Assimilate All Talents

A week later, Sol sat on the couch in the communal area of his squad quarters and reviewed his progress on his status page.

Name: Sol

Race: Human

Talents: [Siphoner], [Transformer]

Level: 83

Exp: 43,232,500/108,258,700

HP: 1600

MP: 1800

Str: 85 (+80)

Vit: 80 (+80)

Agi: 85 (+80)

Int: 85 (+80)

Wis: 80 (+100)

Talent Skills:

[Siphon] Lv 6, [Analysis] Lv 7, [Aggregate] Lv EX, [Reinterpret] Lv EX

Siphoned Talents:

[Create Magic Hands] Lv MAX, [Impact Bubble] Lv 4

Passive Skills:

[Muffled Movements] Lv EX, [Reflect] Lv 3, [Basic Psychic Mastery] Lv 8, [Intermediate Weapon Mastery] Lv 8, [Wild Hunt] Lv 2, [Invincible Body] Lv 8, [Perfect Balance] Lv 3, [Death Absorption] Lv 6, [True Sight (Variant)] Lv 6, [Superior Mana Control] Lv 3, [Fortified Soul] Lv 2, [Novice Craftsman] Lv 6, [Battle Dance] Lv 8

Active Skills:

[Ground Shrink] Lv 9, [Invisibility] Lv 9, [Terra Manipulation] Lv 8, [Burrow] Lv MAX, [Telepathy] Lv 3, [Unpassable Bulwark] Lv 3, [Intermediate Elemental Magic (Variant)] Lv 5, [Overpower] Lv 4, [Weapon Empowerment (Variant)] Lv EX, [Piercing Lunge] Lv 8, [Mana Slash] Lv 6, [Empowered Strike] Lv 4, [Polychromatism] Lv EX, [Mana Burst] Lv 4, [Repair] Lv 5, [Shadow Body] Lv 6, [Close Combat] Lv 1, [Vorpal Blade Rush] 2, [Guided Bombardment] Lv 3, [Phoenix Dive] Lv 4, [Unarming Blow] Lv 2

In the end, he decided to choose [Aggregate] as the talent skill to attempt to break through. It was more mysterious than [Reinterpret], and he believed it was easier to decipher more from it. Since then, he had combined a few more skills as practice, taking much longer than usual to fully understand how it functioned.

Sol blinked once and instantly saw the colored lines expanding out from him, reaching much further and eventually passing through the walls and the ceiling.

‘I can immediately see the lines now; before, it would take a few seconds. I also found out something rather disturbing.’

He discovered he could pull and twist the lines instead of joining them to create a new skill, causing some severe side effects. For example, when he twisted the cyan colored string representing [Mana Slash], he temporarily forgot how to use the skill. No matter how hard he tried to recall, it felt fuzzy in his mind. Then he tried something much riskier. He controlled the black and purple string of [Create Undead] to twist, pull, contort, and when he forgot how to use the skill, he didn’t stop. He continued until, with one of the pulls, it finally snapped, and with it, everything that had to do with the skill.

He still remembered owning it, but how it worked and how to use it were completely gone.

‘I’m glad I chose to try it on [Create Undead], as it was a skill I could never find a good use for anyway. If, for some reason, I ever need it back, I can go to Necropolis and fight the Grave Digger again.’

Though Sol couldn’t remember, the skill was too weak for him to use in most cases, and it had many restrictions. He needed corpses to create the undead and even when he did, there was a limit on the undead he could have at one time, and it constantly consumed mana. There was also the fact that it required desecrating the dead, something Sol was never a fan of. Even with [Siphon], he did his best not to be consumed by the allure of murdering those with unique talents and skills to take them for himself.

When he wasn’t working on comprehending a law technique from it, he spent his time improving his other skills or completing missions with his squad.

‘I managed to level up [Siphon] to level six, but there were no big changes; the range and limit for how long they could be dead increased. Now I can siphon them with maximum efficiency if it's been three days and up to a month with minimal returns.’

Sol was never able to figure out why it was so limited by the time of death, especially when it was used on higher level beings. If they were higher level, their high vitality remained even in death, so in some cases, their bodies were still in pristine condition years after their passing.

‘Well, even if it didn’t have a limit on the time of death, I wouldn’t go around digging up cemeteries, so it's fine. It's mostly out of curiosity that I want to know.’

For now, he could be satisfied and answered a few questions he had regarding his talent skills. Done reviewing his progress, Sol planned to head to Fabio’s store to check up on him, but Duncan entered the room with a message for him.

“Captain, Commander Zaman is calling for you.”

Sol didn’t respond; his eyes were wide with surprise.

“Captain? Are you feeling unwell?”

“Stay still for a second.”

Sol stood up and circled Duncan, scanning him from every angle. Duncan was extremely perplexed at why he was doing so but didn’t say anything and waited for him to finish.

Duncan followed where Sol’s eyes were looking, but they didn’t appear to be looking directly at him but around him.

“Hey Duncan, can you tell me how [Full Metal Stride] works?”

Duncan raised an eyebrow as he didn’t understand why Sol was suddenly asking that now but nodded.

“Sure, I use the… I use the umm… What!? Why can't I remember!?”

His face scrunched up as he tried to recall how the skill worked, but all he could see were fuzzy memories, and even when he tried to go off the muscle memory ingrained from using it for so many years, his own body betrayed him and wouldn’t budge.

“It’s going to be okay, Duncan. I caused it. It should come back in a few minutes. I’m really sorry; I should have warned you ahead of time.”

Sol felt bad for suddenly making him forget his skill without asking beforehand, but he was too caught up in the discovery. It was hard to control someone else’s lines, but he managed to give it a small twist, effectively blocking the skill's usage for a short period.

Duncan calmed down and let out a sigh. “Give a man a warning next time, alright? I thought I was cursed or something. What was that anyway? Some new skill?”

At this point, he didn’t know how many skills his captain even had. Ever since he witnessed Sol cast multiple different magics, he wasn’t sure what else he was hiding.

Sol shook his head. “No, it's a rather old skill. I’ve just been learning new ways to use it so I can break into A-Rank.”

“Break into A-Rank?” Duncan was immediately intrigued. “So that has to do with ranking up... Most A-Rankers don’t disclose the process of becoming one. I’ve always wondered why.”

“I’m not sure, but I'll tell you what little I know later. I think we’re soon going to need as many A-Rankers as possible. I honestly don't know why we aren’t sharing this information more.”

It wasn’t very complicated to become an A-Ranker; one just needed to continue developing their skill past its limit. Though simple, it wasn’t something most people would even think of doing. To them, the system was absolute. If it said their skill was max or ex, it meant it had reached its full potential, and they wouldn’t continue improving it and would move on to other skills.

This didn’t mean it never happened. There were many cases of those who continued to work on their main skill past its limit and comprehended a law technique accidentally. That's how half of the A-Rank adventurers came to be, while the other half learned of the information through connections or through their travels.

Duncan was a little surprised at Sol’s offer and gladly accepted. “Thank you, Captain. You should get going, though. I don’t think you should keep the Commander waiting.”

“Oh, right! We’ll talk later.”

Sol bade goodbye to Duncan and power walked towards Zaman's office, hoping he hadn’t kept him waiting long.