Ruthless V5Ch39-Skill Overhaul Part 2

Berserk Mode is way too dangerous to just be sitting there in my Status sheet… right?

It was hard to be certain about this, because James was fairly cool-headed by nature, and even when he did get angry, it had never actually been triggered.

Let’s look at the description again before we get too hasty.

[Berserk Mode: Rage builds within you, fueling something violent, uncontrollable, and destructive. Adds Wrath Meter, which measures the current state of your rage. If the Wrath Meter reaches 90%, your Strength substantially increases, while your Dexterity moderately diminishes, due to difficulty controlling your rage. When your Wrath Meter reaches 100%, you lose control of your body and enter a blind, red-eyed rage, destroying whatever or whoever was foolish enough to obstruct your path. Full Berserk Mode lasts until Wrath Meter drops below 70%, or until either your Health or Stamina drop below 10% of what they were at the beginning of Berserk Mode.]

Yep, this is a very dangerous Skill.

The text, which James had not read for months, confirmed what James had believed already. Berserk Mode had seemed like a useful Skill to keep around during Orientation, when most of the world around him was potentially worthy of destruction, and every day was a struggle for survival. Back then, when he had used Skill Fusion on various Skills after his encounter with Anansi, he had reasoned that he might get pushed into a situation where he needed the Strength boost and collateral damage didn’t matter.

Now he was surrounded by allies and family members. The circumstances were so different that while the decision was understandable in context, he thought it looked incredibly reckless to have kept the Skill in place these recent weeks.

All right, what can we do with it, then?

He quickly tried temporarily fusing Berserk Mode with several other Skills that looked likely to succeed. But the fusion with Basic Elemental Magic: Gravity objectively made a weaker Skill, a fusion with Command Presence promised to inflict Berserk Mode on all forces under James’s command—just compounding the problems with the original Skill—and attempting to fuel it with Way of the Predator would have ruined James’s martial arts Skill by robbing him of his poise and grace and replacing those with extra violence.

In the end, only a couple of options appeared to James to be worthy of actual, serious consideration. It was frustrating, but his Wrath Meter did not tick up at all during the process, he noticed. James supposed another living creature needed to be present for that.

At least the way it works is not completely unreasonable.

He reviewed the final two options that presented themselves.

[Storm Lord’s Wrath: Violently thrash a foe with blows imbued with the power of Lightning Mana, expending more of your Stamina and Mana with each attack to do additional damage via both Strength and magic. With each blow, kindle your rage further and pull more Mana from deep within, doing more damage with each blow to either you or your opponent. Each blow taken or landed kindles your rage further, until, like a storm, it destroys what stands before it. Consumes Mana and Stamina.]

That sounded powerful. But James had another choice, as always, that seemed equally well matched.

[Wrath of the Predator: The wrath of a true beast is fearsome to behold. Your wrath is no less deadly. When cornered, or when seeking to finish a foe, the Predator can unleash his secret weapon. Wrath of the Predator lasts up to five minutes, during which time each attack by the Predator is more powerful than the last, and the Predator’s rage fuels blows that exceed the parameters of his normal physical and magical power. Consumes up to 25% of Stamina with each use, proportionate to duration of Wrath of the Predator. Duration is fully under the Predator’s control. If used for longer than one minute, Predator is required to wait for a period of time—exact duration dependent on resources consumed during use—before using the Skill again, or suffer potentially significant backlash. Consumes Mana dependent on the method of combat engaged in. May cause severe strain to the body due to exceeding normal limits.]

Predator’s Strike was one of the few Skills James had not updated since his Class Evolution. Only that and Predator’s Missile remained unchanged out of the initial Class Skills James had received when he became the Predator in Human Skin. But with this fusion as an option, maybe it was time to change that.

The really massive upside was that James could choose to end Wrath of the Predator at any time. It wasn’t clear to him that Storm Lord’s Wrath had a voluntary ending other than the conclusion of the fight. In fact, though both Skills mentioned doing more damage as the fight went on, Storm Lord’s Wrath was so vague about costs that James suspected there were no upper limits. There was the possibility that Storm Lord’s Wrath was more powerful, but it might also come with the potential to kill James or cause him to collapse—the same thing, in the midst of battle—if he got carried away and burned through his own reserves of Stamina and Mana.

Wrath of the Predator, with its hard cap on how much Stamina could get used up, avoided that potential issue entirely.

