Survival Interval: 448

Michael differentiated the skills into two categories. The first type anyone could use. Skills from this category may or may not be compatible with one or more of the secondary attributes. Quickened step fell in this category. It pulled from his stamina pool instead of a secondary attribute energy pool. The second category required the contender to actually have one of the secondary attributes.

Michael read them all, but paid particular attention to the pulse skills since that was the one he actually had. Pulse was basically energy given a physical form, but there seemed to be a step further. For example the spell pyromancer converted the basic energy to fire energy. In addition to hitting things with force, the balls of fire could potentially set things on fire. Might be particularly useful against the plant types. Of course he also knew many beasts could be skittish around fire, and that flames were a weakness of some undead types. He was not sure whether that would translate in this survival battle, but it was not a bad option.

There was also actually a skill for what he had called his push. The pulse wave skill promised to do the same thing. It would likely cost less energy. His push was likely extremely not cost effective. The actual skill could also be leveled to become far more powerful, but Michael could only get one skill right now and crowd control was not a big concern for him.

Another basic pulse skill was the barrier skill. It was a skill that would protect against all types of attacks. However, Michael’s eyes passed right over it after reading that it was better against non physical attacks. Not a whole lot of non physical attacks happening right now, and while he was not completely reliant on his ability to dodge incoming attacks it was still his primary method of avoiding damage.

Other than the pyromancer spell, Michael did not give the other pulse skills too much thought. He browsed through the other category of skills. He was not too terribly surprised to find that the Quickened step was actually one of the ones offered. Good to know that it would be a skill that would likely be fairly common among contenders. Each contender would advance it differently, but it was good to be aware of.

Like it there were a couple of other stamina based skills. The smite skill would allow contenders to burn SP to significantly increase their strength. However, Michael thought that if he wanted to go that route, he might as well just save up some more SP and unlock the Ki secondary attribute with the associated circulation ability. From what he had witnessed from Kyrie she could increase any of her attributes for brief periods of time. Smite was just a more powerful version that only worked for strength, although it was also ki compatible as well meaning a contender could potentially double down on the increase.

However Michael found that stamina was not the only pool from the primary attributes that could be used to pay for skills. Interestingly enough there were skills that even pulled from vitality. There were only two, but Michael’s eyes became glued to one.

[Health Offering: this skill enables contender to temporarily decrease their health point maximum to increase another attribute(s) other than vitality. This skill is compatible with the secondary attribute(s): ki, spirit.]

Michael had not really solidified a direction in how he wanted to develop himself in the future, but this skill would definitely be a step in reinforcing a pulse centric build. If he wanted to increase his pulse recovery, he needed to increase his vitality, but other than allowing him to take and survive through more damage, more vitality would not buy him a whole lot. This skill on the other hand would allow him to use some of that vitality for other purposes.

Based on the wording the skill seemed to only decrease his HP and not vitality as a whole, hopefully meaning the pulse recovery rate would not be affected. It was not a sure thing, there was also the fact that pulse was excluded from the compatibility list. It was just as likely that the skill temporarily decreased his maximum HP by decreasing the vitality attribute, undermining his pulse recovery.

Michael took only another minute to think about it. Finally, he just went with it. “I would like this one.” True to his will the other options disappeared, leaving health offering.

“Hmmm… interesting choice. I guess it will depend on how many crowns you actually have. Honestly selling this for 2,000 would already be pushing the limit. Perhaps I should not have even included the option.”

Michael looked blankly back at the man, trying to keep his face from showing anything. He was not entirely sure this was not some sort of sales gimmick, or if making the sale would truly stretch the man’s financial incentive too thin. Eventually, Michael leaned toward the former.

Michael had tuned it out for the most part, but Kyrie had also sold her tier up method. She had been offered 1,200 crowns for the method versus the 1,000 that he had been offered. ‘I’m sure I can find someone willing to pay quite a bit more to increase their survivability,’ the man had said. The old man had mentioned that if she wanted to wait a week he might get up to 1,500 crowns for it, but Kyrie had elected to sell it now to buy her own skill

The reason Michael thought the guy might not be overexaggerating the cost of health offering was due to the fact that he had sold Quickened step to Kyrie for only 1,650 crowns. It was not overly surprising that Kyrie had chosen the skill despite all of the other good options, since Kyrie had always clearly been envious of his movement skill, even more so than his pulse ability.

Finally, Michael shared how many crowns he actually had. The guy hmmm’d for a good while. Once again was it part of a show, since they had not actually agreed to a deal yet? Michael did not know, but the longer the man took thinking about it the more irritated he became.

