Chapter 346: Luna’s Upgrades

With the upgrade of her pseudo domain skill out of the picture that left her with only 3 skills to upgrade. Blessing of the Arctic, Ice Bolt and Ice Spear.

Yet when Luna looked at the skills she focused initially on the two ranged attack skills.

They were both fairly basic, one simple larger and the other smaller and cheaper to cast. Yet they both effectively fulfilled the same role in combat, a point that Luna found to be somewhat redundant.

With that thought in mind she began to probe the system to see if their was any way that she could potentially merge the two skills into a more general ranged attack skill.

To her delight their was such a feature, only it seemed to cost 2 upgrade tokens. That was mildly annoying as it almost felt like waisting one of the tokens given that she would end up with only 1 skill afterwards, still, she simply accepted that for now and pushed on regardless.

[2 Skill Upgrade Tokens used to Merge - Ice Bolt and Ice Spear:

Options Available:

Arctic Assault

Ice Barrage

Frozen Weapon Manifestation ]

Luna hummed as she began to go through the various options presented to her, starting with the first Arctic Assult.

This one seemed exactly like what she had envisions for her ranged attack skill. It was simple yet effective, allowing her to summon and shoot any kind of ice related creation, be it bolt, spear or anything else she could imagine.

Their was nothing particularly fancy about the skill, it simply excelled at simple yet effective attacks. A fact that Luna could readily appreciate given her preference for fighting up close and personal.

Next she moved on to the second option had had to contain a frown as she understood what that option presented. It would allow her to create static emplacements of ice that would continually fire off magical attacks at her foes.

It defiantly had its use and she imagined it could be great in certain situations, yet, it just did not sit right with how Luna fought. She was all about mobility and constantly being on the move, so to have a part of her arsenal locked down and immobile just seemed counterproductive.

Still, Luna withheld her judgement for now and looked at the last option. This one caused a wide smile to appear on her face as she understood exactly what Frozen Weappn Manifestation was all about.

It, as the name suggested, created weapons made from ice. Yet unlike her ice blade skill, these weapons did not need to be held by herself, instead they could be controlled manually by her to attack and Harris her foes.

Even better, she instinctively understood that she would gain the bonus from her weapon proficiency skill on each and every weapon that she manifested.

This skill seemed almost tailor made for her, it would enable her to attack from both range and up close. Sure she could technically do that already, yet her old ice bolts and spears were fairly simple and lacked any of her trademark trickyness.

Luna didn’t even have to properly consider her options, she knew instinctively what option she would choose the second she began to read it.

[Skill Ice Bolt & Ice Spear have combined into - Frozen Weapon Manifestation lvl 1]

Luna smiled as she read that last message, happy with how that particular upgrade turned out, not even bothered by the usage of two upgrade tokens.

She then turned her attention towards Blessing of the Arctic and frowned. Sure she did use it, yet, it didn’t really have a use case anymore. Its entire purpose was to inoculate someone against the cold and enable to her better withstand hostile environments.

Yet currently neither was an issue for her. She had enough control to easily prevent the cold generated by her skills from effecting her allies. As for hostile environments, well when she evolved and gained a domain that too would be a redundant ability.

In fact, the more she studied that skill the more she felt like it was going to be made entirely redundant once she attained a domain.

Then her instincts flaired up again, niggling away in the back of her head as if she was forgetting something.

She wondered what it was that had provoked this niggling, then it hit her.

If she was intending to ’fold’ in her Arctic Manifestation into her domain, why could she not do the same with her blessing skill?

Merge that with her domain so that she could not only hinder and attack her foes with her domain but also aid her allies?

It made sense and, more importantly, it just felt right on a fundamental level. As if that was what it should always have been and always should be.

With that sudden realisation Luna no longer considered upgrading that skill, no, instead she would keep it exactly as it was and when time came to evolve she would try to use both skills as the building blocks of her domain.

It was around then that Violet refocused on the world around her instead of her system screens.

She turned to Luna with a wide smile and immediately asked about what king of upgrades she had made.

So, Luna explained, talking about how she had merged her two attacking skills, what she would now be able to do and how much she felt that that new skill would fit so well with her fighting style.

Then she told Violet about her revelations regarding her domain, how she intended to try and use two skills as the building blocks of her entire domain.

Violet was suitably impressed and readily praised Luna. Yet she struggled to maintain her own excitement over her own new skills, so relenting Luna stopped talking about her own and asked Violet about her own upgrad session.

To which Violet began to rapidly explain everything to her companion. From the options presented, to the various benefits each option presented and finally about what option she ended up choosing.

Once they were both fully informed about the others choices, they promptly left their room and headed for the training ground to begin testing out their new abilities with glee.

**

Fred clambered up the ruined remains of Ford Dolton and carefully avoiding the decaying and desiccated corpses of the dead soldiers that littered the broken Fort.

He wondered what could have possibly caused such a disaster, sure it was likely beasts given the various claw marks littered around the place and the brutalised remains of the soldiers here.

But still, what king of beast would attack and kill everyone here and then not eat them? None that he knew of that’s for sure.

Sure some of the bodies seemed to have been half chewed on but that seemed more a consequence of killing them, than as a result of the beast eating the men and women here.

Fred shook his head, dismissing the unimportant questions. For now he had completed his mission, and he needed to report back on the situation.

He had been sent out to investigate the situation of the fort when they had not reported in at their assigned time. It had taken him several days to reach the fort, given its remote location.

Now he would have to treck all the way back to the nearby border town just to report back that the entire fort had been destroyed.

A long sigh escaped Fred’s mouth as he imagined the headache he would undoubtedly have once his superiors began hounding him for all of the details.

He had just begun to clamber back down from the rubble to make his way back when he heard a distant sound.

He turned in the direction of the Forest, where the sound originated from with wariness.

Were the beasts responsible for this returning? He shivered at the thought and hurried his steps as he retreated, he had no intention of finding out if that was the case, he was not paid enough to die on a simple scouting mission!

However, he didn’t make it more than a dozen steps when the sound returned. Only this time it was much closer, much, much closer and easily heard.

It was a roar, a roar that sounded like a hundred beasts all interwoven together into a terrifying cacophony that shook him down to his very core.

He no longer retreated slowly, no he ran. Fred ran with everything in his body as he desperately tried to escape from this cursed location and whatever monstrosity was approaching.

Yet he was no fast enough.

The roar repeated, and it was terrifyingly close. Other sounds accompanied the roar, it sounded like footsteps, the footsteps of a colossus mixed with the distinctive snapping of trees.

Fred risked one final glance behind and froze at what he saw.

Shooting out from the forest was a man, or at least someone that looked like a man. He was flying in the air, crimson ribbons floated behind him like tattered rags, the man looked terrible, both pale and haggard.

Then the beast emerged.

Although calling a beast the size of a small city seemed redundant. It was a horror unlike anything he had ever imagined, 4 colloidal legs supported a massive body with hundreds of long necks extended up.

The sight caused Fred’s pants to grow damp as he cowered in place. He saw his life flash before his eyes at the sight of the beast, terror at the prospect of even standing in the way of the creature.

Yet the beast did not emerge from the tree line.

It stopped right at the edge, its hundreds of eyes glaring hatefully at the fleeing man.

Then with a roar that shook the very ground Fred stood on the beast retreated back into the forest.

It was then that Fred collapsed to the ground as he shivered uncontrollably.