Chapter 21: The luck of the draw.

Name：My class Death Knight is just barely legal… Author：
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Chapter 21: The luck of the draw.

All three options were interesting, to say the least. Tier 5 skills were certainly a qualitative change, each option gave me advantages that would all but triple my strength in their own way.

[Dark revival] gave me incredible survivability, but I wasn't sure if the system would recognize me as my own bonded necromancer. The fact that it went into more detail than just "as long as you have mana" was worrying. On top of that, my mana situation wasn't exactly stable right now.

[Dark Phantasm] was the option that personally excited me the most. Temporary intangibility would allow me to go toe to toe with tier 4s at tier 2! The mana consumption was a massive downside though. I wouldn't be able to use it consistently before I actually reached tier 4 in my mana core skill, if that was even possible anymore.

With a wince, I looked at my status.

Name: Arthur Titles [Dark prodigy] Class: [Death Knight] LVL 25 Strength 104 Constitution 100 Dexterity 100 Intelligence 25 Wisdom 50 Affinity 299 Free stat points 8

Skills:

Passive: [Overloading Dark core](dissipating)(3%), [Dark sight](9%), [Berserker Swordsmanship](13%),

[Growing lifespan](N/A), [Mana physique](N/A), [Mental resistance](N/A)

Active: [Dark augment](100%), [Shadow apparation](53%), [Battle meditation](21%), [Flexible senses](N/A)

My skills had grown a little, but my core skill was actually slowly dissipating. I could feel it unravelling itself inside of my chest. The whirlpool was slowing down, and more and more mana was escaping its clutches. I would have to choose fast.

The final option was [Dark Form]. It was the least exciting one, but the fact that it became a passive skill catapulted its value above the others in my opinion. Because it didn't require mana to use, even in the worst case scenario I would be left with something. Still, reaching the higher tiers without a core was nigh impossible.

There was only a single tier 7 that didn't use mana, the sword sage. He was an old man that lived in a far-off country as a hermit. If the legend was to be believed, he tiered up to tier 7 relying solely on his swordsmanship skill, setting him apart from the other legendary warriors. There hadn't even been a single tier 7 in the Roa kingdom since the founder who disappeared thousands of years ago, so their rarity spoke for itself. Still, I wasn't confident in recreating his feat. With my current mana state, I simply didn't have the room to gamble. I would need to tier up quickly if I wanted to keep any of my mana-generating capabilities.

Mentally, I chose [Dark Form].

Ding! [Dark augment] has reached tier 5. [Dark augment] turns into [Dark Form].

[Dark Form](0%)

Tier 5 skill.

Your dark-aligned mana is regulated and follows a set path as long as it remains inside of your body. Regulated mana does not dissipate or expel naturally.

The more mana is regulated, the stronger this skill becomes. Your body can withstand a large amount of mana.

While mana is regulated, you heal incredibly quickly.This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

While mana is regulated, you ignore pain.

While mana is regulated, you gain physical strength, dexterity and constitution based on a stat multiplier, which in turn depends on the amount of regulated mana.

When I read the description, I roared in fury.

"What do you mean 'regulate mana'? I have no mana, you damned system!"

Right as I was about to continue shouting, I noticed a change in my body. My core was no longer dissipating! It didn't recover either, but it wasn't degrading. The whirlpool just floated there, no longer spinning or drawing in mana. The rest of my mana that was still in my body from breaking my core was now neatly flowing again, without my core doing anything to pump it around my body.

It slowly flowed along my veins and limbs, like a lazy river. All the mana followed the stream naturally, as if it knew what to do.

When the circular system completed itself, I felt my strength increase again. My augment had activated on its own! I supposed it was my [Dark Form] now. There was just one big issue with this saving grace. The amount of strength I received was nowhere near what I had come to expect from my augment before. Was the skill just weaker? No, it would have mentioned that, and the skill description is more impressive, meaning that its limits were above that of [Dark augment]. Despite this, I felt like I was using my augment at 20% output, which just wasn't enough to deal with another tier 3, even if it was another low-level one.

After pondering on this topic for a while, I concluded that I just didn't have enough mana in my body to increase the benefits further. I tried to draw in mana using my [Mana physique] and [Battle meditation], but I had no luck. For some reason, neither worked. I couldn't draw mana into my core like [Battle meditation] always did, while mana I drew in using [Mana physique] wouldn't be accepted by my [Dark Form] skill as my mana. If mana didn't pass through a core, it wouldn't be recognised by the system as 'your' mana, after all. It would remain categorized under 'ambient mana'. The small amount of mana I drew in using my physique simply dissipated after a while.

There was a silver lining though. Because my core was no longer destroying itself, I didn't need to tier up here. Returning to the guild first might be the best option right now. The guild master was resourceful and knowledgeable, he might be able to help me out. Tiering up using the resources of the guild would definitely give me a better chance at solving my mana issues.

