Unchosen Champion

Coop took a cold shower in the lighthouse to rid himself of any lingering muck or salt residue from his hunt within the mangrove forest. The coastal habitat was still largely unexplored, but Coop thought he already had a good handle on what it had to offer. It wasn’t like he expected to find any more Bosses after they defeated the two that would have been within the depths of the swampy forest. Now that he had completed the Ruin Excavator quest, he thought the mangroves offered the best possible next locale to pursue more Slayer titles. The Primal Kites in the shallow water still represented a challenge to grind that he had yet to fully resolve.

As he switched the water off, he noted that the pressure from his gravity tank wasn’t holding up despite recently using the manual pump to refill his shower. The cistern’s water supply was getting low. They were nearing the end of the dry season, so hopefully they would start getting afternoon showers to replenish their water supply. The island chain had no aquifer to tap into, so they had been reliant on regular intervals of rain to maintain reserves. Even the old fort had an extensive sand filtration system, built with the original construction, though he doubted it was in good shape after the battle damaged the walls, combining with the many years of minimal maintenance.

The situation was a bit different after mana activated for a variety of reasons that made them less reliant on natural systems. If necessary, he could find someone with appropriate water powers to recharge the rainwater cisterns. It certainly wasn’t a priority. The wet season was defined by regular passing rain showers, heat, and hurricanes. They’d just have to wait and see how the climate was impacted by the start of the assimilation. If it hadn’t been changed too much, they shouldn’t have any problems.

Refreshed and dried off, Coop flitted around the lighthouse with nervous energy, seeking busy work to keep himself occupied while he skimmed the list of skills being offered after he reached level 100. To Jett’s dismay, he dusted and swept while he looked at his options, disturbing her daytime sleep. At least he was channeling his decision anxiety into something relatively productive.

Coop had learned some lessons after his previous rounds of skill selections, so he paid attention to details that he hadn’t before.

There were a total of 21 skill options offered at the onset of the Path of the Mistwalker. A surprising 7 of the skills were passive skills. Coop was briefly enthralled by the idea of getting skills that doubled down on bonus stats, but the only passive skill available that did such a thing was Clarity of Purpose. While it was a relief to see the Acumen skill continued to be one of his options, the lack of even more stat stacking was vaguely disappointing after his enthusiasm built his hopes up. He was imagining something that would influence his Mind stat. At least Clarity of Purpose’s presence confirmed that even though he was walking the Path of the Mistwalker, he remained a Revenant. Revenant skills would continue to appear as choices.

There were 12 active skills, but in Coop’s opinion, several of them barely qualified as active. Of the 12, 4 of them were skills that applied temporary self buffs, and most of the rest had conditional activations that relied on several other factors before they could be used at all. One of them in particular grabbed Coop’s attention: a skill simply called Infusion. Any wounds he took while the skill was active would have their damage, and any other negative effects, temporarily prevented by a protective mist that would seal the wounds and reinforce his body until an internal reservoir was depleted by the mist’s dispersal. It could even temporarily cheat death or otherwise negate critical injuries.

It sounded awesome, but Coop winced when he imagined actually applying the skill. Receiving a critical hit wasn’t something he liked thinking about, but instead of bleeding, he would leak mist, and if he lost an arm he would have a solid mist replacement that allowed him to keep fighting. It wasn’t what he was looking for, but he couldn’t help admiring the incredible utility it could give him. He was tanky enough to pass on it for now.

Out of the 8 remaining truly active skills, Coop was disappointed when his desire for a ranged spell nuke went unfulfilled. Void Drop didn’t make a reappearance at all and while a few of the spells offered could certainly increase his firepower, he wouldn’t be blasting siege bosses with any of them, and none of them would allow him to wipe out massive raids either. At least, that was based on their limited descriptions. There was no reason to completely write them off, especially when they would be scaling off of his thick collection of stats.

