Chapter 260: Wisteria’s Advice

Wisteria and Bella walked towards opposite ends of the large stage where they would be hosting their battle. Before they started, Wisteria turned to face me. “First, I need you to remove any passive buffs you might have put on her. If we’re doing this right, I need to see what her true baseline is.”

I hesitated for just a moment before pulling back the aura enhancements of Forest Titan and King of All Trades, as well as Ancient Legend, which was the grandmaster form of Ancient Mentor that had evolved from the skill being always on. Bella did not immediately seem to notice any difference, but Wisteria still told her to stretch and move around to adjust to her body’s baseline parameters. “Given what I know about Drake, he probably has those buffs on all the time. In other words, the only time that you’re ever really fighting at your own level is when he is not near enough for the buff to reach you.”

Bella pursed her lips, but didn’t refuse. She stretched, tested the limits of her flexibility, and then ran a few laps around the field. Only when Wisteria called for her to stop did she return to her starting position. “How do you want to do this?” Wisteria asked in a calm tone, pulling out a pair of purple paper fans from her inventory.

Bella took a second to think, looking around their sparring area. “We don’t have enough room for me to demonstrate my sniping. So, if it’s alright, can we stick to close and mid-range combat?” she asked, summoning her pistols to her hands.

“Anything’s fine with me. What level are you at, so I can adjust myself to match?”

“Three hundred and eighteen,” Bella answered honestly, and Wisteria took a deep breath. Bella’s eyes flicked down to a window that appeared in front of herself, pressing an invisible button. Given what I knew, that was probably a duel request to prevent either side from accidentally dying in the fight.

As soon as the match began, Bella began running forward, firing her pistols towards Wisteria. Wisteria, meanwhile, flicked her wrists to create a barrier of wind. The first round of bullets were blown off course, but Bella continued advancing.

When her second round of bullets slammed into the wind barrier, the first one caused the wind to weaken while the other pierced through. Wisteria was momentarily intrigued, taking a shallow wound on her arm and looking at Bella thoughtfully. 

After the two volleys, Bella was close enough to engage in melee combat. She crouched down, sweeping a kick at Wisteria’s leg while aiming her guns at the desert fox’s chest. Wisteria responded by lifting her leg, kneeing the guns higher while bending backwards to avoid the attack. After completing this movement with a flip, she sliced at the air with one fan to send a wind blade towards Bella.

Bella managed to roll out of the way, but Wisteria stuck close to her, not giving her the leeway to maneuver properly. From the beginning, she had been tracking Bella’s guns to avoid being struck again, always making sure to shift Bella’s aim before she had the chance to fire.

I watched from the sides, and I could see that Bella was becoming more and more frustrated. She tried to enter stealth to eke out an advantage, but Wisteria’s perception was too great, completely nullifying her stealth. She tried to use explosive rounds on the ground at Wisteria’s feet, but Wisteria floated around on the wind to soften the blows. From beginning to end, the only abilities that Wisteria had shown were those related to wind manipulation. And having fought Wisteria myself, I knew that she had far more than that.

Eventually, it seemed as if Wisteria had seen enough. She closed her fans, rushing in until her face was just inches from Bella’s. Her wrists flicked, the fans accurately striking at Bella’s wrists and forcing her to drop her pistols before one of them rested against Bella’s chin.

Bella froze, eyes wide, before she let out a dejected sigh and lifted her hands. “I thought that I’d at least put on more of a fight than that,” she muttered, shaking her head as Wisteria stowed her weapons in her inventory again.

“It wasn’t bad,” Wisteria countered, taking a moment to process the battle. “I’d say that you are about average for your level. However, there are some clear flaws in your abilities when fighting enemies in close range. If I remember right, I believe that you are more accustomed to being a sniper?”

Bella confirmed this readily. “That’s right. I don’t usually get into close combat. Usually, Diane handles the melee, Drake handles control, and I take care of long range attacks.”

Wisteria glanced at me meaningfully when she heard this. “Is that so?” she muttered, before turning her attention back to Bella. “In that sense, I’d qualify your specialty as a ranged assassin. Naturally, this involves a different set of skills.”

To demonstrate, Wisteria aimed one of her closed fans off towards a distant spire of metal. A green wind materialized at the tip of her fan before shooting off like a bullet to strike the tower. “Anyone with the proper skills can assassinate from a distance. The advantage to using guns is that they are easier to aim and carry a great deal of firepower.”

“Likewise, the downside is that they are incredibly loud, and are primarily single target attacks. Also, like bows, they require two components to operate, namely the gun itself and the bullet. I can tell that you have negated the need for bullets with skills, and your shots were silent. That means that you’ve largely covered the basic weaknesses of your weapons.”

