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119 - Learning About Skills
🕑 Added 2023-11-27 00:41:31 +0000 UTCI entered the office of Professor Solum, the skill expert that had agreed to meet with me. After having to postpone our meeting after my little sleeping episode, it was finally time for our make-up appointment. His office was furnished in a rather cozy manner, making it believe that it was mostly used for meetings. A big circular rug dominated most of the room, providing a platform for three green couches arranged in a U-shape around a low table. On the open side of the U was a large desk, a comfy armchair behind it hosting the Asphon I was here to meet.
Behind him were several large windows letting in the natural sunlight which, in this case, tinted the room slightly red. “Ah, Gary, I’ve been looking forward to our meeting!”
As soon as the professor saw me entering the room he got up from his chair and came to greet me, offering me a clawed hand to shake. I casually offered back my tentacle and we somehow made it work. The other Asphons usually weren’t that big on shaking hands with me, perhaps due to how poisonous I was. Luckily, though, my tentacles weren’t covered in mucus.
“As have I, professor!” I replied enthusiastically. I really had been looking forward to talking with somebody who could answer most, if not all of my questions about skills and spells. All while being able to point me in the right direction for the future. “I do apologize for having to reschedule, but I was rather indisposed for a while.”
“That is absolutely no problem,” Solum replied. “I have been informed of your circumstances and can completely understand. I do hope you’ve been able to enjoy your little nap.”
“Oh, I definitely did,” I chuckled a bit as I was led to the couches, Professor Solum gesturing for me to take a seat wherever I liked. “While I don’t need all that much sleep, I definitely missed being able to shut everything off and recover for a good night’s sleep, you know? Woke up feeling more refreshed than I ever have!”
“Fantastic, fantastic,” Solum took a seat on the couch across from me while one of his assistants brought in some glasses and a pitcher of water for us. “Now then, I’ve been told you’d like to consult with me about your skills, as well as some general information and some advice for the future, is that correct?”
“It is, yes,” I nodded sagely. “Ever since I arrived on this planet, I’ve been flying blind. The system is extremely cagey about giving me any information, and everything I know I’ve scraped together from using my skills. It is most likely an understatement that I don’t really understand all the nuances of the skill system. That is why I wanted to talk with somebody that did.”
“Well, in that case, you’ve definitely come to the right place, or Asphon, if you will,” Solum laughed at his own joke and I gave him a courtesy chuckle as well. “We, the Asphons, have been studying monsters for the system for centuries now. This, of course, included all of the skills monsters are able to use. It is but an aspect of our vast research, but it is still enough to occupy somebody like me until I die of old age. There is an endless amount of different monster species and even more skills for them to use. It’s all very fascinating, really.”
“I think so too,” I replied, getting somewhat excited to spend the next few hours simply talking about this seemingly odd topic with an expert in the field. “So why don’t we just get right into it? Well, I say that, but I don’t exactly know where to start…”
“I find it is usually best to start with the basics,” Professor Solum suggested. “You might feel like you’re a unique case, but there aren’t a lot of Asphons out there that actively engage with the system and its many skills. Sure, pretty much everybody uses the system in some capacity, and almost everybody has at least a few skills to call their own, but only a precious few care enough to find out more beyond the fact that “it just works”. It is mostly the warriors and craftsmen that take a special interest, and that subsequently find themselves on my couch, just as you did.
“As such, I’m actually quite accustomed to explaining the system and the skills it brings with it to people like you,” Solum cast some magic causing what looked like a whiteboard on wheels, the kind you’d see at a school, to roll up behind him. He magically picked up a marker and started writing on it, making me think that I should have invested in telekinesis instead of getting more tentacles.
“Now then, when we talk about skills in the context of the system, we talk about skills, spells, and passives alike, even though they are two completely different things. The common theory as to why that is is because both skills and spells are learned and executed with the system's help. As I’ve heard, you’ve spent some time studying magic and learned that it is possible to learn spells without the assistance of the system, did you by any chance have any luck with that?”
“I did manage to modify the spell matrix of the spell magical bolt, yes,” I confirmed.
