Chronicles of the True Wizard

World Event

Congratulations on being among the first 10,000 to hit D grade. You have been invited to the first ever World Event. You may refuse this invitation at any time, if you do not refuse the invitation, you will be considered as attending. At the time of the world event, you will be teleported to the event area.

D Grade Evolution Log

Your evolution is complete. A log of the changes is provided for convenience. Please read through to avoid future confusion as some skills and abilities may have been reallocated.

Upgrading Race…

Allocating Stats…

Assigning Profession…

Allocating Stats…

Assigning Class…

Allocating Buffered Levels…

Allocating Stats…

All Racial Traits 100% compatibility.

Successfully transferred.

All Skills 100% compatibility.

Successfully transferred.

New Class Skills Granted.

New skills?

Felix opened his class skills screen and pulled up the new skills. The first one, was expected, though Felix wasn't sure what form it would come in.

Class: [Soul Harvest (Epic - Novice I) Upon slaying an enemy with a soul, you may harvest their soul, placing it in your soul space for processing. The soul will then be processed for a period of time that varies based on your soul's strength. You may currently hold (1.2) souls in your soul space for processing, based on it's size. Once processed, a portion of their soul is integrated into your own granting you a portion of their stats. The gained stats are dependent on the strength of the defeated soul and your processing efficiency.]

The second skill was something unexpected, but definitely welcome. He had many skill slots he wasn't using so, a skill with a high rarity that was also useful was always a welcome addition to his skill set.

Class: [Predator's Stealth (Epic - Novice I) This skill aids the user in moving without triggering the attention of any onlookers. It will silence sounds, mask visibility naturally and dampen smells. This skill is heavily dependent on and scales with both your own stealth and your perception and dexterity. If you are already stealthy, this skill will make you that much more stealthy. This skill will not make you stealthy if you are bad at stealth. This skill will not make you undetectable, with a high enough perception, this skill will be surpassed.]

A few moments into reading the second skill, Felix was interrupted.

Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Dragon's Dance of Death (Special - Novice I) A martial art designed with the explicit intent of being as lethal as possible. This fighting style was developed by an ancient faction of assassins from another universe. This skill will track your proficiency with the skill and will increase the effectiveness of your strikes and movements in accordance with your proficiency.] Note that this skill conflicts with the general skill: Combat (Rare). Would you like to exchange the conflicting skill with this one?

Yes. How did it know all that? Is it reading my mind?

Yes, almost definitely, but… in this case, I told it. It asked so it could make a skill.

You talk to it?

Sometimes, sorta?

Grim, what's with the Novice I thing? I can guess what it means and does, but does it carry over to the next grade? Why didn't it exist in E grade? Is it only specific skills?

Check your other skills.

Oh, good point.

Felix quickly glanced through all of his skills and noticed that they all now had a proficiency, consisting of a tier and number, at varying stages.

Skill List

[General] (4/5)

Memory Palace (Special - Initiate IV)

Soul Garden Meditation (Epic - Initiate XXI)

Scan Literature (Epic - Initiate XVI)

Core Energy Infusion (Rare - Novice XVIII)

[Class] (5/5)

Bond Familiar (Uncommon - Novice IX)

Mana Sight (Uncommon - Novice IV)

Dragon's Dance of Death (Epic - Novice I)

Predator's Stealth (Epic - Novice I)

Soul Harvest (Epic - Novice I)

[Profession] (2/5)

Tongues (Rare - Novice III)

Crafter's Intuition (Rare - Novice II)

You mind posting a question to find out the entire ladder?

Already did.

I'm kind of surprised Mana Sight and Familiar carried over. I thought of those as Caster type skills.

I don't think your class falls into any particular archetype. Actually, for all we know it could be a Caster type class.

I guess.

That was fast.

Got an answer already?

Yeah. Skills have Rarities, as you know, as well as proficiency or tier. Those, in order, are: Novice, Initiate, Apprentice, Journeyman, Proficient, Adept, Skilled, Expert, Master, Grand Master, Sage, Arch Sage.

