Bab 169: Skills
"Hahahaha! You're a skilled ranger, I'll give you that! However, not as skilled as I am! Hahahahahaha!" Eden's opponent taunted as he looked down on the kneeling Eden triumphantly.
"Hazem! Stop yapping and just finish him off!" Naib exclaimed angrily. He couldn't believe that his subordinate, Hazem, still had the gall to waste time when their warriors were fighting with their lives on the line, vastly outnumbered by the Rougenfortian Army.
Naturally, Hazem was scared of angering their leader, Naib. Thus, he immediately shut his mouth and used one of the most common ranger skills, [Powershot].
Unbeknownst to Hazem, Eden, who was supposedly dying, had a shadow of a smile on the corners of his mouth.
When a ranger casts [Powershot] the ranger would be susceptible to attacks so the skill wasn't usually used in the middle of a duel and instead, used to snipe someone from a safe distance since the charge time for the skill was one and a half seconds.
During the casting time, the ranger has an option to cancel the cast however, his movement would be delayed by a second, which is really lethal in a duel.
Thus, most rangers typically don't use it in duels unless it is to finish off an opponent like what Hazem was doing to Eden.
Unfortunately for him, he fell hook, line, and sinker to Eden's trap.
How could Eden, a part-time Swordsman, lose in a battle of physique against Hazem? Eden simply took advantage of the fact that Hazem doesn't know him well and prepared a trap for him.
Still, although he caught Hazem in his trap, it was still a dangerous venture to face a fully charged powershot which he planned to dodge at the last second to achieve the best effect.
Naturally, Eden had his own ways. While the [Powershot] skill was mostly innate and all rangers acquired the skill upon ranking up, other skills could only be learned in two ways.
First, the almost extinct way, acquire a piece of prime meat from some weird-ass creature, cook the meat using a certain procedure, consume the meat, and then magically acquire a skill after enduring a certain level of pain.
This method was only known to the Rougenfort Kingdom and the higher-tiered kingdoms. While this method was certainly unique and difficult, it was the only way to acquire rare skills.
The second method however, which was more common but still difficult in its own right, was the method used by almost every Swordmaster and Ranger to gain skills.
This process was to excessively train a certain muscle in the body repeatedly until you gain a skill. However, since it's a common method, it has its drawbacks as well.
The first drawback is, each muscle would give the same skill regardless of the person which means that even if two persons train every muscle in their body to perfection, they would gain the same set of skills.
Although the skills weren't anything to scoff at, they were just too common, however, that's only when you compare the common skills to the skills gained from a creature's prime meat.
Gaining skills itself wasn't common because you have to specifically train a certain muscle to perfection before you can obtain one.
For example, if a swordsman trains his/her biceps to perfection, then the swordsman would gain a skill called [Power Slash]. Regardless of who the human was, a perfect bicep would result in gaining a [Power Slash] skill , thus, making the skill common.
As for Eden, the reason why he was so confident in dodging the [Powershot] was because he had secretly trained one specific muscle, the fibularis longus, way more than the others allowing him to gain one crucial skill, [Tumble].
Red arrow intent coated Hazem's arrow as he pulled on the nock of his bow, his smile extremely sadistic as he looked forward to seeing Eden's head pop like a watermelon.
Anxiety gripped the hearts of Alex, Leif, and even Helena, though the emotion wasn't really visible in her face. In their hearts, they already consider Eden as a little brother.
Their memories with him flashed back in their anxious minds as they saw him still kneeling on the ground, completely powerless to resist.
If they could, then they would choose to take the arrow on his behalf, unfortunately, as high ranking military leaders, they had their own duties so they couldn't take the arrow for him even if they wanted to.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity for the Rougenfortians, the [Powershot]-empowered arrow from Hazem's bow whistled through the air, leaving a red line akin to a laser in its wake.
"Eden!"
"General Eden!"
At that moment, it was as if time slowed down to a crawl as the fearsome and destructive arrow flew closer and closer to its target: Eden's head.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone