Chương 26: Chapter 36: The step after 'A'
We cleaned ourselves up and fetched Cy who knock herself out trying to leap over the fence after jumping through a window. It appeared my mana overrode her reasoning and she entered her run or die mode...that was nasty.
Melodina was still out for the count. Lux went outside the room for a trauma wiping marathon. Meanwhile Scathach gave me a run through of what to expect.
"I never expect to had this talk at this point in time."
"What talk?" I asked drinking down a cup of water. So far I couldn't even stand properly after bringing a mana storm.
"A-Rank," Scathach answered. "Most people, especially human, never broke through this realm. Their stat, like Lux's currently, sat at the 499 limit. Some never cross the five hundred threshold. We call this humanity's limit. You are the first human I have seen who broke through this fast."
"Yes, especially true given stats that broke the limit is wisdom." Ebony joined the conversation. "Not many people exceed B-Rank wisdom. Athena and Nuwa rank the highest at S. Some of the god a straight A and the rest are B rank. Most people, stuck at C their entire lives. Those idiots on Aztellic's throne didn't inch beyond D."
"Wis is without a doubt the least understood Stat of them all," Scathach said. "People want to upgrade their magic and strength because it gave tangible result. But wisdom? Those power are both vague and sophisticate."
I looked at my stats again. After recent development, I began to see my skill in the different light.
"You once said that rank was an indicator of where you are in Phantasia hierarchy. Thinking about it, I believe that it more like how your body adapt to mana in a process of evolution."
"Adapt?" Scathach and Ebony said puzzled.
"If E rank meant no contact with mana, then D was beginner course on mana. That why it is so easy to level up back then. I guess C was development phase and B was fully mature." I explain. "It basically how your body develop in presence of mana. For strength and magic it was a visible change as mana supercharge your muscles and magic proficiency. Wisdom was the strength of perspective and ability to wield mana."
"How do you know any of this?" Ebony gaped.
"[Foresight (D)] and a trade secret," I explained. "As a skill, [Foresight] gave me an insight into an action or concept. At it current rank it just help me connect some dot that would otherwise took me days to workout."
I didn't told them everything. [Foresight] was more powerful than that. It an ultimate ability of a wiseman which had two component to it. First, it passively increase the talent into insight and understanding of an event. Secondly, it function like some of clairvoyance allowing me to see into a possible future. Even at low rank the skill is pretty impressive.
Then there is the [Humanity Reconstruction]. With it, I could discern the origin of people. Their personality, goal and what defined them was discernible if I looked hard enough. A pretty ridiculous skill if you want to be a door to door salesman.
"Anyway congratulation Rem, you had join the rank of an elite. One of the thing I had to tell you that was that after A-Rank your stat ceased to be a deciding factor. Instead what separate an great A-Rank from a terrible one was the skill they bring to the table." Scathach explained.
"Yes, even Melodina had to seriously relearn her skill because she was a newly minted A-rank." Ebony explained. "She only achieved that rank months ago and back then she never really used any skill aside from [Blacksmith]. Geez, that girl tend to underestimated her opponent way too much. As someone in this rank, I could say that a newly awoken A-ranker could beat me flat if the mastery of their skill is above mine."
"Really," I said, looking at both of them. "The bloke who fought Lux barely use any skill and he is an A-Rank."
Scathach nearly laughed to death.
"That guy only had a solid buff and a strength boost," Scathach said. "From her story, the way he used his explosion was totally brutish and unrefined. That alone told him that he never fought a good A-Rank before."
So what is my skill? No that I mention it I never really thought about the before. Good thing, that I know the skill capability the moment I got it. So now it was a high time to clean the house up.
...
After that conversation, I decided to lock myself in the room and mulled over my ability
So far my greatest asset is the [Photon] series. [Photon Ring ] and [Photon Shield] acted an efficient method for offence and defense. The former function as mana based force-canon and the later was shield developed from manipulating and controlling said force. Meanwhile, [Photon Chain] was a binding technique that was still in prototype mode. It was a strand of [Photon Shield] made into a tensile ribbon. Currently, we got it shape right but it was too fragile to use.
Then there is [Overburst: Limit Override]. It was my desperation power multiplier that multiply the power of my attack at expense of my life-force and stamina. Over-using it was forbidden. A guardian of peace who died after one hard-fight was pretty much useless.
