[Beastborne: Tower of Blight] Chapter 29

This Advancement, Hal liked more. The sound of it was far more interesting.

[Way of the Sword]

You have dedicated yourself to a singular weapon, the noble sword, and have worked tirelessly to improve yourself. Your dedication has not gone unnoticed, and your capacity for devastation will only grow if you continue to dedicate yourself to the Way of the Sword. All sword damage is doubled, while any other physical weapon you wield is reduced by half. Due to your care and attention to detail, any sword you use has its current durability doubled. Your Weaponskills become more potent, and you are capable of chaining them together for devastating amounts of damage that scales based upon the number of Weaponskills used in the chain.

Way of the Sword Perks

(Bladed Destruction)

Your superiority with swords is without equal. Whenever you lock swords with another who does not have the same Advancement as you, you deal quadruple durability damage whenever you strike their weapon.

(Death Dance)

Weaponskills that are chained together gain new variations based upon their position in the chain. Additionally, you are able to learn Weaponskills by watching the way another person fights, allowing you to expand your repertoire exponentially. You learn Weaponskills at an enhanced pace, and all Weaponskills learned become Sword Weaponskills.

That’s a little more like it, Hal thought to himself. The Way of the Sword Advancement could dramatically improve his damage output with swords without needing extra equipment or altering his fighting style too much.

If he had to pick between just two Advancements, Hal was beginning to lean towards pick Way of the Sword over Master at Arms, despite that curious vision.

Unfortunately, unlike his Leadership Advancements, both of his Sword Advancements only had two Perks. They did seem more potent than his Leadership ones, and though both Advancements fundamentally changed how his Sword Skill worked, Way of the Sword changed it the least.

I mean, the first Advancement literally changes its name! Can’t get more altered than that.

The first Perk, Bladed Destruction, would grant him a significant advantage over another opponent that lacked the same Advancement as him. He immediately thought of his impending battle and conflict with Rinbast.

He had no way of knowing which Advancement Rinbast picked, but if Rinbast hadn’t selected Way of the Sword, Hal would be better situated to bridge the gap between their power.

If Rinbast did have the Perk, then possessing that same Perk would cancel out Rinbast’s advantage.

While he didn’t like to think about it, he assumed Rinbast was at least Level 200. I need to figure out some way to catch up, don’t I? If I’m going to stand a chance of beating him, that is.

Even if Rinbast wasn’t Leveling Up every once in a while, that was still over a hundred Levels Hal would have to break through in order to fight at that Founder’s echelon.

Dealing quadruple damage against Rinbast’s weapon would be handy indeed. It’s just too bad Bladed Destruction’s effect doesn’t extend beyond that though, Hal thought.

The next Perk, Death Dance, seemed like a direct step up to Hal. It improved all aspects of Weaponskills, from learning new ones to dealing even more damage with them. It also changed his Weaponskills into Sword Weaponskills. While that could be a net positive, it affected his ability to use improvised weapons down the line.

However, Weaponskills had a sharp downside that Hal hadn’t been able to fix for some time. Weaponskills consumed an inordinate amount of SP.

Hal liked using his Weaponskills. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. Even though he had been undergoing a great boost in Levels, his Stamina wasn’t as high as he would like it to be. Not if he wanted to keep up his endurance while also running around the battlefield.

That was the problem with Weaponskills. They often used a lot of SP. Their damage was high, which was a huge plus, but they guzzled his SP, which he needed to move around.

Unlike MP, which only gave him a massive headache and lightheadedness if he drew too much of it at once, his SP would make him literally too slow to dodge attacks.

Hal regurgitated the prompt to his friends, who took a moment to chew the information.

Elaise settled next to their rough circle in a deep crouch. “There are no enemies that we can find.” She noticed their intent faces. “What is it?”

Hal told her.

“Ah! A rite of passage, then. Very good. You are clearly going to go with Way of the Sword, then?”

“I don’t think so,” Hal confided. “The stamina it uses is too great, and there’s nothing in there telling me it’ll reduce the cost. I would need to change how my attributes are allocated if I wanted to use more SP than I currently do–which is already a lot.”

Elaise thought about that for a long while. Then, finally showing a willingness to relax around Hal in forever, she took out some materials and made a makeshift campfire on the stone floor.

Crossing her legs, she sat down and put her palms on each knee. “The first thing an Ebon Star tribesman does is rush to their first Advancement for their chosen weapon.” She motioned to her greatsword strapped to her back. Then over to Robas’ spear sticking up over his shoulder. “It is a foundational Skill that shapes much of what you will do with your combat life.”

“What’s that mean?” Val asked.

“The Shard… it has a will of its own, yes? You understand this being part monster yourselves, I take it.”

As much as it seemed like a backhanded insult, both Beastbornes nodded. Giel growled in the back of his throat, but otherwise stayed silent.

The big lamora hadn’t said two words to Hal since they entered the Tower. However, his skills in battle had clearly grown by leaps and bounds. He used both a greataxe and a greatsword to frightening effect. With raw strength alone, he could cleave monsters in two without breaking a sweat.

