37 Chapter 37 - Skill Evolution?!
…
Yamcha stared at the notifications in front of his eyes wide open like an owl. "Skill Evolution?"
He hadn't thought about it and always assumed that the Max Level was just a limiter to his skills. Maybe that assumption was unconsciously made because he was always thinking of his Gamer Interface as one of those Gamer stories he had read in his last life.
[Swimming Skill Tree: (chose one)]
[Solid Swimming]
[Can swim through inorganic surfaces.]
[Faster Swimming]
[Can swim faster, as if you were born in water.]
[Elegant Swimming]
[Your swimming is attractive to all sea creatures.]
[Fishman Karate]
[Can use water in your attacks]
The skills descriptions were very brief, thought Yamcha. Their titles were the one thing that said most of what they could do. The first thing he did was dismiss Faster Swimming and Elegant Swimming. The former was to swim quicker, which he didn't need as he could create a barrier around himself and fly through the water faster than anyone could swim.
Also, Elegant Swimming… What was he going to do with it? Attract fish? He could attract a mermaid, but he didn't need some fancy swimming to attract a woman. Trading efficiency for some fish sex sounded like an illogical decision someone would make with their lower head.
Fishman Karate was an option too, but with the fighting style becoming beams destroying planets, in the later stages, it wouldn't be that useful.
Maybe it would get stronger as he did and raised its level, but the technique didn't have a place in his arsenal as he had some other ideas to max level his Wolf Fang Fist that he had been ignoring until now.
[You have picked: Solid Swimming]
[Solid Swimming - Lvl 1/100]
[A skill that surrounds the user's body in magic power and allows them to swim on solid surfaces. The higher the level, the stronger the ability is.]
Yamcha flew back to a secluded part of his island. He activated Solid Swimming, and Magic Power immediately formed a thin coat around him. It felt like a membrane of mucus had surrounded him
The ground below his feet rippled like water, and he immediately fell into it.
Darkness, he only saw darkness circling him.
Moving his arms around, Yamcha felt like he was on heavier water and swam up. It took a great deal of power, and the average man wouldn't have been able to do so. Once his head was above ground (water?), he looked around and started swimming.
His previous swimming skill hadn't disappeared as he swam faster than most motorboats, even though the water was quite heavy, as while the ground turned into liquid, its weight didn't seem to have disappeared.
The solid land behind him turned from rippling like water back to normal. Only the solid ground around him changed to have liquid-like properties.
Yamcha stopped, flew up, and deactivated his skill. Then crouched down on the ground and activated Solid Swimming through only one arm.
He put the limb on the ground, which rippled like water again as soon as his finger touched it, and then deactivated his skill. He wanted to test what would happen if he ran out of MP or something during swimming.
Immediately, pain, like anything he had ever felt before, assaulted his hand. Flesh melded, twisted, and turned. Veins were cut, burst, and crippled up his arm before settling down. It was a strange ticklish sensation that was blended with the pain of having your hand crushed and burst at the same time.
Yamcha winced as a sensation of pain assaulted his hand. Like needles piercing through every pore below his wrist. Something was also digging inside his hand at the same time. He tried pulling on his arm, but to no avail, only an increasing pain shooting up his arm.
If he didn't have high willpower by now, he would be crying and wailing on the ground like a dog.
"Fuck this shit!" Yamcha tugged harder, and a piece of the ground came together with his arm. He looked closely at what was left of his arm and winced in disgust.
It was a grotesque sight of both raw flesh and dirt. There was even an earthworm poking its head out of the fleshy bits of his arm. So that was where the strange tickling sensation came from? Disgusting, he thought.
"It's fusion. My cells and the ground melded together perfectly,"
What a dangerous ability, he considered. If he had tried doing this while his body was underground, he would have died instantly, as he would fuse with the earth around him. Having dirt and stone enter your brain would kill even someone like him with Gamer's Body.
Yamcha grabbed a sword from his inventory and cut off the now-useless arm. Blood spurted out of his stump, and he curiously looked at his cut bone.
"Fucking gross," he exclaimed.
After that, he munched on a Senzu Bean, and the arm was back to normal. The pain went away in an instant too.
As another test, he turned toward a boulder and charged toward it while activating Solid Swimming. He burst right through the boulder, only a slowing ripple effect disappearing behind him.
Yamcha's face morphed into a smile as his heart started beating faster. His hands shook uncontrollably.
This was so… AMAZING!
This world never stopped being like a never-ending carnival ride. Excitement and new marvelous things were waiting just right around the corner.
Yamcha wanted to max-level all his rows and rows of skills he had. Every time there would be a new sense of excitement.
But such fantasies were cut short by his rational mind.
Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself down. Going down that path of just leveling skills madly, while exciting, was counterproductive. The first skill he planned to level up to the max was Wolf Fang Fist since it was already Level 22/30, and in a couple of weeks, he was confident in having the skill evolve.
'What better time to start this process than the present!' He thought excitedly.
…
Two weeks passed in the blink of an eye. For Yamcha, this was quite literally as he enjoyed every second of training. The area around him had ripped apart, and he was inside a giant crater.
[Wolf Fang Fist reached level 30]
[Wolf Fang Fist is ready for Evolution!]
*Drrrring!*
Suddenly his phone rang, breaking down the child-like smile on his face. Yamcha picked it up and saw it was an unknown number. He opened it. "Hello, Yamcha here. Who is this?"
"It's Tights. Yamcha, you won't believe when I'm about to tell you!" Did she yell out in excitement or panic? Yamcha couldn't quite read her tune through the phone.
Right now, he didn't care too much about what was happening in the outside world. He was inside his zone and hadn't even bothered looking at the news. "Yea, what is it?"
"Wait, let me send you a text!" Then Tights closed the call.
If you were gonna send a text, why did you even call me? Yamcha wondered but decided not to get annoyed over small things. He was a little on edge since he wanted to see the evolution choices, but this text might be a cry for help, maybe she couldn't speak as an enemy was close by. Yamcha assumed the worst in this situation, so he controlled his curiosity for now as the text came.
It was… a Comic Website? One of those companies that publish Tights' books. He sighed. "This bitch, I have better things to do!"
But despite his worry melting into annoyance, Yamcha checked out what she was peddling him. Maybe this was a secret cry for help, as her attacker was close by and making sure she didn't send him any warnings or cries for help.
***
Puar was a nervous wreck, and he sensed his small cat-like heart about to burst out of his chest. Since splitting from Yamcha, he had given out the comic book drafts he had tirelessly worked on.
For the first time in years, Puar was away from Yamcha and felt… nervous at first. The protective presence of his friend around always helped him calm down. But without him around, certain things that Yamcha would tell him not to worry about, now stressed him out.
He was waiting for how well his first comic, Superman, had done during the week. Puar was so afraid he hadn't even had the guts to check the ratings. It was like the results of an exam being given by email and being too afraid to open it.
Puar sat in the waiting room, with the clock clicking on the wall as the only sound of company. Every minute, those sixty seconds, those ten clicks that happened six times felt like an eternity. Time had never passed him slower than now.
The office door opened. His agent came out with a cigarette in his mouth and a stern look on his face.
"Puar," he called his name with deathly calmness.
"H -How were the results?" Puar asked shakingly. What if this had all gone wrong? Would his dream be destroyed? What would he tell Yamcha when they meet again? Explain to him how much of a failure he had been.
Suddenly, the atmosphere relaxed, and the world spewed flowers as the agent's stern look turned to a smile so big that it almost split his face in half. "Superman was an absolute hit!!!"
Relief washed over Puar in an amazing way.
