Chapter 126 (2/2)

Struggle: Strain against your fate in fights, refusing to give him. Gives an extremely small, passive boost to Willpower when you are faced with adversity. Amount increases with skill level.

Contrary to expectations, Randidly received another passive skill from the other path. It looked like one that was more ambiguous, almost to the point of being useless. Although Willpower was the stat that got Randidly where he was today, due to Shal’s need, it wasn’t particularly useful in a fight. But still, every little edge counted. Especially when Willpower was one of the first stats that let him grow in this world.

As he didn’t have anymore PP, Randidly put off the decision in regards to his next path, and instead focused on what he should do this night, in preparation for the qualifying melee tomorrow.

Randidly grimaced. God, he hated dealing with people. And from what Shal said, he would be forced to encounter quite a few people in order to make it through. In the end, he simply had to be on one of the platforms when the round ended. But what if someone else came up onto the platform…? He didn’t necessarily have to fight him, but if Randidly didn’t, what if more people came up onto the platform…? If there were too many…

Then Randidly shook his head. Pointless to worry about strategy. That wasn’t his strong suit. Better to focus on his other preparations. The obvious first choice was preparing consumable stores. He had quite a few blue and red energy shards with him, as well as 1 or 2 purple and green ones. So he could create potions if he wished it.

But there weren’t so many that he wouldn’t run out of he used them too quickly. As such, Randidly planned on simply waiting to make potions until he found a source of potion ingredients. Still, he was in a good spot for that; Randidly suspected that since this was a world that had been with the system for a while, there would be places to buy potion ingredients, and even potions.

It would be excellent if he could even obtain the higher tiered potion ingredients to try, or found a recipe book for high level potions. That way he could increase his potion skill…

But purchasing those would take money. Although it was possible that he could obtain some for winning this qualifier battle, or that Shal would be willing to give him some cash, neither of those options seemed like they would be sustainable in the long run. And depending on how much the higher tiered potion ingredients cost…

Better to have another plan, to handle it himself. He had some small amount of the Nexus currency, from trading in dead monster bodies to the recycler, but that had fallen by the wayside as Sam’s crew grew more skillful at extracting parts from the monsters. Better to have a commodity that Randidly could produce that would earn him some extra cash.

And to that end, there was only one thing that fit the bill. Engraving. Almost reverently, Randidly removed one of the bracers he had worked on last night from his interspatial ring.

Novice’s Leather Bracer Lvl 15: Leather armor worked by a novice. Vit +1, Health +8.

Engraving of Dragonfly 42% (U): Wearer of the armor moves slightly more quickly when moving with the wind. Wearer gains Aspect of Dragonfly I.

Aspect of Dragonfly: Reaction +1, Agility +1

It was truthfully a small bonus. The armor that it was on was rather worthless. But Randidly suspected that if he went to a local armorer and offered to Engrave his armor for him, improving the armor by these two stat points, and the small effect…. Perhaps it would be pretty tempting. It all depended on how common engraving was.

Randidly held out some hope that it was rare, based on the fact it was only obtained by Sam through his rare Soul Skill, but sincerely doubted that it was unheard of. After all, the spear that Shal used had a strange, fluid glimmer that reminded Randidly of Engraving, although it was a tier higher than he could understand.

But he hadn’t seen it anywhere else. So Randidly checked the time, gave himself several hours, and removed a dozen leather bracers from his ring. These were the last of his store, given to him by Sam in order to practice. It was one thing to offer a single option, but if he could master all three…

He had come close to 40% in the past with Bear, but had barely broken 20% with Fish. His best option was to focus on Bear for now, get that up to snuff, and then slowly bring Fish up too. He glanced up, sighing. But he could only work on this for 2 hours. After all, if the battle was tomorrow, Randidly wanted to practice with his spear and footwork, in order to adjust to his body with the stat increases from yesterday…

His Root Spider hung in the corner, looking at him with ambivalence. None of its master’s concerns reached it. It was simply on orders to wait there until someone other than its master was to come into the room, and then inform its master. It was a simple life, that thing lived.

Chuckling, Randidly lowered his needle to the leather, and began to engrave.