Chương 14

Ideally v-Dueling and rifts would be enough for him to self-fund and keep his independence. As for other options, there were sponsorships, which didn't seem very viable, and Professions, which… might also be an option? There was an empty Card slot in his soulspace right now, waiting to be filled—he hadn't considered the possibility much since his Awakening. This dual Card option exclusive to a tiny sliver of the population—Outworlders, whose soul could support two Cards.

A Class Card and a Profession Card, specifically. Why Outworlder souls couldn't support two Class Cards, or two Profession Cards, was a mystery, it seemed, from a cursory search; the Awakening Stone, which had structured the soulspace, simply structured it this way. Only about half of Awakened held Class Cards, which were to do with fighting. These were your Delvers and Duelists.

The rest held Profession Cards, which were everything else— Alchemist and its sub-types, Smith and its sub-types like Artificer, and so on. Plenty of high earners here, by the looks of it. After skimming a few primers on Professions, he realized— you do still get Levels in Professions, it's the same as a Class. Wait—I could get Levels in a Class, as well as a Profession? And I'd get stats from both? Wouldn't I be incredibly overpowered at my Class Level? Wouldn't pretty much any Outworlder be?

Which prompted a slight detour; it turned out— Kind of? It seemed he wasn't the first to ask the question. There were plenty of answers on Reddit and Youtube videos answering exactly this. It was true you'd get stats from a Profession, as well as a Class, if you had both cards—although Professions seemed to grant fewer, more specialized stats than classes. You also had to select one of the two as your 'Primary' Card, while the other would serve as your 'Secondary' Card.

Secondary Cards granted 50% of the stats per Level. Also, seems like Profession Cards are a little more restrictive with stat allocations than Class Cards. A Swordsmith, for instance, was forced to allocate the vast majority of his or her stats into Strength and Constitution, which might or might not align well with the needs of a Class. The second potential issue with two Cards was simple—it was twice the time, work, and essence.

Time, and work, and essence that could be spent Leveling your Class directly, which was usually the resource-efficient choice. It seems like you'd only select a dual path if the Class and Profession in question are relatively complimentary, he mused. And also, if you had a high aptitude for both. And even then it's rare to see an Outworlder who's world class in two distinct Cards. He was pretty certain he'd be pursuing only a Class. It felt like too many criteria had to align for two Cards to begin to seem viable.

It would've been nice to be an Alchemist, he reflected. Elixirs seemed to sell for quite a bit, and were also in high demand—and several of the richest Awakened in the world were Alchemists. Also, the Alchemist Class split its stats primarily between Wisdom, Intelligence, and Perception. Which meant it'd be highly complimentary with a Mage; he'd discovered a few high-profile examples of Outworlders with this dual setup.

Get to a high level as an Alchemist, and all that extra Wisdom stat would do wonders for your mana pool. Instinctively he very much enjoyed the idea of having a giant mana pool. It'd open up so much casting as a Mage. And it just seems nice to have the luxury. The issue was, as was very clear on the chart he was squinting at on Professions. gov, the official Professions' Association website, the talent requirements for Alchemist were steep. At minimum, Alchemist required Fair Nature affinity and Fair Fire affinity.

With his Slight/Fair Fire affinity, he'd eventually get to Fair in Fire with practice. But he didn't even have 'Nature,' and as far as he was aware, if you weren't assigned an affinity at Awakening, you were out of luck. Ah, well. Almost all Professions seem to have pretty strict talent requirements, he noticed. His brow furrowed. It seems like I barely qualify for any? His strengths were in Pure and Force, which didn't seem to overlap very well at all. Smiths, for instance, tended to require Steel and Fire.

Bowyers, Nature. Jewelers, Crystal. It seemed there were two choices that might suit him. The first was Appraiser, a Profession that identified treasures. All it required was High affinity for Pure mana. Which was relatively steep, as requirements went—most other Professions required 'Fair' affinities; but the Profession did only require a single element, and a ubiquitous one at that. All Awakened had the Pure affinity. The issue was— it specializes in Perception.

Perception was a fine stat, and several high end Duelists specialized in it. If he was, say, an archer-type, he might've been more keen. Also, the day-to-day work of appraising—which seemed to be inspecting and writing item descriptions for unidentified rift or Tower treasures—wasn't the most inspiring he'd ever seen. At first glance, he'd believed this was his only choice. The second option was called a 'Skillscribe.'

The list of Professions seemed sorted by rarity of the affinity requirements, and he'd had to scroll to find it. Skillscribe was sandwiched between a few of the rarer Alchemist sub-professions. He vaguely recalled seeing the term before, although it'd kind of floated out of his mind at the time, since— what in the world is a Skillscribe? I mean—I guess it's in the name, they scribe Skills. Its affinity requirement was— high/very high, Pure.

Which was, true to its position on the list, one of the highest affinity requirements he'd seen. Skillscribing is the art of inscribing mana into a treasure. Its tasks include enchanting treasures and refurbishing Skill Shards. Very rarely, it will involve the inscription of a Skill Shard from scratch, and therefore involves a deep understanding of a variety of Skills and concepts. Skillscribes are among the Professions with the highest talent and skill requirements, since they work with magic in its rawest forms.

It was very straightforward as a description, which was expected since originated from the official website; it was up to him to search, and subsequently discover, that Skillscribing was regarded as one of the most lucrative and prestigious professions there was. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Is that what enchanting is—inscribing Skills into treasures?

It seems like it's very reliant on Pure mana, which seems like it should be well-suited to me. It is fascinating. It seemed to work with mana on a very basic level, which— That has to be useful as a Mage, right? One of its key skills is Mana Manipulation, he realized. I'd get to train one Skill and benefit twice. There's the 'highly lucrative' bit as well… What stats does it specialize in? He wondered. A second later— Intelligence and Wisdom, almost entirely. Its Wisdom ceiling's even higher than an Alchemist's.

It felt like a surprise, but he wasn't sure why— It works with raw mana, of course it's specialized in mana. You know— he sat back. This could really be quite interesting. If he leveled the Card, even with the 50% Secondary Card restriction— I'd have a massive advantage in mana pool and my ability to my use mana, for my Class Level, right? Why don't more mages do this? Probably the talent requirements? It can't be trivial, he acknowledged. Still, the mana gains—the Skill gains, even—seem pretty… Okay.

Even if I wanted to try it, it'd have to be until after next week. There's no way I'll have time before the rift. And I want to give myself a genuine shot for the Rising Stars thing, so it'll be prep the rest of this week. He would've been at the Training Center already if his mind didn't still feel wrung dry. His idea was, he'd rest a few hours this morning, recover a little more, and then head to the facility and see what his body and mind felt like when he was there. No more researching, he decided.

I need to actually rest a bit. It's Monday today, and I have to be at the rift location Wednesday, 11AM sharp… That's really not that much time, is it? Especially with recovery. It'd be a real balancing act, progressing like he wanted and still arriving in shape; he realized earlier, when he was mentally calculating the time he'd have, he hadn't adequately considered recovery time. Was signing up such a good idea? The thought very briefly floated through his mind. And then, right after— Of course.

If I let chances like this slip by, what's the point of even having the talent to begin with? I'll trust myself, and I'll handle it. I've got this. 3 o'clock was when he'd decided to head to the Lake District Training Center, balancing recovery—it was genuinely difficult holding himself back until then. In this time he checked out a few E-rank Build Guides for future build ideas, as well as Youtube build showcases—it wasn't research in his mind, just a bit of exploring.

He also signed up for a v-Dueling account with the League, the organization that oversaw all v-Dueling, including high-level tournaments; it was a prerequisite to v-Dueling live. He signed up for a new IG account while he was at it. He wasn't on social media much as it was, but every pro Duelist had social media, and plenty of newbies as well. The time passed quickly—some of it mindlessly browsing Youtube Skill breakdowns, and then— Back to it.

4 hours later… Alex waved his hand, and willed. A few seconds later, a spear of Pure mana burst into existence. He'd envisioned it very clearly in his mind, and imagined it, and it was there. It was four feet long, and slightly misshapen, like a badly frozen icicle, but still very sharp-looking. Ever since his first proficiency level in Pure Mana, every act involving Pure Mana felt like it took up much less willpower. Or maybe it was because his willpower had also increased, alongside his Intelligence stat?

Probably a mix of both? Two days in, and the pure awe he felt from creating a thing with mana and seeing it simply appear had worn off zero percent. And now for the 'engine.' He was excited for this. He willed again, and a fast-flowing, dark-blue mana burst into existence. It'd taken the better part of an hour and a half to get it to actually 'stick' to this mana spear. But this time when he tried it, the dark-blue mana simply slid into place—flowing over the surface of the lighter spear.

The spear jerked sideways—very much not straight forward, like he'd wanted; it spiraled into the invisible wall at the edge of the station and shattering into a thousand pieces of Pure mana, all which instantly dissipated. A silence. You know, I'd still count that as a success. Was his new mana spear ready for primetime? Probably not, he allowed. As of right now it was probably at least as likely to hit him as an enemy. Still, in the past few hours he'd seen a few breakthroughs.

The first was the ability to quickly—quickly-ish, anyway—create irregularly shaped, crystalline Pure mana objects. Spears, but also strings and spheres. He'd tried a shield, but it had zero structural integrity—it was essentially a caved-in sphere, and he wasn't surprised to find it was several times less durable than a Skill-made Mana Shield. The same was probably true of his mana spear, if put next to the actual Mana Spear Skill.

