5 The Tower (4)
I'm inside the waiting room. The only difference is that there weren't many people yet since this isn't the waiting room on the 1st floor but the waiting room on the 2nd floor.
"Is my body still unable to endure it?"
I mumbled as I felt the pain I felt in my arm and ankle felt like it was travelling up my nerves to burn my brain to ash before arriving in the waiting room.
But since I've entered the waiting room after clearing the trial of Floor 2, the pain quickly subsided.
「 Pain tolerance of the cells has increased. 」
「 Backslash tolerance has been added to the cells. 」
I've created a skill out of using the movements and swordsmanship that became my habit before my regression which is a good fortune for me but, I've overlooked how physically weak I am.
The skill was B-rank which could be said that is a high ranking skill. Since my body is weak for the moment, my recklessness caused me an incident for a moment.
At this stage, only E and D rank skills wouldn't cause a backslash since low ranking skills don't pose a severe recoil on a rookie's body. It wasn't that high rank skills like Cleaving Strike were totally harmful, there was just one problem. High rank skills consumes so much mana.
Currently, I have 30 mana. I haven't invested any bonus stats in intelligence stats yet, so I wouldn't even have 100 mana. Anyway, the bottom line was that I couldn't freely use the created skill at the moment.
That's the disadvantage of high rank skills. High rank skills' capabilities and damage were incomparable to low rank skills but at the cost of high mana consumption. For example, the difference between the skill book that Jin obtained which was an E rank skill and the B rank skill I created.
Cleaving Strike consumed 100 mana while the skill that Jin found only consumes 5 mana. In order to use this skill freely, I needed to invest a lot of stat points in intelligence to increase my mana.
With magicians, the higher their intelligence, the higher the magic damage. Therefore, they were willing to invest their points in intelligence. But I...
Before my regression, my class is a guardian knight. I played the role of a tanker due to my high resistance to abnormal conditions, which is the result of my innate skill Hyper Cell. In my position before, focusing my stat points on strength, agility and stamina was more ideal than spending points on intelligence stats.
Strength will increase my attack power while agility will enhance my movement speed, attack speed, and evasion rate. Stamina meant I could spend a long time in combat before being paralyzed in exhaustion and increases my survival rate.
But intelligence? Did I have any skills that were influenced by intelligence? Well in this life, not yet. I needed to invest in the intelligence stat at the moment just to increase my mana.
I sighed at the thought of not being able to use the skill I created or any high rank skills I will learn in the future because of the lack of mana. Cleaving Strike was a skill that deals 200% of my attack power to a target. But 100 mana was required to use Cleaving Strike. In other words, I needed at least 50 points in intelligence.
'I guess I should initiate my mana.'
I thought. Although it wasn't the solution to solve my mana problem here at Floor 2, it was one of the hidden pieces that was discovered by veteran players before my reincarnation.
Something that is obtainable only before reaching Floor 10 in the Tower of Trials. It was to purify the body with mana but the requirements must be met. Strength, stamina and intelligence stats must reach 15 to obtain this hidden piece.
Although mana was everywhere in the tower, an ordinary person wouldn't be able to find it with the naked eye no matter how hard one looked for it. Only after refining yourself and your senses with mana could you begin to sense mana.
'It took me 10 days to succeed infusing mana in my body before.'
Although I wasn't able to obtain this hidden piece, I remembered that I had achieved something similar when I reached the 21st Floor and it took me 10 days to infuse mana with my body.
'As if it will take me ten days again,' Cyruz scoffed behind his innocent smile. 'It won't even take me ten minutes.'
With his experience and familiarity with his Hyper Cell, Cyruz focused on his cells to completely changed the body to another state. His entire body screamed, feeling pain that felt as though his entire body was broken apart.
Although it's extremely painful, Cyruz didn't hesitate. He understood how weak he truly was after his regression. There was no muscle on his body. It felt foreign to him as he didn't have the marks from his previous life that couldn't be healed due to the enormous and massive damage.
As soon as his cells started the process, Cyruz suddenly felt an excruciating pain. However he didn't scream at all as he endured the pain. Cyruz closed his eyes and turned his concentration inwards. Soon, mana began flowing into his body and then scattered into numerous branches within his body.
