“One. Two. Three. Four!” Alarion shouted, each word accompanied by a precise swing of blade or mace.
“Reset,” Kali demanded. Then, a few seconds later. “Again!”
“One. Two. Three. Four!”
After three days of mastery training, Alarion’s body was a perfect metronome, ticking through the motions of each strike with complete and utter boredom. His arms moved with System-guided precision, each strike crisp and perfect, just like the one before it, or the ones from earlier that morning. Or the ones from yesterday.
He almost missed the beatings. Almost.
“Again!”
“One. Two. Three. Four!”
“High!”
The sudden change in commands threw Alarion for a loop. He’d already shifted his center of gravity in anticipation of the reset, and his attack was half-formed as a result. The angle was all wrong, with Echo dragging through the air rather than cutting it. That one error compounded through the routine as the sergeant called out a dozen more attacks in quick sequence, each sloppier than the last.
“You can’t zone out,” Kali scolded as Alarion resumed his guard. The Godborn had a long wooden dowel held loosely in each hand, each cut to match the relative length of Alarion’s weapons. They’d been cut for demonstration, but they’d seen the most use as ‘corrective implements’ whenever he made a mistake. “Attention matters.”
“So does my sanity!” Alarion snapped. “You said you were going to teach me something new.“
“And I will, once you have built up a proper foundation.”
“I swear to the Mothers if I hear the word foundation one more ti-“
Kali saw something over Alarion’s shoulder and held up a hand to silence him. He nodded once, then turned his attention back to Alarion. “Another is here. I will greet them. Take a break and get your head on straight.”
Alarion nearly jumped down the man’s throat again for the sheer dismissiveness of his tone, but he was right. This was neither the time nor the place.
The first of the Awakened, the men and women who would make up the 238th, had begun to arrive that afternoon, interrupting Alarion’s mastery training and obliterating his sense of privacy. After weeks of violence in the dank cellar, he’d looked forward to practicing under the sun for a change. But now he had to put on airs. He had to act his rank, rather than his age, and it was harder than he’d thought it would be.
Plucking a towel from a nearby rack, Alarion marched to one side of the courtyard and took a seat. With nothing else to do, he opened his Status and reviewed his recent growth.
Skill Grade Up! Survivor’s Endurance (Common) -> Orphan’s Fortitude (Exceptional).
Skill level increased. Orphan’s Fortitude is now Level 1. VIT + 8.
Skill Grade Up! Pig-Headed Resilience (Exceptional) -> Indomitable Resilience (Epic).
Skill level increased. Indomitable Resilience is now Level 1. VIT +12.
Skill Grade Up! Endure Through the Pain (Exceptional) -> Reject the Pain (Rare).
Skill level increased. Reject the pain is now Level 1. Vit +10.
Skill Grade Up! The Best Offense is a Good Offense (Exceptional) -> The Best Offense is Persistence (Rare).
Skill level increased. The Best Offense is Persistence is now Level 1. STR +10.
Level Up! Congratulations, your Unraveller Class has advanced to Level 46! AGI +5. VIT +5. INT +5. PER +5. WIL +5. LUK +6
It didn’t feel like much, especially given the amount of time and effort Alarion had invested, but he knew that the true worth of the skills wasn’t contained within the attribute bonuses, or even the listed rarities, but with the expansion of the skill’s effects.
Orphan’s Fortitude [Exceptional]
Description: Hardship breeds Resilience. Having crept to the brink and survived again and again, often by yourself, you have developed a thick skin indeed.
Requirements: Suffer from the condition [Hunger – Starvation] at least once. Activate the secondary effect of [Survivor’s Endurance] for at least 100 different conditions.
Type: Passive
Effects: Gain a minor increase to the effects of VIT for the purposes of resisting debilitating conditions (hunger, poison, exhaustion, etc.). If you have previously suffered from the most severe version of a condition and survived, this increases to a moderate bonus. If you are alone when this skill activates, increase the bonus of the secondary effect to a severe bonus. Some conditions can now be fully resisted by this skill.
Growths: VIT +8
Alarion had been pleasantly surprised when [Survivor’s Endurance] grew two full ranks during its evolution, but the jump had not been entirely unexpected. One of the only advantages of a pressure epiphany was that the resulting evolutions tended to be more transformative than iterative, often skipping one or more rarities in the process.
Of course, skipping rarities was technically bad, since it reduced a skill’s overall potential for attribute gain. But given what it had taken to evolve [Survivor’s Endurance], Alarion did not mourn the potential single-digit stat loss.
Besides, the new effect was far more important.
The ‘Orphan’ part of the skill that increased the bonus if he were alone was useful, but it was that last sentence that was game-changing. [Survivor’s Endurance] had an unwritten cap on its resistance, usually no more than one stage. A major condition could be made moderate, or a moderate made minor, but a moderate could never be made slight, or negated entirely. [Orphan’s Fortitude] was not so restricted, and when combined with his abnormally high VIT, the effect was staggering.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He no longer bled from small cuts and scrapes, nor could Kali bruise him on anything less than a clean hit. Meanwhile, the only near rank poison they’d been able to find, some rather expensive spirits from Lily’s personal stash, had done nothing but make him cough. But it was the effect on his body that was the most pronounced.
Muscle fatigue and exhaustion remained limiting factors when it came to intense training, even for an awakened body, but [Orphan’s Fortitude] allowed him to push far beyond what he’d been previously capable of. It had been two days since he’d last slept, and the effects were only now beginning to nibble at the edge of his composure, and that was without the help of [Valentina’s Energetic Embrace].
And that was only one of his improved skills.
Indomitable Resilience [Epic]
Description: Through obstinance and dedication, your stubbornness has given way to measured defiance. Willing to endure pain and damage in the defense of others, this skill enables you to persist where less resilient men would falter.
