[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 7: Initialization

[Fighter] Unlocked.

You gain the following:

[Armor Foundation]

(Fighter Skill) (F-Class)

(☆ Primitive I)

With your nascent understanding of armor types, you can not only identify various types of armor, but also move in them without great encumbrance. Though most of your experience with armor has been hand-me-downs and Earth-style fencing protection, your past life’s knowledge has been added to your current Skill Level. Grants a minuscule bonus to the effect of Strength, Agility, and Dexterity when using [Armor Foundation].

The icy sensation subsided as the first of the skills made itself known to him. It went beyond the interesting description. Knowledge was stuffed into his head to the point that Sam understood more about the skill than the description could ever cover.

True, he had known a bit about armor from his HEMA training and from when he had been hopeful of using full-plate armor in era-accurate tournaments.

Naturally, his hopes were dashed by the price tag of just a single pair of gauntlets, let alone the full kit. There was no way he could afford that on his paycheck.

But to see that his familiarity even with the padded fencing-style armor that was required for HEMA participants was a nice bonus.

Sam mentally swiped to the next window, eager to absorb everything about his new life.

Most of the [Fighter] skills seemed pretty easy to understand from their description alone, but like a kid reading the back of a video game box on the car ride home, Sam couldn’t help but indulge himself.

The information that was downloaded into his brain seemed to work better if he read the description as well.

[Basic Maintenance]

(Fighter Skill) (F-Class)

(☆ Primitive II)

Owing to your familiarity with armaments, you’re aware that even the best made breastplate needs some TLC. Rough edges need cleaning, sharpening, and oiling. Armor should have its dents banged out; the list goes on.

When properly maintained, your equipment operates at full strength. There’ll be no rusty breastplates, cracked leather, broken chain links, or chipped swords for you. Through countless hours of maintaining your HEMA gear, your past life’s knowledge has been added to your current Skill Level. Grants a minuscule bonus to the effect of Awareness and Dexterity when using [Basic Maintenance].

Another simple skill to understand. And another one that had enhanced based on his “past life” as it put it. Well, that’s as clear an indicator that Earth is irreparably changed as any.

Again, he understood more about [Basic Maintenance] than the description let on. He knew the difference between what full grain leather, top grain, and split grain needed in terms of care and upkeep.

He knew the types of oils needed to maintain different metals, and the best way to sharpen a dull edge, as if he had years of practice.

Since weapons were checked at every HEMA tournament, sharpening your sword was an easy way to get disqualified and fined. It was interesting for Sam to suddenly understand how to do something that he had rarely done before.

Everything else he had at least watched a video on. That is, if he hadn’t practiced it himself.

[Rally]

(Fighter Ability) (F-Class)

(☆ Primitive)

When the going gets tough, you get tougher. Summon deep reserves of strength to perform beyond your mortal bounds for a short period of time, adding Temporary HP to bolster your body. Grants a minuscule bonus to the effect of Strength and Vigor when using [Rally].

Now this is what Sam was waiting for.

[Rally] wasn’t quite what he expected, but even before he read the ability, the information sleeted into his mind. But strangely enough, only the bare information on how to use it was there.

He had no idea how long it lasted, how much Temporary HP it gave, or… really anything. No info on cooldown either. Huh, that’s strange.

Moving on, Sam met the same lack of information from [Endure].

[Endure]

(Fighter Trait) (F-Class)

(☆ Primitive)

When others fall, you stay on your feet. Conditioned as all basic [Fighters] are, you are able to take mortal injuries and continue fighting. Once per day, whenever your HP would be reduced to 0, it is instead reduced to 1. Grants a minuscule bonus to the effect of Vigor when using [Endure].

The only further info he got was right there in the description. Once per day he wouldn’t die outright, but whether that was once per rest, per 24 hours, or until midnight was anybody’s guess.

And it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you could test.

At least, not more than once.