His body this time had never before taken in any mana. However, his body seemed to be able to absorb mana 'well,' to an almost unbelievable extent. It was because he was already familiar on how to mobilize mana throughout his entire body with his experience in climbing the tower.
Cyruz concentrated on feeling how the mana was flowing within his body. As the mana spread throughout his body, it formed at the center at his heart. The mana converged around his heart and then settled into the blood vessels connected to the heart.
Mana began flowing back out along with his blood. Although they flowed together, the movement of his mana didn't completely follow the circulation system of his blood.
With each breath he took, Cyruz was sending ripples through the rich mana of the mana circuits in his body. When the pain subsided, Cyruz received a message.
「 Your muscles become compressed, making them more powerful. 」
「 Skill, 'Heavenly Martial Body (A)' has been acquired. 」
Seeing the messages, Cyruz opened his mouth and released a long sigh as he opened his eyes. His whole body felt sticky from being drenched in sweat.
"…Haha," Cyruz laughed in satisfaction.
[Heavenly Martial Body]
Rank: A
[The body's bones and muscles will be compressed to be smaller and stronger making it the ideal body perfect for martial arts. The speed of growth in martial arts will increase 100 times.
Mana Consumption: None.
Cooldown Time: None.]
A skill which had a high aptitude towards practicing martial arts. Although it wasn't comparable with Sword God's Incarnation that increases growth in swordsmanship by 1000 times, this skill is something that players would do anything to obtain in the later stages.
What made this skill special was, aside from having the ideal body for martial arts, every attack that used mana, he would permanently absorb 1% of the mana released in that attack.
When repeating some attacks that uses mana, he would permanently gain a small amount of mana in every attack. Every time he uses a skill or magic spell, the mana released would be converted into energy in his body which martial artists called either inner energy or chakra that will physically strengthen him.
"Finally! 100% in skill proficiency!"
As I was being delighted with the hidden piece that I unlocked, I heard Jin who was loudly yelling in delight while holding a sword that he just swing.
「 'Sword Mastery (Beginner)' skill proficiency has increased. 96, 97%…..100%. 」
「 Congratulations! You have reached the max proficiency of your 'Sword Mastery (Beginner)' skill. 」
「 You have gained a new understanding about your skill. A superior skill is being opened. 」
「 The skill 'Sword Mastery (Intermediate)' has been created. 」
「 Congratulations! You are the first player to increase a skill level. 」
「 Strength, agility and stamina increases by 1. 」
Just looking at Jin's expression, Cyruz could guess what notifications he was looking. Well unlike him who knows about the first achievement system and skill level system of the tower, this was the first for Jin.
Each skill had a level associated with it, ranging from level 1 to 10.
'While I was busy to obtain the hidden piece, he already increased the level of his swordsmanship.'
Cyruz concluded while observing Jin. While he was sitting in the waiting room for 10 minutes, Jin was swinging his sword, training while maximizing his innate skill, Sword God's Incarnation. Although the skill name is connected to the Sword God, he doesn't know how connected he was to the actual Sword God.
In the Tower of Trial's, there were several gods and demons, as well. Players could interact with these, either gaining power or punishment from them. What they got depended on what they did for those beings.
'I'm not envious anyway.'
Despite that it was a pity that he didn't receive the bonus award of being the first to level up a skill, Cyruz was not dejected at all. Gaining the hidden piece is not an inferior award from what Jin received.
'Should I allocate my stats to intelligence?'
Cyruz wondered but he wanted to avoid making his status to be completely unbalanced. A player that strictly focused on one attribute was a player who intended to ruin their future and set themselves for failure.
A certain balance is required and this is true even for players with support skills that remained distant from the front lines.
'Better not hurry. I can still receive bonus stats from hidden pieces and achievements as I climb the tower.'
Cyruz took a deep breath as he stand up. Now, he was ready to climb the next floor of the Tower of Trials.
******
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It's already hard to write and edit on my own. It would take too much of my time checking over everything to look for small mistakes. So if you see one, don't be shy.
