Chapter 142. Going on the Offensive
The more he watched, the more he understood. Less is More could reach outside of his body, but not far; only a five-foot radius or so, at best. He couldn’t target its abilities; in other words, he couldn’t make the impurities worse without making the potion better an equal amount. On the other hand, he could push more mana into the skill to make it activate more strongly, though Less is More was always kind of funky with receiving more of anything, and at the end of the day, he wasn’t sure if he’d actually activated it more strongly by giving it more mana, or if it was simply that the mage in question had sipped it more gently, meaning that Less is More had activated stronger as a result, and the mana he’d input was meaningless. A little voice in his mind whispered, that one’s probably more correct.
Still, he could rein it in or even turn it off entirely. Not for himself, but for the outside his body effect. He didn’t have to go around making sure he only used a little bit of poison on someone for it to be most effective, but if he only had a little poison, he could turn it on to make it more effective. It was a somewhat irrelevant ability, since he could also take a single step back and remove his target from the skill’s pitiful external range, but it was worth noting anyways. Better to know the limitations of his skill than to be in the dark.
Though, now that he was thinking about it, Less is More was both his first skill, and the skill he knew the least about. For the most part, it was intuitive; the less he took of something, the more effect it had. But what did it mean? What were its limits? How did it play into trash? These were all things he hadn’t really investigated.
Rhys pinched his chin. He’d been too busy using it to survive to investigate it thoroughly at first. Later on, he’d focused more on his trash aspects and other parts of his path, and neglected his first skill. Sure, it still came in handy every now and again, but it was a minor passive buff, the kind easily disregarded in any game system.
Is there something more to it? It was his first skill. In a certain way, if he allowed a tiny amount of religious fervor to settle over him, he could see it as absolutexistance’s only hint, though a part of him considered that absolutely ridiculous. It was equally likely that it was simply a random skill he’d gathered thanks to licking up drops of potion, and it being his first was because he’d been acting strange, not because it was some kind of cosmic hint. Was it vitally important, or the result of fucking around and finding out—finding out a positive thing, for once?
Given my tendencies… more likely the latter than the former. A god wouldn’t give trash like him a special ultimate skill. Cheat skills were the property of heroes, not talentless trash. Bast probably had one, but him? Nah. Less is More was just some trash skill, but it was a nice trash skill, and he was proud of it for being wonderful, useful, delicious trash. Still, it never hurt to learn more about trash. He’d certainly never hesitated to dive into a big, steaming pile of trash, literal or literary. Why stop now?
He was running low on coffee when a quiet ping of mana caught his attention. The first haggard mage he’d served was still lingering around, perhaps seeking another sip like his first hit. Rhys handed the guy the rest of the vat and ran. “Give it to the fry shop when you’re done.”
The haggard man blinked after Rhys. He stared after Rhys for a long second with his dead eyes, then slowly raised the vat to his lips and slurped.
Rhys ran through the streets. Like the trash skill it was, Trash Step activated intermittently, surging him ahead when he stepped on uneven ground or ran past a pile of trash. Rhys appeared to race ahead smoothly, then stutter back to an ordinary run every time the footing changed. He was used to it, but to the outside eye, it appeared as if his movement technique were fragile, and only worked occasionally. Not that Rhys minded; better if people thought he was a weak mage with a pathetic, semi-operational movement skill, rather than a Tier 3 mage. For all that, he made it back to the shop in record speed, rushing inside to throw himself down the trap door, then sprint all out in the trashy dirt footing to close in on the battle. He could already hear it, the distinctive sound of steel on bone resonating down the tunnel. The muddy footing told him Lira was down in the tunnel, too, and yet they’d still called for his help. Whoever they were fighting, had to be quite powerful. Was the next sibling that much of a jump in power? Or was it that more than one had showed up this time?
They had already killed two siblings, after all. If it was Rhys’s battle, he’d send two next time, if only so one could escape and tell everyone where all their fighters were vanishing off to. Of course, he had no intention of letting anyone escape… but it was how he’d play it, if he were on the offensive side of this battle.