ushernet Chapter 814: Mastery
Chapter 814: Mastery
Zac appeared in the teleporter of Samsara’s Edge with a flash of light, and he settled inside one of the empty buildings as took out an information crystal. It was a short missive on mastery skills, something he had picked up for 150 Purchase Points when buying the [Armament Mastery] skill. Even now, he hadn’t actually read it, afraid that its contents would influence his training right when he was at the beginning of learning.Now that he had reached peak mastery he didn’t have those reservations any longer, so he curiously read through the materials. Most of the missive was a list of different categories of mastery skills, along with examples. There were a lot more types of mastery skills than he had expected. They included not only weaponry, but also all kinds of arcane specialties and crafts.
The latter, unfortunately, only worked for non-combat classes though, dashing Zac’s hopes of an easily-acquired skill like alchemy or blacksmithing.
The most relevant part of the missive related to upgrades, and it was quite straightforward. The consensus was that the Mastery Skills weren’t technically true skills. They didn’t contain the essence behind the teachings, and it was more accurate to consider them daughter arrays to the System. Therefore, the only step needed to upgrade the skills was to increase the detail of the pathways, and he already knew how to do that.
However, the missive also included an extremely interesting snippet of information, something which confirmed a suspicion of his. Mastery skills had two empty sockets, where one was recommended to leave a pattern representing one's Daos. That meant, he could leave two marks of his Dao Branch in [Axe Mastery], and the impartments would be slightly adjusted to suit his flavor of axe usage.
The same could be said for his armament mastery, but that was where Zac became a bit hesitant. He hadn’t spent much time as a human lately, and his Evolutionary Stance had fallen even further behind. However, he couldn’t help but wonder if the addition of an armament wouldn’t help elevate that stance as well.
He had the skill already, and the ability to make something of it. Using a coffin and chains might not be the optimal route for his human side, but the vision from [Armament Mastery] had shown that only one’s imagination limited what kind of armaments could be created. Perhaps something like vines?
Would it be a mistake, locking the mastery skill to his Fragment of the Coffin? Should he avoid attunement altogether, or should he balance the skill fractal out with the Fragment of the Bodhi? Part of him wanted to return to Pavina and confer with her on this matter. But he didn’t, his hesitation about divulging his duality keeping him at an impasse.
Ultimately, he decided to add his Life-based Dao to the skill fractal. He’d had constantly been going over his stances over the past month, and the more he thought about it, the more sense it made to mirror his two sides. He had ultimately returned to the basics, but some things wouldn’t change with his path.
One stance represented change and breaking fate, the other stillness and inevitability. One side was Death, the other Life. Evolution and Inexorability, these two represented polar opposites that would grow over time, until they reached the highest domain.
Zac felt that his two sides needed to stay aligned, even if their core values were each other's opposites. Like yin and yang. For while the two stances were separate right now, Zac had the notion of fusing the two into one supreme path through conflict down the road.
Having arrived at this conclusion, Zac immediately set out, filled with motivation as he entered the facilities at the edge of the city. He booked an unattuned cultivation chamber, which was a higher-quality version of the [Fractal Framework Array]. Unfortunately, there were no attuned life-death chambers in this place, so Zac would have to do it on his own.
Zac took out two attuned natural treasures just in case he needed some liquid inspiration, but Zac didn’t think it would be required. The array hummed to life, and he infused the skill fractal of [Armament Mastery] into a large crystal in the center of the room. At the same time, he felt a soothing stream of pure Mental Energy seep into his soul while his thoughts became as clear as crystal, proof of the high quality of the chamber.
Things progressed as expected over the next few hours. The basic patterns of the skill fractal were as simple as they came, barely at the level of a low-quality skill. Most of the effort was spent adding two Dao arrays to the skill fractal. The patterns were a simplified manifestation of his Daos, their appearance based on the two Dao Avatars in his Soul Aperture.
The two trees, one radiant and the other withered with the coffin hanging from its only branch, were now residing on one of the outer cores each. The axe avatar that looked like himself had once more taken its place on the main core, and its eyes were closed in meditation.
Eventually, the upgrade process was complete, and Zac eagerly returned the skill fractal into his pathways before opening his Skill Screen.
[E] Armament Mastery (Bodhi & Coffin) - Proficiency: Early. The seed is planted as you strive for mastery. Upgradeable.
The skill was still upgradeable, though Zac read in the missive that D-grade was the last stage of the skill. After that, you would have to
"Bring something to drink the next time, will you?" Pavina said. "Common courtesy."
"Of course," Zac hurriedly nodded as he took out a couple of barrels from his stock. It was lucky that more than half of the Spatial Rings he had snatched in the Void contained liquor, with how thirsty all the residents of the Orom World were. Otherwise, he would have run out long ago.
Zac exited the mansion, leaving the Revenant standing by her meditation spot, her eyes fixed on Zac's receding back.
"Absolute monster..." Pavina muttered with shock evident in her eyes. "What kind of progress is this? Is this the Heritage of Draug? But why is his spirituality so faint?"