“The more Skills you take, the more muddied the Shard’s vision of you becomes,” Elaise told them as if they were her pupils. “You must take care not to acquire too many skills at once. Doing so makes the Shard believe you want to collect more, and it will help you to do so. Your will must be focused like that of a sword’s edge. Sharp. Determined. Lose that focus, and the Shard’s path for you strays.”

Hal looked at his various skills and frowned slowly. He had quite a few that he hardly ever used. Darkvision and Stealth to name two.

He could see much better through using splice to tap into the myriad powers of different monsters, making Darkvision pretty useless.

And though he would like to Level Up his Stealth Skill, what was the point? Hal cursed to himself, amusing Val and Elaise, whereas Robas looked confused and Giel had the standard response, which was to say no response.

Most monsters could sense him as he could sense them. Enshrouding his essence was something that Val said was possible, but even she admitted she couldn’t do it.

Hal’s attempts had been intermittent at best, and even then, why bother? He was best in a head-on fight, not as an ambush predator.

“The Shard, it chooses your Advancements based upon your previous actions. The more you do, the more choices you are given. Most only receive one, perhaps two Advancements to choose from. A lucky few are given up to four, but this is incredibly rare.”

“I still have one more Advancement left,” Hal told her.

“Incredible!” Robas said.

Elaise rolled her eyes and made a gesture like, see what I mean?

Hal chuckled at her discomfort.

“We Val’sei do our best to help the Shard guide us. We do not learn another weapon if we cannot help it, and if we accidentally do, we strive to leave it so we do not burden ourselves later.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hal asked.

“You may only have five Advanced Skills per Sphere of influence, you know this, yes?” Elaise said. “I am sure I told you.”

Even Val was surprised by this. Giel, once again, registered nothing.

Unable to help himself, Hal waved a hand in front of the lamora’s face.

Nothing. In retrospect, Hal figured that was possibly a little rude. Even though he hadn’t known Giel very well during the events at Murkmire, he still wished the lamora would return to his friendly demeanor.

“...no. No, you did not tell me,” Hal said to Elaise. “You told me the names and histories of various tribes, but you failed to tell me I couldn’t have more than five skills!”

Elaise shook her head, vehemently denying that. “No matter. The truth stands, regardless if you were paying attention.”

“I was not–” Hal began, but Elaise barreled right over him.

“You may keep skills that have not yet Advanced, but they will never Advance, which means they will be stuck at Level 50 or below. Some people have found ways around this, but it is not recommended. The potential damage to your soul is too great.”

“Then what do you do if you have ten skills?” Val asked. Like Hal, she was looking a little nervous.

“You pick the ones you wish to Advance,” Elaise said as if it was obvious as the blue sky. “What need would you have for more than five skills per Sphere?”

“What do you mean, Sphere?” Hal asked her.

Elaise cursed in her native tongue. Hal did his best to keep his face impassive despite understanding her. She intimated some rather unkind things about his brains being so useless that even a goat would turn them down.

“She means,” Robas said kindly, “that each of our skills are split up based upon their Sphere. Most people only have five. There is Survival, Combat, Magic, Crafting, and Social. A few select people have Skill Spheres pertaining to a powerful Class, and others have unique bloodlines that generate their own Spheres. However, everybody has the base five.”

“Yes,” Elaise said, nodding gratefully to him. “Robas is correct. So it is not as dire as you may think. Each Skill Sphere can hold five Advanced Skills. You are given a choice upon receiving your sixth. You can replace an existing Advanced Skill, or suppress the Advancement.”

Hearing that, Hal was immensely relieved. His building panic abated entirely. That was far, far more than he previously thought was restricted.

And yet, something else Elaise said still held true, that the more Skills you possessed, the more the Shard tried to accommodate that.

“So that’s a maximum of twenty-five skills,” Val said thoughtfully. “I don’t see much use in having many Social Sphere Skills but… I could definitely see somebody having a lot of those. And what about the people who specialize in ten different weapons?”

“Then they must choose the weapons that are most important to them,” Elaise stated simply. “Some people do as you say. They specialize in five weapons, leaving their defenses wide open. Many of them are some of the tribe’s greatest warriors. Pure offensive prowess can often mean the need for defense is unwarranted.”

Hal had to admit that Elaise’s diction and command of Common had become incredibly fluent in the past months. He could still remember a time when she refused to speak anything except her native tongue.

And then she would only speak through Hal, up until the point that they went into the Dungeon and she started to avoid him.

I bet if I asked her about this Thirteenth Tribe she would clam up immediately, Hal thought to himself. It would be kind of funny to see, but he was learning far too much to cut it short.

Elaise was never this forthcoming with information, and it seemed both he and Val were ignorant of these aspects of the Shard.

It also meant that Elaise, despite being several Levels below Hal, already had her Greatsword Advancement.

Makes sense if she was focusing it from day one, rather than being like me and spreading it between Improvised Weapon and Sword Skill.

It was only in the last month that Hal focused heavily on his swordsmanship. He never wanted to be without a weapon at hand. If he was disarmed, he could use beast magic, but if he was out of mana or somehow stripped of his ability to cast, he wanted to be sure he could still fight.

“What is it that you find so funny, Hal?” Elaise said, studying him with those piercing eyes of hers.