As the root avatar twisted out of the way of Helen’s blow, the substance of the roots ripped from the torque applied by the sudden shift in direction. Flecks of plant matter sprayed sideways in an arc as the root avatar struggled to recover.
So rather than hurtling forward into the blow or dodging, it simply fell forward.
Both the root avatar and Helen were surprised by this and paused in their battle. A mont of shared confusion hung between them. But then the root avatar struck upwards in a vicious thrust and Helen slashed sideways with the knife she held in her off-hand. The blow was so quick that the second Randidly’s instincts scread it was coming it had already cut toward the root avatar’s arms.
Randidly smiled ruefully; with the avatars, there was a split second of lag in movent. It wasn’t a lot but against soone of Helen’s caliber...
The knife knocked the spear to the side and with a deft motion, Helen spun her chain around the tip of the spear. Which allowed her to pull the weapon further down and spear the root avatar through the chest with her vicious harpoon.
After releasing a sigh at the loss, Randidly nodded his head thoughtfully. “That’s enough for now. Thanks, Helen.”
“Anyti,” Helen panted as she wiped so of the sweat from her forehead. Randidly hid a smile as he turned and allowed the waiting root avatars to dissipate. Although Helen was undoubtedly powerful, her Stamina usage couldn’t keep up with Randidly’s hyper-efficient Mana expenditure with the high-Level Grasp of the World Seed. The last eight hours had driven Helen to the edge.
Of course, she would recover to full strength much more quickly than Randidly would. But he could tell from Helen’s shocked expression that she couldn’t figure out how he managed to exhaust her like this while still seeming so at ease.
Truly, his Mana pool was on another level entirely.
Not that this was easy for Randidly either, but he simply had experience hiding ntal strain. After all, fighting against Helen ant he had to use images the entire ti to keep up with her. But since Randidly just had to focus his Willpower on a single root avatar fighting at the sa ti, it wasn’t more than Randidly could bear.
After all, basically all of his training projects these days involved forcing his mind to the edge. Slowly, in a way that wasn’t quantifiable by the System, Randidly could feel the limits of his will grow increasingly more vast.
“Are you…” Helen searched for the word she was looking for. “...evolving your Style?”
“Sothing like that,” Randidly said softly. He reached up with his right hand and enjoyed the feeling of the warm sun dancing across his skin. Today was a beautiful autumn day. Hopefully, tomorrow would be just as clear and bright.
That way the supre power of a dominant image would be that much more clear to the audience. It would be so sharp and stark that it would darken the sky.
Helen frowned. “It’s a dangerous Style. Flawed too.”
“It’s not a Style I plan on teaching to anyone else,” Randidly said to reassure her. To be fair, Helen was right. The current blend of the two Styles was still not a balanced thing. The physical strain it put on the root avatars was enough that they often broke down after only five minutes of fighting. Which ant that Randidly’s body would need to endure that sort of exertion in order to use it effectively.
So part of him was looking forward to it. Randidly’s instincts told him that if he forced his way down this Path, he would find a powerful Skillset waiting for him. But it still had to be a considered way forward. The Style needed to go through a few more rounds of refinent before he would be satisfied.
Luckily, he had several groups of capable training partners lined up for tomorrow.
“But still…” Helen said quietly as she wiped away a smudge of blood that had spread outward from a small cut. “It’s frightening.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Randidly answered with a grin.
Helen chuckled. “I fucking feel bad for Donnyton. Are you going to take it easy until the challenge?”
Shaking his head, Randidly said. “No, but working out the moves was only half of it. I need to work on images for a while.”
Nodding, Helen said goodbye and headed back toward Donnyton. Randidly watched her go. It was nice to see that she had beco much more agreeable after he stated she could participate in the challenge. Honestly, he should have started training like this much earlier. The gains from the last eight hours were double that of the previous solo training combined.
Mostly, it seed that because Randidly was controlling both participants in the past, he had allowed so flaws he hadn’t noticed to grow larger and larger without addressing them. Helen had no preconceived biases and attacked those flaws maliciously.
Which put Randidly imdiately on the back foot at the beginning of the training, sending his mind scrambling to cope with the barrage of attacks. It was from those ergency instincts that the bare bones of his new Style erged. And although it was an imbalanced skeleton that he had made, it was at least a complete skeleton. One with the power to compensate for its relative danger.
...so All is Ash was the Skill to combine with Breath of the Spear Phantom, huh…
Randidly grinned at the ground. By rging the two together, it lowered the Mana expenditure imnsely, while now costing a small amount of Mana, Stamina, and Health to compensate. And it was exactly the sort of move that could demonstrate its oppressive power against a large group of enemies.
Well, anyways… better take a break before I work on the image.
