Atlas felt power flow into him, much less than when he ranked up but still very noticeable, a notification appeared in front of him, congratulating him on beginning the path of the skill sage. After a few more moments, another notification popped up. It showed him his upgraded title, and all the changes were italicized.
Skill Grandmaster: You are a top tier master at creating skills, and it is now 2000% easier to create and level said skills. Skill experience gain is no longer increased by 20% at each level and 200% at each tier, and instead becomes 10% and 100% increase respectively. (This effect is not retroactive) Whenever someone uses a skill in your presence, you can focus to know the name of the skill and all of its abilities. (Does work on any skills at or higher than your highest leveled skill). You will no longer be given skills by the system. (This does not apply to skills gifted from achievements)
Atlas was very pleased with this upgrade. It was basically just doubled effects from Skill Master, with the scanning part of the title now being an active effect and now affecting skill experience increase per level and tier being halved. It was disappointing that it wasn’t retroactive, so his lower rank skills would gain experience far faster than his higher rank skills even when they were the same rank.
Atlas was struck by a thought. Now that he was able to up the tier of his skills instead of ranking them up, the halved experience needed for the next level would be very beneficial, especially because of the massive 2000% increase to learning and leveling skills that he got from the same title. Really, this title was very powerful.
Atlas stood up from where he had been leaning against the wall. He made his way over to the town center and walked up to his room. Ever since he had upgraded the town from a village to a town, his room had expanded dramatically, along with the rest of the building. His room had gone from a simple bed with a nightstand with a journal lying on top, to a massive room that was about 20 by 20 feet.
His nightstand had remained mostly the same, simply gaining another drawer, but the rest of the room had changed a lot. He now had a large dresser that was mostly useless for Atlas with his Soulbound suit, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that it was filled with clean and plush robes, most likely for sleep or lounging, so Atlas was still happy with it.
The other two changes though, were far more exciting.
He now had a large bookshelf opposite his bed, filled with countless books of all different kinds of subjects, the outside world, different tiers, basic skills, adventurers, basic classes and subclasses, and all other sorts of basic knowledge that was very useful to Atlas, seeing how he was utterly uninformed when it came to almost anything, with all of his knowledge coming from deductions he had made himself and knowledge given to him from the system.
The final change was by far the best, it was such a beautiful change that it had brought Atlas, who had been pretty poor back on earth, though not to the point of poverty, to tears. The change was perfect and amazing it was…
The bed.
The bed had gone from a comfortable bed slightly bigger than a twin with a single blanket and pillow, to a massive king sized bed with multiple layers and over a dozen pillows. Atlas went over to the dresser and changed into one of the plush robes before hopping into the bed face first and promptly falling asleep after pulling the top two layers over him.
***
Atlas woke up to a feeling of pure bliss. He couldn’t remember the last time that he had felt this comfortable and peaceful. He groaned as he sat up in bed, dragging himself over to the dresser and changing back into his suit.
As he adjusted his tie, he brought up his skills and his time limit until the next wave, after all that he had gone through during the last wave, he was going to power level the crap out of his skills, he would not be taken by surprise again.
Skills: Ultimate Debuff (Z), Avatar of Death (Z), Elemental Affinity (SSS), Consume (SS), Misty Step(SS), Supreme Damage Resistance (SS), Demonic Claw (S), Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S), Crafting (B), Lightning Beam (B) Herbalism (D).
Your Guardtowers have found an enemy presence! Wave starts in 11:46:12
He wanted to get a couple more skills and increase them all up to around A rank at least, with the exception of crafting and herbalism, as he had no idea how to upgrade those currently, and there weren’t any benefits to be had from upgrading them anyway, so he might as well just focus on all his other skills.
Atlas grabbed an empty notebook from the bookshelf and glanced at it, trying to see if it had any useful or special properties. He stared at it for a minute, trying to circulate mana to his eyes to see if that would help him to find any properties hidden in the notebook. Just as he was about to give up, he got a notification and black words appeared above the notebook.
Magic Notebook: This notebook appears to have 100 blank pages, but it has an infinite number of pages. All the pages will automatically be sorted and if you push mana into the notebook and think about what you are trying to find, the notebook will sort itself to show a maximum of 100 pages that are in its pages, and a minimum of 0 if you have nothing written about the subject.
Atlas’s eyes widened in surprise, what had appeared to be a simple notebook was actually a very helpful notebook that had no limit of pages and would act like a search engine for whatever he was trying to find, as long as he had written something about the subject he was searching for. He immediately wrote down all of the temporary skills he had written down, transferring them from his journal to his notebook by hand.
As he was doing so, he brought up the notification that he had received from scanning the notebook.
Skill gained! Scan (B): You can pull up the basic information of any item or person that is a thats highest trait/skill is equal to or less than this skills tier. How much information that you receive is based on the gap between the tier and trait/skill. (Ex: B -> B gives you very little information while B -> F gives you a lot of information because of the larger gap.)
Atlas was surprised, he had not been expecting anything like this to happen, and while it was unexpected for him, it probably shouldn’t have with all of the skill related benefits he had gotten recently, allowing him to both gain and level skills at a speed incomparable to before.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Atlas started to jot down anything that he thought might be important and didn’t want to forget, before closing the notebook and walking out of his room. He then went downstairs and walked over to the door and exited the building.
Atlas glanced back over his shoulder at the town center and realized that the building was taller than what the inside had suggested. Is there a third floor? Atlas wondered to himself. He shrugged and activated Avatar of Death before leaping onto the wall.
