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Chapter 25 - Skill discussion and escapism
🕑 Added 2025-09-01 19:59:11 +0000 UTCSkills were the defining factor among lower realm adventurers. At the level Ryan was operating at, active skills were basically special moves you reserved and utilized at key moments. Passive skills were the ones that visibly differentiated you as a [Rogue] from other [Rogues].
“Actually, before skill selection.”
Milo groaned. “Oh, come on.”
“Before my skill selection, we have to go over my realm rewards for S grade achievements first.”
It was satisfying watching everyone’s reactions. Seffara stopped her drink midway, then noticed him smirking at her reaction and scowled. Milock’s eyes grew wide, and Clara… was still deep in thought. Barry didn’t show any reaction, but there was no way the old orc wasn’t impressed.
Due to your achievement rating, you may choose which reward to receive among the following S-grade rewards:
An additional Trial skill point allocation
Upgrade an existing piece of equipment.
New equipment, randomized but assessed to be useful for your circumstance.
Experience and practice of any single skill in a dilated time chamber.
Guidance from the Manager.
He read it all out loud. Milock couldn’t help but cheer.
“Holy–that’s crazy! That’s all the important rewards for the S-grade.”
“Yup, I must have been really close to S+ rating.”
“Do you think you might have been able to win without a gun? I mean that was probably the difference maker, right?”
He contemplated the chances of getting that fabled S+ grade, could he have done it? Could he have beaten Avale and Garbolt without a gun? He started thinking.
Barry quickly interrupted the line of thought.
“Not worth thinking about. You said it yourself. You’ve gotten awfully close to losing your safety life multiple times.”
That made him wince. The rest of the room still believed that he had his safety life. What would they think if they found out he’d been risking his real one the entire time? Ryan shook his head, remembering that and dispelling the thoughts of any S+ grade fantasies.
“Yeah, well, I think given the options, the obvious one is the extra Trial skill.”
That got the attention of everyone in the room but Clara, she wasn’t quite aware of just how important that was. Ryan started reading his skill options out loud.
[Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation] (Epic)
Seffara spat out a mouthful of her drink back into her bottle, Milock stood up, his hands thrown up in disbelief.
“An Epic at Realm two??”
Barry, as stoic as ever, was less impressed.
“Stop interrupting, runt.”
“Sorry.”
Seffara put down her drink and gave Ryan a look that was a mix of disbelief and caution. He smiled and continued reading through the list.
[Volatile Antimagic Throw] (Rare)
[Defiant Stab of Surprise] (Rare)
[Stacked Reckless Charge] (Rare)
Barry chuckled.
“Hmph, knew it.”
“Hey,” Milock complained, “I thought you said no interrupting.”
“I said no interrupting runt, that means you, specifically.”
[Hastened] (Rare)
[One Against Many] (Rare)
[Threaded Thoughts] (Rare)
[Triple Step] (Uncommon)
[Dangersense] (Uncommon)
[Enhanced Senses] (Uncommon)
“That’s all the Uncommons and above. I’m not picking out Common skills.”
“Holy shit.” Milo said.
“I know, right?”
Ryan couldn’t help but grin at the table. This was his reward for all his suffering. It almost made it worth it.
“I’m sorry,” Clara interrupted. “Just double checking, getting a Rare is pretty rare, right?”
Everyone at the dining table looked at Clara.
“What? This is like a whole other world to me. Literally, I never really followed all the adventuring stuff.”
Milock voiced the obvious question.
“Why are you even here, Clara?”
“Ryan,” Barry said. “Hit Milock for me.”
Ryan gladly punched his friend in the arm and felt an impact that was a fair bit heavier than intended. Milo nearly fell off his chair.
“Ow! What the fuck.” Milo rubbed at his arm and winced. “Holy shit, that’s going to bruise you dick.”
“Oh shit, sorry, I thought that was light.”
Milock raised his arm to check out the rapidly forming bruise. He glared at Ryan.
“I thought [Rogues] were supposed to be good with muscle control.”
Barry laughed.
“They still need some practice for that. Especially when they just increased their realm.” Barry turned to Seffara. “Want to explain rarities? Frankly speaking, I don’t know exactly how the current generation sees rarities either.”
Seffara hadn’t looked away from Ryan since he mentioned his Epic.
“Well, the Settler generation and the modern era probably have similar skill rarity distributions. We had it much tougher, but plenty of us also went in guns blazing.”
“Really?”
Barry genuinely seemed surprised. From their previous interactions it seemed that he didn’t put much value in the current generation of adventurers at all. Seffara did concede one fact.
“We did have some crazy outliers that the modern era doesn’t have. People like one-eyed Rick, Zahiru the Settler Swordfront and Rohan the Asura [Warlord].”
