[Growing Rage] was now technically his only Wrath Skill, now that [Pandora’s Box (Unleashed)] had become a Confluence Skill after it was repaired by Void (Which he would review again later, but he felt like testing such a Skill in his current confines was a bad idea).
He also felt like Growing Rage had a ton of potential, but to start off his research, he would study the Skill at work now.
First, he quickly pulled up its description, just to have it fresh in his mind
[Growing Rage - Level 169 - Wrath Affinity - Passive
Working out or fighting to the death, what’s the difference between them? At some point, the line begins to blur. A spar becomes deadly, a fight becomes fun. Any wall that stands before you will get punched to dust, then you will EAT the BRICKS to build yourself back EVEN STRONGER THAN THE WALL! What’s the calorie count on a brick? We asked the experts and they said “RAAAAAAH!”
Gives a heightened rate of bodily repair, allows for classless stat growth past Physical: 14 at the cost of Wrath Concentration
Regenerates HP at a variable rate, at the cost of Wrath Concentration.
Expend Affinity Concentration to rebuild your body in various ways, depending on the affinity used.
Level 100 evolutionary upgrade - As your body grows to new heights, you must find stronger enemies to test yourself against. You never reach perfection, but the availability of enemies does. Gain a new mode of the Skill: Training Mode, where the body matches the challenge level of your enemy, allowing for Level, Skill, and Stat growth at a higher rate than would normally be available to fighting weaker enemies]
He would need to test the speed of its regeneration, but it was safe to assume that the clause saying “(Skill Level) per hour” was gone because the curse now made his healing much faster, as it wanted to heal him aggressively. Once the curse was gone, he wondered if it would return to its previous description. Or perhaps the healing would get better with higher concentrations of mana.
Either way, he wasn’t doing any testing right now. Instead, he wanted to watch the Skill rebuild his body- as it was currently doing.
Ever since he’d gotten it, he’d told the Skill to use Fortitude mana to enhance his defenses, specifically his mental defenses. He wanted to eventually be able to withstand the Wrath Curse rebuilding his body, and Fortitude was key to that.
Closing his eyes, he brought his soul into view and looked for where [Growing Rage] was tied to his soul.
Oddly, he ended up in the same place as [Growing Pains] once existed, his family’s old garage where he and his dad used to work out. Dei assumed that when [Growing Pains] merged with [Empowered Rage], the System just handed over the Skill to him. Where better to anchor the Skill that he hadn’t organically formed than in place of its predecessor?
Now that he found himself in the old memory, it was much easier to follow the effects of what it was doing- and there were two parts of it.
Ever since his meeting with the Leviathan, he’d taken to visualizing his soul as a massive ocean. While it didn’t work out in every case, it was certainly an effective metaphor here.
[Growing Rage] felt like it was a nexus of ocean currents, where one large current entered the Skill, then broke off into a bunch of smaller ones that flowed to different parts of his soul.
The large current stemmed from his [Pandora’s Box (Sealed)], and it represented the concentration of Fortitude mana. The massive yellow glow entered into Growing Rage, which then directed it outwards to where the Skill needed it rebuilding stuff.He decided to follow one of the smaller streams for now and observe what it was doing.
Almost immediately, it branched off a lot more. If the broken-off river was an artery, then the edges of it split off into veins and capillaries.
The main river flowed through several memories, delivering Fortitude Concentration through these memories and moving on to the next.
He tried looking past the literal visualization of it, and into what this view represented, but struggled to see anything else.
He continued to follow this stream, watching as it slowly tapered off as it moved through the different memories.
‘What the… What is it doing? Is it literally making the memories themselves sturdier?”
He expected it to empower his soul, or muscles or something. To be fair, he did feel his body become stiff when the mana flowed through it, but that felt almost… secondary, to what it was doing now.
To be sure, he moved to another stream, followed it, and sure enough, it made memories sturdier.
He found that the effects made the linear-nature of memories more difficult to move. It was possible for him to reorganize his memories out of their chronological nature, even if it would be weird to do so, but [Growing Rage] made the process more difficult.
After scratching his head for several minutes over why it was doing this, it finally dawned on him.
‘It’s focusing on making my mind stronger! That was the entire reason I chose Fortitude as my first affinity to work into my body, because I wanted a powerful mind. Did it take my desire into account?”
Dei didn’t even know that was possible. He assumed the Skill would do a general fix-up and nothing else, but it seemed it could become more surgical than that.
[Growing Rage] was doing its best to lay the groundwork for its next job- rebuilding his body by utilizing a horrible curse, without crushing his mind.
‘I wonder… Did I subconsciously direct the Skill to focus on my mind, or did Wrath see what I wanted and direct the Skill for me?’
It was unimportant, he was just happy with the results.
There was, of course, still a lot of run off. Not all the Concentration was perfectly absorbed by his mind, instead strengthening his body a bit, but it was certainly not as much as it could’ve been.
