The servitor bowed slightly to the kobold and introduced Axl, Moxlin, and Aria to the dead-looking figure. Its face moved slightly, looking down at them with some effort.
"Welcome to your manor's infuser," his voice was aged and cracked. "I am Promenial, the custodian of this room, and may offer any advice and information on the available Skills and their synergies."
Axl nodded, Moxlin on his shoulder positively vibrating with excitement. "Do you have a list of the options or something like that?"
"Of course, young lord," his hand twitched, and a drawer in the desk to his side opened. "Within you will find a transcript of all our Skill names, their rarity, and a brief description. We currently hold sixty-three Common and five Uncommon Skills at the G-Grade section of the repository. It is with great joy that I see you also unlocked the F-Grade section, which contains an additional twenty-one Uncommon Skills and a Skill upgrade nexus. The Common skills are all freely available. To the young lord, up to three Uncommon skills are also freely available. To those he grants access, one per grade, so ladies Moxlin and Aria could select up to two. The skill upgrade nexus, however, can only be selected in lieu of the two Skills for the guests, and all three to the young lord."
Axl's ears pricked up at the option of an upgrade, even if it was all he could get. "Does the upgrade nexus work on Rare skills?"
The kobold's reptilian face smiled. "How fortuitous that we are under the employ of such a powerful cultivator, to have a Rare skill while still in the G-Grade! Truly a peerless accomplishment, young lord. But alas, the upgrade is only for common skills. It unlocks for uncommon skills when the E-Grade section opens."
Axl sighed. I guess getting an Epic-rarity skill is not in the cards for the near future.
The kobold turned to the servitor, who was standing near the entrance, her hands folded neatly in front of her. "Lady guardian, may I ask that you wait outside? I am certain our lord and his entourage would enjoy some privacy."
The servitor bowed after a slight pause, then left, the heavy door quietly closed behind her.
"A competent protector of your lands, that one," the kobold continued. "But one must be careful the secrets one shares with the help, as I am sure you are aware, young lord. I am bound by the stricture of my position to the highest confidentiality, but alas…" The kobold pointedly looked at Aria and Moxlin, his implicit question clear.
Axl shrugged. "You can go ahead and say what you mean to say to all three of us."
"As you wish, my lord." The kobold nodded, the furthest his head could move in the wall. "If you have a Rare Skill, it will greatly shape your cultivation path, drawing the attention of what the heavenly system will offer you, both in quest rewards and, more importantly, in ascension options. To most cultivators, a varied selection of Common and Uncommon Skills is necessary to even survive, much less progress, and that is more aligned with how this facility was designed. I would caution my lord against obtaining too many Skills that do not supplement or directly enhance your Rare skill, as it may hinder your prospects."
"Fair advice, good sir," said Aria, sounding a bit bored as she idly looked around the room.
Axl cleared his throat, rather glad to have gotten that info. "What if I have more than one Rare Skill? Could that cause a problem as well?"
The kobold paused, his mouth partially open in surprise. "I… I see, young lord. I only know that, in the E-Grade, progression can only be attempted at all when previously disparate aspects of one's cultivation are aligned, and this includes the purpose of all highest-rarity Skills one has access to. I have been privy to the builds of three E-Grade cultivators, and all of them only had a single Rare Skill, to lessen the burden of such a requirement."
Aria chuckled. "Now that's just silly. You'd just be stuck in the early stages of the grade doing something like that."
"Young mistress would know more than I, then," the kobold said, his nod seeming more like a bow. "I merely caught glimpses of their builds before they left, their time in this manse finished upon their ascension. That I may speak of them at all means they have returned to the cycle of reincarnation, as I am bound to secrecy on such matters while the cultivator I assist still lives. I shamefully find that my advice to you is limited, young lord, but if I were to guess, it might be wise to refrain from obtaining additional Skills at all, lest they be positively essential to your efforts."
"Well that's just great," Axl said, then looked at Aria. "What do you think?"
Aria stared at him, pausing for a moment as her eyes bulged slightly in surprise. "Wait. Just how many Rare skills do you have?"
Axl sighed. "Four."
Moxlin dropped the list of Skills to flail her legs at him while the kobold cursed under his breath in a language Axl couldn’t understand, Aria staring at him with open shock.
