NOVEL WEB Chapter 9 – Talent Trees
Only one thing could save Talia’s life.
The current situation was desperate.
Talia had just been disarmed, and her Hemomancy had stopped working. Since both Blood Siphon and Eyes of The Abyss were useless as offensive abilities, none of her core skills were going to save her life. This meant, as far as hasty choices were concerned, she had to quickly recur to the one thing that could save her life, the last arrow in her quiver, before the monsters would tear her apart.
So, Talia frantically opened the main page of her Akashic Record.
[Name: Talia]
[Age: 16]
[Class: Lifestealer Lv. 2]
[Rank: Novice]
[Primary Mana Channel (Water): Level 0.3 {Dormant}]
[Secondary Mana Channel (Blood): Level 5 {Flowing}]
[Core Skill #1: Blood Siphon Lv. 2]
[Core Skill #2: Hemomancy Lv. 1]
[Core Skill #3: Eyes of the Abyss Lv. 1]
[Auxiliary Skill #1: Missile Swimming Lv. 1]
[Strength: 4]
[Agility: 0.3]
[Constitution: 0]
[Intelligence: 0]
[Wisdom: 0]
[Charisma: 0]
[Free Attributes: 0]
[Talent Trees:
Bloodborne Warrior
Carmine Thunder
Sanguine Guardian
Hemomantic Artisan
Crimson Sage
Life Thief
]
[Free Talent Points: 1]
The one thing that she had at her disposal was on the last line.
[Free Talent Points: 1]
Only getting the right ability from a Talent Tree could save Talia now.
Since her Core Abilities and [Missile Swimming] were useless in her current situation, she needed something that would allow her to either kill the Abyssal Scuttlers or reach her glaive. That was why Talia’s eyes zoomed onto the six Talent Trees at her disposal. Breathing hard and feeling the clicks of the monsters getting closer, she knew that the right Ability would be the literal difference between life and death.
But there was still one problem.
You couldn’t see a Talent Tree's Abilities before unlocking the Tree.
Talia had to choose without knowing what she would get.
She had six options at her disposal, and as far as she knew, only one of them might be able to save her life.
Which is why she immediately discarded [Sanguine Guardian], [Hemomantic Artisan], [Crimson Sage], and [Life Thief].
She couldn’t bet on any of those to guarantee an Ability that would directly save her life.
The choice, following her instincts, clearly rested between [Bloodborne Warrior] and [Carmine Thunder].
Only those two offered clear solutions.
[Bloodborne Warrior] would most likely net her an offensive ability to kill the monsters, perhaps directly, since it was a Strength-Based Talent Tree.
Instead, [Carmine Thunder] would probably offer a movement ability that she could use to get to her glaive or even escape as it was the Agility-Based Talent Tree.
In Talia’s mind, however, there was only one way to go about this.
She regarded [Carmine Thunder] as the superior solution.
While [Bloodborne Warrior] did offer a potential fix, it wasn’t guaranteed it would allow her to survive.
However small, there was a chance that choosing [Bloodborne Warrior] might provide her with a minor buff to Strength or, worse, a weapon-based ability.
Both things would spell her doom. She needed something that would guarantee her immediate survival, not something that would only work in ideal conditions. And most importantly, Abyssal Scuttlers were quick with their pincers, meaning that if she somehow got caught by an ankle or an arm while trying to reach for her glaive, she would be torn apart moments later.
That was why she was already halfway through spending her Talent Tree Point on [Carmine Thunder], hoping for an evasive ability or even just a buff to Agility.
Suddenly, time seemed to still.
Right when Talia was about to make her choice, everything seemed to lose color and she felt her body not responding to her anymore.
She tried to move, twisting her head, unsuccessfully trying to escape whatever had just happened.
Time was still frozen, and she couldn’t do anything until she looked at her Akashic Record again.
[Talent Trees:
Bloodborne Warrior
Carmine Thunder
Sanguine Guardian
Hemomantic Artisan
Crimson Sage
Life Thief
]
What the hell?! Talia thought.
The [Crimson Sage] Talent Tree was shining with an ominous red light.
It shone brighter and brighter, inviting and attractive, putting every nerve ending of Talia’s on fire.
It clearly wanted her to choose it.
But she didn’t know whether this was a good thing or something malicious, like the rest of her powers.
So, she was at an impasse.
Suddenly, though, she felt a hand on her shoulder and two warm lips close to her ear, whispering in a voice she had heard before in her dreams.
Her mother’s.
“Talia, you won’t save the island with [Carmine Thunder],” came the voice, half-sweet, half-stern.
For a moment, Talia didn’t even listen to the words.
She tried twisting her neck, wringing it almost – she was ready to break it as long as she could get a single, desperate glimpse of her mother.
It had been far too long since she had appeared to her in a dream, with words that no one believed when Talia had reported them. Most importantly, her mother had never said a single thing to her that had turned out to be wrong.
And even though Talia knew, on a rational level, that this could be an evil vision coming from her powers meant to destabilize her, she listened.
She listened with all her heart.
“It will be a harder battle if you choose [Carmine Thunder],” said the woman without showing herself.
“W—why?”
Talia wasn’t indeed sure why it would be harder.
[Carmine Thunder] was the only Talent Tree that would allow her to possibly move fast enough to reach the glaive or escape the monsters.
All the other options would be a coin toss – and there was her life on the other end of that bet.
So, why would she not go along with her original option? It didn’t make any sense.
And that’s why she wasn’t so inclined to listen to the voice – not even if it was her mother’s.