Another of the active skills that seemed wild, though it had no damage component, was an ability called Vaporform. The description led him to believe he would be able to enter the same monochromatic world that his mistjumps dragged him through, but in real time. He would become incorporeal whenever he activated it. While it seemed like a purely defensive ability, Coop could see a variety of applications when combining it with both his mistjumps, quick swaps, and melee techniques to turn it into another layer of depth in his current fighting style. Again, it wasn’t what he was looking for, even if it was an interesting prospect.

Mistwalker offered a few damaging active skills that were clearly meant to be supplementary, adding lingering effects to his damaging abilities that debuffed or applied damage over time. Other active skills were auxiliary effects that followed an attack. Brocken Spectre was his favorite, though he wasn’t clear on how it would interact with his own weapons. Basically, it would project and magnify his previous attack with a mistform copy. If he punched something, a magnified fist of mist would immediately follow. It certainly had potential, especially since it added its own damage scaling off of Intelligence, but it didn’t meet all of his current requirements.

Coop was looking for a skill that did damage on its own, that would scale off of his growing stats, especially if it was ranged or covered a large area. It didn’t need to be complicated as long as it gave him an opportunity to leverage his base stats into damage.

The last two skills options that were being offered were skill upgrades, rather than new skills. Retribution and Salvation both had evolutions available. The fact that the two skills with upgrades available were the two skills he considered fundamentally important to everything he accomplished meant that he would take them seriously. Coop ceased his cleaning and settled down in the lightroom at the top of the lighthouse, with a view of Ghost Reef, underneath the spectral relic as he considered these last choices with special focus.

First was Retribution, the skill that summoned his weapons and one half of the fundamental basis for his class he had built, with an upgrade called Legacy of the Mists.

“Call upon Legacy.”

The upgrade would add an activated ability, ‘Legacy of the Mists,’ to his weapons, which would call a phantasm to fight alongside the caster. This phantasm would exist temporarily and wield the conjured weapon the caster had equipped to engage his opponents. They would deal weapon damage based on Intelligence, have weapon proficiency based on Mind, speed based on Agility, and substance based on Acumen.

Coop rubbed his chin as he considered the limited information he was given. These phantasms would scale off of an eclectic collection of stats. If he understood it correctly, he could use his spear and shield to summon a clone that would engage his enemies by his side with the same combination of weapons, but dealing magical damage instead of physical.

He had questions. Were these minions? They were explicitly temporary, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were different each time. How much would they scale? He had so many stats, and they scaled off of so many different ones, he had to assume they would be balanced around much lower investments across the options. That meant they might be pretty ideal for taking advantage of his specific stat stacking build, basically punching from a much higher weight class than they should. There was no mention of their defensive stats, so Coop could only assume that this was meant to be a purely offensive upgrade to his weapon conjuring skill. He had no clue what ‘substance’ had to do with anything, and it was tied to the only stat he hadn’t scaled up. Yet.

Regardless of the details, upgrading Retribution jumped to the top of the list. It wasn’t exactly what he was looking for either, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t fulfill the goal he was trying to achieve. Whether or not these phantasms could become a ranged nuke depended on how they scaled and it was all relative to their targets anyway. Legacy of the Mists was an encouraging choice as far as Coop was concerned.

He checked Salvation’s upgrade with equal consideration and even more hope than before. The upgrade was called Inheritance of the Mists.

“Accept the Inheritance.”

Salvation would also receive an activated ability, named ‘Inheritance of the Mists,’ which called an apparition to fight for the caster. The apparition would also exist temporarily, but it would be grounded on only one of his attributes, scaling them with multipliers that were based on the specific apparition that appeared. Coop would have access to the apparition’s abilities for the duration of its existence.

Coop carefully noted the difference in wording, where the phantasms fought ‘with’ the caster, the apparition fought ‘for’ the caster. It was possible that both descriptions meant the same thing, but the swap from ‘with’ to ‘for’ seemed significant. If they didn’t mean the same thing, Coop was honestly worried that he would be possessed by the apparition while it fought on his behalf, like he’d be handing over the controls temporarily. He was still dealing with his Spectral affinity, so he didn’t let his guard down when it came to stereotypical ghost moves.

