Chapter 5- New Skill!

Abel, still trying to get his head together, realized that he was on his knees.

Getting up and looking at the excited and curious faces of his friends, suddenly gets excited himself.

He starts off by saying, "The new skill isn't a combat skill, nor defensive skill, but a support skill!"

Abel, seeing the dissapointed faces of his friends, sighs and continues, "It might be a support skill, but I bet you guys will be excited after hearing about it." He begins to explain the properties of the skill and how it works.

[Assess: When used on another spirit module, the individual using the skill, is able to see the potential growth of the skill.]

[Upgrade: Able to see living or dead beings current body potential.]

Hearing the skills description, Attica becomes a little confused and asks, "Skills can grow more powerful? Also, what's skill potential and body potential?"

Surprised that the bookworm didn't know about potentials and upgrades astounds Sarah. After being in a state of slight surprise for a minute, and seeing Atticas face grow more and more aggravated from all the strange looks they gave her, she starts to elaborate, "Skills themselves, at first, are pretty weak. Only through upgrading them will they become strong, but some skills only have one or two upgrades at the most while the rare skills can be upgraded multiple times. Every upgrade either increases efficiency, destructive power, defensive power, pretty much anything that pertains to the skill. The only hard part about upgrading is that you have to find another module of the same kind and fuse with it again."

Seeing that Attica was digesting the information she was just given, Sarah waits a moment before explaining body potential, "Body potential is how strong your body, mind, will, agility, and vitality are. Some skills give bonuses to the body."

Attica looks like she understand the gist of everything, but once again asks a question to thoroughly make sure she knows everything. In her mind, if skills can be upgraded and have limits to them, then the more information she has, the higher she will have to be picky about her skills.

"Ok, I understand for the most part skills and their upgrades, but what about body potential? Are we supposed to look at this like a video game? A skill gives me plus 5 to strength or something? How do we know our current body levels before we can say they have an increase?"

Sarah looks at Peter and he nods back at her. He takes a step forwards and begins to take over the explanation, "The assess skill isn't the only one of its kind. There are thousands if not tens of thousands of skills in the world now from spirit modules. There's another skill called 'Potential Outlook' and it can read the potential of the body. Although this is my first time hearing about a skill that can see the potential of other skills, I can't be certain that it's not been seen before."

Peter takes a breath to get his thoughts in order before he starts his second round of exolinations. He has never been particularly great at explanations, but his father had a plethora of information. When he got his first skill his father sat him down and started to explain what having skills mean and what they can potentially change in the body.

"According to my father, the body is categorized into letters. A normal person before the portals had a potential of E. That's for every category as well."

"Do you guys remember how there were people who claimed to be the strongest men in the world? Who could leg press thousands of pounds or wield a massive hunk of metal they called a sword years in the past?"

Seeing everybody nod, Peter nods himself and continues his explination, "Those people probably had the Strength potential of only around D- or D at the most."

Attica raises her hand like a child in school waiting to be picked so she can ask a question. Peter, seeing this, tries to hold his laughter in before saying, "Yes, miss Attica, what is your question?"

Attica, seeing she was picked, grows ecstatic and begins her question.

"If their strength was only rated at a D at most then what's the highest it can reach?"

The question was an interesting one and hearing it made the others look at Peter like he was keeping the greatest secret of the world. Staring at him with hunger in their eyes, they wait for the answer.

Seeing the actions of his friends, Peter rolls his eyes before saying, "I'm not really sure. My dad said he heard rumors from his friends in Chicago, that when the army finally got enough spirit modules to try and fight back in the city, there was a particular soldier who destroyed everything he touched. It didn't matter how strong the other creatures were. His friend told him that the soldiers strength had to be at least in the C+, if not the B- range."

Hearing how high the soldiers strength was, everybody gulps in surprise and a little fear. Each one was thinking about the destruction a mutant or a monster could create given that amount of strength.

