Arnold returned to the inn after wandering the streets for a little bit. He wanted some alone time so he used his free time to explore. Alas, the 86th floor wasn't that interesting. Or rather, the world's inhabitants were boring.
There are literally no big threats near this small town so everything was peaceful.
Arnold opened the door to their rented room.
She was sitting next to a window, staring out absentmindedly.
She spoke to Arnold as soon as he entered the room.
"—My master contacted me earlier… She used a spell called [Dream Invasion] that only works on a target when they're asleep."
"Why now after all this time?" Arnold said "Gergois" in his mind, causing the armor to disappear.
He sat down on the bed.
"It's because we're close to her shadow world. Her mind communication magic can only go so far."
"I see. That makes sense. What did she say?"
"She knows… that I lost my powers as an angel. I am to return to her immediately or face severe punishment if she ever has to come after me."
"What right does she have to force you to stay her loyal servant with no free will of your own?"
"You don't understand… Her master determines her value based on her and her servants' loyalty. In other words, it's important that all of the angels who serve her, remain loyal to her to uphold her honor. Even one servant's disobedience can change how the Sky God sees her."
"What about the other disciples?"
"It's the same for them but they have their own reasons for staying loyal to our God. Their reasoning is unclear to me but it's not as ambitious as why my master is serving the Sky God."
"What about your master's reason?"
"She… promised to serve the Sky God in hopes of achieving her own goal with his help."
"It's not loyalty to him then but for her own selfish reasons. You throwing away your duty as an angel threatens her relationship with the Sky God."
"Yes… But I have no choice but to face her." Rafaela approached Arnold and took hold of his hands, "That's why I must ask of you to please take me there."
"….."
"I know I said that we'll go our separate ways but I can't fight in this state and have no one else to rely on. If I were alone then I would've perished on the road even if I followed the safe paths that were marked for us. I can't do anything to reward you in return but—"
"Alright."
"You would really do it…? For me?"
"Remember how you said that you'd take me to your master anyway since she has the means to get me to that martial world I'm looking for?"
"Yes but… I wasn't sure if she'd really help. I'm still unsure of it. She might even give you an impossible task to complete in order to gain the privilege of using her Gate. No one has ever completed her tasks. Some have even died."
"Your master already sounds like someone I won't like." Arnold shrugged, "At least she's a woman. I can find ways to persuade her to let me use her Gate."
He said with a smirk.
"Seducing her won't work, you know…"
"What? You're telling me a granny who's probably lived hundreds of years won't fall for this face and this charm of mine?"
"I can guarantee that she won't."
"Ah, whatever. I'll find a way to make her fall for me and let me use her Gate free of charge." Arnold put his hands on her hips and pulled her between his legs, "Oh, you smell really nice."
He buried his nose in her cleavage.
"Stop it." Rafaela glared at him and spoke sternly, "We need to get a move on. We're just a few days away from our destination."
Rafaela tried to push him away but was too weak in her condition to escape Arnold's embrace.
"I spent a gold coin for this room which is way too much given how crappy this room looks. We better spend the night here and get our money's worth."
"We can't do it tonight. It feels like my whole body is being stabbed by needles."
Arnold could feel Rafaela's body trembling every few seconds. It must be an unpleasant feeling.
"So, your body isn't used to all that power yet." He let go of her.
Rafaela stumbled a bit but she managed to stay upright.
Her stomach rumbled all of a sudden.
Her face distorted as she moaned, "…I haven't eaten anything since yesterday. I'm going down to the bar. Are you going to join me?"
"Are you scared to go alone?"
"N-No."
'She must feel helpless, huh. She has no means to defend herself.'
"This is a public space. No one will harm you here. If you feel unsafe or if a random person tries to harass you then just scream my name."
Rafaela rubbed her arm with a hesitant look on her face.
