[STT] Chapter 66: Rewards? (Patreon)

"So what's it going to be?"

Rubbing his face, Ben stared at the options and mentally summarized his options. [Fire Burst] was just an okay upgrade, so that was a fairly easy discard. And [Fire Wall] would completely interfere with his other abilities, which as someone on the mana path, he absolutely did not want.

What would happen if it tempered with [Focus] or [Warforged]?

They were way too important for his build to just fuck up for another skill.

Thinking about [Spontaneous Combustion] though…

Now that one hurt.

He genuinely wanted that one just for the offensive potential, but he couldn't justify picking it. Not when [Ignition Step] existed. He typically mostly used [Fire Burst] for mobility anyway, he had [Mana Cannon] for offense, and not like he'd lose the offense capabilities of [Fire Burst] for choosing [Ignition Step].

Plus, teleporting with fire was just cool as hell.

Though he wondered how that worked. Did affinities not matter as much as he thought they did? It seemed like it, or at least, there were things he didn't know, because [Fire Burst] evolving into [Ignition Step] was a bit of a far fetch in his mind, but he wouldn't complain.

He locked in his decision before he could change his mind.

Congratulations! [Fire Burst - Lvl 20] (Uncommon) has evolved into [Ignition Step - Lvl 1] (Rare)!

Watching the notification, he practically beamed at the system. His skill set no longer looked anything like a normal Tier 1. Having so many rare skills at this stage was completely absurd, which obviously made him incredibly happy.

He immediately wanted to trigger the skill and zip across the platform. But he firmly restrained himself from doing something so blatantly stupid.

There were many other people currently sharing the peak with him. He didn't trust a few of them even slightly, and revealing a brand new rare movement skill to a crowd was just a terrible tactical move.

Even if it would get revealed the moment he used it later, it was better to have something up his sleeve than not.

For now he could just use it just like [Fire Burst] to fly and move around, though he intended to find a secluded place to test out the skill too.

Thus, forcing his instincts down, he just let the skill settle into his core instead. And he had absolutely no regrets about picking it.

He felt a brand new inscription forcibly burn its way into his mind, and it was absolutely fascinating. So he couldn't wait to lock himself away and completely dissect it later! So many options probably opened up to him with another rare skill.

It would be incredibly fun trying it out for making constructs later.

Smiling to himself, he swiped away the previous notifications with a thought and opened his full status.

Name: Benjamin

Title: [Hunter]

Tier: 1

Skills (8/10):

Focus (Parallel Focus) (Rare) - Lvl 8

Mana Sonar (Uncommon) - Lvl 15

Ignition Step (Rare) - Lvl 1

Warforged (Rare) - Lvl 12

Mana Cannon (Uncommon) - Lvl 8

Regeneration (Uncommon) - Lvl 15

Mana Manipulation (Uncommon) - Lvl 11

Mana Construct (Common) - Lvl 6

Constructs (2/10):

Learning Model

Healing Mark

Titles:

- [Hunter] - Equipped

- [Lurker] (35/100)

[Lurker] had ticked up in the background as he'd been passively using it, and it was nice to see so many rare skills. But ever since learning about concepts and now knowing what [Ignition Step] did, he wondered if there was more to [Warforged] and [Focus] than he thought.

They were rare skills after all.

And now that he knew that rare skills had more to them than he previously thought... he was going to have to experiment.

###

He'd joined Ethan near the monolith's edge to stare down at the massacre below. And it was a complete mess down there.

The horde was endlessly throwing itself against the crushing gravity of the stairs, dying in droves while failing to make any actual progress. But they'd completely stalled the other nobles.

They must be pissed.

Looking entirely too smug, Ethan pointed at the writhing sea of bodies.

"So I might have been partially wrong about the monolith's mechanics."

"Clearly."

"But the gamble definitely paid off."

"Oh?"

"We both just racked up a few thousand points from that little stunt. Something that absolutely shouldn't be possible from just hunting in this rift."

Ben honestly couldn't argue with those results.

Current Points: [4,317]

Checking his own points, he found an absurdly high number sitting there.

Given that they'd had a direct hand in the Tide getting inside the barrier and now climbing the stairs and dying on it, they got the points depending on contribution.