Peter speaks again, knowing what his friends were thinking, "Sadly, monsters and mutants themselves can get that strong. Mutants much more rarely because they just evolve slowly and naturally, but the portal monsters themselves grow like we do. If we have a spirit module inside of us and we die at the hands of, let's say, a skeleton. The skeleton will absorb the module inside of us and that module will fuel the skeleton with more power than it had before. That's why humans gaining spirit modules is both a blessing and a curse."

Seeing the realization of the situation in his friends faces, he feels a little depressed. "I know how you guys feel because I felt the same way when I first found out. We are extremely weak compared to most of the world right now. Even though a few months have past since the portals appeared, we are weak. While others are growing stronger. That's why I wanted to fight these ants so we can, not only trust each other better and fight as a team, but also grow together and become powerful enough to protect what we love."

"Also, to answer Atticas other question, skills can boost your body potential only one way and that's by upgrading them. Some skills, but not all, come with their own innate power. Take my skill for example, it's just a basic skill called 'The call of the bow.' All it can do is conjur a basic low tier bow. It isn't very powerful, but once upgraded is has a chance to aquire more power."

"For example, I upgrade my skill which has no power at all. Once upgraded, in your sea of consciousness, you will see your skill, it's explination, and now it will also say 'Strength +1.' That means if your strength is at E, your new strength will be E+. Even if you don't activate the skill, your body will be permanently upgraded."

Hearing the explanation, Abel shakes with excitement. "If I get stronger I can protect everybody this time. I won't have to have somebody rush to save me and I also won't have to run away and watch somebody I love sacrifice themselves again."

Peter was studying everyones face trying to see their emotions. Attica was just herself, with a blank look on her face like she was studying something he could only surmise would be boring. Sarah was excited beyond all measures and wasn't hiding her expression at all.

The only weird one was Abel. Peter could see him grow excited and then had a depressed look on his face. seeing this Peter asked, "Abel? Are you okay?"

Hearing this, everybody turned to look at Abel. Abel came back to his senses and instead of explaining he was sad he wasn't strong enough to protect his mom, he just gave a casual excuse. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just a little down because my skill doesn't come with any extra boosts."

Peter nods and understands his friends situation because even though he has an offensive skill, he didn't receive any either.

Thinking about Abels skill he suddenly asks him, "Oh yeah, Abel use your skill on my bow. I want to see how far it can be upgraded!" Peter suddenly conjures his bow.

Seeing a bow appear completely out of nowhere, without sound nor any flashy lights, Abel is slightly taken aback. After a few seconds of looking at the bow he's surprised by how it looks. "Wow, the bow is a little bad looking. Just a regular wood bow. No designs are on it and no power is felt from it. I don't think it will have much potential."

Afraid of how his thoughts would come across to Peter, he just swallows those words and begins to walk over and uses [Assess] on Peters skill.

[The Call of the Bow: Conjure a low tier beginners bow.]

[Upgrade: Conjure a medium tier beginners bow.]

[Potential: A+ skill]

Looking at the information in his mind, he couldn't help but to be surprised. "This horribly crafted bow can be upgraded into such a powerful bow?"

Seeing the surprise on Abels face, Peter couldn't take the surprise anymore and grabs Abels shoulders while shaking him a little bit while saying, "Abel stop messing with my mind and tell me already! It's a C+ skill right? Please tell me it isn't any lower. My heart can't take it!"

Abel, pushing Peter off of him and stepping away a little bit looks at Peter with a smile and says, "Its actually an A+ skill. I was just surprised that this simple looking bow could be potentially something dangerous."

Peter, upon hearing Abels words, seems to shift into his own little world of ecstasy.

Sarah, seeing her brother space out with a stupid look on his face, takes over and says, "Since my idiot brother seems to be lost in his own world, impressive skill or not, we need to get moving. It's going to be night soon and I don't want to be stuck out here."

With everybody agreeing with her, they decide to kill the rest of the ants when they decide to head back, secretly hoping the ants call for a little reinforcement and replenish their numbers for them.

Seeing the end of the wood line, Peter comes out of his coma induced happiness and says seriously, "We are about 20 minutes away from our destination. Remember, saving people comes first. Searching for supplies is a hard second. Killing and protecting ourselves should be the last resort, but if push comes to shove we will not back down. Let's go"