Seffara was still looking at Ryan as he perked up at those names. He recognized all three of them, monstrous people that had done crazy things and were mentioned to be capable of matching the Tyrants.
“Every one of them but Zahiru lost all their lives.”
Barry was the worst. He refused to let Ryan have a happy moment. Then Ryan frowned.
“Wait, doesn’t the modern era have Mezhar? Atellion?”
“They’re more from the superhero generation,” Seffara said, scrunching her face at the word ‘superhero’. “I don’t know what you think of them but I see those couple years as a different generation.”
The consensus on Earth was that there was a Settler generation, a golden generation and the modern generation. Each one of those ‘eras was at least twenty-year period each. The superhero era couldn’t even really be called an era considering it had lasted for around eight years. And even eight years was debatable. Some argued it was only five.
Mezhar and Atellion had become adventurers during that time.
Barry didn’t look convinced. “You think those two match the crazies in our generation?”
Seffara nodded grimly. “Mezhar’s the real deal. Atellion I don’t know much of. But Barry, I saw Mezhar’s Legend Manifestation myself.”
The orc paused, Ryan was confused as to how Barry hadn’t known about that at all.
“Well shit.”
Barry turned to Seffara, she was still keeping her eye on Ryan.
“And have you heard of a realm two adventurer with an Epic before”
“I haven’t even heard of a kid being singled out by the Manager before. That should be bigger news.”
Barry shook his head, “No point contemplating that one, Seff, alright, Ryan. Read the description of your Epic.”
Variable stamina and presence cost
Those in your way have found themselves exploded, beaten, outfoxed, mocked, crushed and shot. You have managed to strike fear in those that stood in your way. You have even attempted to attack someone near the pinnacle of trialists. You do not relent. You do not stop. Let your aura overwhelm all those in your way.
Passive: causes an increase in your presence and threat to those that perceive you.
Active: Those in your vicinity and those that perceive you will suffer from intimidation. This fear effect stacks longer the more you remain in a dominant position.
Note: Fear can cause significantly varying effects based on the individual and their perception of you.
Barry whistled, finally, a decent reaction from the veteran orc.
“That’s a full-blown Epic alright. One that includes a passive and an active.”
“Stupid skill for an adventurer,” Seffara commented.
Ryan winced and wondered if he should defend his skill. He hadn’t actually told them he’d taken the skill yet.
“Alright, next skill.”
Milock raised his hand, confused at the sudden dismissal.
“What? Aren’t we going to talk about it?”
“Can’t evaluate skills without comparing them.” Barry said.
“There’s no way Ryan isn’t picking that one,” Milo said, incredulous. “It’s an Epic, the others aren’t, there are even mentions of presence!”
Barry just looked at Ryan as if expecting him to have a better answer. Ryan was just trying to figure out a way to bring up that he’d already taken it.
“Presence?” Clara asked.
“It’s sorta like a precursor to aura.” Ryan said, “adventurers and magical creatures develop a sort of invisible pressure. When you start using it to buff stuff or fling it at people, that’s when it’s called aura.”
Ryan nodded at Seffara, hoping she’d have a better answer. This was highly debated stuff online, and a proper consensus hadn’t been made.
Seffara nodded.
“Pretty much correct. Everyone develops a presence, but not everyone uses it. Aura control is useful but not reliable in my experience. It’s best to be used as a support for your other skills, something you practice in your downtime.”
Barry piled on top.
“Haven’t seen an aura that’s stopped me from putting an axe through their skull.”
“I’m getting the feeling that you don’t want me to pick the skill.”
Barry paused, he looked at Ryan then scrunched his face, “you’ll get an aura with or without the Epic. If that’s your reason for picking it, it’s a bad one.”
Ryan blinked, “that makes no sense. Aura control is rare pre-dragonslayer and needs to be trained.”
People didn’t tend to spend their limited Trial slots on aura skills. Picking it was really only done for those that received it as an Epic option or because there were no other useful skills. The other way to learn aura was to learn it the hard way, which took time.
“I can teach you aura control. You’ll probably get better use out of it than most.”
Ryan frowned at Barry wondering how he would -
Then everyone felt it. A pressure pushed at the back of Ryan’s head, his hand went to grip a sword he didn’t have. He was facing a monster that had trudged through death and destruction. The [Berserker] was coming, an axe shattering the land, swinging right at -
Then it disappeared.
“Oww,” Clara said. Clutching her head.
“Holy shit.” Milock breathed.
Seffara just blinked at her friend. “You didn’t tell me you’ve been practicing.”
Barry shrugged.
“I didn’t see a need to. I didn’t want to put your hopes up. I’m not going back to The Realm.”
The heroine clenched her fist as the bottle in her hand cracked. She downed the rest of the drink before putting the bottle back in her spatial bag.
Barry cared little about answering his questioning gaze.
