What came out of the combination of [Armor Mana Plating] was the skill [Armor of Vengeances].
The main effect of the skill stayed as it is, but compared to wrapping his mana around the armor in the form of platings, it now used dead mana to do the exact same thing, which resulted in the mana armor being more resident against Death, Holy and Light magic.
Other than Death magic, the other two were the natural weakness of all undead. It also improved the general effect by just a tiny bit.
But the main difference came from the secondary effect of the skill. And the effect was where the armor could absorb a part of the enemy's magical attack and then discharge around him in a shock wave that had a decay effect built-in.
The [Mana Resistence] option did what Danzel hoped so. By absorbing a part of the magical attack, it meant that the spell that would hit him would contain much less power with an additional option to counterattack with the shock wave.
Overall, he was satisfied.
He thought that it would have been better for the absorption part to be much stronger than the shock wave itself, but the outcome didn´t displease him at all.
`I will have to try the shock wave to see before I judge the skill. But for now, I will give it the benefit of doubt.´ Danzel thought internally as he went to the last skill on his must-upgrade list.
Raising his hand and upgrading [Gale Mana Blade] to its max level, the modification option showed up in front of him.
For this skill, in particular, Danzel already knew which options he would pick.
Like the other skills, they were some tempting options such as [Faster Travel], [Sharpness], [Multiple Waves] that would improve the skill power by a lot. But the ones that Danzel chose were [Dead Mana Affinity] and [Soul Affinity].
Considering that the skill [Gale Mana Blade] was his main weapon against ranged enemies, Danzel aware of the danger that this combination could potentially ruin his most reliable skill. And yet he still chose to pick the combination for the seer potential for doing that.
As far as he knew, [Soul Affinity] dealt with ethereal effects that the material world couldn´t dare to fight against it. [Mortal Reminder] was a good example.
Though he had to mark someone first for the effect to activate, once the effect activated, no matter who it was, the one unfortunate enough will suffer.
Of course, the stronger ones were, the more resistant it would be against it, but completely immune to the pain wasn´t possible. It didn´t even matter if one had a strong pain resistance, as [Mortal Reminder] attacked something other than one's physical body.
Danzel hoped for the combination to create an impossible-to-block attack!
Alas, the more one hopes, the more disappointed one was fated to be.
[Soul Reaping Wind]: Slashing through the wind, one soul shall be reaped. Using a slashing weapon, one could cut down the wind and send out a sharp blade that contains the attribute of death itself. The one hit by it will experience a part of their very own [Soul Essence] to be cut. Additionally, the wound created by such wind would bring forth a short yet strong decay in one's body.
"Sigh...I asked too much." Danzel sighed to himself as he read the effect of the skill.
His wish of having an impossible-to-defend attack didn´t come to being and what he got instead was the skill [Soul Reaping Wind. Which Danzel didn´t find too bad at all.
Now whoever is misfortune enough to get hit by this, Danzel was sure that he wouldn´t like it. The decay part is inflicting more damage on an enemy while the [Soul Essence] cutting part also sounded quite painful.
He didn´t know what it would feel like having one [Soul Essence] cut away, but considering the after-effects of the [Rune of Harvest], it was bound to be nasty for his enemies.
"I guess I have another skill to experiment with." Danzel to himself as he opened his status to see his remaining XP.
...
[XP: 4 760 300]
"I knew that those 4 skills were on the more expensive side, but to think that I lost more than 3 000 000 XP." Danzel mumbled to himself.
One had to remember that previously [Gale Mana Blade] was at Lv.3 and [Vanguards Defense] at Lv.5 respectively. So watching such an amount of XP disappearing in a matter of 10 minutes brought him more headaches than he needed.
Just like before, he was forced to take a break so that he can calm down his mind before considering what he would do with the rest of his XP.
"At the very least those 4 new skills will for now on being discounted, making my spending much more efficient. But considering that the higher the tier, the higher the cost of the skill...then I would need a mounted worth of XP to increase them at the 4th-tier..." Danzel thought in misery.
`I am lucky to have the [Rune of Harvest] to bring me the XP. Otherwise gaining all the XP would either need my decades of work or mass genocide.´Danzel thought to himself.
Shaking his head to forget about his future expenses, Danzel looked right ahead towards his status window and considered his available option.
And those weren´t that many.
He obviously didn´t plan to increase the level of his sub-class as he didn´t even manage to bring a [Epic] rune in the [Good] grade. Heck, he didn´t even start learning the new [Great Rune]´s.
By now he was released that runesmithing wasn´t supposed to be rushed. It was an art that required one pacient and unwilling will to give in the chase for a better rune grade. He also considered that he might have rushed his way towards the [Epic] runes.
Though practice makes perfect to some extent, the lower rating runes such though him the basics of rune carving. He also considered buying more [Rare] runes to expand his knowledge before going to the harder runes.
But considering the power of [Epic] runes and the still unknown effect of [Great Rune]´s, it wasn´t very tempting.
His next option on where to spend his XP was his main class, [Black Guard] which finds itself at level 1.
Deciding to upgrade his class would have obvious effects, those mainly being his attribute increasing by a whole lot. And since it was at Lv. 1, the first levels would be quite cheap so it wouldn´t be a bad choice at all.
There was also the possibility of unlocking another patch of new skills to learn, which could have an incredible effect.
The option was tempting, but in the end, Danzel decided to push the level increasing of his class in the oncoming future.
Such a decision had several reasons, but the main reason for it was because he was already considered at the very peak of the 3rd-tier combatants.
As far as he knew, they were only a very small amount of people who could actually face him equally and have the same tier as him. So increasing his attribute anymore would be overkill.
Not to forget that currently, he didn´t know his body's current limit.
If he were to increase his classes to the point where his body will reach the limit of strength, then Danzel was afraid that he would self-destruct himself wherever he used [Sin of Wrath].
Though that was only considering the worst possible scenario and that it was unlikely to ever happen.
But the fact that it was overkill still stayed valid.
He had also once asked Velkir if it was possible for him to reach the 4th-tier while still remaining as a Wight. And his answer was that it was impossible.
At best he would reach the lowest of the low of 4th-tier combatants.
An amazing feat, but nonetheless, Danzel knew that obtaining the true strength of a 4th-tier required him to evolve into a [Death Knight].
So where he decided to spend his remaining XP was on his remaining skills.
Following his very own priority list, the list he chose were [Cursed Blade], [Death Blast], [Death Influnce] and [Restore Death], and [Rune Erasure] and he chose to respectively level them up to level 9 instead to the max to reach the modification stage.
The sole reason for doing such was because those 4 skills were still of the 1st-tier.
If he were to upgrade them to reach the 2nd-tier, then Danzel thought it would be better to first see the advantages of the new skills before going into the modification.
He was afraid that if he hasted his decision, he wouldn´t be able to see the full potential of the skill and because of his lack of knowledge, choice the wrong combination for the respective skills.
With those though in his mind, Danzel went right ahead and upgraded the 5 skills to the 2nd-tier.