So Randidly returned to his small hut while whistling. There were a few things that he wanted to try out before the challenge against Donnyton. So part of him considered Leveling up further, but all Randidly would obtain was another Skill or two. He didn’t want to let himself be distracted by a shiny new toy before the challenge.
Another part of Randidly suggested heading into a Dungeon and training his new Style up to a high level of proficiency before the challenge. He would have plenty of ti then. But there were two reasons why he didn’t.
The first reason was that the pressure of a ti crunch spurred him into desperate motion. If he had more ti, he would take longer to test things. But sohow, Randidly sensed that careful testing was not the way of this Style. This was a monster born to grow on the dangerous edge of battle.
The second reason was that he wanted to send a ssage to Donnyton. And nothing would send that ssage more critically than if they could watch him forge an image of great power, in the middle of their fight.
Besides, Randidly had planned to head into Dungeons after this challenge, to prepare himself for the descent of his Final Judgent.
But the first thing Randidly needed to do right now was accustom himself to moving with all of his new equipnt.
With all the equipnt worn, Randidly certainly looked strange. His circlet was an ashy grey, while he had a glowing golden belt. His glovers were a dark, almost liquid seeming, purple-grey. anwhile, his greaves looked like brightly condensed moonlight, luminescent white and flawless.
But altogether, Randidly grinned as he looked at the combined Stat bonuses he received.
Health 300, Stamina 300, Stamina/R 50, Vit 20, End 20, Agi 140, Str 75, Perception 20, React 45, Resistance 40, Focus 20, Int 15, Willpower 80, Wisdom 15, Control 15.
Certainly a fair amount of Stats from this… especially with that boosts to agility… puts up to almost 750…
Then, to test how the bonuses felt, Randidly moved through so basic Skills and movents. Imdiately, Randidly discovered several things that hadn’t been imdiately clear from simply reading the item descriptions.
The first and most obvious realization ca from the greaves. Sam had woven leather padding into their constructions, so they were extrely comfortable. And when Randidly moved faster than a certain threshold, pale blades of moonlight spread out behind him, leaving deep cuts in the ground and trees that he passed.
It seed like the one option provided by the greaves simply created an area attack whenever Randidly moved fast enough to activate it. Which was an extrely useful skill, considering the violent nature of his combined Style he was slowly creating.
The second thing was how light and deceptive the gloves were. As stated in the description, the long sleeves of the gloves were much longer than Randidly could use, so they hung down over his hands, billowing in an invisible wind. There was a slit along the side, so they hung down back over his gloved hands like a long banner. It seed as though the gloves themselves purposefully shited to cover whatever Randidly was holding in his hands.
Now, it wasn’t very effective if Randidly was holding onto a spear, but if Randidly was holding a handful of Erald Essence…
Which led Randidly to the final discovery. When Randidly used Ignition of Erald Essence a certain amount, the ambient energy in his body would ignite the ashy-grey circlet, like it was made of charcoal. Suddenly his forehead was wreathed in erald flas.
Randidly stared at himself in the mirror. It sorta looked like there was a halo of fire hovering around his head. And when he condensed his Crown of Upheaval and Gloom above it…
Randidly grinned at his reflection. This will certainly be a fun challenge.
Which left one last thing to test with the equipnt. Three Wishes. Eruption of the Blazing Leyline.
Randidly chose to detonate this Skill on a hill further Northeast of his current position, away from Donnyton. But even still, Randidly had a sinking feeling that soone would complain to him when he saw the white-hot eruption that ripped out of the nearby hill.
The ground imdiately shattered underneath the force of the spell. A plu of fla about ten ters tall erupted upward. Rather than its usual erald color, it seed that the infusion of the sun’s wrath caused the flas to be a li green, wreathed in golden swirled of fire. The heat quickly lted the top of the hill and parted the clouds above.
After ten seconds, the flas slowly faded away, leaving a pool of molten tal. Randidly’s Grasp of the World Seed senses slowly recovered in the area and surveyed the extent of the damages. Randidly grimaced; it seed that this Skill ran much deeper than the regular variety.
Honestly, if he didn’t know better…
Randidly walked closer, right up to the lip of the lava pool. The molten liquid below him bubbled expressively as if greeting its father. And as Randidly stared at it with his erald gaze and scanned the depths, he couldn’t deny that his Skill had marked the Earth so deeply that it legitimately created a passage for lava to co to the surface.
Randidly had made a small volcano.
Sighing, Randidly returned to his hut and tried to justify the fact such a small volcano couldn’t possibly be a danger to the town. He quickly returned inside his building. As they say, out of sight is out of mind.
In terms of power, the Skill was about five tis more powerful than the regular version, while costing the sa amount of Mana. And at Randidly’s Level, an improvent of five tis was quite a lot. Enough to form a small volcano. Even if it was only three uses per day, it would be more than enough.
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