174 Chapter 120: Getting to Know Each Other's Abilities

After leaving the meeting with Laura and the others Joshua made his way to the blue print shop and got them all identified. It wasn't anything to special this time around, but the simple fact that every single blue print that he did get identified didn't turn out to be something completely useless was a sign that everyone else seemed to have the right idea with Joshua being the one to get all blue prints checked going forward and during dungeon runs having him open chest. Most of the blue prints turned out to be for new weapon designs that could improve a lot of their alliance members' current equipment. He also came across a couple blue prints that were for some new potions that he had never heard of before so he knew Madalyn was going to love that. By the time he was through he had all sorts of new prints to give the alliance, but he'd give it to Nathan another day, for now he just wanted to head home to get some rest. He planned on meeting up with his new group tomorrow and figuring out things from there.

When he got home he was the only one there since Amy had gone to spend time with Naomi like she usually did whenever she was off. His parents would probably be back soon, so he wasn't too worried about that. Later that night all of his family got together and had a nice meal as they discussed how things were going for all of them. Afterwards Joshua got a good night's sleep before waking up early getting a shower and forcing his little sister to do the same. Now that she planned to join him on his leveling with the rest of his group he was going to make sure she didn't slow him down because of her aversion to waking up early in the morning. Of course she was like a zombie for a little while, but Joshua had no problem getting her going when he threatened to eat her breakfast.

After a nice meal and a farewell to their parents Joshua and Amy both headed out to Joshua's normal training grown that Marlow had left him. He had given the rest of the group access to the place so that they could make their way there on their own time. It didn't take long for the rest to start showing up. Lilly was the first to appear since she was so used to getting up early with Joshua at this point and Aito was the next to follow since he was used to getting up so early because of his time in the military. The last two people too show up not to soon later although they both looked like they had just crawled out of bed with their tired eyes staring at them. Adrian was probably out messing around while Henry may have just been staying up late planning his designs for James Town. Usually when he put his mind to something he'd dive right in, not slowing down one bit.

"Well now that we're all here we should get to know each other's abilities so that we can work well together going forward." Joshua said getting a knowing nod from everyone else. He was the first one to open a part chat so that he could send over his information first. Joshua looked down at his stats and smiled a bit at the progress he had made.

[Level 44

Job – Aura User

Soul Beast – Fenrir

Stats (parenthesis number is the bonus stats from levels and Job) [Bracket numbers are skill modifiers]

Strength: 1170 (111) = 1281 x [1.3] = 1665.3

Vitality: 1170 (111) = 1281 x [1.3] = 1665.3(3586.8 with aura hardening)

Dexterity: 1170 (111) = 1281 x [1.3] = 1665.3

Intelligence: 1170 (111) = 1281 x [1.3] = 1665.3

Wisdom: 1170 (111) = 1281 x [1.3] = 1665.3

Will: 1850 (179) = 2029x [1.3] = 2637.7

Luck 104 (0) = 104]

His stats had grown quite a bit during his last expedition and they were definitely the type that would go a long way into allowing him to fight alongside Adrian and the others who were still quite a few levels ahead of him. Lilly had her pets which made her extremely useful in just about all situation at this point. For the moment Joshua knew that his sister would probably be the one lagging behind the rest a little bit, but even so she could fight well above her level even if it wasn't to the same extent as Joshua.

"Damn Joshua, you and Lilly have really come far to be this strong already, plus with all these abilities I'm sure you're exactly what we've been needing all this time." Adrian said with a big grin. "Now I can finally stop trying to play the role of tank in the group. It was never my thing anyways."

"Yeah just having someone else fill that role at the moment will greatly increase the speed at which we can go through dungeons." Aito said with a small smile. "It'll also free the rest of us up to do as much damage as possible."

"Even though I'd say your job doesn't specifically put you in the role of a tank it does give you more than enough benefits to fill that role at the moment." Henry said as he was analyzing all of the new information. "Plus Lilly's partners can help out in that regard against creatures that are too big for you to completely grab the attention of alone."

"Well then you've seen my stuff so let me get a look at all of your stats and skills." Joshua said getting a nod from everyone else except Lilly who had already shown him all of the stats and skills for both her and her pets. The first person that sent their stuff over was Amy and Joshua already had a pretty good idea of the abilities she would have. As a martial artist her physical capabilities were all kept balanced giving her a times three factor across the board, but her intelligence and wisdom stats were lowered a bit sitting at times two only. Her will was a times four though which most likely meant on an even playing field she'd have the second highest will in the group next to her own brother.

Her soul beast of course helped her out in other regards. It gave her a couple of major things. The first was the penetration ability on all of her physical attacks. This made it so that she could make armor less useful against her. Armor could still block some of the force behind her attacks, but not nearly as much as it was meant too. The second ability she gained from her soul beast that was important was an attack skill that allowed her to aim against the insides of an opponent with any of her other skills. This ability was her most devastating one and empowered all of her other skills in a way that most couldn't have. Her soul beast also greatly boosted her Dexterity by increasing it fifty percent which was a lot. It made her extremely quick and responsive when fighting.

