Just a note that if I forgot book characters need to eat it's probably because I skipped a meal myself. Soo woops. Frankly I'm sorry I just forgot meals altogether. I mean it has been like 2 days without food for the MC at least haha. Yep reviewing the list of things I haven't been doing properly… Let's see if I can do better.
Chapter 4
When they awoke in the morning the sun was shining through the cracks in the curtains. I could tell that it was barely after sunrise and that there were still several hours before class. Looking around at my teammates I could see they were all still fast asleep. I pondered for a moment what our team name was. In all the hissy fit that Serena threw over the team composition we ended up not even attending the naming ceremony. Heck our leader was not even chosen yet! I chuckled to myself at how pathetic our team began. But Despite all these challenges we are going to rise to the top! With that determination I rolled off my bed and dressed quickly and went to the library.
I quickly moved towards the library. I did not see anyone because the buildings are basically empty at this hour and everyone is sleeping. When I reached the library I began going through the rows of books and wondered why it was even open at this hour. Heading towards the Kenjutsu section or maybe it was labeled under swordsmanship? I shrugged and searched for both. Finally locating what I sought, that is books that discussed sword styles that utilized Katana's, I began sifting through using observe on every book. I had not been using observe as much recently since doing so on objects already scanned generated very little EXP and I was often thinking about other things and focusing on other skills. Once observe had reached level 89 it just did not want to level the same way as before and left me quite annoyed. I did make sure to use it on every new object once though as this seemed to generate lots of EXP for it. Finally I found a usable skill book. Snatching it up it said, you've obtained the Skill Book [Kenjutsu Basic Forms] would you like to learn the skill? I immediately pressed yes before remembering it eats the book and poof the book was gone followed by a flash of light as I suddenly had knowledge of all of Kenjutsu's basic forms. I closed all the window notifications for now for the new skills as I looked around to make sure no one saw me before I proceeded forward searching for more skill books.
I ended up finding two more on Kenjutsu and 3 on Iadio. At this point I placed them in my inventory. Ding! A skill has been created through repeated action.
[Steal (ACTIVE) LV1 EXP:0.00%]
Used since ancient times by the masters of the night to claim what they wanted without being seen. You can now touch an item to steal and simply activate the skill for it to be placed in to your inventory.
I really did not know how I felt about this. I mean the only reason I was just taking the books is because I had long ago checked that these were all copies easily replaceable. Not to mention if push came to shove I can just write out the book since I now contained the knowledge. Putting aside the morality question the final thing I was here to find is a swift movement aura based skill. Despite my repeated attempts during the battle and then afterwards at practice it would not make a skill for me and I kept having to manually do it. I knew something was wrong or inefficient and therefore it was ignoring my puny attempts but it still irked me. I figured if I learned what was wrong here I could improve in future attempts at making my own skills. Finding the aura section I swiftly went down the line ignoring the skill books I did not care much for like… Growing hair using aura… Really? Finding the books that covered movement speed I quickly sorted through their uses and benefits and found one close to what I was doing but would be flexible to use in my attacks. Then I also grabbed one for extreme long distance bursts and was not really suited to fighting for long term as it seemed like a mana beast. I quickly stored both and began to leave when something caught my eye. The book said it was a guide to healing using aura. At first I was going to pass then I remembered how inconvenient waiting for Serena to recover had been. So I promptly grabbed it using steal and off I went. I went to the training room which was really like a small warehouse with high ceilings as opposed to a formal training room and I confirmed it was empty. I imagined they had to make it this tall for the spider droids and whatever else happened here. Then I grabbed all my books and absorbed their knowledge.
[iaido Weapon Mastery (PASSIVE) LV1 EXP:0.01%
The knowledge any basic user of iaido would know.
50% increase in attack damage with Katana's
10% increase in attack speed with Katana's
100% increase in draw speed using Katana's
[Kenjutsu Weapon Mastery (PASSIVE) LV1 EXP:0.00%
The knowledge any basic user of Kenjutsu would know.
