Chapter 88: [Transformer]

As the duo reached the end of the fourth floor, Sol hadn't leveled up just once but twice and still hadn't unlocked his talent. Even so, he didn't lose hope and kept fighting with the same vigor as before.

Sol slashed the legs of a Skeleton Hunter, and as it lost its balance and fell, Sol brought his sword up and slashed down with the full force of [Fell Cleave]. The bones shattered under the powerful attack, instantly ending the undead's existence.

You have slain a Lv 64 Skeleton Hunter! Gained 88,000 Exp (160%)

You have leveled up! +5 Attribute points

Talent Unlocked- [Transformer]!

"I DID IT!"

Sol couldn't help but exclaim out loud from the bottom of his heart. Amber, who was not far away, gave him an odd look before continuing to stab the Skeleton Mage in front of her.

Sol wished he could sit down and properly read all the details, but there were still two Skeleton Gladiators who wanted a piece of him, forcing him to deal with them first.

…

The two arrived at the entrance of the 5th floor. After unlocking the talent, Sol was eager to take his time to sit down and properly see what he gained. Sol even held himself back from opening his status page until they arrived, as he wanted to dedicate all his attention to it.

Amber was unused to seeing Sol impatient but complied with his requests and picked up the pace. When they arrived Amber began to set up the camp while Sol created a stone table and two stone chairs and sat down.

Name: Sol 

Race: Human 

Talents: [Siphoner], [Transformer]

Level: 62

Exp: 44,190/5,400,000

HP: 1250 

MP: 1000 

Str: 60 (+60)

Vit: 60 (+70)

Agi: 60 (+40)

Int: 65 (+40)

Wis: 60 (+40)

Available Stats: 5

Talent Skills: 

[Siphon] Lv 4, [Analysis] Lv 5, [Aggregate] Lv EX, [Reinterpret] Lv EX

Passive Skills: 

[Intermediate Swordsmanship] Lv 5, [Basic Trapmaking] Lv 9, [Muffled Movements] Lv EX, [Counter] Lv 1, [Shortened Cast] Lv MAX, [Agility Up] Lv 8, [Nature Sense] Lv 1, [Intermediate Throwing] Lv 1, [Intermediate Unarmed Mastery] Lv 1, [Gargantuan Strength] Lv 1, [Intermediate Bowmanship] Lv 7, [Intermediate Axemanship] Lv 7, [Iron Stomach] Lv 5, [Pursuit] Lv 1, [Endless Vitality] Lv 2, [Increased Mana Regeneration] Lv MAX, [Physical Resistance] Lv MAX, [Mana Perception] Lv 6, [Natural Armor] Lv MAX, [Wisdom Up] Lv 8, [Increased Health Regeneration] Lv 3, [Intelligence Up] Lv 8, [Basic Spearmanship] Lv 9, [Mana Efficiency] Lv 5, [Precise Coordination] Lv 6, [Basic Psychic Mastery] Lv 2, [Intermediate Shield Mastery] Lv 8, [Defiance] Lv MAX

Active Skills:

[Cross Slash] Lv 3, [Ground Shrink] Lv 1, [Basic Wind Magic] Lv 6, [Intermediate Fire Magic] Lv 9, [Snap Punch] Lv 4, [Blurry Steps] Lv 1, [Harden] Lv 9, [Blast Arrow] Lv 7, [Concealment] Lv 9, [Death Cyclone] Lv 8, [Basic Water Magic] Lv 6, [Intermediate Earth Magic] Lv 1, [Earth Hammer] Lv 5, [Rock Throw] Lv 4, [Burrow] Lv MAX, [Fell Cleave] Lv 8, [Crippling Strike] Lv 8, [Destructive Charge] Lv 8, [Blinding Fury] Lv 3, [Meditation] Lv 2, [Telepathy] Lv 1, [Barricade] Lv 7, [Barrage] Lv 7

'Both skills start at EX?'

Sol didn't recognize the talent name just like he had never heard of [Siphoner]. It also felt like it took way more levels to unlock this talent but Sol couldn't be too sure as he did gain his first talent at level 25 which made predicting this much harder.

Sol opened the talent skill descriptions to gain more insight to what they could do.

[Aggregate] Lv EX: Combine the origins of multiple skills to create or discover a new skill. Warning: The skill may not be better than the original skills. +1 Permission level.

[Reinterpret] Lv EX: Analyze the true meaning of a skill and reinterpret its origin. Can greatly accelerate the leveling of skills or change them at their origin. +1 Permission level.

