MM - Chapter 172 - GARBAGE OR GOLD?

As Lyale and Selena charged, the beasts entered a ravenous frenzy. Thousands of throats screamed for murder with nonsensical, guttural fury. They climbed atop each other in their quest for violence. Dozens died in the opening seconds, killed by their own. Blood splashed across their bodies, the fresh scent driving the rest into an army-wide Berserk state that would grow in efficacy with each passing minute. The royals were already on a clock.

Lyale veered to the side, directly toward the nearest grouping of Morkits. He leapt high, easily clearing the chaff. Crescents flew from his sword, each cleanly striking a Morkit. For the first time since their journey began, Lyale’s attacks failed to one-shot the durable beasts. Considering his crescents stacked at least four boosting skills and bonuses came from his equipment, the need for a second attack to kill each Morkit showcased just how tough they were.

Raine nodded, knowing ZionLine had good reason for choosing Lyale as an escort for this quest. The guardsman landed on the head of a Torkit and promptly blew its body to mush with another jump that flung him deeper into the sea of muscle and rage. The beasts tracked him like children chasing a ball. The river undulated as they gave chase, only the Morkits having any success in wading through their lessers to reach him, exactly as planned.

While Layle drew the true threats away, Selena continued charging straight toward the Torkits. A thin sword appeared in her hand. She drew the weapon back for a powerful thrust, and a thin, pointed bubble of crimson energy wrapped around her body. With a mighty shout, her sword darted forward, and her body followed. Her speed increased tenfold, turning her into a red streak that slashed straight into the army of beasts. Every Torkit that came in contact with her Cannon Thrust was instantly shredded. Their blood stained the field around her before being absorbed to further fuel her thrust. She streaked deep into their lines, not slowing for nearly fifty meters.

Raine couldn't help but be impressed. The complex combination of skills Selena used was implemented with exceptional timing, a feat that was only possible with intense dedication and precision. As a rule, awakened Vaaterrans were as flawed as any human. They grew complacent, nervous, and enraged, making the mistakes to match. The fact that she charged in, essentially alone, and didn't mess anything up right away spoke to her vast potential as a warrior.

To counter their very human weaknesses, Vaaterrans lacked Connection, meaning they had one less attribute thinning their distribution of stats. Since their classes were the same as Travelers, giving the same quantity of attributes per level, they tended to have greater speed and strength. Additionally, there was no way Selena had a standard class. Raine wouldn’t be shocked if she had an advanced class like him, or one of an even higher rank. The Vaaterrans had dwelled within Vaateaire for thousands of years, ensuring their royal lines had access to the very best classes and equipment.

Unfortunately, to complement their higher attributes, Vaaterrans tended to focus on a singular, powerful skill, rather than the vast array of abilities that Travelers were forced to lean into. Selena’s Cannon Thrust had even more potential than Lyale’s crescents; unfortunately, her lower level meant she lacked the full array of skills and passives to make the most of it. As the skill ran its course and entered a long cooldown, she was left stranded in an ocean of hatred.

The swarm of Torkits descended. Hundreds of whizzing blades closed in from all around. The devilish little beasts were stacked two, sometimes three high. The only reason she survived was that their haste to reach her blocked her from the sight of most of the horde. Despite being surrounded, Selena fought like a hellion. Each swing of her slender blade blasted away multiple Torkits, proving she was just as strong as she was fast.

Her priceless armor saved her countless times in the first few seconds. Blades bounced off it like striking adamantium. Only the bludgeoning blows from their heavy clubs showed any sign of effectiveness. Selena was battered and knocked about, yet her blade never slowed. It slithered left and right, leaving trails of crimson light in its wake. Bodies slid apart around her as she pressed on, toward the canyon’s far side.

With every kill, a complex array etched into her armor absorbed the souls of the dead. Little balls of ghostly energy zipped into her, sending pulses of lightning flickering across the leather. Raine would bet his last cred the souls were reducing her thrust's cooldown. Soon, she would rerelease the skill again, gloriously charging across the remaining canyon where she would run out of steam directly before reaching the two groups of waiting Morkits. Vulnerable and alone, she would be obliterated in a second.

