Not just anywhere though, but along the scar tissue left behind from when the Wrath Curse had run rampant in his body.
He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the energy was. There was no mana for it to ride on, and it was far more intangible than anything he’d seen. It was like the concept of Wrath, which he supposed was all that was left.
As it ran along the cracks and scars, he felt exactly where all the scar tissue was inside him as well. The burns from the Wrath curse were more than skin deep, and this only served to enunciate the issue.
Dei felt the Skill’s draw on his Pandora’s Box accelerate, and he grunted in pain as the burning sensation intensified. More than that, the concentration of Wrath mana carried Lani’s curse on it as well. The more mana he felt his Skill draw from, the angrier he got as the curse began affecting his mind.
Though he hated to stop the process halfway through, he cut the Skill off immediately. ‘I can’t go berserk here and have to admit that Fang was right.’
Relaxing as the painful burning abated, he saw that nothing in particular had changed about the scars. He did cut it off almost instantly though, so the Skill had almost no time to enact whatever it was doing.
He sighed. He knew for a fact that it was going to do something cool if he let it, but he couldn’t risk losing himself.
‘Also, why did it go only for Wrath mana? It should be able to draw from all mana types. I hope it was just a preference because Growing Pains makes up half the Skill, and it didn’t lose that function from Empowered Rage. It wouldn’t make sense if it did, because I saw that the Skill kept the best functions of both.’
Not delaying any longer, he checked the new Skill descriptions.
Previously, [Growing Pains] said this:
[Growing Pains - Level 168 - Wrath Affinity - Passive
Feel the burning of your muscles as you move it to the beat. That's not just you working up a sweat, but also PURE RAGE! Let nothing stand in your way as you reform your body into that of a Greek God! Let the adrenaline flow through you as you tear yourself apart, only to come back stronger for it!
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 rate of (Skill level) HP per hour, at the cost of Wrath Concentration
Level 100 evolutionary upgrade - As your muscles enter new heights, you must find heavier weights to use them with. Your muscle gains never stop, but the availability of such heavy objects does. Gain a new mode to the Skill: Training Mode, where the body becomes weakened, allowing for the Physical stat to increase further and Growing Pains Skill to level up, despite a limited selection of tools to work them with]
Now, [Growing Rage] said this:
[Growing Rage - Level 168 - 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]
His eyes almost bulged out of his head with what he was looking at. Firstly, he kept every single level from [Growing Pains] Second, he confirmed that he could use different affinities in the Skill, and it looked like that feature was expanded further, and third, even his level 100 evolutionary upgrade was better! Now, he could weaken himself to match the enemy, and it said he would earn more Skill Levels and actual Levels, along with better stats.
He’d been thinking that he wasn’t getting enough use out of Training this entire time and was sort of bummed he might’ve wasted the evolution upgrade long-term, but this was a lot better.
The description made him laugh too, but he didn’t think he would be eating bricks anytime soon. Out of his original four Skills, the ones carried over from his previous life, [Growing Pains] had the best description in his opinion. This Skill even seemed to inherit that strength!
Excited for the newly fused Meditation, he opened his interface once more.
His previous [Meditation] Skill looked like this:
[Meditation - Level 97 - Mana Affinity
The self, everything that ones identity is comprised of, is not entirely unique when considered in parts. Each moment is shared by an uncountable amount of other beings, separated by either time or perspective. The plants, insects, and even microbes experience the same moments as any human, yet ones identity itself is entirely unique. Despite sharing moments with so many others, no entity shares every moment with you. Your identity is the sum of so many parts, yet greater than every single one individually. Even still, there is an unbreakable link between every singular person and the grand cosmos that rotates around their unique perspective. Using that link, draw aspects of yourself into the open, showing all what it means to be you.
Gain the ability to create a Visible Presence, declaring aspects of yourself to those you project it towards.
