Hyperion Evergrowing

Chapter 144: Core Considerations

The sky skimmer didn’t have individual rooms below deck. Instead it was a wide open space between the reinforced hull and the deck above, the distance between both forced both Leif and the taller passengers and crew to duck, but only slightly. The ‘room’ was segmented not by walls, but by hanging cloth, with over half the space being filled with cargo that was tied to thin metal sheets.

When Leif had asked, one of the crew had told him that the sheets had a weight reducing enchantment, which he supposed made sense. The skimmer rocked to one side, the curtains and loose objects shifting as the vessel was buffeted by air. The vehicle was following the coast-line, utilising the updraft coming from the cliffs below to maintain a comfortable altitude. But that didn’t stop the occasional bit of non magical turbulence from making itself known to everyone on board.

Leif parted a curtain and stepped into the compartment he had been designated, having to stoop lower under a wooden beam to make it more than halfway inside. The compartment was empty, most people were up on deck, and that suited Leif just fine. He sat cross legged in the far corner, and settled down to contemplate his next choice.

A core skill, as he had been taught, was more than just a skill that existed outside of his classes. While it would no longer count towards his skill maximum, a number he thought was around eighteen or nineteen, though it could be more after his advancement, that was by no means the only change.

You have selected the [Grand Action] skill! Do you want to spend 1 core skill point to turn [Grand Action] into a core skill?

Core skills do not belong to any class, and do not contribute to any penalties involving the number of owned skills!

Confirm? Y/N

Leif declined the prompt, just as he had done so several times over the past week. Something that was frustrating him about the system was the lack of information it provided. During skill selection he could only intuit what the different options did by their names and the vague feelings he received when focusing on them. During class selection he couldn’t see exactly what the class perks and attribute growths would be, so picking anything had a certain amount of risk. And now, when selecting his core skill, the system was omitting several key bits of information that would alter the choice of anyone who was informed.

It turned out that Leif was by no means the only person to have these same gripes. Information gathering was a key part of several powerful institutions. From his eventual destination that was the imperial Academy. To information houses that traded, well, it was in the name, and private archives such as the one within the Ahle-ho palace. Finally there were adventurer guilds, and the Twin Heart guild was by no means an exception.

There were two main things a member of the Twin Heart guild could spend their contribution points on. The vault, and all the treasures contained within, and spending time within the guild archive. Certain information was free, such as the general characteristics of a monster the guild had contracted them to hunt down. But in depth class and skill knowledge was not. Leif had entered the archives with Darius, and the usually reserved man had spent over an hour happily explaining every little detail about what the archive contained.

It even turned out that the archive would purchase rare class and skill information for contribution points. Leif did not sell any of his system details, he wasn’t an idiot. Usually anyway. He had bought an information packet about core skills, and then promptly had the purchase rendered a waste when he and Darius visited Nikolas, and the guild-master took it upon himself to go into full lecture mode. A lecture that Leif suspected was more for Darius’s sake than his own, but he wouldn’t complain about the free lesson.

It turned out that the system's description of what a core skill was wasn’t just lacking, but so woeful it bordered on the absurd. The first thing the system failed to mention was that a core skill would be offered a series of upgrades upon being selected. This was a good thing, nobody would complain about getting a more powerful skill, and certainly Leif wouldn’t. But the upgrades didn’t stop there. Upon the completion of any advancement, be it class promotion or passing the next advancement trial at level one hundred, the skill would also change.

The important part of these changes was that they took aspects from all his classes. A core skill wasn’t just a skill that existed outside of a class, it effectively existed within all of them at once. So if Leif chose a core skill, then promoted his [Inspiring Brawler] class, the core skill would be offered an upgrade depending on what he promoted the class into.

Leif tapped his fingers on the wooden floor of the deck, trying to finally come to a decision. The problem he was facing wasn’t due to the lack of options. Instead it was the overwhelming amount of choices. Ultimately he would need to pick something with as much room for growth as possible. Something simple, something that he constantly used, and something that he was comfortable with changing multiple times as his level increased.

You have selected the [Grand Action] skill! Do you want to spend 1 core skill point to turn [Grand Action] into a core skill?

Core skills do not belong to any class, and do not contribute to any penalties involving the number of owned skills!

Confirm? Y/N

[Grand Action] was the right choice. Objectively it was correct. It perfectly met all the criteria. It was simple, constantly in use and had a near limitless amount of potential. But not being able to pick [Aura of Benevolence], [Consuming Aeons], [Font of Life] or any of the other skills that tied his abilities together felt like giving up the chance to see something spectacular.

When he had brought up picking the [Aura of Benevolence] skill to Lars, the man had firmly shaken his head. An aura skill was something you had to embody, to slowly but surely mould yourself into over time. Having one’s aura rapidly undergo changes every few levels was counter intuitive. Leif agreed with his reasoning, Lars had time and time again proven his expertise on the subject. But…

It feels wrong not to pick it. He thought, sharpening the tips of his fingers slightly to scrape shallow lines into the deck. I’m instinctually gravitating towards this, even if I know it's not the right choice.

[Font of Life] was likewise recommended against. Any skill with an associated rank wasn’t recommended as a core skill. Constant changes would slow down one’s ability to upgrade its rank, even if the skill itself would gradually become far more powerful.

