Chapter 162 - Unique Skills

Unique Skill: Infinite Spear.

Drifter stared at the holographic screen in front of him, and at those four words. The other players stared at Drifter.

The spearmaster closed his menu. Then he opened it again. Yup, the skill was still there. He looked around.

"Argo is gonna be pissed she is not here."

That was the first thing he said?! The disbelieving stares he received could have killed a lesser man. But he was in shock, and that was the first thing that came to his mind, nevermind how dumb.

Someone started laughing.

Everyone turned to look at Liz, who was completely unabashed, and only laughed harder. Yuna and Asuna's lips quirked, and Silica tried to hide her giggles. That set off everyone else.

Nautilus, Kirito, Agil, Shigio, Wolv, they were all chuckling. Sinon was shaking her head with a fond smile, and even Vallerk was openly grinning. Ran and Yuuki were leaning on each other and laughing, while Kizmel and Griselda just sighed exasperated.

Even Keita, Sachi, and Tetsuo were laughing for real, for the first time in a long while. Klein and his samurais, and Orlando and his Braves had lost it, and were howling with laughter and clutching their sides. Shivata just face-palmed while Liten giggled against his shoulder.

Drifter blushed and rolled his eyes, his brain finally catching up with his mouth. Yuna kissed his cheek.

"You are the cutest when you say things like that without thinking, dummy."

Well, when she said it like that, he couldn't object. Drifter just turned his attention back to his menu, and everyone else stopped laughing and focused on it too. There wasn't anyone who wouldn't be curious about a Unique Skill, whatever that was.

Drifter tapped on the skill, and started reading through its description, only to be interrupted by disappointed groans from all around.

"What?"

He looked up, and saw everyone giving him side glares. Needless to say, he was confused.

"Why did you set your menu to private again, dummy?"

"Huh? But I didn't."

Drifter frowned. He was just trying to read the skill's description. Swiping his finger, he saw that, indeed, the public mode of his menu had been turned off again.

"What the? That wasn't me. A glitch? Anyway, can you see it now?"

He fiddled with the settings and waited until everyone nodded. Then he clicked on Infinite Spear again. More groans.

"What the hell? It's doing it on its own. Because it's a Unique Skill? I can't share it with you."

In some ways, this was even more interesting than the skill itself. Cardinal had never restricted information in this way.

"Can you try just reading it out-loud, Drifter?"

"Sure. Unique Skill- Oh?"

"What?"

Another notification had just popped up in his HUD, and it was again one that only he could see.

"The system is asking if I really want to proceed. And then it's asking if I'm sure again. This feels like it was added just now."

He was right, although he couldn't know it. Cardinal was updating in real time. The players were a lot more selfless than it thought they would be after 25 floors.

"Why don't you want me to share, Kayaba? Cardinal."

Drifter spoke to the empty air, obviously receiving no response. The others looked at him like he was insane, so Drifter just shook his head.

"I don't know what Kayaba and his AI are playing at here, but I trust all of you. Yes, share with everyone."

A veritable wall of text was revealed to the other players, and they recoiled. Drifter himself was blinking still.

Unique Skill: Infinite Spear. It didn't show any of the criteria and prerequisites to unlock it. Drifter had no idea how or when he acquired the skill. Couldn't have been too long ago, however. He checked his skill list and mastery pretty much daily.

Which was why, even when distracted by his new skill, he noticed another oddity. He bit back an exclamation and scrolled through his skill list again.

Yup, he wasn't going blind or hallucinating. Serpentcoil Impale was missing. But why? And how? Skills didn't just vanish like that. For that matter, they didn't just appear either.

That train of thought led Drifter back to Infinite Spear. One skill had disappeared, and another popped into existence. There had to be a connection.

He found it quite easily, actually. A few glances were enough for him to notice that the tab for the Unique Skill: Infinite Spear could be expanded further.

He clicked on it again, and voila! There was Serpentcoil Impale! I had been absorbed on the other skill somehow! But just flexing his arm was enough to confirm to Drifter that he could still use it without any problems.

And Serpentcoil Impale wasn't the only skill inside Infinite Spear. There was another that Drifter had never seen. Split Stream.

Suddenly excited, Drifter closed his menu and got up, to the disappointment of everyone else, who had been watching him fiddle with his HUD. He looked around with a smile before his gaze settled on Vallerk.

"Hey, man. How do you feel about being my test dummy?"

The tank raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but accepted the duel invitation the spearmaster sent him nonetheless.

"I object to being called a test dummy. Bring it on."

Despite his nonchalance and easy reply, Vallerk still held up his shield and used a skill to increase his defense. Drifter was already damn strong, and adding an untested skill on top of that? Better safe than sorry.

The spearmaster grinned happily. He felt like a kid who just got not 1, but 2 new toys. All the questions could be saved for later. He had to try them out now.

He wasn't sure what to expect, but somehow when he started moving, Drifter knew exactly what to do. He attacked Vallerk with a straightforward lunge, which the tank easily blocked, and then parried the following cut.

Just when Vallerk was wondering what Drifter was up to, he saw the spear in his guild leader's hands flash silver, and suddenly the weapon wasn't there anymore. In its place was one of the old halberds Liz had crafted for the spearmaster, and it cut unimpeded through Vallerk's shoulder, such was his surprise.

But the spearmaster wasn't done yet. There was another silver flash, and the halberd was switched for a staff, which Drifter used to swipe Vallerk's legs from under him and knock the other player to the ground. Then he stabbed downwards, and his weapon was now a lance, which pierced the floor right next to Vallerk's face.

Drifter thought he could hear the sounds of multiple jaws hitting the floor in the silence that followed. The spearmaster had a dumb smile stretching from ear to ear on his face.

