Chapter 649 - Combo maker

Failing to get this one will be the standard for what I consider a failure then. The effects must be pretty incredible for it to be so hard to get. Next, the awakening pill section…

[B rank Awakening Pill - 1000 TP

A rank Awakening Pill - 5000 TP

S rank Awakening Pill - 10 000 TP

SS rank Awakening Pill - 100 000 TP

SSS rank Awakening Pill - 1 000 000 TP]

Oh wow, the last two tiers are quite expensive, considering the cost of unique items. But then again anyone with an SSS rank heart had to kill on of the big monsters in the last trial so a million point should be easy even if they aren’t outliers like me. Pareth can already buy his share, which is nice, even though I’m not so sure a ‘pill’ will work…

There’s another issue too...

“Hey Lepo,” Sofia called out.

“Yes?”

“Pareth is a skeleton, he can’t usually eat stat pills or things like that. Will the awakening pills even work for him?” Sofia asked.

“Of course! This isn’t our first undead! He just needs to rub it on his mana heart until it’s fully absorbed instead of eating it, simple,” the shopkeeper explained.

“Alright, thanks. And second question, which one do I buy? There isn’t a pill for my rank.”

“There isn’t?!” Lepo repeated with a frown, “please wait a second…” he said, before spending a few seconds staring into the void, dealing with system windows that Sofia couldn’t see. Finally, he places his hands on his waist, “Ah! You had me scared for a second. Yours is a special case apparently, that can happen sometimes, where the generic pills won’t work. Your pill has already been brewed, I just need to add it manually… Oh my, now that’s a price tag I’ve never seen on an awakening pill before…”

One last line appeared on the shop’s window in front of Sofia’s eyes, and she directly opened its description.

[Special package - Infinity Engine Awakening Pill - 100 000 000 TP]:

This was an absolute pain to make, don’t waste it – FairyHands

“I could buy a five star pin unique for that price…”

“That must mean the ingredients were very expensive,” Lepo said with a shrug, “but looking at your current points right now, I doubt that will be an issue… You already have more than you’re supposed to be able to get by now…”

“That doesn’t seem to surprise you very much?”

“It’s above my paygrade,” he answered, shrugging again with his tail slowly waving left and right, “If the Seraphs aren’t blowing everything up then it’s probably fine.”

“... Does that happen?”

“Hopefully not!”

Reassuring…

“Anything else you think I should buy? There are quite a lot of tabs here…”

“Personally I would just save up for the pill first, if I were you. The earlier you get it the more time you will have to try to level up your mana heart,” the shopkeeper suggested, “but if anything, you could look at the skill optimization device right there.”

“That’s already what I was planning to do,” Sofia told him, closing the shop window and walking up to the blue pedestal. She put her hand on it and a screen lit up like the first time.

[Skill optimization available]

[Your point balance is ‘30 180 153’]

[Please wait a moment for your skills to be analyzed, do not remove your hand]

[Scan ongoing]

[Scan complete!]

[Contacting DATABASE]

[Download complete! You may now buy optimizations for the available skills]

[Skills available for guided optimization:

‘Spine of the Black Sun’

‘Graveyard of the Nymphs’

‘False immortality’

‘Skull Choir’

‘Summon Self’]

Oh! That’s more than I expected. And there’s false immortality in there! This could be big!

Impatient to see what this was going to be, Sofia selected that skill first.

[Skill : False Immortiality - Skill version index SK_FAIMM_0.42.2]

Current version : 

[False Immortality] (Level 4) : Carves an un-life rune on your own body.

While under the rune’s effect :

Your soul is concealed.

You no longer emit mana.

You no longer emit heat.

You no longer emit light. (This has been disabled by : Lumian)

You cannot regain mana. (This has been disabled by : Infinity Engine)

You cannot regain stamina.

You cannot regain health.

If you were to die, a rune is consumed, granting three seconds of invulnerability, and completely restoring your physical body, health and stamina included.

Costs 670 648 mana (Half of maximum mana / skill level) per use.

Requires 10 (5 due to [Hand of the first Saintomancer]) minutes channeling to carve a rune.

Up to 4 (skill level) un-life runes may be borne at once.

You may dismiss the rune at any time, this will not restore your body.