“That Epic will lock you into a path. It’s too heavy for a rookie like you. You’re going to end up with more Epics, locking up a space for it now would be stupid.”
“...I’ve already picked it.”
“Goddamnit. What’s the point in having us for advice if you just do things without waiting?”
“I mean, I didn’t know Seffara THE sapphire would be here talking about my skills.”
He put his hands up.
Ryan had been thinking. It had been an impulsive choice at the time, the allure of an Epic was too much not to take. He had justified it later with research when he had gone home.
“I need a wildcard. This is a skill with no information online. Nobody will know how it works exactly.” that was the greatest justification, Ryan paused to let that sink in, then continued, “my problems aren’t the Trials, it’s the people. American soldiers, Zedart and Garbolt. I need to build around dealing with people, not monsters.”
As justifications went, Ryan thought it was a pretty good one. Barry didn’t.
“And again, you pick aggression over anything else. [Hastened] and [Dangersense] would give you a much firmer base to work off of and make you a bitch to hunt down and kill.”
Ryan couldn’t deny that.
“I can still pick [Dangersense], the benefits with the Epic aura skill means that [Dangersense] would be significantly more effective.”
The old orc looked annoyed at Ryan for pointing it out.
“I know how the rarity hierarchy works. You don’t have to tell me that.”
[Dangersense] was in the sensory category of skills. They worked well until you got hunted by a [Rogue] with a higher realm. In a similar vein, rarity hierarchy mattered when sensory skills went up against stealth skills. One niche fact was that a passive aura skill would naturally boost all Ryan’s skills categorically, probably to the point where [Dangersense] would outstrip most Rare stealth skills.
Ryan shouldn’t have been surprised Barry understood such things.
Milock didn’t look too excited about him picking a classic safe skill.
“What about your other Rares?”
[Defiant stab of surprise] (rare, active)
You have surprised someone near the pinnacle of known power and survived. Try it again with this skill.
Active: launches a stab that is capable of rising up to strike those beyond your capabilities.
Will adapt to match the situation.
Note: can significantly drain your resources to match the target, cooldown will start at 2 minutes and increase the more resources used.
“This one’s a horrible skill for solo adventurers.” Ryan declared.
Barry just nodded along, Milock seemed a little confused at the consensus.
“Wouldn't this be a great finisher? A wildcard?”
He shook his head.
“Until it drains all my stamina because I misjudged someone's durability. It's not too bad if they're only slightly stronger than me but if that’s the case, I should be able to outmaneuver them. Adaptability drain on any resource pool means it's so much harder to master too. I'd be out of another skill slot for years.”
And he had no idea how much of a timer he was on to do things the ‘traditional’ way.
[One Against Many] (rare, passive)
Let them bring their numbers, let it be a mistake.
Passive: increases your overall capability for every opponent you are against. Each additional opponent will increase your capability at an exponential decay until you are at 2x your physical capabilities. Maxes out at one hundred opponents.
Note: Improves most skill effects as well.
“That would be good if mastered, but it’s also another difficult skill to learn.” Barry said.
Ryan nodded. A two times physical capability was nothing to sneeze at but if he had to go up against a hundred opponents he’d be dead. Adventurers couldn’t just fight armies pre-fifth realm.
He moved to the last Rare on his list.
[Threaded Thoughts] (Rare, active)
You have defeated a Strategist that had this skill. Weave your thoughts so that none can outthink you.
Active: Splits your mental capacity into three threads. These mental threads can and will resonate with each other. Never truly allowing them to deviate from the source.
Note: resonance does not always benefit the user. Levels can add a passive component and increase your number of threads.
“Damn, a Rare for soloing a boss. Sad that it’s a [Mage] skill though.” Milock commented.
Clara frowned.
“Isn’t this really good? I mean I’d love to be able to think three times faster.”
“It’s a huge trap is what it is. The Epic version, [Parallel Thoughts], is crazy but I don’t think it’s for me.”
Ryan still remembered how the [Saboteur] thought. An emotionless monster that only saw his objectives and how to accomplish them. That wasn’t the mindset he wanted to have.
He moved on before they asked him any further questions.
“So, [Dangersense] and [Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation]?”
Clara wrinkled her nose, “that skill really needs a shorter name.”
Ryan grinned, “I don’t know I kinda like it. I already have really edgy gear and I’m known as a teamkiller. So why not commit right?”
“If you’re going to commit why not take that last Rare skill of yours? I noticed you left it out, what was it again?” Barry asked.
Ryan coughed into his hand.
“No need. That skill is never getting chosen. I don’t even know how I got there.”
–
They debated further, but in the end, Ryan had already chosen his skills and Seffara was less invested in the debate and more interested in figuring out exactly what her stubborn friend was up to.