"Wh-What?!"

Even if they had read the description of Infinite Spear, it was just a convoluted mess no one could comprehend at a first glance. Seeing it in action, on the other hand, was beyond shocking.

Drifter just grinned like a manic and held a hand to pull Vallerk up. The skill's name was scarily accurate. Infinite Spear indeed. He was already running through countless combinations in his head.

"I can change to any spear-type weapon mid-fight. It will take some getting used to, but..."

He trailed off, enjoying the dumbfounded expressions in everyone's faces. Putting modesty aside for a moment, Drifter felt unstoppable with his new skill. He was already SAO's best spear-user. Now... Well, he might be a contender for the very best SAO player.

Honestly, Infinite Spear was completely unbalanced. It was a broken skill. Drifter had no idea why Kayaba, who always advocated for fairness above all else, suddenly decided to throw his principles out the window, but neither he nor his friends were going to complain. The stronger Drifter was, the better their odds of clearing SAO.

"That's terrifying."

"That's so cool!"

Drifter chuckled at the mixed reactions, at the same time forfeiting the duel. He simply wanted to test his new skill. Which reminded him...

"Actually, I got something else too. Split Stream."

Kirito cooked his head. The name interested him.

"What's that?"

"Another skill. Inside Infinite Spear. Serpentcoil Impale is inside of it too. Honestly, it feels more like an entire new skill tree rather than just a skill. I'm pretty sure I'm going to unlock more and more as I raise my proficiency."

Which he could already tell wouldn't be easy. He had just used Infinite Spear to change weapons 3 times during the short duel, and yet his mastery in the skill was still at 0 out of 1.000. When he first got the basic skills like One-handed Lance and Two-handed Spear, just swinging his weapon around was enough to gain a few points.

"Dude, that's crazy. What are the requirements?"

Klein leaned forward, examining Drifter's weapon, which he had switched back to his favored twisted bident, as if expecting it to suffer some kind of metamorphosis in front of his eyes. The spearmaster shrugged.

"No idea. Y'all saw my reaction earlier. I don't have the slightest clue of where, how, and why I got this skill."

"Well, it is called an Unique Skill, is it not? Maybe... Only Drifter has it?"

Ran was always quick on the uptake. While what she said might seem obvious, it had been a lot of information to process, so many of the players had already forgotten that detail.

Her sister smacked her palm with her fist, her eyes shining with excitement. Yuuki was always enthusiastic about all things related to fighting.

"Right! Nobody ever managed to reproduce Drifter's Serpentcoil Impale! That's probably why. It's part of Infinite Spear. It's like your own personal skill, Drifter!"

Yuuki was too innocent, but some of the others felt a small bite of jealousy when they heard her. Of course they would never let it affect their friendship, but they were still players at the end of the day. Everyone wanted to be the strongest, and Drifter had just gotten an edge over them.

The spearmaster probably felt their grievances, because he smiled apologetically. It wasn't like he could control it, the skill had just appeared. But it was indeed a little unfair.

"Uhmm..."

"What's it, songbird?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking."

"Well, do share with the class, Yuna."

The songstress stuck her tongue out at Orlando, who grinned unabashedly.

"Like I said, I was just thinking. If you were Kayaba and you created what's basically the pinnacle of all spear skills, who would you give it to?"

Orlando and everyone else suddenly looked pensive. The answer was pretty obvious, but it was still an interesting point.

Meanwhile, Drifter pulled Yuna to his side and kissed the top of her head in silent thanks. He could guess what she was getting at, but he also knew that she had done it mainly to take the attention away from him before someone said something that made things awkward.

"Drifter for sure. Everyone knows he is the best spearman in Aincrad. And he already got the skill, so that's just confirmation."

Nautilus spoke, and Yuna nodded.

"That's right. But think about it. Kayaba made a unique spear skill. That's unusual and breaks the mold, but he's not one to leave a job unfinished."

"You mean..."

"If there's a spear Unique Skill, then don't you think there's also gonna be a sword Unique Skill, dagger Unique Skill, shield Unique Skill, and so on?"

It wasn't easy to shock frontliners into silence, but Yuna did it. It took the players a few seconds to recover from her words, at which point they all scrambled to open their menus and check their skill lists.

This wasn't just about getting a new powerful and unique skill. It was a proof of status. A validation of all their efforts.

They all agreed that Drifter received Infinite Spear because he was SAO's uncontested number 1 spearmaster. So, if they were the ones to get an Unique Skill, didn't that mean that they too were the best in a certain category?

Drifter watched all this while hugging Yuna to his side. He was still giddy from the pleasure of being granted Infinite Spear. But he whispered into his wife's ear.

"Aren't you going to check if you got one?"

"I just play music, dummy. There's no way I would receive an Unique Skill."

Drifter shook his head in exasperation. Being overly modest was a problem many Reavers had. Sometimes it was better to be a braggart like Orlando or Klein.

"If there's anyone deserving of a Unique Skill, it's my songbird."

Yuna giggled and kissed his cheek, almost brushing her lips with his.

"Dummy... I'll check later. For now- Aren't you worried this might end up badly?"

Well, Yuna had a point. There were just about 30 frontliners in the room, most of which would never admit to being anything less than the best.

And only a handful, if even that many, might receive a Unique Skill. Egos would be bruised, and pride would be challenged. It was a recipe for disaster. But Drifter just smiled.

"Nah."

Yuna grinned and laughed, then kissed him, for real this time. When the couple looked up again, the others had stopped searching through their skill lists. Most with disappointment. 6 of them with undisguised excitement.

Nautilus. Kirito. Yuuki. Asuna. Liz. Klein.