“What other weaknesses are there?” Bella asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, as I said before, they excel at attacking a single target, which is in line with most assassination skills. However, anyone pursuing these skills needs numerous supplementary skills to cover other situations. For instance, let’s say that you had to fight a large pack of enemies, and neither Drake nor Diane were able to cover you. What would you do?”

Bella paused. “I, uh… I’d snipe off as many as I could with my rifle until they got in close.”

Wisteria sighed, as if that were expected. “You have no defensive skills, do you? If those monsters can see where the bullets are coming from, they would be able to launch their own ranged attacks at you.”

“The three skills every assassin needs for emergencies are area attacks, defensive abilities, and movement. With area attacks, you can comfortably take out a large group. With defensive abilities, you can keep yourself safe while fighting until your allies are able to help. And lastly, with a movement skill, you can swiftly change your position to keep picking off the enemy after your first strike.”

She then turned to look at Diane. “I won’t even bother asking Drake, but I am confident that you cover all three of these bases, correct?”

Diane thought about her skills briefly, and then nodded her head. “If turning temporarily incorporeal to evade damage counts as a defensive skill, then yes.”

Wisteria seemed satisfied with that, looking at Bella. “There you have it. Diane is a textbook melee assassin. Drake is… I hesitate to call him an assassin, given how flashy most of his fights tend to be. Still, the recent mission proved that he at least has the potential for it.”

“I… see,” Bella muttered, her head lowered. “In that case, what skills do you think I should get to improve myself and cover these weaknesses?”

This time, Wisteria didn’t hesitate in the slightest before answering. “I think that you should make your own. If you find a skill that works for you, great. Otherwise, take what you already have, and find a way to make it work how you want. This will give rise to a skill you can call your own.”

Bella looked up at Wisteria, confusion evident in her eyes. “How do you make a skill like that? You can’t just make it without a base skill, can you?”

“What counts as a base skill?” Wisteria countered. “Anyone can learn the Sprint skill by running until their legs feel like they’ll fall off. Once you have that, you can practice channeling it to create different effects. My Wind Step originated from Sprint.” Wisteria demonstrated by hopping back, a gust of wind carrying her from underneath, just as it had in their fight.

“For a defensive skill, decide how you want to defend, and look at your current skills for anything that could serve as the bare minimum framework. Sneak can become intangibility. Brawn can become body hardening.”

“As for area attacks, those should be the easiest. You just have to take your current proficiency skill and focus on how to give it the effect you want. Turn your bullets into bombs, or make them ricochet among targets. The choice is yours.”

“Creating skills so far removed from their base won’t be easy. However, the fact that you are creating these skills for yourself will allow you to customize them to suit your needs. The key is to simply persevere until you reach your goal.”

Gradually, the fire began to return to Bella’s gaze, as if she had found the path forward again. “Thank you for the advice, Wisteria,” she said, offering a polite bow before turning to face me. Her expression grew somewhat more awkward, and she scratched her cheek. 

“Drake, Diane, would you mind if I went my own way for a few days?” she asked. “Like she said, this training probably isn’t going to be easy, and I can’t do it while sitting in the car or going through a dungeon. I’ll need a period of isolation to come up with the new skills.”

The two of us looked at one another, and I let out a brief chuckle. “I certainly have no right to complain. After all, I’ve done more than my share of solo training since we met.” Diane gave a quick nod at my words. “Do you want me to drop you off at Fallcry or something?”

“Actually…” Bella looked around. “I’d like to do my training in Stormforge. The monsters here are a suitable level for me to train, and I won’t need to worry about being interrupted. If I die and get sent back to Fallcry, I’ll just let you know.”

“You’d probably be sent to the Stormforge rift camp,” Diane corrected. “When we flew by earlier, we probably passed close enough for you to register it as your new spawn point.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bella sighed. “As long as I don’t lose that, it shouldn’t matter even if I die a few times.”

“I really hate to be the downer here,” Wisteria suddenly spoke, shifting our attention to her, “but what are you going to do for food? Last I recall, you all never carry food anywhere because Drake has that magic menu or whatever. And the monsters of Stormforge are largely made of metal, so you won’t be able to eat them.

“I still have a ton of Stone Roc meat in my inventory,” I offered, looking at Bella. “Assuming you have some way to cook it?”

Bella pulled a face at that, clenching her fists at her side. “I’ll find a way. That can be an additional survival challenge for me.”

I chuckled, sending her a trade invite to transfer a full ton of Stone Roc meat to her. I knew that she wouldn’t eat all of that in a week, but a lot of it would surely be wasted on experiments to try to cook it. “I’ll also leave the house here for you to use as a base of operations. It’d be really sad if you were committed to training in this environment, only to get taken out by a stray lightning bolt while you were focusing.

Bella paused, her jaw hanging open. After a few moments, her cheeks turned rose and she lowered her head. “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”