‘You have spent 100 000 tournament points’

‘[Graveyard of the Nymphs] has been optimized to branch 3.0’

‘Current balance : 983 782 025 points’

Alright, with that the graveyard spreads through my Aura now. Much better. That leaves optimizations for the Spine, False immortality and Runeforged… But my points are getting a bit low… Eighty three million left, but the Spine upgrade is fifty. I can also request new branches for the runes but that’s five hundred thousand.

I should check Runforged first, it didn’t show up for optimization before… Maybe it’s because it finally reached level 299 at the end of Lilith’s battle? Got a lot of skill level ups this trial.

Let’s see, hopefully it’s not too expensive.

[Skill : Runforged Overlord - Skill version index SK_RFOVL_1.0]

Current version :

[Runeforged Overlord] (Level 299) :

Your body has become one with runes of power.

This skill has three tiers of power, you may activate the higher tier at any time, but returning to a lower tier requires to either take no damage for 100 seconds or become unable to sustain the tier’s cost or conditions.

The effects and cost of subsequent tiers are added together when active simultaneously.

In your presence all undead and yourself gain the following effects:

___

Tier 1 (No cost; Requires the user to have arms) :

Become unwilling to attack this skill’s user.

+29.9% Speed (Skill level /10)

___

Tier 2 (0.5 (0.25)% maxmana per second; Requires the user to have a torso) :

+29.9% Speed, Strength & Agility (Skill level /10)

___

Tier 3 (2 (1)% maxmana per second; Requires the user to have wings) :

Successful attacks inflict a short lasting [Confusion]

Reduce all incoming damage by 20%

Omnidirectional free flight & Acceleration resistance

+149.5% Speed, Strength & Agility (Skill level /2)

[Available branches (same version lettered upgrades are mutually exclusive):

1.1A - This skill’s benefits no longer apply to non-ally undead - 10 000 TP

1.1B - There is no longer any restriction in switching between tiers - 10 000 TP

1.1C - Skill’s sustained mana costs -25% - 10 000 TP

1.1D - Effect of each tier’s stat bonuses +25% - 10 000 TP

2.0A - The skill now has a single tier (Tier 2.5 equivalent) with a reduced mana cost - 1 000 000 TP

2.0B - Unlocks Tier 4 which has a high health cost in addition to the mana cost - 1 000 000 TP

2.0C - Engraves the runes directly into your blueprint, removing the body-part restrictions, but making the skill impossible to erase (Fusions and alterations still available, but limited) - 1 000 000 TP

2.1 - Switches the skill to the compressed leveling format giving overall stronger but infrequent progression - 50 000 TP

Requesting new branch unavailable due to maximum number of offered branches already being reached]

Woah! Those are some instant-buy upgrades. For once I don’t even need to think!

‘You have spent 1 060 000 tournament points’

‘Current balance : 982 722 025 points’

‘[Runeforged Overlord] has been optimized following branches 1.1B - 2.0C - 2.1’

Sofia spend the next half hour twitching on her bed as the runes slowly and painfully engraved themselves into her blueprint. Nevertheless, she felt that the result was more than worth the points and the temporary pain.

[Runeforged Overlord] (Level 4) :

You have become one with runes of power.

This skill has three tiers of power, you may freely switch between them at any time.

The effects and cost of subsequent tiers are added together when active simultaneously.

In your field aura, all undead and yourself gain the following effects:

___

Tier 1 (Always active) :

Become unwilling to attack this skill’s user.

+40% Speed (Skill level*10)

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

___

Tier 2 (0.5 (0.25)% maxmana per second) :

+40% Stamina substats (Skill level*10)

___

Tier 3 (2 (1)% maxmana per second) :

Successful attacks inflict a short lasting [Confusion]

Reduce all incoming damage by 20%

Omnidirectional free flight & Acceleration resistance

+200% Stamina substats (Skill level*50)

A hefty stat bonus from the compressed level and all restrictions removed! Now that’s some good stuff! I probably screwed myself out of a soft evolution with that, I think… The optimizations are basically just that, anyway, aren’t they, just minus the name change?

[Skills available for guided optimization:

‘Spine of the Black Sun’

‘False immortality’]

Hmm, I can still request an optimization for false immortality.

[Available branches (same version lettered upgrades are mutually exclusive):

0.42.3A - One more rune can be engraved at base level, global time to engrave increased from 10 to 20 minutes. - 10 000 TP

0.42.3B - Health can now be recovered while a rune is active but doing so will degrade the rune accordingly. (1% health recovered = 1% reduced rune completion) - 10 000 TP

0.42.3C - Body reconstruction and invulnerability time reduced to 1 second, thought continuity is no longer interrupted by rune-prevented deaths. 10 000 TP

0.43.1 - Skill becomes passive. Rune will now engrave themselves. 50 000 TP

Request new branch - 500 000 TP base fee* + Branch cost

*fee refunded if completion of request is impossible]

Yeah these haven’t changed.

