Reborn as the First Boss, Chapter 66

Chapter 66 – Skills

Your party has defeated eight members of the Brass Rats.

You each gain 4000 XP.

Ah, it looked as though ‘dissuading’ the pursuit counted as defeating them. Lovely. I would never say no to more XP, after all. Sure, getting to the next level was a long way aways, but every little bit helped. Given the state of my, just, everything, I was really curious what options I’d have when I hit the next Tier. I doubted my race would improve, since it was already ‘special’, but I should have good options for my classes and profession thanks to the crazy things I’d done.

That said, I would prefer not to have to fight too many foes leagues above my level, like I’d been doing for most of these levels. Not only was it bad for my health, what with the stress, but it was also bad for my health, because they had a better shot of killing me than anyone my level. And while I had my guaranteed extra lives, thanks to my wicked ritual, that wasn’t something I wanted to rely on too heavily, especially since, if I wanted to do it again, I’d need to round up thirteen more virgins.

The problem with sourcing ‘material components’ like that was that if I did something like that near Windwater again, people were absolutely going to think it was me. There was no way I’d be able to talk my way out of that one, especially since I had admitted to demonic heritage. Which meant I’d need to get the goods elsewhere.

That was its own problem, though. Say I nabbed thirteen virgins. Either I would have to transport them back to Windwater, and hold them there until it was time to do the ritual, inside my warded ritual space (problematic, since the teleport scrolls I had maxed out at ten creatures), or I would have to dodge authorities and relatives of the girls somewhere nearby while getting an area properly prepared and warded to keep the different churches from sending much higher-leveled foes to my doorstep. Given that it was the second time I’d be doing the ritual, there was a chance that the gods might get involved, themselves, and send divine messengers after me!

So, yeah, I was hoping to maximize the time I spent without losing any of those extra lives. And I didn’t want to find out what happened if both Angelina and myself were dead at the same time. The ritual didn’t exactly go into that. There was a decent chance that little edge case would be a loophole, leaving us both just dead, and the rest of the extra lives wasted. Not something I wanted to test.

Anyways, with scrying magic blocked, for the time being, and our pursuers otherwise engaged, I decided to forget those problems for now, and turn my attention to my status screen. In particular, to my skills. I had forty skill points to spend, thanks to my new race and the dual-class boon. However, it appeared that I had forty-three points worth of skills to decide on.

Available Skills:

Note: Your available skills are based on your Race, Class, Profession, and activities.

Racial Skills (Greater Angelic Succubus):

Mindnumbing Claws – Able to grow claws with Shapeshifting, dealing (STR/2) damage, but dealing (CHA/10) damage to the target’s WIS. (Costs 2 Skill Points)

Summon Demons – Summon demons to your side. Demons are not bound, and must be either bargained with or otherwise subdued. (Costs 2 points to take)

Angelic Might – Angelic power flows through you. Temporarily treat your STR, DEX, and CON as though they were each the sum of all three attributes. Costs 1000 MP per second. (Costs 2 points to take)

Summon Angels – Summon angels to your side. Angels are not bound, and must be either bargained with or otherwise subdued. (Costs 2 points to take)

Strength of Lust – Temporarily increase a creature’s STR by your CHA, but their libido increases dramatically. (Costs 2 points to take)

Demonic Ardor – Temporarily increase a creature’s CON by your CHA, but their inhibitions are removed. (Costs 2 points to take)

Angel’s Mercy – Can choose to have your attacks that would otherwise kill a creature leave them with 1 HP, but putting them to sleep for 1 minute per point of damage negated in this way. (Costs 2 points to take)

Angelic Brilliance – Angelic power flows through you. Temporarily treat your INT, WIS, and CHA as though they were each the sum of all three attributes. Costs 1000 SP per second. (Costs 2 points to take)

Class Skills (Mind Sorceress):

Mental Might – If your (INT+WIS+CHA) is greater than target’s (INT+WIS+CHA), double your effective level before applying any level-based variables or effects to Mind Sorceress spells. (Costs 2 points to take)

Willbreaking Weapons – All weapon attacks (including natural weapons) deal an extra 1/10 of their base damage to the target’s WIS. (Costs 2 points to take)

Passive Shields – The Mind Sorceress is able to passively protect her friends and allies. Able to give a passive shield to up to (CHA/10) individuals, which reduces damage from mental effects by the sorceress’s CHA. (Costs 2 points to take)

Language Transfer – When using any version of Minor Telepathy (including Mindnet and Telepathy), the Mind Sorceress is able to instantly learn any languages those she contacts know, and is able to teach any language she knows to those she contacts. (Costs 2 points to take)

Class Skills (Spellshooter):

Cone Shot – Change any Spellshooter spell into a cone 30 meters long and 30 meters wide, at touch range. Multiply MP cost by 100. Damage is applied to all targets in the area. (Costs 2 points to take)

Beam Shot – Change any Spellshooter spell into a beam 2 meters wide and 100 meters long. Multiply MP cost by 100. Damage is applied to all targets in the area. (Costs 2 points to take)

Slowing Shot – When firing any gun, pay 100 times the MP or SP cost to reduce the target’s movement speed, casting speed, and attack speed by half for 1 minute. (Costs 2 points to take)

