Testing New Skills I

Freya also left after the Captain's orders and headed towards her secluded training ground. She arrived a few minutes later to her destination and opened up her status window.

[Status Window

Player: Freya Einar

Age: 24

Title(s): -

Job: Elite Swordsman

Trait(s): Blessed by Mana, Keen Eyes

Level: 26

Stats:

Strength: 40 Agility: 34 Stamina: 40

Intelligence: 31 Dexterity: 25 Insight: 20

Distributable Points: 10]

Freya had ten stats points available for distribution, and this time she had resolved to invest them in a stat that will increase her combat strength greatly. So she had three stats in mind, Strength, Agility and Intelligence. Her strength was already quite enough in her opinion so she focused on the other two stats.

She decided to put six points in agility and the rest in intelligence. If she was going to pursue the swordswoman plus mage combo, she would make sure that her strength, agility and intelligence stat were on par with each other.

[Stats Increase: +6 Agility, +4 Intelligence]

At the message of the stat increase, the mage was about to get up to train when a surprising message flashed across her eyes.

[Congratulations Player! You have reached 200 cumulative stat points. A skill will be awarded based on a random stat.]

[Processing…]

[The Intelligence stat has been chosen…]

[Processing…]

[You have received an Epic skill book.]

Freya was pleasantly surprised at this turn of events. She didn't get any messages when she reached 100 stats points so she hadn't expected anything. She didn't even know she had reached 200 to be honest. Likewise, she quickly pulled out the small book that had materialized in her bag.

It was different from the rare book as instead of the pale orange, it was deep pink and it even had a mysterious rune on its cover page unlike the rare skill book. With a little focus of her mind, the skill book's information flashed in front of her.

[Skill: Mana Sense

Type: Active

Rank: Epic

Level: 1

Spell Circle: 2nd Circle

Description: An extremely rare skill that is highly sought after. This skill allows the caster to form an invisible field in a one-meter range around them. Anything that falls in this range can be detected by the caster, even if he cannot use any of his other senses. This powerful spell also comes with a big disadvantage, as it uses the mana equivalent of a first circle spell each second that it remains active. This skill also has great potential of growth as it is tied to both Intelligence and Insight stats.

Effect:

i) A detection field is cast in a one-meter field around the caster.]

Freya carefully read through the skill information more than once. The new skill she had obtained was nothing short of miraculous. This was her first non-elemental spell. Even though this skill was still in its initial level, it was already at the Epic Rank and easily became her highest ranked skill. It completely eliminated the chances of a surprise attack, at least as long as she had it activated and was able to react in time, but still it was a skill of tremendous value.

The only disadvantages it had was its enormous mana requirements. As of now, Freya had enough mana to be able to use a little over one hundred first circle spells at one time, and that was with the help of her trait, 'Blessed by Mana'. Since Mana Sense was only a second circle spell, she calculated that she could keep it active for about 120 seconds or two minutes.

That was a short period of time, but during that short time she had no blind spots in her immediate vicinity. It gave her a sense of calm even if she were in the midst of a battlefield and with her magic and sword skills, she could cause great damage to enemy formations with little to no damage to herself.

Freya immediately went towards the wooden target she had set in the middle of the ground and stopped a few feet away from it. She wanted to activate the 'Ice Dagger Throw' but she realized that she didn't know the magic circle for the ice and wind spells that made up the skill.

'Just think about activating the skill.' Art suggested at her confusion.

She did as he told, and a bright blue circle appeared, filled with a familiar set of runes at the edges and one large rune in the center that was present in all Ice magic spells up to the third circle. In a second, the magic circle vanished, and water vapor condensed from the atmosphere to form a small ice dagger in her hand.

Freya stood shocked with an ice dagger in her hand that had appeared without any input from her. In fact, the spell had been almost instantaneous, taking less than a second to cast. Something that she thought was impossible until now.

'You're surprised.' Art's voice resounded in her mind, 'After all I have shown you, I thought you would have built some immunity towards it but I guess I was wrong.'

'Don't stress your mind over it too much.' He continued, 'A spell is merely a set of instructions that when applied to your mana creates a spell. The system is easily able to implement this to lower circle spells.'

'Then why didn't you tell me this before.' Freya thought with some frustration, 'It could have helped me a lot in the past battle.'

More than once her life had been in danger because she didn't have enough time to cast the proper spells. If she could have used this feature, it would have saved her a lot of stress.

'That's because it doesn't apply to the skills and spells you have learned before I gave you the system.' Art replied with a calm voice, ignoring her accusatory tone. 'The spells that you learned before were quite inefficient and even I could optimize them so much.'

'So even if you could cast them with the system's help, it would be practically no different from casting it yourself. On the other hand, the spell and skills you learn through the system comes from my repertoire, so they are most optimal in rune usage.'

Freya nodded at the ancient mage's explanation. She even felt that the mage sounded a little arrogant when talking about his skills and spells but she listened silently to his words.

'The system also has more affinity towards my spells and skills as I created it so it can only be applied to the skills you learn through it.'

Freya examined the Ice Dagger in her as the soul of the mage finished his explanation. It was a small dagger about twelve inches long. The blade was a crude straight double edged blade and its handle also had a simple construction. It was nothing like her 'Greatsword of Ice' which had beautiful and intricate design.

She hadn't forgotten about the second part of the skill, as she took aim at the wooden target and threw it with half her strength. As the dagger left her hand, a light gray circle of magic appeared behind it and with a small boom, a gust of wind propelled the dagger at such speed that it almost became a blur for her.

The small dagger struck the wooden log with a one-foot diameter and went through it like butter. The two pieces of the split log fell on opposite sides, and the dagger continued its trajectory until it hit a stone wall and embedded itself deep in to it.