In this world, skills are something that cannot be easily acquired. There are only two ways known to everyone: one is that you have them innately within you.
Since no one in this world has something like a status window, it becomes difficult to know what abilities you have unless they are easily recognizable or you go to a temple for an examination, but that costs too much, so most live without knowing they have an ability inside them.
For example, Seraphina, before possessing her body, surprisingly had two abilities: affinity for light and lightning, one of the common abilities in her lineage.
That includes innate blessings, which grant you an ability. But that ability is different from other abilities, as it is linked to God and is totally dependent on the state of that God to function.
For example, even though I am not inaata my ability is linked to that Goddess who is supposed to be the Goddess of Purity, who gave me the ability Purification (Ω), which has that symbol that only blessing abilities have.
The good thing is that once given it cannot be taken away, and less so from those who were born with it since although it depends on God, in itself it is not under his control.
But, on the other hand, the gods can give rank abilities (EX), that is where they can take control of a person's life.
Reincarnates have the privilege to choose the ability, but the inhabitants of the world have to accept what the god grants them. In this world there is no one who would refuse an ability granted by a god no matter what it is, even if they know they will be subservient to it.
Although not as common, it is not uncommon to be blessed by the gods, especially in this dawning era.
The Gods strive to increase the blessed, obviously they have their standards and their blessings are not infinite so they look for the best and with potential like Alicia.
Alicia received the blessing of the Goddess of Plants with a divine ability, but she only received that.
If she wants more powerful (S) or (EX) rank abilities and to be sponsored by the Gods, she has to prove herself worthy, only then will the gods actually sponsor her with abilities and such.
The price is to always be watched and follow their orders, but no one in this world would care about something like that. That's why in this world skills are something valuable.
While there are such a thing as power ranks, they are not as defined as they seem, after training long enough or becoming strong enough, people go into something called metamorphosis, which makes them stronger.
It's like a level up where the body improves and becomes more optimal and reaches a new level of existence each time it goes through a metamorphosis or at least that's what I felt.
But that strength between ranks is not absolute, as skills, martial arts and spells can overcome this gap, of course, if the amount of metamorphoses between individuals is not too wide.
Among the memories of my alternate future self, I saw that, as he chose the light affinity (EX), he could cast powerful light spells and that, despite having only one metamorphosis, he hurt or killed monsters and humans with the strength of 4 metamorphoses.
There were some cool scenes, I could see how cool my alternate self was, in one of them he was imitating a certain magician who has a mania for explosive magic saying chuuni phrases and worst of all he dared to shout "Explosion! He shouted "Explosion!" in a loud voice, but no explosion occurred, the only thing that happened was that he shot a beam of light that took by surprise the enemies who were expecting an explosion.
But of course that brought a serious problem, since someone's mana in the first metamorphosis was not enough, causing him to faint from spending all his mana, imitating that peculiar mage even in that.
But now I can't do something like that, but those memories wanted to teach me that, although my rank and number of metamorphoses was lower than someone else's, skills and other factors can break that gap.
That's why it's important to have skills, plus, the more you use them and understand them, the higher you can become. But the requirements and so on are things that even my future self wouldn't be able to understand, as everyone is different and it varies from person to person.
The only thing for sure is that the more you use it, the more likely you are to ascend. That's why legacies are important, not only because they allow you to accurately self-examine yourself, but they also come with a plethora of skills that are honestly in a league of their own in terms of functionality, regardless of your current rank.
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Name : Seraphina Silvercrest
Race : Human
Rank : Minor Transmutation
Gender : Female
Stats :
Strength : 72
Mana : 30
Agility : 39
Defense : 23
Vitality : 19
Skills :
Purification (Ω)
Morphogenesis (A)
Eyes of lust (A)
Dual synchrony (A)
Protection of lust (A)
Heir (A)
Affinity for light (B)
Pheromones (B)
Affinity for lightning (C)
Demonization(D)
Fertility control (E)
Enchantment (E)
Corruption (F)
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Legacy Weapon:
Spear of lust
Special Abilities:
-Shapeshifting
-Connection
-Replication
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The system counts strength in numbers, something that is not common in this world. My future self made several sacrifices to understand the users of the 14 legacies, hoping to be able to achieve it, something he never could.
But there is something he discovered that is not among the information that the system put in my head, and that is that metamorphoses are given according to the statistic with the highest value. For example, in my case, the highest value is strength.
According to the memories, to have the third metamorphosis it is enough for this statistic to reach 70. The same is true for the others. Elena, who has the same rank as me, has most of her stats in speed, so she was also able to do her third metamorphosis.
From the day I got the system until today, I've noticed that my stats went up, but the important thing is that the one that went up the most is speed.
That was not because I trained it specially, but because of one of the new skills I have, which makes that both my partner and I, can harmonize our stats.
I looked at Elena's window to check it and what appeared was this:
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Name : Elena Nightfall
Race : Human
Rank : Transmutation minor
Gender : Female
Stats :
Strength : 34
Mana : 32
Agility : 79
Defense : 27
Vitality : 30
Skills :
Concealment (Ω)
Affinity for darkness (A)
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The skill allowed our stats to grow faster depending on which one was higher, right now, besides strength, she is stronger than me in the other stats, so if I keep having relations with her I will be able to match my stats with hers, on the other hand, she will also grow and match her strength stats with me.
And the more girls she is with me (men obviously ruled out) and who have better stats than me the stronger we will all be, we will cover all bases and be without a doubt invincible in our rank, no need for skills, blessings, spells or martial arts.
Honestly, this skill is almost a trap, since according to the information that was introduced in my head three years ago, this skill also has the possibility that both she and I can obtain each other's skills.
Sure, it's something I have to consciously allow, but there's no reason why I wouldn't want Elena to get stronger. So I put it to work both ways, as there are only positive effects and no negative ones. But, unfortunately, not everything is rosy.
Among the abilities given to me by the system there was a particularly dangerous one and the price of this power *Corruption (F)* .
which is an ability that grows in rank over time and the more you use the skills and benefits of the system, it is passive and its only function is to degrade the mind and in the end makes you a slave to what the system represents.
The good thing is that I have an ability that perfectly contradicts this problem and that is Purification, which is passively inside me, preventing this ability from spreading.
Anyone else can only cast Purification spells at most to slow down the corruption that slowly begins to control you, but since mine works 24/7, I don't have to worry about it growing, even items imbued with this spell are ineffective against this ability.
But the ability is so powerful that if it is at a high rank like (A) or higher, even I could not stop it.
So as long as I have the blessing of the Goddess, everything will be fine. Or at least that was the theory of my alternate self. I hope I'm right, I don't want to become a lust-crazed demon that attacks everything in sight.