Holy shit that's a lot of tiers.

Within each tier is the level or grade which goes from I to XXV.

Aaaaand that's more than double the amount.

It's not as bad as it sounds though, it's not quite 300 levels to max them out. Each stage has 25 levels, but you don't need to get to 25 to increase the tier, most often you don't get all the way there. Basically, in the E grade, skills are filler and meant to allow the user to figure out what they want to do. Most people don't stick with those skills for very long. Once you're in the D grade though, which is really long, you have to start thinking about which skills you want and how you want your build to look.

That's why they didn't have a proficiency in the E grade?

Exactly. As you use skills and get better with them, the level will go up. Depending on how you use the skill it may take more or less levels to increase the tier. For example, take Combat. If you had trained with it for a long time, it would take a while to increase in tier because it's so diverse. If you used the skill to specialize in swords, it would increase in tier and evolve into a sword skill, keeping some of the levels. Specializing into swords would mean you only needed to get to level 10-15 or so.

The more diverse and complicated the skill, the more levels it takes to improve it?

Yeah. Also how hard it is to do. How long would it take, how complicated is it outside of System intervention. Becoming a Master level in Combat, which includes just about every weapon and fighting style ever…

Would be SUPER complicated.

And time consuming.

But you could just take Combat all the way to Arch Sage?

You could, but there is one Arch Sage per skill. To get there, you need to be the best at everything to do with the skill, so you would have to be the best at everything that has to do with combat.

Which is essentially impossible.

Yeah. The other option is to expand the capabilities of a skill. If you push a skill to do something it normally doesn't do, it can gain that as a property when it increases in tier. You can also combine skills, which will often lose tiers but open up more skill slots. Supposedly, skills are also super important. If you had weak skills, you could totally lose to someone a tier below you with high rarity, highly leveled skills.

Wait, skills can evolve and change that much?

Yeah. I suspect when you expand your soul space to be big enough to contain the garden, the skill will change. If you used it as a prison, it would probably evolve in that direction.

Huh, I thought I would have to find new skills or drop mine in favor of other skills to change or expand their functions. This makes things a lot more interesting.

Yeah, you should probably think through what skills you want or what you want your skills to be able to do. Just give yourself a general idea that you can work towards. It's not impossible to change it up later, but it will be a bigger investment and more of a set back the longer you wait.

I'm pretty happy with everything I have so far. I do need better skills for my profession though. Those are mostly place holders for now. Any ideas for those?

Probably going to have to find a list of skills, like a book or something. Then we can go through it and get an idea of what exists.

Yeah, that's not gonna happen for a while I bet.

Probably at that school, Eramith, if we ever get there.

Sounds good. I'll add it to the ever growing to-do list.

What's on it right now?

In priority order, get used to my body so I don't trip and kill myself in a fight, open the kraken box thing, start gaining stats by working out or modifying my body, modify body to have mana channels, practice the Dragon's Dance of Death, learn manual soul harvesting and tailor the skill to me, expand soul space, figure out some sort of mage armor.

That all?

Well, there are a bunch of other things but they're minor, like the staff and following up with Martin about planes. Also not entirely essential, if I never got around to them, I'd be okay with that. Some of those I'll have to wait for the next world council anyways.

What about that trinket? It was supposed to grow with you? Did it evolve alongside you?

Oh shit, I'll check.

[D - Legendary] Charm of the Soul Harvester

[Charm][Soul Bound]

This charm is made to absorb souls from creatures when they are killed. It will absorb a portion equal to your overall contribution towards the kill. This charm will contain and preserve the souls so they can be later retrieved. This charm may hold up to 100 souls at a time.

Current Souls:

Colossal Mountain Turtle (100%)

Griffin (100%)

Royal Elk (100%)

Desert Worm (100%)

Alpha Yeti (100%)

Giant Gator: King of the Swamp (100%)

Tropical Roc (100%)

Stone Giant (100%)

Great Sea Serpent (100%)

Kraken: Emperor of the Sea (100%)

I guess it's fine. I was hoping for more from a legendary charm.