50% increase in attack damage with Katana's
10% increase in attack speed with Katana's
75% increase in the awareness of your surroundings and how to utilize them in a fight
I felt the knowledge flow through me freely and also felt my awareness open slightly. Checking the passives granted first I could see that it would help me out tremendously as they both specifically buffed my damage with the weapon I was using currently. Despite their stacking buff they did focus on slightly different things. Moving on I could see that I also obtained a few draw skills from iaido but I was not particularly interested in those currently. Kenjutsu had a variety of specific skills that basically improved my own self-taught skills.
[Kenjutsu Footwork Mastery (PASSIVE) LV1 EXP:0.00%]
The footwork utilized by Kenjutsu to always be prepared to shift to your next strike.
50% increase in movement speed when attacking using a Katana technique
50% increase in recovering from bad footing
The knowledge I was gaining was pretty much how to execute feints and a variety of other techniques you would expect to be important versus a real human and not a Grimm. Although this one Kenjutsu technique caught my eye
[Shinobi Kai Kenjutsu (ACTIVE) LV1 EXP:0.00%]
The combination of nine strikes to take down your opponent. This is a complex move set that utilizes close range and a variety of movements to take down your opponent quickly. The skill can be interrupted at any time and even switched to another opponent if required.
100% increase in damage for every successive strike of this move performed.
100% increase in movement speed while performing this skill
50% increase in attack speed for every successive strike of this move performed
-200% decrease in attack speed in the event of a successful parry-Many feints are advised when using this skill.
I thought that this here is probably my best skill currently and it was only level 1. I need to grind this sucker as hard as I can. Searching through the possible move combinations I could see that I could travel up to 10m on one combo which still allowed me to flow from target to target using this skill. This move clearly was what the other books had been preparing me for. After that I was left with the move skills and the healing skill.
[Flash Step (ACTIVE) LV1 EXP:0.00%]
A dash using aura to power the movement. This enables for great distances to be covered. Usage in combat is ill advised unless you have the most impeccable perception as your speed is incredibly fast.
[Swiftness (ACTIVE) LV1 EXP:0.00%]
The usage of aura to strengthen the muscles that enable for faster movement in all situations. The muscles strengthened adjust to fit the movement enabling for the best results.
Once the knowledge sank in I realized exactly why I was not able to gain a skill from my earlier attempts. Where I simply forced aura to strengthen the whole leg these targeted the muscles and increased what actually mattered. In my case I raised the power of my legs by 100% but only my speed at dashing by 20%. This increased the legs power by 0% but the dashing muscles by 100%. Feeling a great deal of understanding I imagined I could replicate this process in other ways now as well.
[Aura Soul Recovery (Active) Lv1 EXP:0.00%]
The usage of your aura to assist someone else's aura in restoring the body.
With dust, HP 50 recovery. MP 50 recovery. Status effect removed illness removed.
Without dust, HP 50 recovery. Status effect removed. Illness removed.
Well this was not as great as I was hoping for. Still I would grind it a bit and see if it leveled up to some real HP restoration. The prospect of restoring MP was enticing but with my HP to MP conversion it was not really needed. Finally one more thing before I summoned a horde of robots to slaughter before class. Looking through my inventory I withdrew the items that Zagul had dropped. There was of course money which I immediately pocketed on discovering at Zagul's corpse. But it had also dropped a vest of some sort. I used observe and it said that it was leather formed from the hide of a Grimm and since Grimm dissolve on death the process had been incredibly challenging and highly rewarding as it was stronger than thick solid steel but lighter than a regular vest. It also gave a 10% movement speed buff and 20% damage reduction buff. I immediately put it on underneath my uniform and felt air currents parting around me to give myself easier movement. The Grimm hide felt weird but also very comfortable. This led me to wonder, who on remnant had ever harvested Grimm hides for profit? Well with my business resolved I stood and walked over to the flat screen panel on the wall to summon my droids when a student walked in. He immediately scoffed loudly at my direction and said "OH look it's David. Trying to improve the futility that is you? Well the big boy needs to use the room so scram."