'Definitely above legendary like [Siphoner]...'

There was a lot to unpack from the two skill descriptions, Sol didn't know where to begin. [Aggregate] sounded simple enough with letting Sol combine skills into a new skill. He could already think of a few which would combine perfectly. The second was less straightforward, allowing Sol to level skills which he hadn't been able to do before but also change them.

'What did that last part mean? Permission for what?'

Sol checked his status page, but nothing else changed. Not knowing what it could be for, he decided to put that to the side and try out the new skills. 

'With [Aggregate], I think I'll first try creating a skill I know. I think I have enough skills for it to work, but the warning worries me.'

Sol activated the skill, expecting some kind of prompt to appear and let him make a selection. Contrary to his expectations, what he instead saw were many faint colorful strings emanating from his body. At first, he panicked not knowing what was coming out of his body, but when he focused on one of them, he could tell what it was.

Touching the light green string, Sol spoke, "This is… [Nature Sense]?"

Looking at other strings, he could instinctually tell which skill was which and he could even touch them. When Sol touched them, he could see the memories of those he had siphoned and their usage of the skills. In some of them, he could even see himself using them.

After sifting through the memories for a long while, Sol was left wondering how to proceed from there.

'Okay, these are all my skills, now how do I combine them…'

Sol tried to move them with his hands, but they wouldn't budge. He could feel them and read information in the strings, but the moment he attempted to force them in a direction, his hand would phase through. After some trial and error, Sol figured out he could will the skills to move with his mind.

Sol willed all his magic skills into one bundle. When he did, they began to shine brightly as they merged into a much thicker string. The individual strings all pointed in seemingly random directions but when they combined the new string pointed at a completely new direction. All of the combined knowledge from Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire flooded his mind in a way he had never experienced.

While still commanding the strings to combine, Sol understood much more about the four skills and how they were similar yet very different. They each tapped into a different force of nature with drastically different properties but did so in the same way. With chanting as a message and mana as the conduit, they were able to transform their mana and nearby mana to the element of their choosing.

They gave commands and with mana carrying them out, spells were created. Although it seemed obvious from how chants worked, the difference was the language and wording used for each element. Fire was strong and fierce, water was always changing from gentle to torrential, wind was fast and free, earth was hardy and straight to the point; the chants followed those principles when designing their spells. While spells could command the elements to do almost anything, for example, casting a fire spell that heals, it would never be as powerful as an equal level healing water spell. Their natures were too fundamentally different.

Reaching an epiphany with elemental magic, Sol finished the combination and saw a new system message.

Learned [Intermediate Elemental Magic] Lv 4!

[Intermediate Elemental Magic] Lv 4: Can cast intermediate spells of the four primal elements, mana cost varies.

Sweat dripped down Sol's forehead; the process was much more exhausting than he thought it would be, but he was very happy with the results.

'The level seems to be the average of all the combined skills. Although the power of my fire spells has gone down a bit, all my other elements have risen.'

Sol also noticed the skills were gone without any prompt, which he found odd as usually any change in the status had a notification for it.

Even though the process was tiring, Sol's high vitality allowed him to quickly recover, and he was eager to combine more skills.

The next hour flew by as Sol carefully curated the best skills to combine. He combined all his weapon skills to hopefully create an all weapon mastery skill. Sol included [Intermediate Unarmed Master] and [Intermediate Throwing] hoping it wouldn't ruin the results.

Learned [Intermediate Weapon Mastery] Lv 5!

[Intermediate Weapon Mastery] Lv 5: A master in all forms of combat, increases weapon damage by 150%.

Although Sol's current bow damage took a hit from this new combination, he was pleased with the results and was confident he could level it faster than before. Similar to when he combined his spellcasting skills, he gained a similar understanding of the true essence of combat.

All weapons served a fundamental purpose to fight, and weapons were simply a means to an end. It didn't matter if one used a spear, sword, axe, shield, or one's bare hands; they could all equally be used to end a life. Like one's fist, weapons were to be treated as extensions of one's body, and one must know when and how to use them. After the combining process, Sol felt more in tune with his weapons, but he wouldn't truly know the change until he tried them in combat.

After combining his weapon skills, Sol debated which to combine next. The last two results were skills he predicted he would gain based on skills he had read about before, but from here on out, he was unsure what new skills he would create. The warning in [Aggregate]'s description said the results could be worse than the original skills, and it worried Sol that he could end up ruining some good abilities he currently had. He would have to carefully consider the synergies of the skills and how they would merge before proceeding.