Chapter 955 - MC’s hammer

“Hoo, that was cold for a bit, but I guess the bloodlight warmed it up,” Sofia talked to herself, observing her hands.

“I am doubly glad for the venerable physique’s skin opacity step now. Blue blood… Huuuuuh… This is going to make a mess with the rest of the level up, isn’t it? Good that the cube is so large.”

Curious to see whether Pareth was also picking up his new skill, Sofia peeped through his eyes, only to see him pursuing some unknown creature through a jungle.

“I guess he’s busy. Hmm. Well. [Vessel of ancient evil]. Honestly might be an appropriate name considering Looming’s essence. It’s a nice skill, overall. [Lightsoul curse] is purely soul damage, and so is [Sixth Melody]’s winter movement. Actually… Considering Winter deals soul damage equal to the damage I receive, and this heals me back for the same amount, or more if winter has multiple targets… I am effectively quasi-immune to soul damage with the winter movement on! Well, reserving 80% of my mana is still a steep price but it’s an interesting way to offset the skill’s weakness.”

“I suppose it’s time to invest in some soul protection anyway. Soul attacks are supposedly a lot more common from high level monsters because many have soul stones… Otherwise… the soul echo must profit from the 100% increased damage so my overall damage went up by twenty percent with this… Only for magical attacks. I wonder under [Avatar of Zeus] how things will interact, since it should all be converted to lightning damage. And then all the debuffs… My blood is quite the nasty poison hmm. I’ve already seen almost everything. [Heart demons] I assume must have been the whispers? It did manage to affect Nex somehow so it shouldn’t be weak."

Lightly biting her own finger, Sofia had a taste of her own blood.

Ooooh! That’s not bad!

By now Sofia was something of a blood connoisseur, although it was not something she really enjoyed drinking, that was just par for the course for someone able to summon blood who also befriended vampires. She was quite certain that if not for the litany of deadly effects one would incur from even touching the accursed liquid, the vampires would probably line up to buy it. The medicinal aftertaste was a bit strange but that would certainly be overshadowed by the cold numbness that preceded, which felt just like drinking dwarven alcohol.

Sofia would only shake her head, re-reading the list of debuffs. Too bad…

I am really looking forward to the next skill now.

And it better be a real active this time! Seriously… Getting the Abereth as an active was really such a scam.

On cue, the Abereth appeared next to her within the cube.

“You always just show up like this. Why do I even need the ability to summon you?”

Sighing, Sofia gave the spinning Abereth a few pats, pushing it toward the corner of the cube. I’ve already got a handful of death rows from Arege lined up for you. You better give me some good effects.

Giving the spinning thing a last glance, Sofia closed her eyes. Now she just needed to give the new skill’s circuits a few hours to properly settle, and she would be right back to leveling.

Ah! The new skill doesn’t even have a level!

Am I no longer getting skill levels now that I took [Forced genius body]?!

I keep getting scammed!!!

Clenching her fists, Sofia focused on helping her new skill settle.

The leveling from 320 to 330 was relatively smooth-sailing. Sofia had finally remembered that, despite all the warnings in the circulation technique’s book, she was in fact racially immune from disappearing into the Margin’s void, which made the entire process a lot less stressful.

She was still uneasy watching her mana heart getting torn apart slice by slice by the spatial rift, but the process was surprisingly not as bad as it had been for her head. It was perhaps just because she was getting used to it, nevertheless, when she attained the last step and threw her entire mana heart into the margin, only to still be completely fine after the rift closed, it made it obvious how well the technique worked. Now someone ripping off her mana heart wouldn’t even kill her, as long as it was intact.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

So am I some kind of half-lich now?

I could leave my mana heart somewhere safe and… Ah well, I would still run out of mana pretty fast, which isn’t ideal…

Reopening the rift after a full cycle of the cursed mana through her body, Sofia reopened the rift, and welcomed her mana heart back into her torso.

Whew. That feels a lot better.

