Chapter 750 - Taking roots

I feel like… Natural Champion Reading could be good.

If it can just give me a processing bonus, it would be an incredible start for a skill fusion. I could work toward another [Dodge-me] tier skill. Not to mention they are the three keywords with the strongest-sounding description bits.

It has to be good.

[You have selected : Natural - Champion - reading. Are you sure?]

Sure. Hopefully this one doesn’t take much blueprint space like the Abereth.

There was some wait, this time, but it was only a few minutes. Soon enough, Sofia got a new skill, and she noticed some of the effects before even opening the description.

No way!

You have acquired the passive skill : ‘Forced genius body’

♢ [Forced genius body]:

Rarely does jealousy create greatness, but perhaps, just once, it did bear fruit.

Your body becomes a ‘natural’ champion at reading and exploiting mana pathways to their full potential, at a cost.

Maximum Health -20%.

All skills are always at the maximum level possible for your current filter.

In rare cases, skills that cannot level may level up.

+0% (0*Skill level) probability of skill that cannot level leveling up.

I don’t even care about the health penalty! This is going to save me so much time!

Oh! And we’re done calculating all the slot attributions? Nice! 

Name : Sofia Aphenoreth

Age : 21 ♢

Class : [Saintomancer] ♢

Sub-Class : [False Lord] ♢

Level :  300

Health : 17 246 326  (-20%)

Stamina : 7 846 671

Mana : 199 572 495 (+77%)

Divinity: 130

(Mana Regeneration: (0.32%) + Other sources = 847 371/s)

(Mana Regeneration in Sunlight : (0.32%) + Other sources = 2 067 605/s)

Main Specialization : [Eclipse Skeleton]

Alteration chance : 0%

Secondary Specialization : [Heat Death]

Tertiary Specialization : [Sovereign of Unshackled frames]

Signature Skill (ULTIMATE)

[Awakening of the five calamities]

Mana Heart Abilities (4)

[Infinity Engine] Lv.3

[Relocate Core] ULTIMATE Rank

[Slashing Resistance]

[Explosion Resistance]

Remaining possible skill slots : 4.7 / 50

False Lord Skills (2 of 50 Slots)

♢ [Singularity edict] ♢ (1S)

♢ [Paradise Toybox] ♢ (1S)

Active Skills (16.8 of 50 Slots)

[Spine of the Black Sun] - Level 349 (1S)

[Summon Odalite Blood] - Level 349 (5.3S)

[Graveyard of the Nymphs] - Level 349 (1.3S)

[False immortality] - Level 5 (3.2S)

[Skull Choir] - Level 349 (0.7 + 0.5S)

[Reign over shadows] (1.1S)

[Saintomancer’s Star] (1.4S)

[Avatar of Zeus] (1.6S)

[Abereth of Greed] (0.7S)

Passive Skills (9.2 of 50 Slots)

[Blessing of the Deep] - (2/4) (0S)

♢ [Vakariazrehafin, Hungering hand of Sorrow] ♢ (2.1S)

♢ [Venerable physique of the primeval void] ♢ - Peak of Light forging realm (4.3S)

[Runeforged Overlord] ♢ - Level 349 (1S)

[Sixth Melody] (0.9S)

[Forced Genius body] ♢ (0.9S)

Classless Skills (6.7 of 50 Slots)

♢ [Dreams Of a Demon which Gods Envy - March of the Envoy] ♢ (2.2S)

[Summon Self] - Level 100 (0.6S)

[Essence Resonator] ♢ (1.3S)

[Radiance] - Level 100 (1S)

[Crystallized Suffering] ♢ (1.6S)

Racial Skills (5 of 50 Slots)

♢ [Edgewalker] ♢

♢ [Pillar of Creation] ♢

♢ [Mockery of the Divine] ♢

♢ [Convergent Evolution] ♢

Special Skills (0.1 of 50 Slots)

♢ [The Book of Skeletons] ♢ (0.1S)

Wildcast Skills (3 of 50 Slots)

[Angel’s bolt] ♢ (1.5S)

[Identify] (0.9S)

[Call Elemental Sprite] ♢ (0.6S)

Biomagical engineering (2.5 of 45 Slots)

[All-in Earring] (2S)

[Prototype Relocation Eye] (0.5S)

Summoned heroes (4 / 4)

• Lv.300 Pareth (Holy Hrimthurs Draugr Eclipse Skeleton)

• Lv.299 Alith (Alith)

• Lv.300 Book of Skeletons (Book)

• Lv.299 Ihuarah (Heartless Shade)

[Mark of Aphenoreth]

Fifty levels of Spine, Graveyard, Choir, and runeforged, almost a hundred of Summon blood, forty of Summon Self, and most importantly, a free level of False immortality!!!

Skills that cannot level up may level up. That line alone would have been enough for me to keep it. If Dodge Me or the venerable physique levels up… Even the demon form potentially could!

The skill itself doesn’t have a level but it still has a line for level scaling, that’s so messed up. It does illustrate the function well, though.

Hmm… The other skills don’t have that kind of scaling marked, however. So I’ll only know what improves if and when they get a level. I wonder if I need to do something special… Is it safe to assume I just need to keep using the skills?

This one’s mana pathways are… It’s surprising it only takes point nine slots considering how complex it is. But a lot of the mana channels just straight up dig into the small pockets of wasted free space of the other skill it looks like. That might actually make fusions a bit harder. It even digs a bit into the specializations. I can’t wait for the first level up!

