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[Skill-Eater] Chapter 141: Repel
🕑 Added 2024-11-07 18:01:01 +0000 UTCWhile dinner was stewing, Edge took a lap around the farm, looking for another stray monster for a different kind of meal. He didn’t find any blightlings, although he did steal two basic skills from a pair of possum-like creatures that had been scavenging from the harvest.
They weren’t anything that he wanted to keep. After some consideration, he decided to add the first skill’s experience to repel water, since it was so close to advancing that Absorbing a rank-one basic would fill its cup to the brim. He’d tested it enough over the last few days and was ready to make his decision.
After the possum’s skill was drawn into Edge’s reactor and consumed by the endless flames, a bit of experience came floating back out and entered repel water. The moment that it did, the skill started glowing and a message from the System appeared before his eyes.
The skill (repel water [versatile]) has advanced to rank 2.
Its mana efficiency has been enhanced.
Please choose between one of the following options:
Increase the volume of water that the skill can repel.
Change the skill into (repel fluid [versatile]), lowering its power but widening the range of substances it can manipulate.
Repel water at a greater velocity but reduce the volume the skill can affect.
Warning: if no option is selected, your skill will remain as it is and gain a slight bonus to mana efficiency.
The choices were interesting this time around. The first would let Edge divert more water at once. This would offer him considerable protection against water-based attacks, including ice and steam. It might have other uses too, like repelling the water inside a creature, which Warren had done during their fight.
The second option was intriguing, but he had a hard time thinking of other fluids that he would want to repel on a regular basis. It would also remove the skill’s ability to affect water in other states beside liquid, and he had no desire to get scalded by steam or impaled by ice.
If he was an alchemist or working in an extreme environment with acids or other dangerous chemicals in liquid form, he might have gone for it. But as it was, it would weaken the overall power of the skill, on top of the opportunity cost of passing up the other upgrades. Edge went ahead and crossed it off his list and moved on to his final choice.
The third pick was also solid. It would make it easier to create water bullets, like Warren had used during their showdown. But he had the sense that the manslayer had practiced long and hard to turn the versatile skill into a ranged attack, and even then, it hadn’t packed much of a punch.
Even being a whole stage below the other man, Edge had only taken moderate damage from the shots. He would probably get more use out of stealing a proper ranged attack skill than modifying repel water for damage at the cost of reducing its utility.
In the end, he decided to take option one. It would give him a type of ranged defense, and he already had some ideas for other ways to use the skill. Maybe once he raised its rank, he could use it to glide along the surface of the river or divert a stream to flood a beast’s lair. He could have used it to drown the blightlings, if he had known they were there and hadn’t been caught by surprise.
“I’d like to see what’s behind door number one.” Edge sent his intentions into the System, and watched as his skill began to change shape. In this case, the alteration wasn’t as pronounced as his other upgrades. The floating ball of water doubled in size, indicating that the skill could push a bigger volume at once. When the show was over, he snapped back into his body.
He put the experience from the second skill he had stolen into regeneration—the only other skill besides harden that had some already. While he liked his new defensive skill, regeneration was a literal lifesaver, and he wanted to rank it up as quickly as he could. Adding rank-one basics to an uncommon power only filled its cup by a few percent each, but it was still progress.
When Edge walked back to the others, dinner was almost ready. He removed his kit from the cart, then went ahead and set up his bedroll. The team had decided to sleep in the barn instead of the farmhouse, where they could be up and out at the first sign of trouble. Besides, it was sad and kind of creepy to sleep in the bed of someone who had been killed only a few days ago, and no one wanted to intrude.
They had already swept the inside of the barn for monsters, and there wasn’t anything valuable to salvage. So, after Trapper finished placing the last alarm, the hunters gathered around the fire to eat.
Tonight’s meal was something that Violet called harvest stew—a hearty concoction that was one of the quartermaster’s family recipes. They spoke little that evening, mostly laying plans for what they would do the next day. Everything they’d seen was still fresh in their minds, instilling the crew with a somber mood.
“At least we avenged them,” Jumo said. “It won’t bring back the dead, but hopefully they will rest a little easier.”
“And those monsters won’t be killing anyone else,” Sasha added. “I’m glad that we were the ones to run into them. Most crews don’t have the ability to launch an attack of that scale.”
“Me too.” Trapped sighed. “Although that fight was far too close for comfort. But our target will be even tougher to take down than the blightling swarm. If the padamas gets the drop on us like those crabs did, none of us will be walking away.” With that grim truth resonating in their minds, Trapper rose to her feet, heading out to hand Riller his dinner and keep the man company for a while.
Edge spent a few minutes chatting with Sasha, Jumo, and Violet, then everyone slipped into their bedrolls. He stared up at the ceiling while reflecting on his day, before drifting off into the land of dreams.
