The Pinnacle Warrior

Given what the older woman had said about working at night, as well as her stated ability to train people, Astrid expected Liora to be a Rogue or Assassin. Definitely something more complex than that, given her unwillingness to share specifics, but that was, she was sure, the base Class. That surety was shaken when, before the party left, Gabriel told them, “Remember, there are no monsters nearby.”

When the beast showed herself, Astrid realized how little she understood.

Though she couldn’t tell exactly what kind of monster it was, Astrid had a pretty good guess as to the general type of creature that greeted her, Felix, and Muti that night.

A nearly ten meter long serpent twisted through the trees outside of Neverwood, its scales matte black. It had two arms near the front of its body, each one tipped with cruel, ripping claws, each one heavily muscled. The body was sleek, though its tail was hooked with a barbed stinger, similar to a wyvern’s. Its face was draconic, though the bottom jaw had a split in the middle that, when it opened, allowed the mouth to open into a massive rectangle that could almost certainly consume hundreds of kilograms of flesh in seconds. Then, from its jaws, when it loomed over the party, acid dripped and began sizzling on the mossy ground not far from where they all stood.

As soon as they saw it, all three of the Wanderers threw themselves into action, Astrid speeding herself up with Body Surge while Felix stomped forward, Guardian’s Avatar giving him enough bulk to start to wrestle the lindwurm. A Shadow Aura from Muti covered them, and, in the darkness of night, every one of the three physical fighters’ weapons was covered with black mana.

Felix smashed his shield into the monster’s face, using mana to pull it towards him. The dripping acid, yanked by the mana, hit the center of his shield and started sending out massive clouds of smoke that billowed into his face. The living wood couldn’t last long against it, but he continued to supply it with mana as he roared and slammed his axe into the monster’s shoulder.

His axe bounced off the defenses, and Astrid raised her hammer to smash into the same place. As her weapon fell, it bounced worthlessly into the air as Muti’s blades struck the back of the monster’s head.

“Enough, children,” a rasping, rumbling voice came out of the lindwurm’s head. Its massive mouth hung open, the jaws not moving in accordance with the words it spoke.

All three people jumped back, and Astrid blinked twice, suddenly understanding what they were here to do.

“Liora?” she asked, disbelieving.

“The very same.”

The polite words being wrenched from the monstrous throat were painfully incongruous, but the entire time, Liora hadn’t moved. She’d been sitting up straight, her tail coiled around for support, and despite the three physical fighters’ greatest efforts, she hadn’t been shifted even a centimeter in any direction.

“Now, are you ready to learn?”

Astrid stood there, staring for several seconds, giving herself time to attempt to adjust to this massive shift in what she was expecting. Before she could say anything, Muti spoke up.

“I can see that this form would provide a qualitative boost taken in an effort to increase stealth and burst damage. However, you are not using any weapons. How would you teach others to use weapons like this?”

“You have heard of a Pugilist, have you not?” Liora asked. “This is much the same, in that I have gained many Skills to suit me like this. This form is the culmination of a single-minded focus on creating the greatest burst damage I was capable of. I have several Skills rolled into each other, which complement my ability to fight with this form’s many natural weapons. In addition, I am able to hide myself in a way that, much like you, Barbarian girl, gives a bonus to attacks made from surprise or from unexpected directions. That compounds with the venom in my tail.”

Without thinking, Astrid glanced at Felix, where he stood like a giant beside her. Given that he was, under the influence of his Skill, over twice her height, Astrid couldn’t help but compare his physical transformation with that of Liora.

“I will answer no questions regarding my Class or how I became capable of making this transformation specifically,” Liora spoke up again as the party stood in silence. “However, I’m happy to give instruction regarding boosting Skills, their longevity, and most other questions that you have. If you are beginning to cross the line into information that I consider to be private, I will let you know. Otherwise, consider me an open book.”

Astrid nodded slowly before she asked, “Do you consider it better, as we are going into Mithril with maxed or nearly maxed out Skills, to focus on potentially gaining a Boon or instead on Skills that will combine with each other?”

“Both have their benefits,” Liora answered, her body language somehow becoming stiffer, like a teacher’s. “I will say that my ability to transform like this is because of various Skills combining upon an evolution and this transformation is not the result of using a variety of Skills at the same time. I took steps to qualify for such a Skill and Class combination before that, but it was only upon evolution to Mithril tier that I was able to experience such a drastic transformation as I currently am.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question,” Astrid grumbled. “A simple declaration of one or the other would suffice.”

“Very well,” Liora spoke, somehow the way she held her draconic head communicating a sort of experienced air that made Astrid feel like a child. She balked against it, but Liora simply continued, “If you know what it is you want to do, attempting to gain Boons at higher levels comes at a sacrifice of specialization. There are additional ways that one can gain additional Skills, known to very few, that can allow those at the higher tiers to gain Boons. However, I repeat, these actions come at the sacrifice of strengthening your specialization. I will detail the most common and easily achieved method to you now.

