Self-Summon [Demon Summoning/Evolution LitRPG]

[Active Skill: Hunting Nose | Unlock: 1 GP | Trace any lingering smell or aroma back to its source. Aids in sourcing smells you cannot otherwise place. Can be used to block out unwanted odors. Active Cost: MP Drain. Range of trace and potency of sourcing scales with Skill Level, Lucidity, and Gnostic Attunement. Growth scales with Lucidity.]

So it really was just the nose version of Divining Ear and Scrying Eye, with a leaning toward tracking. Angelica could understand the usefulness of it. Basically she’d become a hunting dog, able to sniff her way to find things. At the same time, when would she need that? It’d probably be useful for everyday things like searching for lost items, but it was doubtful she’d use it to its full potential regularly.

Plus… Angelica had an inkling that she could unlock it by other means. Transformation could be the key there. If she became an animal with a similar trait already baked in, that could possibly be leveraged into unlocking the Skill naturally, something she wanted to do whenever possible. Why waste points when she could maybe get them for free? If after reading the description, Gelic had a general idea of how it could be obtained, then it would almost certainly lower the priority unless they were just that damn essential.

She’d try it out, but first she needed something to hunt, since the DGS probably wouldn’t award it to her for tracking down the leftover stir-fry that she already knew the location of. So Hunting Nose was put on the backburner—a want for someday, but not a need.

Moving on, she shifted over to Pestilence Attunement. Now that she’d confirmed that eating poison was only a net positive, there was a skill she wanted to look at again, and reread the description to remind herself of all the details.

[Active Skill: Toxic Imbuement | Unlock: 3 GP | Any creatures or objects touched are imbued with poison, applying stacks of Toxic. Inanimate objects will dissipate the poison at a fixed rate. Cost: MP Drain. Stacks Applied: 2/second of contact. Max Stacks: 10. Stacks increase with Skill Level and Pestilence Attunement. Growth scales with Might and Malice.]

Yes, that would do her nicely. When Poison Chef didn’t proc, she could just use Toxic Imbuement instead. That way, she’d always have a reliable source of Health regeneration, assuming she could stomach the meal. It added even more stacks of Toxic too, so it might be best to use it regardless. Actually, the more she thought about it, the more it felt like Poison Chef was sort of a useless skill, one that had been created just to mess with her specifically. That probably wasn’t the case, but she was still a bit irritated by the thought.

Saving MP was the only real reason she could see its benefit. Maybe if a Demon with a high level in the Skill was making a full-on poison feast, that’s where it would shine. Also it hadn’t mentioned max stacks like Toxic Imbuement had, so maybe at higher levels it could be even more powerful. Perhaps it would also let her surpass the stack cap if she combined the two. Okay, she was coming around on the Skill and may have judged it too harshly. Assuming it worked as she predicted, Poison Chef was the kind that was weak at low levels but only got better and better, but it would require significant time and investment to get it to reach that point. That was more incentive to keep making home-cooked meals.

Plus, Toxic Imbuement hadn’t been connected to Poison Eater, requiring Poison Chef as a connecting thread. Maybe its justification came more from the concept of having it, even if it was never really going to be used. Still, Toxic Imbuement felt like a no-brainer when she had the Growth Points, so she went ahead and jotted it down as the top priority for now.

While she was in the Pestilence section, she went ahead and read Poison Kiss properly, having been in a bit of a hurry the first time when at the museum.

[Active Skill: Poison Kiss | Unlock: 2 GP | While kissing, saliva becomes imbued with poison, applying stacks of Toxic. You are immune to the saliva. Cost: MP Drain. Stacks Applied: 3/second of contact. Max Stacks: 15. Stacks increase with Skill Level, Pestilence Attunement, and Lust Attunement. Growth scales with Malice and Beguilement.]

So Angelica’s initial assessment had been right. While the stack rate was better, to her, it was just an inferior version of Toxic Imbuement. Why limit herself to just kissing? Maybe if she were some sort of succubus that could be good, but to her lonely ass, it would never work. That and actually having to kiss random people to kill them was wildly unappealing. And, uhh, Lust Attunement, huh? She supposed it made sense for such an Attunement to exist, but it was definitely not one she imagined getting involved with anytime soon.