"Alright, everybody, calm down," Axl said. "Is this really so unusual? It seems like systems quests and whatnot were pretty liberal with giving me these things."
"You got those from quests?" the kobold muttered. "What subsystem could be so generous already at the G-Grade?"
Axl thought back on that, exactly. He got [Bolting Motion] and [Attuned Drill Strike] from the Deep System, with help from his Dao glimpse, and [Mana Shroud] and [Mind-Soul Bulwark] were upgrades Terrania offered from Uncommon Skill options. So for sure a good chunk of the advantage he had was what Terrania gave him, especially early on, but since then, he'd been relying almost entirely on what the Deep System. Would this matter? From what he'd skimmed in Oocile's notes in [Elided Tome of Equanimity], the long dead cultivator only had one Rare Skill when reaching the E-Grade, and upgraded another to Rare later in the E-Grade, but neither came from the Deep System.
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"Two of them I got from the Deep System," he said, not wanting to elaborate more on Terrania. "Is that different than if I'd get it from a subsystem?"
The room got eerily quiet, even Moxlin calming down.
"A double-edge sword," Aria finally started. "The Deep System has far better knowledge of your needs as a cultivator, and can access cultivation paths and techniques from throughout the tapestry of existence. But to get its attention so firmly while still in the G-Grade is to invite only greater and greater challenges, its goals ultimately inscrutable. Those who court the Deep System can find the greatest achievement or complete ruin, but rarely anything in between."
The kobold nodded. "Indeed, heavenly lord, I fear I cannot offer you any further advice, for you tread a Path beyond even the legendary cultivators of this firmament that I foolishly studied in my youth."
Aria poked Moxlin on the side, chuckling. "I'm not the real cultivation princess here, apparently."
"Great," Moxlin crossed her forelegs, sulking. "Everybody gets to be a princess except for me!"
"Can I get more information on those cultivators you mentioned?" Axl asked, turning back to Promenial. "There might be something useful in how others did this sort of progression, at least."
"Unfortunately, my memories of those fields have been destroyed with my imprisonment here, and your library has no minder other than the servitors allowed but to re-shelve the books, but if you grant me access, I would be happy to further serve. Already having learned what you have generously shared will assist in my own scholarly cultivation and indentured service."
"Sure," Axl said, feeling a shift in his pendant, and he knew that this kobold now had library access. "Will you need help looking through the books or something?"
"I appreciate the concern, heavenly lord, but the section of wall I am entrapped within can move between facilities I have access, and I further have limited telekinesis from an Uncommon Skill, and thus can sufficiently engage in such duties."
The drama largely subsided, Axl finally started looking at the list of available Skills. He was positively surprised, worried that the large number would suggest low quality, but he found himself tempted even by many of the Common ones. The ones he'd easily pass by were focused on assisting alchemy or other artistry, such as finding herbs, enhancing gardening, protection against fire, and other ones that were largely unnecessary due to [Gastric Cauldron] and the fact that he wasn’t going to sit around and just do alchemy for years at a time. He even found Skills that would let him refine metals like transmutation forge, metal duplication and concentration being each a common Skill while transmutation was an Uncommon one. It seemed like his spiritual organ replaced the need for over a dozen skills, not to mention the benefit from its intense synergy and ultimate portability. Terra's balls did he love [Gastric Cauldron].
There were a spattering of Skills that would undoubtedly help in combat, mostly detecting against various types of attacks, the Common variants all rather specific and so perhaps not quite so versatile. But one aimed at projectiles would've probably let him avoid Brillhit's sneak attack, so he was likely underestimating how useful these could be. The Uncommon battle-related skills were few, only five out of the twenty-six Uncommon skills, but each one was a real contender. [Third Eye] would give him an additional eye between his other two, and overall increase how Perception improved vision, [Last Resort] would allow him to escape a fatal blow, teleporting him back to a home base at the cost of the Skill itself and several levels, [Alchemist's Healing] was a dedicated healing spell that scaled off knowledge of alchemy instead of any Attribute, [Life of the Blood, Battle in Blood] allowed the use of your own blood as a fully controllable weapon, and [Minor Telekinesis] let you control small objects. The later was the exact skill the wall-tethered kobold had. But he apparently didn't get it from the repository, but had it early in life, since it was a very desirable Skill across many different builds.