To my credit I did not immediately sock him in the face as hard as I could but I seriously felt a vein bulge. I then looked his direction as if I deigned to notice his presence and looked back at what I was doing. "HEY!" He said fury clearly flowing from his voice. "I wupped your butt now scram or I will do it again!"
"Oh?" I responded "Is that a challenge? Since I was here first I have dibs that is the school policy during free time and really such a large room is sufficient for us both. But since your inferior mind cannot accept this I guess we can resort to violence."
His face immediately contorted into the most horrible expression I have ever seen on a human being in my entire life and it felt really good to get some payback at this jerk. He was the strongest in class currently undefeated and I was fairly confident I could now take him.
The Monk
Qua Fu
Lv 53
"The middle of the room. Now." He said crisply
I started moving towards it and remembered to turn on EXP sharing for those two lazy sleepy heads in the room. Even if I would level slower I still wanted to bring them with me.
Arriving at the center of the room we both took a stance about 20m away from each other. A quick observe showed me his semblance was a speed type like before that enabled him to move through molecules with zero resistance. Apparently this enabled him to also walk through walls and people without aura. He also was able to basically rip people's hearts out with this semblance. I really did not want to know why my observe skill was telling me that. I could also see his DEX was only 140 which was higher than my base but lower than the passive buffs made it. Nothing else of note stood out and so I took my stance and activated field. I drew my sword and took the Kenjutsu stances I learned before. I also activated my aura and turned on swiftness. Having fought him before I knew that he fought with gauntlet type weapons that could also shoot projectiles. That with his ability to defy physics and ignore resistances he preferred close combat over ranged since. I presume because if he penetrated right he could rip out someone's heart. Ok so I still could not stop thinking about it because that gave me the willies. Thankfully my aura would protect me if I focused hard enough but I really did not know how my semblance would handle my heart being removed from my body.
Then we began. He dashed forward like a magnet was pulling him towards me. His movements extremely fluid and seemingly without any of the normal restrictions I see runners face from wind pressure. I immediately tensed and prepared to dodge or parry depending on how he attempted to strike. I sensed the moment he entered my field and knew he was going for a feint on the right while kicking towards my left. It made sense because my sword had a further reach. Instead I simply stepped backwards far enough to place him out of range and into my perfect range. He apparently did not expect me to be able to dodge that kick and the inertia carried him in a spin around. Then I activated Shinobi Kai Kenjutsu and struck hard at his back slamming him forwards as he collapsed towards the ground. Since the first strike is quite lenient he did not sustain any real MP damage and I made sure to press the attack quickly while watching to make sure I did not inadvertently kill him as I had no clue how strong I had grown. I then performed a thrusting maneuver as my second strike dashing forward to close the distance my blow had generated. The strike tossed him further off balance as I watched his MP decrease twice as much as before. Considering each strike should be 100% stronger then each previous strike I was quite happy. Performing a quick forward movement to get into range again and then a vertical slash that went diagonally downward. Followed by another slash at his legs to completely toss him to the ground and a quick stab downwards crashing into his aura. At this point I stopped the skill because his MP was practically empty and any further would do severe harm. That last blow had also been a critical hit and if I had not pulled it a bit I imagine it would have plunged right into him.
I took a deep breath and checked my MP. While each blow increased the damage it also increased the MP requirement by a percentage. Those seven blows had eaten nearly half my MP but considering the fact that the whole sequence only required two seconds it was fairly mind bogglingly high damage per second. Even chaining the formal skills I had or even swinging my fastest swings I was unable to match this speed and power.
Qua simply laid there flat on his back staring at me. Then a sneer developed on his face and he shouted "This is not the end of this!" and he stormed out of the training room.
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
I had honestly expected more but I figured if we all leveled twice then that's 6 which is probably what I would expect from him. After that I fought a couple spider droids and leveled twice more before it was time for class.
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