Chapter 187: The Big Upgrades and Perks
[Skill Points: 22 Available!]
Stark poured all of his focus onto the skill panel, wanting to upgrade THE skills that he thought would be best at this very moment.
No one knew what awaited them at the following floors, and there was no saying if he would need to fight someone else: they only went up two floors, yet five of them had died.
At this rate… only 2… no… only 1 person would live to see the warden.
…
[Skills:] Spatial Inventory; Class Wheel; Perception; Domination lv15; Focus lv15; Aura Smash lv10; Clone Frenzy lv15; Invincible Dodge lv5; Double Assault lv5; Crimson Spears lv1; Heaven's Wrath lv5; Alchemist lv3; Potion Crafting lv3; Target Manipulation lv1; Dodge Control lv1; Crimson Ball Transmission lv1; EGO lv1; Crimson Purification lv1
…
These were all the skills he had, and to be honest there was starting to be a huge amount of them.
If he got too many, he would surely abandon some of these skills to use stronger ones, which was what other people must do, as it is impossible to take every skill into account in a battle.
Somehow… for some strange reason… Stark didn't like it, but he shouldn't be bothered by it for now, so he quickly moved on.
'Hm…' although he wanted to do it fast, he also wanted to choose wisely, rushing and picking a bad skill in this situation to upgrade was like asking for death.
And so after two minutes of deep thinking…
"Alright, got it all," he selected all the skills he wanted and assign the amount of skill points to them.
[You have upgraded 'Invincible Dodge' to level 10!]
[You have upgraded 'Double Assault' to level 10!]
[You have upgraded 'Dodge Control' to level 5!]
[You have upgraded 'Alchemist' to level 5!]
[You have upgraded 'EGO' to level 5!]
Stark decided to go for the safe options this time, as these were all skills he was guaranteed to use, except for [EGO] but it was a mythical skill so it would be dumb not to upgrade it, as well as [Alchemist] since he had two skill points left, and it was at level 3, so why not.
And of course, upgrading 5 skills to their threshold could only mean one thing… PERKS!
~DING, DING, DING, DING, DING~
Five panels surrounded Stark, and he began reading them to assimilate the new perks he was getting, it was always good to know even if you couldn't test them out after all.
…
[Skill: Invincible Dodge lv10]
[New Perk: Combo Dodge]
[Description:] If many attacks are coming your way, you are able to continuously dodge them in opposition to being able to only dodge once, the limit is 10 dodges currently though.
[Note:] Basically, if someone attacks you 10 times, then as long as it is continuous within a short time, then you will be able to avoid all the attacks by fazing through them (as long as you have the right timing of course)
If you do dodge an attack and no attack comes after a second, then the [Invincible Dodge] combo will be considered over, and you will have to wait a minute to use the skill again, as per usual.
…
'Interesting… so I can dodge 10 attacks one after another as long as there is less than 1 second between each of them…' Stark was already happy as this meant being able to avoid many attacks at once, it almost fucked him up many times before after all, 'Next…'
…
[Skill: Double Assault lv10]
[New Perk: Increased Usage]
[Description:] You can use Double Assault for 20 seconds instead of 10, that's all.
…
'Fair,' Stark shrugged, it was incredibly good, and there was nothing much to say about it either, so he just moved on.
…
[Skill: Dodge Control lv5]
[New Perk: Semi-Control]
[Description:] When you activate this skill, your aura completely takes over your body, thus meaning you cannot control it whenever it is dodging, but thanks to this perk, you have regained a bit of control while dodging, meaning that by trying hard enough, you can dodge all attacks while also lending some good hits (you still can't use any other skill while Dodge Control is active though…)
…
'I do remember the feeling of not controlling my body, and the fact I can't use skills while it is active sure is annoying, but hopefully it will slowly and slowly give me back the control, so I can do everything while dodging…' Stark nodded in approval, and his clone kept smiling, it seemed joyful the more perks it was getting… wait no, not it, but Stark… obviously, right?
"=)"
…
[Skill: Alchemist lv5]
[New Perk: None]
[Description:] You can just craft potions that require this skill level, that's all.
…
This skill was completely passive and mostly for potion crafting, so it was completely normal.
Thus… Stark moved to the last skill, the one he had been waiting for the most: EGO, the mythical skill.
…
[Skill: EGO]
[New Perk: EGO EGO]
[Description: Your ego is… never mind, just keep increasing it]
[EGO Meter: 0]
…
"…" Stark was hesitating between calling it a scam or something great that he would surely discover later, but as expected, he got no information on this skill, it was so bad even the description of the skill itself looked like it hesitated to tell him, "Oh well," he just shrugged.
With that out of the way, he had done everything that needed to be done concerning the fact he reached level 50, and he felt great about it: new class (although it was absorbed by Domination), new skills, new perks, all in all it was good.
'Alright, need to reach the second sublevel now,' Stark opened up his mouth and began to follow it, rapidly turning over the corners and checking where the red dot (him) was compared to where the green one (the exit) was.
And so after less than three minutes… he arrived in front of a silver door that was already opened.
'Quick, quick,' he didn't waste time and began to climb the spiral of stairs that would lead him to the second sublevel.
And so after a minute, he could see the entrance of the floor, the silver door in front of him already opened, but impossible to see inside because of the light beyond it.
"Everyone must be already far inside the second sublevel's maze, let's just go," he began to calmly walk toward the door, his expression as neutral as ever before, while his clone was still behind, the big smile on its face still there, but they had one thing in common: both surrounded by a powerful crimson aura, now enhanced by the specks and strands of golden and holy aura from the exorcist class.
It was truly only the beginning, and he was ready to explore that floor while hopefully not meeting anybody.
But… unbeknownst to Stark… all the other participants were waiting for him beyond that door.
"=)"