The Progress of Three Months Part 2
Before breaking the system though, Nox's new power related abilities had to be discussed. The first was a spell he called Dragon Aspect. Based on the special characteristics he observed on dragons, it, like Mind Veins and Spirit Circuits before it, made a permanent change to himself.
This time though, rather than resulting in a new skill, it merely upgraded the Archon Skill he had gained with the previous two spells. While before it was:
Archon: A mortal who has grasped the power of the ancient enemy and the gods' favored children. Creates a core in place of the user's heart that gradually increases physical abilities over time along with resistances to all negative physical effects. Turns all of the user's magic into spirit magic, drastically increasing all of its attributes. User's magic abilities are gradually improved over time along with resistances to negative mental effects. Continuously recovers the user's health, stamina and Mind. The boost can be further increased at the cost of exponentially increasing strain to the user's body and spirit.
Now, it had changed a quite a bit:
Archon: A mortal who has grasped the power of the mightiest ancient enemy and the gods' favored children. Creates a Dragon Heart in place of the user's heart that exponentially increases physical abilities over time along with resistances to all negative physical effects. User's body turns into a veritable treasure trove with all its part possessing incredible properties. Turns all of the user's magic into spirit magic, drastically increasing all of its attributes. User's magic abilities are gradually improved over time along with resistances to negative mental effects. Continuously recovers the user's health, stamina and Mind at a fast pace. The boost can be further increased at the cost of exponentially increasing strain to the user's body and spirit.
This skill was undoubtedly the one Nox found the most pleasing for it was a skill he gained not as gift from god or was innately born with but instead was one he obtained through his own efforts, research and smart work.
Next was Nox's first great original curse that was on the level of his broken original spells that resulted in the previously mentioned skill. The basis of this curse was one he copied from a now deceased criminal and it was a Blood Drain type curse.
These type of curses bring some special benefit if the user drinks blood but carry some kind of cost as a price. It is a very rare type of curse but there are still variations. For example, the only time this type of curse was shown in the original series was a curse named Kalima who belonged to one of the captains of the kali Familia, Argana Kalif.
Kalima allows Argana to raise her status based on the amount of blood she drinks from someone who has a falna. As there is no limit to how much her status can rise, she can potentially raise her status indefinitely if she wishes to but as a cost, it harshly lowers her endurance stat.
The one copied by Nox was a bit different but all he wanted was to use it as a base for something else, a vampiric curse that was constantly active after being used for the first time. After a lot of effort and even referencing his god given curse the Excelia Burn, which he had only used once for testing and no more, Nox finally succeeded.
Sanguinare Vampiris: Permanently boosts the user through the consumption of blood no matter the source. More powerful sources of blood show greater effects. Consumed blood is stored in a blood pool and can be used to perform "Blood Arts" a special type of magic that does not require slots or Mind. As a cost, the user must regularly satisfy their thirst for blood and if this is not done, they will slowly fall into a feeding frenzy and attack anything on sight. Changes the users physiology to grant several vampiric traits like charm, glowing blood red eyes, pale skin and fangs. These can be disguised however it limits the power of the curse when done.
This was a masterpiece of a curse and although the consequences of not feeding were very steep since it would rob him of his reason and send Nox into an uncontrollable frenzy, the benefits were also incredibly good, regardless, this would only help him but to help others get stronger, although he could technically adapt this curse and his previous spells to work on others, Nox had other ideas.
His objective was to artificially increase someone's excelia gain something that would undoubtedly crumble the balance of the world if made public but this was something Nox had no plans of sharing. First of all, he already had a skill that could interact with excelia, something already unheard of in this world.
Excelia was the foundation of every adventurer's strength, the falna's only purpose was to allow a mortal to absorb excelia and convert it into strength so if Nox wanted to increase the amount gained, he had some possibilities.
But with his current resources, he singled out the most feasible way of the all.
"If you don't have enough . . . You can always steal from others who have it!" Was the conclusion he reached and so a new vicious curse that would cause Nox to be condemned by the world if discovered, was created.
Excelia Drain: Drain the excelia stored in and adventurer's falna, even excelia already integrated into the target's status can be stolen causing a loss of stats and possible level down if used to much. Can only be used on an unlocked status and the target must not pose any resistance.
The conditions of use were definitely a great bother but unfortunately necessary to make defying the laws that govern this reality possible. The process was to knock somebody out, use Status Pick on them to unlock their status and then use the curse to steal their excelia.
There were plenty of falna bearing criminals around the world and Orario was a place where quite a few of them lived so Nox was not lacking in victims at all but he still needed to figure out a way to use this excelia. Since it belonged to someone else, it couldn't be directly absorbed unfortunately so he still needed to figure out an alternative way to use it.
This came in the form of a potion/magic item hybrid, Nox called EX Pot. Analyzing his own exceed skill and creating a potion that was basically liquid excelia and applying the Mystery development ability to it, Nox created one more system breaking masterpiece.
The effects were simple, when an individual drank an EX Pot, not only would their status be temporarily enhanced, increasing their power considerably but it would also greatly increase the excelia gain of the drinker.
While the effect was not nearly as powerful as his Exceed skill and didn't allow the drinker to surpass the S-999 limit of their stats, it could still temporarily bestow an enormous boost in growth rate to someone. This was something to be kept in absolute secrecy but Nox wondered what would be Ais' reaction if he told her he had something like this . . .
Still, this solved Lili's slow status growth problem and if he got more subordinates in the future, they could also use this method to grow stronger and not become useless to him because he grew at a tremendous rate.
Nox's constant defiance of the laws of reality and how he used this to benefit Lili so much scared her. She feared for his safety and feared she would disappoint him. he had given her so much that she was terrified of not living up to his expectations but noticing this Nox calmed her down and gently held while patting her head, thinking.
'How cuuuuteee! What a cute creature my Lili is!' He thought posessively.
Lili tried to kiss him in the heat of the moment but she was only close to her thirteenth birthday so Nox stopped her while saying.
"That's for when you get a little bit older cutie~" With a teasing tone.
This somewhat bummed Lili but since he promised she would only have to wait a while before he accepted her affections, she wasn't all that discouraged.
Armed with Ex Pots, Lili went grinding in the upper floors with Ash, Luna and Phoenix has bodyguards just in case.
Speaking of tamed monsters, Nox successfully obtained a Mermaid. Thus he had gained a renewable source of Mermaid blood and a servant capable of sound based crow control through potent charm. The process of "taming" her was quite "special" however . . .
She was actually a Xenos! The same one from the Light Novel except younger and even more innocent. Nox saw her being attacked by another monster and saved her after which she seemed intent on following him around and lovingly clinging to him.
It seemed she had yet to meet another of her own kind which was a stroke of luck for Nox since he doubted she would come as easily if she had. Her behaviour was totally that you an innocent maiden in love which made Nox feel a bit bad about taking her blood despite the fact she was more than willing to give it to him. Still, he made sure the process was as painless as it could be.
He had also successfully found two safe zones in the Water Palace, one big which seemed to be used by Xenos so he kept away and a smaller one that seemed unused. It could only be accessed from underwater and Aqua made her home there. With his newly improved expertise in item making, Nox also upgrade all his hideouts with security measures, and some extra amenities.
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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!
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You'll get to read up to FOUR week ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.
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