Level 65 manual evolutionary upgrade - Cuts appear upon your skin, but you do not flinch. Whips strike you, yet you do not falter. Marching forward endlessly to the future, anything that stands in your way will either move or break, for you will not. Gain the ability to resist all disruptions to your mental faculties. Resistance becomes stronger with each successive level.]
While the new description went like this:
[Meditation - Level 97 - Mana Affinity
The self, everything that ones identity is comprised of, is not entirely unique when considered in parts. Each moment is shared by an uncountable amount of other beings, separated by either time or perspective. The plants, insects, and even microbes experience the same moments as any human, yet ones identity itself is entirely unique. Despite sharing moments with so many others, no entity shares every moment with you. Your identity is the sum of so many parts, yet greater than every single one individually. Even still, there is an unbreakable link between every singular person and the grand cosmos that rotates around their unique perspective. Using that link, draw aspects of yourself into the open, showing all what it means to be you.
Gain the ability to create a Visible Presence, declaring aspects of yourself to those you project it towards.
Level 65 manual evolutionary upgrade - Cuts appear upon your skin, but you do not flinch. Whips strike you, yet you do not falter. Marching forward endlessly to the future, anything that stands in your way will either move or break, for you will not. Gain the ability to resist all disruptions to your mental faculties. Resistance becomes stronger with each successive level.]Allows the user to turn their relationships more tangible, gaining variable benefits or burdens depending on who the Skill is used on. Skill is useable once per day, and costs one use to deactivate its effects on one of your relationships.
Choosing a damage type dealt to you, you may shunt that type off to another whom accepts it into themselves. Damage type carries over, damage does not necessarily carry over.]
Overall, much similar to the original compared to [Growing Rage].
All these fusions made Dei realize something as well. These Skills were inheriting and improving the features of their predecessors, so shouldn’t his Meditation Skill have inherited the functions of both the originals? He remembered both their functions as well: The first one helped to regenerate affinity mana, while the other helped to balance his soul.
He already knew that his current Meditation produced Soul mana, but Dei felt like that was more from the introspection than the Skill itself. Thinking he’d happened onto something, Dei closed his eyes, Meditating and trying to regenerate Wrath mana… but the Skill didn’t respond.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Instead opting to try and balance his soul, the other Meditation function, he again failed.
‘Wait, why do these Skills keep their functions, but the Meditations don’t?’ he wondered.
Perhaps it was because the original two Meditations were objectively weaker than the current Meditation? Or because there was something unique about the Meditation line of Skills? Dei noticed that his current Meditation was all about connections and forming bonds, and it was able to assimilate other Skills that formed intangible bonds, but the original two had nothing to do with that.
If he had to guess, it would be the difference between “Upgrading the Skill,” as the original two Meditations did, and “Assimilating Skills with similar functions,” as the current Meditation did.
Shrugging, he saw that he still had two Skill evolutions to pick, [High Mind] and [Vigilance]. Clever still hadn’t finished investigating a future timeline either, so Dei still had time.
[Vigilance] went first, and a screen reopened with options he’d seen before picking his Class.
[Diverging paths for evolution open:
Sixth Sense
Overload
Reaction
Observative]
Now, without the warning at the end. He expanded the first option.
[Gut instinct based on subconscious perception can only take you so far if there is truly nothing to detect with your senses. Just because there is nothing you can sense though, does not mean there is nothing to sense. Broaden the spectrum of sensations that Vigilance can search through to that which not even you can tap into]
Promising. Dei already worried about things similar to this when he considered Clevers affinity- What if a Time creature swapped through timelines until it found him in a weak position? With this, Vigilance would be able to watch his back against things he couldn’t see. This might be remedied by simply getting stronger and gaining perception abilities though.
Overload went next.
[Sometimes a fight is decided by the millisecond, or even shorter. During those critical moments, many would give anything for just a little more time to think. Give Vigilance the ability to enter Overload, where the strain on your soul is increased in proportion to how much more mental energy you wish for it to produce. No upper limit.]