Also, as with Special Prediction, the number and level of limiters and conditions on the Skill told James that it was overpowered, even more clearly than what the text hinted at. He could easily picture himself breaking his own bones from how hard he was going to punch while in the thick of Wrath of the Predator. The image was more exciting than it probably should have been.

Finally, there was the issue that Storm Lord’s Wrath was specifically affiliated with Lightning Mana, which meant there would be some enemies it was particularly strong against, but just as many it was relatively weak against.

With only a slight hint of regret, James finalized the merger of Berserk Mode and Predator’s Strike, fusing two of his oldest Skills into one.

The next set of improvements were easier to decide on.

The Skill Self-Control seemed redundant with Mind of the Predator right there, so James fused Self-Control with Basic Elemental Magic: Gravity to obtain Precision Gravity Control.

The Skill Organization was unnecessary, and further, just looking at the name, James felt it went against his very nature.

Organization and Predator’s Missile fused to become Predator’s Guided Missile.

Command Presence fused with Zone of Influence to become Zone of Mastery.

Loyal Following fused with Monster Control to create Monstrous Devotion, which was a more absolute version of Monster Control, no longer dependent on how powerful James was and how powerful the created monsters became.

There was one Skill Fusion James attempted that didn’t work at all, and he raised his eyebrows when he saw it—this seemed to suggest a lot of questions.

[Skill Fusion failed! Class insufficiently developed.]

This was the result of an attempt to combine Complete Illusion Magic and False Reality, two Skills that James thought would naturally go together, because the latter already had the property of reinforcing the former.

Why didn’t it work? “Class insufficiently developed”? Is the System literally saying I’m too weak to make this fusion stick?

James tried to merge Fate Resistance with Intelligence of the Fisher King, too—just to see what kind of a Skill a temporary fusion would give him—but that was also blocked.

[Skill Fusion failed! Skill Fate Resistance cannot be altered or combined with other Skills.]

Okay, I’m starting to hit the limits of how much I can do with Skill Fusion, then. There are some things it just can’t do, some combinations it could theoretically make that are pretty useless… and anyway, my Skill set was pretty good to start with.

James went through his Skill list one more time out of an abundance of diligence and found another Skill he just didn’t need anymore, if he ever had.

Conceptually, Command Structure overlapped with several “of the Fisher King” Skills—and it was unlikely that any leadership Skill he acquired from his Politician Job would be as good as his Fisher King Skills—so James combined Command Structure with a Skill he had not initially planned on touching. He left the fusion temporary at first out of an abundance of caution, only to then decide the fused Skill sounded much better than the originals.

[Dream Mastery: You have walked the road of dreams for long enough now that it has become a part of your very being. The path of Dream Mastery extends out before you. None in the mortal realms can outmatch your sheer power in the world of dreams, and even hostile dreamers will no longer be able to resist your invasions unaided. Further, your exploits can expand beyond the dreaming world now, to include planting ideas in the minds of others and perhaps even having real world effects on the dreamers, both while they sleep and while they are awake. Blur the lines between dreams and reality for your subjects, and alter their reality by your Will. The upper potential of this Skill has no apparent limits…]

That’s just a massive, straightforward upgrade, right? I’d be crazy to undo that fusion…

James recalled an old horror movie where the killer could invade people’s dreams and murder them in there. This Skill felt like it was at that level. James didn’t doubt that he would eventually be able to kill people in their sleep, whether that was via them “dying of fright” or the much gorier method of being dragged across a ceiling and viciously stabbed by invisible blades.

He quickly finalized the fusion, extremely satisfied with his new acquisition. Then he opened his full Status up once more, just to bask in its glory.

