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1105 Words
Matt didn’t need that reward himself, but the implications of being able to form a Concept like that for people was staggering. It was the equivalent of a Shard of Reality being used on each person who exited there. And the Empire alone was sending in hundreds of millions of people.
It was a staggering realization, but he understood why so many older cultivators were willing to throw themselves into Minkalla despite knowing the death rates.
Matt also understood that those people would probably be the most rabid in wanting to reach the fourth floor and would be vicious to anyone they saw as an obstacle. The ones entering at the reset wouldn’t be willing to wait for the rush to pass and take a slower path as in theory they might not be able to accumulate enough Genesis Energy.
“Floor five is a Tier 20 skill that follows the same rules as floors one and three. There have been some very rare skills that have come from here, but it’s not terribly remarkable. Floor six can merge skills. As Kurt mentioned earlier, this is entirely possible to do on your own, but Minkalla does it perfectly in moments, rather than centuries. It’ll even keep whatever modifications you’ve already made, which as anyone who’s tried to merge skills will tell you, is no mean feat.”
Matt knew of skill merging but only the basics. It was possible to merge two skills together, but it was about the hardest form of modification that could be done, and took hundreds, if not thousands of years to get better than a ten percent success rate.
Luna smiled as she said, “The merger is flawless and has no risk of failure, which is nice, but Minkalla takes it a step beyond. It can take two plus two and make it equal to seven. For a Tier 14 who reaches that floor, they can merge two Tier 8 skills they have in their spirit or on them, into a new, combined one. Even they, for a Genesis Energy cost, can control the direction of the merger and make something truly unique. Tier 13s can combine a single Tier 14 and a Tier 8 skill, Tier 12s can combine either two Tier 14 skills or three Tier 8 to make a single new skill. Finally, Tier 11s can combine a Tier 14 and a Tier 20 skill, or presumably multiple Tier 14 and Tier 8 skills, though nobody’s ever tried. And once again, the lower your Tier, the more control you have over the final result.”
At this point, Matt was growing numb to the kinds of things which Minkalla could do. Why wouldn’t it also be able to perfectly combine skills, a process which was largely regarded as taking centuries of practice to even approach middling competence at?
He was going to ask, but Susanne spoke before he could. “Can you take an exit reward even if you pass the floor? Like reaching the seventh floor exit and taking the sixth-floor reward?”
She was quite literally rubbing her hands together in anticipation.
Luna laughed, “Tier 13 and Tier 14 delvers who reach the seventh floor usually do exactly that, but none of the Tier 11 or Tier 12s ever do. The exit reward for reaching floor seven is unique in the entire Realm, and why I want you all to go in at Tier 11.”
The dark-haired manager waited for them to all grow visibly agitated and for Aster to start to quietly yip before she spilled the beans. She was taking an unusual amount of pleasure in stringing them along, Matt couldn’t help but note.
“Tier 14s who complete the final floor upon exiting and with the condition they have enough Genesis Energy, which, by the way, is a lot, will have a Core skill slot opened in their spirit. They will have to designate a skill to go into that slot, and after that, they will never be able to move it, but it will be an additional slot which isn’t a minor benefit. Tier 13s get the same reward, but it’s a skill slot like any other and able to move skills in and out of it.”
“At Tier 12,” she continued, pausing for drama, “You will get a single Innate skill slot. It, like for the Tier 14 reward, cannot be changed, but it can be any skill in your spirit.”
Matt blinked, trying to process what she’d just said.
An Innate skill slot.
That was something only given by Talents. Or at least, so he had thought. Aster had Innate [Ice Manipulation] as her first Talent, and it was her strongest skill by a wide margin.
Innate skill slots were substantially stronger than even Core skill slots, and modifying a skill inside there was reportedly as easy as breathing when compared to Core skill slots.
Beyond Aster he knew second-hand from Vinny, who had an Innate skill for a Tier 1 Talent like Aster. Even he said modifying the Core skills was dozens of times harder than his single Innate slot.
His first instinct was to put [Cracked Phantom Armor] into that slot, but then remembered [Cracked Mana Spear]. That would also be amazing to quickly modify, let alone the advantage of having a massive increase in power.
He was still mulling over whether offense or defense should be the best when he realized that Luna had kept talking. “Should you reach the core while still at Tier 11, you get a single flexible Innate skill slot, which you can freely switch any skill you possess into, like any other skill slot.”
A flexible Innate skill slot? That was a thing? How would that even work? Just…how? A single good Innate skill is already better than most Tier 1 Talents.
Matt couldn’t even guess how Minkalla managed to do that for someone, but he knew he wanted it.
Well, if that were the case, he’d hardly need to choose between offense or defense, he could swap them out practically at will. Then another thought occurred to him. Skill merging. Normally, it was impossible to merge a Talent-given Innate skill with anything else as the Innate slot couldn’t be interacted with. If it was, it would make the process dozens of times easier. But if the slot were flexible? He could have something even better than most skill Talents gave.
He was suddenly thankful Luna was willing to push them that hard and send them into Minkalla at Tier 11.
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