Chapter 12

"Why'd you eat that mushroom?" Grandfather asked curiously.

A good question. The redcap mushroom wasn't poisonous per se, but it did have a low nutritional value and tasted like slimy shit. All information taken from his Identify Ingredient skill, that he could reaffirm with the taste still in his mouth. "I want to get the Iron Gut skill, and since I'll be level five within the week I need to start as soon as possible," Lock explained after he cleared his mouth with water.

"You're an alchemist, idiot. Most of the potions you drink are slightly corrosive at their core and you've been chugging them for five years now. That path has long since been unlocked."

"I hadn't thought of that." Lock admitted, he had drunk a lot of potions due to his Alchemist class hadn't he? Taste-testing, so to say, as them being his potions removed some of their negative effects. "I thought I would just take Shield Bash when reaching level five and be done with it, it's just when reading the book I bought that I noticed Iron Gut would be pretty useful."

"I know you can't know which divergent skills you'll get access to, but you can't possibly think you won't have access to any. You have two other classes, for Kruto's sake," Grandfather said exasperatedly.

"I just didn't see any I really liked in the divergent skills list books, so I didn't consider the issue further." Lock shrugged. "I have other tasks to do that have tangible rewards at the end of them. It's just now that I've noticed that I would very much like one of those skills."

"You'll probably be surprised about how many skills you'll be offered when you reach level five," Grandfather muttered. "Who the hell actually lets a skill and how they got it get documented?" He turned around once more to watch the dungeon entrance.

Lock hadn't really bothered thinking much on the possible divergent skills he could gain, them being invisible and all, but he had to admit that it was foolish of him to think he wouldn't have access to any and start making plans to take Shield Bash. Hell, any one of the divergent skills would probably be better suited for him than Shield Bash. That was the whole point of divergent skills.

He glanced at another redcap mushroom, shuddered at the memory of the taste, and asked, "You sure I'll have Iron Gut available?"

He received a snort in response. "Yes, your father had it offered to him when he was leveling Cook, and he had only been making potions for one year before that. You've been doing so for nearly six."

But wouldn't Iron Gut be likelier to show up in a Cook's skill tree than a Vanguard's? Cook had more to do with the actual gut than Vanguard.

He just couldn't be sure, so he ate another mushroom.

Lock put the issue of divergent skills out of his mind again. He'd see what he got when he actually reached level five. It was dumb to waste time thinking on things that one couldn't plan.

As if summoned by his thoughts, he received a level-up notification. He'd gained two levels in Assassin. "I just leveled up, another two levels." He put the two newly available points into Endurance and took a look at the skills offered to him at the urging of the system.

He blinked. There were more skills than he had expected. He hadn't taken divergent skills into account at all when planning his route, but he'd still expected to have at least one offered to him as he leveled Assassin, being an Alchemist and all. But he hadn't expected three divergent skills to grace him with their potential presence in his repertoire. Two of them were related to Alchemy, which was how he'd just gotten half of the levels needed to reach level five. One also couldn't ignore that he was fairly good at the profession for someone who only did it secondarily.

Vile Blades, a skill that automatically generated poison on his weapons if he willed it, cutting out the tedious task of actually making and applying them. Although to be fair, there really weren't many better things to do with one's time in what basically amounted to the medieval age. The internet didn't exist, hobbies were usually restricted to things that were actually beneficial to oneself, and books were hard to get your hands on. So, good offer, but he preferred Sanguine Spray over Vile Blades. The healing reduction in addition to the damage harsh bleeding caused could be added to the poison he could apply manually, making the two skills incomparable in application, for now.

He imagined that the usefulness of the skills could shift later on. Vile Blades could evolve to more dangerous poisons, some he couldn't make or afford to buy, while the bleed stayed the same and only the healing reduction increased as he leveled Sanguine Spray. But this was now and that was then. You couldn't just slack off in the early game. If you did you'd never even reach the later stages. So he turned to the second Alchemy-related skill.