Still— if I can get it together a little faster, and in the right direction, I'll bet it can still do real damage. Once I get the direction down, call it 'Spear 1. 0.' He wiped a little sweat. Even as is I wouldn't want to get hit by it. Of course he doubted it'd ever be as good as a Skill-made Mana Spear, even if he practiced; a Skill offered too many advantages. But first, getting the best possible spear wasn't really the idea anyway.

The idea was to practice creating a wide arsenal of potentially useful items out of Pure mana which he might be able to use on the fly. Second, he'd searched it up, and the Mana Spear Skill was an E-rank Skill, meaning he couldn't even use it at F-rank. And besides— I'd have to sell my liver on the black market to get the Skill Shard, he thought wryly. Also maybe my spleen. Who knows? Maybe if I ever get the real Mana Spear someday, my practice with fake Mana Spear will transfer.

And if I don't end up getting it—I'll have a free self-made Skill out of it. Save myself a Skill slot. Win-win. At F-rank Cards only had four Skill slots, and he'd already filled three with Swords Proficiency, Mana Manipulation, and Mana Shield. It'd expand to eight Skill slots at E-rank, but that still meant you had to be very intentional with your Skill choices. If you could replicate even 75% of a Skill via pure Manipulation, you were getting away with something.

I'm probably at like 5% with the spear, he assessed. Honestly 5% might be a bit generous— he was pretty sure glass was more durable than his mana spear right now. We'll get there. Force Mana was the dark-blue mana he'd slicked on the spear—a mana type he'd finally figured out a few hours ago. It was the true form of Force Mana, a mana type which included the Swordforce he'd been using on his blade.

Force was really a mana type that pushed or pulled—it was far more than just Swordforce, which seemed more slicing and piercing-focused. Also presents a few opportunities. He'd realized, after seeing videos of a Skill called 'Deflect,' Force could apply to Skills, as well as mana. As in you could potentially deflect a Skill right out of the air, which, when he'd seen it on video, was undeniably very cool. You could also use it to boost your own body's force output, with a technique called 'cycling.'

And you can also 'cycle' Pure mana, I think? After realizing his body was recovering slightly better last session, he'd looked into why; it turned out he was right. Pure mana did actually have body-refreshing properties, and the reason he hadn't been able to make use of them last time was simply because he wasn't cycling the mana right, there was a technique to it. It felt like every little detail he looked into was a new chance to further his mana and Skills.

There's so many directions I could take with these manas. The idea today was simply to tinker and chill a little, which he'd been upholding so far. He'd been a bit more mentally recovered when he arrived at the facility, but— if I push myself today and tomorrow like I did yesterday, I'm going to show up to the Rift at like 30% capacity. It's a recovery day, he'd decided. A few hours in— I do feel a little better than I thought I would, honestly. Maybe I'm adapting to the strain a little?

I want to get this Spear thing today, and ideally Force mana proficiency as well. But rather than try it again at thin air, he felt his shape was fine enough—he wanted to test this live. It was undeniable live dueling was how he'd achieved the most Skills progress. And it's skills-based matchmaking, meaning I'll get put up against a fellow newbie, maybe even a fellow first-time newbie. So hopefully it won't be too willpower intensive. He paused—he didn't like that thought.

If it is shaping up to be another grueling 7-minute-long slugfest, somehow—not sure how another newbie would have that much durability, but if they do, kudos. I'll concede. I have to be ready for the actual life-and-death rift first. Swallow the ego. It was just a mental safety. He didn't expect it to be necessary. He walked up to the station pillar, tapped it. [Live simulation] [Standard training implements] [v-Dueling] v-Dueling, he willed, and the screen flickered. A second passed before it flickered back.

Welcome, user 1arcstyrion, to Dueling Leagues Current ratings: Solo: 400? (provisional) Teams: 400? (provisional) Would you like to Duel? His username, arcstyrion, was a mashup of his last name and Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, which in his twelve-year-old mind had sounded extremely cool. Decidedly less cool years later, but he was also used to it as his username in every game he played, so—it was what it was. Yes, he willed. 1v1 or Solo Queue?

He'd seen 5 versus 5 v-Duels in this very Hall, so he assumed that was what the second option was talking about. If I Solo Queue— he wasn't into Dota or League of Legends, but by his understanding of what the term meant— it's going to throw me into a team with 4 other randoms? Specifically, 4 random newbies? It sounded kind of fun, and also potentially insane. He selected the 1v1 option for now, making sure he had a fresh basic sword in hand as he did. Searching… Less than twenty seconds later— Match found!

1arcstyrion (400?) vs. lugia_64 (416) And his station shifted.