Seed of Titan-Chapter 157: Losing Something Precious

Upon reading the skill’s description, Drai blinked repeatedly in disbelief.

’Flight?! I can actually fly?! Holy shit! Can I get out of here with this?’

Elated by this possibility, he continued reading the details. But shortly after, his delighted expression dimmed.

’Never mind—I’d only be able to fly around seven minutes with my current transcendence. Hmm... Maybe I can use essence to restore its cooldown, then it might just be feasible if I stock a lot of essence before escaping. I’ll have to test it out later.’

Putting aside the matter, Drai reread the skill again, this time focusing on the other details.

’It’s cool that I can throw energy blasts, but I wonder how strong it is. If it’s underwhelming, it’ll just be a waste of skill duration unless I use it thoughtfully to attack things I couldn’t reach otherwise. Still, it’s nice to expand my arsenal.

’The empowering effect is great too. Pretty sure I’ll mostly use the skill for this effect unless I really want to save it as a trump card for the energy blasts and flight. Wait... That’s actually not a bad idea. Then maybe I won’t empower myself with the skill unless I really need the extra stats. But I still need to see whether I can smoothly use flight and energy blasts in fights. After all, just as Professor Samara used to mention, overly relying on poorly executed skills will often create openings for opponents to exploit.

’For the cooldown... it’s much lower than Colossal Augmentation, basically one-tenth of it. Oh, right—it changed into Nexus Augmentation, so maybe it works differently now. Well, if the cooldown’s this low I might just end up using it a lot. But one thing I totally don’t understand is how there can be separate energy reserves for these two skills. I thought transcendence was like mana and would be drained the same by all skills. I guess it’s just another unique feature of this class.

’Anyway, there’s no way I’m not getting this skill. The cost is high, but it should be totally worth it. Maybe it will change into another version too on my next evolution just like Colossal Augmentation and Lesser Titanic Physique.’

Without hesitation, Drai purchased Nova Flux. As usual, a pang of loss hit Drai as his skill points drained away, nearly emptied.

Drai gritted his teeth while thinking, ’Fuck it. What’s the use of hoarding SP anyway? They’re meant to be spent, right? Pretty sure there won’t be another really expensive skill before my next evolution, so let’s just use the rest of my SP now.’

Having made his decision, Drai proceeded to recheck the rest of his available skills to make sure there was none that would be more useful than the latest two. Not long after, his SP was completely depleted after acquiring Grassland Dweller and Wilderness Cook.

’Finally. Now let’s check the changed skills.’

Closing the skill screen, Drai pulled up his status screen.

[Name: Drai Varz]

[Class: Seedling of Titan – Scion of Gaia]

[Level: 10]

[Strength: 88.9]

[Constitution: 92.3]

[Agility: 39.8]

[Dexterity: 35.2]

[Intelligence: 23.6]

[Transcendence: 13.4]

[Skills:]

{Titan’s Fortitude} {Nexus Augmentation} {Titanic Physique} {Nova Flux} {Training Freak} {Bio Drain} {Basic Combat Sense} {Pain Tolerance} {Storm Formication} {Arachno Sense} {Valley Dweller} {Basic Magic Resistance} {Ranged Fister} {Intimidation Aura} {Universal Grandson} {Aspiring Grabber} {Grassland Dweller} {Wilderness Cooking}

[SP: 0]

Looking at his own figure, Drai could see that his silver markings on his skin and hair had spread. He also felt that his height had increased. However, the rest of his body was mostly the same.

Just then, a sudden thought perplexed him.

’Wait, how come I never realized this? Even before evolving, my strength and constitution had been pretty high for a while. But why did my muscles only grow a bit? Shouldn’t I be at least as big as my pre-awakening build by now? Is this just how this class works? Does that mean I’ll look puny for the rest of my life? Well, shit...’

Drai gazed at his two favorite attributes with slight regret. A part of him still hoped that he could somehow get a lot bulkier, perhaps by having more stats or obtaining certain skills.

Eventually, he moved on to his skill list, which had been steadily increasing. But before checking out the newly changed skills, he took some time to reflect.

’Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve been making the most optimal decisions with my skills. Pain Tolerance only really helped me once when I fought the lightning apes, but now it’s just making Training Freak harder to trigger and hindering my constitution growth a bit. Besides that, I still have no use for Ranged Fister, and I’m not sure if Basic Magic Resistance works against elemental attacks. Wait—can’t I just ask the System?

