NOVEL FROG Chapter Three Hundred Fifty One
After the match we went straight home again and I secluded myself. This next part was going to be an important step, and I wasn't willing to have anyone sitting in. Even Callie might be a competitor later in the tournament, and as much as I loved my girlfriend, I wasn't going to make it easy on her. We were finally on even footing, and unlike our sparring up til now this tournament had real stakes.
Granted, it would be fine if either of us won, but we both had our reasons for wanting to advance, so if we ended up fighting I wasn't going to do any less than my level best to win. She knew it too, could sense my resolve, even if she couldn't sense what I was going to do about it.
Which was, of course, get stronger. My stats were maxed, but I had plenty of room to grow, and my DS Mastery was my best chance to do that. I had ten or more subskills to upgrade still, and I needed to make sure to grow them in a way that would let me fight one on one without relying on backup from Callie or Abel or even Mel. I had to use my room to grow to make myself a legitimate threat, and the best way to do that was to get back to my roots a bit. It was time to min-max my build.
Or at least the aspects of it I could. The Fatewalker build was fantastic for DS, but it was less than ideal for a frontline combatant. Specifically my divination, while useful, had yet to unlock any of the combat applicable skills I could get later in the tree, and as such was much less of a priority. I had a few tricks like the overlay, but that wasn't really even a skill so much as an interface. Seek Hidden was useful, but wouldn't be combat applicable in most situations.
Which meant my upgrades should be aimed at the most compatible of my subclasses. The monk. Granted, the rogue subskills were hugely useful, but I'd upgraded most of them already, and I had no weapon anymore, at least for the moment. After tomorrow I would finally have some breathing time to get a new one made, but until then leaning into the monk abilities and their synergy with martial arts was going to be the key to making me stronger. Even after I got my weapon this would be a useful path to take.
Now, I'd upgraded several of my monk skills already. Consecration of Flame, Stone Limb, and Afterburner. Which meant I had five more left. Mistwalking, Sucking Mud, Boiling Cloud, Cloud Step, and Leaf on the Wind. Two water skills, an earth skill, and two wind skills.
Four skills didn't give me any groundbreaking options exactly, but it gave me some, especially if I used them in conjunction with each other. Which meant I needed to figure out ways to alter each of the skills so they would work in harmony with each other, or at least a few of them. I was pretty sure I couldn't jail break them completely, but by making multiple skills different enough to work as part of an overarching whole I should be able to manage...something.
Then I stopped. Skills could be used in conjunction. Part of a whole. They could also be SYNERGIZED. While I wasn't sure if I could synergize full Skills into my subskills, I didn't see why not. I had plenty of bullshit Skills that did nothing, and combining them into aspects of DS Mastery could improve its function.
I considered my options. First up was Stealth. It was still at Lesser, which meant it was well within tolerance for synergy. Mistwalking was designed to help me hide in a cloud of mist, but there was viability for something much more powerful. I might lose Stealth by doing this, I didn't know since it was my first synergy, but even if I did I had stored charges and I could use it through the bond.
So I closed my eyes and reached down into myself. I used Mistwalking, filling the room with mist that would let me move more sneakily. It was a pretty basic and uninspiring ability. But I focused on a specific part of it. The hiding aspect. I focused on the stealth element of the skill, trying my best to shift the skill as I did with any skill, using my soul to sort of highlight a path for it.
Instead of just altering it over and over until it became effortless though, I altered it as far as I could and HELD it. My head started to pound, but I ignored it as I focused on my Stealth Skill, and holding the Mistwalking skill I resonated Stealth as hard as I could. I felt something catch, felt the two skills begin to harmonize as my skills did sometimes, but instead of letting it go, I focused on the harmonization.
It felt...simple. Not easy mind you. My head was throbbing, but simple. Like it was meant to happen. I held it like that, letting the resonance get stronger and stronger, and in the same way a skill eventually became different when I upgraded it, there was a sort of...click, inside me and the two skills blended together.
I fell over, letting myself breathe as I tried to tamp down on the pain. It took a few minutes for my head to clear, but it eventually did, and when it was done, I mentally checked over my Skills. They were mostly the same, except two small differences. First, Stealth was gone. I hadn't been sure that would happen, but this was a Skill and not an ability so it didn't shock me. I knew most Skills synergized with an ability didn't vanish since you had to keep ranking them up to progress, but it looked like Skill synergized with other Skills did.
