[D'sP] Razor Sharp - Chapter 428

Down in the dungeon, Doyle is satisfied that Ace and company are done talking about things pertinent to him and so turns to his own gains. While the town had done a good job of handling the monster wave, they weren’t perfect.

{Razor Fox pattern acquired at lv24}

{Razor Fox

S[3+2] A[15] C[4+2] I[7] W[5] P[5]

Max Skills: 2

Available Skills: Extend Edge (Mana powered) lv5, Bite lv3, Wind Blade (Mana powered) lv1

Cost: World Energy[43]}

Doyle almost felt bad for the fox that made its way through. It was quite the feat to make it to the dungeon. From getting over the wall unnoticed to sneaking into the dungeon.

The now dead fox had managed to get into an adventurer’s pack. Which really shouldn’t have worked! It wasn’t a small fox, after all. The fox didn’t even use any magic to make itself lighter. That adventurer really should have realized something was wrong.

Good thing for Doyle they didn’t! Though it did reveal a quirk that wasn’t expected. Since the fox hadn’t ever beaten a boss, it could not skip to a later floor. Not that this hasn’t happened before.

More than a few people have tried to skip ahead. One of two things would happen. If they’re just walking together, the people get split. A few unfortunate idiots ended up dead after panicking when they turned up on the first floor alone.

If instead they’re holding hands or even just attached in some manner? Then everyone so connected will end up on the first floor. Not the worst outcome as at least they are split up.

Yet no one had attempted to bring someone to a deeper floor in a container. And the answer to what happens? Well, it seems to not count as being connected for some reason and so the fox was deposited on the first floor. Which does not really make sense.

Or rather, on the surface, this doesn’t make sense, but there is one critical difference between the previous years and the fox. The fox didn’t actually want to accompany the adventurer. Which means there needed to be even more tests. It had been tested whether you need to be in a team for connection to work and it did.

You would join someone in the same instance if you are holding hands, even if you aren’t on the same team. Which makes some sense. After all, not every dimension has a system and not even dimensions with systems would always have a team function. So there had to be some method of entering a dungeon as a team, even when there isn’t a marker for said team.

Doyle could only metaphorically shrug and move on. Ally also wasn’t certain on the matter as it isn’t exactly something a dungeon fairy needed to worry about. Whatever the case, that left Doyle with a fox on the first floor.

This situation didn’t last long as the razor fox made use of its honestly astonishing speed. Not many kills, but the fox rushed through floor after floor. In an interesting twist, it was actually the first floor that held the fox back for the longest.

Even then, it was only because the fox took a while to figure out how to open up the stone door. Doyle was honestly shocked by this and promised to try and add more blocks like this. Though whether he remembers is up in the air as the fox had an honestly amazing showing.

Before, the quickest clear of the floors tended to be held by one of the Barrais. Though they managed it through stealth. The fox didn’t bother with that. Well, that and they’re just really fast.

Made it all the way to the tenth floor. Even then, they only fell because of the spores. The fox seemed to have put everything into increased speed, leaving it a glass cannon. At least, the base monster’s stats weren’t so unbalanced.

Though this did bring something up for Doyle. ‘So uh, I’m guessing the fox was level 24, what with me gaining the pattern at that level. Why did I get such a, well, low-quality pattern? It is interesting that the pattern has more available skills than max skills right out of the gate, but it seems boring? I don’t think I can use the pattern on my lower floors.’

Ally shrugs, ‘It’s a fox, what did you expect?’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘I get that, but I mean, it was level 24! Shouldn’t I get something from that?’

Ally, ‘You got a level 24 pattern right out of the gate? Though more seriously, what you got was a razor fox instead of a regular fox. Non-sapient monsters tend to grow in power through bloodline advancement. Like with paths, levels limit bloodline advancement.

‘Well, technically, that is true for everyone. There are some enlightened races that focus on bloodline as well. Oh, and of course dragons are really into it.’

Doyle, ‘I’ve got a few advanced patterns and they have minimum levels.’

Ally, ‘Yep, but what are you expecting from a fox that just got magic a year ago? The fact it has magic skills at all is pretty impressive. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was all based on natural abilities. Or rather, the fact it was skill based is why the pattern isn’t stronger.

‘If the abilities were from a bloodline? I would expect a minimum level of at least ten. You just have to gain some skill levels and manage some more generic paths if that’s what you want.’

Doyle, ‘I’ve mostly ignored it until now since my monster pool isn’t the greatest and has a decent amount of overlap. But now I have a fox that isn’t being boosted except by the most generic of paths. I would not be surprised if a fox on my last floor had half the stats of a wolf there.’

