Chapter 153.2: Connection

Chapter 153.2: Connection

PART 2/2

“The Spell’s supposed to be used with a bunch of slaves, yes,” Index said. “The idea would be you just fit a group of Classed Humans with some Enchanted gear to ensure they can’t betray you, hit them all with a permanent bond, and then boom. Free regeneration in all three areas. And since they’re Humans and can be reasoned with using, say, threats to themselves or their family, you wouldn’t even need to keep them in a cage or anything. Alternatively, this could be used by a leader of a country or something, stuff like that. But most optimized uses of this Upgrade would involve using on your fellow Humans.”

That’s...less enticing.

“Yeah, yeah, you probably don’t wanna keep a bunch of slaves around or whatever. Thought you’d object to something like that. Though I do need to say it—don’t get mad at me here—if you use it that way, it is extremely, extremely good. Assuming you can get around legal restrictions—”

No.

“Fine. Again, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t tell you.”

Well, it could be possible to use it in other scenarios, so maybe it could still have some sort of use for me. But for now, what about Hypnotic Bond?

“That one’s pretty neat, too. Got quite a few use cases, as far as I can identify.

Yeah, Index was right. It was obviously nice to have in a fight. In the cases where I could manage ten full seconds of contact with an enemy, the Upgrade would effectively allow me to paralyze them for ten more seconds. And, yes, the Hypnosis would end prematurely if I ever damaged them, but there were still plenty of ways it could be used regardless. I could get away from them if I needed to, I could move out of their sight and, since they couldn’t turn and keep looking at me, hide while they couldn’t see me, or hells, and so on. Even just getting a ten-second break so I could regain my Mana for a bit, maybe activate Regenerate. Which would be phenomenal at times.

“That’s not all,” Index cut in. “Again, pay very close attention to the wording there. It’ll end if you damage the being ‘from a source other than any already-active Status Afflictions.’ So, obviously, that means Sanguine Bond’s own Health drain won’t end the Hypnosis, but also any other Curses you’ve already put on the target. So, if you hit them with a Crippling Chill and then with Sanguine Bond’s Hypnosis, then both of those curses will be allowed to run rampant on them for ten full seconds while you just get to sit back and watch. You basically guarantee you’ll get all ten seconds’ worth of Sanguine Bond., since they can’t possibly move out of range. Plus, yes, the extra regeneration from your Mana/Minute.”

That was true. The way this worked, if I could touch something for fifteen seconds before I used Sanguine Bond, then that meant I could get the full ten-second effect of the Spell without having to worry about fighting back, plus the full effects of any of my other curses. That certainly moved the Upgrade up in my mental ranking of the three options.

And then there were the non-combat applications. Like I’d considered before, there was certainly something about being able to use this for stealth. Sneak up behind someone, just barely touch their arm or something for a bit of time, and then boom—they can’t do anything for ten full seconds afterward. I wouldn’t even have to sneak, honestly. If I just walked up and shook someone’s hand for a bit longer than was normal, they wouldn’t have any idea until it was too late that I was stalling to activate this ability and effectively paralyze them. Quite the Spell to be able to use on an unsuspecting victim. Sure, in combat, I’d only really be able to maintain ten seconds of contact with certain enemies. But outside? If social conditions allowed, I could touch a Level 50, and it’d have the exact same effect. Always useful.

So, what was best out of everything here? ...Well, that was a difficult question to answer. I’d gotten a bit distracted by the flashy effects of Soul and Hypnotic Bond, but Unbreakable Bond was certainly not out of the running. A strict numerical increase in effectiveness was nothing to overlook, especially when it was something as extreme as doubling the duration of the Spell’s effects, plus making it way harder to actually break.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

And, while Soul Bond wasn’t really something I wanted to use with what Index seemed to think was the “optimized” use case, it still had some interesting applications that I could envision maybe finding some way to exploit for way higher regeneration values.

Between the three, though, I couldn’t get Hypnotic Bond out of my head. Once a person was Hypnotized with it, you could move them around and everything as long as you didn’t damage them, so it served as a phenomenal nonlethal way to completely incapacitate someone, which seemed very nice to have now that I was integrating myself back into Human society. As a Classer, there would be a lot of conflicts where I’d want to subdue someone without killing them, and as things were, I didn’t really have many ways to do that. So increasing my options in that respect was great. And even in high-stakes combat, the Upgrade could buy me precious seconds of stall time where I could deal damage to my opponent, drain their Stamina, regenerate my own Health, Stamina, Mana, and also have quite a bit of time to rack up triggers with my newly-gained Talent, Cumulative Catastrophe. With Crippling Chill and Sanguine Bond active, ten seconds of effective paralysis meant twenty triggers, which meant twenty percent more effective Spells. Very powerful, indeed.

That ten-second contact requirement was steep, but still doable. Maybe tough now, but as I Ranked my Spells up more? Crippling Chill and Ray of Frost, if I could get them Upgraded and pushed to Rank 20, would be much better at draining Dexterity and preventing my enemies from avoiding contact—and that was ignoring the fact that it was possible their Upgrades would most likely have options to help reduce the mobility of my opponents even more.

“Oh, well I moved up to Level 20 from killing Xhag’duul, so I got quite a bit.” I explained all of my new abilities that I’d gotten to her, as well as the fact that I’d gone ahead and done the Spell Crystal plan we’d discussed beforehand and Upgraded Sanguine Bond.

“Damn, I’m out for just a single night and you’re getting all kinds of stuff,” Erani chuckled.

“What about you? What all did you get?”

“Oh, um,” Erani suddenly looked embarrassed. “I haven’t actually...made my choices, yet?”

“What? Why?”

“Just, sort of, y’know...” she absentmindedly rubbed the stump that her left arm ended in. “Distracted.”

“Oh, uh, right,” I blinked. Of course she’d have been distracted. I was such an idiot. “Sorry. About, y’know, all of that. I probably could’ve handled that fight with Xhag’duul better, and—”

“No. Don’t.” Erani shook her head, then sighed. “It’s not your fault. Just...y’know. Um, thanks for talking with me last night. When I was, y’know, drunk and hysterical.”

I laughed and reached around her, pulling her into a side hug. “You weren’t hysterical. And it’s no problem. I meant what I said, too.”

She nodded silently, leaning her head on my shoulder.

“Anyway,” I said, “Ainash is taking a break to sleep for now, since she was up all night watching us.”

“She was? Ugh, poor girl.”

“Yeah, we probably need to watch ourselves drinking so we can at least stay sober enough to not pass out on her like that. But I was thinking we could just stick around here for a bit while she gets some rest, and then head out to that nearby town. Shouldn’t take more than half a day to walk there with Expedite.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll go ahead and go through my Level-ups. Need to grab a Spell and a Talent.”

“Nice. You know what you’re gonna choose?”

“Absolutely not.”