Chapter 178: Skin Can’t See Color

Will sought out a nice quiet spot in the ever-bustling caravan and brought up his list of possible Secondary Abilities. With a quick scan, W

Will sought out a nice quiet spot in the ever-bustling caravan and brought up his list of possible Secondary Abilities.

With a quick scan, Will dismissed the Abilities that were simple attacks or things that he wasn’t particularly interested in:

Uru Breath, Stone Charge, venom Strike, Mighty Leap, Prey’s senses.

They were Abilities that had been offered early in his Climbing career, and they weren’t very powerful, sophisticated, or they were slightly redundant.

Next he went through the new abilities offered:

Inexorable

Active: 10 Charges

choose a creature, object, or point in space within range. The user is compelled to move towards it by the world itself. You cannot move further away, nor be moved further away. If you do not move, you will be pushed towards the target at a slow pace. Until User reaches the target, they cannot die, but can be mortally wounded.

Scales with Resistance.

That one is from the seed of Inexorable Death, Will thought. It mimicked Sin Amalgam’s tactic of warping reality so it couldn’t be escaped from.

Can’t die? Will thought, studying it. There were probably some tricks he could do with the Ability, upgrades that might give him a boost of healing on arrival, or add a damage effect. Add a lifesteal relic, recover from any wound he got on the way.

Could be a good way to buy time to recover from mortal wounds. Take a shot to the heart, select a max distance location and buy yourself another 30 seconds of life to find a solution.

Or Abyss, you could force your body through an impassable location and not die in the process.

It was an interesting ability, but Will’s defences and traversal were both already pretty solid, and the idea of stuffing himself through a pipe or the seam of a vault door were…not fun. Will was sure he would feel every bone getting crushed in the process.

Pass on that.

Consumption

Active: 5 Charges

Consume a permanent relic, destroying it in the process, to gain some of its effect for a few minutes. Can only benefit from one consumed relic at a time.

Scales with Resistance

…This goes together with Soudough, almost criminally well.

Will wasn’t sure, but if Sourdough could be used with it, he might be able to consume a Relic and preserve it with Sourdough, basically allowing him to pseudo-equip an extra relic for a certain amount of time without even losing it.

And of course he could custom-make Relics specifically for that use with Sourdough.

Interesting. Will added it to the list and moved on to the next new Ability.

Climber's Piton – Active: 10/1 Charges

 10 Charges. Place a dimensional anchor in the terrain. So long as the piton exists user may expend 1 Charge to propel themself directly towards it. Distance scales with Acuity, max number of Pitons with Focus, duration with Resistance.

Isn’t this the same Ability as the ranger I fought? The one who teleported to his arrows? Will thought, musing.

Could this Ability be upgraded from ‘propel’ to ‘teleport’? Will thought.

If so, it might be excellent. Despite being multi-Stat scaling, Will was pretty good at all of those things.

Without upgrading it to teleportation, it was about on par with what he could do with his Phantom Hand for free, bouncing himself around a battlefield wildly.

With a teleportation upgrade, it would probably be slightly better than the Dimensional Coiled Serpent Amulet, because Will imagined the range would be much higher, since the amulet was only ever meant to unexpectedly close a few feet of distance for a killing blow.

Maybe.

Will added to the list of potential acquisitions, then turned his attention back to the full list, minus the ones he’d dismissed already.

Let’s drop Gravity Charge, Progenitor Affinity, Stubborn Ass and Astral Tread.

Will reviewed and dismissed four more before he listed out all the remaining possible choices.

Deceiver’s Molt

Active: 5 charges. Moderate Self-heal. User slips out of their skin and creates a decoy that can perform simple pre-determined actions. The decoy will retain any wounds the user has healed through this Ability.

Man…this one just sounds fun.

Will could imagine himself upgrading it and then using those decoys to do the things he didn’t want to do, like feeding the oxen, signing papers, attending meetings.

They’d probably catch on eventually.

Titan’s Grasp

Passive: Space and gravity subtly warp around objects the user tries to hold, allowing them to handle objects both larger and smaller than they might’ve otherwise been able to handle, whether that be from cumbersome size or weight.

This could definitely be upgraded to synergize with both Phantom Hand and Aspect’s terrain manipulation ability, providing a powerful passive boost to both of them.

Serpent’s Tongue

Active: 1 Charge

With a vile word of Eternity, extend the duration of debuffs on the target for (Acu/10) Seconds.

Well, that would be amazing if I had already specced into debuffs…which I didn’t, unfortunately. Pass.

Blood Binding

Active: 20 Charges

Apply your tainted blood to a weapon to imbue it with a fraction of your nature. The weapon will warp fate to always return to you.

On Binding, one Ability will be randomly added based on the User’s Sacrifices. Only one Ability can be bound at a time, To re-roll the random Ability, Cast Blood Binding again.

…Probably the best one, Will thought. If he could add an extra ability to an already Sourdough-ed weapon and then add it to Phantom Hand…that was hard to say no to.

Uru Drake’s Eye

Passive: Become able to see that which a Uru Drake Progenitor can. Dimensional effects, Charges and miasma become visible to the naked eye.

…Interesting. I can already feel miasma and charges fairly well. What’s the benefit for me if I can physically see it? Will I be able to see past it? Will this effect blind me on higher levels?

Serpent’s Gaze

Active: 1 Charge

Inflict (acu/100) seconds of Paralysis on a target you can see the eyes of. Acuity contested by Focus or Resistance, whichever is higher.

Goes great with Phantom Eye. Acuity divided by one hundred isn’t nearly as much of a problem as it used to be. I could kill someone six different ways in two seconds.

