บท 62: An Unusable Skill

"The fifth world, Second Reality, has been escaped from in the time of 8 seconds. Score grade: X."

"EH?!" Aurus could not help but scream out loud at the fact that he cleared the fifth illusion world within 8 seconds. "WHAT THE FUCK? I DIDN'T EVEN ENTER THE WORLD YET!"

Of course, other than feeling intense shock from the fact that he cleared the final illusion world within 8 seconds and did not even have to enter the world, he felt elated within, wondering about the reward he might get from a score grade of X.

Gradually calming himself down, he then tried to recall what happened before the disembodied voice announced him clearing the fifth illusion world.

"So I first hid Fenrir, then started to hover off the ground, then turned semicorporeal for a few seconds, before turning corporeal again and landing on the ground."

"Could this be because of Fenrir?" Aurus thought that Fenrir might have some hidden skill within its status screen, which just cannot be seen by him. After thinking about for a bit, Fenrir would not be able to do just that, not just because it has a low grade in terms of existence level, but instead, its essence. It was a wolf through and through, albeit a stick that showed some properties of a wolf. How would it have enough intelligence to nullify an illusion at its current existence level.

Hence, there was only one answer left in mind.

"[Greater Illusion Resistance]." Aurus could not help but click his tongue at his current luck. To think that an effect that only had an extremely small chance of happening activated at the instant he was about to enter the final trial.

The reason why the skill nullified the illusion in the first place was because of Kurohana's negligence at focusing the Luck Orb back to Aurus before she left her own plane. From that, Aurus' luck within the Luck Orb was accumulated to a point until the orb was focused back to Aurus, gradually affecting Aurus' score in the fourth illusion world and extremely affecting his score in the final illusion world.

After mulling over it for a bit longer, Aurus decided to place this at the back of his head and just think of it as his good luck. Surprisingly, the disembodied voice allowed Aurus to contemplate for a bit this time before continuing with its announcements.

"With the inheritor clearing the final illusion world at an unprecedented speed, the inheritor shall gain an extremely great reward from the inheritance."

"After careful consideration, the inheritor shall receive the skill [Spirit Clone] as a reward."

"..." Aurus was now at a loss for words. In the previous round, he got Fenrir as an ally that basically had unlimited potential, and now he had access to a skill that would allow him to basically live another life? Or even possibly become a backup?

Ding!

As he heard the notification sound resound throughout the hall, he realized that he was not dreaming at all. The skill he received from the inheritance was real. He then looked at the screen that appeared in front of his field of vision. It was only one line, but it made him feel like he was on cloud nine.

'The skill [Spirit Clone] has been obtained.'

Without hesitation, Aurus opened up the skill details of newly obtained skill he got and read through each and every word of it, only to be dumbfounded and left speechless at the requirement needed to cast it.

Ding!

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[Spirit Clone] (Level 1/2)

Experience: 0/1000

Grade: S (Transcendent)

A clone, another copy of yourself where your memories, personality, body structure, everything, is copied onto another being. Although it looks like it is not you, it is still you either way.

This skill allows the user to create a clone that they could control with their mind, effectively making it a backup body. Its form can be changed depending on the user's wishes.

Maximum amount of clones: 1

SP Cost: 10,000 SP

[Note: The powers of the clone are dependent on the user's current power and the user's wishes of the clone's form. All clones start at Level 1 and at the lowest grade of their existence level]

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"10,000 SP..." Aurus could not help but feel despair as if he fell from heaven in one go. 10,000 SP was an amount of energy that he could not possibly amass as an Inanimate of the A-grade, hence he had to get stronger.

Aurus looked at his current screen and check on his current maximum SP amount that numbered beyond 700 or so. He was only around 7/20th of the way there, but that would all change once he evolved all of the skills he could evolve.

That's right. After the second trial of Speed, he had grinded all of the skills he could grind for a timespan of 24 hours, so it was not unusual for it to bear fruit. And now, since the third trial was pretty much done with him clearing the fifth illusion world, only one trial barred his way from leaving the inheritance and growing stronger in one go as if he was soaring to the heavens in one leap.