It was simply titled Immunity. A static skill that provided immunity against all but the most legendary of harmful effects inflicted with poison. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was slightly less useful since he already had Identify Ingredient from his Alchemist skill tree, allowing him to always know if anyone had tampered with his food, but he supposed there were other ways of getting poisoned. Immunity could also serve as a replacement for Iron Gut. Due to the classification of poison he wouldn't be able to store acidic solutions, sure. But Immunity offered two functions just like Sanguine Spray did. It made him immune to poison which was always good. He could raise his intimidation factor exponentially if he chugged that stuff in front of others. And it also meant he wouldn't have to take the Iron Gut skill when he reached level five in Vanguard. By now he was sure that he would be offered more than just that as a divergent skill, having just received three for Assassin.

He actually preferred Immunity over Sanguine Spray, being more taken with the idea of surviving rather than killing people more easily

The third divergent skill though... It was beautiful, and unexpected. It was clearly created out of the fact that he carried the Vanguard class, something that was not very compatible with his Assassin one. They were direct opposites even. Attack and defend, fast and cumbersome, distrusted and respected.

Maw of Marmortius: After successfully completing a stealth attack on someone, gain a magical shield proportionate to your END. One of the biggest issues assassins faced after successfully completing a sneak attack was the possibility of being bombarded with crowd control effects from the victim's party. This skill solved that issue in a rather interesting manner, namely by converting one's Endurance stat into a shield that defended against all magical attacks, which were often the ones carrying such ailments. Freezing, electrocution, fear, silence, all purely magical constructs.

The shield wouldn't defend him from getting gutted by a normal sword, not even by an enchanted sword (though the enchantment would be ineffective), but it would close down an entire avenue of attack after fulfilling its requirement.

He looked deeper into the skill. Visible only to the owner, a two minute cooldown that doubled every time until it reached 64 minutes, upon which it became unavailable for the rest of the day. And most importantly, it scaled with END, which he was planning on having a lot of.

He noted that divergent skills seemed to be more complicated than the standard ones. Maw of Marmortius had a fairly nuanced effect, Vile Blade was an active skill, and Immunity was only simple in concept, not in application, since he had to know how to differentiate between poisons and other substances.

Naturally he picked Maw of Marmortius. Sanguine Spray and Immunity were also skills he would like to acquire one day, but he simply had to take the chance of getting a skill that scaled with Endurance when it came flying his way.

"You were right," he said contentedly as he leaned back on a tree trunk. "I got access to three divergent skills."

"Impressive." Grandfather grunted. "I was a simple farmhand before I picked up the sword, so I got offered none until I reached level 15 in Warrior." He glanced at Lock over his shoulder. "Well don't keep me waiting,. What did you get, and what did you pick?"

Lock grinned and wagged his finger. "Now now, you're on guard duty. We can't have you be distracted with my awesomeness."

Grandfather shrugged, not rising to the bait, making Lock pout. He'd really hoped to elicit more of a reaction there. Three divergent skills was fairly impressive right? Well, more established adventurer families had entire books dedicated to the knowledge they'd gathered over the generations, which probably contained more than just a bit about divergent skills. But still. Three divergent skills! He was giddy with excitement, wondering what choices he would be offered upon reaching level five in Vanguard. Then he quickly became melancholy due to the circumstances he would gain those levels in.

Talking about grandfather-icide, grandfather wasn't looking all too shabby continuously guarding the dungeon entrance for hours. Not something a person with one foot in the grave would usually be able to do, and definitely not something that grandfather would have been capable of a few weeks ago.

So his condition had bettered itself, which was naturally quite contrary to what aging usually did to a person. Lock could only assume the spryness was artificial. Damn, he'd held onto the hope of grandfather having a few more years to live, he discarded it, and let his rational mind look at the odd occurrence.

The question he was now asking himself, trying to forget the fact he was going to kill his grandfather in less than a week, was what method the old man had used. A skill? A potion? A curse? Well, most likely a potion. Father was an alchemist, after all. Either stolen life or burst of power, he'd say. Both acted on the principle of stealing the vitality and life force of a person from the future, and using it up in the present.

It was often used as a poison when the victim wasn't allowed to know they'd been poisoned. Since the effects made them think that they'd been healed. They would feel great for a few days up to a month, only to collapse afterwards. Usually they did not stand up again.

Another level up notification resounded through his head and he couldn't help but grin and put another point into END.