“In that case, you’ve most likely experienced how much harder it is to cast a spell that isn’t in your list of system spells. Incidentally, it is possible to learn skills without the system's assistance as well, and it is just as hard, if not even more difficult as casting a spell without help,” Solum was in full lecturing mode as the marker behind him continued to draw and write things down, none of which I could read. It felt like a bad time to cut in, though. “As such, we believe that what the system defines as a “skill”, is the abilities it bestows on us and helps us execute. You will find that none of the things you learn by yourself will get acknowledged by the system. You will simply be able to call upon your own experiences to use these abilities, without the system interfering.”
“It is kind of odd that the system doesn’t recognize the effort we go through to learn a skill with hard work,” I interjected. “Is there no way to sneak what we’ve learned into the system?”
“If there is, nobody has found the way to do so yet,” Solum said with a slightly excited twinge in his voice. “There are whole teams of researchers attempting to do just that, though. Whether or not they will ever succeed is anybody’s guess. However, there is one interesting addendum to this. While I was never able to get concrete data on it, there are reports saying that it is possible to use self-taught skills that are stronger than their system-granted, level-ten counterparts.”
“You mean to tell me that it is possible to cast a spell on a higher level than ten if I do it without the system's help?” I asked incredulously, having thought the tenth level to be the absolute, inviolable peak of a spell.
“That’s what the reports say,” Solum cringed a bit. “Unfortunately, it is something that is so difficult to do, that I’m afraid nobody here has put in the time or the effort required to pull it off.”
“It is very interesting, nonetheless,” I got a bit excited after having a thought. “After all, with my magical singularity skill, I might be able to do it a lot easier than other people…”
“Which I guess, brings us to the first of your skills that you’d like to discuss,” Solum leaned forward a bit, obviously interested. “As I’m sure you know, I’ve received your stat block from your analysis and studied it to prepare myself for today. Here’s the thing about EX-tier skills: information about them is extremely hard to come by, as the ones possessing them tend to be rather tight-lipped about those rare skills of theirs. Understandable, really, as they are often considered trump cards. As for your skill, magical singularity, we knew about its existence, but not about its exact effects. For sharing the details of the skills with us, we are very grateful.”
“It’s no problem, really,” I replied, a bit embarrassed. “I’m the one asking for help from you guys and you’ve helped me out with understanding the archive of asphon, so sharing the details of my skills is the least I can do. Although I suppose that means that you can’t tell me all that much about this particular skill of mine?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, yes,” Solum apologized. “Aside from information being hard to come by, EX skills are special in a lot of other ways as well. They are usually extremely powerful with all of the special effects they provide, but there is usually a lot of extra stuff they do that is hidden. For example, the archive of asphon seems like a pretty straightforward skill to have, useful too, but there is so much functionality to it that the system never tells you about, it’s a bit mind-boggling, to be honest.”
“Yes, I’ve learned about that during the brief talk I had with Professor Wotan,” I briefly recapped all the hidden ways to access the archive I’d learned and he nodded sagely at my retelling.
“As you have experienced, EX skills are a lot deeper than the first glance would suggest. Sadly, unless you meet somebody with the same skill willing to tell you all about it, the only avenue left is to experiment with it as much as you can. For the magical singularity passive, there is a high likelihood that it enhances almost all aspects of magic, so trying any and all things magical will probably yield results sooner rather than later.”
“Thinking about it, Andrius did say that I picked up system-less casting a LOT faster than anybody else…”
“Which is most likely a hidden effect of the passive, yes,” Solum confirmed. “If you don’t mind, I will add that information to our database to be verified, should the opportunity present itself.”
“Sure, go ahead,” I agreed to him storing the information while thinking about what other cool effects could be attached to my best skill. “I hope information about everything else isn’t as elusive to come by?”
“Definitely not,” Solum waved away my concerns. “We have a quite extensive library, containing almost every skill in existence up to B-tier. For A-tier and above, our records contain progressively more holes, but we still have quite a bit of knowledge about most of them. Let’s go back to the basics for a bit.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that skills and magic behave differently when they reach the tenth level, while passives cannot be levelled at all,” Solum dove headfirst into another explanation, the marker behind him drawing more things that I couldn’t read. “Skills upgrade themselves to a higher tier when you reach level ten and you lose access to the previous skill tier. Spells, on the other hand, unlock the next higher tier of the spell while still letting you access the previous tier. We believe this to be due to the fact that skills usually upgrade into a better version of themselves, while spells are usually merely similar when they upgrade.
