Chapter 77: Gone! Reduced to dust
*****
Abilities:
Skills:
Spells:
Cosmic coins: 25,200
Skill point: 11
<Cosmic store>
*****
"WHAT THE FUCK, WHERE ARE ALL MY SKILLS AND ABILITIES" Dhruv unintendedly shouted after looking at the blank status screen instead of finding his skill listed there.
His shout caught the attention of the trio, who gazed at him with concern. He quickly waved to them to continue what they were doing and tried regaining his composure. After some deep breaths, he returned his gaze to the status screen.
"What’s going on? Why are there no abilities and skills here? Where have they gone?" he repeated, growing increasingly frustrated with each passing sentence.
Sensing that he was on the verge of losing his temper once again, he took a deep breath before deciding to approach the situation with a logical mindset instead of getting angry.
This decision works in his favor as after pondering for a moment, he finds something strange about this situation...
’But hold on a minute, if there aren’t any skills listed on the screen, how come I am still using them?’ he pondered.
To prove his point he lifted his hand and created a fireball to confirm the presence of fire manipulation, mana manipulation, and fire resistance is still working as intended. Then he proceeded to cast a metal bullet and the illusion spell he had recently learned. He knew that he could use mana absorption because of obvious reasons.
With mana manipulation out of the way, he decided to use the [Tempest Charge] and managed to execute it proficiently as well. Making a small cut on his arm, he also confirmed that he could use [Basic heal] as well.
He tried to remember if there was anything else he might be missing. After some brainstorming, he managed to remember three more skills: Mana Infusion, Mana Drain, and Illusion Resistance. There wasn’t any way to check the [illusion resistance] but he could surely check the other two.
After walking for a while he found a wooden club left behind by a goblin picked it up and tried using Mana infusion on that. The type of mana he had chosen was metal mana. After some focus, he was able to coat the simple wooden club with a layer of metal confirming that he could Mana infusion as well.
After applying the metal coating to the club, he proceeded to use Mana Drain on it. To his lack of surprise, he successfully drained the metal mana from the club, confirming that he could still utilize Mana Drain as well.
’Huh! This is strange despite the absence of the skill on the status screen, I can still use every single one of them the same way I was using them before the evolution... No! maybe even better. How does this even make sense?’ Dhruv found himself pondering over this question again and again.
After pausing for a moment, he eventually realized something.
’Wait am I seeing all of this the wrong way? Could it be that we don’t need the skill—the one on the status screen— to perform the task and only need the skill—literal skill?’ he thought. After some more time pondering, he even found some examples to support his theory,
’That makes sense. A slime-type monster would need skill something similar for walking if they want to walk instead of crawling, but that didn’t mean I also need that same skill for walking because I already have the SKILL to walk as I already know how to do that.’ he thought.
After finally solving the puzzle he smiled. It didn’t matter to Dhruv whether the skill was present or not on the screen, the only thing he cared about was using them and not for some show-off. It sure looked weird looking at his status empty after getting used to seeing it full, but he could manage if he get to keep his skills.
"Talking about their disappearance, how does this even happen? What was the reason behind this change?" he pondered once again.
"Wait a minute, could the reason behind their disappearance be that I used the fusion on myself, causing the skill to fuse with me... Literally?" He couldn’t help but gasp when he realized this fact.
The more he thought about it the more he realised how absurd this was.
’Does that mean I could use fusion even the contents of the status screen as well? But isn’t it controlled by the all-powerful cosmos...’ he paused for a bit before letting a whisper out, "or m-maybe not?"
Dhruv suddenly realized he had been looking at this all wrong. To confirm the authenticity of his new discovery, he swiftly opened the skill-buying page and started searching for elemental manipulation.
After some scrolling, he managed to find earth, water, and air manipulation. Without wasting any time he quickly buys the Earth and Water manipulation worth 2 skill points.
[You have learned the ability: Earth manipulation.]
[You have learned the ability: Water manipulation.]
He opened the status and was happy to find that these two were visible on the status menu. He closed his eyes and thought of fusing both the ability. After some focus, he felt mana leaving his body which indicates that the fusion had started working. If he chose to he could open his eyes at this moment but choose not to do it for some reason.
The mana kept getting sucked away from him, before he could panic thinking that this would suck him dry the mana stopped flowing out of him indicating the fusion has been successful. He quickly measured the remaining mana in his core and was surprised to find that half of it was gone, which was quite a lot for a single fusion.
He slightly opened his left eye and peeked through that gap. Despite his vision being somewhat blurry, he could discern that the two manipulations had merged into one. Not wasting any more time, he quickly opened his eyes and looked at his new manipulation.
[Mud Maipulation]
This was the name of the new manipulation he had gained after fusing the Earth and Water manipulation.
Now, was the time to check if he could use a spell from this element or Not. He closed his eyes once again and found many spell blueprints for mud along with Earth and water manipulation.
’Wow! This is truly neet. So, I get to keep the initial manipulation spell as well.’
He spent some time experimenting with the spells and was satisfied with the result. When he felt it was enough for experiment and stopped casting the spells. He opened the status once again to check the other things, last time he didn’t even see the other things properly because his gaze directly went toward the empty space of the skills.
He spent some time experimenting with the spells and was satisfied with the results. When he felt it was enough for an experiment, he stopped casting the spells and opened the status once again to check the other details.