‘Don’t tell me Kyrie just got a good deal since she was an attractive female…’ Michael thought internally. Maybe he could find a female sales clerk next time and try to see if it could work for him… It probably wouldn't, he decided. He had always considered himself good looking, but the fact that he had never really got any female attention, might indicate that his sense of himself was a bit overinflated.

“Oh… I’m sure it will work out,” the man decided finally. “It will be a narrower margin than I would like, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility. I will sell it to you for the tier 2 fire retardant method and all of your 982 crowns.”

“Agreed, thank you,” Michael said, accepting the offer.

“You're welcome, just use it to keep the pretty young lady safe, then even if I do end up taking a bit of a hit I can consider it worth it,” the old man said, sending a wink towards Kyrie.

That sealed it. Kyrie had definitely gotten a good deal due to the old man creeping on her. Perhaps he should have her do all the negotiating for them in the future. It must be good to be a female. Michael’s mind flashed to Michele, she had directly indicated that she would use her looks to her advantage in this battle. Michael felt his excitement over getting a new skill decrease with the thought.

“So what skill did you get,” Kyrie asked him anxiously.

Michael pulled up the notice for her while he pulled up his special abilities page to check out the skills specifics. Just like with the quickened steps, Michael felt a bit underwhelmed with what he initially got. The duration of the skill was 5 minutes, but it cost 20% of his health pool for 1HR. Then the skill only gave a 10% boost to one attribute. It was a far cry from the 30% boost that that quickened step gave to be split between agility and dexterity.

But the boost being minimal was not the only point downside of the skill. The cost from his health pool would last for a full hour. He would test it out, but this likely could mean that the hour period was a cool down before he could use the skill again. The alternative was that he could use it again within that hour period and take an additional 20% cut of his HP. What a scary thought.

But the skill did have its upsides. The boost would last for a full 5 minutes, which would carry it through most fights. Sure a 10% increase in any one of his attributes would not mean more than 2 or 3 points right now, but it seemed it was pretty easy to increase a skill to level 2 in only a day or two of practice. Michael knew exactly which aspects he wanted to push with the skill.

The overall goal was to get more than a 10% boost to as many attributes as possible. However, after thinking about it for a moment it occurred to him that if he wanted the skill to increase multiple attributes, perhaps that should be where he focused his efforts first. Increasing one attribute for 5 minutes was not what he needed from this skill. He could only use it once, and would likely do it prior to the fighting actually starting, which would lock in the increase. What had actually drawn him to the skill was being able to increase all of the attributes like a soldier pill.

He made his decision and enacted the skill immediately. He might as well start pushing the skill whenever he could. He had the skill increase agility, but also pushed to include all of the other four primary attributes. He felt like he had hit a hard wall, but the skill still enacted, decreasing his health pool by 20% and increasing strength by 3.

Had he been too greedy? He had felt like the push to the other attributes had been flat out rejected. Perhaps trying to get all four other attributes in one level was asking for too much. Michael decided to try for two additional ones for the next level. Then by level 3 he would have them all, or perhaps 3 stats would be enough and he would work on increasing the boost to those 3. He had time to think it over.

“You done yet?” Kyrie asked. She had her arms folded, and she was staring at him. Michael smiled sheepishly. He realized he had likely just been standing there for the last few minutes. “I wanted to try out my new skill as well, but I am also aware that we are in public and did not want to look stupid or show my hand to others who may be paying attention… You need to do something else? Unlike you I still have some money, and would like to go acquire some basic necessities. I’m sure you will be fine on your own for a bit?”

Michael nodded. “Good, let's meet at the faction board in say half an hour.” Kyrie said turing. She headed to a general store.

Michael noted that she went to the furthest attendant that happened to be the only female. Ah, Mark could guess why she did not want him around. They had found clothes in various houses. Michael was cycling clothes under his combat pants, shirt, and vest, but Kyrie had complained about wanting something better. Michael only watched her for a second longer, before turning.

Spectacle or not, he had something he had to know whether it worked. He instantly performed a quickened step. The status page did not reflect attribute boosts due to skills, meaning he would have to actually move to see whether the skill increases worked together. The skill worked like normal. He performed the skill over and over again. Finally, he gave up, satisfied that he had done all he could.

Michael felt like he had been a touch faster than during a normal quickened step, but with only potentially 2 additional points added it was hard to say for sure. Hopefully, they stacked. Perhaps it was a false positive affirmation, giving him exactly what he expected…wanted. Maybe he could spar with Kyrie later and she could tell, he finally decided.

Michael was going to look around for the Vargas city faction board to get a leg up on reading anything other faction members had posted over the last five days, but then he saw him. A darker skinned man with a mullet of curly black hair waiting nervously on the edge of the area, Michael had just been running circles through. He had just thought about Michele a few minutes earlier, and now here was one of her teammates.

“Hello Shen.”