“Since the spell that gets unlocked can be only tangentially related to the previous one, it is generally believed that the system lets you keep both since they do very different things. This, of course, is only speculation, since nobody really knows the inner workings of the system. As for passives, the only way to upgrade them is via a system reward, usually granted for completing quests, although the quest system is reserved for the travelers.”
“Wait, so you guys never get quests? Not even emergency quests?” I asked incredulously since I’d believed the quests to be something everybody with a system got.
“We do not,” Solum shook his head. “Well, we do, in a way. But that is because we have a special relationship with the system, similar to how the travelers are. Every other “intelligent” species that isn’t part of the Traveler Initiative does not get quests. Or bonus objectives for the matter, we also don’t get those, by the way.”
“Huh,” was all I could say to that piece of information.
“Yes, the travelers do get quite a lot of benefits with the system, as you’ll come to learn,” Solum chuckled. “But that isn’t for me to tell you. You’ll learn all about that when you make it off this planet.”
“I see… do go on then, please.”
“As I’ve told you, you lose access to the previous tier of a skill you upgrade,” Solum took me up on my request. “But, one key difference to spells is that you can acquire a second copy of a skill you already have. The rather obvious benefit is that you can use the skill twice, with the two copies having separate cooldowns. You’ll often find warrior classes having multiple copies of their favorite skills, even if they have to level up the skills multiple times to get them to the tier they want them at. Since spells don’t have a cooldown, having multiple copies of the same spell would be useless, and the system actively prevents us from acquiring a spell we already possess.”
“That does sound pretty nice,” I quickly checked my own skills, thinking that it would be nice to have multiple copies of some of them, f.e. rush or maximum fortification. On the other hand, I now had spells that could do both of those things, making it rather redundant to get more copies of them.
“Another difference between skills and spells is how flexible their uses are,” Solum soldiered through my comment. “Spells are usually pretty rigid in what they do, and changing their effects requires manual casting which almost nobody does. Skills, on the other hand, are a bit more flexible in their use. Take, for example, your skill “leap”. It is a skill that lets you jump very far and even lets you jump again mid-air. But if you wanted to, you could also use it offensively. If you direct all of the force generated by the leap toward your enemy, it will act similar to a bodycheck skill, even allowing you to double up with the mid-air jumps.
“Now, with how squishy your body is, this tactic probably wouldn’t be very effective. But if you were something heftier like a stone elemental, you could do some real damage with this odd use of the skill.”
“I see…” I used the smaller tentacles on my arms to rub my chin in thought. “I did start thinking about alternate uses for my skills after I had a bit of a… happy little accident during a battle. When I used my void jump skill, my foe tried punching through the resulting portal, and when I closed said portal it cut off his entire arm. It was done in a moment of panic. Before that, I had never really considered things like that and I definitely didn’t know that I could use the spell like that. It was like my body moved on pure instinct.”
“It is possible that this was also due to the effect of the magical singularity passive,” the professor said after thinking about it for a while. “As I understand it, the passive gives you a massive edge for everything magical and it’s possible that it was the skill that saved you, rather than instinct. Or maybe the skill redefined your instincts. It’s hard to tell which is the case.”
“It seems like I will need to pay close attention whenever magic is involved on any level… Do you see anything else on the list that could be used differently than intended?”
“Well… nothing too extreme,” Solum said after going through the list once more. “Most of your skills are either passives or spells, which are usually pretty straightforward. There are some things I can point out for you, but it’s questionable how useful these things would be. For example, you could store your poison mucus in glass vials or other containers and store them away for later use. Then again, you have a whole arsenal of poison spells, which would make that somewhat redundant. I suppose you could sell the mucus as a powerful poison for a stable income.”
