Soon, Leo felt a sharp pain all over his body, similar to the pain when he first awakened the ‘Talent Swallowing Ability’.
Nevertheless, compared to the pain he endured when awakening, the Talent Swallowing Ability is 10 times more than the pain he is enduring right now.
‘Ding,
A new system ability [Talent Merging Ability] is unlocked.
After a few seconds, the sharp pain subsided as he received the system notification, which surprised him.
He didn’t have to check the information on his newly awakened ability because Leo could tell what he could do with it from the name of that ability alone.
‘Ding,
With this new ability, the host can merge talents and skills with similar levels and effects.
‘Ding,
The host can merge the talents and the skills without dissimilar levels and effects; however, the chances of failure are very high.
‘Ding,
If the merging of two skills or talents fails, the host will lose one of the skills or talents involved in the merging. So, please be careful and try to merge only skills and talents with similar levels and effects.
Even though he could tell what he could do with the new ability, Leo needed to check the complete information.
However, before he could even ask the system about it, a series of system notifications resounded in his head, explaining what he could and should not do with the new ability.
‘I will merge the similar skills and talents first before continuing the mission.’
Leo wanted to see how powerful skill or talent would become after merging. So, he checked the user interface for similar skills and talents.
‘[Silver Skin] and [Skin Hardening] belong to the defence category and have the similar effect.’
Soon, Leo found the two similar skills.
‘Since both the skills are level 1, I can merge them without worrying about failure.’
Looking at his user interface, Leo focused on the two skills [Silver Skin] and [Skin Hardening].
‘Ding,
Do you want to merge [Silver Skin] and [Skin Hardening]?
‘Yes.’
Leo nodded as he silently thought, ‘Since I am following the two conditions mentioned by the system, I don’t think the merging process would not fail.’
Similar Levels and Similar effects are the two main conditions mentioned by the system. So, Leo was confident.
‘Even if the merger fails, I don’t mind losing one of the skills.’
Leo was willing to risk having one powerful skill at the cost of losing one average skill.
‘Ding,
Congratulations to the host for successfully merging the two skills [Silver Skin] and [Skin Hardening].
‘Ding,
The merged skill is [Dual Silver Skin Hardening]. Please check the information in the user interface.
There was no pain whatsoever, as merging two skills took only a few seconds.
‘[Dual Silver Skin Hardening]’
Leo revealed a slight smile and hurriedly checked the changes in the newly merged skill.
‘Ding,
Skill Name: Dual Silver Skin Hardening (Level 1).
Effect: When the skill is activated, two thin silver-coloured layers appear on the user’s body, increasing his defense by 20 percent.
Note: The effect of this skill can be stacked with the effects of the other skills.
‘The defence doubled.’
Leo revealed an excited smile because the skill’s effect increased from 10 percent to 20 percent. Moreover, it is currently at level 1. How powerful would his defense become when he upgraded it to level 9?
Just thinking about it made Leo excited.
‘Most importantly, the effect of this skill can be stacked.’
This was the main reason for his excitement as he checked for other similar skills.
Since the system said that he had multiple similar skills, he wanted to check whether he should merge them or not.
‘[Fire Claw] and [Wyvern Claw] meet the criteria, right?’
Even though the effects of these two skills were a little different, Leo could tell they could be merged.
As for the level, both are at level 8.
‘Ding,
Do you want to merge [Fire Claw] and [Wyvern Claw]?
‘No’
However, Leo instantly rejected it.
As long as he used these two skills a dozen times each, Leo could use the experience points from devouring and upgrade them to level 9.
So, he decided to merge them after both the skills were upgraded to level 9.
‘I need to upgrade these two skills to level 9 first and then merge them.’
With that thought in his head, Leo focused on his next targets.
‘Let’s kill them.’
Soon, Leo found a group of rank 9 water spiders in one of the spider dens in the distance.
‘Die.’
[Fire Claw]
[Wyvern Claw]
His left hand had materialized a fire claw, whereas his right hand materialized a wyvern claw.
Leo used both his hands to slash more than a dozen water spiders.
‘Ding,
The host killed 12 rank 9 water spiders and gained 3600 [Promote points].
‘Ding,
The host devoured the 12 rank 9 water spiders; however, he didn’t awaken anything.
‘Ding,
The skill [Dual Silver Skin Hardening] is upgraded to level 4.
‘Ding,
The host’s skills [Fire Claw] and [Wyvern Claw] had been used 100 times each.
‘Ding,
The host can use the experience points from devouring corpses to upgrade them to level 9 now.
‘Finally, I can upgrade them to level 9; however, I need to consume many rank 9 beast corpses to upgrade both of them to level 9.’
Since the chances of failure in merging would decrease if both the skills had the same level, Leo had to upgrade them.
However, Leo knew he had to consume many high-level corpses or a supreme-ranked corpse.
‘Let’s see how long it will take to upgrade them to level 9.’
Nevertheless, Leo didn’t lose motivation as he decided to kill more water spiders.
‘Ding,
The host killed 8 rank 9 water spiders and gained 2400 [Promote Points].
‘Ding,
The host devoured 8 rank 9 water spiders and…
‘Ding,
Alert: The host has triggered the awakening effect of the [Absolute Devour] three times by devouring the water spiders. The chances of awakening a skill or talent by swallowing water spiders are decreased to one percent.
‘What?’