Just to test it out, Dei reeled in the Skill for a second, then gave it a new directive: focus on strengthening muscles instead.
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Rage (169) -> (170)]
‘Damn, no passive levels, but it goes up the moment I’m actually focusing on the Skill? Aloran was right, intent IS important when training Skills.’
As the new yellow currents of Fortitude went out this time, he watched as they went a much different direction- all swarming up to the “surface” of his soul, the part that represented the “current moment”
Immediately, he felt his body petrify.
He tried opening his eyes, but they moved at a glacial pace compared to how fast they should go. It took a full five seconds before he could finally see what was happening to his body.
Along the jagged scars, where the Wrath Curse damaged his skin, he was glowing. He saw the golden light of Fortitude emanate from below the surface, pulsing in rhythm with his heart.
Retracting the Fortitude once more, he watched the glow slowly recede and felt his muscles relax. Sighing in relief, he flexed his hand several times, trying to notice any significant difference.
It was only for a few seconds that he’d suffered under the full-force of his Skill attempting to make his muscles sturdier, but he knew it should have done something. No matter how he moved though, he couldn’t detect any real difference in his body.
If he had to guess, he’d need to allow for the Skill to rebuild him for a much longer period of time. The issue with that was how Fortitude mana running through his muscles made it nearly impossible to move, so he’d have to just sit in a single place for an absurdly long time. Luckily, there wasn’t the same issue when it was working on his mind, but he wasn’t looking forward to toughening up his body later on by using this method.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Just to watch it happen, he ran Fortitude through his body again, once more locking into place. This time, he saw a yellow glow slowly begin to bubble up from below his skin, gradually becoming brighter until it settled at a comfortably dim glow.
Stopping the process, he set it back to its original task- focusing fully on empowering his mind against outside effects.
Next, he went to his Pandora’s Box, to gauge how thin the concentration of Fortitude was.
[Pandora’s Box:
8273/10920 Wrath
989/10920 Kindness
205/10920 Soul
864/10920 Fortitude
300/10920 [NULL] ]
Exactly eight hundred and fifty Fortitude mana was sectioned off, dedicated to rebuilding his body and turning it into Null mana. The last fourteen were around twelve-times concentrate because he’d compressed a few points into them, before deciding to just let his box expand.
Other than that fourteen, the other eight hundred and fifty were a good bit below the six-times concentration mark. Perhaps around five-point-five concentration.
While the process of utilizing it wasn’t fast, it wasn’t slow either. The [Growing Rage] was clearly working hard to pull all it could from this mana. He knew the speed of extraction would taper off as it became more diluted, because it would be harder to draw from, but for now the Skill wasn’t struggling whatsoever.
‘I wonder though, Aloran said that mana was a combination of Information and Energy, does that mean that my muscles are becoming imbued with Information? Is my body absorbing the very idea of Fortitude directly, becoming sturdier to match it? Because it has an actual effect, it must be one powerful message to be able to physically change the world…’
The next experiment he’d do with this Skill was to see if he could somehow accelerate the project. Bringing his view back to Pandora’s Box, he willed [Growing Pains] to draw faster, yet the Skill remained unbothered, completely ignoring him.
‘That makes sense. Aloran said that Passive Skills were perpetual, while Toggleable Skills had low-level perpetual effects AND could be controlled actively. If I could make it faster, this would be a Toggleable Skill.’
Either way, he was done with this round of experimenting. There was still the new Training Mode of the Skill which would let him challenge weaker enemies, but he’d need enemies to test that.
Shrugging, he moved out of his Soul and opened his Interface, looking for the next Skill in the list.
[Empower Self] went next, and it was one he’d never tested. Once, it was [Astral Projection], but that Skill had changed once he changed his Race. It’s description wasn’t super helpful either.
[Empower Self - Level 4 - Soul Affinity
How a person presents themselves…
…meshed together into who you are.
Allows one to empower their Identity, emphasizing the sense of self.
Variable mana cost]
Skipping over the flavor text, all it said was it empowered his Identity. The capital in Identity implied that it was the specific part in his soul that he’d tied into himself to become a Union. Sectioning off five Soul mana from his Box, he unlatched it and put the five Soul mana towards Empower Self.
He felt the Skill begin to… crackle a bit, but didn’t actually understand what it was doing, so he turned his sight inwards to try and find its anchor point.
It was, predictably, in a dark room. Specifically, a memory from a time before he was born. In this darkness, the representation of the Skill manifested itself as a little white wisp.
It looked like what most people imagined a soul to be, an orb with a pure white core, surrounded by a slightly see-through white veil. At the top was a floating ghostly tail of fire that flickered and moved according to a wind that didn’t exist.
As he watched it, the white flame at the top of the little wisp flared, and a feeling of warmth passed over him as the five soul mana he’d dedicated to this Skill flew to another part of his soul.
Following closely behind him, he watched the white pulse find his Identity, flowing into it and making it flare.