“That… I hadn’t thought of that,” I briefly imagined myself raking in tons of cash by selling my mucus to other travelers when I remembered a question I wanted to ask for a while. “Speaking of my mucus and my spells, whenever I increase the poison of my mucus to the next tier, all of my poison spells get upgraded as well. This never made much sense to me.”
“Ah, you have stumbled across a hidden function of a system,” Solum said with a bit too much enthusiasm. “This is a hidden function of the system that only monsters have access to, although the only ones being able to make proper use of it are travelers and some highly intelligent monsters. It works only if the monster has a spell or a skill that makes use of something that the monster's body naturally generates, in your case: poison. If there was a monster that naturally was on fire all the time and also knew fire spells, it would work much the same way. If it upgraded the body part that made the fire, its fire spells would also become more efficient. It is somewhat commonly used with certain types of monsters, but we usually encourage the spell-inclined travelers that come through to pursue that avenue.”
“So I accidentally found something amazing then? I’m reasonably certain that the only reason I’ve made it this far is thanks to the potency of my poison spells.”
“You indeed found something quite astounding,” Solum confirmed. “It is rare that a traveler coming through here already knows about it.”
“Are there any other hidden mechanics like that?” I wondered what other things I could be missing out on.
“There are some, yes,” Solum confirmed. “I mentioned earlier that it’s possible to get the same skills multiple times, which is one of the hidden mechanics. Well, there was a time when it was a hidden mechanic, nowadays it is just common knowledge. Another one that might be of interest to you might be something we call “spell fusion”.”
“Spell fusion?”
“You might have heard that it is possible for us Asphons to eventually earn the archive of asphon passive, which technically goes against what I’ve told you about having the system acknowledge the spells we earn by ourselves,” Solum let out a small sigh. “Truth be told, the system works in mysterious ways and nobody knows exactly how it works. So, yes, it’s not possible to have the system acknowledge that you’ve learned a spell, but there are still certain actions you can take to unlock certain skills, spells, or passives.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand…” It sounded like it was not possible to have the system add spells that I already knew, but at the same time, it was?
“Let me put it like this,” Solum said after a few moments of mulling it over. “Except for a very few special cases, like the archive of asphon that only Asphons can unlock manually, it is possible to unlock new skills by performing certain actions with the skills that the system already gave you. As an example, you are able to perform the spell “poison spear”. It is a spell the system gave you and when you cast it, the system will assist in the process. Now, when your poison spear spell reached the tenth level, I assume it upgraded into the C-tier spell “poison bomb”, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And that’s just the natural progression of that particular spell, as dictated by the system. Now, there exists a direct upgrade of the poison spear spell, yet when the spell upgrades, it becomes something quite different. The direct upgrade is called “poison ballista”, which is just a bigger, stronger poison spear. Why does the system choose to upgrade the spell like that? Nobody really knows, but a long time ago, some people found a way to access the ballista spell without having to redeem any kind of system reward for it, and that process is called spell fusion.”
“Is that something that I could do right now?” I asked, excited to have easy access to new spells.
“You probably could, but I’ll have to ask you not to do it in my office, if at all possible,” Professor Solum chuckled. “To perform a spell fusion, you need one or multiple spells that can be fused, as well as a passive skill called “spell manipulation”. I have the suspicion that you won’t need that one, as being able to do this is most likely included in your magical singularity passive. If you’d allow, after we’re done talking I would love to accompany you outside so we can test this theory and unlock the ballista spell for you.”
“Oh, absolutely!” I immediately agreed to his request. “I’d love to get an upgraded version of poison spear!”
“Lovely, I’m looking forward to testing this hypothesis, then,” Solum happily clapped his hands twice. “As for how to perform the spell fusion itself, it requires you to fuse ten poison spears into a single spell. By doing so you prove to the system that your attributes are high enough to handle ten instances of the spell at once, which is no small feat, and by fusing them with the spell manipulation passive, you manually create a ballista spell, causing the system to unlock the spell in your spell list.”
“Only ten poison spears? Should be easy,” I said, thinking back to all the times I had used the spell similar to a Gatling gun, or having them hover above me in a ready position. Heck, at this point I could probably handle a hundred of them at the same time. “What if I manage to fuse more than ten?”