Weakening Shot – When firing any gun, pay 100 times the MP or SP cost to reduce the creature’s STR by 1/10 the damage dealt for 24 hours. (Costs 2 points to take)

Profession Skills (Courtesan):

Magic Touch (Strength) – With a touch, the Courtesan can bolster an ally. Cannot be used on oneself. By spending (CHA) MP, increase the touched creature’s STR by her CHA for 1 hour. (Costs 2 points to take)

Magic Touch (Dexterity) – With a touch, the Courtesan can speed an ally. Cannot be used on oneself. By spending (CHA) MP, increase the touched creature’s DEX by her CHA for 1 hour. (Costs 2 points to take)

Magic Touch (Intelligence) – With a touch, the Courtesan can educate an ally. Cannot be used on oneself. By spending (CHA) MP, increase the touched creature’s INT by her CHA for 1 hour. (Costs 2 points to take)

Magic Touch (Wisdom) – With a touch, the Courtesan can enlighten an ally. Cannot be used on oneself. By spending (CHA) MP, increase the touched creature’s WIS by her CHA for 1 hour. (Costs 2 points to take)

General Skills:

Onslaught Shield – When a spell you cast would do more damage than the creature’s current HP, gain a temporary magic shield. This shield absorbs incoming damage. It disappears after 1 minute, or when it has absorbed a total amount of damage equal to the difference between the spell damage and the creature’s HP before the spell hit. (Costs 2 points to take)

Long-Range Appraise – Able to use Appraise on any target in line of sight.

Honestly, it wasn’t much of a choice. [Onslaught Shield] looked nice, but it wasn’t really all that useful. Like, maybe if I was using all my buffs and laying waste to a bunch of goblins before taking on another Goblin Lord? But racking up enough of a shield that wouldn’t expire in a minute to be worth it against anything capable of overwhelming my existing defenses? Yeah, that was very much a niche scenario.

[Long-Range Appraise] was interesting, and if I had any other one-point skills to pair it with, it would be an obvious grab. However, I didn’t have anything to pair it with, and there wasn’t really any reason to pick it. Just being able to use [Appraise] at targets within line of sight wasn’t worth an orphaned skill point.

The Courtesan skills were nice for some temporary buffs. My MP Regeneration was high enough that I could slap one of those buffs on six people and I would be back to full MP in three minutes or so. That would make for some solid boosts to the party before a boss fight in the next dungeon we faced.

The Spellshooter skills were… OK. All of them were expensive, multiplying the cost by 100 for each cast, but I could see them being very useful. Area effect options were always welcome, even if I wouldn’t use them as often. [Slowing Shot] and [Weakening Shot] could be nasty, though. [Slowing Shot] was better for fast targets that had high attack speeds, probably paired with [Magic Missile] for the auto-hit. [Weakening Shot] would probably do very nicely against big creatures with tons of HP. I would have to see if using them with [Magic Missile] would have the abilities go off on every missile.

It was the Mind Sorceress skills where things started getting truly nasty. [Passive Shields] and [Language Transfer] were nice, of course, but they weren’t the crazy ones. [Mental Might] meant that, so long as the target’s mental stats didn’t total more than 1373, my level would pretty much always be doubled for any Mind Sorceress spells, which was bad news for anyone on the receiving end, obviously. But [Willbreaking Weapons]? Overpowered.

Well, it was over powered for me. I had the attributes, skills, and second class to actually make fighting with weapons a decent option. Your normal Mind Sorceress was a squishy thing, that didn’t like getting in melee, and their weapon attacks probably weren’t great easier. Even with [Psychic Weapons], which gave extra damage to weapons, that was more a bandage than a real fix.

For me, on the other hand, it wouldn’t be terribly hard to reduce someone to 0 WIS. When that happened, they would be unconscious, and basically helpless. I could execute them, or hit them with [Mindcrush], which would permanently reduce their mental attributes by my CHA. And that would pretty much make them a mindless drone forever, or until someone used magic to reverse it.

And then you had some of my Racial Skills, like [Mindnumbing Claws] which added on even more WIS damage to my attacks. And since I could spend MP to use [Angelic Might] to make my STR count as my STR+DEX+CON? That gave me a quick window to shred a target’s WIS.

[Strength of Lust] and [Demonic Ardor] were solid buffs, though the penalties could be problematic if it went too far. No one wanted a warrior to start trying to seduce the enemy instead of slaying them. And the last thing I needed in a fight was for a rogue to start trying to ‘backstab’ me when I was trying to concentrate on my work!

[Angelic Mercy] had potential. Sure, the way it was intended to be used was to smack down someone and put them to sleep, so that they could be brought to justice or whatever it was angel types liked to do. However, if I paired it with [Annihilation]? Suddenly, I could blast an entire army and put them to sleep without actually killing them. Or I could one-hit someone important, like a certain baron, and truly say that I didn’t kill them. Of course, if something happened to do at least one point of damage after that…

And then, of course, there were the standouts, at least as far as my immediate plans were concerned. [Summon Demons] and [Summon Angels] would allow me to basically bypass the [Rite of Summoning]. There was the chance that I’d have a bit more control over who or what I got out of the ritual that way. Of course, the [Rite of Summoning] wasn’t limited to angels and demons. But having a dragon or something like that in my party would be way too conspicuous.

Either way, it was safe to say that I was an absolute beast.