Consumption

Active: 5 Charges

Consume a permanent relic, destroying it in the process, to gain some of its effect for a few minutes. Can only benefit from one consumed relic at a time.

Scales with Resistance

Pairs well with Sourdough.

Climber's Piton – Active: 10/1 Charges

 10 Charges. Place a dimensional anchor in the terrain. So long as the piton exists user may expend 1 Charge to propel themself directly towards it. Distance scales with Acuity, number of Pitons scales with Focus, duration of piton scales with Resistance.

Could be upgraded to allow higher level teleportation.

Will sat and reviewed all of his choices and imagined how they would impact his Class:

Deceivers Molt would make him trickier, allowing him to fake his death a couple more times before people caught on. It also gave him a self-heal Ability.

Will already had a self-heal Ability with his Set, offloading wounds onto his snakes.

In essence, this was a purely defensive Ability and didn’t really help him win a fight. Even if it was upgraded to allow the copies to have some of his Abilities, they wouldn’t be any stronger than he was…most likely significantly weaker.

Guess I’ll have to pass, Will thought, reluctantly setting it aside.

Will dismissed Serpent’s gaze and Climber’s Piton.

They were both good, but Serpent’s gaze branched off his Build into a debuffer, and the Piton was slightly redundant. If he could travel miles in a minute, possible medium range teleportation wasn’t that appealing.

That left him with: Titan’s Grasp, Blood Binding, Consumption, and Uru Drake’s Eye.

Blood binding and Consumption both leaned heavily into the Relic exploitation that his Build focused on. Titan’s Grasp would likely boost his Aspect cantrips even more than they already were. A simple boost in his raw, baseline power.

Abyss, I might even be able to upgrade Titan’s Grasp to further widen the definition of ‘terrain’.

And Uru Drake’s Eye…

Why IS that one still in my list?

Will almost dismissed it, but he couldn’t help but keep thinking about it, a nagging thought that kept resurfacing from the churning waters of his mind…what was it reminding him of?

Lord Ghoul.

Will thought back to his brief conversation on the subject of Cantrips.

‘Forget about your Class. ‘Mage’ is just a word I assign to people who have mastered their Abilities enough to create several unique cantrips. To me it means flexibility above and beyond the Archetypes people’s Classes try to impose on them. It doesn’t have any meaning in The System.’

‘Are you a mage?’ Will had asked.

‘Boy, I would qualify myself as a ‘wizard’.” Ghoul had said. ‘I can do a lot more than a few parlor tricks. I reverse engineered your cantrips and improved on them in a matter of seconds…Maybe one day you’ll be a wizard too.’

That’s what it is.

The Uru Drake’s Eye offered…information. The kind of information that Will couldn’t get anywhere else. Flexibility above and beyond his Archetype.

Sure, he could feel Charge being used with a high degree of accuracy, but there was probably more information underneath.

It was like this:

Will’s Acuity was high enough that he could sprint through a hallway with his eyes closed just by feeling the proximity to the walls with his skin and ears…but he couldn’t read the map on the wall that said ‘you are here’.

He couldn’t perceive color with his skin.

Does charge and Miasma have different colors? Could I tell what kind of Abilities other people are using before they even finish? Could I see hidden spells? Through illusions? Charms?

Will would never know, unless he gambled on this one Ability.

Will mentally reorganized the Abilities by how they might affect his Build:

Consumption, Blood Binding: Relic Exploiter

Titan’s Grasp: Terrain Master

Uru Drake’s Eye: …Wizard, maybe?

From the very beginning, Will had envied Nukers lording it over everyone with their truly magical Abilities that could level buildings, or even cities. That was power. That was magic, to Will. That was what he had wanted: Magic.

Over the course of his career, Will had gotten a lot closer to a Nuker, through incremental upgrades to his Build.

Tomorrow we’ll see how much closer.

If Will could use the Uru Drake’s Eye to enhance his understanding of Miasma and develop new cantrips…maybe he could be a wizard like Ghoul?

Even if it doesn’t lead to me developing new cantrips like Ghoul, it would still serve as an excellent information-gathering Ability, allowing me to see when people are trying to be tricky.

…Not to mention, the chokepoint.

Will’s thoughts turned towards Reese’s prediction of Will’s untimely demise. How he was Fated to die sometime in the next four or five years, on the 50th Floor.

Somehow, every Coil there was someone like him who rose to prominence, then died young mysteriously. They were all strapping young men with outlandishly powerful Classes that laid waste to their competition and made names for themselves as legends…right before the end of the Coil.

Ezykial the Serpent.

Castavelle the Paragon.

William Oh.

…And then they died.

Perhaps there’s some trial or circumstance that is literally impossible. Something that can’t be overcome with more power.

He hadn’t tried excercising all his power since he hit level 40, but Will was absolutely confident that he could already tear apart a castle or small city if he really wanted.

That brought Will back to his earlier rumination about making the transition from a Climber to a Lord. There was a limit to what more power could get you. More information on the other hand…

…I’m just convincing myself to take the plunge at this point, Will thought with a half-chuckle.

If this Uru Drake’s Eye doesn’t work, I’ll come back for one of the other three Abilities at level 50. It probably won’t be too far away, especially if The Tower has a bounty on Kincaid.

…Add Uru Drake’s Eye.

Confirmed.

Will closed his eyes as the shudder of his Class rearranging itself went through his whole body, collecting in his spine and travelling up through the back of his neck, creating a subtle pressure that seemed to gather behind his eyes before it faded a moment later.

Will took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

…And I’m blind.

Shit.