The fact that apparitions scaled off his stats with additional multipliers was a huge win. Salvation would become a skill that fully leveraged Coop’s attribute stacking, no matter how exactly it worked. However, it didn’t indicate that he would be able to choose which apparition appeared. Coop didn’t like that there might be an element of randomness. The potential for randomness was a glaring mark against the Inheritance upgrade when compared to the Legacy upgrade.

Either way, Coop was ready to ignore the other skill options in favor of the upgrades to Retribution and Salvation. He fully intended to take both upgrades along with the Acumen passive skill with his upcoming skill choices. The only decision was the order that he would take the skills in.

His initial instinct was to take Retribution’s Legacy of the Mists first as it seemed the most reliable as well as the most likely to take advantage of Practical Application’s mana reduction trait. If he needed to summon phantasms frequently, he would like to reduce whatever mana cost they came with to zero as soon as possible.

Inheritance of the Mists probably had greater upside in exchange for a potential to be less reliable. He wished there was a catalog of apparitions so he could see the possible results, especially when it came to their skills. Coop would get the chance to borrow their skills, after all, but what if he had no idea how to actually use them. It might be the case that Coop would need to practice with the apparitions before they became more useful. In that case, it might be beneficial to upgrade Salvation first to start reviewing the skill’s capabilities.

Coop watched the waves lap onto the shore from the top of the lighthouse while he considered both options. The decision might not matter that much. He was going to zoom through the levels until he was ready to take the next one as well, even if it meant becoming a wandering quest completer. Now that he knew what was waiting for him, he was motivated beyond just accumulating stats.

He shook his head at himself, not wanting to rush anything. There was no telling what might come up in the immediate future. He couldn’t ignore the possibility of a new threat, a new event, or any other challenge that could show up and throw his plan into chaos.

The thought was enough to convince him to take the upgrade he perceived as the most immediately and reliably useful.

As he highlighted Legacy of the Mists and accepted the upgrade to Retribution, he felt like a kid unwrapping a present. After he accepted his choice, the only difference to his status was a plus sign added to the end of Retribution in his active skills line.

Coop climbed to his feet to head back downstairs. The evening was barely setting in, so he had plenty of time to test his new skill on the Ancient Defenders along the beach trail.

However, before he left, his attention was grabbed by tapping on the glass window of the lightroom. Upon inspection, he didn’t immediately notice anything. Then, a flash of feathers revealed the spectral cockatiel as it attempted to grip the grille of the upper set of glass panes, before giving up and flying out of sight again.

Coop watched for a moment before the bird returned, clearly trying to get inside the lightroom with a stick in its beak. He tried to shoo the bird away the next time it hit the glass, but the bird was insistent. Another flyby and the cockatiel actually turned into a transparent, ghost version of itself and flew straight through the window, but it lost its stick outside. The bird chirped and hopped around, agitated, before it flew back up to another of the windows and swiped at it with its beak from the inside.

Coop unlatched a top pane and lifted it outwards, propping it open before any of the glass was destroyed by the magically enhanced bird, and the bird flew back outside.

A few seconds later it returned, through the opened pane with the stick in its beak. The bird hopped inside like it owned the place, ignoring Coop and skipping along the ground until it was underneath the light, in the shadow of the black iron stand. It placed a single twig that it had recollected within its beak on the wooden floor and chirped, pleased with itself.

Coop held his hand up, about to ask what the heck the bird thought it was doing, but stopped himself. Instead he issued a warning. “You better watch yourself, or Jett will eat you.”

The cockatiel angled its head to look at Coop with one eye and chirped, unconcerned. It hopped up into the opened window and gripped the bottom frame. Coop moved to close it and leave the bird outside, but the bird turned and swung its open beak at Coop’s hand, defending the window holder and making it abundantly clear that it wanted him to leave it open.