“[Carmine Thunder] won’t save Solara,” was the only thing her mother said, repeating herself.
Talia didn’t understand what that meant.
Save Solara?
She was just trying to save herself at the moment!
[Crimson Sage], given its position in the selection, was a Wisdom-based Talent Tree, and she currently had no Wisdom at all! It made absolutely no sense to pick it!
She still resisted her mother’s suggestion, thinking her own strategy to be superior.
“A Hero can never think of themselves first,” her mother whispered.
Then, Talia felt her mother’s presence starting to disappear.
“M—Mom,” Talia squeezed the words out of her half-shut lips in a superhuman effort to communicate with the woman.
“Our time is already up,” she heard the woman sigh and remove her hand from her shoulder, brushing it against her cheek for a second. “You’re strong, Talia. Choose right. Your choice will save those idiot islanders from themselves. And you will also meet—”
The voice dissipated before it could finish the sentence, leaving her alone.
Meet what?
Before she could analyze her mother’s words, she saw the surroundings slowly unfreeze as the Abyssal Scuttlers closed in ever-so-slowly.
She had to make a choice.
And a choice she made.
“Dammit!” She roared, mentally slamming her will and the Talent Tree Point into [Crimson Sage].
[You unlocked the Crimson Sage Talent Tree.]
[New Auxiliary Skill obtained!]
[Crimson Wisdom]
[Synergy Unlocked!]
[Crimson Wisdom has great synergy for Eyes of the Abyss!]
An explanation of what [Crimson Wisdom] did poured into her mind instantaneously as if she had always known how it worked.
[Crimson Wisdom] allowed her to gain deeper insight into [Hemomancy], functioning basically as an intuition-enhancing Skill.
Furthermore, it also synergized with [Eyes of the Abyss], and she instinctively knew that using them together would help her study her own blood magic much better than if she just kept at it as it was.
Thanks to the greater understanding the skill provided, it meant that she would be able to level up all her blood-related skills faster.
However, Talia didn’t see how this would save her life in her current predicament.
Not knowing what else to do, Talia drew from her Mana and activated both [Eyes of the Abyss] and [Crimson Wisdom].
The Abyssal Scuttlers started glowing with weak energy, but nothing else happened. This is why, taken by desperation, she summoned her [Hemomancy] again, trying to create the same razor-sharp blade with which she had killed the Abyssal Cuda. This time, as the blood coalesced in front of her, she saw it pulse and resonate. More importantly, she saw it resonate with a different frequency in each strand as they melded together for the attack.
Taken by a quick intuition, she imagined smoothing these vibrations to the same frequency as the attack formed mid-air.
A large sickle suddenly burst forward, and Talia looked at it excitedly, expecting to bisect the two Abyssal Scuttlers in front of her as she dove to dodge the third’s attack.
However, the two crab-like monsters, impacted frontally by the attack, were simply knocked back. As Talia assessed the damage delivered by her spell, she realized there was barely a dent in their shells, almost as if the attack had never hit them in the first place. They had shaken it off like nothing and were, once again, advancing on her.
And what this meant was that she was soon about to die, mutilated by her pincers.
As she shakily stood again up, trying to summon another sickle of blood from the little blood that remained on her, she suddenly felt like something was pulling at her.
Instinctively, Talia raised her right arm and, without even knowing how she found that her mother’s glaive had materialized in it.
Without wasting a moment to wonder about how this happened not once, but twice by now, she grabbed the weapon with both hands and readied herself.
The first Abyssal Scuttler, the one she hadn’t knocked back, pounced on her, jumping. Talia quickly slid her wrist over the glaive and awkwardly swung the heavy blade toward the monster. Luckily, it didn’t matter that the swing had been pathetic because, thanks to the resonance of the blood she could now control through [Eyes of the Abyss] and [Crimson Wisdom], she finally generated a sharp sickle that finally accomplished what she had been trying to do since the battle had begun.
The monster fell to her sides, perfectly split in two, a terrific feat for someone her level.
Before the other two could reach her again, she swung horizontally, using the rest of the blood she had drawn to create another blood blade that caught the two monsters and killed them on the spot.
[You have slain Abyssal Scuttler Level 4!]
[You have slain Abyssal Scuttler Level 2!]
[You have slain Abyssal Scuttler Level 3!]
Even with her wound mysteriously closing up by itself, Talia decided to use [Blood Syphon] without thinking twice.
[You have absorbed Lv. 4 Abyssal Scuttler Life Force.]
[+0.02 to your Primary Mana Channel (0.12/1 to Level One)]
[+0.1 to your Constitution (0.1/1 to 1 Constitution)]
[You have absorbed Lv. 3 Abyssal Scuttler Life Force.]
[+0.01 to your Primary Mana Channel (0.13/1 to Level One)]
[+0.05 to your Constitution (0.15/1 to 1 Constitution)]
[You have absorbed Lv. 4 Abyssal Scuttler Life Force.]
[+0.01 to your Primary Mana Channel (0.14/1 to Level One)]
[+0.05 to your Constitution (0.2/1 to 1 Constitution)]
Talia looked satisfied with the progress and exhaled as the vitality she had absorbed replenished her stamina.
However, as she turned toward the inner island with [Eyes of the Abyss] still active, she felt her breath get caught in her throat.
Hundreds of fuzzy energy points scuttled around the island, so many she could barely make them out from each other.
Talia deactivated the skill for a moment to think about her next move.
But as soon as she did, something caught her attention from the corner of her eye.
Something glowing on the sand of the Northernmost shore of Solara.