With a new goal in mind, I stood up and walked to the entrance of the cave, finding Michael sitting there, hiding behind a rock.

"You okay there kid? My business is finished for now, so why don't we return to Reito right now? We're about a day away on foot. If we leave now, we can make it there by nightfall tomorrow."

He looked relieved at my return. Sitting here alone after tonight's events won't have done his sanity much good. Above all, the kid needed stability right now. I was hoping the guild could give him that.

"R-right now? But it's not safe to travel in the middle of the night! I don't know how far I can still travel either, my feet hurt a lot."

I smiled at him to reassure him.

"Don't worry, we can just take one of the carriages the merchants left behind. You can sit in the back while I keep a look out for any monsters."

Michael looked surprised at that information.

With a slam, he put an ornate chest on the table.

"About a week ago, I sent Doran on an errand to fetch me this. It's your reward for completing the mission. Thank Helios you didn't tier up yet, because this might solve your problem."

My attention was peaking now. The guild leader had something that could heal my core? Did he know in advance that I would fuck up?

He opened the box, revealing a dull grey pyramid with ornate markings along its surfaces. Some of its markings glowed light blue, reminding me of the appraisal crystal.

"This is a [Skill merge Pyramid], a very rare item. The item does exactly what it sounds like. It merges three skills and turns them into a [Unique skill]."

I looked at him strangely.

"Huh? That sounds good, but how does that help me with my situation?"

"I was getting to that, punk! Originally, I was going to recommend you combine 3 of your milestone skills, probably your physical ones. That would combine some of their effects while losing other effects. The end result is a much more powerful skill though. To use this relic, you need to have three skills of the same tier. The unique skill will then be one tier higher."

"What makes unique skills so good? You talk about them like they're definitely worth losing other skills over."

"Well, they have several qualities that other skills don't have. Unique skills can't be affected by meta-skills, similar to mutant skills which are also immune. You don't need to know what those all mean right now, let's focus on the matter at hand. The reason why I originally wouldn't recommend using your core skill in this skill-merge, is that unique skills could technically be anything, meaning that you might have lost your core entirely in return for a skill that needs a core to function. Are you starting to understand the problem now? With your core broken, you have much less to lose and much more to gain, but its entirely possible that you'll gain a skill that's useless without mana. Using an item like this is entirely luck-based. That being said, unique skills definitely count towards your class evolution as well. You have three options: use it now to possibly heal your core, use it after tiering up and hope that your core is healed by the tier up itself, or not use it at all. I'm warning you, tiering up with a broken core will negatively affect your class evolution."

"So, what do you think. Are you willing to risk it?"

With a determined nod, I replied affirmatively.

"Of course. I just don't have any other option right now. I would rather risk everything and make it big, than try to play it safe and lose everything."

He smiled at my confidence.

"Good. I would've been disappointed if you had rejected that option. Melly, get in here!"

A young woman entered the office at the leader's command.

"Bring Arthur here to one of our class evolution rooms, the one we took all of the lights out of."

The young woman nodded with a deadpan face.

"Very well, sir. Follow me, guild member Arthur."

I was led into a stone-cold room, that was devoid of windows. It was pitch black inside, but that didn't bother me. I grabbed the pyramid-shaped metal object, and focused on using it mentally. I wanted to gain a new mana absorbing or generating skill that would allow me to use my other skills, so I decided to combine all of my tier 2 mana skills into a tier 3 unique skill.

Ding! [Skill merge Pyramid] recognised. Use [Skill merge Pyramid]? YES/NO

Affirmative....choose three skills to merge... three skills have been chosen....[Overloading Dark core], [Battle meditation], [Mana physique]....calibrating.......

Ding! Skills lost! You have gained the skill [Dark radiance].

[Dark radiance core](0%)

Tier 3 unique skill.

You possess a dark core filled with dark elemental mana.

The core can passively absorb ambient dark mana incredibly quickly, but has a small total capacity.

The core is immune to overloading damage.

Ambient mana of any affinity can be absorbed and converted into dark-aligned mana with an efficiency of 1000-1.

[Dark radiance core] provides a very large amount of extra power to dark-aligned skills and reduces their mana cost by a minimal amount.

Increase proficiency by drawing mana into the core for prolonged periods of time.

The absurdity of the skill made me shout out loud in shock.

"What the hell!"

Could tier 3 skills even be this good? Its description was as expansive as my tier 5 [Dark Form]!

I heaved a sigh of relief. Though the smaller capacity was a downside, the rest of its properties were fantastic. Now I would just need to tier up.

Right as I was calming down again, I felt an enormous amount of mana rush into me. I had forgotten about the feeling of a core skill settling in. With this skill being a tier 3 unique skill, it would be even worse. Damn Helios, this was about to be a wild ride...