Requirements: Suffer from at least twenty-five conditions of Serious severity or higher. Survive an encounter at -49% of your total HP.
Type: Passive/Active
Effects: During combat, user’s HP can now drop into negative values. User will die if they exceed -100% of their total HP. This state will persist for up to two minutes upon leaving combat. If user exits combat with a negative HP total, set HP to 1% and distribute remaining damage as internal injury conditions. Reduce all damage received below 0% HP by 10%.
Once per day during a combat where HP has been reduced to negative values, user may activate this skill to become Indomitable for five seconds. Reduce all incoming damage by 95% while Indomitable.
Growths: VIT +12
[Indomitable Resilience] was the second of Alarion’s skills to skip a rarity, and he did not think it was a coincidence that it was also the upgrade that adopted the name of its associated class. Like many of his early [Stubborn Swordsman] skills, the description of [Pig-Headed Resilience] had been borderline insulting in a way this new one had not. It felt good to see the System recognize his personal growth.
It was also terrifying to learn that he’d survived his encounter with the True Heart with no more than 1% of his HP remaining.
Overall, it was a massive improvement. A 50% increase to his maximum HP and an extra minute to mitigate the backlash in the aftermath of a difficult fight would have been enough of a bonus in and of themselves. The addition of an active ability that reduced 95% of the damage he took felt almost obscene.
True, it wouldn’t be helpful unless he’d already lost half of his effective HP, but taken together with his improved skills and Kali’s combat training, Alarion had the potential to swing even a losing fight massively in his favor.
Especially if he combined it with [The Best Offense is Persistence].
The Best Offense is Persistence [Rare]
Description: Good things come to those who live long enough. Bad things come to those who let you.
Requirements: Defeat at least three opponents of a higher UCL while your HP total is below zero. Spend at least one hour with your HP below zero.
Type: Passive/Active
Effects: Gain a moderate decrease to all damage received while attacking. Gain a minor decrease to all damage received while channeling an offensive ability. Gain a major resistance to stunning effects while attacking. Gain a slight stacking STR and LUK bonus for every thirty seconds while user is engaged in active combat; this bonus caps at critical. This bonus scales five times as quickly if user is below zero HP. If user strikes an opponent within one second of being struck by that opponent, add 20% of that attack’s maximum damage to your next attack.
Once per day during a combat where HP has been reduced to negative values, user may channel a slight amount of HP, MP, and Stamina for two seconds to activate this skill. Afterward, double all bonuses granted by this skill for ten seconds and increase the retaliate effect of this skill to 100% of the maximum damage.
Growths: STR +10.
The skill circuit with [indomitable Resilience] was obvious, especially since the epiphanies for the two skills had come in unison. Indomitable allowed him to take a heavy hit with minimal damage, while he safely channeled Persistence. Then, he’d have ten seconds to inflict a devastating counter blow that took full advantage of the damage he was supposed to have taken.
It wasn’t all good, however. The stackable bonus had proven less impressive than it looked on paper. Capping at critical meant it could go as high as 100%, but the scaling was so slow as to be unnoticeable in a normal fight, probably as low as 1%. Being below zero HP made it usable, but not something he could rely on.
The activation of the ability was also rather obvious. Anyone who could sense HP, MP, or Stamina would see the telltale signs, while anyone with eyes could see he was preparing something, given that he had to stand mostly still. Anyone familiar with his skill set would know the appropriate solution was to run away.
Which was precisely what Kali did the first time Alarion tested it. Turnabout was indeed fair play.
Reject the Pain [Exceptional]
Description: You have felt more pain in the last few years than many do in a lifetime. No more. You have grown beyond such trivialities, though you must be cautious all the same.
Requirements: Gain at least one flaw related to a persistent injury.
Type: Passive/Active
Effects: Reduce the severity of all ongoing conditions by one grade while in combat. Ie. [Bleeding – Minor] will become [Bleeding – Slight] while in combat and for 30 seconds afterward. Reduce the sensation of all pain by 90%.
For a minute ongoing MP cost, user may completely negate their sensation of pain while retaining their sense of touch. While pain is negated, user gains a variable bonus (up to moderate) to all physical attributes. During stressful physical activity, user will take HP damage commensurate with the amount of the ongoing bonus. This effect may inflict new physical conditions on the user.
Growths: VIT +8
[Reject the Pain] would have been nice to have during the training, so of course, it was the last to develop. The System did have a sense of humor.
Alarion had been more than a little confused by the latter half of the upgrade until ZEKE had explained it to him. Apparently, the total negation of pain made it extremely easy to overexert. The damage wasn’t much, more of an ongoing drain from what little he’d been able to test, but he had a feeling that the conditions inflicted would be much more of a problem.
At least, they would have been, if the combination of [Reject the Pain] and [Orphan’s Fortitude] didn’t immediately negate most of them. He probably could injure himself, given enough time or effort, but so far, he hadn’t been able to. And he’d tried.
Between his upgraded skills and his previous experience with [Orphan’s Vow] and [Unraveller’s Sense], Alarion was beginning to understand why skill circuits were what differentiated the good from the great. On their own, the four upgrades were excellent, but the way they complemented one another made him feel unbeatable, even if several bouts with Kali had proven him wrong.
More than anything, the skill circuits had dispelled any lingering worries about the proposed class merger. Currently, his two primary classes were complementary, but not especially intertwined.
Just how strong would he become if he started forming circuits between blade and spell?
“Are you planning on sitting there all day?” Kali shouted upon his return, waking Alarion from his fantasies. “Reset, I want five hundred more before nightfall!”
If only the path to becoming strong weren’t so tedious.