"Have you never been in an inn before? It's practically filled with adventurers and mercenaries. I can bet that at least a few of them would put themselves in danger just to save a woman. Especially one as beautiful as you."
"Well, now that you put it like that…"
"This shitty inn doesn't include meals if you rent a room so take some coin with you."
"Uhm, right. I'll see you later then…" she headed for the door and glanced back at him.
"I won't fall asleep. Just go."
"Mm. Alright."
◇◇
'She's been really clingy these past few days.'
Arnold could tell that Rafaela was paranoid. She had this wild delusion that every direction she goes has some danger around the corner.
All the confidence she had as a level 100 Angel was gone.
A few nights ago, Arnold had to stand behind a tree while she peed in the bushes. She even puts her sleeping tent right next to his and always calls out to him every few hours. Because of this Arnold had lost a lot of sleep.
Arnold rummaged in his magic bag and pulled out the book that he received from Sceptim.
"I haven't had much time to learn about what you contain."
He would've waited until he got back to the academy and used the after school hours to learn from it but now he was really curious about what's inside.
He wasn't interested in learning the skills that Sceptim managed to obtain. All he was interested in was enhancing his knowledge of Aura.
His initial motivation for learning more about aura involved unlocking the full potential of his soul weapon. However, the Luxtivin Star Shard had erased the need for that.
Of course, it's not like there's any harm in using rituals to unlock the potential of his Aura Sword—or now known as his Soul Armament—even if it's now on par or greater than Luke's Semi-Star sword. He can increase his proficiency with the weapon which might have secret skills.
Arnold summoned his soul armament and looked at it with the system pulled up.
· Proficiency: 5,5%
· Rating: ☆
· Condition: While rating is confirmed to be [Star], the Soul Armament is not being used under the right conditions, thus lowering its effectiveness in combat by 63%.
· Suitable with: Aether, Ki and Aura.
· Warning: Attempting to coat the armament in magic grease or coating it with spells will cause the armament to reject the mana and harm the wielder as penalty.
"The proficiency is ridiculously low even though I've killed a lot of monsters along the way here. Hmm, the condition might be on to something."
He asked the system:
"What are the right conditions to using the armament at its fullest potential in its current state?"
· System updated!
· Patch notes: Check the complete weapon status for more information.
· Error 344: Arnold does not have access to the full status screen due to lack of proficiency in the soul armament.
"I knew it wasn't going to be easy. What is the minimum proficiency needed to unlock the full status screen for the weapon?"
· System updated!
· Patch notes: 10%
"If I weren't knowledgeable about the game's special equipment system, then I would've thought that ten percent would be easy to reach. What kind of skills can I bind or unlock with this soul armament at the moment?"
Luxtivin ought to gave given him new abilities since it serves as an upgrade to his Aura Sword. His martial skill [Storm of the Water Dragon] is bound to his sword and can only be used when he has the sword equipped.
How many more skills did he unlock?
· System updated!
· Patch Notes: No skills can currently be unlocked. As of right now, you are is only use the Luxtivin Shard Armament upgrade to create a Mimic of yourself. This is very useful during combat when an opponent's perception is slow to notice the illusion.
"That sounds really useful but only for running away…. Activate the skill for me."
· Skill has been activated!
A tar-colored mist came out of Luxtivin and accumulated in front of Arnold.
A shadowy figure, one that was just as tall as he was, appeared in front of him.
He looked above its head.
· A.I – Arnold (You)
"Alright, show me the combat stance that Sebas taught me and the three moves that serves as opening attacks."
The A.I nodded.
It held up its arms, with one arm in front of its chest and the other facing slightly more forward. Its left leg went behind its right leg and it straightened its back.
The combat stance had a lot of "openings" that serve as bait to make the opponent attack them first. This allows the user to throw two punches and one kick to the liver. If used with enough force, the fight would be over just like that.
Arnold won many school brawls like this since nearly everyone who he picks fights with were weaklings.
