Chapter 909 - Decent enough guy

You have been given [Jüdrajil].

And that is all I get regarding the skill. But before I can check it out, I get another pop up.

Additional personalization parameters unlocked. Four options generated for selection.

You can select one of the following:

Passive skill combination token

Three active skills combination token

Active skill evolution

Trait evolution

Note: Any of these options will be influenced by your Mana Primarch (Unique Pristine) Primary class.

Then, as if a kid got slapped on the fingers, and before I can activate my new skill, pain rushes through my body. My mana stat increases and then doubles from my attribute upgrade effect. A new passive skill appears in my status, and that fucking passive skill instantly begins strengthening my other four passives.

I do not even find the energy to take chips out of the bag as I turn all my attention to enduring it all. Especially that increase in mana, which obviously fucks up all my usual processes like Mana Cycling. It also messes with the constructs that I made with this in mind, yet still already have to start tweaking.

And some dumbass in a moment of panic spent all healing marks from Lily, though one or two would’ve been enough. Like, how many would reconnecting a brain and spine require? They are not even that big.

Ramping up mana, etching of my new passive, and gradually strengthening four, goddamn four, low pristine passives, begin to be too much, especially since the more mana I have, the stronger the new passive becomes, and after that the other four too.

As smart as I am, I begin to empty my mana, I concentrate it into projectiles that I launch far into the distance. Dozens, hundreds of them as I release them one after another to weaken Synergy Feed and lessen the burden on my body because of this rapid increase in mana. I can worry about the troubles a bit later and just hope I am not hitting anyone, even as I begin to get notifications about killing some monsters once in a while.

I sit there unmoving for what I am sure is days as I tune Mana Cycling, do some changes to my subminds, and adjust my chassis to deal with all of this. Annoyingly, my low constitution even further complicates these things.

In the end, with all the changes, I still find myself taking damage. It is akin to my constitution dropping by 1 every second, and if I leave it be for 10 seconds, I am confident I would die. That is the simplification I allow my tired brain to have. It is not like 1 constitution is one health point or some similar crap.

To solve it, I decide to run my healing passive permanently. That means flooding my body with thermal energy nonstop.

If I did it fully manually, such movement of thermal energy through my body wouldn't be a problem. In a simplified way, imagine my constitution drops 1 per second and moving heat of thermal energy makes it drop at a speed of 3 per second. But at the same time, that heat causes my constitution to go up at 5 per second. Or if I balance it better, it goes at 10 per second and damages it an additional 2 to 3 per second.

It is annoying, someone smarter should math it out instead of me. Simply said, it is fucked up, and I can't believe the Ruler of... I pause and sigh.

Once again, I modify my efforts and dedicate a bigger mental capacity of mine to circulate thermal energy through my body to keep me healed. This will be a trouble in combat or in case someone fucks with my thermal energy.

I will either need some other way to keep myself alive or to make my body more durable. Rising Constitution could help, but since it is impossible for me to use stat points to increase Constitution because of a system bug, I will need to improve on some of the methods Lissandra left to me.

Of course, I will also get healing marks from Lily, and we could possibly work on some fucked-up body modification. Lately she started talking scary stuff about possibly using what she learned from observing Biscuit or possibly from Kindness's clone.

I will need to have at least 2 options to deal with this problem in case my thermal healing passive disappoints me. Though... now that it is getting boosted by my new passive, it should be halfway towards mid pristine rarity, and I wouldn't be surprised if it has the strength of mid pristine, or is very close to it or slightly over it, once I get to level 500.

One day I will need to find each and every one of the dumbasses who told me mid pristine passive skills are impossible during the tutorial and who refused to unlock them for me. Then, I will laugh in their faces.

After that start, I spend two more days with further changes to my body. I do not sleep, but eat and drink the rest of the food I brought with me, and toward the end I am becoming more relaxed. No one interrupts me, but it is a bit unnerving. If someone did and I had to have a serious fight during all that, or if there was some sneaky attempt on my life... my state would be much worse than in my duel against Nyssa.

But once it is all mostly dealt with, I look toward the fake sky of this floor and give a long sigh of relief, even as most of my mental capacity still goes into getting used to this all.

“You here?” I ask.

“What do you want?” The voice from next to me makes me jump as I realize it is Ruby in her Handler form sitting there.

“Fucking ghost-”

“Repeat that.”

“No thanks, I know what would follow. No one is listening?”

“Most of them got bored after one day of you sitting there and not dying. Others got bored after I just refused to tell them what you got. They offered some nice sums too.”

“You could tell them some bullshit and take money anyway.”

“I did.”

“... of course.”

“I have another persona that is assistant to my Handler persona, but actually just me. That assistant pretends that I tell her almost everything and is often selling and leaking info.”

“You know what, I can respect that, but I want my cut.”

“Thirty percent.”

“What the hell. At least make it fifty.”

“Thirty because 50 percent goes to me as Handler and 20 to me as assistant. They secretly have a deal between each other where Handler allows her assistant to sell some of the info.”

I pause and just stare at her, but something... something about that logic... isn't wrong. This greedy woman must know it. She is very greedy, she must be used to dealing with people, she must know how I view things.