Her job of course gave her a few skills but nothing on the same level as her soul beast since it was a low level job and not even a unique one. It empowered her when it came to hand to hand combat and allowed her to focus the aura in her body whenever she was fighting. It was nowhere near the level of an aura user, but it was still quite useful. Most of her skills outside of that were basic and amounted to things such as a heavy knock back blow or a hit with phantom hits behind it at a far weaker strength that wasn't on the same level as Joshua's echo strike, but could come in handy when used with other skills.

The next person Joshua took notice of was Aito and he wasn't surprised that the job he ended up taking was gun user. It wasn't a unique job, but it seemed like the perfect job for him. Stats wise Aito had a higher dexterity than most other jobs sitting at times four while his strength and vitality were only times two. Surprisingly everything else was times three which seemed a little odd to Joshua, but he got a feeling there would be a reason for that down the line.

Aito got a couple of interesting things from his soul beast of the hawk like creature that Joshua had been told of before. The first ability was greatly improved eye sight and hand eyed coordination. It didn't seem like much when you first thought about it, but for someone who was prone to using guns it made him far more deadly in everyone else's eyes. The other ability that his soul beast gave him was something similar to Allen's ability, but slightly different. Allen could slow down his perception of things in a moment of danger. It was useful, but not on the same level as Aito's ability. Aito could slow down his perception of things at all times, just not at the same drastic degree as Allen, but Aito had the dexterity and perception to actually take full advantage of it. It made him a nightmare from a distance and he had a ton of tricks up close if necessary.

Aito had a ton of skills that could be used with his guns, but for the most part they were basic skills like with Joshua's Rail Bullet, but among all of these skills he had three that stood out and were the ones that were probably his main way of fighting. The first was a ricochet skill that could bounce any type of shot off the first thing hit and all of the force from the collision would be used to send the attack out in another direction based off of the trajectory. This meant that the shot wouldn't only get a surprising angle on the opponent, but would also be more powerful. The next skill was a reload skill which allowed him to quickly shift bullets from his inventory into the gun he was using at any time which would make his flow of combat consistent while also allowing him to change his form of attack on the fly. His last special skill was a pressure shot where he didn't actually shoot out a bullet from his guns, instead the force from the pressure could be used to push off an enemy that got to close or to send Aito moving in a different direction quickly.

Henry had some interesting stats and skills since it was a class that Joshua hadn't seen with anyone else he had come across up to this point. He had stats that were obviously geared more towards a mage. All of his physical stats were just times two while his mental stats were times four. His will was a times three which meant he was good under pressure unlike most mage classes. His soul beast which was some kind of weird octopus looking thing gave him two important abilities which had nothing to do with stats or offensive skills. The first was a higher processing speed mentally. This allowed him to think of solution quickly during combat. Usually people when fighting fought based off a feeling or a routine that they had learned to use over several years of combat. It's why the saying of "you think too much" is often said while fighting or playing sports in certain situations.

The heightened mental processing allowed Henry to be the epitome of that statement, except his thinking would actually be useful since he'd be able to process all of that on the fly and use it accordingly. It worked extremely well with his job of a combat enhancer. The second thing his soul beast gave him was the ability to multitask within his own mind. It was as if he was able to process two different lines of thought at the exact same moment. All in all his soul beast was making the most use of Henry's genius and pushing that to a whole different level. His job for the most part gave him the ability to learn supportive spells which he had a wide assortment of that could help out in all sorts of different situations. It also made it so that any boost from his spells would last longer and be stronger. His shields would be more powerful and last far longer than ones casted by other mages and that went the same for all of his other spells.

Adrian was the last person that Joshua checked out, but he had a good idea already of what the sword maniac would be good at. His soul beast of which looked similar to a praying mantis gave him two important abilities that really helped him out as a swordsman. The first was the fact that it greatly heightened his natural reflexes which meant a lot in combat. He would be able to respond to attacks before the usual time frame of when a creatures mind would be able to react. Even a slight boost in this department could greatly change the capabilities of a fighter. Joshua had heighted reflexes because he was used to taking on visual cues of the opponent when fighting them and was able to use that to predict what type of attack was coming, but Adrian could now do that without having to watch his opponent at all. He would just be able to react faster without even having to predict muscle movements.

The other skill his soul beast gave him was a boost to his physical stats whenever using bladed weapons. Since his stats were the same as any other swordsmen which was a fairly balanced class with only a small dip in vitality and mental stats, the boost would go a long ways as long as he was fighting with his swords. Of course he had plenty of sword skills such as the energy slash that Joshua had gotten, but he also had several little skills that could help him do extra damage when doing a combo. The two main skills that were different in his collection of abilities though were a movement skill known as shadow steps and a sword skill known as weak point break.

The shadow steps was a movement skill that would boost Adrian's overall speed for a few minutes while leaving after images behind wherever he walked. This would allow him to confuse his opponents while going in for the kill. The weak point break though was probably how their entire group dealt with heavily armored enemies up to this point. It was an ability that made it so his blows would do extra damage whenever hitting a weak point on an enemy to a frightening degree. It made it so if you left an opening Adrian could make the damage from such a situation far higher than usual.

After reading through everyone's stats and skills Joshua had a big smile on his face. "Well this ought to be fun." He said as he pulled out some weighted bands. "Now let's get to training."