The A.I quickly punched the air twice, leaving afterimages of its arms. It then moved twice as fast to deliver a kick.
Usually there would be aura around the foot to deliver extra kicking power but it seems the A.I can't use Arnold's aura willingly.
"Hmm."
It copied his basic stance and opening attacks splendidly as if it had seen them before.
'Alright, I've confirmed that it's as fast as I am during combat so it can keep opponents busy in my stead. I'd like to see how the Mimic's illusions work but it's pretty much self-explanatory so there's no need to show them to me.'
If the A.I can use the illusions while summoned then so should he. Surely it can't be that hard to learn to use it?
"What else can this weapon do?" The purple shadow was absorbed back into Luxtivin.
· System updated!
· Patch notes: If proficiency is high enough, user Arnold will be able to copy weapon arts from memory. Your understanding of said weapon art must be at the level of an intermediate or higher to mimic all its moves and produce a balanced power output. Take in mind that this technique will drain more aura than if user Arnold had learned the skill from a young age.
"Of course there would be drawbacks to using the technique. There's no point being greedy of someone else's martial art. The fact that it can copy martial arts itself pretty amazing. It will be more difficult to copy a martial art's skills though."
In Star Fantasy each martial art had a skill tree where you could unlock your skills by investing points into them.
Understanding the core martial art would be easy to an extend if he gains an understanding of all its moves but the sub-category of skills would be a problem for him.
His core martial art is [Flow of the Tide] which took two years to fully master as a Transcendent. His martial skills (the sub-category of his martial art) include [Storm of The Water Dragon], [Aura Force], [Essence of Hydra], [Martial God's Step] and several other unknown skills still locked away behind those question marks.
He had a solid understanding of all of them, which took several years to accomplish.
Someone like Maylim for example has that weird "string swords" martial art. He was able to figure out how the technique works from seeing it alone. But what if her martial skills weren't the same? What if the skills didn't involve her sword having aura strings attached to it? Assuming she's not one of many exceptions, that is.
Arnold's "Martial God's Step" is a good example of not having an obvious relation to water essence that [Essence of Hydra], does. The former makes use of particles of water in the atmosphere to accelerate Arnold's movement speed. It's basically a form of teleportation, albeit much more inferior since it covers only short distances. Arnold would technically be able run on water surfaces by just teleporting but that's wasteful given how much aura the skill uses. Using his leg strength to jump long distances is much easier.
Back to the subject at hand, maybe Maylim has a skill that can weave her aura strings together to make weapons?
'It would be pretty cool if she can use her aura strings to control the dead like puppets. Then again, would the dead still have access to the powers they had when they were alive? It's technically not reanimation, after all, just puppetry. If I were the developer then I would've let the user give the puppets their aura since them using their original powers doesn't make logical sense.'
Again, it's not reanimation so they won't be revived.
Arnold was just theorizing what kind of skills his senior has since he wouldn't know without asking her. He's not familiar with her family's martial arts, after all.
'Now that I think about her, I wonder how those three are doing? Maybe it isn't a bad idea to befriend them as my seniors. I've never made any friends in the academy before.'
Friends can be used, sure, but how much can it hurt just to have a friend for the sake of it? There doesn't need to be any benefits to befriending them.
"In any case, I shouldn't treat this as a trump card. I'll end up relying too much on someone else's weapon arts which will take more power than is required. It'll only work on an opponent I have an advantage against. I already have my own skills to worry about."
Arnold addressed the system again, "Can I ask of you to focus more on allocating my stat points to my MP stat the next time I level up?"
· System updated!
· Patch notes: Adding all rewarded stat points to a stat classified as an "extra stat" will cause imbalance on your future levels. It is extremely unwise to allocate randomly or to one stat only. Variation between classes would become non-existent.
Imbalance. A word no player ever wants to hear. Players scorn others who invest most of their points into one stat only. Countless equipment and artifacts exists in the game that can help you build your desired class. Most of the equipment scales with your stats.