Sofia leaned back, relaxing in her chair. That was one thing done on her long checklist. She needed to deal with her system-related tasks as soon as possible because she expected to have an extremely busy schedule moving forward. She had one year to pay her mana debt, collect as many divine essences as possible, build up her city, and train her friends for their trial.

I can already tell I won’t have a second for myself when I return to the swamp…

Alright… Let’s quickly check the crown and the essence list.

[Saintomancer’s Golden crown of Victory] :

Gain a cumulative strength buff from your every Valiant Victories.

Upon losing against a Valiant Victory target, lose related bonus.

This is only active while you wear the crown.

Lesser Victories:

Siren Queen +2%

Zhǎng Lú +2%

Cardinal, Puppet of Scripture +2%

Twin-Headed Sunless Amalgam +2%

Chimera +2%

Grand Crusader Vakarian +2%

Valiant Victories:

Ignatius Everbright +5%

Mutated Evranarheimlein +5%

Image of Orvod Maurya Ovohen +5%

Tarren +5%

Sunless Waves +5%

Image of Tartaros +5%

Ezerid Rodes +5%

Glorious Victories:

Incarnation of Victory +15%

Saria Aphenoreth +15%

Kidjikkik Destroyer +15%

Image of Sen +15%

Preposterous Victories:

Lilith +25%

Restriction : wearer must be Sofia Aphenoreth. Soulbound. System item.

There really isn’t a better environment than the trials to get victories for this crown. 182% extra strength. That’s what’s preposterous. If my base strength wasn’t so terrible I might be stronger than Pareth with that. I might just about get to his level in demon form now. Too bad we can’t look up the sub-stats. Ah, I need to check my aura as well. Even if I’ve got a pretty good read on it. It almost doubled… My mana shot up more than twenty times but aura barely moved.

But first! Divinity status!

Been a while since I checked that one. I wonder if I’ll be able to get the eleven essences I still need for VPPV…

[Divinity status - Sofia Aphenoreth]

– Saintess of technically nobody –

(VIP) (Safeguards : On) (Link Status : None - Connection aborted by Admin)

Planar connection:

Superphysical - Yes

Mana FOG - Yes ♢

Subspiritual - Yes

Margin - Yes

Deep - Almost definitely Yes

Collected Essence - EV :

Aphenoreth - #DIV/0

Creation (2) - 6.66

Death (3) - 15

Dread - 3.99

Life - 4.56

Looming - 5e-8

Ormoncleth - #DIV/0

Rejection - 1.76

Scripture - 2.32

Sorrow - 4.7

Taxes - 4.4

Sun (5) - 25

Victory - 4.32

This… He got stronger again… Well, that doesn’t change my plans.

Looming grew again too…

Nex has definitely been working on my case like he said. I suppose he did deserve that one slice of cake. I do wonder how things are going with Anna… But it’s not my problem to solve.

Enough to worry about…

But first…

Sofia stood up from the chair. Pareth, I’m going to Zangdar for a bit. Be right back.

She summoned the midenicite ring from within her left eye, and disappeared after putting it on her finger.

The midenicite castle was still the same, and Sofia could only feel a few presences there, her Skelems, and Rem, in the middle of the small Lumian bone tree forest. She had half-expected to meet either Saria or Alith here, but checking on Rem was the main priority either way.

Before that, she felt something enter Zangdar after her.

A thin pillar of black rock. 

The Abereth hovered above the ground slowly spinning on its axis, it had still been on the garden table an instant before, but it had managed to follow Sofia nonetheless.

Can’t escape, huh. I’ll need to find a way to stop this if I want to leave it as protection for the city… Whatever… Rem is more important.

Her mana seems stable.

Sofia approached silently. The young sleeping Dryad still looked mostly the same, but her head which used to lack a proper face was starting to warp into a more human shape, though it was still like looking at an unfinished wooden sculpture lacking any fine detail.

Sleeping so peacefully… Should I feed her a little?

Before she could do anything, the dryad woke up, looking around before staring at Sofia without standing up from her leaf-covered bed.

“Ah, did I wake you up? Slept well?”

Rem let out a cute high-pitched cry, sticking out her handless arms.

“What’s that, want a hug?”

Sofia bent over and grabbed the lazy Dryad out of her bed, giving a warm embrace to her wooden body. Hmm. I guess you don’t need blood if you’re going to absorb my mana like this. “You’re really enjoying this, huh? Does my mana taste better now somehow? Well. Eat up, I got more than enough” Sofia said to Rem as she happily nuzzled her head against Sofia’s chest, as if trying to chest closer to her mana heart. 

Holding Rem up with a single arm, she grabbed a random woolen cape from her storage and draped it over the dryad’s back. “I’m happy to see you more energetic than usual. Hold on tight, you should get some sun.”

Rem seemed happy, spending about half an hour sitting in the middle of Kuli’s garden under the late rays of the afternoon sun. She still couldn’t properly express herself, but it looked like she was starting to understand the meaning of words, or that was the impression Sofia got, at least. Soon enough, she fell asleep again, resting her head on Sofia’s lap.

Still hard to stay awake for long, huh? It’s getting better though. At this rate you can hold on for an entire hour soon. It’s slow but progress is progress. Sofia thought, gently caressing the Dryad’s wooden horns.

Let me get you back to your bed.

After warning Pareth and Kuli, Sofia spent a night with Rem in Zangdar, and the next morning, she got ready to leave, giving Kuli a short hug.

“I’ll see you soon in my city, right?”

“Neheh, I’ll come check it out as soon as I’m done with the guild business. So try to survive until then.”

“I’ll do my best!”