Chapter 909 – Decent enough guy

You have been given [Jüdrajil].

And that’s 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, like a ruler across my fingers, 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 can’t 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 I already made with this in mind, and yet somehow I already have to start tweaking them.

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

Ramping up my mana, the etching of my new passive, and gradually strengthening four, goddamn four, low pristine passives is beginning to be too much, especially with the fact that the more mana I have, the stronger the new passive becomes, and the other four with it.

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 with the rapid increase in mana. I can worry about the trouble this is causing a bit later and just hope I am not hitting anyone, even as I begin to get notifications about killing the odd monster every once in a while.

I sit there unmoving for what I am sure is days as I tune my Mana Cycling, make some changes to my subminds, and adjust my chassis to deal with everything. Annoyingly, my low constitution has been further complicating these things.

In the end, with all the changes, I still find myself taking damage. It’s almost like my constitution has been dropping by 1 every second, and if I leave it be for 10 seconds, I am confident I’ll just die. That’s the best simplification my tired brain can come up with. After all, it’s not like 1 constitution is actually equal to one health point or anything.

To solve this, I make the decision to start running my healing passive permanently. That means flooding my body with thermal energy nonstop.

If I did it fully manually, moving the 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 were to balance it better, it goes at 10 per second and damages it an additional 2 to 3 per second.

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

Once again, I modify my efforts and dedicate a bigger portion of my mental capacity to circulating thermal energy through my body to keep me healed. This is going to cause trouble in combat or in any case where someone decides to start fucking with my thermal energy.

I’ll either need some other way to keep myself alive or to make my body more durable. Rising Constitution could help, but since it’s been rendered impossible for me to use stat points to increase Constitution by a persistent system bug, I’ll just need to improve on some of the methods Lissandra left to me.

Of course, I’ll also get some healing marks from Lily, and we could possibly work on some fucked-up body modifications. Lately she’s started talking about scary things, like 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 the event my thermal healing passive lets me down. Though... now that it’s being boosted by my new passive, it should be halfway towards mid pristine rarity, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had the strength of a mid pristine, or very close to it, perhaps slightly over, once I get to level 500.

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

After that start, I spend two more days dealing with further changes to my body. I do not sleep, but I do end up eating and drinking the rest of the food I brought with me, and toward the end I’m starting to feel a bit 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... I’d be in a much worse state than I was in my duel against Nyssa.

But once I’ve got it 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 is still going into the process of getting used to all this.

“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 comes after. Is anyone listening?”

“Most of them got bored after a day of you sitting there and not dying. Others got bored after I just refused to tell them what you got. And 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 plays assistant to my Handler person. It's actually just me. Said assistant pretends that I tell her almost everything and is prone to 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 have a secret understanding where the Handler allows her assistant to sell certain 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 want some info on my new skill.”

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

Instantly, I check it, and my balance 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 get any misunderstandings, it isn't a prototype skill from the beginnings of the system or the system war. Those were mostly abolished, many of them were too powerful to be given again or too flawed in some other way.”

“Do you have some sort of 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’m devolving into some dumber version of me from long ago. But back to the skill. It’s one of the newer prototypes, though your feeble mind would still perceive it as ancient. Five thousand or so years ago, the system began creating a new pool of prototype skills and giving them out every 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 either tend to be very powerful or have effects that are difficult to deal with. Especially this specific pool of prototypes. They’re generally limited in their applications, usually with no more than two or three effects or uses. Some Rulers say they’re the sorts 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 aren’t being given to very many 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’re smirking and giggling as you get ready to play with a toy no one else has.”

Hearing that, I carefully reach and touch the corners of my lips, searching for any sign she might be right, but there isn’t any. Once again I have been lied to.

But she isn't exactly wrong either. 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? That’s just way too cool.

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

“No. Even I don't know any more than that. You’ll have to do your own testing, but I’d 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 virtue of her rolling her eyes and looking away.

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

Tired of all this sitting around, 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 in 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 who looks particularly powerful. It takes me a few rounds, but I find a man with an impressive mana signature, surrounded by a group of people.

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

“What the fuck is up 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’re an A rank, correct? Would you mind if I test something?”

“S rank,” he says.

“What?”

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

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

“Whatever,” he says, smiling at me anyway. “I don’t mind helping, if you don’t mind me taking advantage of 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 says, smiling, though I know a predator when I see one. Compared to the people around him, he’s like a bear sneaking into a pen of hamsters and acting like he’s one of them.

“Good,” I nod. “Try defending your mana. It won't hurt… I don’t think. At least it shouldn’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 seem to 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, even if he is a fresh one. 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 to best you.”

The man swiftly realizes what I’m doing, and his smile becomes a bit more genuine as he says, “I'm glad to be of assistance, 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 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 considered testing the second application of the skill on him, but with what I just saw, I decide to 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.