Raine sighed, having hoped to avoid displaying any of his capabilities until they were inside the Mystic Realm. The probability of enemy spies observing their every move was high. Even if that wasn’t the case, the less he revealed, the better. There was always the possibility that the Celendine Dynasty discovered what he intended to hide inside Astra’s warehouse. They would turn against him without mercy. The only method he'd thought of to prevent that was remaining a mystery. Fear of the unknown was a universal truth, after all.

Of course, his efforts would be rendered meaningless if the royal library had complete records of the Armsman class. Since it was from an ancient race long before the Vaaterrans’ rule, it was possible they didn't. Unlikely, but possible. Better to try and fail than do nothing at all.

To that end, Raine had a plan. His first step was choosing one of the three options for a unique skill. After doing so, he carefully reviewed his newly adjusted build one last time, triple-checking each choice. He couldn’t help but cringe. Spending three general skill points on the particular skills he had in mind was a severe mental blow, and a huge gamble. In the past, each of the three had earned a reputation for being wretched, unsalvageable build-destroyers. Yet, for Raine, their combination with his existing skills and strengths could result in an unfathomably broken build. There were many potential flaws, but if he was right about a few crucial details, then the garbage skills he was about to purchase would turn to gold, or maybe even platinum.

As Raine prepared to buy the new skills, the weaknesses of the Armsman class shone bright in his thoughts: Discipline regeneration, cooldowns, berserk-type speed and damage bursts, each a detriment easily exploited if his enemies learned of them. For anyone else, navigating the general skill store’s 2,344 skills with the intent to counter these shortcomings would be a nearly impossible prospect. Unwilling to hesitate after taking the first step, Raine bought the first ‘garbage’ skill and immediately spent a thousand Attunement upgrading it to Beginner.

[Flawed Conversion: (Novice > Beginner) Burn 10 > 9 of any resource, converting them into 1 of any other resource (No cooldown)]

Raine only needed to use the skill a hundred times to upgrade it to adept, where the horrendous cost would drop to 8. Even at the maximum tier for a general skill, it would still burn 5 of any resource for 1 of another. At its current grade, recovering a measly 100 Discipline would churn through nearly a thousand of another resource. Beyond the numerical inefficiency, sacrificing large amounts of resources came with a steep cost in discomfort and mentality, which could easily impact the outcome of a battle. For many, Flawed Conversion was a general skill they would never take, even if paid to test it.

Raine wasn’t much better off. Draining 90% from one of his other resources would only earn enough for one or two more skill uses. Hardly a worthy exchange considering how much use he could get from each resource with the Heart of Plutus's varied Fractions. Flawed Conversion was, for all standard intents and purposes, a suboptimal way to counter Armsman’s Discipline deficit. However, like the two skills Raine planned to buy next, it would not be used in isolation.

He bought the next, upgrading it as well.

[Edge of Torment: (Passive) (Novice > Beginner) Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Physical Damage increase by .05% > .10% for every % of maximum health lost]

If Raine was at death's door with a single % of health remaining, Edge of Torment would only increase his speed and damage by 9.9%. It was a far cry from a real berserk skill's doubling or tripling of speed and power. Berserk skills also boosted attributes directly, meaning they gave widespread bonuses that affected every aspect of a build. 

Edge of Torment would improve slightly with each grade, but it would never be genuinely amazing. Worse still, adjusting to nominal increases in speed and strength mid-fight was incredibly challenging and dangerous. When the difference between an enemy's blade slitting your throat or missing you entirely could be measured in increments of a millimeter, a scaling increase in speed was suicidal. It was much simpler to train and utilize a normal Berserk skill that gave static increases. With Edge of Torment, the slightest miscalculation of strength could see Raine throwing himself across a battlefield instead of perfectly executing a life-saving maneuver.

Raine wasn’t done. The path he was embarking on was that of the elite. He would either adapt to what he currently considered impossible, or he would fail, dying repeatedly until he dropped behind in levels and faded into history, becoming just another of the thousands of early forerunners who couldn’t keep up. Focused and utterly committed to this new path, Raine chose the final skill, one that would define his martial style forevermore.

