NOVEL NEXT Chapter 102: New Skills!
After suffering through several embarrassing stories gleefully told by her traitorous companion Violet finally managed to get the group moving. Although listening to the two bearskin giggle to themselves did cause a pang of uncertainty to spike in her heart.
She was unsure about why that happened, she should be happy to see Luna being happy and able to talk with others right? And she was… at least she thought that she was, yet something was nawwing within her. It was moments like this that she wished that she was more mature so that she might be able to better understand what was happening to her.
Sure she could have spoken to Luna about how she felt, but she didn't even know how she felt then. Violet also didn't want to interrupt her companion when she seemed to be making a new friend.
So she pushed on. The group didn't travel for too far, and they soon found a nice spot besides a natural spring. Deciding that this seemed as good a spot as any to rest up at the group settled down and went about setting up camp. It may have only been late afternoon by this time, but they were all quite worn out by the entire ordeal with the central valley and could do with a good rest.
Once properly settled, and having made sure that no beasts were nearby to disrupt them, Violet decided it would be a good idea to go over her skill upgrade tokens and see what she could get out of them.
When she focused on them she gained a bit of insight into how they worked and how she could go about getting more.
She could use them by simply focusing on one of her existing skills that was maxed in level. Then she would be granted a few options, depending on how she most utilised the skill.
As for getting more tokens in the future, well that was quite simple. She would gain one ever 20 levels, hence why she had 4 from being level 60 then had one more from completing the quest.
As for why she suddenly gained access to them now? Well apparently they were only unlocked normally when someone maxed the level of 5 skills. And with her maxing out her Dragon Aura during that last battle, she finally unlocked that aspect of the system.
So for her actual skills, she had 5 tokens and 5 skills that were maxed. So should she just upgrade all of them now? Or should she only upgrade a couple of her skills and save a token for another one?
Well first she should look over her already maxed skills and go from there. They were naturally her most used skills, except for void manipulation which seemed to have a higher max level than her other skills. But the ones she had maxed were:
Void Bolt
Void Spear
Dragon Aura
Void Step
Void Claw
So starting with void bolt and spear. They were her go-to attack skills, she very rarely started a fight without using at least one of them. Void bolt she now primarily used by quickly summoning multiple of them at once to barrage her foes. She did something similar with her spear yet usualy interspersed it within the barrage of bolts to pierce a specific weak point.
So how would she like them to be upgraded?
For her bolt she would love if she was able to just activate the skill once and be able to summon multiple with that singular cast. Whilst it isn't exactly hard to summon multiple at once it is still a touch taxing, so having that burden removed would be nice.
For her spear… she wasn't really sure how she wanted that to be upgraded. Maybe it could turn into void lance? She used to have that skill till it got upgraded to her cannon spell. But she thought it might be nice to have back now in place of her spear?
After several seconds of pondering this, a full 9 seconds to be exact. Violet just decided to use an upgrade token on both of them and see what options she got.
[Upgrade token used on skill - Void Bolt.
Upgrade option available:
- Void Barrage
- Concentrated Void Bolt]
'Hmm so I only have two options for void bolt.' Mused the dragon. But both options were quite appealing to her, void barrage would do exactly as she desired. It would summon a large amount of bolts all at once. The Concentrated option though was actually not as great as she first thought. All it would allow her to do would be to put more mana into each bolt, thus upping their power. But she had just gained the Overcharge skill which seemed to do the exact same thing.
So the choice was quite obvious after she thought about it for a moment. So she selected Void Barrage.
[Skill - Void Bolt lvl 20(MAX) - upgrades to - Void Barrage lvl 1]
Happy with that she moved into her spear upgrade.
[Upgrade token used on skill - Void Spear.
Upgrade option available:
- Splitting Void Spear
- Piercing Void Spear
- Exploding Void Spear]
Now this was interesting, the second and third options seemed to enhance a singular aspect of her spear. Currently when cast the spear will attempt to pierce a foe before detonating. However, each of these upgrades would boost a singular aspect of the skill. Piercing and exploding respectively.
As for splitting, well that seemed like it gave a general boost to all aspects of the skill in its base form. But with an option to split the spear into multiple smaller projectiles mid air. They would loose some of their potency but trade it off for hitting a wider area.
Violet probably would have gone for that option if she hadn't just upgraded her void bolt. So instead she had the option to pierce armoured foes easier, or have a larger explosion to potentially have a wider area of effect.
Violet again thought long and hard about this option, a full 10 seconds passed in silent contemplation. Until she decided.
[Skill - Void Spear lvl. 20(MAX) - upgrades to - Piercing Void Spear lvl 1]
Nodding in satisfaction at this her eyes move onto her only skill without void in it to upgrade next. Dragon Aura.
It was a bit of a strange skill really, it seemed to have several different effects. From providing a small boost to allies, in the form of stamina and strength. To exerting some pressure on her foes, normally not enough to weaken them dramatically, but it normally at least causes them to freeze momentarily, at least from the first time she would use it one something.
Yet she discovered another use for it when the guardian projected its presence over the assembled beasts. She felt the suppression try to make her kneel. Yet she she thought she was about to buckle under the strain of resisting she felt that skill activate all by itself. Instead of simply providing a boost to her allies she instead manifested her own presence in an attempt to counter the guardians.
Violet doesn't quite know what use she may have from that going forward, but she is interested to see what upgrade options she may get from that skill.
[Upgrade token used on skill - Dragon Aura.
Upgrade option available:
- Inspiring Dragon Aura
- Aura of the Dominant Dragon
- Presence of the Void Dragon
- Dragon Aura]
Violet looks at the options with interest, she kind of anticipated the first two, with the skill adapting to focus on either boosting her allies or debilitating her foes respectively. The presence of the void dragon option does spark her interest thought.
It seems like that option would deminish the first two aspects of the skill in favour of bolstering the presence aspect. Yet Violet is still unsure of exactly what that would mean, yeah she knows that when hit by a presence much stronger than herself it basically made her unable to react. But that would only work on someone considerably weaker than herself, why would she need to bother showing off against weaker foes? She was a dragon! She didn't need to use a measily skill to show off to those weaker than her!
She snorted at the thought of needing something like that and instead moved onto the last option. And paused, she did not expect to be given just a flat upgrade. It looked like that last option just slightly boosts every aspect of the skill, without focusing on any individual aspect of it. Honestly she quite likes that. Violet has found that every aspect of that skill is useful in the right situation and wouldn't want to cripple any singular aspect of it. So without much extra thought over this choice she made her decision.
[Skill - Dragon Aura lvl 20(MAX) - upgrades to - Dragon Aura lvl 1]