Chapter 150: Proficiency

  “So how did it go? You said you were thinking of trying something new.” Preston asked when Teresa and Sarah returned to camp.

  “It worked, but right now it’s way too taxing on my resources.” Sarah answered. Before passing out for the night, they were going to discuss exactly what Sarah had done. Talking with each other about how they fought and progressed was extremely useful, and it helped a lot with figuring out where to go next.

  Even if it was entirely unrelated to everyone else’s classes, it was still beneficial in multiple ways. Was Jake ever going to use a bow and arrow as his main weapon? Probably not. Was Jake going to fight alongside Sarah in the future? Definitely. On top of that, simply seeing how someone else applies their skills in combat could inspire new ways to use their own.

  Plus, it gave Sarah outside perspectives. All in all, there were a million reasons to share how they were progressing and zero reasons not to.

  “Since my role normally revolves around targeting problematic fighters more than anything, I wanted to also implement some stealth into how I fight so there’s less of an emphasis on keeping me protected.” Sarah continued. “I can fire an arrow far away from both myself and an opponent, then use to make the arrow bounce off a surface towards someone. Makes it impossible for them to track my location with the trajectory of the arrow unless they saw my initial shot.”

  “How do you even aim that?” Jake asked.

  “ helps a lot, right now it’s maxed at level 25 since I literally always use the skill when fighting. That and are tied for my highest leveled skill, and both help a lot. When I use , I have a really narrow cone of direction from the surface of a target that I can choose to bounce my arrow in. While neither or really use a noticeable amount of resources, I still passively lose Stamina just from focusing so much and straining my body. doesn’t take a lot either, but I also have to consider how far my bow can even shoot. As a result, I need to increase the speed of the arrow to increase distance using and . Only one of those uses any resources, but that’s two active skills for every shot. Then on top of that, I’m not guaranteed to land a lethal shot, meaning I have to use if I really want it to kill, so three active skills per shot. If it is a kill shot, I can activate to make the arrow kill two targets at once instead of using , but no matter what I’m always using at least three active skills for every single attack, not to mention the fact I can miss.” Sarah explained.

  “That might be a problem right now, but when your resource pools eventually improve they’ll do so exponentially.” Teresa told her. “Or multiplicatively, whatever. For example, right now I have a higher Mana capacity than all of you combined, but I don’t have a higher Wisdom stat than all of you combined. Same goes for Stamina and Endurance.”

  “Do you really?” Preston asked. After everyone shared their screens, it became apparent. Teresa’s max capacity in HP, Stamina, and Mana were each 2,294. The person with the second most HP was Jake with 739, Stamina went to Preston with 788, and Mana also went to Preston with 530. “Damn. You do.”

  “I have admittedly not put many points in Wisdom or Endurance.” Sarah confessed. “A lot of them have gone to Fortitude. As nice as the other stats are, I don’t get any Fortitude from my class and I don’t want to get one-shot if something does hit me.”

  “Same with the Fortitude here, it’d suck if I tripped and turned into a red smear on the ground while using .” Preston said.

  “I’ve actually been putting a few into Wisdom. I used to put them all in Agility, but now that my class gives me one point of Agility per level I’ve been putting my points into Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception since I don’t get any points there.” Jake added.

  “I’ve also put a lot into Fortitude, though I have invested a good bit into Vitality.” Randall said.

  “Agility is where I put mine.” Saylee said, though as she just recently hit level 16 that made sense.

  “Imagine having to think about Unallocated Points nerds.” Teresa teased before they got back on subject.

  “I think what you’re doing will work, we’re just too low level for it to be really viable right now.” Jake said to Sarah. “Staying hidden and out of sight in a fight can definitely be useful, and I definitely encourage you to keep pursuing that. For now though, until our resource pools improve a lot more, it’d be better to keep using your bow as normal. You already get a lot of experience for your skills since a lot of them are passives that are always active, but you need to level yourself up too.”

  “I think you’re the first of us to even have a level 25 skill, and you have two of them. Even I don’t have at level 25 and I use that all the time.” Preston said.

  “How does that work by the way?” Teresa asked. “I know you can increase the cap for a skill with a class level up, but I’m not sure on the details.”

