06　Essential Skills (1)

Morning came.

I got up in a quite refreshed mood and had breakfast at the bar.

My plan was to go to the library today.

『Royal Great Library』―― a.k.a.  "Comiket".

Maybe it has no such alias in this world.

Why was it called Comiket, you might wonder? It has to do with Mobius' skill acquisition system.

There are two main conditions for acquiring skills.

The first one is to read skill book.

The second one is to complete that skill's quest.

The former is a condition for many of the basic skills, while the latter is a condition for many of the derivative skills.

And, the Royal Great Library has many of these skill books.

You should already be guessing it.

When beginners from the 『Castall Kingdom』 come to the 『Royal Capital Vinceton』, they visit the Royal Great Library and read all the skill books. Well, even if I say read, the condition is satisfied by just flipping through the pages, so you can just go to the shelf on the far right and go through all the skill books one by one around the bookshelf. Because many beginners and alt characters form a line and silently do that, it is said that the situation became similar to that of the Comiket, and thus, the alias was attached. Some people even went as far as to make signboards of 「The line ends here」and others too played along yelling stuff like 「Na○ has been sold out!」. Ahh, those were indeed good times…

...While being reminiscent of the past, I arrived at the Royal Library.

After paying the entrance fee, I went inside. Going to the rightmost shelf, I immediately started my pilgrimage.

The ones I got this time, the two basic skills of each[Short-range combat] and [Long-distance combat], [attack magic] of the four elements'「First Form」, plus Bestowal Magic and some quality of life and production skills.

There are nine types of combat skills, which are Pawn/Soldier (Fuhyou), Lance (Kyousha), Knight (Keima), Silver General/Silver (Ginshou), Gold General/Gold (Kinshou), Bishop (Kakugyou), Rook (Hisha), Promoted Bishop/Dragon Horse (Ryuuma), and Promoted Rook/Dragon King (Ryuuou).

TLN: These are named after the shogi pieces, the names in bold are the ones I'll be using.

The four basic skills that I'll be learned this time are "Soldier Swordsmanship", "Lance Swordsmanship", "Soldier Archery", and "Lance Archery". Soldier is a normal attack skill, while Lance is a penetrating attack.

Next is [Attack Magic], but that is simple since it only has four attributes: Fire, water, wind and earth. All the books here are only for the First Form for the four attributes. The magic books for the Second Form and Third Form can be found in the 『Royal Magic Academy』. Afterwards, the Fourth Form can be earned as a reward for capturing a dungeon and the magic book for the Fifth Form can be obtained after completing a hidden quest.

Additionally, there's a magic that has the ability to grant an extra effect to equipment, that one is called "Bestowal Magic". In the early stages it is barely visible, but in the late game it exerts tremendous effects. This is one thing you must absolutely remember to take.

Lastly, quality of life skills and production skills are quite useful. Potion Mixing, Alchemy/Transmutation, Blacksmithing and so on. I won't be able to make use of them in the early stages, but I'll learn them since I'm here and they are skill I will need later on.

Well, that's how it is. I finished reading all the books and learned the skills I wanted. It didn't even take half an hour. I hurried and left the library.

As for the future, the order in which I'll prioritize leveling my skills will be 「[Archery]→[Swordsmanship]→[Magic]→[Summoning Magic]」.

I'll earn experience while safely attacking from a long distance, then solidify my stance with damage-efficient and easy to use Swordsmanship, and prepare a trump card for those tough opponents with high-firepower magic.

As for [Summoning Magic], my avatar is the reason why I'll try to raise it at this relatively early stage. Along with the "Limited Premium Avatar" I purchased when making this Alt character, came a "Premium spirit ticket". Since it promised to summon a powerful spirit, there is no reason not to raise Summoning Magic. However, being an auxiliary skill, Summoning Magic has a limit as to how much you can use it as your main means of attack, so it's usually judged to raise your skills to a certain extent before.

Well, now that the plan has been stablished, lets allocate my experience points and raise the skills I've acquired.

"Soldier Archery" Rank 16→Rank 3, "Lance Archery" Rank 16→Rank 1. I think this is the minimum line to be able to fight by only using Archery.

All four attributes of [Attack Magic]First Form Rank 16→Rank 5, let's stop here for now. The fifth rank of the First Form reduces the casting time.

I think there's no problem even if the others remain at rank 16, but let's raise Soldier Swordsmanship to rank 9 just in case. It'll be insurance in case it becomes a melee.

And so, all the experience I had was used up raising up my skills. Well, nothing wrong with that.

With this, I'll have a solid foundation. I can come back to the Comiket and learn anything else I might've forgotten.

"Well, I've got to learn the essentials of Archery."

In addition to Soldier and Lance, [Archery]'s essential skills are Knight, Silver, Gold, Bishop and Rook. Almost everything. The only ones that are not needed are Dragon Horse and Dragon King. Those two are flashy and powerful, but they got almost no practical use and they had a stupidly high cost.

"Knight Archery"is a sniper attack, "Silver Archery" is a powerful single-target attack, "Gold Archery" is a ranged attack with added knockback, "Bishop Archery" has a strong penetrating power and "Rook Archery" is an extremely strong single-target attack. Those are the characteristics of each type.

In particular, "Knight Archery", "Gold Archery", and "Rook Archery", the number of strategies one can use by learning those 3 skills would increase by one or two digits.

However, these skills, unlike the Soldier and Lance ones, require que completion of their respective skill quest. But it's not needed to grab the quest, as long as their conditions are met, you can obtain the skills.

I dropped by the weapons shop and bought a bow. The one I choose was a long bow. A simple, standard long bow.

"Alright, let's go, Seventh Teiō."

I returned to the Inn's stable and set out on Seventh Teiō. The destination is the mine, once again.