[Arrival of Dream] was my defining skill. It allowed me to create a weapon or tool right out of a story or legend I made up out of thin air. The artifact power and activation condition depended on the lore. Despite the fact this skill could do literally anything I asked it had three drawbacks. The energy consumption was huge. Most of an artifact I could use within my power quandary was not that different for normal skills and the outright game ending one was severely taxing to maintain. To tell the truth, while I did indeed had divine artifacts made for future uses, bringing them out will without a doubt kill me. Secondly, to make sure that the object was an artifact and not wish granting solution that would drain me before I summoned it, I need to give it lore and weaknesses to balance it. Thirdly, the range of this power was reliant on my [Territory Creation] which is currently ten meters.
Then there is [Existence Comprehension] and [Foresight]. These were my observation skills. [Existence Comprehension] was one of my most confusing toolkit. I used it to identify an object and broke it down into traits. For example, the bomb from the train's hijacking had a <magical-construct trait> slapped onto it. That trait told me that Banishing sword would work against it. Meanwhile, [Foresight] worked as both a analyzer into an action or a concept and automatic combat Clairvoyance.
Now for the passive skill...well...
[Reality Breaker]: this skill allowed me to alter reality and ruled of the universe to fit my liking. I could directly utilize it except through the [Arrival of Dream] skill.
[Humanity Reconstruction]: it was a merged between two of my former skill, [Way of Optimism] and [Calm Mind]. It basically extinguished any panic or fear effect which was a part of calm mind which was a benefit of [Calm Mind]. Due to mutation with my other skill, it also gave me a detail summary of personal and psychological insight of a target. Basically, by combining this skill with [Foresight] it allowed me to literally stood there unperturbed while dissecting the very psychological inclination, history and personality that made that person who they were.
[Mythological Sword Art: Simplicity] and [Shadow Land Martial Art] was a combat skill taught to me by Scathach. My sword art is basically an efficient and simple usage of sword. The sword concentrated on simple swinging, thrusting and protection of the strike zone. It was very simple but very effective sword skill. [Shadow Land Martial Art] was mix martial art that was a combination of Jujutsu, Kung Fu and Pankratron. Overall, it was a simple and basic stuff.
[Mana Comprehension] was a skill that indicate an indeph understanding and appreciation of Mana as the lifeblood which hold the universe and existence together. This lent us ability to communicate with mana and used it to the fullest potential. So far everyone in Horizon Dawn saved Scathach wield this ability.
The last ability on my skill list is [Apostle Body]. It was an ability which evolved from [Celestial Body]. This ability granted increase health, stamina and put the body in peak condition. The user can also recover from injury and wound mush faster. A sign that user started transcending human's limitation.
Judging on my skill, my battle method should be based on psychological warfare fuel by [Humanity Reconstruction], [Foresight] and [Existence Comprehension]. [Arrival of the Dream] should be used to win the fight after I worked out my opponent trait and exploited their weakness to the very limit. [Photon] series and my martial ability should be used to drain my opponent down. If worse come to worse [Apostle Body] ensured that I won't die in one hit.
Now in term of physical stats, my strength was weak and my endurance was not something I would like to test. My dexterity would be able to survive a tussle but against specialist I am freaking doom. My magic was pretty average. The greatest and most overpower asset I had is the wisdom. This was an incredibly vague ability. Unlike Strenght and Magic which told you how hard you can hit stuff with or endurance which told you how hard you could eat a hit. Wisdom is conceptual stat measuring decision making and self-awareness. How can you measure that in a fight and how did it even scale against your opponent.
That why I hated vague stats like intelligence, luck and wisdom in RPG. If character maxed out those wouldn't it be impossible to out smart or out play them? Seriously, even now I had no bloody idea what to make out of them.
What exactly is wisdom? So far the only comparison I had to give is it measure one affinity toward mana. This is evident by the fact that mana responded to my outrage to the point of shifting the weather around the area but my magic couldn't handle the strain leading to my exhaustion.
Never mind that, now I need to work on the trait exploitation of [Arrival of the Dream]. A busy day in need.
...
Meanwhile, Lux Latoria was listening to Rem as he rammed on to himself and decided to take a walk.
It was a high time for her to catch up
...
Rem Breaker
Junior Apostle
Stat
Str: 220 (C)
End: 300 (B)
Mag: 315 (B)
Wis: 520 (A)
Dex: 285 (C)
Skill
Active
Photon (B) [Photon Ring (B), Photon Shield(C), Photon Chain (D)]
Overburst: Limit Override (B)
Arrival of Dream (N/A)
Existence Comprehension(A)
Foresight (D)
Passive
Territory Creation (D)
Reality Breaker(Ex)
Humanity Reconstruction (A)
Mythological Sword Art: Simplicity (B)
Shadow Land Martial Art (B)
Mana Comprehension (N/A)
Apostle Body (C)
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