Delving Within

"Gasp!" Aurus woke up as he took in a deep breath. He didn't expect that he would fall unconscious whenever he evolved. Fortunately, nothing happened to him while he was unconscious, but it still gave him a feeling that he was vulnerable.

He then checked his surroundings and saw that it was already dark...not that it made a difference for him.

"System, what time is it?" Aurus asked.

Ding!

'Current time: Day 3, 09:15:32 p.m.'

Calculating the time that passed while he was unconscious, it took 6 hours to evolve into his current form. He then started to examine his body, which at first glance was definitely bigger than before.

The color of his bark was now a slight ash gray as some green shoots could be seen growing out of Aurus' body.

He didn't panic at all after seeing it as he was sure that it had something to do with his skills. "Open the status screen," he commanded as he wanted to know what changes happened to his stats and stuff.

Ding!

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[Aurus] (Level 1/5)

Experience: 0/10

Species: Wind Walnut Branch (Special)

Existence Level: Inanimate

Grade: B

[HP]: 5/5

Stats:

[Toughness]: 5

[Thickness]: 5

[Shell Hardness]: 5

Synchronization Rate: 20%

Unused Experience Points: 1

Unused Genesis Points: 0

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At first glance, Aurus noticed a lot of things. The first of which was his current Species that could be seen under the experience bar. Afterwards, he checked his HP that has basically doubled compared to his previous health. As he continued to look at his status screen, he then asked the system, "What's [Shell Hardness]?"

Ding!

'[Shell Hardness] is equivalent to the [Density] stat before evolution. It affects the attack power of the fruit created with the [Fruit Creation] skill.'

"So it's just my attack stat but transferred to another place, huh," Aurus easily understood what the system meant. As for the [Fruit Creation] skill, he would check it later as another thing caught his eye.

"Synchronization Rate? That hasn't been there before," Aurus muttered. "What is it?"

Ding!

'Synchronization Rate refers to the level of connection of the soul to the body. For other species, it is the level of intelligence a soul has. For a species at the Animate level, they would have a Synchronization Rate of 100%.'

"Ah. So that's what it does," Aurus nodded. He tried to move his body with the [Roll++] skill and saw that it responded faster when compared to before.

"Since this Synchronization Rate increases with every evolution I think, I might have the possibility of wielding a weapon, increasing my leveling speed." Aurus imagined himself rolling through a wave of enemies as a floating weapon hovered beside him as he killed each of them one by one, leveling up at a preposterous speed.

He then closed his status screen as he said, "Time to check on my...wait."

"System, enable the option of showing my SP bar," Aurus commanded.

He almost forgot about the universal passive skill every stick would get once they reached the B-grade Inanimate level, [SP Storage].

Now what is [SP Storage]? It's the equivalent of MP in common MMORPGs, but in this case, instead of the Intelligence and Wisdom stat affecting the amount of MP a player can hold and the speed at which MP regenerates, for ISE, it was instead based on the skill [SP Storage].

Without this skill, B-grade Inanimates would not be much different from their C-grade counterparts. It is the reason why B-grade Inanimates say that the true journey begins when you evolve to B-grade.

Ding!

'Option has been enabled.'

Not long after the voice finished speaking, two numbers separated by a line could be seen under the HP bar hovering over his body.

"2/2 huh. Definitely how I expected it to be," Aurus nodded as he opened the skill screen.

Ding!

________

Active Skills:

[Roll++], [Nut Shot]

Passive Skills:

[SP Storage], [Wind Affinity], [Fruit Creation], [Soul Perception I], [Blessing of the Reincarnation Goddess]

________

"Hmm..." Aurus looked at his skill screen as he pondered. He felt like there was something in the screen...specifically numbers.

"Ah," Aurus realized. "System, enable the option of allowing me to see the skill levels."

Ding!

'Option has been enabled.'

Now that he has enabled the option, his current skill screen now looked like this.

________

Active Skills:

[Roll++ Lv.5/10], [Nut Shot Lv.1/3]

Passive Skills:

[SP Storage Lv.1/3], [Wind Affinity Lv.1/3], [Fruit Creation Level 1/3], [Soul Perception I Lv.1/5], [Blessing of the Reincarnation Goddess Lv.MAX]

________

Now contented with him seeing each skill have their levels beside it, he then commanded, "Identify [Nut Shot], [SP Storage], [Fruit Creation], and [Wind Affinity]."

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Three screens appeared in front of Aurus' field of vision as he looked at each screen one by one.

'Ah. I should enable the option of seeing the skill grades as well,' Aurus remembered as he was looking at the screen. 'I'll just do it later.'

________

[Nut Shot] (Level 1/3)

Experience: 0/3

A Walnut Branch can utilize their fruit as projectile weapons that can deal damage to enemies. Once the fruit collides with the enemy, it shatters into pieces, dealing damage. The damage is reliant on the [Shell Hardness] stat of the stick.

Cost: 1 SP

Cooldown: 5 seconds

________

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[SP Storage] (Level 1/3)

Experience: 0/3

An omnipresent energy found in the world of Erudinia, it allows sticks to do things that are normally impossible for them. Commonly found in a gaseous form within a vessel formed in the stick, it holds infinite possibilities.

Maximum SP capacity: 2 SP

SP regeneration rate: 1 SP per minute

________

________

[Wind Affinity] (Level 1/3)

Experience: 0/3

With enough experience, the stick can sense the wind in the surroundings, utilizing it in many ways possible. This skill boosts the damage and projectile speed of attacks by 1%.

________

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[Fruit Creation] (Level 1/3)

Experience: 0/3

An innate skill found on all sticks and branches related to the Walnut race, this allows branches and sticks to form fruits that could either be used as storage for SP, or bullets for attacking.

Maximum amount of fruit: 3

Maximum SP capacity per walnut: 1 SP

________

Aurus looked at this and couldn't help but let out a smile at the skills he currently owned. It was nowhere near compared to the skills of a Mahogany Branch that he played in his previous life.

Now that he was going to be a ranger or possibly a mage, the first he had to figure out was to become efficient with his SP.

"Now then," Aurus asked himself, "What ratio should I use for the amount of SP storage to the amount of bullets?"