My new cursed ring doubles casting speed, and the catalyst will double the halved channeling time of my scepter, so the runes will be exactly 75 seconds to engrave after I prime the catalyst. 0.42.3A would bring it back up to two and a half minutes for one more rune. Honestly not a bad tradeoff. The B and C are still useless, so it’s just a matter of whether I want the A branch or not. Two and a half minutes of casting time is still half of what I’m used to, fast enough to get the runes back up with a short break. The thing is, if I skip it and manage to get one more casting speed buff, like the summer melody I can get the time down from 75 seconds to under a minute. At that point it would be fast enough to get a rune back up in the middle of a fight.

Hmmm…

One more rune as a baseline is probably still better.

I can definitely not take 0.43.1 now anyway, not with my scepter reducing channeling time so much. Losing that bonus would be dumb.

I should just request a branch… But what do I want, now that the runes can’t stop my regeneration there isn’t really any issue with them. It’s a perfect skill.

Well, if I could ask for one thing…

‘You have spent 500 000 tournament points’

‘Current balance : 982 222 025 points’

[You may request for any change to the skill. The more your request deviates from the base skill, the more unlikely it is to get through, and the more likely it is to cost a lot of points.]

[Please write your branch request here: Hello, is it possible to get a branch that helps me not to lose my items when I die? Please do not make anything that would cost more than 30 million TP to buy, thank you in advance.]

[Branch Request sent]

It took more than half an hour for the machine to finally come back to life after Sofia made her request, unlike the Spine’s request which resulted in three new possible branches, this time there was only one..

[0.5 - You may now select up to one equipped item per maximum runes able to be engraved. Selected items will be stored inside of your left eye upon death if still in range, and be automatically reequipped after your body’s reconstruction. Requires your left eye to be functional at the time of death - 25 000 000 TP] Check latest chapters at n͟o͟v͟e͟l͟f͟i͟r͟e͟.net

It uses the eye? Interesting. It’s not perfect but I guess I should be happy considering how random the request was. With this I can make sure I don’t lose the dagger and the shroud when I die. The crown is less important since it normally comes back on its own, but it would be a nice addition if I’m outside of system range. Then I can add the scepter just to avoid it being grabbed while I’m out, even if that hasn’t ever happened yet. I’ll take it.

‘You have spent 25 010 000 tournament points’

‘Current balance :

957 212 025 points’

‘[False immortality] has been optimized following branches 0.42.3A - 0.5’

“That leaves only the Spine.”

[Skill : Spine of the Black Sun - Skill version index SK_SPOBS_1.0]

[Available branches (same version lettered upgrades are mutually exclusive):

1.1 - Channeling is now instant - 1000 TP

1.2 - Unlocks a greatsword form, physical damage equivalent to unenchanted orichalcum - 2000 TP

2.0A - Unlocks a Greatbow form, which supports casting up to five [Angel’s bolt] at once and lets you fire them at curved angles, give the bolts weak target tracking, solar bursts are lost in this form, health recovery instead scales directly on the bolt’s damage. - 50 000 000 TP

2.0B - Unlocks an Atlatl form, which improves aim, projectile and casting speed for the [Angel’s bolt]. Solar burst triggers as a secondary implosion of the ‘explosive’ bolts’ explosion, and as usual for ‘piercing’ bolts hitting a target. - 50 000 000 TP

2.0C - Unlocks a Shoulder cannon form, which only supports ‘piercing’ bolts, but has automatic aiming and fires a secondary solar flare at hit targets instead of a solar burst. - 50 000 000 TP

Request new branch - Already spent for this skill]

1.1 and 1.2 are basically free, I just need to choose which lettered branch to pick…

The bow lost some of its appeal now that I can do curved shots by hand, losing the solar burst is bad, but the philosopher stone means I would fully profit from the health recovery now. I would heal a ton every time the bolts hit… But I also always get my Aura’s healing even through the unlife runes now, so no matter what I regenerate 10% health a second.

That means the multiple cast is really the only valuable part of the bow, but bloodlight skull choir can already do that.

So it’s between the other two.

Improved casting speed plus added solar bursts, or enhanced automatic piercing bolts. Both are equally good I think. So it’s a matter of preference. That makes things easy.

My preference is bigger explosions.

‘You have spent 50 003 000 tournament points’

‘Current balance : 907 209 025 points’

‘[Spine of the Black Sun] has been optimized following branches 1.1 - 1.2 - 2.0B’

Alright! Show me the mighty Atlatl!

Sofia held up her scepter, invoking the spine.

Bone covered the staff as it turned into… Exactly the same weapon with an extended middle finger.

Sofia was silent for a moment, observing her Scepter, wondering where she had gone wrong.

“Is this some kind of joke?” she mumbled.

She dispelled the spine and re-invoked it, but the result was the exact same.

“...” Pareth? Do you have time to come here for a second?

Pareth appeared in the room next to Sofia before she could even finish her mental sentence.

“Thanks, here, look, I bought the Atlatl upgrade… But all I got is my staff flipping me off… Is this what an Atlatl is? Did I get scammed?”

Pareth shook his skull.

“Not a scam? I mean, not that I expected the system to scam me, but still. This looks…”

Pareth summoned his sword of light, transforming it into a long stick with a curled end.

“Oh… I can kind of see it. It didn’t have to be the finger, though, did it… Care to come up to the deck and teach me how to properly use it?”

Pareth seemed overjoyed at the idea.