Chapter 250 (1/2)
Congratulations! The Patron of Ash smiles on you! +10 to all stats. Your body was not refined by the Black Mercury, but totally remade, cast in ash and reconstituted. You have learned the Skill Ashes to Ashes (A) Lvl 1. The sun rises on you, a changed man. Go forth, and spread the power of your Patron.
Congratulations! You have endured the Trial of Ash and become anointed. By enduring the visions, you have achieved a lasting inner peace, and have seen your path forward. Wisdom and Willpower +10. Do to synchronicity, your skill Agony has evolved into Anguish (Un). All skill levels have been retained.
Ashes to Ashes (A): Your body has now been baptized by Ash. As such, in dangerous situations, you can return to ash, avoiding most attacks and reforming soon after. High mana cost. Range and speed of reforming increases with skill level. Mana cost decreases very slightly with skill level.
Anguish (Un): Produce waves of pain from your body. Effects also now include extreme wariness and confusion. The mental aspect of the damage is greatly increased from its original form in Agony. Range and damage increases with skill level.
Randidly began to laugh. This… this sort of boost, as well as the two skills… Although he hadn’t tried them out yet, he could basically get the gist of them. And overall, all he could think, was-
“Powerful…” Randidly whispered. And he truly believed it. With this level of strength, he had come one step closer to being able to give Azriel what she needed. The all around increase in stats were incredibly powerful, and would hopefully give him an additional edge.
But then Randidly grimaced. Although now that he thought about that, he remembered the vision he had of Drak. The ability that he showed, the oppressively high skill levels, his ability that was pushed to the limit of those under Level 25…
It would become an endurance contest. He simply needed to push until the shallow layer of Aether he obtained through his class connection at level 25 was insufficient to support his strength. For that, Randidly needed to survive and resist for as long as possible… or to simply strike forward and crush Drak.
Randidly did his best to wipe his grin off his face. One thing at a time. In addition to the bonuses of stats and skills, Randidly also had gotten quite a few skill levels just from his time in the Trial of Ash. His Pain Resistance had increased by 3, his Fire Resistance by 9, his Mental Strength and Battle Intent by 6, Rejection by 3, Absolute Control: Freeze by 2, Struggle by 4, and Living Blood and Superiority by 10.
Which left Randidly with quite a decision, because he now had 99 PP remaining, and quite a few paths to choose from, including some new ones.
Heretic XII 0/???, Nexus Traveler Cohort 5 0/50, Path of Control 0/200, Basic Mana Engraving 0/100, Journeyman 0/150, Experimenter I 0/50, Anguish I 0/125, Steps of the Godling I 0/50, Intermediate Battle Intent 0/200
Out of hand, Randidly dismissed Heretic and the Nexus Traveler. In addition, both Basic Mana Engraving and Experimenter were probably interesting paths that would give him useful skills, but Randidly was on a time crunch, and what he needed was immediate strength.
Aside from Anguish, which Agony appeared to have transformed from, both of the new additions were interesting. Steps of the Godling… immediately Randidly thought of his inner world, and how they had a strange amount of worship for him. If it was a path that gave him skills to interfere in his Soul Skill, that was important, but it wasn’t useful now. Battle Intent would probably give him a large increase in power, but it was difficult to see whether it would give him much in the short term. And the 200 PP price tag…
Which left Path of Control, Journeyman, and Anguish. Path of Control Randidly had long had, but he had been distracted by other paths in the meantime. It also was the most expensive, but if it provided quite a bit of boosts to his Control stat, it was probably worth it. After all, the most workable plan about pushing Drak to the limit involved keeping him distracted with spells.
Journeyman was one of the core paths, and would probably give skills and stats rather easily. But there was no proof of that, and the main benefit was usually that stat per level gains. As for Anguish…
Randidly’s experience in the trial made him realize how necessary it was to strike with all weapons at his disposal. Even if he were to hurt some people in the area, it would be nowhere near the damage he would do to Drak. And anything to cause him increased discomfort, because that would deplete his Aether more quickly…
It was also a weapon that Drak wouldn’t expect. So Randidly put his PP into Anguish. In a pleasant turn of events, every 10 PP would earn Randidly 10 Health, Mana, and Stamina. It was a nice boost to his base stats.
Plus, putting the PP in gave him both the blessing of Cleansing Rain and Murderous Cold. And this time Randidly was sure that they were slowly changing, because on the first one, his concentration permanently increased by 2%, and for the second blessing the amount of free stats he received was 8. Most of those free stats he put into Perception, so he would be able to keep up with the attacks of Drak.
After receiving everything, Randidly looked at his stats.
Randidly Ghosthound
Class: ---
Level: N/A
Health(/R per hour): 1322/1633 [+118] (643 [+27])
Mana(/R per hour): 649/1627 [+5] (202.75 [+9])
Stam(/R per min): 1233/1645 (247 [+9])
Vit: 179 [+9]
End: 87