Free Web NovelChapter 6: Global Announcement
Arc crouched over a cluster of mushrooms, plucking one from its stem and bringing it up to his face level to stare at it intently.
He eyed its contours and traced every little detail on it in a way that, if the mushroom had been sentient, it would’ve been freaked out by his gaze.
When—
[Ding! You have learned skill ’Appraisal’!]
[Ground Mushroom]:
Edible mushroom with no nutritional benefits. ƒrēewebnovel.com
Arc shoved the plant into his mouth as he stood up.
The Golden Age world laws regarding skills were, in favor of the players, very lenient. So as that, aside from the system-given Class skills, a player could still expand their skill arsenal through other means as well. And there were three official routes for that.
The first and most common being skill books. These were usually gotten as monster drops from mobs, or as rewards for dungeons and quests.
The second being mentorship—which Arc had just practiced now. A player could learn a skill through repeated practice under the guidance of a mentor who was exceptional with that said skill and didn’t make use of the system skill assist.
But in Arc’s case, he’d been the mentor and the student.
The third—and most difficult—was by creating your own skill. A player could create their own signature skill and choose to keep it to themselves as their signature skill, monetize it by listing it on the Trade Market, or even better; sell the exclusive rights to the ’System’, and it’ll become loot for dungeons and mob drops based on its power level.
The Appraisal skill Arc had just learned would, in a few weeks, become the most common skill everyone would eventually get to learn by chance or practice, due to the vital role it played in letting the player access the strength—level—of an enemy to know if they were to fight or flee.
But that wasn’t Arc’s primary reason for learning the [Appraisal] skill.
He was about to ambush the Silver Wolf den and needed to make some preparations first.
He scanned his surroundings in search of the item he had in mind, and soon enough, he spotted the best candidate for his plan.
[Stick]:
It’s a stick. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
Attacking the Silver Wolf den without a weapon was just asking to be mauled to death. And he couldn’t punch his way through either with just a pathetic 6 points in his strength attribute.
He needed a weapon.
The best course of action would’ve been to craft a wooden spike, but not only did he lack the resources for that—a blade to sharpen its tip—he couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
He quickly began gathering sticks similar in length and width to the first one that could serve as a tall staff. And when he felt he’d gathered enough, he piled them up in a small heap and summoned his player status system.
"Status."
His plan was simple.
He had a Talent that could combine materials to make an advanced version of itself; [E-rank Transmute]. And that was exactly what he planned on doing; combining all the sticks he’d gathered to make a durable staff which would serve as a weapon to beat the Silver Wolves to death.
That’s right.
As someone experienced with the attack pattern of the Silver Wolves, he was confident he could pull it off.
Arc read the description of the [E-rank Transmute] Talent once more, noting it had a very low probability rate of success based on the rarity of the materials. But since he was using just sticks which weren’t even graded by the system, it should work out, right?
He was about to find out.
He grabbed the first stick, then grabbed one of the supplementaries, and taking a deep breath, he willed for the [Transmute] Talent to activate as he jammed the sticks in his hands.
[Failed!]
"Damn!" Arc cussed internally as the sticks disintegrated into ash.
[Do you wish to upgrade Talent: E-rank Transmute?] [Y / N]
"What?" Arc was momentarily stunned, when it clicked with him that he still had the strange Malefic Bloodline which had done something similar for the [E-rank Glorious Seed] Talent.
[The Malefic Bloodline has no use upgrading trash Talents such as Transmute.]
Arc heard the voice and was startled. He spun around to search for the speaker but found no one. Except for the distant sounds of a raging battle, the forest was otherwise silent. That was when he realized that the voice he’d heard had actually been his, and had come from his head. But he couldn’t remember saying anything along those lines.
He could only shake his head and return his focus to the upgrade prompt, as he was already running out of time and had to defeat the Silver Wolf den and return back to the party’s side before they finished theirs.
He clicked the Y option to approve.
[DOMINATOR Talent activating...]
[Please choose a premature Talent to merge with: E-rank Transmute]:
• [Hunger Maw | B-rank]
• [Overclock | A-rank]
• [Tinker’s Domain | D-rank]
• [Loot Sense | D-rank]
• [Dragon Scale | S-rank]
...
On seeing the content of the series of prompts that materialized in his vision, Arc choked on his saliva.
In his previous life, Arc had been fascinated by the [E-rank Glorious Seed] Talent and its ability to upgrade Talents, and so he studied it and came up with a theory.
Each time the Talent was activated during intercourse, usually during his climax, his little sperm heads were replaced or overthrown by these premature warheads—Talents. And when the fastest arrived at its destination in the host’s body, it challenged the already rooted Talent for dominance, and the victorious one between the two devoured the other to evolve itself.
This was why sometimes the host’s—woman—Talent was completely altered during an upgrade, and they had to start from scratch to familiarize themselves with their new Talent.
But with the system prompt now, Arc was made to understand that he could now choose to either upgrade his woman’s Talent or give her an entirely different Talent that’d benefit the both of them.
And what this meant for him was that it didn’t matter if the woman had a nonsensical Talent. If he wanted to keep her, he could simply change her Talent to a good one and max it out.
It couldn’t get any better than this.
Arc couldn’t help but smile at this moment as he quickly selected the [Dragon Scale | S-rank] Talent to be devoured by the [E-rank Transmute] Talent.
[Talent Evolved Successfully!]
[E-rank Transmute >>> S-rank Merge]
Arc repeated the process with the Talents on the list, which kept replacing the lost ones with new Talents.
[Talent Evolved Successfully!]
[S-rank Merge >>> SS-rank Merge]
And again...
[Talent Evolved Successfully!]
[SS-rank Merge >>> SSS-rank Merge]
Arc didn’t stop to admire the upgraded Talent. Knowing fully well the capability of an S+ Talent, he began applying the Talent on the remaining sticks.
It took merging quite a few sticks before the system finally recognized and ranked it, albeit the lowest rank.
[Staff | Common-tier]:
A sturdy stick.
Arc wasn’t discouraged though, and went on overdrive as he began merging it with every stick he could get his hands on, as the ones he’d gathered prior got used up before the Staff could be upgraded to Epic. The distant sounds of battle were a constant reminder that he was running out of time.
When finally, a golden glow momentarily blinded the forest.
[Gaea’s Judgment | Mythic-tier]
...
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT!]
[A Player has successfully crafted a Mythic-tier Item: Gaea’s Judgment!]