Second was under my DS Mastery skill. I could dive into that if I needed to, and it listed my subskills, but Mistwalking was no longer one of them. In its place was an entirely new skill. Moonlit Night. My subskills and skills didn't have descriptions or anything, but I didn't need them. It was MY skill. I knew what it did, and this one was pretty fucking amazing.
Moonlit Night did what Mistwalking had done, filled the area with fog, but with Stealth included that fog did a few new things. Aside from obscuring sight, it also obscured me specifically from other senses, like hearing and smell. On top of that, because Stealth was doing a lot of heavy lifting, the Mistwalking skill was able to get back to its roots as a monk skill, which meant it amplified the force of my blows when I was hidden by the fog. In other words, I got a fucking sneak attack bonus. Every blow I made undetected inside the fog caused double the damage.
I wanted to do more, honestly, I couldn't wait to find some new way to improve my DS Mastery. I could feel it becoming...more. Evolving as a Skill not only because I had upgraded a portion, but because I had included more Skills in it. What that would do I had no idea. Maybe it would change the Skill when it upgraded, that was certainly how abilities worked, but either way I was excited to become more powerful.
For now, my head was still throbbing and I decided the best move here was to test out my new ability. I headed down to the training room, making sure it was empty before starting my practice. I closed my eyes, triggering Moonlit Night. When I opened them...I could see.
I hadn't considered why it would be called Moonlit Night, but standing in the fog I could understand perfectly. Light. The fog itself wasn't opaque, rather, to my eyes it looking like softly glowing phosphorescent liquid. That was interesting. I had a full understanding of the mechanics of my new skill, but apparently not how it would physically manifest.
Other people, based on what I knew about the skill's function, wouldn't be able to see, or hear, or smell me. Granted some special tricks like my Seek Hidden would make it possible to detect me anyway, but detection abilities weren't exactly universal, especially among the enemies I'd be facing. They would all be pure combat types.
I strode forward in the fog, silent as a ghost, it was amazing, like being inside a giant Stealth Skill. I couldn't wait to do this with my last few subskills and make DS Mastery really mine. I shifted into my Balam stance moving undetected among the targets on the edge of the training room. As I got within range of one I spun off my back foot, scything out with a kick at the nearest target.
There was a bang as my kick fulfilled the condition of a sneak attack, namely, that no one was perceiving me actively within the fog. Double the force was expressed through the blow. I triggered Mercy Kill, inflicting three blows at half again the strength, a grand total of two hundred fifty percent damage. I'd been hoping those would stack instead of combining but I supposed it kind of made sense since they both came from the same skill.
Looking at the target, I didn't see any particular damage, but that was fine. These were peak G-rank targets, and my Might was two hundred and twenty. Five hundred and fifty points of Might wasn't anything to scoff at, but it wasn't peak or anything. Then again, it didn't need to be. I could deliver these all day, and this was without any enhancement at all. Stack this with some of my triple strength punches and I was throwing blows hard enough to be F-rank.
Now I knew, of course, that it didn't really translate exactly like that because of the way Impact worked, but against someone my own rank I'd be able to do some serious damage, and everyone in the tournament was G-rank, even if some of them would have F-rank defensive gear like I did. I got back in position again, readying myself for another attack, and proceeded to spend a few hours focused on utilizing every speck of Might I had perfectly, finding the optimum usage for my Balam Mastery for sneak attacks and mist based combat. I kept going until I could barely stand, ignoring the pain in my head as I practiced.
Finishing up my training I slumped down, head still pounding, and closed my eyes. Sadly the pain didn't fade quickly, but that was ok. I hadn't strained my soul too much, this was within my tolerance, it was just at the high end of it. I would be right as rain tomorrow before the big match. Not that it would matter because there was no way I was going to show this new skill off in the team battle. I'd save it for when I needed it.
Once I stopped feeling like a pack of boot wearing rat kings were playing hop scotch on the inside of my brain I climbed to my feet and headed upstairs. I climbed into the shower and slumped down on the bench, letting the boiling water wash away the soreness and sweat from the hard workout. I wasn't exactly invincible now, but I still had another four monk skills and at least one rogue skill to upgrade before the solo fights. I was going to make sure that I was a completely different fighter by the time that all came around.
As I stumbled into bed and dozed off, I felt Callie climb in after me, and I drifted off to sleep happy with the progress I made. Tomorrow was the finals of the group matches, and I couldn't help but be excited to find out who we would be facing. Whoever it was, I was sure this would be a hell of a fight.