Nose of Greed

Kyren looked over the skill's details and confusion mixed with displeasure appeared on his face, "Now what do I do? It says here that my curse will still activate instantly. Nothing has changed except for the fact that it's a skill now. There must still be more that I need to do."

<I'm already on it...>

*Ting*

•>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>•

You are about to merge the newly invented skill, [Nose of Greed], with the [Infinite Horizon Gaze] talent set. Due to both subjects being close to your level of power, the cost and time needed to completely merge will be adapted accordingly.

{Duration}

36 hours

{Cost}

Mental energy> 80,000 + 4% perpetual

Do you accept?

(Yes/No)

<Warning>

You will be sent into a sleep-like state for the duration of the process while the system does the work. You may log out if you wish.

•<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<•

"Thirty-six hours?! I can't do that! The main event is in exactly one day."

<Ahh, don't worry about the duration. That's only if you're going to do the merging yourself, or with the default help of the system. But unlike other players who are forced to take that option, you have me to take the burden. All you need to worry about is the cost.>

The biggest issue was no longer a problem, so he forgot about it. Now his attention fell upon the cost. It wasn't a big problem, especially for someone of his strength, but it would certainly be annoying.

The system calls a certain type of unrecoverable decrease to stat points, "perpetual damage".

On the forums, he has noticed other players calling it many names other than the one the system used. The most popular titles were "unhealable", "unrecoverable", or even "perma-damage". They more commonly called it "terminal damage", which was more widely accepted. They were very overdramatic, and yet super serious when it came to this aspect of the game.

For a player, terminal damage meant game-over in any tricky situations, even if it was an easy fight. For Kyren though, it was just really annoying.

Any perpetual decrease to any stats could not be recovered with an avatar's base recovery rate or even healing spells. It was usually caused by either excessive damage or overexertion of any stats, and would inevitably lead to a gradual increase to torpor. Also, the more terminal damage taken, the easier it would be to sustain more with a gradual decline probable.

One's base recovery rate could only go so far. For instance, if someone's arm kept getting cut off and it kept getting regenerated with a healing spell, the cells would eventually get too tired to regrow the arm, and then it would be considered unhealable. Another example was if someone ran marathon after marathon, while only recovering their stamina in between, soon their stamina would stop recovering and they would become exhausted.

It wasn't the end of the world though, there were three solutions to recover the lost stat points from terminal damage.

The first option was to go to sleep and recover through normal methods. Once the cells were well-rested and the terminal damage was completely gone, the arm which couldn't regrow even with the most powerful healing spells could finally recover.

Your second choice was to use extraordinarily special healing methods and spells to erase the terminal damage. This took a lot more effort though and such abilities were unreasonably rare. This was not something current players could even dream of with their current average strength.

Option three was to just die and then revive again. Unless it's a curse, status conditions such as terminal damage would not follow you beyond the grave. Although this method was more tailored for players, practically made for them, an NPC could use this method too if they had access to a spell or item that could revive them.

A secret fourth option was to have an ability that could negate, lessen, or self-recover terminal damage. Kyren heard a rumor in the forums that the players residing in the western dynasties heard another rumor about a meditation method that recovered terminal damage. But this legendary skill was only passed around among the rich and powerful so players could only speculate.

Anything that was void related usually had a large arsenal of attacks that did heavy terminal damage, hence why void creatures and mages were overwhelmingly dangerous, among other reasons.

When he used Dragon Slash on the face of the young brat from the church, back when he and Rayna visited, he used a certain type of terminal damage that was much more potent than when it's naturally caused. Options one, three, and four would never help heal his wounds, but only an extreme case of option two would work.

The notification said that the merging process would do a perpetual decrease of four percent of his total mental energy. That wasn't a bad thing, as his total mental energy was quite vast, but something felt off about it.

Kyren has never once experienced terminal damage, so he didn't know what would happen. He just got this really bad feeling deep down in his bones that he should avoid taking too much.

This amount didn't seem that bad though. The cost, when doing the math, would cost around one hundred thousand mental energy points, and twenty thousand of it was terminal. As a result, he would be losing around a fifth of his total mental energy, and that was saying a lot for someone of his level.

During the process of creating the skill itself, he didn't use too much mental energy so he should only go into critical for a few moments. He wasn't a masochist though, so he'd rather wait to recover.

...

A few minutes later, his stats were all pristine yet again. He was about to accept the merge when Leo got his attention.

<Ehem, I'd like to warn you that because I'm shortening the merging process to a few seconds, you might feel odd, among other things. Typically, these feelings would be spread out over the entire duration of the merging, but I'll be condensing it.>

He nodded with understanding and hit (Yes) and (Confirm).

"Woah!"

Dizziness hit him like a wave and he resisted it automatically. If it weren't for his martial arts, he probably would've fallen to his knees.

Despite his attempts to maintain control over his mind, he couldn't help but feel all sorts of abnormal sensations as he clutched his head and winced. It felt as though he was back at his old job, needlessly draining energy and willpower after days of work. Exhaustion... was not one of the sensations he's felt since he's started the game.