He cracked his knuckles and sat in the lotus position. He breathed in deeply, turning his eyes inward and focusing on the mana sluggishly circulating throughout his body. Atlas pulled up his mana pathways to finally select the two upgrades he wanted. He had held off because he didn’t want to do anything that would mess up his future development, but now he needed every advantage that he could get.
Mana pathways: Rarity - Rare: Your body has become much more powerful at harnessing the chaotic powers of mana. Each rarity of pathways unlocks a new benefit. With each higher rarity possessing all the benefits of the rarities below it.
Trash: Your control over mana is affected by your Intelligence and Wisdom stats combined and divided by four. (Current is 781% control, where 100% is the norm for beings without mana pathways
Basic: You can choose a different aspect of your mana to upgrade. Potency, Quantity, Quality, Regeneration Speed, and Control. (When upgraded by another rarity, the upgrade is better.)
Common: Your mana regeneration is doubled. (You regenerate the same amount of mana in 30 minutes as when it was 1 hour. You could also take it to mean that your Intelligence now gives you 20 mana per stat point in Intelligence.)
Uncommon: You now get one point of mana for every one point in your other stats. (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Constitution and Wisdom)
Rare: Choose one of the three options. 1: Your mana is purified when it enters your body, halving your regeneration speed, but quadrupling the efficiency of your mana. 2: Your total mana pool is halved but it is now 10 times as potent. 3: You regenerate mana four times as fast but at the cost of having half as potent mana.
Atlas first selected the basic option, after some consideration, he had decided to upgrade quality, he didn’t know how much it would affect him, but it seemed like the most important upgrade to have. He got more mana total and mana regeneration from stats anyway, so it was useless to upgrade those in his opinion.
Quality upgrade has been chosen, upgrading mana. Please hold during this process. Please remember that the system is not responsible for any accidental deaths because of the user’s choices.
“Hold on, what?!”
Pain filled Atlas’s very soul and he let out a tortured scream as the mana inside of him was forcibly merged together by brute force as the system controlled his mana and purifying and directly upgrading his mana.
Atlas screamed as the ambient mana in the air surged towards him, filling him up with pure and dense mana that felt alive. It shot like lightning through his veins filling him with both pure power and bliss, and pure pain and anguish at the same time.
Atlas struggled to maintain the lotus position, even as his body tried to kill him from the inside out. He now knew that the lotus position was the most effective way to harness your mana after skimming over some of the books in his room. So he knew that if he stopped staying in the lotus position the mana overload might kill him.
The mana whirled like a tornado inside of him for a few moments more, before starting to wane and eventually stop, Atlas was left sweating and gasping for air. He coughed a couple times and was surprised when black blood spurted out of his mouth in an arc before landing with a splattering sound in front of him.
He gagged, throwing up even more of the vile liquid before wiping his mouth and standing up.
He immediately thought better of it as his legs gave out on him and he was forced to take a seat again. He lay back in lotus position before selecting his next option, though with far more trepidation this time.
Atlas chose option 2 as his rare level option. He was going all in on potency/quality of mana, and option 2 also seemed to give the most total benefits. It was annoying that it would halve his mana, but he had enough mana for it to be manageable.
He selected the option and tensed, waiting for the pain to appear.
Option 2 upgrade (Potency) has been chosen, upgrading mana. Please hold during this process. Please remember that the system is not responsible for any accidental deaths because of the user’s choices.
The pain rushed over Atlas tearing into him. He screamed as his mana seemed to tighten and weave itself together inside of him, causing black ichor to rush out of pores. Atlas realized midway through the process that the motions of the mana were forcing out all of the impurities inside of him, turning him into the best mana conductor possible.
He watched in fascination as it stitched together his mana pathways to create a sort of spinning motion, similar to the grooves on a rifle, that constantly spun the mana, purifying it at the cost of halving it.
He was suddenly struck by a notification as the tearing feeling started to wane.
INSANE LUCKY BONUS!
X10 increase in potency -> x30 increase in potency
The rending feeling faded, and Atlas brought up his status sheet hurriedly to check the changes.
Atlas Channing
Tier: 3
Level: 0
Class: Reaper
Subclass: Absorber
Mana Pathways: Rare
Mana: 11,677
Life force: 15,630
Stamina: 15,430
Titles: Shadestrider, Skill Grandmaster, Boss Slayer, Powerful Soul, Legend of the Tutorial, Sythesiser, Fate breaker.
Skills: Ultimate Debuff (Z), Avatar of Death (Z), Elemental Affinity (SSS), Consume (SS), Misty Step(SS), Supreme Damage Resistance (SS), Demonic Claw (S), Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S), Crafting (B), Lightning Beam (B) Herbalism (D).
Spells: None
Talent: Z
Potential: Z
Stats:
Endurance: 1,543
Constitution: 1,563
Strength: 1,573
Dexterity: 1,583
Wisdom: 1,572
Intelligence: 1,552
Free points: 0
Atlas was surprised at his sudden lack of mana, why did he have so little?
That is because the 20 point intelligence buff was being shown on your sheet instead of the rapid mana regeneration. We have fixed it so it now shows your ACTUAL mana pool, sorry for the inconvenience. -System of Stats
Atlas nodded to himself, that made a lot more sense. He turned abruptly, bringing up his hands. Now it was time to test out his new mana.