  “When my class levels up, I actually get a choice.” Sarah explained. “I can either see options for new skills, or I can increase the level cap on one of my skills at level 25. If I choose to increase the cap, I don’t get any new skills to choose from, including retroactively. For example, if I get two class levels I can get two skills to choose from out of six options, and I can always choose another skill I passed up earlier. Alternatively, I can use one level to improve the cap on a skill, and then get a new skill from a selection of three. In other words, using a class level up on a skill you already have doesn’t increase the list of available skills you can choose from. The System has a screen that explains it when you first get the option.”

  In other words, choosing to upgrade a skill didn’t just mean passing up on a new skill, but it also meant your skill selection list wouldn’t expand.

  “I’m impressed you managed to get two skills so high leveled despite only being level 45 yourself.” Randall said.

  “I spent a good amount of time teaching Mathew to use his crossbow. It helped a lot with , and in the process I used my own bow a lot which helped with .” Sarah explained. “Not sure if I want a new skill or to upgrade one of those two, and even then I’m not sure which I’ll go for. Neither really takes any resources, meanwhile a new skill would likely worsen my resource consumption as it is.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. My class leveled up.” Teresa announced.

  “Nice, what’d you get?” Sarah asked.

  “I took a look already but I haven’t picked yet.” Teresa answered as she shared a screen showing three new skills to choose from.

  

  Type: General

  Internal understanding includes not just the body, but the Soul. Transfer your consciousness inward, your mind exists not just in the body but the Soul. Enter a deep state of meditation, reducing all senses of the outside world to drastically increase resource production.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  

  Type: General

  Gain a sense for Stamina and its movement, allowing you to manipulate it to perform physical feats.

  

  Type: Weapon Mastery

  Your body is a weapon, master it and you will never truly be unarmed. Learn the art of martial combat, bringing death to your foes with the greatest weapon of all - yourself. Gain a minute understanding of unarmed combat, physical training will require significantly less Stamina outside of combat.

  “Holy shit, you got some good ones.” Jake said as they all read them over.

  “The last time I got a class level was before I killed the Prime Avatar of Cher, so I’m guessing that had a lot of impact on my skill selection.” Teresa replied.

  “What are you thinking of getting?”

  “Right now, . I honestly don’t really see the point in getting a weapon master skill.” Teresa answered. Everyone looked at her with a puzzled expression when she finished speaking.

  “Why not?” Sarah asked.

  “Well, what’s the point?” Teresa replied. “Like, sure, right now I don’t really know how to use my sword all too great, but I can just have someone teach me. What’s the point of getting a skill when I can just do it myself? It’s sort of like how George explained pseudo skills, but just weapon proficiency."

  “That’s… not how it works. Not at all.” Sarah said. “Teresa, I already knew how to use a bow before the System. Maybe I wasn’t great or anything, but I was already familiar. Despite that, my skill is still extremely useful to me. It’s not that the skill replaces whatever proficiency you have with a weapon, it adds on to it.”

  “Exactly.” Preston said. “I did fencing, which is admittedly totally different from the kind of swordplay that’s useful against monsters, but there’s still some carry-over when it comes to using a sword in general. Since I’ve gotten my class, I’ve been improving my own ability to use a sword like this, which keep in mind is completely different from what we use in fencing. Despite that, as I improve, I can still tell just makes me better. It adds on to what I already know, even as I improve separately from the skill. Though improving also tends to level up the skill, but that just means you learn to use the weapon faster. It’s double dipping.”

  “ helps me a lot as well. I didn’t know jack shit about using shields or anything, but it’s helped a ton.” Jake added.

  “Does everyone have a weapon mastery skill?” Teresa asked.

  “I started out as a mage so I didn’t have a weapon mastery skill, but I eventually picked one up for firearms.” Randall said. Shoot, that meant only Teresa and Saylee didn’t have a skill of that type.

  “How does it actually affect you though? I guess I also don’t understand how exactly a weapon mastery skill makes you more proficient at something.” Teresa asked.

  “It’s… weird.” Sarah answered. “ manifests itself in multiple ways. Sometimes, I can tell when I do something wrong, and other times I intuitively do things better. I have an easier time releasing the bowstring with multiple fingers at the same time, and I can sense when my grip on the staff is off and how that will change things.”

