Chapter 97: Tier-Four (Patreon)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b-KDOrYfpPOKcQq5ZqZziXOdw7_APEm1bhrqk1JeZWY/edit?usp=sharing

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“How can you stay so calm? This is big…this is huge!” Cayden exclaimed, pacing back and forth across Elise’s small dorm room, only barely having the presence of mind to step around the scattered empty vials rather than through them.

“I believe you may be overreacting a bit,” Elise responded.

“Overreacting?? You were the one who explained to me how powerful tier-three skills are. Even a single tier-four would be…” he shook his head, unable to find the words to convey the magnitude of his thoughts.

“Yeah, but…” Elise sighed. “I’ve given this some thought. Both before you got [Save Progress], and in the week since. I’m not sure a tier-four skill is feasible.”

Cayden stopped his pacing, forcing himself to sit down and face his friend directly. “What do you mean? I have the skill slots.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the issue – it’s our ability to find the skills that combine into a tier-four skill. A tier-four skill would be comprised of twenty-seven different tier-one skills. Finding nine different skills that can combine into a tier-three skill is already difficult enough.”

“But it is possible – it’s just a matter of putting in the time and effort.” Cayden nodded resolutely. “I’m willing to do it. It’ll be worth it.”

Elise shook her head. “I don’t want to be negative, but…if tier-four skills exist – which we don’t know for sure if they do – it might not be possible for us to get there, regardless of how much time and effort we put in.” Cayden opened his mouth to argue, but Elise held up a hand before he could speak. “It was already hard enough for us to get you [Resistance], and that was what I’d consider an ‘easier’ tier-three skill to acquire. There are enough skills that had the word ‘resistance’ in them that it was a safe bet that, if you got nine of them, at least some would be able to combine with each other. But to find twenty-seven different skills with the same format or keyword? I don’t know of any skills that come anywhere close to that number. Which means any tier-four that we find would have to combine skills that aren’t exact mirrors of each other, which is much harder. We’re already struggling to find your next tier-three that functions like that – it’s mostly just a matter of cycling through different tier-twos that have promise and hoping something sticks. But doing that same thing with tier-threes? When we haven’t even gotten you your second tier-three? It…it just doesn’t seem feasible.” She sighed. “I’m not saying we should give up on it entirely. And obviously we’ll have a better chance of being successful if we work with a tier-four goal in mind. But, at least for the foreseeable future, I think the best we can do is work on getting you tier-three skills that synergize with your build and hope we get a lucky combination of them down the line.”

Cayden scrunched up his face in dissatisfaction before nodding. He didn’t like it, but Elise had a point. They hadn’t had nearly the time or resources as they did now, but it had taken over two years for Cayden to get [Resistance], and that was with the roadmap of the keyword ‘resistance’ in the composite skills guiding the way. Already planning for a tier-four skill, before even getting his second tier-three, might have been getting a bit ahead of himself.

Although, that wouldn’t stop him from being hopeful for the future. It would certainly take time, but he was only fifteen years old. Now that his cap on his general skills was unlikely to be an issue, he couldn’t help feeling optimistic.

Cayden grunted as he took the hit from the assailant to his side. This assailant was supposed to represent a bulldoze toad – a massive toad that bludgeoned opponents to death with its weighted tongue – so the club that punched out from the contraption was blunted. While Cayden wasn’t weak to any specific damage type – [Resistance] prevented that – [Skin of Stone] was less effective against bludgeoning damage than it was against other damage types, and he dropped to his knees as he gasped for breath from the blow.

He was in his frontline combat class, and they were once again testing themselves against the assailants. Cayden was still furthest along the line of mechanical training tools, but he had nowhere near the lead he’d possessed on the first day they’d tested themselves against the ‘monsters.’

Allowing students to use active skills enabled many students to close the gap, students such as the barrier mage suddenly jumping from the very rear of the line to close to the front. And all the students continuously improved as they learned and trained their own classes and skills.

While Cayden loved his new [Test Subject] class and the utility and potential for future growth it offered, it didn’t give him any immediate increase in power, at least not while he was alone. In fact, it probably was a decrease in his overall power compared to when he was a level ten [Athlete] – with [Athlete], he at least could have activated [The Moment] the instant before an assailant struck him for the temporary boost to his stats. [Power from Experience] helped bridge that gap a little, but at level one, it still wasn’t anywhere close to as effective as [The Moment], especially since it was more skewed towards offense due to his defensive-leaning skills.

Of course, the twenty-eight points he’d added to vitality meant he was still further ahead on the line of assailants than he’d been before the Gauntlet, but other students hadn’t remained stagnant either. Every time they spent a day testing themselves against the assailants, different students would move up the line further than they’d ever been able to withstand before. Typically, they were only small improvements, a jump forward that corresponded to an increased stat or skill. But sometimes, the improvements were massive, corresponding to an entirely new powerful skill or evolved class.