As much as Sam would like to know the specifics, he wasn’t willing to die for the answer.

So, every skill or ability seems to be modified by a stat?Not only did the description flat-out say they added a bonus, but he could feel it as if there was a faint tether from each skill, trait, or ability reaching out to one of his stats.

Most of them used Vigor or Strength, but considering the Job was called [Fighter], that should hardly be surprising.

Furthermore, it gave him a good blueprint for what sort of stats he should be focusing on with his absolutely massive 1 bonus point.

Still, everything so far lined up with the description of [Fighter] as being somebody who could take a beating and keep going.

With [Endure] he would basically have one “get out of jail free” card per day and using [Rally] could conceivably be used before fighting anything to avoid taking any direct damage.

At least, that was his theory.

Since the Shard… the System, or whatever it was called, didn’t deign to offer further insight, he would have to test any and all theories to get to the bottom of his new abilities.

Something Sam was eager to get underway.

New Mana Types available:

Your Void mana Attunement reaches (★★★★ Legendary II).

Your Void mana Attunement reaches (★★★★ Legendary III).

Hold up, what? Sam stared at the mana types. Didn’t [Fighter] receive Fire and Earth mana types? Why was he getting something entirely different?

And then he remembered his Status screen, and more importantly, how he had beaten that strange creature while trapped in that crystal.

Looking back through the list of notifications he had acquired, Sam found the offending passage:

You gain a new Attunement:

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★ Legendary)

As soon as he examined it more closely, something else popped up. Sam’s eyes widened with surprise and more than a little concern, if he was being honest.

This changes things, doesn’t it?

[Call of the Void]

(Soulbrand) (X-Class)

(Unique)

Exposure to Apocalypse mana is almost always fatal. Somehow, you managed to not only survive the onslaught, but inoculate yourself with Void mana to stave off the imminent dissolution that is caused by touching Apocalypse mana. However, Void mana was never meant to be wielded. It has fully corrupted your capacity to conjure and obtain any other type of mana. All new mana types you receive will instead be consumed by the Void, and you are locked into the Path of the Void.

Sam glanced back at his Status and saw that the question marks for his Path were now filled in. It simply said “Void.” Nothing about what a Path was or how he could use it in the slightest.

I can’t tell if this is a good or bad thing, he admitted. Not getting any other type of mana beside Void seemed… well, bad. But then again, if nobody was meant to wield it, perhaps he could.

But as much as Sam wanted to give this ominous Void mana a go, he didn’t think it was a good idea just yet. What if it was corrupting like the [Shard Gorger’s] energy had been? He needed space to try it out to avoid hurting anybody, including himself.

Does sound pretty cool though….

Finally, Sam reached his first selection. Void mana might have stolen his ability to wield Fire or Earth mana, but at least it didn’t rob him of his choice of weapon.

[Weaponry Skills] available:

Sam nearly went cross-eyed from the staggering list of weapon skills provided. More than half of them he didn’t even know how to pronounce.

What the hell is a “Plumbus”?

Taking out the ones that were either too alien for him to comprehend, or otherwise too strange like [Mop] and [Broom], Sam had a much more manageable list… if only compared to the vastness of what it had been before.

[Hand-to-Hand], [Dagger], [Sword], [Greatsword], [Axe], [Greataxe], [Scythe], [Polearm], [Katana], [Great Katana], [Club], [Staff], [Bow], [Great Bow], [Hammer], [Great Hammer], [Crossbow], [Great Crossbow], [Cannon], [Whip], [Flail]

He had to admit that having a friggin’ cannon would be insanely fun. Right up until he exploded himself and whoever was stupid enough to be beside him.

Even with the list whittled down, there were so many weapon types to choose from. Most of them, Sam dismissed out of hand. While he liked to get up close and personal, he didn’t have any desire to be a brawler or rogue.

Most of his training revolved around longswords, specifically the stances and instructions passed down from Meyer and his The Art of Combat treatise on various stances and guards.

