Fear Resistance, Pain Resistance, Poison Resistance, Charm Resistance, Heat Resistance, Physical Resistance, and Cold Resistance were honestly great to have. However, I was already a vampire, so it’s hard to know if poison would even work on me in the first place. I wasn’t eager to test this theory, so I guess I’d just find out someday.
And that was all my Skills. I got the feeling that I’d have a lot of ’em by the time I died. Skills weren’t really useful at level 1. The ones I used regularly would grow on their own, but the useless Skills would stay at level 1 in the worst-case scenario. I might never end up using them at all. Fortunately, I would live for a very long time. I had more than enough time to raise even the more useless Skills...well, excluding Misfortune. That could stay at level 1.
Speaking of raising levels, there was something I needed to tell Ariya.
“Hey, get over here.” I beckoned to her as she was flying through the air. She’s already pretty much got the hang of it. Is this her “genius” kicking in? I’m impressed.
“Coming... What do you need?” Ariya asked as she landed, folding away her bat-like wings before running over to me. Wow, she’s like a dog or something.
“I wanna talk about your growth.” Just like me, drinking blood would increase her stats and heal her. Copycat.
“My growth?”
“Yeah—let’s talk about how you’re gonna raise your stats.”
I’d been thinking about this for a while. It was probably best for her to select a few targets to suck blood from in order to get their stats.
“From now on, you should target fast monsters and focus on raising your AGI—your agility.”
Simply put, it was hard to become faster by strengthening your muscles. More muscles meant greater mass. To be fast, you wanted less weight. Putting on muscle was already really hard for us, since we had superhuman strength. However, we had an ability that allowed us to increase our stats without any kind of special training.
In my experience, increasing STR and VIT didn’t increase my body mass. In terms of what we got out of our stat increases, I gave VIT a low priority because we were able to regenerate. In my opinion, the order in which we needed to prioritize stats was AGI, INT, DEX, STR, and then VIT. This was especially true for a mage like Ariya.
I explained my thinking to Ariya.
“I’ve yet to experience directly strengthening my stats, so I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but I will take your suggestion to heart.” She paused. “What should we do in a close-quarters combat situation? If I support you from behind, you will have to be the vanguard.”
“Well, my STR is decently high, so I don’t think we’ll have to worry too much about that.” Saying that, I pulled a dark, lustrous katana from my shadow.
“Is that...”
“Yeah. I swiped it.”
Shadow Zekkinotachi (Creator: Inori Takafuji)
Quality: SSS / Value: 1000000000 Dells / Abilities: Omnislice, Shadow Hardening, Regeneration, Growth
A modified Artifact. A discovery from an ancient civilization, forged with lost technology, and then later modified. Can cut through anything if the user supplies mana to the blade. Anything that touches the blade while it is infused with mana will be cut and broken to bits. The blade’s body has been fortified. It can regenerate by taking in blood, and can grow stronger.
I’d taken Aegiana’s Zekkinotachi, used Armament Craft on it, and ended up with this. The fact that I could so easily modify an Artifact reminded me just how broken my cheat was. I’d left a fake Zekkinotachi that I’d made with Armament Craft next to her body, though the fire had probably scorched it so badly that nobody’d realize what it was. After all, if it wasn’t provided with mana, Zekkinotachi was a normal sword. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for it to break. It’d be difficult for anyone to figure out that the decoy I left wasn’t the real deal right off the bat.
“I still can’t use it, though.” After forging it last night, I’d tested it out, but still no dice. There was a real possibility that I couldn’t use magic tools at all. All my magic Skills were at level 1 too, so maybe it was that I simply wasn’t able to use anything magical that originated in this world.
“You can’t? Even if you can’t use this world’s magic, you still have mana.”
“Yeah... I’m not really sure what’s going on.”
Instinctively, I felt like there was something wrong with the mana and magic in this world. It was almost as if someone was directly manipulating them. I was neither good at manipulating mana myself, nor could I use any of the Skills that I’d acquired involving magic or magic tools.
“It’s a shame that you obtained a powerful weapon but are unable to use it.”
“Whatever. You can have it.” I handed her the blade.
“Huh?”
“You have the Genius Divine Blessing, so maybe you’ll have better luck than me.”
At least now that she had the sword, that’d solve her close-combat problems. Now that we’d discussed what I wanted to discuss, I could go back to sleep.
“Huh? Uh, this...”
“What?”
Ariya stared at the blade in confusion. Can you wrap this up already? I’m really sleepy.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to have this?”
“Obviously. I gave it to you. I’m about to pass out, so can I go now?” I didn’t even wait for her response. I turned around and headed back to the hut, but, once again, she stopped me.
“You know I’m plotting against you, don’t you?”
“Sure, but you still serve me.” That’s why I need you to get stronger. Ugh... Can’t think straight. Too tired.