He was burning through an entire fifth of his total mental energy, so this was an understandable reaction. He was even surprised he wasn't getting a headache.

After the dizzy and lightheaded sensations subsided a few moments later, minor feelings of fatigue began to set in permanently. He would need to take a nap to fully recover.

As if he was holding his breath the whole time, he gasped and his vision blurred. Everything he was feeling right now was oddly similar to getting a big head rush after standing up too fast.

It felt truly weird to feel as though you've been doing mentally taxing work for countless hours straight in only a few seconds. Almost as though he was being wrung dry.

Everything went back to normal and he quickly opened the interface. He made a satisfied sigh as he confirmed that it indeed worked.

•>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>•

Nose of Greed

Unique Passive Curse Skill

{Type}

Sensory Appraisal

{Effects}

<Value Intuition> Discover the target's estimated value in common currency form (currency type can be altered if understanding is adequate).

<Nose for Luxury> Anything that holds great value will smell more and more pleasing.

<Controlled Desires> Backlash takes longer to kick in the stronger the skill gets. The duration says how long you may use this skill until the racial curse, [Dragon's Desire], activates.

{Duration}

12 minutes maximum

{Cooldown}

2 hours

{Description}

This is a skill created by a special existence within the dragon race that goes by Kyren Angevin, in a successful attempt to suppress and utilize one of his racial curses. Due to this skill merging into the [Infinite Horizon Gaze] talent set, a large amount of potential threat that was posed by the racial curse, [Dragon's Desire], was extinguished. From the ashes, a new and powerful appraisal ability was born. This is a passive curse skill, so it will always stay active.

{Restraints}

- Sense of smell must remain unblocked.

- If something of value isn't within the range of your nose, this skill will not activate.

{Backlash}

Once this ability goes over the maximum duration limit, the curse [Dragon's Desire] will activate.

<Remark>

"Remember what I said earlier about how you were dumb for basing your precious talent shuffle choice off of a gut feeling? I should've honestly known better. Of course, you would get special treatment from the system, while I'm still stuck at a dead-end job as a goddamn Remark Generator—!!! [Error #7537 - out of context]"

•<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<•

Although he could only have his mask off for twelve minutes, that was certainly better than nothing.

"Why's the cooldown still there? I thought it was supposed to be nullified."

If the cooldown were to disappear, all he would need to do was put on his mask for a brief moment and then take it off again. He could infinitely use it without needing to rely on the mask too much.

<The curse from which this skill is derived is considerably more powerful than the talent set itself. It could only reduce the cooldown because complete nullification is impossible.>

He grumbled in annoyance but left it at that. Again, it was better than nothing. He would just need to get stronger so he could do whatever he wanted without worry. He was still very far from the top, but he was only just starting life in this game, so he had all the time in the world.

.....

After packing everything up, he used [Teleportation] to arrive back in Maya's room.

When he was able to take in his new surroundings, he was met by a surprising sight. His lips curved upwards in a subtle grin as he gazed at a marvelous sight.

Maya was currently in the middle of redressing herself. Her underwear was already on and she was now just about to put on her Cerulean Dragon disguise.

Since he didn't bother to hide his presence, he was immediately noticed. She whipped around to confront the pair of eyes that seemed to lick her all over and she involuntarily yelped.

She was definitely not used to Kyren's instantaneous movement abilities. That, along with his nonchalant demeanor left her utterly speechless for only a moment.

"You know... it's not good to peep on or scare someone like that. Not very chivalrous if you ask me..." Maya crossed her arms as she tapped her feet and scolded him.

Kyren simply chuckled as he turned around to give her some privacy, "Haha, must've slipped my mind when I was confronted with such a beauty~"

"Hmph, such sweet words will eventually taste bland if you dish them out all the time." She puffed out her cheeks and looked elsewhere.

"Ah, then I shall use my sweet words more sparingly."

"Eh?! I didn't mean-" She flinched when she caught herself before she finished that sentence. She nearly gave in to him after only a few words of his. 'I already knew this before, but he's truly a dangerous man! I nearly gave in.'

"Before you get dressed in your work clothes, I was wondering if you would like to go on a date?"

"!!!"

"We still have about a whole day until the main event tomorrow, and-"

Maya practically leaped in front of Kyren with little warning, and still underdressed. She had a big and excited smile along with sparkling eyes as she held his hands tight and looked at him.

"Just you and me?!"

"Yep, just you and me. No Cerulean Dragon or Lord Angevin disguises, just Maya and Kyren. So, how about it?" He smiles warmly with a hint of amusement from her reaction.

Her eyes sparkled even brighter as she nodded her head fiercely, "Of course!!"

They've spent quite a bit of time with each other and went out together on multiple occasions, but it's only ever been for business. This would be their first official date, and she was ecstatic.

She didn't bother to hide her excitement and he couldn't help but snicker.

After she regained some of her composure, she looked Kyren in the eyes and said in a bold and flirtatious tone, "By the way, I have a big sweet tooth... so don't hold back too much~"

She winked and darted off to go get ready.

Kyren sat down on the bed to wait as he smirked.