FB: Chapter 79 – Poison Rainbow

The middle aged woman who was the skill creator of the Shadow Union looked at me as I laid everything out. Ten platinum, a vial of black salamander poison, and eight epic Sample Poison skill shards. She looked over everything and then back at me.

“The poison is old. While professionally harvested, it has lost its legendary status,” she replied while picking up the vial and squinting at it.

“Will that be a problem?” I asked. I hadn’t managed to follow up on this skill creation for a while. An oversight of mine, but there had always been something more pressing to do rather than get a bit of a boost to my poison critical percentage.

“No. It won’t a problem since it was harvested by a skilled alchemist who made sure to retain the core properties.” She lay everything out on a metal plate and then I soon had my sixth special legendary skill shard, Black Salamander Poison.

Unlike Sample Poison, Black Salamander Poison would increase my chance of a poison critical by three percent per rank instead of one percent. I smiled as I replaced my skill shard out on my belt dagger.

“Was there anything else?” she asked, and I nodded at this question. I put a second vial of black salamander poison on her table and eight more epic skill shards for Sample Poison. I then laid out another 10 platinum coins.

“I need a second skill shard.” She nodded and took the items, making a second special Legendary skill shard.

“You want to get an artifact level skill shard,” she stated, and I nodded at this.

“I am also looking to increase the rank of these skill shards as well. I don’t have the items, would it be possible?” I asked while laying out my special Legendary skill shards of Vomitatis, Dice Roll, Blink, Poison Absorption, and Feather Weight. She carefully picked up each skill shard and looked them over before setting them back down on the table.

“You don’t ask easy questions, do you?” she replied. I put down 10 platinum coins which she took. “Without the specific items, you need a duplicator. A special legendary duplicator to get a copy of the skill shards. Something like that, costs a thousand platinum and are strictly controlled by the Human Emperor. You would have better luck getting the items themselves. You will need the base 8 Epic skill shards maxed out with your experience though.” I shook my head at this. Some just weren’t possible like the Tome of the Arch Mage Blight. Others like the Dice of the High Roller, were never going to happen. I cheesed a win against Garren Tine once, it wasn’t going to happen a second time.

Getting the duplicators was cheaper than the headache of getting some of the items. “What about the rank after Artifact, and then Heirloom? Is it just experience needed?”

“You will just need experience, that is it. Since you have raised up these skill shards with your own experience, you won’t need an item. Normally something is needed if you have used the experience of others to reach Heirloom rank, but you won’t have that problem. And before you ask, to get a skill shard to the Divine rank, you need a touch of divinity skill shard, which will require a quest from the patron god,” the skill creator explained.

I was slightly surprised I got specific answers, but I probably passed some requirement in terms of having enough special Legendary skills, having them made with this woman, or paying her a lot of money. These hidden relationship modifiers were why you didn’t piss off NPCs unless they were explicitly an enemy. “No other way around the duplicator?” I asked and she shook her head.

“Only with the original item, like you had here. After that it is just a matter of experience and getting duplicators. As for Divine level skill shards, I can’t help you with that. You would need to speak to a high ranking priest. It is rumored that each god can only make one divine skill. Since the Emperor is the Divine Saint of the Trinity, well you will have to look at darker gods,” she explained.

“I appreciate the information. Any suggestions on skills to boost poison or Luck?” I asked. The skill creator could offer advice on skill selection as well. She tapped the table, and I laid out another ten platinum coins. She smiled as she took them. Unfortunately, she didn’t hand out professional advice and information for free.

“You could go for the poison rainbow of skills. White Ash Poison will increase poison damage by 10% per rank in the skill. Then there is also the Red Dust, Orange Ooze, Yellow Pus, Green Leaf, Blue Tear, and Purple Chaos Poisons skill shards. They add bleeding, burning, increase poison length, add acid, freezing, and reduce poison resistance respectively.”

“How come I haven’t heard about any of these?” I asked with some surprise and suspicion.

“You didn’t ask and they aren’t common. Going after the rainbow isn’t worthwhile unless you really specialize in poison. The poisons are legendary and they are very hard to get to.” The lady pulled out a sheet and handed it over. “But it is called the poison rainbow.”

“The damage is only one damage per rank, far less than an actual poison skill,” I said as I looked over the informational sheet I had been given.

