Lorn stared at the dagger in his hands with a conflicted gaze. Its appearance wasn't anything too special. Anyone would just say it was a well-crafted dagger, a bit on the long side. But the system's messages regarding it were nothing so simple.
He even wondered if this was a trap of some sort. He looked at the notifications again.
[You have obtained The Tantou. One of the unbreakable weapons forged by Iheph, the Prophetic Blacksmith, belonging to the 'Prime' Series. Six hundred years after his death, tantous were popular self-defense knives for nobility in the Eastern isles of the Shin continent.]
[You have equipped The Tantou.
Temporary skill, Graceful Cuts is activated – By performing a specific knife gesture, you can cut an enemy from a distance. Its damage and maximum distance depend on your Willpower and Sense, respectively; and the cut will inflict one of the following status effects: Bleeding, Enervated, Soul Ataxia, or Weakened. If the same status effect occurs twice, add the 'Lethal' suffix to it. The 'cut' must be performed over twenty seconds exactly and you cannot run or walk during those twenty seconds. Extra levels will reduce the skill's activation time.
Temporary skill, Four-strike Counter is activated – If you cut someone four times with Graceful Cuts, you will steal half their stats for the remainder of the fight (max 100) and permanently receive 5% of their stats permanently (min 5).
*Permanent stats will not be gained in non-combat situations or if you're fighting someone who is intentionally letting you hit them. You will only receive 1 stat points if your enemy is marginally weaker than you.
Temporary skill, Seizure of a Moment is activated – for five seconds your brain will perceive the world at a much slower rate. Cooldown – 1 hour.
Effectiveness of Passive Skills increased.
Sense increased by 15; Charisma increased by 5; Stamina increased by 10; Faith increased by 5]
[Temporary skills will become permanent and grant their stat multiplications once you reach Lv.Max.]
Lorn wasn't really impressed by the first two skills. As long as he wasn't standing protected by countless allies, there was no way he could leisurely perform a ritual that was 80 seconds long, even if the effects were so powerful.
He was really tempted by the stats he could receive, but the system blocked all his methods to abuse it. In the worst-case scenario, he could lock himself up with some poor random imp and repeatedly take 1 points from it.
Though… that didn't seem that plausible as the cut's damage was based on his Willpower. In that case, it wouldn't be odd if Lorn ended up killing the imp with one hit.
But it wasn't like he was discouraged, no. Even if he could never use these two skills, he would be happy with the last one. The ability to slow down time for your brain. Lorn did not expect to be able to move his body as fast during this effect, but that didn't mean the skill was without use. It just meant that he would have the time to think about the best course of action in the middle of a fight.
During the fight with the ogres, there was a part of Lorn that desperately wanted to grasp the entire situation on the battlefield. It was the habits engrained into him when he was learning military tactics under his father.
But no matter how much he tried to find a breather; he wasn't strong enough to pull his gaze away from the enemies he was currently fighting and the next one afterward.
With time slowed down for him, however, he could think about how he could deal with the sequence of enemies, then also have a glance at how the battle's progressing.
It was an overpowered skill for military tacticians, but it was even more busted for duels, especially for overthinkers like Lorn. This really was a trump card among trump cards.
But that all led to one question.
"Why would they give me this?"
"It's an impressive piece of work, but it's simply the standard of Dei Volu," Lucas spoke from the side. "And it seems like it's something fitting as a gift your enemy. It has powerful effects, but equally severe weaknesses. I don't imagine you being able to use the first two abilities any time soon."
"Will you be able to use it?" Lorn asked. "You should be able to, right? Since you can extend your Spirit to such large distances."
"Yes… But I can only bully weaker enemies with it. More experiences enemies can easily disperse my spirit if it's so far away from me. If it's a strong enough monster, their spirit's innate qualities will automatically destroy mine.
"But since it's your spirit, can't you strengthen it somehow?"
"Unfortunately, no. That's the price I must pay for being able to reach such great distances," Lucas shrugged. He put his hand to his chin as he looked at Lorn. "Now that we're talking about it, how big is your Sense stat?"
"It's 24.4 now. With the Tantou's effects, it's almost 40."
"You're halfway there, then," Lucas hummed. "I guess it'll happen when you reach D-rank. Not bad."
"What?"
"Something special happens when your Sense stat reaches 50. It starts specializing."
"Specializing?"
"Yes. Similar to how, with each Rank-up, you start focusing on one branch of a boon. Well, first of all, what does the Sense stat help you with? It helps with skill usage. The higher it is, the easier your spirit bends to your will. You must've noticed, right? It's almost effortless for you to use multiple skills at once."
"Yes. But more than five, I start struggling a bit."
In fights, Lorn had to keep Strengthening, Point of Gravity and Hub of Consciousness active at all times, using Gravitational Push, or one of his two mental manipulation skills with Imperceptible Spirit. Sometimes, he would need to use his Fog skills and with the Tantou, he would also need to think about using Seizure of a Moment.
Granted, the first three skills came to him almost naturally, but they still required some CPU from Lorn's brain.
"That should be much easier with your new dagger. With 40, I guess 8 skills at the same time would be your standard. And with how you're starting to develop, when you reach 50, I'm guessing your specialization will focus on multitasking."
"What other specializations are there?"
"I want to say countless, because the All-seeing always prepares something special for us all, but naturally, there are generalizations. There are many experts who want to make a cohesive grouping of these specializations. The most popular one divides them into six categories: Speed, Power, Distance, Multitasking, Customization, and Sturdiness. But these aren't all. Some grant your spirit the ability to understand the things it touches, and there's also a legend about a Hunter with a conscient spirit.
"Anyhow, the first four are self-explanatory, so I'll skip them. Customization is… You know how you can make your Spirit pellets bigger or faster if you pour more spirit into it, right? Customization will allow you to make them more penetrative, invisible, poisonous, all sorts of stuff."
"Isn't that kind of powerful?"
"Yes. But the things you can do are limited depending on the skill you're using. And also, those extra effects tend to be quite Spirit consuming," Lucas smiled. "Sturdiness makes it hard for others to mess with your spirit. But, you'll only have to worry about that when you become a B-rank."
"Is that connected to the thing you said about strong monsters?"
"Yes, but like I said, don't worry about it for now."
Lorn nodded. He didn't understand why Lucas was hiding whatever it was from him, but he let it go.
Thinking about these specializations, he thought of something else.
"Do other stats receive something similar?" he asked.
"Yes. But for them, the benchmark is higher. Willpower, Strength and Stamina receive specializations at 150 stats, Dexterity and Agility receive changes at 100. Faith, Charisma and Intelligence receive changes at 50."
"Huh." Lorn then thought of another thing. "By the way, what does the Intelligence stat do? Mine's 12.5 now, but I don't really feel any smarter."
"Ah, that stat," Lucas smiled. "Which skills grant you Intelligence points?"
"Hub of Consciousness and Mental Inducement."
"In that case, it should be helping you with your ability to understand and affect the emotions in your targets. Basically, it helps Hunters' brains to do something that's not natural. In my case, it helps me understand the things I sense through my spirit better. As you may imagine, being able to see things from such distances and to make sense of them is complicated. If my intelligence was only 1 or 2, I'm sure I'd have become some kind of insane at this point."
"I see…"
"Well, lecture's over," Lucas said. "We'll resume training. Since you have the dagger now, let's try maintaining 8 skills at the same time."