“That would be quite a feat, but as far as we’re aware only the fusing of ten spells unlocks the higher tier. I believe the highest amount fused together for this particular spell was fifty with no differing results. Somebody once tried fusing a thousand magical bolts together to see what happens, but they only ended up losing an arm and sustaining severe injuries when they lost control of the spell.”
“What about the void javelin spell? Could I potentially unlock a stronger version by fusing ten of them together as well?”
“I must admit that I’m not entirely sure, since most of the void spells are not well documented, for the same reason as we don’t have much information about voidlings,” Solum admitted. “It is possible, though. Javelin and spear spells both have access to the ballista upgrade, after all. The difference between them is simply at which tier the spell starts out. The spells usually have the spear typing until the C-tier, after which the spells are called javelins. For example, the spell water spear can be gained at C-tier, while the spell fire javelin is a B-tier spell. All of these spells can be upgraded into the ballista variation, although more spell instances are needed when the base spell is of a higher tier.”
“So theoretically, how many void javelins would I need to fuse to unlock the void ballista spell?”
“Somewhere between fifteen and twenty. The numbers vary slightly depending on what element the spell is, but I don’t think it should take more than twenty in this case. Also, something that I should probably mention, if you do perform a spell fusion, any and all spells used in the fusion will be lost.”
“So if I upgrade poison spear I won’t be able to cast it anymore?”
“Not with any system support, at least. You’ll have to cast the spell manually if you want to cast it again. However, once the spell is lost, it is possible to regain it through regular methods like redeeming a free spell choice. It’s usually not recommended to do so, though, since you’d just be acquiring an inferior version of a spell you already have. Maybe it would be worth some debating whether or not it would be a good idea to get void javelin back once it is fused since the ballista version will most likely pack quite the punch and having some less destructive options is never a bad idea, but you technically have the poison ballista spell for that.”
“That is true…” I spent some time weighing my options. Having a more powerful version of void javelin would be amazing, but did I really need it? I had some supremely powerful spells with the void laser and void rend, while void javelin already packed quite the punch. I’d have to think this one through before making a decision. Poison spear on the other hand? I’d definitely be upgrading that one. “Are there any other spell fusions that I can perform with my current spells?”
“Spell fusions are pretty rare and, similar to information on EX-skills, oftentimes kept a secret by the individuals or organizations that know about them. I can’t think of any spell fusions that should be available to you, but that isn’t taking into account all of your void spells. The information about them is already scarce, getting information about possible fusions is near impossible, if there are even any known ones. There’s little to do except experiment but while I encourage you to do so, you should keep in mind that should you succeed, you will lose access to whatever spells you fused.”
“You implied that I can fuse different spells together, how does that work?”
“That is correct. While the ballista spell is a direct upgrade, in some rare cases it is possible to fuse two different spells together to make a new one. The way you fuse them is wildly different depending on the spells you are trying to combine. Sometimes you can combine multiple spells together into one big projectile, sometimes you need to infuse one spell with the effects of another, and sometimes you need to overlap spells. You should be able to access a list of known spell fusions with the archive of asphon passive. I recommend checking it frequently, especially when you get a new spell.”
“That’s a lot of information on that one topic…” I said, wondering if I’d even be able to remember it all. Sure, the intelligence and wisdom attributes greatly increased my ability to recall memories and knowledge, but at this point, it was almost becoming a detriment. I could remember so many things from my past life, as well as this life that it was sometimes hard to access the information I wanted.
“Don’t worry, I have a pamphlet I hand out with all of these mechanics written down.”
“Oh yeah, about that,” I interjected, sheepishly looking at the now quite full whiteboard. “I actually can’t read the Asphon language.”
“Oh…” Professor Solum looked at both his whiteboard and the pamphlet he pulled out, eventually giving up. “Is there a language you are able to read? I don’t think the void language has a written form, does it?”
“I don’t think so. You wouldn’t happen to know any English?” It was a shot in the dark, but I could really think of nothing else short of sitting down and learning the Asphon language.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Solum shook his head, dropping the pamphlet on the table between us. “We’ll find a way. If nothing else works, you’re always welcome to come back and ask more questions, if you’d like.”