[Available branches (same version lettered upgrades are mutually exclusive):

0.42.3A - One more rune can be engraved at base level, global time to engrave increased from 10 to 20 minutes. - 10 000 TP

0.42.3B - Health can now be recovered while a rune is active but doing so will degrade the rune accordingly. (1% health recovered = 1% reduced rune completion) - 10 000 TP

0.42.3C - Body reconstruction and invelnerability time reduced to 1 second, thought continuity is no longer interrupted by rune-prevented deaths. 10 000 TP

0.43.1 - Skill becomes passive. Rune will now engrave themselves. 50 000 TP

Request new branch - 500 000 TP base fee* + Branch cost

*fee refunded if completion of request is impossible]

Hmm… There’s actually nothing too exciting there. One more rune but the cast time goes back up to 10 minutes is quite an annoying tradeoff. The healing is nice but reduced rune completion is annoying, means I will have to recast it, doesn’t it? Faster body reconstruction could be better at higher levels, but for now I’m not so sure, the three seconds buffer has been nice to have, and it even works against level 500s. If not for that Hugo would have truly killed me for sure.

I could maybe take both 0.42.3B and 0.43.1. That would allow me to still heal in battle, and the degraded runes would recomplete themselves, but since it becomes a passive it’s no longer a channeling cast, which means the engraving time goes back to ten minutes. That might really be the best move, considering it will help me keep the VPPV one-hit-kill protection up by healing back up over 99% health. And not having to manually cast the runes will be a lot less annoying even if it’s slower.

I’ll think about it. What about the other skills? ‘Summon Self’ is the most basic of basic teleportations, so I’m curious.

[Skill : Summon Self - Skill version index SK_SUMSF_2.2]

Current version : 

[Summon Self] (Level 54) : Instantly teleport yourself to a nearby location you can reach with your mana.

Range: 8.40 (10.22) meters (0.1*Skill level+3)

Coodldown: 30 seconds

Mana cost dependant on distance

[Available branches (same version lettered upgrades are mutually exclusive):

2.3 - Further Reduces Planar Drag - 2000 TP

3A - Range is doubled - 10 000 TP

3B - Cooldown is halved - 10 000 TP

Request new branch - 100 000 TP base fee* + Branch cost]

‘You have spent 10 000 tournament points’

‘Current balance : 30 170 153 points’

‘Notice: You are about to skip an intermediary branch (2.3), its effects will no longer available if you proceed’

Don’t care, I’m immune to planar drag already, give me the reduced cooldown!

‘[Summon Self] has been optimized following branch 3B’

“Points well spent. Quite cheap too,” Sofia mumbled to herself, already keen to look at the other skills.

This on is in a dire need of an upgrade.

[Skill : Spine of the Black Sun - Skill version index SK_SPOBS_1.0]

Current version : 

[Spine of the Black Sun] (level 263): Invokes the weapon ‘Spine of the Black Sun’. 

The Spine is a blunt segmented longsword that may also be used as an extendable whip.

Deals low physical damage.

Upon hitting an enemy with the Spine, creates a solar burst, damaging all enemies in a 6.26 (8.08)m (1 + skill level/50) diameter sphere around the point of impact. 

The explosion’s power scales with the skill level and the strength of the hit.

Recover Health equal to 26.3% (Skill level/10) of the damage dealt by the explosion.

The spine will disappear if it leaves your hands.

Requires a 3 (1.5) seconds channeling to deploy. Costs 100 (50) mana per second to maintain.

[Available branches (same version lettered upgrades are mutually exclusive):

1.1 - Channeling is now instant 1000 TP

1.2 - Unlocks a greatsword form, physical damage equivalent to unenchanted orichalcum - 2000 TP

Request new branch - 50 000 TP base fee* + Branch cost]

Wait… That’s it? Really?

I mean, I can get both of those, they’re almost free… But come on, those can barely be called upgrades!

The possibility of new forms though…

‘You have spent 50 000 tournament points’

‘Current balance : 30 120 153 points’

[You may request for any change to the skill. The more your request deviates from the base skill, the more unlikely it is to get through, and the more likely it is to cost a lot of points.]

[Please write your branch request here:          ]

It might get rejected but… Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And if it’s rejected I get a refund right? No reason not to try.

[Please write your branch request here: Hello, I would like a ranged form to shoot [Angel’s Bolt]s from, thank you in advance.]

[Branch Request sent]

Perfect. And now to…

Huh?

It’s stuck?

Sofia tried to take off her hand from the machine, but the screen was still stuck on the same message.

Sofia looked in Lepo’s direction, a confused evxpression on her face.

“Oh, did you request a new skill branch?” he asked, “The machine will no longer work until you receive the answer.”

“That is quite the terrible design,” Sofia commented with a sigh.

“I have to agree, but it should be fine, requests usually come through in a few seconds. If you didn’t ask for something unreasonable, at least, else it’ll be rejected just as fast.”

“Well… It’s still stuck, for now.”

“Just give it a bit,” Lepo confidently said.

Sofia spent the next twenty seconds staring at the screen while Lepo stared at her. “S- Still stuck?” he asked.

“Sure is…” Sofia confirmed

“Now that is a bit strange, it’s normally quite fast…”