’Hey, System, does magic resistance work against elemental attacks?’

[It depends on the nature of the attack. If the element is produced through mana conversion, magic resistance applies. Otherwise, magic resistance usually won’t work, and you will have to rely on your constitution, related elemental resistances, and defensive skills and features to resist such attacks.]

’Welp, there’s my answer—Basic Magic Resistance has been completely useless too. I guess it worked during my spars with Max, but that means it’s just unnecessarily preventing trivial injuries while removing opportunities to grind my defense a bit more. Damn, I shouldn’t have bought this skill prematurely.

’Anyway, Arachno Sense has been really useful whenever I needed to find creatures to hunt. If I could somehow use it without having to stay perfectly still and stifle my breathing, it would be a much more amazing detection skill that I could use during battles. And Storm Formication is still shit, but it’s no biggie since I basically got it for free.

’As long as my SP flow remains steady, I can afford to waste some here and there, but if it ever starts dwindling, I’ll need to be much smarter with my purchases.’

Done with his reflection, Drai finally opened the first changed skill.

[Skill: Titanic Physique]

[Description: Titans are inherently blessed with superior bodies that enable them to compete for supremacy.]

[Effects: 20% baseline universal resistance, moderate regeneration, 20% increase to physical parameters, minor accelerated development]

A rather wry smile appeared on Drai’s face as he read the effects.

’Just like I thought, it’s a slightly better version of the skill. But how come the development boost stayed the same? I guess maintaining my unreasonable leveling speed is too much, even for the titan class. I hope it doesn’t slow down too much, though.’

If others ever found out what he was thinking, Drai would definitely get a mass beating before being branded the most ungrateful bastard in history. Most people would do anything just to have his slower progress rate—let alone his leveling speed prior to evolving.

Since the skill hadn’t changed much, Drai quickly moved on to the next one.

[Skill: Nexus Augmentation]

[Description: A modified version of Colossal Augmentation to better suit the Scion of Gaia’s environment.]

[Effects: In comparison to the original version, the ability to temporarily become larger is removed, but the physical-attribute amplification effect is retained. In addition, the user’s biological features will be altered accordingly while the skill is active. Similar to the original version, the degree of amplification can be set, with the maximum being the user’s total transcendence. The time limit of activation remains one minute per transcendence stat, which is accumulated and can be utilized at will. The regeneration rate is ten times the duration spent at maximum amplification and diminishes correspondingly at lower amplification levels.]

Drai had to reread the skill’s effects several times before fully grasping the consequence of his class choice

’Fucking hell, I can’t grow larger anymore...’ he dazedly thought.

Drai was truly dismayed by the change. At this point, he had gotten used to bullying his opponents with his absurd size, so losing the self-enlarging ability felt like losing a significant portion of his power, especially since he had taken the saying "size matters" to heart the day he acquired Colossal Augmentation.

It took an entire minute for Drai to recover from his daze. He looked at the details once more and managed to find a silver lining.

’Maybe the biological-feature alteration will compensate for my size loss. I hope it doesn’t create extra limbs or weird features like horns and wings, otherwise I’ll have to spend a lot of time training to get used to fighting with these new features. It would be fine if there weren’t any cooldown, but managing the timer while maintaining the training flow would be really bothersome.

’Still... Can I even consider myself a titan if I can never grow as large as a mountain? Hmm... Maybe the skill will change again in the future. No point stressing over it—I’ll just have to wait and see how I develop.’

After making sure that he hadn’t missed any other changes to the skill, Drai closed the System screen altogether. He then focused on his senses, just like what he did after his first transformation, before carefully moving his limbs. Fortunately, he only felt a slight sensory discordance due to the abrupt rise of his attributes, so he managed to get up in no time.

"Tsk. How did you get even more handsome after evolving?" Max immediately commented upon seeing Drai’s freshly transformed figure. "Considering your absurd power, I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned into some kind of abomination."

"How is this even handsome? You should’ve seen me before I awakened—I was basically the epitome of handsomeness," Drai shamelessly replied as he walked toward the benches, annoyedly glancing at his chiseled arms and torso along the way.