Chương 458: Songs of Survival (V)

Though I didn't really have a 'style' up to this point, I realized it's probably time I settled on one, and it wasn't going to be an in-your-face swordsman. While it was fun and I imagine there are few feelings in the world quite like the adrenaline rush of perfectly dodging something and retaliating with an attack of your own, I'm okay not feeling that way. I've seen a few cultivators by now fight at range, so it was possible; heck, I had one in my own little entourage, Light.

She poked and prodded from a safe distance, though I wasn't quite ready to embrace the art of tentacles, so I'll have to head in a different direction. That being a bit of wizardry. Unlocking a form of flight will come in the next realm, but I still wish I had at least a superficial level of it, so that's the first thing on the menu. Fiddling around with the system for a bit, I realized it was possible, but probably not worth it.

Not only would all 400 points go into my ability to manipulate Wind Qi just enough to 'float', from the description, it sounded extremely gimmicky and like it would consume Qi like mad. Oh well. Can't win them all. Moving on... The next order of business was something I knew I had been missing for a while: an AoE attack. To be fair, not even the kids seem to have it; they mostly improvise by turning an attack into an area attack.

Even I can do it, to a degree, but it's functionally different from something meant to be an area attack. Besides, most, if not all, of these arts will be exclusively mine, including the supportive, 'extending' method I plan on tacking onto Enduring Eternity. Creating an attack that's an area wasn't all that difficult--the system already had options for that--but it just being an area attack wasn't enough.

Special Art with 4 forms and profound internal logic, using Fire Qi as a base with an added moderate infusion of Fire and a range modifier of Long Ranged Projection altogether added up to 225 points. Adding the special damage type of Explosive AoE in a large radius was another 60, and a lingering fire field after was another 50, totaling 335 points. I also added a few inherent debuffs to it, namely Qi Flow Disruption and Disorientation, totaling another 30 points.

With the last 35, I used up 30 by adding low resource consumption. With 395 points spent, I did a lookover but couldn't really see anything out of the ordinary. In fairness, I didn't really spend much time tinkering and looking through options, mostly just selecting the first ones as they came up in relation to area damage. This was more of a 'test' art, anyway, meant to see the current limits of my creation and whether I should wait to break through and upgrade the system yet again.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Ah. It happened again. I forgot to name the goddamn thing. [Congratulations, Host, on creating the 'Infernal Torrent Sutra' Special Art] [...] [Infernal Torrent Sutra] [Type: Special Art] [Rank: peak-Myth tier] [Host Comprehension: Minor] [...] [Command over the flames has always been one of the most lucrative callings for the martial artists. Those disarmed by the sharpness of the blade or the bluntness of the fist sought answers elsewhere and oft found them in meshing elemental Qi with existing movements. The art, however, goes beyond merely emulating the nature of flames and invites them into combusting creation, bypassing the martial restrictions of mimicry. Even with minor comprehension, it allows a cultivator to conjure a torrent of infernal flames and either rain them upward or downward in an area of 400 yards in radius. While individual arrays of fire lack great prowess, the combination is enough to overwhelm almost anyone who is unprepared] [...] [Creation Points Value: 395/400] [Comprehension Difficulty: Transcendent] [...] [--Creator of Myths has been triggered] [Trace of the Dao of Flames has been imbued into the art. Those touched by the flames have a high chance of having their Qi ignite internally] [...] [--Tinkerer has been triggered. A special effect has been added] [Enduring Flames -- extends the duration of the torrent from 10 seconds to 30. A patch of flames will persist on the ground even if there is nothing to burn for another 30 seconds] [...] [Creation Bonus: Ignition Talisman] [Ignition Talisman (Epic) -- sparks a fire at a desired location. The source of ignition cannot be located]... alright. Not bad for a first try. I didn't love it, despite having a lot of luck in making it, namely because it was utterly indiscriminate.

Considering that almost all kids fought in the melee, this wasn't the kind of art I'd ever use outside of pre-battle shenanigans. A decent opener, at least. I think. I won't know until I test it, but I really don't feel like testing it here and letting everybody know there's somebody to rob. From the description, though, it does sound like it'll be a wee-bit of a nuke. My mind was already on the next 'experiment' as the extra reward kind of reminded me of it--invisibility.

Almost every RPG I ever played had a very specific build that tended to trend toward the strongest side of things, which was the stealth archer. Kill things from so far away and from such stealth that you never even trigger combat, technically. Now, this isn't an RPG, and there's no such thing as 'not triggering combat', but the temptation is high. Just being able to sneak around unseen might be enough to ensure my survival in this place, but there were some hurdles to overcome.

Luckily, I already had a decent amount of experience building arts to hide things. One of the first ones (in general) I ever made was the one for Long Tao that he had long since either upgraded or abandoned. Combining that with another bit that's slightly less obvious--the art I made for Rayce to hide projectiles--might be enough to create something... unique.

Not to toot my own horn, but there's probably either nobody or very few people in the world who understood light as well as I did, and it's not as though I understood it that well. Just knowing that light bends and distorts things probably puts me in 0. 1% of knowledge. Most of the projected 'cloaking' tech back on Earth all had to do with manipulating light more so than anything else. So, I have to create a 'duality' of sorts: a light-bending principle and Divine Sense escaping principle.

I don't actually think I can make just one art to cover both, but Enduring Eternity has already proven to me that I can create 'string arts', so creating two to essentially act as one is likely in the realm of possibility. Just imagining it, hiding somewhere and just unloading nukes on the unsuspecting... hey, maybe I did kill all those people, after all.

There was either something twisted in me all along, or my brain's become so twisted by this world that it's filled with anticipation toward testing the limits of stealth killing in this world. Huh. Maybe having kids do all the dirty work all this while really was the wall I needed to not go too nuts.