For example, Lufulur's main staff scaled with his Intelligence and Arcane.
If a warrior were to randomly allocate his stat points, there's a likelihood that he'll end up allocating into his intelligence, but not his vitality and endurance, which are the most important to a warrior build.
Arnold is a hybrid between a knight and a warrior since he is very proficient in martial arts, close-combat and swordplay. The stats that he should focus on are [Vitality], [Defense], and [Aura Power]. His agility stat is another important stat but it's already abnormal for his level so it's not necessary to allocate into it.
"Hmm, I guess you're right. Allocating only 40% of my stat points into Magic Power then."
'I wouldn't want to end up a level 100 warrior with level 60 core stats.'
As expected, a sub-class slot or artifact that can grant him mana are the only two options left for him. Sub-class are essentially one of the easiest way for players to switch between two classes at will.
Arnold hadn't considered this a possibility for him before but things are different now that he has a system.
Systems grant "sub-class selection" as a bonus reward for certain quests once a player has progress far enough in the main story. To be able to get this bonus reward, he must either defeat a great foe or complete a major NPC's questline.
Lauran's "Archmage" questline comes to mind. The discovery of the secrets of Arcane arts will be difficult to complete now so it's best to leave that for the future.
Arnold put his armament away and focused on the book again.
· Educating yourself about Aura
That was the title of the second page in the book.
"I want to skip this page so bad since I know all that's written here but that would be impossible…"
Arnold managed to finish the whole page in under five minutes. He turned to the next page.
A ding suddenly sounded.
· [System Learning] has been added in new update!
· System Learning – Allows your system to learn martial arts, martial skills and normal skills with you, effectively erasing the need to memorize all steps to the abovementioned subjects.
· System Learning also adds a Mimic Choreograph that can show the user what kind of effects each skill or martial art has.
"The choreography mimic sounds interesting. I've never used one in the game."
Why would he need to? He was a magician anyway. Showing the choreography of a wizard waving his staff around doesn't sound interesting.
The developers didn't add this feature to mage and healer classes for this very reason.
Arnold looked at the page again.
"Hm, I was expecting skills to appear after that wall of text explaining what aura is."
[Ascension Pill] was the heading of the next page.
"The Ascension Pill… Wasn't this nerfed In the game a few years after release?"
Due to balancing issues and fear of unfair advantages in PvP, developers decided remove this item from the game. This item can be used to shatter the limiter on your character build for a limited time or give you outrageous buffs that lasts anywhere between 24-72 hours, depending on selected stats.
Players—especially magicians—used this item to increase their stats, allowing them to use certain magic spells or items without the need to upgrade their stats using experience points. Warriors used this to bypass weapon and armor restrictions.
The item was very tedious to obtain but it was worth it if there's a difficult enemy that you want to defeat. Star Fantasy had almost a thousand bosses, half of which were almost impossible to defeat unless you're in end-game, also making it impossible for you to obtain the experience points and item drops that those bosses grant you.
Newbies were able to cheese their way through the game when this item was added. This upset a lot of the top guilds.
The developers' reason for adding it was to make playing easier for people who weren't experienced in fantasy and role-playing games. Instead of removing the item entirely, the developers decided to reduce its effects in the next major update.
It was a pretty stupid idea at the time but now Arnold was grateful for their decision.
Before he continued reading, Arnold posed a question to the system:
"If I were to make this pill, would I be able to surpass my current limits?"
· System updated!
· Patch notes: Consequences of using the [Ascension Pill] are unknown, thus it is highly recommended that user Arnold does not attempt to use one.
"You didn't answer my question. Which means that it's possible."
Silence.
Frankly, the "Consequences are unknown" part worries Arnold since he has no idea what will happen to him if he consumes it.
Still, it will allow him to use another trump card even if for a few seconds longer than his current limits allow—
Aether.