Randidly pondered for a second Although Shal was rather inconsiderate in how he had done this Randidly supposed he understood This was an important organization to Shal This goal had to be accomplished and only Randidly could do it How many Styles and Schools are there They all have to do these every 5 years
Shrugging Shal said There are as many Styles as there are stars 1000’s makes the Spearman School list every 5 year cycle As for schools there are 4 Spearman Spear Death and Heart
Filing away this information Randidly wondered what else he should be curious about Then his expression brightened If it has to be me there is no one else in our Style Are all Styles so small
No ours is very small The Spear Phantom who founded this Style was my father He has died Only you and I remain Other Styles possess hundreds of disciples at every generation And their disciples typically show more promise than you
Randidly didn’t take the insult to heart His main focus was magic anyway even if recently he had been working very hard to raise the skill of his spear And what are these tasks
Shal shrugged There are several challenges
Shal continued explaining the tasks They seemed focused on different aspects of ability with a spear like speed strength endurance etc but as Shal explained them he ended every explanation with the same sentence this trial is located in the Dungeon
Randidly raised his hands Shal I still don’t have a class Is there anything I can do outside of Dungeons
Blinking Shal looked at him for a long moment Then he spoke No class well that is an issue for another time The deadline is two months In that time there is only one task that can be accomplished without a class to place in the top 8 in the Spearman Northern Province Tournament But
He looked Randidly up and down With your current strength it is Impossible
Chapter 122
Randidly sat in a small side room slightly nauseous from the constant bobbing of the boat thinking very carefully about how he wanted to proceed
As a man Randidly was someone who always carefully returned favors to whom he owed debts He owed Shal a very large debt Shal had protected Randidly trained him taught him to use the spear helped him learn how to distribute stats and much much more Shal was the reason that he wasn’t still struggling in that small room in that first dungeon stuck there forever If he hadn’t come along would Randidly have been able to train up to the point her could survive there
For even if Randidly had managed to survive in the Dungeon it would have taken him a long long time to figure out the possible methods for leaving He would have wandered for quite a long time And without Shal’s strength it would have been almost impossible to escape that dungeon
There was a part of Randidly that wondered whether it wouldn’t have been better to have spent more time training in the time compression of the dungeon while he could take advantage of it But if he had stayed there too long and a Judgement descended
Shal’s interference accelerated things sure but they also focused him on more efficient skills Plus the Spear Phantom skills were the basis of his close combat
Randidly was very clear that Shal went easy on him in their brief spar refraining from even using his skills Even so the thrusts that Shal attacked with were impossibly powerful able to completely suppress one of Randidly’s strikes In addition as Shal stated the Spear Phantom Style focused on speed and controlling space aspects that Shal didn’t even need to leverage in order to defeat Randidly
When asked how powerful the competitors in the Tournament would be Shal informed him that there were 3 main categories Under Lvl 25 Under Lvl 50 and Under Lvl 100 As Randidly would be entering in the Under 25 they would not be nearly as strong as Shal But they would be strong enough to make Shal serious in a fight
Which was not a place where Randidly was now
And Qtal was a small city in the Northern Province There would be 1000s of Spear Users participating in the Regional Tournament fighting to gain experience against strong foes Even if Randidly were to somehow approach a level of skill that would make him a contender there was the very real chance that he would simply be ground down by the sheer number of fights that he would need to go through in order to reach the final 8 of the tournament
Shal opined that a conservative number of required wins would be 100 Across 100 fights one mistake would lead him to disappointing Shal’s expectations and allowing the Spear Phantom Style to fall from the list After all Shal had done for him
But Randidly frowned and shook his head It was pointless to think about now The real question was whether he would be willing to consider getting a class in order to assist Shal
On the one hand Randidly was rather satisfied with the level his skills had reached Not that he wouldn’t want more but he believed that his current strength was enough to earn him a high tiered class It might not be something like Sovereign of Ghosts that Glendel lucked into but it would certainly be a level higher than Knight or Brute
But on the other hand Randidly’s expression darkened The continued threat of Judgement certainly was a reason to avoid staying classless but with his Aether situation solved and the threat of Aether starvation a distant possibility it was the only the cold threat of the system pushing him towards getting a class
And Randidly really didn’t want to negotiate with anyone who could only resort to threats to get what they wanted
Still it would be a risk to refuse to take a class And in his heart Randidly believed he owed enough to Shal that he should consider the option
Ultimately though as he had always known in his heart that was not his path Perhaps if he failed in the tournament he would have time to revisit the class issue and try again but for now Randidly wanted to continue down this path of strength
Then Randidly laughed aloud because he realized that Shal was the one who had set him walking down this path in the first place The more he thought about it the more he believed that Shal wouldn’t even want him to make a decision he was uncomfortable with in order to assist him even if the honor of the Spear Phantom Style was at risk
Shal was the one who had taught him that all he could do is hold tight to his spear and advance pushing forward to the future
Chuckling Randidly brought up his status screen It was a long time coming this use of the PP and he was somewhat eager to see if he had gained a lot Unfortunately the screen came very slowly and flickered in and out of view causing Randidly to frown It seemed that the strange potion also interfered somehow with the display screens Which was slightly disturbing How was there a biological function related to the screens that something ingested could have an effect on the output
But Randidly let that train of thought drop likely pointless to dwell on it at this point Slowly flickeringly the Status screen came into focus and Randidly counted his gains His hands slowly balled into fists
First Randidly noticed that he had gained two skills Mana Engraving and Mental Fortitude The first was rather obvious from his work with Sam but the second made him slightly curious so he clicked on the description
Mental Fortitude Ability to handle mental strain caused by overexertion Ability to recover from mental tiredness increases with skill level Ability to utilize multiple spells at once increases with skill level
Nodding slowly Randidly figured this was probably related to him pushing much more aggressively on learning to control his Root Manipulation and Summon Pestilence It also seemed like he was 30% of the way through creating another skill based on the strange exercises given to him by the old turtle It was nice to see that it was actually working and that the turtle wasn’t just hiding somewhere laughing at him