How annoying.

“Deal, but I get some info on my new skill.”

“Sure, you should have your shards already.” She says.

Instantly I check it, and it is indeed two or so million more.

“Got it,” I answer. “So now about that prototype thing.”

“It is what it says, but before you misunderstand, it isn't prototype skills from the beginnings of the system or from during the system war. These are mostly abolished, with many of them too powerful to be given again or flawed in some other way.”

“Do you have some skill like that?”

“Maybe.”

“You are so cool.”

“I'm not telling you.”

“You are still the coolest Ruler I know.”

“Asshole,” she snorts. “The more I talk with you, the more I feel like I devolve into some stupid version of me from long ago. But back to the skill. It is one of the newer prototypes, though your feeble mind would still think of it as ancient. Five thousand or so years ago, the system began creating a new pool of prototype skills and giving them out once in a while.”

“But why?”

“Don't ask me, even if I knew I wouldn't tell you. For you, it is important to know that they are usually very powerful or have difficult to deal with effects. Especially this certain pool of prototypes. They are often limited in their application, with usually just two or three effects or uses. Some Rulers say they are the types of skills Easy Difficulty attendees would have, but with the potential to scale to Absolute grade. Their names are, as you noticed, also different, likely because the skills are given to just a few people and the system doesn't want to use some name that could already be in use or used for something more fitting.”

“So I got a unique pristine class, rejected a cool active skill, just to be a lab rat?”

“You, my silly ward, can act annoyed as much as you want. To me it looks like you are smirking and giggling, ready to play with a toy no one else can have.”

Hearing that, I carefully reach and touch the corners of my lips, searching for any signs of that, but there is none. Once again I have been lied to.

But well, she isn't that wrong. I'm confident I would do well even without that skill and make it to another primary class upgrade at level 600, but having a prototype skill? This is way too cool.

“So no description, unlike with [Usurpation]?”

“No. Even I don't know more. You will have to do your testing, but I recommend starting slowly.”

“That sounds like something I would do.”

“That does not sound like something you would do.”

For a few seconds, I stubbornly return her gaze until I win by the fact of her rolling her eyes and looking away.

“Do whatever you want,” she says before disappearing as she came.

Tired of all that sitting, I stand up, move a few steps, and lie down with my head resting against the tree. Looking up, I can see the fake sky through the leaves, and when a slight breeze presses against me, I nestle there a bit more comfortably.

Then I look at the name of my new skill and at its place in my status, and then I begin my testing.

Barely an hour later, I find myself walking through Megacity, searching for someone looking powerful. It takes me a few rounds, but I find a man with an impressive mana signature and surrounded by a group of people.

Channeling my inner Extroverthaniel, I put a smile on my face and reach them with a greeting, “Hello.”

“What the fuck is with that expression? Are you looking for a figh-” The man stops, and his pupils widen. “Are you by any chance the guildmaster of the Primordial Lun- I mean, Knights?” he asks quickly, and this time more politely.

The people around them murmur, and I wave it off. “Sure, sure. You are an A rank, correct? Would you mind if I test something?”

“S rank,” he says.

“What?”

“I gained S rank not that long ago,” he sticks his chest out proudly.

“Oh, I see! That is cool!” I say and smile at him, but for some reason, it causes his expression to sour.

“Whatever,” he smiles at me anyway. “I won't mind helping, if you won't mind me using the fact in the future.”

“That much is obvious,” I say. “So you have some decent handling of your mana, right?”

“I would say so,” the man who reminds me of Prince Charming smiles, though I know a predator when I see one. Compared to the people around him, he is like a bear sneaking into a pen of hamsters and pretending to be one of them.

“Good,” I nod. “Try defending your mana. It won't hurt… I think. I mean that it won't be anything life-threatening.”

“Just go ahead,” he says, still confidently, but I see him react and activate his defenses, both passive and active.

Not letting myself hesitate, I activate [Jüdrajil] and touch him, utilizing one of the skill's four applications I discovered.

I let go right away, with the contact lasting barely half a second.

At first, he just looks at me with that smile, showing satisfaction that I likely have failed against him. That smile lasts half a second and is quickly replaced by something else as he realizes what just happened.

Slowly, terror appears in his eyes, and his pupils shake. His heart palpates, his muscles tense as fear threatens to take over.

But he is still an S rank, though fresh. His mask of confidence slides back on, and his smile stays. No one from the group surrounding him notices.

Thankful to him, I say, “It seems I have failed against you.”

The man swiftly realizes what I am doing, and his smile becomes a bit more genuine as he says, “I'm glad to be of help, Guildmaster Gwyn.”

He basks in the looks of admiration from the people around him as I say my goodbyes and leave. Still, even in the end, that fear is still there, no matter how much he tried to hide it.

My barely leveled up new skill just took all his mana in that shortest moment I touched him. Though his natural barrier and through all his effort to stop it.

I consider testing the second application of the skill on him, but after what I just saw, I drop the idea. He seems like a decent enough guy. Giving him all my mana in less than half a second feels like too much.

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