Potentially very powerful and abusable. Dei remembered that, when he gave Clever his High Mind, Clever was able to utilize even the mental energy from Vigilance. Dei suspected that the two skills were close to one another, but did not merge because the System did not want them to. If Dei used Overload with a fully rested soul then gave Clever his [High Mind], how powerful would a single use of a new Skill get? The entire Time affinity seemed dependent on the mind of someone, and how much they could successfully process without getting lost in the complicated timestream. Could Clever find a way to reverse time for all of them if provided enough mental energy, even if only single use?
Something to consider…
Reaction next:
[You do not need to see the danger to stop it. Acting instantly without conscious input can save you before it even occurs to you to flinch. Allow for Vigilance to react to outside stimuli in your stead without input.]
He thought about this one for only a moment, but quickly discarded it. True, it might have been able to stop him from falling into the Smilers trap by attacking it in his dreams, but it was also easy to abuse. What if an enemy like the Smiler tricked the Vigilance Skill to get him to attack something that wasn’t there. The first thought was not always the best, and responding full-force to a harmless surprise may end up killing someone. No, too dangerous to those around him and easily abused by enemies. That left Observation.
[Knowing danger is present is the first step to responding. The second, is knowing what the danger is, but subconscious consideration is difficult or impossible to parse. Makes Vigilance directly inform you, in detail, of what the danger is.]
On the opposite side of the spectrum, this was great. This would have let him respond properly to the Smiler, as his Vigilance could sense that something was invading his soul, but his mind didn’t see that. Vigilance would have brought his attention to the invasion. Still, though it would be useful, he didn’t consider it the most useful. Usually, if he knew danger was around, he would be able to spot it on his own or be ready. In the niche situation that he couldn’t do that, Dei was now a lot more prepared to tackle unseen enemies. With Clevers ability to send scouts into the future, they could just perpetually keep something scouting ahead for them, giving them hours or even days of forewarning, depending on the limits of his Skill.
Observation was made obsolete by Clever, and they weren’t parting ways any time soon. Instead, he was split between Overload and Sixth Sense.
Sixth Sense provided a larger safety net and forewarning for things that snuck just outside of his every sense, but Overload would be better in critical moments.
Again, Clevers future-sight tipped the balance. It didn’t matter how they attacked, if Clever could spot them before they did. He would be better off with Overload, especially considering his Visible Presence grew every day. Rarely, if ever, did he overdraw from his soul anymore, and that presence would never become any smaller or slow down. Long term, Overload would grow stronger and allow for Dei to give Clever more mental power in a time of need. Short term, it was the most combat-usable too, so Overload won out in his mind. He selected the evolution.
Last but not least, [High Mind]. While Dei couldn’t level it up any further, he could still utilize the evolution he chose, so he might as well pick it.
[Diverging paths for evolution open:
Focus
Awareness
Recollection
Simulation
Scanning
Sifting
Fragmenting]
Dei was already tired of reading the screens, and he had other things to sift through, such as using [Growing Rage] to upgrade his body, potentially figuring out a way to use the Wrath curse without going crazy. He wasn’t doing an in-depth analysis of each of these, so he skimmed them quickly. If he found that he was wrong and wanted to change his mind later, he could.
Focus accelerated his mind when put to a singular task.
Awareness drastically increased his sense of touch, such as from air vibrations.
Recollection made his Eidetic memory passive, rather than active, letting him connect things in his mind easier.
Simulation made forming his inner mental world a lot easier.
Scanning helped take in more details.
Sifting helped single out small stimuli that were clouded by other stimuli.
Fragmenting made each individual brain more efficient.
