7.115 - Upgrades

Skill upgrades.

Every time before, Jordan had been available to offer suggestions and analysis. For this batch of advancements, Natalie was on her own.

She had debated the pros and cons of telling Vanetta, but while her input would have been valuable, she couldn't divulge her entire class to the other girl. She wasn't even aware Natalie could upgrade her abilities.

In the end, Vanetta intended to stick with Elida, and while Natalie didn't think for a second Vanetta would spill her secrets, a potential academic opponent with comprehensive knowledge of her class was more than a little dangerous.

She had spent a week and a half inside the City of Eros. More than any period of her life, she had been busy in the carnal sense. Not to mention the days of usage she'd gotten out of her [Harvest]-boosting necklace. Her reserves were overflowing.

Of her arsenal, there were nine skills she could target for upgrade. In order from oldest to newest: [Empower]. [Illusion]. [Heavy Weaponry]. [Juggernaut]. [Bigger Is Better]. [Stylish]. [Aura of Blessed Advancement]. [Smite]. And the newcomer, [Insatiable Strikes].

Of that list, she could discard a few from consideration.

[Heavy Weaponry] was the clearest to ignore. That was a skill she would only upgrade with her partners' approval. A ten-inch weapon was already unwieldy, if in a way Jordan and everyone else seemed to enjoy. She would wait before boosting it again.

Besides, Natalie had delighted in the process of growing while inside Jordan. That was something she could only do a limited number of times. Another reason to hold off, if not the most practical.

[Stylish] dropped out of the running without much thought too. While a great team boost, Natalie needed personal increases to strength. She would beat Elida in this upcoming duel—she would do everything she could to achieve that goal.

For similar reasons, she set aside [Aura of Blessed Advancement]. Intuition told her that Malice didn't have 'experience' anyway, seeing how she needed capture core frames to level up, so until their party of five expanded by count of humans, that skill was best left alone.

So, seven skills to choose between.

This was where it got tricky. Each skill had varied usefulness and also Carnal Energy cost.

For example, [Illusion] was a level-one skill and only progression two. It would be, comparatively speaking, dirt cheap to [Advance]. The spell might not be her favorite, but it unquestionably had its uses.

Elida seemed like she wouldn't be deceived by her [Illusions] though. She had been studying Natalie the entire time they'd adventured together, and had a keen eye and keener mind. She wasn't susceptible to tricks like monsters were, or even like most humans were.

Nevertheless, bumping it up to third Progression cost so little energy that she saw no reason not to.

***

[Illusion]: Progression advanced from 2 to 3.

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[Illusion] - ACTIVE. PROGRESSION 3. MAXED. Conjure a {significantly} powerful audiovisual mirage to distract or confuse an opponent.

***

Oh? The skill had gained a 'MAXED' clarifier. She couldn't improve her illusion abilities further if she wanted to.

"I am a Paladin," she murmured. "Not an illusionist."

Still, 'significantly powerful' illusions that could be boosted by [Empower] were nothing to sneeze at. And all skills increased passively in strength as she leveled.

[Illusion] had been the only cheap skill. The rest ranged from moderately expensive to extremely expensive. So now the real deliberation began.

She sorted the skills by what she wanted most, regardless of cost. [Insatiable Strikes] was her newest, shiniest skill, so upgrading that was a priority. [Empower] was a classic and would almost certainly make the list. [Bigger Is Better] and [Juggernaut], being passive boosts to her strength and ability to handle large weapons, were as deeply appealing as always.

[Smite] … [Smite] was tricky. As far as sheer offensive power went, it was an astoundingly incredible skill, and probably her best damage dealer. But she would never land a [Smite] on Elida in a one-on-one duel. The ability needed to be set up somehow, meaning typically her teammates helping her against a boss monster. Not just that, but advancing only increased the maximum channeling time, making it even less useful for one-on-one combat.

She set [Smite] aside.

