Chapter 110: of the Mists
Coop took a cold shower in the lighthouse to rid himself of any lingering muck or salt residue from his hunt within the mangrove forest. The coastal habitat was still largely unexplored, but Coop thought he already had a good handle on what it had to offer. It wasn’t like he expected to find any more Bosses after they defeated the two that would have been within the depths of the swampy forest. Now that he had completed the Ruin Excavator quest, he thought the mangroves offered the best possible next locale to pursue more Slayer titles. The Primal Kites in the shallow water still represented a challenge to grind that he had yet to fully resolve.
As he switched the water off, he noted that the pressure from his gravity tank wasn’t holding up despite recently using the manual pump to refill his shower. The cistern’s water supply was getting low. They were nearing the end of the dry season, so hopefully they would start getting afternoon showers to replenish their water supply. The island chain had no aquifer to tap into, so they had been reliant on regular intervals of rain to maintain reserves. Even the old fort had an extensive sand filtration system, built with the original construction, though he doubted it was in good shape after the battle damaged the walls, combining with the many years of minimal maintenance.
The situation was a bit different after mana activated for a variety of reasons that made them less reliant on natural systems. If necessary, he could find someone with appropriate water powers to recharge the rainwater cisterns. It certainly wasn’t a priority. The wet season was defined by regular passing rain showers, heat, and hurricanes. They’d just have to wait and see how the climate was impacted by the start of the assimilation. If it hadn’t been changed too much, they shouldn’t have any problems.
Refreshed and dried off, Coop flitted around the lighthouse with nervous energy, seeking busy work to keep himself occupied while he skimmed the list of skills being offered after he reached level 100. To Jett’s dismay, he dusted and swept while he looked at his options, disturbing her daytime sleep. At least he was channeling his decision anxiety into something relatively productive.
Coop had learned some lessons after his previous rounds of skill selections, so he paid attention to details that he hadn’t before.
There were a total of 21 skill options offered at the onset of the Path of the Mistwalker. A surprising 7 of the skills were passive skills. Coop was briefly enthralled by the idea of getting skills that doubled down on bonus stats, but the only passive skill available that did such a thing was Clarity of Purpose. While it was a relief to see the Acumen skill continued to be one of his options, the lack of even more stat stacking was vaguely disappointing after his enthusiasm built his hopes up. He was imagining something that would influence his Mind stat. At least Clarity of Purpose’s presence confirmed that even though he was walking the Path of the Mistwalker, he remained a Revenant. Revenant skills would continue to appear as choices.
There were 12 active skills, but in Coop’s opinion, several of them barely qualified as active. Of the 12, 4 of them were skills that applied temporary self buffs, and most of the rest had conditional activations that relied on several other factors before they could be used at all. One of them in particular grabbed Coop’s attention: a skill simply called Infusion. Any wounds he took while the skill was active would have their damage, and any other negative effects, temporarily prevented by a protective mist that would seal the wounds and reinforce his body until an internal reservoir was depleted by the mist’s dispersal. It could even temporarily cheat death or otherwise negate critical injuries.
It sounded awesome, but Coop winced when he imagined actually applying the skill. Receiving a critical hit wasn’t something he liked thinking about, but instead of bleeding, he would leak mist, and if he lost an arm he would have a solid mist replacement that allowed him to keep fighting. It wasn’t what he was looking for, but he couldn’t help admiring the incredible utility it could give him. He was tanky enough to pass on it for now.
Out of the 8 remaining truly active skills, Coop was disappointed when his desire for a ranged spell nuke went unfulfilled. Void Drop didn’t make a reappearance at all and while a few of the spells offered could certainly increase his firepower, he wouldn’t be blasting siege bosses with any of them, and none of them would allow him to wipe out massive raids either. At least, that was based on their limited descriptions. There was no reason to completely write them off, especially when they would be scaling off of his thick collection of stats.
Another of the active skills that seemed wild, though it had no damage component, was an ability called Vaporform. The description led him to believe he would be able to enter the same monochromatic world that his mistjumps dragged him through, but in real time. He would become incorporeal whenever he activated it. While it seemed like a purely defensive ability, Coop could see a variety of applications when combining it with both his mistjumps, quick swaps, and melee techniques to turn it into another layer of depth in his current fighting style. Again, it wasn’t what he was looking for, even if it was an interesting prospect.
Mistwalker offered a few damaging active skills that were clearly meant to be supplementary, adding lingering effects to his damaging abilities that debuffed or applied damage over time. Other active skills were auxiliary effects that followed an attack. Brocken Spectre was his favorite, though he wasn’t clear on how it would interact with his own weapons. Basically, it would project and magnify his previous attack with a mistform copy. If he punched something, a magnified fist of mist would immediately follow. It certainly had potential, especially since it added its own damage scaling off of Intelligence, but it didn’t meet all of his current requirements.
Coop was looking for a skill that did damage on its own, that would scale off of his growing stats, especially if it was ranged or covered a large area. It didn’t need to be complicated as long as it gave him an opportunity to leverage his base stats into damage.