Interestingly, Poison Kiss was actually connected to both Toxic Imbuement and Poison Eater, but not Poison Chef. The four of them sort of made a square with the opposite corners not interacting. So if she really wanted to, she could have gotten Poison Kiss to unlock Poison Eater if she went that route, assuming she knew about it. In that case, Poison Chef once more felt like the better thing to have happened to her. However, there was one more skill in Pestilence Attunement which could slightly change her mind.

[Active Skill: Poison Breath | Unlock: 4 GP | Exhale poisonous gas into a cone in front of you, applying stacks of Toxic. You are immune to the Breath. Cost: MP Drain. Stacks Applied: 3/breath inhaled by target. 1/second of skin-contact. Max Stacks: 15. Stacks increase with Skill Level and Pestilence Attunement. Stacks are doubled if Poison Kiss is unlocked or if poison has been recently consumed with Poison Eater. Tripled for both. Range and Volume of Breath scale with Skill Level, Vigor, and Malice. Growth scales with Vigor and Malice]

That was a doozy of a Skill with a lot of specifics. Overall, it seemed like a general upgrade to Toxic Imbuement when it came to combat, mostly because it could be used at a range. Her first thought went to using it in a room. There it could possibly fill the place and affect a bunch of people at once. Assuming the breath was inhaled, it was stronger too, but weaker if not. Since there was a difference, it made her think that the breath was likely noticeable in some way, so it would probably only get an inhale or two before the victims would hold their own breathing and try to escape.

In subtler instances, Toxic Imbuement was probably better. Though it required touching, Gelic imagined it was much more discreet overall. Maybe it wasn’t right to judge one as better than the other, rather they each had their own versatility in different applications. It still left her interested, though, especially because it could be heavily increased by Poison Chef and Poison Kiss—the only reason she’d buy that dumb Skill. Yet it still wasn’t as much of a priority, especially because it only looked like it worked on living beings while she mostly wanted poison to infect her own food at this point. So she made a note about getting it down the road, but didn’t put it in the priority chart.

Backing out of Pestilence, Angelica looked at her list of Attunements, trying to decide which one to look at next. For whatever reason, though, she was drawn to a gap at the very bottom of the Skill Weave. When she zoomed in, her immediate notice was that the Skills present in no way connected to the rest of the fog, only to each other. She immediately recognized them as the only skills she had that remained unattuned: Order Resistance, Order Rejection, Bind Resistance, and Bind Break.

They weren’t tethered to anything else besides each other. Did that mean there were no further additional Skills along those paths? Or perhaps they needed to be attuned first before they could be added to the rest of the Weave. She hadn’t checked back when Transfiguration was unattuned, so she probably wouldn’t find out until she got another unattuned one, if ever. Just another thing to be on the lookout for the future.

Gelic moved on to Destruction Attunement. She’d already skimmed everything there but still wanted to nail down the details and ensure there was nothing she missed.

[Active Skill: Bash | Unlock: 1 GP | Bashes at the target with equipped weapon or selected body part to inflict Damage. Cost: 3MP. Damage scales with Skill Level, Might, and Destruction Attunement. Growth scales with Might]

[Active Skill: Swipe | Unlock: 1 GP | Swipes at the target with equipped weapon or selected body part to inflict Damage. Automatically adjusts aim to desired spot based on skill Accuracy. Cost: 5MP. Damage scales with Skill Level, Might, and Destruction Attunement. Accuracy scales with Skill Level and Competence. Growth scales with Might and Competence]

Yep, what she expected. What was interesting was that Bash required less MP and also didn’t have the auto-aim aspect, perhaps because the concept of bashing something was inherently less refined and precise than stabbing or swiping. Other than that, though, she saw no reason to buy them, especially while already having Stab. It was obvious how to unlock them, bash something in combat, and swipe something in combat. So they weren’t even worth possibly saving a GP for to purchase in an emergency. If she had need of the acts, they’d undoubtedly come naturally when fighting. However, there was still the one Skill she wished she could purchase, but it was far out of reach.

[Hybrid Skill: Seeking Projectile | Unlock 6 GP | Projectiles will automatically seek a desired target until they hit. Chance to happen passively or can be forced with MP. Inert projectiles may be launched with force at the cost of additional MP. Passive Seeking Chance: 22%. Active Seeking and Launch Cost: Variable MP. Amount required depends depends on size, shape, and weight of object]

[Accuracy scales with Skill Level and Competence. Launch speed scales with Skill Level, Might, and Destruction Attunement. Chance scales with Skill Level and Destruction Attunement. Growth scales with Might and Competence. Additional Unlock Requirements: Touched Destruction Attunement]

Its description was so long that the DGS felt the need to break it up into two chunks. She had no idea what she would actually use Seeking Projectile for, but that didn’t make her not want it. Something about throwing things at people and knowing it’d hit them no matter what greatly appealed to her impish nature. Oh the chaos she could wrought, and if it came to fighting, that would only give her a great edge, assuming she had plenty of things to throw.