“But they provide special effects on top of the base poison like that Black Salamander Poison. They aren’t separate active skills and don’t cost additional MP. That is what makes them so powerful.” I nodded at that answer. They were all passive boosts which was quite a powerful addition.

“What happens if you get them all?” I asked and the lady grinned. “Some kind of set bonus?”

“No idea. Some say it would allow you to unlock a special Divine skill. Others say that such a poison attack will already be quite powerful.”

“They are all linked to the weapon skill slots, with my poison skill Vomitatis, I wouldn’t have enough skill slots,” I countered. “Any way to get more skill slots?”

“No. That is another reason why no one ever gets the full rainbow of poison skill shards in addition to the immense difficulty. Each of those is a special Legendary skill.” I looked down at the sheet again. None of these poisons would be easy to collect. They weren’t legendary poisons that would linger, just annoying, very annoying. The monsters were listed, and they were all high level in high level locations.

It was appealing to add status effects to my poison attacks, on top of what I already had. The problem was that I would need a lot of weight reduction skill shards to be able to use Slice. This was the challenge at the higher levels. I could double down on poison, and it would be absolutely devastating, or I could use the unique weapon in my possession, but not both.

The cap of 16 skill shard slots, 8 for a weapon, and 8 for a piece of armor was the maximum. Getting around that cap required unique weapons like Slice. Being able to fight in melee would let me make full use of my titles and the bonus damage. But being able to stack up a range of poison damage would be devastating along with additional special effects.

I could combine all of that with a Poison Aura skill as well. I had initially planned on that skill, but had gotten sidetracked. While the rainbow poisons were interesting, they weren’t aligned with my build, specifically Luck. I wasn’t looking to deal more damage with poison, since I was looking at getting critical hits.

It didn’t matter if I was doing additional damage, since a critical hit with poison would deal double the damage or 1% of a target’s total health, whichever value was greater. Getting these skill shards would increase damage, but that didn’t matter since I was going for critical hits.

Reducing the poison resistance and increasing the poison length were interesting but boosting damage and adding on additional effects weren’t useful with my build. The Yellow Pus Poison and the Purple Chaos Poison were the only other options in selection presented that had synergy since they increased poison length and reduced the poison resistance of a target.

After that, there wouldn’t be any wiggle room left. I would still need two skill shards of Poison Resistance. Everything else that wasn’t a special legendary skill would need to be replaced with Reduce Weight. If I leveled up enough of those skill shards enough, then I might be able to add Yellow Pus Poison and the Purple Chaos Poison.

This is where my level was coming back to bite me in the rear. I needed a lot of experience, but it wouldn’t be easy to get. There were no good mono-culture monsters I could easily wipe out and farm them for experience. I still had a lot of skill shards saved up with experience, but getting the higher ranked skill shards would require even more experience in the future.

I needed every edge I could get, and getting higher ranked skills would be a big part of that. “Is there a weapon that could benefit from all eight of these rainbow poison skills, similar to the Tooth of Venenum?” The fact that there were eight skills was a clear indication they were a set combined with the rainbow of poisons set name. Getting all the skills wouldn’t be easy. There was probably a unique weapon as well, with an innate poison skill or an extra skill slot for a poison skill.

“You do know the right questions to ask. If you got all those special legendary skills, then you would need to speak to a weaponsmith. Crafting such a powerful weapon would not be cheap and would require powerful materials,” the skill crafter stated.

“Is there anything that you know of?” I asked and she shook her head.

“No. But something could be made. It wouldn’t be cheap. But there is synergy between the rainbow poison skills.”

“What about putting those skills into a weapon to save on skill shard slots?” I asked and she shook her head.

“Impossible. That much I can promise. You can get one extra innate skill on a weapon at most, but you can’t craft eight skill shards into a weapon. Perhaps you could enhance the poison skill shards with a specifically crafted weapon. But it would have to be custom ordered and made with the best possible materials.”

I nodded at this answer. All of this meant that it was not happening any time soon. I needed to increase the rank of my other skills, get to level 120, and wield Slice. Trying to have a unique weapon crafted for skills I didn’t have was a waste of my time. I only asked these questions because I was curious, but it was a dead end. Luck was far more important than extra damage and nothing had changed that.

If I had this unique weapon’s stats in front of me and all the rainbow poison skill shards, then it would be another story. Still, I had gotten what I had desired even if I didn’t like all the answers I had been given.