"Well, aren't you looking particularly dashing today." Lloran greets Cain as he walks in the next morning. Cain has been working all night trying to get this book completed without any success. He has just reached Inscription Basic 10 though, and was hopeful that the next completion might take him into Advanced.
"This book seems to be a bit above my Inscription ability though, so it's taking longer than expected to finish the task you set me." Cain complains.
"When you've lived as long as I have, you'll learn, good things take time and practice. But once you've truly mastered your craft there is very little that is truly impossible." The old man takes a series of leisurely steps through the air with a hand on the pommel of his sword and picks two more books off the upper shelves.
"It only works with a weapon in your hands you see, but with a spiked gauntlet on, or your hand on your sword, you can use it to get around easier than any ladder."
Looking at him, he might not be able to climb a ladder at this point in his life. But he still gets around pretty well, so Cain wonders if he's just using a skill all the time. The two books he set in the table are exactly what Cain hoped for though, Advanced Offense and Offensive Flow, hopefully the only two books he needs to complete the Dark Elven Blade Forms combat skill to a reasonable degree.
"If you can finish all three of those today before I return, I've got a special treat for you." Lloran announces, before promptly leaving again.
[You know, when I was hoping for a complete skill manual from the ruins, I did not expect to have to copy every skill out one by one to learn them.] Cain jokes in Guild chat.
[How's it going? You've been at that last manual all night.] Misha sends back a few minutes later. They must have just gotten up.
[If you copied them, that means you can make more right?] Cixelcid sends right after, the sense of hope clear in his wording.
[Eventually. Right now I'm working with 5 and 10 prevent success rates. That's an awful lot of materials and time to make more, and we'd have to get all the materials. This time, the old Elf is providing them.]
[Then you'd better get good. I know a lot of warriors who would love to have a set of specialty skills for dual wielding.]
Cain laughs at his guild mate and finishes up another attempt at the ornate skill book.
[Inscription Successful]
[Inscription Improved: Advanced 1]
[Skill Book Created: Cloud Dancing]
[Skill Learned]
Finally, he's made it past that hurdle. But what exactly does it do?
[Cloud Dancing] Channeled Skill. 20MP per second. Allows the user to step on the air as if it were ground while in combat. Being stunned, immobilized or leaving combat will cancel the skill. 15 second cool down begins when skill is canceled.
That's much more reasonably priced than he thought. With mana regeneration factored in, he should be able to keep it up for around a minute, even while using other skills. But with 15 seconds between uses, being stunned could be disastrous if you're relying on it.
More advanced warriors like the Royal Guards likely have multiple similar skills to account for this possibility.
Now for the final two books. If Cain is right, at Advanced 1 Inscription, he should have a 60 percent chance of making the first batch of books. He's not sure if these count as the same rank, since they're part of a set, but those odds are looking pretty good after the nightmare of the Cloud Dancing book.
He starts with [Offensive Flow: Dark Elf Blade Forms] which looks just like the first batch of books, with its sturdy binding and moderately decorated cover.
[Inscription Successful]
[Item Created: Book of Offensive Flow - Dark Elf Blade Forms]
[Skill Learned]
[Offensive Flow] Allows the use of attack combinations while using specified weapons combinations.
Simple, Safe, and effective. Just how Cain likes it. One book to go and he's home free.
[Insufficient Inscription: 60 percent success chance]
[Inscription Failed: Try Again?] Y/N
Well, you can't win every time.
[Insufficient Inscription: 60 percent success chance]
[Inscription Failed: Try Again?] Y/N
Sonofa...
[Insufficient Inscription: 60 percent success chance]
[Inscription Failed: Try Again?] Y/N
Seriously? Did he use up all of his luck already?
[Inscription Successful]
[Skill Book Created: Advanced Offense - Dark Elf Blade Forms]
[Skill Learned]
Again Cain is facing a Barrage of notifications about skills changing as the basic attacks he learned are upgraded to Advanced.
[Scimitar and Short Spear: Dashing Strike] 2MP deals 300 percent damage to target. Allows Use of [Multiple Stab]
[Multiple Stab] 10MP triggered by Dashing Strike. Deals the damage of Dashing Strike 5 times in rapid succession.
Now that's a skill. The sort of close combat ability you'd expect a warrior to have. Cain inspects his abilities and sees that they're are still just a low, middle and high strike plus a dashing strike for each weapon combination, but the [Offensive Flow] abilities stack the damage up, with each successive Successful ability doing even more damage than the last. Up to five abilities can be linked in a chain, should your target live that long.
Then he sees a new attack at the bottom.
[Decapitate] Deal 100 percent of a Target's Maximum HP in one strike to an immobilized or stunned target.
That's just a whole new level of brutal. Cain isn't sure how much armor and damage reduction skills like his Golems have would effect it, but that amount of damage is ridiculous. He's seen it in action before, come to think of it. The strongest attack of that Dark Elven Warrior Dungeon Boss looks exactly like what Cain understands the [Decapitate] skill should be. But that boss could use it without stunning his target first.
To elite warriors like that, these skills might be introductory, but to Cain and the warriors in his Guild? They're almost broken overpowered, largely because of the low mana cost and stacking combo damage.
[Is there a Dagger option to those skills? I can't use any of the weapons in the list except short sword.] Elmira sends in Guild chat, finally looking up what everyone else is doing.
That Pixie has gotten completely comfortable with her place in the world, somewhere between a pillow to nap on and a jar of honey. But she's had a rough life, she deserves some downtime.
[Sorry, no daggers in the list. But twin short swords is an option, if you want to learn them once I'm good enough to reliably make the books.] Cain sends back and receives a pouty face in response. She won't need Cloud Dancer, as she can fly but Dual Wield plus the Offense books and Parry would make for an interesting combination with her existing Assassin skills. She focused heavily on the Ranged and magic attacks that a Pixie Species Assassin can use, high damage single strikes, so she's also lacking in melee skills.
"Nearly finished yet?" Lloran asks, sauntering into the room.
"Yep, all done and learned, I just need to practice them a little to get the feel for the Flow ability." Cain explains.
"Only one way to practice properly. Show me what you've got." Cain is a bit concerned about hurting the old man, but he's at least 20 levels higher than the Puppet Master, so Lloran might be alright, even though Cain is still merged with the two Legendary Demons.
Cain picks the Scimitar and Spear that he's practiced the most with and faces off with the absorb Elven warrior who is now holding two training Scimitar with dull edges. He goes in for the dashing strike, only to be parried at the last second. So he tries the Multiple Stab attack, but the old man dodges and begins his own attacks, just simple, single attacks, but they force Cain to rapidly Parry with his one sword as he tries to cancel the stabs.
It ends up being easier to simply cancel them by moving on to another attack, in this case a low sweep with the spear intended to trip the opponent, followed by an attempt to attack with the Scimitar. But the old man blocks the spear with a sword and Cain is forced back onto defense.
No old man should be that fast. Cain has not one, but two Legendary Demons on his side, but he can't get ahead of the Royal Guard. As Cain tries Multiple attack combinations trying to get through, even going as far as adding in Cloud Dancing to try to attack from above and behind, he starts to realize that it's not all speed, the old man is just so much more skilled than he is that even a fresh batch of abilities doesn't make Cain anywhere near his equal.
Once Cain has exhausted every combination from every angle he can think of without managing to land a strike on Lloran he steps back, thinking that he should switch weapons.
"Not bad young man. You did indeed copy every one of the books successfully. Don't feel bad about not landing a strike, I might be old, but I'm still more than a hundred levels higher than you are."
