One skill, more skills!
Ikky wasn't sure if he should ask for Dagger skills or Bow skills. In the end, he decided that it would be best to continue with Bow, at least for the moment. He chose based on three simple facts.
First, his Agility was higher than the Strength, which means he would benefit more from Range weapon rather than a Melee weapon. Even though he could fix this problem with his remaining Skill points, Ikky didn't think it would be the right way to deal with the problem.
Second, his Dagger weapon was currently of very poor quality, on the other hand, his Bow had a (very rare), rank. The boost provided in damage was just simply incomparable, and he was not sure how, and when he would be able to replace the Dagger.
But the very main reason was his special skill Guided arrow, which he received from the hidden passive. The passive was now on 14 days cooldown and Ikky felt like he would lose too much if he didn't utilize its power from the beginning.
In the end, Ikky asked the seller where he can find the Bow skills.
The seller pointed to the bookshelf in one of the corners.
When Ikky checked the skills, he finally understood why his friend said it was way too expensive, such a price was simply impossible to achieve, at least for a normal player. Maybe a party of people would be able to get enough money for 1 skill, but would it be worth it?
-Shoot an arrow that deals 50% extra attack then chain to the next closes targets.
-Can hit a max of 5 targets. Targets must be within 10 yards from each other and damage is reduced by 25% for each time it chains.
-Cooldown: 25 second
'65 silvers...crazy, also what is (in stock)? Does it means once the skills are purchased, then it will no longer be available to other players?' assumed Ikky.
Even if he didn't know at that time, it was a spot on guess. The skill shops were actually selling good skills, and to most of the players, it would look like everything was way too much expensive. But there was one simple reason why everything was that expensive, once it was bought it would be gone forever. Basically first come first serve.
'How much money do I even have?' Ikky checked his inventory and couldn't help but feel lucky. The underground quest reward was just too awesome.
[1 gold, 9 silvers, 78 coppers]
He instantly checked several other skills.
As Ikky continued to look around he noticed that most cheaper skills cost 30 silvers, and the most expensive one actually cost whole gold! He also noticed that any skill that had (magic) in its name, was automatically more expensive.
-Shoot an arrow immersed in darkness, deals 380% more damage, and has a high chance to make a critical hit.
-The specialty of the darkness element is, that it does ignore the Defense of the target.
-Moreover, this skill leaves debuff "Pierced by darkness" on the target.
-Pierced by darkness: Reduce enemy Defense by 20% and increase all damage done to the target by 10% for 15 second.
-Cooldown: 1 minute
'This skill is insanely strong,..but why does it say that I'm unable to buy it? Maybe I need to build a reputation with the vendor or something?' he wondered.
Ikky went through all of the skills, then he got an idea and asked Josh.
"Josh, how much money do you have?"
"11 silver 40 copper, I was kind of lucky and got some unique material drop which I was able to sell for 4 silver and 80 coppers. Why?" asked Josh in return.
'With 11 more silvers I would have 1 gold and 20 silvers, with that I can buy 4 skills for 30 silver.'
"By the way, what class are you?" asked Ikky.
"He, he, behold. I'm a warrior," answered Josh proudly.
"You? Having high strength? Well, it makes sense, I would be surprised if you had higher Intellect" laughed Ikky.
"Oi!" Josh was about to smash his friend's head but stopped when he heard his next words.
"Do you want a skill for 11 silver?" Ikky asked out of nowhere.
"W-What?" Josh looked at his friend confusingly, his hand still up in the air prepared to smash him if he jokes around one more time.
"What do you mean?" he asked curiously.
"I did drop a skill book which grants a skill named Leap attack, it's guaranteed critical hit and charge on the target," told Ikky while taking the skill book out of his inventory.
Josh's eyes were shining when he saw the skill book and not only some ordinary skill book, but the one he can actually afford!
"Really only for 11 silver?" he asked surprised.
"Yea, that's just what I need so I can buy a skill myself," said Ikky.
"Alright!" Josh didn't even think for a second and exchanged some silvers for a book.
Josh would lend those silvers to his friend if he was asked, but Ikky felt very bad taking advantage of their friendship, so he at least decided to make this small exchange.
"Can you wait outside for me? I will be there right after I buy that skill," asked Ikky.
"Sure, don't take too much time, I can't wait to test my new skill in combat!" with those words Josh left the shop.
'Okay, time to buy some more skills' Ikky looked around several times trying to calculate the cost of different combinations.
Even though he could buy up to 4 skills, it was not worth it, since the cheapest skills were also the weakest ones. When he compared it to his Poison attack, they were at least half of its power.
'Poison attack would definitely cost somewhere between 60-80 silver, I was very lucky to receive such good skill together with a Bow, which has the highest base damage of all the weapons.' thought Ikky.
He gave up looking for a strong skills and instead started to look for useful skills, as already owned very good single target skill, it was now time to look up for some utility and area of damage skills.
In the end, he selected 2 skills and also found one more skill on the next bookshelf which was not related to Bow, but Ikky liked it very much.
-Shoot 5 arrows at once, each arrow deals only 70% of your damage, however, you can hit 5 targets if they stand close to each other.
-Accuracy is reduced by 50%
-Cooldown: 10 second
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-Hit arrow enveloped by Ice element, deals 20% extra damage
-Moreover, this skill leaves debuff "Chilling feet" on the target.
-Chilling feet: Reduce enemy movement speed by 35% for 10 seconds.
-Cooldown: 20 second
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-Unique technique allowing the user to perform foot technique involving 2 steps and jump.
-Dodge chance is increased by 50% during the first two steps.
-Jump moves the user in any direction of 5 yards while giving a 100% dodge chance during the jump.
Cooldown: 16 second
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Ikky was very happy with his skill selection. Multishot wasn't the strongest, but also was not the weakest of the area damage skills available. Its damage was quite high considering it would hit 5 targets at once. The accuracy handicap was not nice, but it could be made up with his Guiding arrow, however, he would need to take into account the MP consumption.
The Chilling arrow was weaker than the Freezing arrow, but it was much cheaper and debuff lasted longer, even if the slow effect was lower by 5% and there was not the 1-second Freeze where the enemy could not move at all, the overall duration was actually longer by whole 4 seconds, and cooldown was also lower, allowing higher uptime.
But he was mostly happy with the last skill, Two-step fly. Even though Ikky could use his reflex and Agility to evade most of the normal attacks the active skill was actually on another level. If the first two steps gave only a 50% dodge boost, Ikky was confident to make up for the rest of the percentage by his own skill, and the jump also gave him the ability to create some distance between him and the enemy, while providing 100% chance to dodge any attack. Perfect skill for a long-range assaulter.
When the seller saw the previous young man approaching him while carrying 3 skill books he almost shed tears of happiness.