“Whatever.” Coop sighed and gave up. The spectral bird wanted to be near the spectral relic, that was fine. “I’m closing it if the storms start rolling in.” The bird chirped and flew back outside, heading across the island toward the fort, trusting Coop not to close the window after it had sufficiently warned him.

Coop summoned his ethereal spear, using his freshly upgraded Retribution ability, and casually tossed it out the open window. He mistjumped before the spear landed, taking a shortcut from the top of the lighthouse to the trail outside.

Coop planted the butt of his spear on the sandy ground and tried activating Legacy of the Mists. The thought of summoning a phantasm barely entered his mind before a genuine ghost lunged out of nothingness with a burst of mist, its own spear held forward in a perfectly executed leaping attack that left Coop impressed, nodding in approval, and thinking “Not bad.”

The phantasm landed in the white sand, disturbing the grains despite its ghostly appearance and planted the butt of its spear in the ground. The phantasm looked at Coop over its left shoulder, spear held on the right, and seemed disappointed before it disappeared in another puff of mist.

The first thing Coop noted was that it wasn’t a clone. That was a one-eyed, grizzled and scarred spearman who was very unpleasant to look at. Coop was normally pretty modest, but he didn’t look anything like that ghost and he thanked his lucky stars for that fact. The phantasm’s weapon matched Coop’s, but his armor was completely different. More importantly, the entire phantasm was almost completely transparent along with all of its equipment, almost like an invisible man standing inside a thin mist. It had been, by far, the most ghostly of the spectral phantoms, wraiths, and whatever other nonsense he had encountered so far.

The second was that the phantasm literally only lasted one second, maybe two. On the bright side, there was no cooldown, so he could do it again. However, it was a rather steep 500 mana to call the Legacy of the Mists, and for a single attack, it wasn’t very efficient.

Mana also wasn’t the only price he had to pay. His ethereal weapon was the source of the phantasm, and he was notified by the system that his weapon had lost one durability, then gained one durability after the phantasm disappeared. Durability wasn’t something he had ever needed to worry about. The only time it had ever come up were in the rare instances that his equipment actually broke, and Coop really didn’t think it was a real problem when he could just resummon his gear. Still, it seemed like his personal weapon was being split in some small part in order to fuel the phantasm.

He tried the skill again and another burst of mists preceded a phantasm that leapt from a few feet to Coop’s right, landing an expertly aimed attack to where Coop was absently aiming 10 feet in front of himself. This was a completely different ghost, a lithe woman with a golden tiara pinning straight, long, black hair that reached all the way down to her waist, wielding an identical spear and wearing a simple sheath dress that was straight out of an Egyptian hieroglyphic. She turned with her spear ready, and looked at Coop with makeup like the Eyes of Horus. A sly grin started to form on her face before she disappeared.

Coop tried to say something, to see if they understood him, or could communicate at all, but she was gone too quickly. The fact that they were so clearly different made him wonder what was going on. He had expected a clone of himself, but he was getting completely different people.

He activated Legacy a third time and immediately used his aura to inspect the phantasm. A huge man with thick bear furs folded over his shoulders and a bare, hairy chest jabbed into the air before shooting a curious look back at Coop from behind a bushy orange beard. He disappeared in another burst of mist, but Coop had been able to identify him before he was gone.

[Phantasmal Spearman (Level 100)]

[(Mind)]

[Minion (Ethereal)]

Coop was relieved they were clearly labeled as minions. He had been worried about the implications of resurrecting someone for a second or two then having them disappear from existence. That would have been dreadful, but from what he understood, a minion really was something much different from Ghost Reef’s phantoms, for instance.

He had one more test to do and he selected the nearest Ancient Defender as the subject. Coop approached the monster, and activated Legacy of the Mists. A medieval peasant spearman lunged through the air and pierced the monster so thoroughly, the Defender was completely annihilated. The spearman had time to raise his spear in triumph before a burst of mist marked his disappearance.

Coop’s first Mistwalker skill selection may not have resulted in a flashy spell-based nuke, but it definitely seemed like there was real potential with these phantasms to fill a similar role, and maybe more.