“You have said that you are satisfied with your Skills as they are, with a single additional Skill to select. As you are Steel tier, that signifies that you have six Skills which have reached their maximum tier of Steel. With the final Skill, if you, Astrid, were looking simply to maximize your possibility for gaining an additional Boon, then I would suggest that you take a mana manipulation Skill, or even a spellcasting Skill. This would guarantee that, if you select an option that focuses on increasing breadth of Skill options, you have a Class offered that would grant additional Skills upon selection and evolution. 

“If you were to then select a broadly inclined magifighter Class offered, and if you also slowed your advancement to the next tier to ensure that you spend a large amount of time practicing your mana manipulation or spellcasting, then, upon evolution, I would expect that you would be offered at least eight unmerged Skills in one of your offered evolutions. Ideally, if you had practiced enough, all of these would be offered at Mithril tier. Thus, so long as you continue spending a copious amount of time practicing, you could gain even two boons, so long as you focus entirely upon gaining Skills that are at the highest tier.”

Liora let her brief instructions settle over the three people who stood in front of her, and Astrid felt her lip curl at the reality that that choice would present.

“So, if I wanted to be a generalist, that would be one of the easiest paths to get boons at higher tiers.”

“Exactly,” Liora said, the lindwurm somehow affecting the pose of a shrugging person. “There are people for whom that is appealing, people similar to Olafson. He thrives off of having varied Skills that work together to one broad goal of craftsmanship instead of merging for specialization. In addition, he spends much longer than a combat Class does in his progression both as a consequence of his Class and his aims. He has the luxury of spreading himself wide and taking the time to shore up the depths of his strengths. If you had the desire, you could do the same, to spread yourself wider and to slow your progress significantly.”

“To reach the peak of Steel this way,” Astrid thought out loud, “I’d probably want to take at least another two or three years to even get to level 90 and see what evolution options I have.”

“If I was to advise you in doing this, I would suggest that you take a decade,” Liora spoke with finality, “only allowing yourself a single level per year. After all, it would be a dreadful waste to have spread yourself thin in such a way only to evolve and, at level 91, only be offered Skills that are too low of a tier to continue on your path towards claiming boons.”

Astrid didn’t try to hide her unhappiness with that possibility. To spend almost four times as long as she had to get to level 80 now to get ten more levels was a suggestion of torture.

“I would not suggest that you do it, given that you are satisfied with your build,” Liora said with a dry, rasping chuckle. “However, that is how people have learned what boons are available at higher tiers—they very specifically take steps to ensure they are offered as many high-tier Skills as possible. Olafson finds the common term used to apply to such people to be particularly humorous: a skill monkey.”

Astrid allowed herself a short smile at that, and it wasn’t long before she and the others all agreed, “We’ll stick with focusing on magnifying and maximizing our current builds.”

“That is, for the vast, vast majority of people, the ideal choice. So, I suggest that, over the coming days and weeks, each of you decide exactly what you want to focus on as your specialization, and then ensure you are practicing to gain Skills in accordance with that plan. At any time, if you want advice with regards to the specialization of your build, I will be so prideful as to recommend myself as one of the premier experts on absolute focus on a particular capability.”

Astrid looked at Liora for a few seconds, nodding in appreciation as to what she was saying.

“I’d guess there are very few people who will disagree with you on that.”

Liora didn’t answer verbally, her draconic face just twisting in a vicious smile.

“Those who did find themselves entirely incapable of expressing themselves now.”

Muti perked up at the very obvious declaration of violent retribution, and she smiled as she leaned forward, ready to begin instruction. Before she could ask, though, Astrid had a burning question that she couldn’t help but ask.

“You said, or at least Gabriel did, that you specialize in burst damage. However, we’ve been here for a while, and you’re still in this form. How long can you sustain it?”

Astrid immediately regretted her undeserved comfort that she felt near this person so much stronger than her that she was unable to even force her to move. Liora surged forward faster than Astrid could react to and stopped, her head mere centimeters away from Astrid’s face.

After so much time fighting dragons and wyverns, Astrid had subconsciously thought of the lindwurm as perhaps a bit unimpressively small. Even when they were still Iron tier, the Wanderers had killed plenty of feathered serpents, which were about the same size as Liora’s form. The monstrous head in front of her was the size of her torso, and somehow, Astrid hadn’t been able to smell the potent acid that dripped from the monstrous maw from far off. Now, she could feel, even from the relative distance that she stood from the aura, the hairs in her nose begin to melt.

“Are you asking to pry into my weaknesses and vulnerabilities?” Liora asked, the words’ tone conversational, even as she threatened.