[Prominence of the Fool: (Passive) (Novice > Beginner) Wielder gains a bonus 25% > 30% to all damage types. Wielder's equipped weapons grow colder with each second. While in a combat state, lose .25% maximum Health per second. Additionally, lose 0.25% maximum Movement Speed and Attack Speed per second. Damage and slow received doubles every two seconds]

In the past, Prominence of the Fool was the number one skill joked about around the campfire. The number of people lured by its impressive damage boost, who were then forced to restart their accounts, wasn’t small. As with the popular brain melter that it only took 42 folds of a paper to reach the moon, repeated doublings rapidly grew out of control. The damage and slow seemed innocently small, but the math proved they were anything but. Within 15 seconds, death was all but inevitable. Since ZionLine loved to throw around armies of beasts that could take hours or days to mop up, a skill that limited you to 15 seconds per combat was highly inadvisable.

Raine was well aware of the shortcomings of all three skills and would never have purchased them without multiple layers of contingencies in case he was wrong. First and most importantly, when it came to Prominence of the Fool, he could change weapons mid-combat, something not usually possible. If he was right, doing so would reset the skill’s timer.

The thought of taking the taboo skill had occurred to him shortly after first acquiring the cursed ring. At the time, he swore to never take it. While theoretically he could cycle through weapons every few seconds, reaping a huge damage boost for little downside, in practicality, that couldn’t be further from the case. 

Raine could roll the same weapon repeatedly, forcing him to take extra ticks of the damage and slow, which could lower his health enough that he could no longer trigger the roulette—a sure death caused by nothing but his own aptly-named foolishness. Additionally, some of his best AOE skills were tied to specific weapon types, and in the case of Cassidy’s Comet, to one particular weapon. Being forced to change weapons every few seconds was less than ideal. Many of the previous strategies he used, like powerleveling the core group, would no longer be possible thanks to Prominence of the Fool.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. The most impactful detriment was that constantly swapping weapons meant drastically altering his entire fighting style on the fly, and to a weapon that couldn't be predicted. Doing so multiple times in the same fight would become more and more of a nightmare as his foes grew ever more competent.

It's insane to attempt training in even two weapon types seriously. Masters spend lifetimes perfecting the use of a single weapon. They become their blades, every facet of their being dedicated to each swing. For me to face off against those monsters with nine different weapons, chosen randomly no less, is… well, insane.

The second reason Raine went back on his vow was a combination of the Soul Flame of Amanesh and bloodlust. With clever use of killing intent and his bare fists wrapped in flame (which were not counted as a weapon) he could deal significant damage without actively entering a combat state. If faced with a horde that couldn’t be cleared in a few seconds, the 30 years he fought and bled with nothing but his knuckles would be there, shining through to support him.

Third, with the unique skill he chose, swapping weapons constantly wouldn't hold back his skill usage as much as before. Finally, if he was wrong about swapping weapons resetting Prominence of the Fool, he would only need to fork out some gold to wipe the skill. He already planned to do that once it was time to leave the cursed ring behind, so it hardly felt like a loss. In the meantime, he would enjoy a static 30+% percent bonus to damage.

These are the right choices. But it goes beyond logic. Since day one, and killing that golem for Zoarra, ZionLine has been guiding me down a path that shouldn’t be possible. I’m not some combat savant who can pick up a weapon and instantly wield it like a god. I’m as slow to learn as anyone else, yet here I am, walking a path to mastering nine separate weapon types. I want to believe that ZionLine set me on this path for a reason, that I was brought back for a reason...

Even if I’m wrong, I’ll keep pushing forward. Hesitation is death… I fear, but I will not relent.

Only time would tell if Raine could overcome the gap in perfection that a master wields with their chosen weapon. Meanwhile, Selena roared, and a fully empowered Cannon Thrust rushed her closer to her own doom. Raine dove, intending to find out firsthand whether these garbage skills would be a nightmare to himself or his enemies.