{RIKU POV}
{REALM: THE SEA OF STARS}
{DEPTH 15}
Another Depth came and went, but while the last Depth promised nothing beyond the occasional fishing and stat farming, this Depth would be the time when Riku finally saw if taking [Chaotic Potential] as an ability a while ago would be worth it. After all, he was about to get a new Boon for all of his efforts, and while normally, it would supposedly give him something that was clearly useful, [Chaotic Potential] added literal chaos to the mix by giving him a chance to get bad Boons in exchange for said Boons to come to him every five Depths instead of the usual ten. It was huge gamble, especially since his life was literally on the line in this case, but a quicker way to power would make him breath easier, especially once the competition started heating up.
"Ah... Another Depth done and dusted," Nyx sighed to herself as she slacked at her usual place at the front of their boat. "Something interesting about to happen, I wonder?"
"I sure hope not," Shizu chimed aloud, letting a soft sigh of her own. "As much as it's kind of boring at times, at least we're not fighting for our lives."
[BOONS OF CHAOS: CHAOTIC SYSTEM ACTIVED]
[CHOOSE A NEW BOON]
Riku raised a brow as the prompt for his ability finally showed itself once more. Patiently, he waited for Nyx's facsimile to finish talking before it finally presented the Boons that he had to choose from for this leg of their journey.
[CHAOTIC HAMMER: BESTOWS THE CHAMPION'S WEAPON THE ATTRIBUTES OF A CHAOTIC HAMMER, GIVING IT A CHANCE TO SHIFT WEIGHT AND ATTACK POWER WITH EACH STRIKE]
[CHAOTIC ENTROPY: GIVES THE CHAMPION'S ATTACKS A CHANCE TO SLOW ENEMY MOVEMENT BY A RANDOM AMOUNT]
[CHAOTIC TOXIN: COATS THE CHAMPION WITH A DEADLY TOXIN, SLOWING ATTACKING ENEMIES AND GAINING AN INCREASE IN DEFENSE]
The former assassin blinked at the choices given to him. So far, none of them read like they were actively bad for him if he took them. However, that didn't mean that they were amazing. In fact, it almost felt like he had to choose the most generic of them all if only so that he didn't have to drastically change his fighting style in some way.
Obviously, the third option was something he shouldn't get. He still liked having the option of being touched by other people, even if the ability description didn't say otherwise. It was just common sense to not be covered in deadly toxin, and there was no way in hell that he'd risk losing the ability to touch things without poisoning them.
As for the first option, he supposed that it was the one bad option out of the bunch. While it did sound like it would massively raise his attack power, it would come at a cost of changing the weight of his weapon, something that he already had trouble with back when he had the dumb ladder coming out of his knife a few Depths ago. Add to the fact that the change was random as well, and it was an easy choice to ignore it.
Going through his options then, the only logical choice would be the second one. It would give his attacks a chance to slow his enemies, and it wouldn't chance things up for him too much. In fact, it would only help his case, especially if he ever got into a fight against an opponent that was faster than him. A single knick would have a chance of slowing them down, allowing him to double down and attack even more, slowing them down further into the dirt.
Well, that was assuming that the slows stacked.
Shrugging, Riku tapped on the second option, allowing the pop up to disintegrate into motes of dark chaos before funneling straight into his knife, bestowing him even more power than he already had.
"Oh, I'm guessing you just picked another power?" Nyx pointed out.
"It was something," he blandly replied as he grabbed his fishing rod and cast a line out onto the sea. "It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really that great either."
"At least it's permanent, right?" Shizu casually chimed in. "It'll stick to you unlike my cards, even if they're random."
Riku shrugged once more before he quickly reeled his line back in, having a caught yet another fish as he quickly butchered it and tossed it into the nearby cooler. He really didn't want to speak about his power any more than he should. Even though him and Shizu had already shared how their powers worked, it still remained prudent for him to keep some aspects of it to himself.
"At least your cards are somewhat predictable, no?" Nyx casually stated. "Big Brother Tyche loves being predictable and all that."
"It's still annoyingly hard to get the right cards that I want though," Shizu grumbled, her chin on her palm as she stared out at the sea. "Even while using my Trump back then, it took me minutes to get the card we needed to escape. I'm pretty sure I threw away the equivalent of about four or five decks' worth of cards just to get that specific one."
The former assassin scoffed at those words. Ever since the fortune teller told her how exactly her Trump worked, he immediately thought of how powerful the ability to see ten seconds into the future was. Her stating that she used it solely so that she could just dump card after card without bothering to look at them was something that he thought sounded like a gross underutilization of such a power. Then again, she also used it to lead her attacks with pinpoint accuracy, allowing her to essentially never miss depending on her moves.
In fact, he didn't even know how strong [Diviner] truly was. Did she simply see ten seconds into the future? How many futures could she see?
"At least you got it in the end though, right?" his goddess chuckled.
"It was something," Shizu shrugged. "I really need more practice with it though. It hurts my head just remembering what I was seeing during that time."