“Thank you, I’ll be sure to take you up on that offer.”
“Now then, we got quite side-tracked there, if I remember correctly, we were talking about alternate uses that your skills might have. I saw only two more skills that have frequently used alternate uses. MP drain is often used in the medical field when the patient is experiencing some sort of mana deficiency. And, meditate is a very popular skill since it can replace the need to sleep to a certain extent. Meditating for four hours is just about the same as sleeping for eight. Although it is recommended to not solely rely on the skill, it can be very useful on dangerous expeditions.”
“Mana deficiency? That doesn’t sound good, should I be aware of that?”
“It mostly happens to lower-tiered individuals, since it’s usually the people that can’t control their mana properly that get it. I’ve also heard that travelers enjoy a certain degree of immunity to it, although there are certain things that can inflict it as a debuff. In that case, you’re usually better off just riding it out. Or, you could learn some healing magic if you’re worried about it… although, casting it with a mana deficiency debuff active might be ill-advised…”
“Are there any skills instead of spells that do the same thing?” I asked while Solum was scratching his chin in thought.
“Outside of healing magic, there are only skills and passives that help resist the debuff in the first place or lower the duration should you be afflicted. Most of them are specific to the debuff, but there are some general debuff resistance skills, although they are much weaker in comparison… If you’d like, I could make a list of viable skills that you could cross-reference when you get the chance to pick something. Once we figure out a language you can read, that is.”
“I’d love that, thanks. Guess there’s not many options left other than sit down and learn to read,” I sighed. I generally wasn’t opposed to learning a new language, especially since it was so much easier with the help of the system. “Are there any other skills that you could recommend me getting?”
“Oh absolutely!” Solum said enthusiastically. “You’ve probably heard that it is almost always better to specialize in a certain skill set than spreading yourself too thin and not mastering anything. You’ve done a pretty admirable job of this so far with primarily picking skills that enhance your magic, and you’ve basically elevated your build to a whole new level when you got the magical singularity passive. I don’t want to interfere with your choices too much since you are doing perfectly well so far, but there are a few skills that a lot of magic users tend to get. I’d be more than happy to add them to the list as well.”
“Thank you, that would be very helpful,” I said, happy to finally have some things to focus on instead of wildly scrolling through endless lists when I was choosing. “Well, this has been an enlightening talk, but I think you’ve answered all of my questions and then some. For now. Do you have anything to add that we didn’t go over?”
“I think for a first meeting, this has been a most productive time,” Solum said while getting up from the couch. “Now, why don’t we go downstairs to conduct a little experiment? I do believe you were interested in that ballista spell, were you not?”
“I most certainly was!” I hopped off the couch, happy to do something practical. Sure, talking with Professor Solum was interesting, but I was giddy to actually get back to doing something. “Please, lead the way.”
Professor Solum led me through the maze-like hall of the research center until we eventually arrived in a spacious hall in the basement. According to the Professor, the walls were enchanted to resist magic to a certain degree, making it ideal for testing out spells. Well, the lower-tiered ones, anyway. Under his guidance, I began the process of casting and then fusing together ten poison spears. It would appear that magical singularity indeed had a hidden functionality that was similar to the magical manipulation passive, making the fusing process a breeze. And, just a few minutes later, I received a notification from the system that our little experiment had worked!
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Spell Fusion successful!
Obliterating Poison Ballista (C)
An upgraded version of the spell “Poison Spear”.
Creates and fires a large bolt of poison mana and fires it at the designated target. The spell has superior speed and piercing power compared to the base spell. Guaranteed to apply the poison debuff when the target is hit.
Cost: 80 MP
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Author Note:
Writing this took a while due to its length. I know it's mostly pretty dry and uneventful talking, but that's just how this meeting turned out. I hope it was interesting enough to read :)
Comments
Brandon Terry
I definitely enjoyed this little bit of enlightenment on how things work.thanks for the chapter loving the story
Quyan640
I’d imagine the fusion of bomb spells would be nuke, meanwhile the spike spell would multiply or become one massive spire or mountain.