He tried to study what it was doing, and found that the mana sort of encouraged his sense of self. It made it adamantly say “You are Dei.”
He was about to turn around and ask Aloran what this was meant to do when he noticed something odd as the Soul mana continued to bounce around. Rather than all of it being absorbed into his Identity, some was flung outwards.
It wasn’t even a full point of mana, perhaps a fraction of a single one, but he saw it form a thin film over his entire soul.
‘Hm…? Wait, I wonder if…”
Diving back to the original wisp, the anchor point of [Empower Self], Dei poured fifteen points into it now, watching the candle-sized flame atop it triple in size, burning brighter.
It took around twenty seconds for the Skill to finish working its magic, but when it did, he followed the pulse to his Identity once more and watched as it started glowing for several seconds. This time, when it released the extra soul mana, there was a noticeable barrier around his soul.
Checking his Interface for a result he hoped, he was not disappointed.
[Soul Strength 1/192]
‘Yes!’
The process reminded him of how he used to pour the excess soul mana from his Projection into a barrier around his Identity, helping to protect him from spirit attacks.
Now that his Identity was merged into his soul, this was a useless process- or so he thought. Much like his defined Skill though, he discovered that this process had instead translated over, creating a new kind of barrier around his Soul.
It had an awful conversion rate of around ten Soul mana per one point of Soul Strength, but he didn’t need to kill spirits to earn it anymore. He could earn it all here, in the cave.
Best of all, this didn’t seem to be the main effect of the Skill, just a fun little bonus. He still wanted Aloran’s advice on what his Skill was doing, so he exited his soul and asked “Hey, what does it mean to empower my Identity?” to the open air.
Without missing a beat, Aloran asked “Could I get the full function description of the Skill?”
“Yea sure. ‘Allows one to empower their Identity, emphasizing the sense of self.’”
“I see, that makes sense. That has to do with both mental effects, and possession. Because you are a half-spirit now, you have the ability to sort of… challenge other souls for their bodies. I say sort of because that’s not actually how it works. It’s more like you merge souls with them, and the dangers of possession come about because you will become confused on which soul is yours, you’ll forget whether you’re the invader or invaded. This Skill must help mitigate that, temporarily strengthening your sense of self to help you keep track of who you are. As for mental defenses, it won’t help against most- but there are some that involve making you forget who you are, and those it will help with.”
By the end, Dei was practically vibrating with excitement. He’d forgotten that possession was possible, but now he really reaaallly wanted to try.
“When you say merge souls, what do you mean? How do I fully take over? Or are am I just going to eat the soul of whatever I merge with? Ah, also, you said it would temporarily make the process easier, it’s not a permanent boost?”
“I’ll answer one by one. When I say merging souls, I mean that your soul will essentially grapple with the opposing soul, a very complicated and embarrassing process. It involves exposing a very vulnerable part of yourself to the enemy and hoping they aren’t mentally powerful enough to take advantage of your weakness. I say it’s embarrassing because, I’m told, that the feeling of beginning possession involves fully shuffling the memories between you and the one invaded. I’ve watched people go through it for the first time before, and they always come out of the experience completely flustered because another being was able to look into their most private thoughts and moments.”
Dei grimaced. “Does that mean I’ll have to kill whatever I take over if I want to keep my secrets? There are some things I can’t have others knowing…”
“Not all, luckily. After your souls separate, both of you forget what you saw in the others.”
Dei breathed out a sigh of relief. While it was true he would probably never do this to something he wasn’t willing to kill, he didn’t want to rule out the possibility.
“To win the battle of souls,” Aloran continued, “You have to remember which person you are- the invader or invaded. Then, when you’re positive, you can suppress the consciousness of the other. Once the losing side is suppressed, the winner gets access to all the loser's memories, and can choose to kill them with a thought, if they so desire. As for how you remember who you are? I have to say, I’m not sure. I heard there are many exercises you can practice, but I don’t know any of them because it was never one of my focuses. It is supposedly easier on weaker-willed enemies though, so I would practice with some creatures that are dumb.
“And in respect to the ‘temporary’ aspect of your Skill, I say that because it says ‘Empower.’ Generally speaking, when something is Empowered, it reverts to its previous state over time.”
He made a humming noise as he digested Aloran’s words. It wasn’t as clean as he was hoping possession would be, but that was perhaps for the best. He was, after all, taking over the body of another being. If it was easy, he might not show the process the proper respect it deserved. Whether it was interesting to him or not, possession was doubtlessly an evil act if used against sapient beings, and that was a low bar in this new world. Many monsters gained supernatural intelligence on Avium.
He would practice and use it when necessary, but possession would probably remain in the back of his toolkit.
Either way, he knew the next thing he had to do: figure out the inner-workings of this Skill a bit more. Right now he needed the by-product of Soul Strength far more than he needed [Empower Self] to strengthen his mind, so his next goal would be to tweak the Skill slightly and get what he wanted.