It was night now and the runts had all gone to bed. A day wasted and her mind was whirring. Seffara was no stranger to crazy revelations and madness, or at least she shouldn’t have been. It had just been too long since the madness of the settler generation and her edge had dulled.
The Manager isn’t impartial and the Witch Tyrant is sending kids into deathmatches.
Seffara sighed. She was on the roof of her warehouse, drinking. It was the fifth bottle, and it still didn’t feel like she was drunk enough.
“Stupid fucking trialist body.”
“Hah, that’s one thing I don’t miss.” Barry was drinking too. He took a careful sip of her golden wine.
His aura had brought back nostalgic memories, she eyed the old orc.
“Don’t want it all back?”
“Mmm, I made a promise to myself.”
And that was that. Him having redeveloped his aura in a unenhanced body made her hopeful again. He wasn’t a Destined, if he returned to The Realm he’d be locked out of Earth forever. But that wasn’t much of a loss. Barry didn’t have any friends and family he cared for on Earth.
But the stupid stubborn [Berserker] orc wouldn’t break a damned promise. The wrinkles on the orc’s face made her wince every time she looked at him.
She’d have to pour a regeneration potion down his throat one of these days. He’d never forgive her, but she could live with that. She sighed.
“Of course, the one fucking favor you ask in all these decades is in the middle of the biggest clusterfuck I know of.”
Barry raised an eyebrow.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing good. Nothing your big dumbass can handle,” she then mumbled into her drink, “nothing I can handle either.”
She remembered their little [Rogue] problem and scowled.
“I don’t like that boy. Honestly, I didn't like him from the moment I saw him.”
The stubborn old orc just snorted.
“That makes me feel better, you always were a terrible judge of character.”
“Hey! It’s been decades. I’m a much better judge of character these days.”
Barry raised a knowing eyebrow. “And what did you think of your husband when you first met him?”
Seffara huffed but conceded the point.
“Fine, so the kid’s probably not a psychotic maniac.” She scoffed, “Probably would’ve made a great slimy [Mage]. Manager’s sake, he had a counter ready for every argument we threw at him. I just had to sit there in silence because I felt like he’d keep making me look like an idiot.”
“Hah!” Barry barked, “don’t tell the kid that.”
Seffara remembered the scene back at the dining table. So much of those runts interacting felt familiar. Excited rookies in the golden generation that had no idea what they were getting into. At least that Clara girl was reserved. That runt Milock didn’t understand what this level of commitment meant. Not yet.
“Manager’s abode, Barry, why’d you bring the other kids? That’s not like you.”
She knew Barry, he might not have been the best planner but he was a schemer that could rival the dragonslayers. That’s how she thought of it. He liked to set things up and hoped the dice would roll his way.
He had brought the other kids for a reason.
Barry mulled over which words to use, then laughed lightly.
“The Witch is planning on making him into a monster.”
Then the old orc grinned at her. A brilliant, daring smile, one used when he charged in at the unknown. For that smile alone, Seffara would say that it would be worth it. Come hell or high water, it was worth it to see her old friend smile once again.
“I’m going to make sure he becomes an adventurer.”
--
Three hours later, the words still rang in her ears. Seffara had been planning on waking the rookie adventurer after four hours, but three was good enough. She couldn’t sleep, so neither would Ryan.
A monster.
Those were absurd words coming from Barry. Ryan had shown some talent in the video, yes. Even shown his analytical skills were perhaps a little better than most, but adventurers needed more than that.
How many ingenious [Mages] had she seen fall?
The quickest of [Rogues]?
The toughest of [Warriors]?
It was impossible to become exceptional through talent alone.
The rookie had an ego problem. She had seen it before. She would beat it out of him, then build him up into a true adventurer.
That was one thing she knew how to do.
“WAKE UP!”
Seffara infused her voice with her own presence. It was too light to be called an aura, but it still had something beyond just sound in it. It woke up everyone in their rooms and probably all the animals within a several mile radius. Her reinforced windows rattled under the noise.
The rookie didn’t bolt up at her shouting. He should have woken up before she’d even started shouting.
Disappointing.
“RISE AND SHINE ROOKIE… rookie?”
She had expected a jump in the air, an incoming punch or pissed pants. What she hadn’t expected was for the lump in the bed to stay still. Seffara narrowed her eyes as she moved next to the bed.
The rookie was still there. He hadn’t snuck off. She grabbed the covers and flung them off. Ryan's body lay there, still fast asleep, basic bodily functions operating but otherwise completely nonresponsive. Soulless.
Then Seffara understood what had happened. She was a Destined too.
The rookie had used [Return to The Realm].
“Are you out of your Manager’s damned mind!?”
“Oh, come on!”
The Clara girl screamed from the next room. It took a moment but her realm nine senses detected an odour in the air.
At least she wasn’t wrong about the pissed pants.