Cayden was still top of the pack when it came to durability, but he was no longer alone in his superiority. Several other students were nipping at his heels, and he pushed himself to his limits in every single class, lest they catch up and then surpass him.

Of course, the informal ‘rankings’ that the assailants represented weren’t all there was to being a frontliner. Cayden’s build was particularly potent against the assailants, but he couldn’t dismiss those whose builds weren’t as ideal. Ignar’s position near the very bottom of the ‘assailants ranking’ was proof enough of that, his dodge-tank style of build ineffective when he wasn’t allowed to dodge.

But with Cayden pushing himself to his absolute limits, no longer could he simply shrug off the injuries of the assailants he challenged. So after spending a few seconds catching his breath, he shuffled away from the machine to where Delphia waited.

For days they challenged the assailants, Delphia was the student healer typically assigned to those furthest up the line. Now that Cayden knew Delphia would acquire any injuries that she healed, he wasn’t sure if it was her instructor’s sadism or Delphia’s masochism that caused her to be placed in the location that was most likely to receive the most severe injuries.

Cayden was thankful, though. In the few times he’d gone to some of the other student healers for assistance, the healing had been much slower and left him sore and aching for the rest of the day.

Delphia’s hood bobbed at him as he approached, and she rested a hand on his upraised arm without a word. A moment later, Cayden straightened and breathed in relief as his bruises disappeared as if they were never there, Delphia hunching over in a mirror to Cayden’s previous posture.

“...are you going to heal yourself?” Cayden asked a few seconds later as Delphia slowly straightened but made no move to reach for the cache of potions Cayden knew she had hidden in the shadows of her robe.

Delphia’s hood shook in the negative. “...working on a new skill,” she muttered under her breath, no indication of her acquired injuries in her voice.

“Really? What is it?” Cayden asked, and then he winced after realizing how rude that was for the average person – he’d spent so much time discussing his build with Elise, it simply felt natural. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that, you don’t have to share.”

But Delphia was already shaking her head. “I don’t mind,” she said, and her voice lowered even further. “[Self Stasis]. Lets me temporarily negate the negative effects of an injury.”

Cayden gave a low whistle. “That sounds really useful for you,” he replied, his voice just as quiet. None of the other students were nearby or paying attention to them, but it cost nothing to be careful. “And you get it by what? Staying wounded for a certain amount of time?”

It was unlikely that Cayden would try to get the skill, not when he had so many other potential skills already on his plate for the near future, but he could see it being a good acquisition for himself later on. One of the downsides of vitality was that it did a much better job of keeping him from being injured than it did preventing the negative effects of an injury that had already occurred. It would be much more difficult for Cayden to sprain his ankle compared to someone with ten vitality, but – barring any [Pain Resistance] – it would be just as difficult to walk for each of them. Cayden would be less likely to injure his ankle further from trying to force himself to keep walking compared to someone with ten vitality, and he would heal faster, but he’d still suffer the same negative effects of the injury in the meantime.

For someone like Delphia, this could be helpful. She could absorb the injuries of someone with higher vitality without having to worry about the injuries being magnified ten-fold on her weaker body. There was still the risk of absorbing more severe injuries that had ongoing elements, such as internal bleeding, which would be more dangerous for her than for someone with a higher vitality, but [Self Stasis] sounded like it would negate even that risk.

Of course, its viability would depend on how long it could hold injuries in stasis, along with its mana cost, but Cayden chose not to ask about either of those. Even sharing the name of the skill she was shooting for was more trust than Cayden expected.

“It’s not too bad. It could be worse,” Delphia responded to Cayden’s earlier question with a shrug, and Cayden looked at her skeptically. He knew she had the [Pain Resistance] skill, and that [Misery Loves Company] reduced the severity of absorbed injuries, but stewing in her absorbed injuries for hours couldn’t be pleasant. His internal judgment of his roommate leaned just a bit further towards her being a masochist.

If he ever had the space in his build for it, he resolved to get [Self Stasis] with [Borrowed Power] from Delphia rather than through the natural method.

“Well, good luck with that. Sorry for adding to the load,” Cayden said, and Delphia just shrugged before he turned and hurried away. From the corner of his eye, he’d seen Henrietta approaching with her own set of bruises to heal.

He knew they needed to keep up the facade, but that girl was entirely too enthusiastic with their ‘relationship.’ They’d already greeted each other at the beginning of class when Cayden had confirmed that the princess had no messages for him, so a second display of affection was unnecessary.

Fully healed and leaving the two girls behind, he returned the entirety of his focus to the next assailant in line, this one a crocodile with needle-like teeth, represented by two grasping wooden bars lined with hundreds of tiny spikes and carved runes that would clamp down on his arm with crushing force. A fairly normal type of ‘attack’ for the level of assailant he’d grown used to challenging.

Maybe it wasn’t just Delphia who was the masochist…

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