Ally, ‘You do realize that will be true for most beings? I feel that being in a newly integrated world has severely thrown everyone’s idea of general power levels way off kilter. You’re all getting good paths to accelerate your growth.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the dungeon across the community from us had monsters with stats three fourth of ours. One good path and that fox pattern could match a similar leveled monster from over there.’

Doyle, ‘While that is interesting to learn, it doesn’t help me. How am I supposed to use the fox?’

Ally, ‘Well, you don’t have to use them. Though if you wanted to, maybe don’t use them in a straight fight? They’re not illusion based foxes which is second only to fire foxes for how common they are. However, wind based foxes aren’t unstealthy. They just don’t have innate abilities to boost their stealth.’

Doyle, ‘For some reason I doubt they can hide from those delving at the floor I’d be placing them.’

Ally nods, ‘Oh sure, Jim is going to spot them every time. He isn’t the one you are trying to trick, though. The foxes would be a good choice to target tanks as they fight something else. Waist deep in tall grass? A normal tank isn’t going to notice in time.’

Doyle, ‘Eh, I can try them I guess. I’m going to have to grab some mammal based paths or generic paths.’

Ally laughs, ‘As if we haven’t been promising ourselves that since almost the start. There are reasons most dungeons you find specialize. You have a chance to be more generic, but that comes from the fact you are so strong.

‘It doesn’t bother you as much if your monsters lose out on a few points when they start with a double few points more than they should. That fox, while stronger than not, should show you that. It didn’t pass floor ten where the monsters, besides the boss, are almost ten levels lower.

‘Sure, some of that comes from them benefiting from your Paths. However, it still means something, especially at such low levels. Sure, once you’re in the three digits, a few levels one way or another isn’t going to do much. This isn’t the case yet.’

Doyle tilts back, ‘Well, I guess I should spawn in a fox and see what they can do.’ And so he does.

The fox appears normal enough, Doyle choosing to set it up with the two magic skills. Then his new fox monster starts fighting and their skill use and synergy is revealed. Extend edge was simple enough. At the cost of locking away some of the fox’s capacity, it extended the monster’s claw length.

Then, of course, the common wind blade. Which when fired from said extended claws, showed amazing results. The magical construct that permits the extended edges to exist, stabilizes the wind blade magic. This, at least, showed why the original fox had managed to do so well for itself.

Upon seeing this, Ally was quite disappointed the fox had ended up dead. ‘With a bit more time, that fox could have developed a decent bloodline. Like, I’m glad we got the pattern, but it would have been better if we snagged it after the skills sublimated into the beast.’

Doyle, ‘But what would happen to the levels and such? The system is picky about not going into a deficit when it comes to path points and such.’

Ally snaps her fingers, ‘But you see! That’s the trick. The fox wasn’t sapient. So while it might follow the normal rules and be restricted to only five skills, there aren’t path points to worry about.

‘If some skill becomes a part of the creature’s being to a certain degree, it stops being a skill and turns into an inherent. Besides, that fox managed to get skills which worked together enough that I’m sure they could have merged. It isn’t rare to find synergy, but this one is particularly nice.’

Doyle, ‘And I’m guessing you can’t just copy it for the same results?’

Ally shrugs, ‘You can if you get the same understanding of the skills in question. There is no set difficulty.’

Doyle turns his attention back to the fox and watches it use the skill wind blade, both from its claws and not. The most obvious difference, of course being that when using its claws, the shape of the wind blade is like said claws. Or rather, the blade is forced to look like them.

When fired off without the claws, the fox seemed to have decent control over the shape as long as the blade was vaguely crescent in form and sharp on the front. And the different forms it could take didn’t seem to add or take away from how strong the attack was.

Or rather, how compact or loose the blade was did matter and so the mass mattered, but if it was shaped like a claw, crescent moon, or a sword? None of that affected the damage potential as long as the blades were similar in size. Though that had diminishing returns on both sides of the scale.

The fox could only pack so much wind Mana into a shape. So too small and it would lose power, and on the other side? The fox could only add a certain amount of power. That meant a bigger blade would soon lose cohesion and fall apart.

Good thing the fox seemed to have an innate sense of such things. With both results only happening when Doyle ordered it to do so. Otherwise, the fox focused on finding a good equilibrium.

Though all of this ignores when the skill was used through the fox’s skill extended claws. When used in that way, the wind blade seemed to take an idealized form of the claw. More power didn’t grow the blade, but rather, added more claws. A shame that the fox wasn’t able to put on enough power to fire blades from every claw.

Doyle was honestly quite interested to see what happens if the fox adds even further Mana from there. Though he does get the feeling that with more skill, the fox could pack in more power. Which sadly meant it wasn’t likely for any particular fox to gain enough power to do so.

The Numbers - Chapter 427

Testing The New Toy - Chapter 429