well, probably not Explosive Throw.

Fortress Wrecker was nice... until you realize that the most it would do against the majority of foes would be tickle them with a force shockwave. And while ARB was an awesome Skill, it seemed mainly meant to be used by dragons. Seriously, the ban on other Skills wouldn’t be much of a downside if there weren’t many breath attack boosting Skills. It was possible he could fix that with modifications, but that just left a Skill whose main effects were things he was already good with.

The only downside to catalyst he could see was that it was Forbidden. But he already had a Forbidden Skill, and hey, his Sub-affinity was Opposition for a reason!

Wow, the decision was really easy this time. That was good, less agonizing never hurt.

Skill gained: Catalyst of Cataclysm (passive).

Now let's test this baby out. Don’t worry, he hadn’t forgotten about his free Skill. He wanted to put his full attention into that little decision.

In his mindscape, the new Skill appeared as a core of fractals connected to his entire mindscape with complex strings of runes. It was far more complex than any of his other Skills, to an absurd extent. Well, he wasn’t sure about Voiding. That Skill was more an expression of his will than a runic construct. Were all passive Skills this complex? Was it because they needed to function without input from the wielder.

The immense complexity was both a boon and a bane. He could learn so much from the fractals and runes, even the connecting strings gave him several ideas about how he could improve his own void connections. But it also meant that he would probably have a lot of trouble trying to enhance it with void. Ah well, what was he even complaining about? Oh no, I must settle for a mere triple boost to destructive force. It was still an incredible Skill, and the potential benefits outweighed all his complaints.

Now, let’s see what exactly ‘destructive force’ meant. He first tried throwing around some void rocks, and all of them were far more powerful. They flew half again as fast, and the actual damage dealt to both physical enemies and Morels was definitely tripled. Even his punches were affected. It even created a pseudo defense boost because when he hit the ground it was comparatively weaker, and the other part of the Skill protected him from his own power.

If that was all, it would be an amazing Skill. But in addition to the power boost, there was one other way that the Skill could benefit him hugely.

He pushed a light touch of willpower into DESTROY and let it fully convert. The pressure it exerted was still there, but it was less annoying and didn’t hurt at all. Now, the moment of truth.

He unleashed the void force out of the tip of his finger.

The explosion seemed even stronger than three times what it was before. But as the wild blast of pure destructive energy wrecked the ground he stood on, all he felt was a light caress. Catalyst of Cataclysm had protected him completely. His excitement rising, he tried the Skill again with more power invested.

Even with most of it just dissipating into the air, the force he could effortlessly exert filled him with confidence and pride. This time, he looked inward as the blast was unleashed. The runes and fractals that made up Catalyst were seemingly inactive. It took him dozens of tries to figure out what was going on. The lines of runes were entirely meant to carry concepts. They infused his entire being with the concepts of massive destructive power and the immunity to his own power.

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The reason it was all so complex was that even if he had a Skill so powerful that it could rip apart the landscape for as far as he could see, Catalyst of Cataclysm would still triple its power and prevent it from harming him. Yeah, this Skill was totally broken. How could this possibly be allowed? Did it somehow disqualify him from similar Skills? No, nothing in the Skill pattern indicated that and the system would have said so.

The two concepts were beyond him in the specifics, but just what he could see was mesmerizing. They stemmed from the same concept of reckless destruction, of power beyond what anyone else could match. It was quite beautiful, even if the implications for when he made contact with humans or other friendly life were quite disturbing.

He was almost reluctant to alter it in case he screwed something up. But the beauty of his void power was that unless he actually messed with the system-granted runes, the extra modifications would be totally optional when using the Skill. He certainly wasn’t going to try anything more complex with this Skill until he understood it a lot better.

The modifications ended with a quite satisfying result for only a couple religious experiences of work.

Skill Name: Catalyst of Cataclysm (semi-passive)

You wield power far beyond anything that could be considered your peers. Increases the destructive force of all your attacks by 200%. You become immune to your own attacks (not including costs, drawbacks, and backlash from Spells). The sheer destructive power you possess cannot be contained. You can activate a boosting portion of this Skill by expending a chunk of will and fueling it with more willpower for as long as the mode is active. This increases the boost to 356% and generates a defensive shroud of void force. This is a Forbidden Skill.

Catalyst was now his Skill with the longest description after Voiding. The modifications ended up being just channels to pour void power into the conceptual core. Trent looked over his status, satisfied with his latest climb in strength.

Name: Trent

Species: Human

Titles: Prodigy, Runeforger, Trailblazer Rune Manipulator

Lv: 15

Affinity: Abyss

Sub-affinity: Opposition

Stats: 

Physical: 

Vitality: 17

Endurance: 31

Strength: 31

Agility: 17

Mind: 17

Perception: 45

Magical: 

Capacity: 0

Regen: 0

Power: 0

Control: 0

Connection: 0

Perception: 0

Free points: 0

Skills: Voiding, Power Throw, DESTROY, Flurry Throw, Identify, Create, Levitation, Catalyst of Cataclysm

Beautiful. Although, it would change again after he took his free Minor Construct of Will. He was probably prepared to do his testing. Now’s as good a time as ever!

Skill gained: Minor Construct of Will

He immediately began comparing it to Create. The results were disappointing in that the Skill he had received wasn’t as good, but comforting in that the Skill he himself had created was better than the one the system granted. Construct was much more flexible in terms of what it could make but lost out in every other conceivable way. In addition to the damage sharing, it also cost more willpower, lasted less time, was weaker and slower at creating the objects, less compatible with all his Skills, and very hard to detail.

It had one definite upgrade, but it wasn’t something he could really use. He could sort of get a refund for his willpower if he canceled the construct before it expired. But when used for throwing projectiles, the refund was basically nonexistent. Not only did a throw with decent force totally destroy the ammo, but the distance also limited the amount of will restored.

The best thing he could use the Skill for was analyzing its structure to upgrade that of Create. Which just made the disparity even bigger. At around four hours after taking it, he got impatient and traded it in for the juicy five stat points. He had already decided what to do with them, and they immediately went three into Mind and two into Agility. The Skill structure itself vanished rather suddenly from his mindscape.

The system giveth, and the system taketh away. Praise be.

He got back to hunting, but it was pretty pointless. He had gotten so much stronger that unless he gave them an opportunity to get close, nothing posed the slightest challenge. The MVP outside of Catalyst was definitely DESTROY. It was extremely will-efficient for its massive destructive power, and with immunity to its downside there was nothing stopping him from one-shotting any Morel Mentis he came across from miles away.

All his new power had come with quite a confidence boost, but he still had little to no progress on any sort of dimension-hopping Skill. How would one even earn something like that, especially without magic?