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Something was yelled from the upper deck, and a moment later the skimmer climbed higher into the sky. For a moment Leif tensed, but he didn’t sense any alarm from the skimmers crew so he settled back down. He knew travelling by skimmer would shave several weeks off a voyage by boat, and several months if he went by cart, but that didn’t make flying several hundred metres above the ground a comforting prospect. Not that I would die from the fall. Unless I fell into a deep part of the sea.

Leif tapped the floor, sending a ripple through it like water. I could pick [Wood Manipulation]. It could be fun. But no, that was a foolish idea. The only skill other than [Grand Action] he could reasonably see himself picking was [Gold Iron Physique]. He used the skill constantly, it was simple but had several avenues of possible advancement. It had been an unchanging companion for the past year, its only boost in power coming from his steadily increasing attributes. Though Leif no longer needed to use the skill to talk, that had been quite the ordeal, even with the system coming in for the assist with its usage. He wanted to fuse it with [Fists of Awe] once he settled on an ideal image in his mind for what the skill would become, but perhaps he could go in a different direction?

“I really don’t know. Why is this choice so hard?” Leif asked aloud. Nobody heard, and nobody answered. He sighed, then summoned a silver coin into his hand. Unlike the imperial scales and flakes, the republic currency had differing engravings on both faces. “[Grand Action] or [Gold Iron Physique].” He said, and flipped the coin. It bounced off the roof and fell back down. Before it landed he had finally come to his decision.

You have selected the [Grand Action] skill! Do you want to spend 1 core skill point to turn [Grand Action] into a core skill?

Core skills do not belong to any class, and do not contribute to any penalties involving the number of owned skills!

Confirm? Y/N

Yes. He mentally affirmed, and his vision was populated by a barrage of system prompts.

Congratulations! The skill [Grand Action] is now a core skill!

As a core skill [Grand Action] will grow and develop as you do! Please choose one of the following upgrades!

===

Glorious Action

Aspects: Enhancement

You gain a bonus to an attribute of your choice equal to 50% of your charisma attribute.

===

Grandiose Actions

Aspects: Enhancement

You may select two attributes, granting both a bonus equal to 20% of your charisma attribute.

This bonus is increased depending on how much larger your charisma attribute is compared to the targeted attributes up to a maximum of 30%.

===

Benevolent Actions

Aspects: Enhancement, Empowerment, Social*

You gain a bonus to an attribute of your choice equal to 30% of your charisma attribute.

Those around you may gain a portion of this effect depending on their positive disposition towards you.

===

The three choices were simple, the changes far from a complex reworking of the original skill. The larger changes would come when he evolved or promoted his classes, so Leif wasn’t caught off guard by the relatively simple upgrades he was presented with.

His head hit the wall behind him as he laughed. These are all excellent, how am I supposed to pick between them? Leif returned the silver coin to his spatial item, the thing didn’t have three sides so it wouldn’t be any help.

The first option, [Glorious Action] was the most immediately appealing. It was an increase in power over [Grand Action] by over double. With his effective [Charisma] at almost four hundred, granting fifty percent of that to any attribute would be like having invested around a hundred and seventy points into it. It was a staggering amount, and would be like tripling any attribute of his choice, at will.

But he would only be able to target one attribute at a time, and while his ability to freely swap between them during a fight was all but instinctual by this point, it was still a significant drawback. The second choice, [Grandiose Actions], was an answer to this shortcoming. At a glance it was inferior to the first option, but Leif found himself liking it more as he considered it. Assuming his [Charisma] was high enough to increase the bonus from twenty percent to thirty percent, the overall increase would be ten percent more. But was that worth it? Almost certainly.

The final option brought him up short. On one hand it was the weakest of the three by a not insignificant margin. On the other, it was absurdly powerful. His attributes were naturally higher than humans of the same level, and if he surrounded himself with allies and comrades the sheer amount of power he could grant them was incredible. Giving even two people an increase of up to a hundred in any attribute of his choice would eclipse the benefits from the first two skills and then some. And that wasn’t to mention the social aspect the skill had, meaning that its effects would be increased by his [Noble] class perk.

The question was, how much was a ‘portion’ of the skill’s effect? Would the effect be lessened the more people who were under the benefits? And-

Wait, wouldn’t the skill having the social aspect boost every part of the skill, not just the second line? Leif’s thought process ground to a halt. So, assuming the system isn’t dividing the one hundred percent increase from the [Noble] class perk between different aspects of the skill, the increase I would receive should be sixty percent, not thirty.

His mind whirled. There were hundreds of different theories about how skills interacted with class perks, and how attribute scaling was calculated. If he hadn’t spent the past few months bringing his understanding up from completely ignorant to somewhat educated he wouldn’t have a clue how any of this worked.

The skill has the ‘social’ aspect, meaning at least part of the skill will scale with my [Charisma]. But the skill already scales with [Charisma], hells [Grand Action] scales with the attribute but it doesn’t have the social tag. Does that mean nothing will change other than the function?

Leif decided to sleep on it. He didn’t technically need sleep, and his rest was more of a meditative torpor than real sleep. The system would probably force his choice after twenty four hours, so he still had time to make his choice. Though if he was being honest with himself, Leif would almost certainly pick the final skill upgrade. The potential synergy was almost too good to pass up.

I wish you weren’t so abstract with your information. It’s quite frustrating. He thought, focusing on the system windows floating before him. There was no response.

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