[Status

Name: James Robard

Race: Evolver Human, Lv. 27

Class: Predator in Human Skin, Lv. 33

Job: Fisher King, Lv. 23

Health: 245/36,100

Mana: 34,600/34,600

Stamina: 33,856/33,856

Stats

Strength: 156

Agility: 169

Stamina: 184

Fortitude: 190

Dexterity: 142

Perception: 194

Will: 200

Intelligence: 173

Charisma: 203

Stealth: 183

Free Points: 0

Skills

Affinity of the Fisher King, Lv. 4

Air Strike, Lv. 5

Aura of the Fisher King, Lv. 6

Basic Elemental Magic: Earth, Lv. 4

Basic Elemental Magic: Water, Lv. 4

Blessing of the Fisher King, Lv. 6

Complete Illusion Magic, Lv. 0

Curse of the Fisher King, Lv. 1

Dominion

Dream Mastery, Lv. 0

Extrasensory, Lv. 1

False Reality, Lv. 6

Fate Resistance

Full Body Control, Lv. 5

Goodwill of the Fisher King, Lv. 5

Hidden Magic, Lv. 0

Hypnotic Shriek, Lv. 0

Indeterminate Past, Lv. 0

Intelligence of the Fisher King, Lv. 2

Invisibility

Laying on Hands, Lv. 7

Lightning Strike, Lv. 3

Mass Blessing of the Fisher King, Lv. 2

Mass Pillage, Lv. 2

Meteor Strike, Lv. 3

Mind of the Predator, Lv. 7

Monster Generation, Lv. 10

Monstrous Devotion, Lv. 7

Omnivore, Lv. 6

Pain Resistance, Lv. 9

Passive Improbable Evasion, Lv. 0

Perfect Choice of Words, Lv. 7

Pillage, Lv. 12

Precision Gravity Control, Lv. 4

Predator’s Guided Missile, Lv. 4

Predator’s Sacred Armor, Lv. 2

Predator’s Venomous Armaments, Lv. 1

Proficient Silk Fabrication, Lv. 2

Shapechange, Lv. 0

Shed Skin, Lv. 9

Skill Fusion

Skill Transfer

Solar Ray, Lv. 2

Solar Recovery, Lv. 4

Soul-Freezing Gaze, Lv. 0

Soul Magic, Lv. 2

Special Prediction, Lv. 10

Summon Divine Helper, Lv. 1

System Interface

System Store Access

Territorial Control, Lv. 5

Threads of Fate, Lv. 1

True Regeneration, Lv. 8

Universal Language Comprehension

Way of the Predator, Lv. 6

Will of the Fisher King, Lv. 2

Wrath of the Predator, Lv. 3

Zone of Mastery, Lv. 1

Talents

Alpha Presence, Lv. 1

Basic Spellcraft, Lv. 6

Brutal Strength

Cannibalism, Lv. 6

Cool-Headed, Lv. 8

Earth Affinity

Efficient Magic, Lv. 5

Elementalist

Fisher Land Management, Lv. 5

Fisher Sentient Resources, Lv. 4

Flame Affinity

Genius Loci, Lv. 2

Leadership, Lv. 5

Manipulation, Lv. 9

Marksmanship, Lv. 4

Mass Manipulation, Lv. 3

Monster Patriarch, Lv. 10

Ogre Constitution, Lv. 1

Pain Resistance, Lv. 3

Selective Empathy, Lv. 6

Solar Power, Lv. 3

Soul Eater, Lv. 1

Ultrasonic Pitch, Lv. 0

Water Affinity

Titles

A Stitch in Time

Aeromaster

Avenger

Blessed One of Vidarr

Chosen One of Anansi

Citizen of the Dead Marsh

Deceiver

Devout Beacon

Dreamweaver

Figure of Destiny

Friend of All Spiders

Living Legend

Monster Progenitor

Pack Leader

Pillar of Creation

Ruler of the Dark Waters

Savior

Silencer

Spider-King

Storyteller

Sublime Creator

Swiss Army Mage

System Pioneer

Trickster

Usurper

Xenocide II]

That’s still a lot of Skills, but it’s also a number I’m actually going to use. There aren’t any more fusions that I can think of that make sense.

It was possible part of his feeling about this was simply being tired of playing with Skill Fusion.

Still, there were some notes he made in his mind for future action.

Need to make sure I get Identify again, just in case I need it for some reason—or at least so I can try fusing it with a bunch of these Skills to make “Targeted” versions. It would be ridiculously useful if I just had an array of attacks that never missed. And in the future, I should be sure to try fusing Complete Illusion Magic and False Reality again. Once my Class is higher level, or maybe after I have another Class Evolution…

He was guessing that there was some reality-altering magic available if he became powerful enough. And apparently this Skill was judged by the System as more powerful than Dominion or anything else he already had, or it would have let him have it. That was a bit frustrating.

But for the most part, he was purely and simply satisfied. It was a job well done. He might not be able to hunt right now—though James could feel just a little more power in his muscles, and his Health had recovered slightly since he acquired True Regeneration, which had not happened in days.

Still, he had definitely become a little more powerful, just lying in bed and acting like a bit of a nerd, hyper-analyzing his Skills.

James was suddenly pulled out of his self-congratulatory frame of mind by a telepathic notification.

What’s this? I’m getting a message from the wyverns… and it’s an image of a place. Is the Expeditionary Force in trouble?