This was also the first time she’d come across an “Additional Unlock Requirement,” and that made her fear slightly that the more advanced skills would have them. Still, only needing Touched, or essentially the second level of an Attunement didn’t sound too bad. Gelic marked it down as a low-priority need, basically only to be bought after she got all the more important things.

Now it was time to move onto Glacial, and that reminded her to put some frost at her feet. Which she instantly regretted because damn it was cold on her human skin, but Angelica also gave herself an Order to endure it as long as possible. Surprisingly, Cold Resistance only fed into Frost Touch at the moment. There were other branches, but they were currently covered. Perhaps she needed higher Attunement or to unlock something else in that area. Frost Touch, however, had two spawning off of it that were available.

[Active Skill: Manifest Ice | Unlock: 2 GP | Create ice out of thin air using your will alone. The ice can take any shape limited only by your imagination. Cost: Variable MP. Depending on size and shape complexity of ice created. Ease of creation and ice strength scale with Skill Level, Might, Creativity, and Glacial Attunement. Growth scales with Might and Creativity.

[Active Skill: Flash-Freeze | Unlock: 3 GP | Any liquid touched is immediately frozen solid. Cost: Variable MP depending on freezing point and amount of liquid. Ease of creation and ice strength scale with Skill Level, Might, Creativity, and Glacial Attunement. Growth scales with Might and Creativity]

Hmm, Manifest Ice sounded pretty good, like a more malleable version of Frost Touch. Practically, she could think of plenty of ways it could be useful in fighting, especially combined with other Skills, or just daily tasks in general. However, since it wouldn’t completely overhaul her quality of life or drastically improve survivability by itself, at least not without significant practice, it’d probably have to wait a while. For more selfish reasons, though, she wanted to make it more of a priority. It could open up a whole new realm of artistry for her and let her become a famous ice sculptor. She always admired the pieces whenever she saw them, but could never even really conceive how to start it. This would open that opportunity, but it definitely wasn’t a necessity.

On the other hand, Flash-Freeze, she could see no real uses for in her life. By the sounds of it, she could freeze a whole lake, or something, and then run across, but how many lakes needed crossing in her everyday life? Plus, it didn’t sound like there was a way to unfreeze what was frozen. Well, if being a Demon didn’t work out well for her, she could buy it and open up an outdoor ice-rink that’s available year-round, even in the sweltering summer.

She didn’t seriously consider taking either for now. Manifest Ice would definitely have its uses someday, but she couldn’t justify it going too high on the priority list as it stood. And for both, she was pretty sure she could unlock them on her own, or at least give it a damn good try. Since they were basically just more powerful versions of Frost Touch, she could possibly send it into overdrive to make ice that way and completely freeze something like a puddle. Maybe she’d try obtaining them when she had more time, if nothing more than to increase her Glacial Attunement. Speaking of:

[Cold Resistance Lv.3]

[Vigor increased]

[Glacial Attunement increased]

Yowch! The message reminded her of her frosty feet since she’d been otherwise engaged, and even with the levelup, all the frigid pain hit her at once, making her yelp and desperately remove them from the cold. She even had to turn back to an Imp for a moment to let the hair of that area help warm herself up.

[Contract complete]

Well, at least it counted itself as completing the given Order. Annoyingly, while Angelica had absolutely no desire to repeat the process again, there was now a half-melted puddle of frost at the foot of her desk. Hopefully it didn’t damage the floor. She went and grabbed a towel and scrubbed it up, then threw a blanket on the mostly dry floor so she wouldn’t accidentally touch the cold spot. There definitely needed to be a better way to train those Skills.

Moving on, though, to Fraud Attunement. Angelica didn’t really have high hopes for it. Transfiguration was probably about all the fraud she wanted to get into. While there could be possibly useful abilities there, she wasn’t sure it was the kind of path she wanted to go down and invest in. What she didn’t expect to find, however, was the most absurd ability yet.

Spoiler