If his past life’s knowledge and familiarity with maintenance and armor applied Levels to his skills in this world… then it would be a waste to pick anything other than a sword, right?

And that was before he found out whether he would get access to any other weapon’s skill. Too many questions and not nearly enough answers.

One look at the crystal butler and Sam knew he wouldn’t get anything more useful out of him. Komachi purred happily on his shoulder, but she seemed to know as much as he did about all of this, which was to say: not much.

Having wielded the gigantic [Shatterblade], Sam felt drawn to [Greatswords], [Greataxes], and even the [Great Hammer]. There was something weirdly satisfying about swinging a weapon with the inertial force of a semi-truck.

Choosing a different weapon—especially one that had a unique gimmick, like a scythe, whip, or cannon—didn’t matter much in the long run.

What were a few meager levels compared to hundreds down the road?

True, they might give him the leg up on any early competition. Even give him the advantage in a fight that might not otherwise go his way, but provided he survived the initial levels, the sky was the limit.

One day, far in the future, Sam would remember this thought and laugh until he cried. He’d never been so wrong in all of his life.

Sam went back and forth in his head, arguing the fundamentals of swords versus the other weapons. He knew he would pick up at least one of the sword skills if he had a choice of two or more, but that wasn’t the case here.

With a final grunt of annoyance, Sam selected [Greatsword].

You have selected: [Greatsword Foundation].

[Greatsword Foundation]

(Weaponry Skill) (F-Class)

(☆ Primitive III)

Provides the fundamentals of the Greatsword weaponry skill, allowing the use of Greatsword Stances. Though your dedication and training were focused on the one-handed longsword, the style in which you trained lends itself well to the larger two-handed Greatsword. A portion of your past life’s knowledge has been added to your current Skill Level. Grants a minuscule bonus to the effect of Strength, Agility, and Dexterity when using [Greatswords].

Sam couldn’t help grinning at the three free tiers—or levels, as he thought of them. It wasn’t as if they were undeserved, after all. He spent hour after hour practicing with longswords as soon as he was made aware that HEMA was a thing.

Historical European Martial Arts were not nearly as popular as more typical martial arts. And it didn’t help that some people called it Western Martial Arts, or WMA for short, further confusing newcomers to the sport.

Any extra shifts Sam could pick up usually went to new practice swords, travel expenses for tournaments, and of course, finally getting his own set of red dragon HEMA equipment.

Then Sam remembered he had just bought a Sigi King sword for use in an upcoming tournament… and now would never be able to use it. Not to mention, he would never get that exorbitant cost back.

Probably doesn’t matter, he thought. I doubt this place uses dollars for currency. Then again, no crippling debt either!

Shaking his head, Sam tried to move past the loss of his never-used sword.

“So three stats are primarily useful for handling greatswords. Makes sense. All of them fall under the physical part of my Status sheet too,” Sam said.

“Was your [Shatterblade] a greatsword?” Komachi asked. “Or is there something bigger than greatswords?”

That was a good question. Thinking back on it, out of the skills offered to him from the Fighter Job, only swords and greatswords seemed relevant.

“I remember seeing colossal on it,” Sam said, staring at the palm of his hand. He could practically feel the weight of the [Shatterblade] in it. “So is that a weapon type, a weapon skill, or is it somehow both?”

There was even another possibility. That his greatsword skill could change in some way into a colossal greatsword skill. The problem was, Sam just didn’t know enough yet, so his guess could be entirely wrong.

He needed to find out.

Komachi meowed, sounding puzzled. Or perhaps hungry.

He was starting to suspect that the butler wasn’t exactly unwilling to answer questions, but that he didn’t know. Maybe because the world changed. He doubted that the butler was in some way removed from the Shard’s process of Ascension.

And with quests on his mind, the Shard—or whatever controlled these things—summoned a window in front of his face.

Quest Updated: Initialization in the Nexus