In addition to skills, I also needed to choose my elemental affinity, which determined what kind of magic I could cast.
In the world of swords and magic, people were born with one elemental affinity; on rare occasions, a person could be born with two. There were four basic elemental affinities: earth, fire, wind, and water. These were joined by a pair of rarer elemental affinities: light and dark.
Spells were awarded by the gods after repeated use of your elemental affinity.
The elemental affinity I went with was Total Affinity.
Total Affinity allowed you to use all four of the basic elemental affinities, but neither of the rarer ones. This wasn’t without a drawback, however. As a trade-off for being able to use so many kinds of magic, the improvement rate for each of them was halved.
“If my improvement rate is cut in half, then I’ll just train twice as hard. That shouldn’t be a problem, since my recovery rate is increased a hundredfold.”
I decided the merit of being able to use four elements outweighed the demerit of a slower growth rate.
After only two days into my allotted time, I’d chosen all my skills and my elemental affinity, but I decided not to tell the goddess yet. It was better to spend any time I had left considering my choices and looking over all the skills to see if there was a better combination.
✦ ✦ ✦
After spending my final day thinking through my options, I decided to stick with what I’d chosen the previous day.
I’d use Rapid Recovery and Limitless Growth to improve my fundamental abilities. Martial Arts would sharpen my movements. Spell Weaver and Total Affinity would greatly increase the tools at my disposal, and my D-Rank skill would be my ace in the hole.
“You seem to have found a combination that you are satisfied with,” the goddess declared, appearing before me.
“Yep, this is the best I could come up with.”
“Huh, you chose Rapid Recovery for your S-Rank skill. A bit dull, isn’t it? Same goes for your A Rank. I’d forgotten that D-Rank skill even exists… Humans truly are fascinating creatures.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Far from it. I’m praising you. If you’d simply chosen the strongest skills without much thought, you would’ve had no chance of defeating the hero. He’s got more than thirty skills after all.”
On top of abnormal physical strength and mana, a hero was also born with thirty skills from the S and A Ranks. Of those thirty, a minimum of five were S Rank. Given the ridiculous strength of those skills, I could certainly see why defeating the hero in battle was borderline impossible.
With enough training and careful preparation, however, assassination seemed doable.
I chose my skills specifically for the purpose of killing the hero, whose many abilities had granted him monstrous strength from birth.
“Okay, time for your reincarnation. Full disclosure: It’s going to be awkward for a while. You’re going to have to live as a baby while retaining your current knowledge and personality. Just try to bear it, okay? I’m sure being born into the Tuatha Dé clan of assassins will be anything but boring. Your mother is beautiful, you know. And thank goodness for that! I can only imagine how uncomfortable it would have been if you made a repulsed face every time you had to breastfeed! That’d be a pretty nasty shock for any parent. Oh, one more warning. I recommend you change your manner of speech. It’ll be off-putting to hear a child speak the way you do now.”
Without waiting for my reply, the goddess snapped her fingers.
My body transformed into particles of light.
I was about to begin a new life.
Hopefully, the Tuatha Dé clan of assassins would provide me with everything I needed to prepare.