Chapter 190 (1/2)
The start of the tournament was 3 days away, and after signing himself in and claiming a spot, Randidly didn’t really have anything that he needed to do in the city. So he continued to train.
Claptrap’s information about perseverance was somewhat useless to Randidly. Perhaps useless was the wrong world. It wasn’t something that could be focused on and improved in the short term, and also Randidly believed that of all his qualities, perseverance was the one in which he had the most… dedication. It wasn’t that his perseverance was all that impressive, but it was a necessary part of his time in the post-system world.
Still, this was compared to the elites that had made it into the Regional Tournament, so Randidly did his best to temper expectations. But still, to his mind, his great strength was his tenacity and recovery speed. And these things directly impacted his ability to persevere. It seemed that a higher power truly wanted to give him a chance in this tournament, if this was the criterion on which he would be judged.
So during that 3 days, Randidly instead focused on prepping his mental state to be incredibly fresh and robust. This mostly involved involved long periods of training with the diary of the Spear Phantom, and then taking the time to sit in his Weeping Cloud Skill and allow those healing rain drops to flow over and through him, cleansing him. This repeated cycled did wonders for his Mental Fortitude, which Randidly supposed was another quality that would help him persevere.
Between training sessions, Randidly continued to research Engraving in the technical manuals given to him, Engraved a little on the side, and also went upstairs to the area above the inn to train. He mostly focused on activities designed to increase his physical fitness at this point, rather than attempting to improve his Active skills, and also used it as a chance to get some experience fighting with the Golden Roots of Yggdrasil.
But the real reason that Randidly headed to the roof was to watch with fascination as the elderly man trained the youths in the art of the spear. Part of his fascination was that the training style was so different than what Shal employed, but Randidly also learned a bit about proper stance and form from listening.
Truthfully, these were things that Randidly had already learned with his body, due to the brutal sessions with Shal, and had internalized. But he had never addressed them directly, or systematically. It was usually small things that Randidly had missed during his training sessions with the Root Avatars he had created. But once he heard the small tips and tricks, they made a lot of sense, and Randidly’s understanding of how and why he did things grew immensely.
As he spent more time up in the training area, Randidly came to the conclusion that there weren’t that many powerful individuals who used it; he didn’t even witness anyone who seemed close to the Artisan level training there. But even though they were not particularly strong, and their skills were basic, most people trained with a dedication and zeal that took Randidly slightly aback.
Some people even seemed to have quite low skill levels, at the point where they wouldn’t be allowed into the Squads of Donnyton. But for an hour a day, they came and trained, dutifully dedicating themselves to the pursuit of the spear.
Feeling particularly foolish, Randidly asked Helen about it. She gave him a look like he was an idiot. “Well of course they would fucking dedicate themselves to the spear. It is the only way to tap into the Aether, you must know the feeling of a spear in your hands.”
Randidly frowned. “What do you mean?”
“To use Aether. You need a spear. Are you… mentally damaged?” Helen said testily, and then walked away.
Randidly pursed his lips, but decided not to pursue it. Instead, when Claptrap stopped by to take some of the armor that he had Engraved recently, Randidly asked him if he knew why this was. Randidly believed that this would be a much more kind source of information.
“Are you not…. Well anyway. It’s the same reason that everyone obtains a class related to the spear. It is rumored to be different on other worlds, but the Aether of this world is particularly inclined to the spear. It has been since the Spearman defeated the Calamity. It is believed that it is a direct result of that clash, it shaped our entire world. So if you have a powerful image about using…”
Claptrap frowned and thought hard for several seconds, leaving Randidly rather confused, before continuing. “...Well like a kitchen knife. I know it’s silly, but imagine using a kitchen knife as a weapon. Or a shield. A shield might be easier. If you have an image of using a shield alone, it is very hard to create a skill, even with your own pure Aether. Because the Aether doesn’t take those sort of images well. But if you involve the spear in your image… even if it is a tenuous connection, skill creation is possible.”
Randidly left the conversation with more questions than he had began with. First, it was slightly ridiculous to Randidly’s mind that most everyone had eerily similar classes here. One of the great draws of the system was the potential to obtain a powerful class with different stat growth rates. Was that just not available on this world? Was it a difference of the Cohort, like Earth obtained an updated version of the system?
Second… the fact that the Aether could be better suited to certain types of images for skill creation was disturbing. Was it really just that the Spearman was such a powerful individual that he had changed the Aether of an entire world? And what did that entail, shifting the Aether like that? From conversations he had overheard, Randidly had gleaned that there was an Aether Spring at the core of the world, that fueled growth here. Was it a change in that spring that affected the world?