It's awesome. It let's you hold out on expanding your soul space, and holding souls is kind of ridiculous in it's own right.

Really?

Yeah, for most people, storing souls in their soul space would put them at a constant risk of being possessed. If you ever stored too many, if their combined strength was more than your soul's, they could mutiny, take over.

That's fine, but that won't ever be an issue for me, will it?

Nope.

I guess that's good in it's own right.

It's not Legendary level, for you. For most people I suspect it would be. It also fits your class perfectly. It's also not trivial to expand most people's soul space.

Yeah, it makes the class easier to use, for most people.

Makes it possible to use, for most people. Opening your soul space is typically something you do way later on in life anyways. Having it big enough to store multiple souls, at your grade, I suspect that is extraordinarily rare.

So this class would be impossible to use for most people?

They wouldn't even qualify to have it offered, and by most I mean the vast majority.

So this class isn't a filtering mechanism, it's more of a test?

Little of both, there are also a ridiculous number of people in an entire multiverse, especially one that's existed as long as this one. It's possible for someone else to open your soul space for you too.

How?

Usually powerful parents force open their child's soul space. It hurts their soul, but not permanently. It also allows the child to carry around treasures and valuable items without risking them getting stolen.

Can't you just use your inventory?

I'd be willing to bet there are skills to steal from other people's inventory.

I suddenly have the urge to move everything into my soul space.

It doesn't preserve things the same way, so maybe leave the cooked Parroukan behind.

The first thing Felix did was to continue practicing the basic steps of the Dragon's Dance. He wanted to open his kraken box, but he was slightly worried about having issues when he put it on and movement was still a little uncomfortable for him. He also realized, thinking about the kraken box, that his other equipment was likely failing like the amulet had. After thinking about it for a few seconds, he stripped naked and continued practicing the steps. It was much more comfortable not having to feel the exact texture, slight pressure, temperature difference and friction of the clothing on his skin at all times. He also didn't care if Nova or Grim saw him naked, neither were even animals, let alone humans.

Felix spent half a day practicing the steps and slowly getting much better at it. His muscles would get sore pretty quickly, but with some energy and conscious effort, he was able to quickly repair them and the soreness vanished. He could theoretically continue endlessly as his energy was being restored by mana but he eventually stopped when he felt more comfortable with his body.

He had mostly tuned out the feeling of his heart tensing, blood flowing, lungs contracting, cells dividing and was about halfway towards usable senses. Then, he started to really put his comfort to the test. He dropped to the floor and rolled around on the stone, taking it the feeling of the cold hard stone along with his joints forcibly moving and skin scraping. He then proceeded to inflict minor wounds, both testing the durability of his skin and body as well as his tolerance to pain. He started with a dagger, poking the surface of his arm and it took a lot more force than he expected to cause damage. As he pushed the dagger, the pain gradually increased until it suddenly spiked when the dagger finally pierced his skin.

The pain was as he expected, a fiery sensation that jolted through his body from his arm. It was immense but it was also more refined. He expected the particular pain sensation he was used to where his body told him to stop, back away and avoid that thing again. That familiar sensation was there, but now it was intricate. Alongside the pain, he also felt the cells being torn apart, some dying, some being split. He felt his immune system and cells immediately react and jump on the wound to mitigate the local disaster. He felt every little reaction throughout his body and he felt like he understood pain so much better than he had before.

It was intricate and in depth to the point where the pain was entirely bearable simply due to the distraction of all the information that flooded him. He also found that he could simply turn off the pain sensation if he wanted, but he figured that would be dangerous so he simply tuned it down to half or so. The rest of the sensations he left. Pulling the dagger back, he took control of his body and recklessly spent energy to seal the wound right in front of his eyes. He paid attention and accelerated the process until there was no sign of the wound at all. It had taken a lot of energy to do so, but if he practiced, it could save his life at some point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .