Chapter 208 - Draconic influence

Available Passive Skills :

• [ with suffering] : all those who touch it except the necromancer with long lasting [Agony].
• [Runic ] : You are one with the runes of
• [Greater holy ] : Activate to surround the Saint with a greater holy aura which
• [ miasma] : of weakening miasma.

“Interesting…”

‘Greater holy’ is a nice keyword to get, and miasma is not bad too I think. Wasn’t miasma supposed to be the Basilisks’ airborne poison? That should be pretty strong. These things are the whole reason boats can’t go further south than the first trial tower according to the pirate crew.

So what do I do? Already there’s many good combinations compared to the active skills! It’s going to be hard to choose for the opposite reasons… Well, I’ve dealt with worse.

These are my passive skills right now :

Passive Skills (5 / 8)

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

[Vakariazrehafin of Sorrow] ♢

[Exalted Exoskeleton] ♢

[Venerable physique of the primeval void] ♢ - Doors of the Light forging realm

[Bone dominus] - Level 2

I have three free slots. I should get more passive keywords at 210 and 230. But unless I get slots from the level 250 trial, if I follow the current pattern, my next passive slot is at 300… That is a while. And before that I should also get more passive keywords at 250 and 270, while the ones from 290 will be skipped until I complete the level 300 trial as they usually do.

In total I will likely get eight more keywords before I get a new slot…

Of my current passives… I’m never getting rig of any of them, realistically, even if they weren’t locked for the most part. What this is all telling me is that I’ll soon have too many keywords and not enough slots.

This all only leaves two choices, either I make skills with three or more keywords and try to use them all, or I selectively wait and pick the best sounding combinations while allowing myself a lot of freedom of choice. That makes the second option sound better, but it’s actually only slowing my growth.

I don’t know…

My only certitude right now is that I can’t afford to make two passives right now with these four words, or I’ll be locked out of using the ones I get later.

So of all possible combinations, [Greater holy with suffering] could be decent, since it’s a combination of two keywords only the effects are more predictable, and for once the descriptions say a lot. I’m fairly confident that this would be an aura which applies [Agony]. Could be worth taking.

[Runic miasma] on the other hand, the skill name itself paints a nice picture but the descriptions don’t match really well. ‘ You are one with the runes of weakening miasma’.

Maybe. But not very inspiring.

[Runic with suffering] is still a big no.

And I guess that leaves [Greater holy miasma] which… I could see that working. Holy aura of miasma?

Of the three word combinations… The order of ‘Greater holy’ and ‘Runic’ doesn’t seem like it would change the meaning either way and about the same for the two end keywords. So it would really be about whether to pick two fronts or two backs.

Which makes the best sounding choices be [Greater holy Runic miasma]; [Runic miasma with suffering], and [Greater holy with suffering miasma].

I would say [Runic miasma with suffering] doesn’t have the same potential the two other ones have. Feels like a waste of the ‘Runic’ keyword. Though, I have to say, ‘miasma’ and ‘with suffering’ are both parts of skills that apply negative status effects so they go well together. [Greater holy with suffering miasma] might just be what I need then, and I keep the ‘Runic’ keyword for something more appropriate later.

“But miasma with suffering or with suffering miasma? Suffering miasma kind of makes it sound like it’s the miasma which does the suffering, no? Let’s go for [Greater holy miasma with suffering] then, I’m counting on you, Sir Scribe!”

Sofia had a suspicion that maybe sticking ‘Greater holy’ and negative status effects together might not result in a strengthened effect like she hoped. But at the same time, maybe it would, and there was precedent with ‘Holy skeleton’ and ‘Holy wings of undeath’ not having adverse effects despite the very opposite base words. Either way, she couldn’t accept leaving the trial without a single new skill especially when she had three level 200 skill up tickets.

You have acquired the Passive skill : ‘ with suffering’

You have acquired the Passive skill : ‘ miasma’

You have acquired the Passive skill : ‘Greater Holy ’

The skill appeared all messed up in her status. Oh, looks like the Scribe didn’t have a ready answer for this one. By reflex she still tried to access the skill’s information which returned two small messages in Draconic.

“That first one I can already tell is the usual ‘ERROR’, so if I follow the logic, the other one is something like ‘Please wait’ if I remember correctly.”

Sofia decided to take a look at the book on Draconic that Sen had left her to wait for the skill to update. Fast reading was of no help this time, she had to slowly try to understand the principles of the Draconic language. Just understanding the basic principle of their special alphabet took her three hours.

That was three pages. Great. There’s what, eight hundred more? Maybe I should have picked the [Emerald cypher] after all…

The skill had been ready for a while but Sofia was too focused on her studying to notice. She got worried when she saw the skill name written in Draconic but thanked the scribe when the description was actually readable.

[???] : When activated, the light of your holy spells spreads ‘The Erredian Rot’.

Upkeep : 10 000 mana per second

Sofia stared at the description for a while.

That was the most concise of all her three keyword skills yet. No details, no nothing, just an ominous line about rot and a gigantic mana cost.

“Seriously, that's the same cost as a basic angel’s bolt…”

It’s not too bad, still. I can keep that going for thirty seconds which is a lot, all things considered. But this ‘Erredian Rot’ sounds scary. Which… Is good? Do I need to worry about hitting myself with it? I don’t suppose I can get more details about what this rot is meant to be.

Could I at least get a list of exactly which skills this works with, like is the solar light from the spine holy light?

[Please wait.]

[List of known skills and wild magic capable of producing holy light:

‘Eclipse Skeleton’

‘Spine of the Black Sun’

‘Heal Undead’

‘Exalted Exoskeleton’

‘Venerable physique of the primeval void’

‘Sanctity’

‘The Book of Skeletons’]

Sofia was surprised that she actually got what she asked for, and not in Draconic either which was a relief.

“So basically most of my skills. [Heal undead] and [Exalted Exoskeleton] aren’t a surprise, but everything else?”

So Pareth and the book’s summons like the Paladins and the Priest should be able to apply it? If so, that's incredibly strong. Though, [Heal Undead] might be the most efficient way to spread it yet.

[Heal Undead] : Invokes a pillar of Holy healing light. Only heals the undead.

Max range and radius of 71 meter (1*Skill Level).

Heal the undead for 81 (10 + Skill level) Health + (5% of the healed undead’s maximum health) per second while the light is channeled.

The light pillar’s upkeep is 100 mana per second plus 1 mana per 2 Health points restored.

Does not work in restricted spaces.

As long as it’s not healing anything, it’s only 100 mana per second no matter the size. If I get it to level 200 or 249, that’s a really big area that showers everything with holy light… I wanted to get rid of it because the mana cost is too high to heal Pareth since he had so much health. Just using it for half a second during the fight against Victory almost halved the mana I had left. But now if it can also spread a strong status effect…

I might not be getting rid of it quite yet!

It’s also nice that the spine works but that’s just a footnote at this point. But I don’t understand at all how  VPPV and [Sanctity] produce holy light? Either the system messed up or I’m missing some serious details about some of my skills. Probably the second option.

Also no Angel’s Bolt. So Angelic light isn’t Holy light. I’m not too surprised but it’s interesting to know for sure. Since Sofia understood that Angels were affiliated with the system and that ‘Holy’ light meant that it pertained to the Gods, it was logical that they were different. Unless the system was some kind of God, but from this, it seemed it wasn’t.

With one skill category figured out, Sofia spent more time agonizing over what to do with her active skills, but she couldn’t decide in the end and opted to wait until the next time she got new keywords. Instead, she focused on the classless skills. She had three slots to fill, potentially four if she dropped [Sprint] again, and a specialization point waiting to be used.