Chapter 142: A Study of Shields
The big mana orb I needed to play with was the one that had managed to make this all possible. Without the shield orb, so many simulator runs would never have worked correctly. I wasn’t even sure I’d have bonded with Corey had I never found it. The fact that they were as common as Mel claimed was still baffling to me, and the only explanation I could buy for their lack of use really was just how expensive multi mana orb setups were, and that was just to get access to something a fraction as powerful as what I had going.
Now that Corey had the ability to easily harness and switch between my orbs, that made the power of the shield orb even more so. They could focus on keeping shields around our allies while, at the same time, I focused on what was coming directly at us. We were growing into a one-body powerhouse, and just what we were capable of together was going to be on display on this last floor. The key to keeping everyone alive was going to be my ability to shield and heal simultaneously. I was sure of it, so it was time to do some real testing on my shields.
To that end, I pulled up the shield orb in my interface and took a look through just what I hadn’t touched yet. The obvious choices were Absorb and Weapon Shield. Being able to channel some of the damage back into my core would be incredibly valuable in keeping me going with this plan. Weapon Shield, on the other hand, would let me further nullify attacks based on the weapons they used.
It was an oddly specific skill, as I had to use ranks to add more weapon types, and I wasn’t entirely sure how narrow those types were yet. But considering how my knowledge skills seemed to stack up, I had a feeling it was basically anything that could be classified as a weapon. Would I be allowed to add things that didn’t count as weapons as far as the System was concerned? That was an interesting question I’d need to test in the future; now wasn’t the best time to waste the ranks.
Extend Shield also seemed useful given the extra people I may want to cover, plus pulling my tools in close, I also suspected that would lead me to what I really wanted—the ability to place shields around other people who weren’t directly near me. So I started with that one, pushing it up to the full thirty ranks I could invest in it, and checked the new third tier available mana skill.
| Mana Orb |
| Shield (3) |
| Third Tier |
| Shield Target (1) |
| Requirements: Extend Shield (25) |
| Shield Target allows the host to place a shield around a target; the distance to the target increases the mana cost of the placement. Otherwise, it functions the same as a basic Physical or Magical Shield of the host’s ranks. Further, ranks decrease the range cost.
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