Bending
Shibahime's fist struck my solar plexus, and I collapsed, vomiting the contents of my stomach.
"Guh, unjust violence..."
"Reflect on your actions before you speak."
"I'm sorry..."
"If you think that's enough, you might need to open your skull and check the density of your brain."
"I really do feel bad, I'm sorry."
"If you're going to apologize, you shouldn't have done it in the first place."
"You're absolutely right. This time... or rather, it's always entirely my fault. I'm about 80% in the wrong."
"100:0."
Shibahime's icy glare was terrifying. It didn't look like her mood would improve. I said something vague and quickly left the scene to escape.
Shibahime once again showed her generosity. She didn't draw her sword and let me go. Though she's a pain, she has a surprisingly kind side, I had to admit, even though she punched me in the gut.
I returned to the dorm and opened my skill tree at the sink.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Status]
Makoto Akatani
Level: 0
HP: 60 / 100
MP: 280 / 300
Defense: 0
Strength: 30,000
Dexterity: 300
Intelligence: 0
Resistance: 0
Agility: 0
Mystery: 0
Spirit: 0
[Skills]
'Basic Stamina'
'Basic Mana' ×3
'Basic Dexterity' ×3
'Advanced Strength' ×3
'Harden'
'Soften'
'Stick'
'Launch'
'Pull'
'Halt'
[Equipment]
'Skill Tree'
━━━━━━ 'Skill Tree' ━━━━━━━
[Skill Tree]
Tree Level: 1
Skill Points: 0
Point Mission: 'Pome Hunt'
[Skill Menu]
'Basic Stamina'
Obtainable Times: 4
'Basic Mana'
Obtainable Times: 2
'Basic Defense'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Advanced Strength'
Obtainable Times: 2
'Basic Dexterity'
Obtainable Times: 2
'Basic Intelligence'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Resistance'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Agility'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Mystery'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Spirit'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Bend'
Obtainable Times: 1
[Completed Skills]
'Applied Strength'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Basic Strength'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Harden'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Soften'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Stick'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Launch'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Pull'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Halt'
Obtainable Times: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Today's Point Mission]
Keep working hard every day!
'Pome Hunt'
Pome Hunt: 0/20
[Consecutive Days] 16 days
[Consistency Rank] Silver
[Point Multiplier] 2.0 times
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Today's point mission is 'Pome Hunt' again. Two days in a row of Pome hunting. Good thing I increased my 'Basic Mana' yesterday. I won't have to rely on close-range power attacks by letting them bite my arm.
After diligently attending school, it was time for after-school activities.
"MP I can spend per Pome is 20. If I use 30 MP, I'm at a loss."
I entered the pseudo-dungeon, checking my remaining MP. Of course, in my hand was jerky from the second floor. I wanted to fight deeper-layer monsters and gain experience for when I challenge a real dungeon.
"Pome!"
Here they come, the evil Pomeranians. Two at once. This might be the first time I've encountered two in the second layer. They bared their fangs and charged at me.
"Do you think I'll let you get close with such weak HP and armor?"
I quickly opened my trunk and fired my beloved weapon: The Anomaly Sphere — a cool name I came up with — twice in succession. The Anomaly Sphere shattered the dungeon Pomeranians in one hit, turning them into particles of light.
Defense? Don't need it.
Stamina? Don't need it.
Agility? Don't need it.
"Hmph, as long as they don't get close, there's nothing to worry about."
This is my way. I didn't forget to collect the experience points. By the way, I have a question: where did my level-up go? I'm sure I'm collecting the experience points.
"I really don't have any talent... I'm glad I found the Skill Tree."
I continued my after-school Pome hunt, repeatedly feeling gratitude and love for the Skill Tree.
With my current tactics, I can expect a high chance of one-shot kills for up to two dungeon Pomeranians. I have two Anomaly Spheres, after all. But things change if a third one shows up. It takes time to retrieve the Anomaly Sphere, so I can't immediately take down the third. I can punch them, but they're quick, so I need to stop their movement first.
So, my current strategy against the third Pome or a surprise Pome is to use 'Launch' to push them away, giving me time to retrieve the Anomaly Sphere and fire a third shot.
I tried using the newly unlocked 'Halt' directly on the Pomes yesterday, but I couldn't slow them down. From the sense of the skill being nullified, I imagine it only works on simple movements. Using it on a living creature, with its complex internal movements, doesn't work. In other words, it's effective on movements with less information. Slowing down a flying stone or a falling ball — that's the extent of its use.
