ALL NOVEL Chapter 38: Swordsmanship
After Depositing his summon on the bed, where she soon immersed herself in another playdate with her favorite stick, Aoni made his way over to the desk and placed Austr down.
'Ignoring the excess points after the decimal, I have 88 points to work with here, and as experience has taught me, it costs 17.5 Progress Points in order to max out a single stat, which will then Yield me three free bonus Points.' The Lad thought while running his fingertips along the broad side of his blade.
'That amount is more than enough to upgrade five stats to their limit, meaning…I can max out both my blades to F-…hold up… won't I be left with change again…is this my fate, destined to be a brokie?' leaning back in his chair, Aoni fell into a dilemma.
'Logically speaking, the best course of action would, in fact, be to max out both. There's a strong possibility I will see some growth from my Attribute in doing so as well…but for some reason, something is telling me it's a bad idea.' The longer he hesitated to follow through on the upgrades, the more Aoni began to feel uncomfortable in spending all of his Progress points.
Looking at things objectively and from an outsider's point of view, there were many reasons the Lad could be feeling this way; maybe having grown up without for so long had caused Aoni to be less of a spendthrift, or maybe there was something from beyond the realm of acknowledgment speaking to his subconscious.
But no matter how much the Lad wished to speak out those simple words to increase the Ranks of his weapons, Stats, he simply couldn't.
'Sigh…what is going on with me…' Massaging his temples, Aoni took a deep breath and decided that, at the very least, he should upgrade the durability of Austr.
| Increasing Summon 'Austr's' Durability from G- to G |
| Progress Points have been Deducted |
| 1.0 PP earned |
| Increasing Summon 'Austr's' Durability from G to G+ |
| Progress Points have been Deducted |
| 1.0 PP earned |
| Increasing Summon 'Austr's' Durability from G+ to F- |
| Progress Points have been Deducted |
| 1.0 PP earned |
'17.5 points down, three up…just like last time. It seems I also don't have to worry about not getting bonus points for duplicate achievements. Still, 1 point per rank is pretty light.' Observing the change in color that his right-handed blade had undergone and noting that the two blades were practically identical now, Aoni sighed before standing up and placing both Vestr and Austr atop the bookshelf.
'74.12 points remaining, Open my Status,'
Passives
Cold Resistance: F-
Pain Resistance: F-
Swordsmanship: G- (►)
Dual Swordsmanship: G- (►)
______________________
Settling his eyes on the passives, more specifically, the two arrows beside the two newest additions, Aoni thought back to everything he had ever learned pertaining to them both. Contrary to popular fantasy, dual-wielding was quite popular with travelers, and the reason was actually quite basic.
It had nothing to do with looking cool or being flashy; instead, it revolved around the additional boosts and benefits that adding a second weapon brought about.
The standard loadout of Sword and Board (Shield) had proven long ago that if someone was able to wield more than one weapon, they could effectively double their combat prowess; however, the issue was the linked Passive Skill was notoriously impossible to master.
Sure, unlocking it wasn't terrible, but getting it to level up was another story entirely.
Among the majority of known and commonly used Passives, there were a select few that had such a high proficiency required to be useful that they were considered useless.
As luck would have it, Dual Swordsmanship happened to be one of them, or at least that's how it was viewed until reaching B-Rank.
The Passives, nicknamed "LBs or Late Bloomers," were extreme in their rank-up requirements and, more often than not, would require significant amounts of Time and Effort to train.
Still, as with anything, there are exceptions to that rule, such as people who were naturally ambidextrous or something to that extent, or…if you had a certain attribute that lets you add points…
'Increase the Rank of my Dual Swordsmanship Passive,'
| Error Requirements for Increase Not Met |
'Or not…' confused for a second, Aoni's eyes widened as he realized an important bit of information that he had overlooked.
The Dual Swordsmanship Passive is innately linked to the Origin Passive, Swordsmanship.
'Increase the Rank of my Swordsmanship Passive,'
| Increasing Passive 'Swordsmanship' from G- to G |
| Progress Points have been Deducted |
| 5 PP earned |
The moment Aoni read those words, it felt like a horse had just kicked him in the head all of a sudden, and for a second, the world spun as dizziness washed over his being.
As if that wasn't enough, his muscles began tensing up, and a wave of fatigue hit him out of nowhere. It was all due to an overwhelming surge of information, almost like it was being 'Downloaded' or imprinted into not only his brain but also his body.
Unlike the other upgrades he had gone through in the previous days, this time was different. For all intents and purposes, every other upgrade he had experienced was a rapid destruction of his body followed by repeated cycles of rejuvenation.
In contrast, by upgrading his passive, Aoni was essentially experiencing and learning the equivalent of multiple months' worth of sword training in just a few minutes.
By the time the uncomfortable sensations settled down, Aoni felt as if he had spent the better part of 4 or 5 months training and, as such, had accumulated quite a bit of theoretical experience handling a sword.
Regaining his witts and noticing that his Summon was completely oblivious to his plight, Aoni went ahead and looked at his available Progress points.
Although slightly expensive, 10 points, the fact that he had earned five points leveled out his expenditure and gave Aoni enough confidence to push his Swordsmanship Passive up to the next stage, even if he was a little gunshy thanks to what he just went through.