Focus and Recollection he discarded, too combat ineffective. Awareness was discarded as well for the overlap with his Tremor Sense. Simulation was interesting, but too risky as he wasn’t willing to dedicate a large part of his mind to maintaining his internal world. Scanning was interesting because it paired well with [Camouflage] and might let him finally use it to harden his skin in certain sections without locking his muscles by smoothing out the fine details between them. Sifting would increase his [Tremor Sense] capabilities dramatically. Fragmenting would let him focus on many different tasks easily.
He chose Fragmenting, because it would let him split his mind further to help with [Meditation] and form a large Visible Presence faster. Now that he’d chosen, he read over the Fragmenting evolution one more time:
[Too much to focus on, too much to train, and not enough hours in the day. Perfect multitasking is not normally possible, but that means nothing to the man who can become two different people. Upgrades the efficiency of split minds, drawing less power for faster thinking.]
Sighing in relief, he almost believed that he was done, but saw he’d actually gained one more notification just sitting here, and tensed at a new selection.
[Achievement Gained! Slaughterer
To become a Slaughterer innately means that something is lost. At the minimum, it is innocence, but the changes are more than symbolic. So familiar with the sense of loss, that they often do not realize when they have become a whittled facsimile of the mind they once were. Despite that pain though, they fight forevermore. They fight to survive, to kill, to grow. Cutting away the weakness of their past, they are reborn as vicious killers.
Grabbing at the flames in the crucible of legends and pulling them into your own body, you have burned away at your own impurities. Time and time again, you bring the hammer strike down upon your weakness, breaking your own body so that it may know pain. So it may understand pain intimately, internalize it, and bring forth the agony of life with every blow.
Finally crawling free from the forge, you stand tall as your very existence speaks of a million struggles none will ever know, the mighty thump of your beating heart a testament to your resolve.
You have cut away the weakness within you.
- Upgraded Class selection
- Upgraded beastial communication
- Drastically increases Soul Presence]
His face relaxed when he saw what it was, and he stared at the notification for a long moment. There was no third step to becoming a Slaughterer, no massive fight required to finalize it or prove himself. He didn’t need to kill all of his enemies, and he wasn’t even the strongest thing in the area.
Sure, he’d picked a Slaughterer class, but it never actually occurred to him that he was at the final step. He just didn’t feel ready. He didn’t feel ready to be a Slaughterer, but that didn’t mean he could delay it any further.
‘For better or worse, I’m a Slaughterer.’ The thought made him smile. Even if he wasn’t ready, he was proud.
Finally, he checked over his Interface one more time.
[Name: Dei Grrata
Race: Human (Gem Dweller Variant)
Class: Watchful Slaughterer (Level 100)
Profession: Pondering Sage (Level 11)
Achievements: Void Walker, Soulspeak, Beyond Understanding, No Rulers Above All, Bearing the Burden, Slayer of Giants IV, Cruelty of the Slaughter (II), Dammit, Slaughterer
Contracts: Soul of the (IIIIIIII)
HP: 192/192
MP: 64/64
SP: 128/128
Stats:
Physical: 64
Mental: 61
Spiritual: 69
Magical: 62
Affinities:
Kindness: High-Rare: 19%
Wrath: Low-Rare: 15%
Soul: Low-Uncommon: 58%
Fortitude: Low-Rare: 1%
Inner Skills:
Kindness: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (273) (10906/10920), Call for Help (62), Good Samaritan (37), Meaningful (44)
Wrath: Pandora’s Box (Unleashed) (2), Growing Rage (168)
Soul: Astral Projection (12), Connection (1)
Fortitude: Solidity (93), Fortress of Denial (36)
Health: Homeostasis (100)
Mana: Meditation (97)
Stamina: Disconnect (59)
Confluence: Identify of the Stout Protector (64)
Outer Skills:
How About a Demonstration?, Fine-Tooth Comb (53), Vigilance (100), In Tune (36), Commune with the Universe (2), High Mind (100)]
[Pandora’s Box:
8250/10920 Wrath
981/10920 Kindness
532/10920 Soul
859/10920 Fortitude
300/10920 [NULL] ]