  “Let me put it this way.” Preston started. “If you had two of the best swordsmen on the planet, both of equal proficiency, and they fought each other, then it would be a draw. That, or it could go either way. Give one of them a weapon mastery skill, and that person is going to win, even if they have the same proficiency outside of that skill. No matter what, it will always just make you better. Like I said earlier, even as you train, not only will you get better naturally with your training but the skill will get experience, making you improve faster. At least until your skill caps out, anyway.”

  “Maybe you should take , from what you told us you had an easier time fighting against the Prime Avatar without using the sword.” Jake said.

  “Well, I’m tempted to take it now, but that was a very situational case.” Teresa replied. “Honestly yeah, I had a harder time against the Prime Avatar while wielding my sword, but when I fought unarmed we were both unarmed. Additionally, the Prime Avatar was humanoid, and on top of that it didn’t know how to fight. Truthfully anyone with decent experience in a striking based martial art and my stats could have probably beat it, I’m not actually that good at kickboxing. It’s just that the gap between someone untrained and trained is huge, and the gap in reaction times also played a huge role that can’t be understated.”

  “Then imagine what you’d be like using your sword if you had a Two Armed Weaponry skill.” Preston said.

  “Actually it’s .” Teresa corrected.

  “What, why? What’s with the switch from the word ‘Armed,’ to ‘Handed,’ there? There’s , , then it goes ?” Preston asked, confused.

  “I don’t know man, I don’t make the skill names.” Teresa replied. “Well, if I’m going to be using my sword a lot then I guess I should pick up the weapon mastery skill for it. I’m definitely going to get eventually, and looks interesting too. Shoot, all of the skills I got offered this time are ones that I want, but despite that I’m gonna pick one from the last skill selection. .”

  After no objections from her party members, Teresa selected the skill. Normally, knowledge on how to use the skill would naturally enter Teresa’s mind so that it felt intuitive to use, but this time it felt different. Rather than suddenly feeling like she unlocked a new muscle that could make her shoot fire out of her hands or run super fast, it felt like her view of the world ever so slightly changed.

  Pulling her sword out of her , it felt a tiny bit more comfortable to hold. She felt an awareness of where her feet were placed, and how swinging her weapon might affect her balance. She was already familiar with her reach while swinging the sword thanks to using it against countless monsters and Avatars, but that didn’t take into account how she could change that range by moving closer or even further away from an opponent.

  The changes weren’t drastic, not at all. As a matter of fact, they were incredibly small and likely wouldn’t change much in how Teresa wielded her weapon. Then again, the skill was level 0. As she used her sword more, it would likely have a larger impact as the skill leveled up along with her.

  “Is there any difference?” Saylee asked, curious. She was the only one present without a weapon mastery skill now.

  “Kind of? A bunch of really small things feel different and I’m a bit more aware of my weapon, but nothing significant. It’s weird, a lot of my skills kind of scale with my stats in some way, but not this one. at level 0 was more powerful for me due to either my Wisdom or Intelligence, not sure which one yet to be honest. Same with , I don’t think I’d be able to do anything really with that if I had baseline human stats. scales with Agility,

  with Strength, but I’m not sure about . I’m positive being stronger and faster definitely helps my ability to use a sword, but it doesn’t feel like any of my stats actively affect the skill itself and my comprehension of how to use a sword.” Teresa replied.

  “Your stats definitely will come into play, but it’s not surprising that they don’t change anything immediately.” Preston said. “When I first got , I was level 0. As I got stronger, the skill leveled up with me and began to incorporate that into it. A lot of the time it’s really simple, like I intuitively have some understanding of where to position my sword when jumping around like a kangaroo on super steroids. Sometimes it even integrates with my other skills, like when I’m about to use or I get an inkling on how to better use my sword. As the skill levels up, it should integrate with you better.”

  “If I like it I might try collecting a few weapon mastery skills, since I doubt I’m ever going to stick to only one kind of weapon.” Teresa said. “Now that I think about it, I’m a bit surprised I haven’t been offered or something for boomerangs.”

  “You gonna become the boomerang master?” Preston teased.

  “Absolutely, I’ll culturally appropriate the shit out of Australians in the process.” Teresa joked back.

  It was already pretty late, and thus the conversation died down in due time. They determined schedules for who would keep watch while ensuring everyone got enough sleep, then turned in for the night.

  Tomorrow, they’d arrive at Nouarosso.