It was essentially an XP farm.

So just sitting up here and letting the monolith's defense mechanism crush the horde had essentially bypassed the entire grinding phase of the rift.

So the plan had worked, though not in the way they'd thought it would. Ethan had indeed read into the sub-objective wrong a bit.

"Now we just—"

Requesting higher authority… Granted.

Participant performance cannot be scored against the event objective. Objective parameters were altered by the participant, and the stairs were used in an unintended manner.

Reverting to discretionary payout.

Generating reward options...

"...oh." Ben said lamely.

"Yes, oh."

Ethan replied with a smug grin.

###

He waited quite a while for the system to generate the rewards, but it was taking too long to process whatever it was doing. So Ben eventually grew bored of staring at it and went back to tinkering with the strange stone in the center of the peak.

He even pulled Ethan over to help him figure the thing out, and the older teenager immediately started slapping down talismans on the rock.

And between the two of them, they quickly realized the stone wasn't just some decorative rock. It was actually a vessel for an incredibly complex construct inscribed right into its surface.

Neither of them could hold the image of the inscription in their minds for even a moment, though. It was simply too complex. [Focus] kept acting weird through the whole thing as well.

Whatever. It's probably nothing.

"It's a foundational matrix for a construct... The whole monolith might be the actual construct, not going to lie."

"So we can learn it."

"If we had a few months and a dedicated laboratory, maybe. But right now, trying to parse this without the right tools is just going to give you a massive headache."

Ben sighed. He had already thrown every single skill he owned at the rock and gotten absolutely nowhere with it. So he simply sat his butt down on the floor and pulled out his waterskin to drink some more essence water instead.

Watching Ethan continue to poke around the stone with talismans, Ben tried to mentally trace the simplest symbol from the rock one more time. But the image instantly evaporated from his head again.

[Focus] was acting up weirdly in the back of his mind. His mental skill was buzzing and partitioning constantly, trying to compartmentalize a thought that simply refused to exist.

Shaking his head, he ignored the strange sensation and just relaxed his grip on his waterskin. Watching Ethan work, Ben brought the waterskin to his lips. He took a gulp of the liquid, letting the mana wash over his core.

And he kept drinking. Over and over.

"Are you going to drink that or just hold it forever?"

Glancing up, Ben found Ethan looking at him with a thoroughly amused expression.

Well, yeah, odd. He should drink from the waterskin. Why hadn't he been doing it already?

"Sure am."

Lifting the waterskin to his mouth, Ben tipped it back to get a mouthful of the essence water. But absolutely nothing came out. The pouch was completely empty and dry.

What?

Lowering the waterskin, he stared at it in complete confusion. He had definitely pulled out a full waterskin.

Whatever. It's probably nothing—

Slamming into his brain with a never-before-seen intensity, [Focus] violently clamped down on his thoughts. A blinding flash of clarity pierced through the mental fog clouding his judgment. And he suddenly realized there was something deeply, terribly wrong with this entire situation.

"What's up with you?"

"The waterskin is empty."

"What? You haven't taken a single sip though. How..."

Trailing off into stunned silence, Ethan froze completely. And their eyes met. Both of them realized exactly what was going on at the exact same time.

Ben put the waterskin in his bag of holding and scanned his body with [Mana Sonar] and ramped up [Focus] to the max.

"Just how long?"

"No idea," Ethan replied as he hurriedly summoned a few talismans and slapped them onto his body. "But it's probably been going on for at least as long as we've been trying to observe the stone."

"Is it tinkering with our memory?"

"Unlikely. It's probably just an obfuscation inscription in the mix somewhere, and given how big the monolith is... it should be pretty effective."

"But it's not affecting us anymore."

"Is it?"

Ben grew silent, not liking where this conversation was heading. An annoyance bubbled up inside him. A defiance alongside it. His eyes bore into the stone with [Focus] tight around his brain.

To think it had been lulling him into loosening his [Focus] and also making him forget the inscriptions he tried to remember. Not only that, but also making him dismiss any suspicions.

He was angry.

He was very angry.

His mind was his alone.

"I'm going to fuck up this inscription," he told Ethan, [Mana Construct] activating.

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