Actual combat teaches me a lot. This Pome hunt provided many discoveries. I thought of some power combos, but I didn't have the chance to use them. Since I can one-shot Pomes, I don't need more power. Combining skills would use more MP, which is inefficient.
"I never thought I'd be concerned about efficiency."
I used to be thrilled by skill combinations, but now I'm longing for powerful skills that use less MP. It reminds me of when I thought transforming robots were cool, but later wondered if there was any point.
Well, combining skills is fun, and it shows infinite possibilities, so I'll keep pursuing new combos.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Today's Point Mission]
Keep working hard every day!
'Pome Hunt'
Pome Hunt: 20/20
[Reward]
2 Skill Points earned!
[Consecutive Days] 17 days
[Consistency Rank] Silver
[Point Multiplier] 2.0 times
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I returned to the dorm and allocated the points at the sink.
━━━━━━ 'Skill Tree' ━━━━━━━
[Skill Tree]
Tree Level: 1
Skill Points: 2
Point Mission: Completed
[Skill Menu]
'Basic Stamina'
Obtainable Times: 4
'Basic Mana'
Obtainable Times: 2
'Basic Defense'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Advanced Strength'
Obtainable Times: 2
'Basic Dexterity'
Obtainable Times: 2
'Basic Intelligence'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Resistance'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Agility'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Mystery'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Basic Spirit'
Obtainable Times: 5
'Bend'
Obtainable Times: 1
[Completed Skills]
'Applied Strength'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Basic Strength'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Harden'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Soften'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Stick'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Launch'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Pull'
Obtainable Times: 0
'Halt'
Obtainable Times: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Now, what to allocate them to?
"Hmm, defense, agility... these would make combat a lot easier... No, no, that's too soft! I won't desire it until I win!"
I reached for strength with manly resolve.
"Going back to strength...!? No, no, if I let my guard down, I'll allocate points to strength...!"
With willpower, I unlocked 'Basic Mana' and 'Bend'.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Status]
Makoto Akatani
Level: 0
HP: 26 / 100
MP: 50 / 400
Defense: 0
Strength: 30,000
Dexterity: 300
Intelligence: 0
Resistance: 0
Agility: 0
Mystery: 0
Spirit: 0
[Skills]
'Basic Stamina'
'Basic Mana' ×4
'Basic Dexterity' ×3
'Advanced Strength' ×3
'Harden'
'Soften'
'Stick'
'Launch'
'Pull'
'Halt'
'Bend'
[Equipment]
'Skill Tree'
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Good, thanks to 'Basic Mana,' my MP is steadily increasing. This should give me more MP to work with.
"And now, 'Bend.'"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
'Bend'
Active Skill
Bend the object you touch
[Cost] MP 10
Is going straight always the best?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I started by bending a spoon. When I touched it and used the skill, it bent. It bent in the direction I intended
. I could choose the bending direction.
With my heart pounding, I tried bending a wooden sword.
I succeeded.
It required more strength than the spoon, but the skill worked as intended. I had gained a skill that let me control the shape of objects.
"Bend's potential is infinite. It's like magic... well, it is a skill."
I chuckled, picturing the countless applications of this new ability.
At dinner, Shibahime didn't show up.
I guessed she had something to do and started eating. Just then, I noticed a conspicuous figure approaching.
"You, boy. Makoto Akatani, I believe?"
A lady with glossy black hair in a neatly tied ponytail addressed me.
"Indeed, that's my name."
"I'm Suzuhime, the swordsmanship instructor here. I've been hearing about your unique fighting style."
"Ah, I see. I've been learning various skills."
"Indeed, that's evident. How about a spar after dinner? I want to see your skills firsthand."
"Sure, I'd love to."
Sparring with an instructor could give me insights into my fighting style's strengths and weaknesses.
After dinner, we headed to the training grounds.
"Are you ready?"
"Always."
We took our stances. She held a wooden sword, and I had my bent one. The spar began, and I utilized my new skill 'Bend' to catch her off guard.
Every time she thought she had an opening, my wooden sword bent unpredictably, throwing her off balance.
"Interesting... very interesting."
Suzuhime smiled, clearly enjoying the challenge. Our spar lasted longer than expected, and by the end, I was drenched in sweat, but I had held my ground.
"You're quite something, Makoto. Keep training hard."
"Thank you, Suzuhime. I'll do my best."
As I headed back to my dorm, I felt a sense of accomplishment. The spar had not only tested my skills but also boosted my confidence. The journey ahead seemed promising.