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Slot 1: Efficient Engine→ [Rank: D]
Description: Save the environment! Like a hybrid car, your miles per gallon is incredible. Passively provides an overall boost to stamina. Less sleep is required to recoup Essence, and less sleep is required to feel energized. You might break down after pushing yourself for many days, also like a dogshit pretentious hybrid car. And you'll be forced to spend thousands on repairs. So be warned.
Common. Replicable. Passive.
Slot 2: Night Owl→ [Rank: D]
Description: Greatly increases perception and stealth at night. Minor decrease to perception during daylight hours.
Common. Replicable. Passive.
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The descriptions sure sound like my words, as they come from my subconscious Soul, but why is there such a stark difference between the two? It's a bit absurd.
One's an anti-hybrid vehicle driver rant, while the other is as ridiculously curt as possible.
Anyway, why did I pick these two innocuous passive Skills?
Well, I'm doing my best Leara impression and attempting to know things I shouldn't know. It could backfire, but even then, I'll be fine, since Skills are temporary.
As a new ally, Leara had the kindness to inform me that the Exam's format would be multi-day and team-based.
It's also an Exam that completely shatters precedent. It's the first time they're making the Exam public, with a broadcast and live audience.
That doesn't even include their initial student capacity purge, going from 500 to 333 first-year students. All of that with civil war looming in the background. Even Ranni's final warning about the Corrupted.
A new age is imminent.
It'll be different. I know it will be. Something grand. Something that throws all the weak and spoiled nobles for a loop.
It won't be some drab, comfy group colloseum battles. Sure, that'll certainly be easy to broadcast, but it's too nice. Too easy. Too cliche, especially.
No, it'll be mucky. Grimey. Iron, to sharpen iron. They want to weed out the weak and strengthen the positions of the Big Five heirs.
My gamble is thus: we'll all be thrown into the wilderness.
An island, or something else isolated. We'll fight one another, certainly. Some miscellaneous objectives, a point system, or something similar. The duration could be days, weeks, or even months. It depends on how much revenue they truly want to milk out of the event.
With this all in mind, I wanted my Skills to focus entirely on utility, since it'll be the most valuable within the Exam's format, and my overall power is quite solid.
My combat prowess is elite after killing Darrow. Only the top 100-200 students are even at the C-rank needed to be Imprinted. And with my Imprint in particular, I essentially need to touch someone with a sword once using Tremors, and they'll die.
I should probably pivot to using a longsword as well for the range. Honestly, I wasn't banking on it, but currently, my innate Imprint is the most overpowered part of my kit. To the universe, I am incredibly grateful.
With combat not being an issue, I need to supplement my overall utility. It'll be team-based with potential survival aspects, making utility extremely valuable.
For the most part, these two night-based Skills will be an incredible advantage, especially with the cost being a mere two temporary Skills. I'm taking the 'multi-day' part of Leara's information incredibly to heart.
We'll be on the clock without guaranteed safety, as my wilderness format gamble supposes. The nights are long in mid to late Autumn. Every moment will count, so I'll need to maximize my time being active. Needing less sleep through Efficient Engine will be vital.
In the same vein, Night Owl will allow me to make use of those extra nighttime hours. Can't do much at night if I can't see anything.
It should be noted that these are both 'Passive' Skills, so like Traits, they are always active. They're relatively unpopular, however, because Passive Skills eat up your Essence capacity and normal ones do not. These D-rank Skills require an allocation of 10 Essence per Skill, so I'll be out of 20 Essence, but with my A+ rank in Soul, it's a sacrifice I can afford to make.
Most of these nobles will have little to no survival experience. They might not even be smart enough to have a night watch rotation. Then I'll swoop in and get the easiest kills of my life. Well, eliminations is the more apt term; I doubt I'll get to kill them, unfortunately.
With a vast majority of my childhood spent starving in shit and mud, enduring a constant day-to-day life of fear and death, I'd say I'm pretty close to holding the title of survival expert.
If my gamble hits, then I'll be as good as golden.
And by that, I mean I'll take Rank 1 from Alexander Landeskog along with his 'Man of Gold' title as I swim in Leara's Gold and whatever revenue I gain from the mountain of media attention.
Would he actually try to have me assassinated if I took his rank 1, or was Leara just being hyperbolic? Only one way to find out, I suppose.
It's quite amusing. I took everything from his great-great-great-grandparents. It'll be quite fitting if I take everything from him. But then I'll need to take over the Landeskog claim, which, as the royal family, is the entirety of the Free Empire.
Can't take any half-measures, amirite?
I bid my farewells to Antonio. He's already passed out sitting up. I sigh and make my way out of the Interrealm Hub. Thankfully, his drunkenness didn't seem to impact his work—I think.
…
It takes me several hours, but I return to my dorm room at the Dim.
This is it. The turning point. My entire future will be dictated by the Entrance Exam.
It's been a wild month, but I've made the absolute most of it.
'Status.'
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Name: Auren
Age: 18
Race: The Sullied
Health: Healthy
Essence: 340/340 (-20 from Skills)
Rank: C+
Shards: ◇─◇─◇
Strength: C
Agility: C
Vigor: C+
Soul: A+
Magic: C-
Charisma: B-
[Imprints]
Tremors: The Universal Hum speaks through you. Channel it, and its entire body will be yours to shape. First Stage. Mutable.
Arbiter of Soul: You are but a collector of reflections. Take what you please, and wield it as your own. Complete.
ActiveCollections:
◄ Empower
◄ God's Eye
Inactive Collections:
[Manuals]
✩ All-purpose Swords: Defensive Style ◄ Mastery: Adept
[Skills]
Slot 1: Efficient Engine→ [Rank: D]
Description: Save the environment! Like a hybrid car, your miles per gallon is incredible. Provides an overall boost to stamina. Less sleep is required to recoup Essence, and less sleep is required to feel energized. You might break down after pushing yourself for many days, also quite similar to a dogshit pretentious hybrid car. And you'll be forced to spend thousands on repairs. So be warned.
Common. Replicable. Passive.
Slot 2: Night Owl→ [Rank: D]
Description: Greatly increases perception and stealth at night. Minor decrease in perception during daylight hours.
Common. Replicable. Passive.
Slot 3: Unlocks at B- Rank.
[Traits]:
Endangered - You have been hunted your entire life; the crippling hand of fear bears down on your psyche at full force. The gut's feeling of danger is enhanced and profound.
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Failure is death.
But victory? It'll be the shattering of the Seven Realms.