Then, uh, the next section I think is the skin-peeling part…

Shivering in place, Sofia decided to pause things there for now, and grab her second and last skill for this filter’s leveling.

However, surprisingly, the system notification she got was a bit different from what she had expected.

[1 Active build available for ‘Saintomancer’ or ‘Lumian’ please choose whether to proceed with a class skill or a racial skill.]

[As the progenitor of Lumians, if the racial skill is chosen, other Lumians may inherit it upon reaching level 330.]

“That was a possibility?”

Sofia hesitated for a while, the racial skill was tempting, but what could it possibly be? In the end she lost to her curiosity.

[Skill builder (Extra Racial Active) - Target skill level:330 - Affix limit:4]

‘- Unused Affixes will be discarded, exactly one Lumian affix must be selected -

Available affixes (Lumian):

Available affixes (Creation’s choice):

Available leftover affixes (will not be discarded):

“Creation’s choice?! Oh… Yeah I did sell him the race’s creative control for two essences… Fair. It’s uh… An interesting set of words. Hammer? Hmmhmm. And the racial affixes are just my existing racial traits so… My muscles, my hair and nails, or my horns? Wait, no, dead light is technically also my bones. Ah, and the affix limit is four. And they can all just be placed however?”

Sofia stared at the list of keywords for a full minute.

“How am I even meant to choose?”

“And what is– What is intercontinental supposed to mean here. Like the scale… Like what does ‘Intercontinental Blasting Exhaust’ do? Detonate my horns to explode a continent? Multiple of them? Is that where we’re going?! Beyond ridiculous.”

“... If it was another passive I would probably pick ‘Ultimate Golden Prismatic Dead light’ without a second thought and hope it upgrades my bones. It is still an active, though… Would ‘mana weave ultimate awakening’ make me as physically strong as Tartaros for a bit? It might honestly not be a bad choice. Hah, Ultimate is such a good keyword.”

There were too many options and combinations this time for Sofia to proceed with her usual method, so she let herself daydream about whichever combinations caught her eyes.

“Exhaust awakening! Would my horns grow longer? Would they burn more divine energy? Maybe reduce the divinity penalty? If it could let me use [Mockery of the divine] or the transposition a few times in a row that would be a massive upgrade.”

“Intercontinental Dead Light Monument! And then it’s just an invoked cube of my bones the size of a continent… Monument is such a weird inclusion. Hammer at least I could see. Ultimate intercontinental dead light hammer? I bet even Pareth’s biggest hammer would look small in comparison.”

“Hmm… Prisms scatter light so… What about Prismatic Exhaust Flash? Would it instantly spread the influence of all the essences I have around me? Just Death’s essence with something like that would already be quite something, but… Yeah maybe staying away from such an effect is for the best, huh. Plus I already have my helmet's [Phageian void blast] for an attack like that.”

“Intercontinental Dead Light awakening! Bang! Everyone gets Lumian bones! Better yet, Intercontinental Mana Weave Ultimate Awakening! Everyone suddenly gets super strong with mana muscles! Wait, no, no… That’s actually worse. What are my skeletons going to do with some useless muscles?”

“Exhaust lash! So I can tie up a certain asshole’s essence in my horns and squander his divinity to make him weaker! Well, that is one hell of a long shot… Better chance to bolt the moon from here with my eyes closed.”

“I can make some pretty nonsensical combinations… Awakening mana wave cyclonic golden! What would they even do with that? Actually, is Creation the one making the skill since he picked the keywords, or is it still DATABASE? Watch me pick ‘Exhaust monument hammer lash’ and laugh while you struggle to do anything with that.”

“Well, I guess Clint trusted I wouldn’t do something like that. Or he just hoped I would pick Hammer so he would be happy anyway? Hmm.. And I still have Restore. How about ‘Intercontinental Dead Light Restore Monument? Like I place a statue or something and it heals me from a continent away? Intercontinental restore sure is one crazy combination. But it doesn’t fit that well with the racial affixes…”

“So many possibilities…”