A considerable amount of time had passed since Valyr entered the Common Caves to grind for Skill Keys. With his small bout of experimentation during the second room allowing him to figure out how he could tap into his entire combat strength at all times, the young man was able to speed through the succeeding rooms of the dungeon without much problem, reaching the eighth room within two hours of his entry.
Of course, the experimentation he had done at the beginning of the second room did not end there, instead continuing it as he passed through the next few rooms he entered, wanting to know more and more about the limits of the innate skill his spear had.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Zooming through yet another absurdly long corridor, Valyr moved at insanely high speeds thanks to the help of Wind-attribute magic. Aside from that, both of his arms, which were extended during the beginning of the second room, were not extended anymore, instead allowing multiple blades of crimson flames to circle around his body as it rendered every skeleton the blades made contact with into a pile of ashes.
At this point, if one were to look at Valyr, one wouldn't even think of him as a spearman at all.
'I look more like a mage than a spearman right now.' Naturally, even Valyr had similar thoughts as he looked at his current self. Though, with how fast he was proceeding through the rooms of the Common Caves, a grin slowly crept up on his lips, only for him to let out a bit of laughter soon after.
While he was figuring out how far the effects of [Tidemother's Vengeance] extended in detrimentally affecting his stats, it was only then did Valyr realize that his current fighting style more or less revolved around his trusty spear. Of course, one would not be able to fault him, considering that it was the weapon he had the most experience with, as well as the weapon he was confident in being able to dish out the damage.
However, that was only when [Tidemother's Vengeance] wasn't taken into consideration.
Because of [Tidemother's Vengeance], the detrimental innate skill his spear had, Valyr was made privy to the fact that his bouts where he would mainly use the spear would now be short-lived. Though, after finding out more and more about it thanks to his experimentation in the Common Caves, he now found it more accurate to say that his attacks with the spear, as well as the skills he had that complemented the spear, were now considered his ultimate moves.
After all, his Attack stat now scaled off of DEX rather than STR due to his subclass.
And his DEX stat was currently his highest stat.
With that, he wondered for a bit as what would take his spear's place as his main fighting style. Then again, with how his stats were distributed, as well as his current circumstances in play, the answer to that question did not take too long to appear.
Magic and summoning.
"If not for that innate skill, I would've probably continued using the spear as my main method of combat," said Valyr to himself as he noticed that he was getting near the large area of the eighth room. "Of course, there's nothing really wrong with that."
"But because of the innate skill, I am left with no choice but to spread out and use other methods of combat, utilizing magic and summoning to fight, both of which I don't have a lot of experience in."
"Then again, that's only when I compare it to how much time I spent with the spear." Chuckling at the thought, Valyr reminded himself to get a few rudimentary summoning skills once he returned to Algerie City, thinking that it would serve as a nice complement to his magic.
"Huh. Now that I think about it, the three complement each other. The spear is my arsenal of ultimate moves, the magic is my main line of offense and support, while summoning is my main line of defense." Finding the thought interesting, the young man went ahead and swiftly cleared the large space before him, manifesting Fire-attribute and Wind-attribute magic together to form a massive fire tornado that wiped out all of the skeletons within the space.
'It still doesn't compare to [Tide of the Dark Night] on how terrifying it is, though.' Commanding the system to bring up a notification screen to see how many Skill Keys had dropped, Valyr let out a soft chuckle at the thought. 'Or maybe that's just me.'
'Three Common grade Skill Keys.' While looking at the notification screen he had brought up, Valyr made his way to the center of the room before choosing a door by random, inwardly nodding in satisfaction as he headed through the door at the very center. 'With this, I now have more than enough Skill Keys to evolve all of my Common grade skills to Uncommon grade.'
'On the other hand, the Uncommon grade Skill Keys…' Allowing the barrier of energy behind him to turn pitch black after passing through it, Valyr briefly spared a glance at what was ahead of him, noticing that the path before him seemed to lead to a labyrinth of sorts.
Briefly shrugging his shoulders after having gone through the ordeal twice in the past eight rooms, Valyr cast Wind-attribute magic on himself to increase his movement speed before extending his hand to the right side of the wall, making sure to not let go as he began to traverse the labyrinth.
'Seven Uncommon grade Skill Keys so far…' Closing up the notification screen he had brought up once he was done counting the number of Uncommon grade Skill Keys he had amassed, Valyr focused his attention on the labyrinth he was traversing, only for his mind to wander not long after as he thought about other things he had to do once he was done evolving his skills.
"Hmm… Once I get back to Algerie City, I should allocate all of my Technology Points as soon as possible. I think it would be more than enough to unlock that advancement?" Muttering these words to himself, a hint of excitement welled up within Valyr's body as he thought about it.
Though the advancement did not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, only being an advancement in the Technology Tree's Innovation branch that could only be found in the latter portion of advancements corresponding to the Medieval Ages, to Valyr, it was his gateway to the second type of weapon he had come to know and love during his time in Greater Beyond as a player.
In fact, he felt like everything he had done so far was to unlock this specific advancement, an advancement that he felt would allow his progress to become faster than it already was.
As to what this specific advancement was, it was something that could be summed up in one word.
Guns.