After some thinking and consulting his party and Promenial, he ultimately ruled out [Life of the Blood, Battle in Blood] and [Third Eye], since he didn’t really see himself using his blood as a major source of this battle kit, and just more vision wouldn't really help him so much, and could even work against his balanced use of Attributes. He also ruled out [Last Resort], since it could influence his path too much, not to mention that he felt it would be better to just get a Skill that could make him stronger, rather than plan for failure. [Alchemist's Healing] was damn tempting, given how often he injured himself, but there was a good chance the Skill would be entirely redundant with what he was already doing with his immediate access to potions with [Gastric Cauldron].
At first, [Minor Telekinesis] was the option that least drew his attention, picturing the kobold scholar slowly floating books from their shelves, but apparently the Skill was far more versatile than that. It could be used to lift up a patch of ground under you to make you levitate, even if true levitation was more the purview of better telekinesis Skills. It could also be used for subtle poisoning, distractions, or even altering an enemy's armor mid-battle. Axl immediately perked up when Promenial mentioned its use for ranged attacks, apparently a famous assassin specializing in the Skill, using tiny needles coated in various poisons to secure his kills. Axl was tempted to use [Minor Telekinesis] in the same way.
After all, his current strategy of talismans and webbing to get his daggers back was shaky at best, but if he could throw them and then will them back seamlessly, it could greatly increase the flexibility of the ranged weapons. He might not even need to fully throw them as well, simply willing the daggers to fly, and either using both hands on [Webcutter] or charging up [Attuned Drill Strike] with the free hand.
Axl also thought of upgrading [Mental Map of Irialith], but Promenial stated that one was not eligible for upgrade, being tied to the Vale subsystem for any modifications. The kobold even suspected it could upgrade should he rise in the nobility rank, which made sense. Regardless, Axl really didn't need a better map for his immediate needs, so that wouldn't have been his choice anyhow.
Aria unfortunately, had few options, her build so oddly specialized and exotic she was straight-up barred from the vast majority of them, and ultimately decided to take nothing at all. Moxlin took two Common Skills related to talisman preparation and upgraded one of her Common Skills to Uncommon, easily the biggest winner of the skillset infuser that day.
After hesitating on what to do and Aria insisting she saw no huge diversion with the decision, Axl decided to take [Minor Telekinesis], adding the Skill to his ever-growing list. As opposed to it just appearing in his mind, Promenial levitated a small crystal that glowed with dense Mana, its surface shimmering in relaxing blues and greens. Axl gingerly held it for a moment and got the mental invitation to accept the Skill. Once he did, the crystal grew dim, its Mana receding into barely a trickle, looking more like mundane rock that he would likely overlook if it were on the ground.
Axl got the sense the crystal would take quite a while to charge back up, and handed it back to the kobold's telekinetic grip as he looked at his new skill.
>>Minor Telekinesis (Uncommon)
>>Control small objects with your will alone. Scales with mental Attributes.
Skills: Mana Shroud (Rare, Proficiency G.8), Mind-Soul Bulwark (Rare, Proficiency G.4), Attuned Drill Strike (Rare, Proficiency G.2), Bolting Motion (Rare, Proficiency G.2), Mental Map of Irialith (Common), Minor Telekinesis (Uncommon)
Having heard the numerous ways others used the Skill, he felt reasonably confident that even if it didn't help him with his ranged attacks, he'd find something else to do with it.
The Skill infuser done, Aria went back to her spire to sleep while Moxlin and Axl started to raid the manor's stores of F-Grade ingredients. After all, the servitors had kept cultivating, refining, and storing alchemical reagents for decades since the last owner died, all of it piling up in the various storehouses. Even if the head servitor was constantly surly with him, Axl noticed some relief in her as they took entire crates of the material and disappeared them into their dimensional storage, even as they only took the F-Grade cream of the crop.
Axl had to restrain himself from digging into the [Selsin Clan Glyphic Compendium] to refine his various potions, since there was something else he wanted to get to even more.