Could she fit all four of her desired upgrades in her budget? She had earned a lot of Carnal Energy over the past week and a half—and through activities preceding her entry into the City of Eros—but skill upgrades were expensive. And she wanted to save a healthy reserve for [Empower] activations.

Speaking of that, [Empower] was truly the one skill that should be upgraded whenever it was viable. So she got it out of the way.

***

[Empower]: Progression advanced from 3 to 4.

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[Empower] - ACTIVE. PROGRESSION 4. Amplify the potency of any ACTIVE or AURA skill by {3.0x}. Expend Carnal Energy equal to mana cost.

***

"Still not maxed out?" Natalie asked incredulously. An ability that tripled the strength of any of her skills—at a significant long-term cost, admittedly—and she could upgrade it further? She shook her head in amazement.

Next, [Insatiable Strikes]. It was clearly going to be an anchor skill for the foreseeable future, and a Mark that made targets easier to hit was a strong contender for something that would let her defeat Elida.

***

[Insatiable Strikes]: Progression advanced from 1 to 2.

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[Insatiable Strikes] - ACTIVE. PROGRESSION 2. Empower the next strike to apply a MARK to target, if the attack connects. Marked targets will be {moderately} easier to strike. Subsequent attacks deal minor additional damage and siphon {moderate} amounts of health.

***

Natalie winced at the sudden, immense drain of Carnal Energy. She felt, all of a sudden, much emptier, like she'd been hollowed out in a way that was hard to describe. That upgrade alone had eaten through the equivalent of a third of her starting reserves. If not more.

Both of the 'minor' clarifiers had moved to 'moderate'. The significant amount of self-healing against heavyweight monsters was going to make her nigh unstoppable in certain matchups. Definitely an ideal skill for her developing damage-tank style. Especially when [Primordia's Embrace] gave bonus healing.

To her delight, she could fit in [Juggernaut] and [Bigger Is Better] as well, while keeping a small but usably healthy amount of Carnal Energy for [Empower] activations.

***

[Juggernaut]: Progression advanced from 3 to 4.

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[Juggernaut] - PASSIVE. PROGRESSION 4. Class-bearer receives {2.5x} bonus to furor, applied after all other bonuses.

***

Percentage wise, the jump from 2.0 to 2.5 was smaller than the previous of 1.5 to 2.0. In some sense, she was getting diminishing returns for rapidly increasing costs.

That said, she had boosted her offensive potential across the board by a flat twenty-five percent—since the effect applied after all other bonuses. That was the sort of combat-ability jump that would make anyone, anywhere, begin salivating. She might be spoiled thanks to her class, but not so much so that she ignored how amazing [Juggernaut] was.

***

[Bigger Is Better]: Progression advanced from 3 to 4.

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[Bigger Is Better] - PASSIVE. PROGRESSION 4. MAXED. Oversized weapons receive {major} bonuses to offensive power and are {majorly} easier to maneuver.

***

How much she'd benefited from this upgrade was murkier, since the skill used abstract language. The bonus to offensive power had moved from 'significant' to 'major', which sounded promising, and 'greatly' had shifted to 'majorly'. But the skill had maxed out. There would be no further handling bonuses to large weapons.

The strength boost of [Juggernaut] combined with [Bigger Is Better] meant the Kinetic Catalyst Mallet felt twice as light in her hands, if not more. She swung the huge weapon around a few times, an evil smile curling on her lips. Oh, yes. She was going to be much defter on her feet despite the bulk of her weapon.

She had, in the past two hours, through combination of loot and skill upgrades, likely doubled her combat abilities. Elida wasn't going to know what hit her.

That said … another champion of divinity was going to have her own tricks up her sleeve. She sobered. She felt confident that she had hit a 'breakpoint' that gave her an enormous advantage over Elida, especially with the potion of level up and the element of surprise. She honestly thought she would come out the victor.

But would the upcoming duel be easy?

She doubted it.