“You said to ask questions if we had them,” Astrid replied, her mouth going dry as Muti disappeared in a puff of shadow.

“I said I will answer no questions regarding my Class or how I became capable of making this transformation. It seems to me that you’re willing to ask questions directly in contrast to my previous commands.”

The lindwurm took a deep breath in through both nostrils, the dark scales misting over with a type of mana that Astrid wasn’t quite sure what it was. Then, as Astrid tried to decide how best to react, Liora backed away and seemed to center herself as she pulled back.

“My apologies. You spoke with genuine curiosity and bore no ill intent. You weren’t looking to pry into my secrets, you simply voiced a question.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Astrid nodded. “I wasn’t thinking about the limitations you’d extended towards us. I just was thinking about how limited Felix’s and my burst Skills are in duration. If this has anywhere near as high a mana cost as Benedict’s, which can last longer, then you would be running out of mana soon, but you seem quite comfortable to stay like this. I was just curious about how I might adjust my own Skills to work in a similar way. Sorry for poking where you told me not to.”

Liora continued to lean back, not in a manner of retreat, but instead of taking her own space, and after a few seconds, she nodded. “Your apology is accepted, and I hope that my own will be as well. And the question you ask isn’t one whose answer is unknown to my enemies, though there are aspects to it that they do not know the answers to. With regards to the somewhat publicly known information, I will tell you this: at night, this is me.”

That information made Astrid’s eyes widen. The thought of half of her time being spent under the influence of Body Surge was amazing, but the trade-off couldn’t be forgotten either. If she spent half of her time like that, what kind of flexibility would she have for using Body Surge during the day?

“As to how you may adjust the performance of your Skills to reflect my own, well,” Liora said, cocking her head to the side with a strangely Human movement, “you need to press your Skills to perform in the way you want them to in the long term. To verify which are abilities granted by Skills and which are more limited Skills. Even those limited by their essence can be adjusted bit by bit through consistent effort.”

Astrid cocked her head to the side, wondering what she meant by that. Liora continued, “There are influences to your Skills’ performance from the Class you select, as well as the ways that you use a Skill before evolution, and more,” Liora said. “As you are well aware, Skill usage defines upgrades and evolutions. Now, do you have thoughts on which kinds of Skills you would like to work on tonight?”

***

The days blended together as the Wanderers worked with their new mentors. The days passed with plenty of practice under the mentorship of these powerful individuals, but they also took time every day to spar with one another as well as to explore what their existing Skills were capable of. 

“Can you make it dangerous, though?”

“It is dangerous, leader.”

“Directly dangerous to enemies that are in the area. Can you change the mana to cut them? For the mana to be poisonous to those you dislike?”

Muti snarled in response to Astrid’s question and turned on her heel. She vanished with a puff of shadow mana, but Astrid knew what was coming and ducked under the ambushing attack from her Barbarian friend. She smashed her elbow into Muti’s solar plexus, and the air burst from Lethal Shadow’s lungs. Blindingly bright mana flashed in front of Astrid’s face before she could continue to press the attack. 

While blinded, Astrid stretched her awareness out from her body, Acumen-aligned mana heightening her perception of the world around her as she blocked Muti’s next two punches. As her vision recovered, and Astrid blinked the spots from her vision, she recognized that she was currently inside of Muti’s Shadow Aura. And, per Astrid’s own request, the Barbarian had twisted the Skill’s effect to blind the Human.

In the darkness, Astrid remained on her guard, but within the influence of her shadow, Muti was unstoppable. Blistering combinations of punches slammed into wherever Astrid was unable to protect herself. After several rib-cracking blows, finally, she managed to catch Muti’s fist in her hand. She squeezed as hard as she could, forcing her opponent to pull back, giving Astrid just enough time to flood her helmet with mana.

A wave of frost burst out from her and dispelled the Shadow Aura, leaving Astrid no longer blinded and unprepared for her friend’s next attacks

“Okay, we’re done for now,” Astrid said. “That’s good. That’s a massive change to have made in less than two weeks of practice.”

Muti grinned, though Astrid could tell that the Barbarian was thinking about what Astrid had suggested, about making the aura more threatening without considering the substantial boost it granted to Muti.

“I’m going to take a break until tonight,” Astrid said, further explaining what she was doing. “Skandr had some things he wanted to talk to me about, and I think I have a good enough idea of my specialization to get some advice from Liora.”

“I will not be there tonight,” Muti said. She explained no further, but she did turn to the rest of the training pit the party had been allowed to practice in, her blades flickering through a series of attacks as she drilled herself. Astrid smiled and nodded, turning towards Michel’s inn. Maybe she could get a bath in before she had to answer Skandr’s questions. The only way to know was to just go ahead and jump into the water already.