Of course, he would not evolve his skills at this instant since he knew that the skills he would be evolving would have choices, and he had to choose well.

Seeing that the disembodied voice was now finished announcing what it had to announce, Aurus released Fenrir once more as it looked at Aurus with a caring aura surrounding it as it barked happily within Aurus' mind.

Indeed, it knew that it could now evolve with nothing distracting them from doing so. Even Aurus felt this as he commanded the system, "Evolve Fenrir."

Ding!

In an instant, a white light radiated from Fenrir's body as its body started to swell size while more features of a wolf started to appear on its body. Not long after, the white light dimmed down, revealing a branch that was larger than Aurus by around 20%, had two protrusions on the top of one end of its body, another protrusion at the edge of the same end of its body, acting as a snout while a long and thin piece of wood is seen at the other end of the body.

If one came across this kind of branch, they would think that someone carved a crude wolf out of a piece of wood. Unexpectedly, it was a natural evolution.

At the instant Fenrir was finished evolving, it positioned its body to look at Aurus once more, making it look like a wooden dog that had a long body rather than a wolf.

Not long after, a young but confident voice resounded through his mind, instead of a bark.

"Master!" Fenrir looked at Aurus not only as an ally, but as its master as well.

"Alright!" Aurus was satisfied with Fenrir's evolution, noticing how it was larger than him said that it could become a good tanker. Not only that, the aura surrounding Fenrir was only slightly inferior to Aurus' aura, who was already at the maximum level of the A-grade Inanimate level.

He then looked at the screen that appeared in front of his field of vision when he evolved Fenrir to B-grade Inanimate as he closed it not long after.

'Fenrir has evolved from [Wolf Stick (Rare)] to [Wind Wolf Branch (Rare+)].'

"Wind Wolf Branch..." Aurus pondered it for a bit before understanding why this was the next evolution for Fenrir. "Fenrir is part of an inheritance that focused on the Wind element, so it's not weird for this to happen."

Not long after, he checked on Fenrir's new stats after evolving to a Wind Wolf Branch.

Ding!

________

[Fenrir] (Level 1/30)

Potential Grade: S

Experience: 0/10 (can be filled with unused experience points)

Species: Wind Wolf Branch (Rare+)

Existence Level: Inanimate

Grade: B

[HP]: 15/15

[SP]: 5/5

Stats:

[Toughness]: 15

[Thickness]: 15

[Density]: 20

Skills:

[Wolf Dash+ Lv.3], [Wolf Empowerment Lv.2], [Keen Senses Lv. 9], [SP Storage Lv. MAX], [Wind Affinity Lv. 1], [Wind Shot Lv.1]

Ally Skill: [Blessing of the Wind Wolf]

_________

After looking at the new and improved stats of Fenrir, Aurus knew that it would exceed his own stats once it reached the A-grade Inanimate level. Of course, Aurus did not miss the fact that he had to level Fenrir up for 20 more levels after evolving it into a B-grade Inanimate.

He recalled the fact that with each evolution to the grade, an additional 20 levels would be added to maximum level of the ally. Then again, they can hunt on their own, with the user's commands or without. They can also use the user's unused experience points to level up quickly.

He also did not miss the fact that Fenrir's species was of a Rare+ grade, which meant that it was still Rare, but slightly better than Rare.

Just as when he was going to infuse Fenrir with a bit more of his experience points, the disembodied voice resounded throughout the hall once again. Aurus could not help but frown as he felt that he was being stopped by the disembodied voice accidentally, but after hearing the disembodied voice's words, he fell silent.

"The third trial, the Illusion trial has been cleared."

"Total time needed to clear the trial: 1 hour, 45 minutes, and 40 seconds. Score grade: S."

"As the inheritor has done an exemplary job in clearing the trial at a fast time, the inheritance shall now give a reward befitting of their score grade."

"Rewards are being decided..."

"The rewards have been decided on. The inheritor shall gets 5000 experience points and its movement skill shall be boosted by 5 levels."