The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 137

Chapter 138
Rare Trait: Shadow Incarnation
—Although the drop rate for the New Moon Ritual was high, this is just too high!
Or perhaps, it’s because my own points were sufficient and I obtained a Special Victory Condition, which directly maxed out the drop rate?
Eivass recognized all three of these traits.
The first trait, “Challenger’s Courage,” was the same named trait on the Holy Lance—its effect was to grant immunity to “Fear” and “Shock” effects with a priority higher than one’s own. It could be triggered by energy level suppression or by additional priority bonuses, and its characteristic was the ability to ignore priority and gain partial control immunity.
It seemed very useful, but in reality, it was the least useful.
The basic logic of this World was that control immunity was inferior to control removal. All resistances could be bypassed by slots of the same level.
It was like the “strongest spear and strongest shield”—at the same priority level, the spear’s priority would always be higher than the shield’s, just as Extraordinary beings of the same energy level could have their skills affect each other normally without any reduction in effect or resistance.
Moreover, the application scope of this resistance was narrow; it only took effect against Fear effects used by those with higher energy levels. However, it was ineffective against Fear effects used by Extraordinary beings of the same or even lower energy levels.
And if this Fear originated from the environment rather than an enemy, this resistance would also be invalid.
For example, if a ritual site was created to instill fear in everyone who entered it, the resistance it provided would be useless.
Of course, there were other types of resistances specifically designed to counter environmental effects… but unless one was a lone wolf with no teammates or anyone to help them, control removal would always yield higher benefits.
Once many spells were cast, their exemption checks were no longer related to the caster.
For instance, if a certain curse was difficult to remove, it was only because the curse itself was potent, making it hard to remove. But one couldn’t infer the caster’s energy level from the difficulty of removing a low-level curse—because the exemption caused by energy level suppression had already been calculated at the moment of impact.
Controls such as sealing, binding, freezing, and petrification were in a similar situation.
Unless the spell effect was still active—such as continuous freezing, ongoing curses, or perpetual seals achieved through magic circles—the control was merely control once the casting ended.
Take, for example, the petrifying gaze used by Aspavaton previously; even after he entered the dungeon, it remained his standard mechanism. Players at level seventy would still be petrified with a single glance.
That dungeon perfectly demonstrated what “control immunity is inferior to control removal” meant—because ordinary petrification resistance was invalid against Aspavaton’s petrification ability.
And unlike the low-level petrifying rays and petrifying demonic eyes.
His petrification did not trigger rays that could be reflected, blocked, or absorbed, nor was it a demonic eye that required eye contact to petrify. It didn’t even have a gradual petrification process. As soon as one was locked onto by his gaze, they would be instantly petrified.
Aspavaton’s petrification was an instant control with no wind-up, no cast time, and no projectile. In the game, this was a special trigger that activated every time 5% of his health was depleted; the primary countermeasure was for everyone except the tank to flank him before his health dropped too low, and then have a player from the Path of Devotion instantly remove the petrification.
Otherwise, if one died while petrified, they could not be revived in combat. And if one took damage while petrified, their maximum health would decrease, and this negative status could only be removed by dying once.
If the healer got distracted or was petrified along with the tank, and failed to remove the petrification from the tank in time, causing the tank to face a powerful hammer blow while petrified—this round would likely end in a wipe. Even if the tank survived the blow, they would become as fragile as paper afterward.
As an ancient giant born before the advent of “Professions,” Aspavaton coexisted on multiple paths. This was the innate power the giant chieftain gained from the Twilight Path.
The trait “Silent Dead” was commonly known as “Zombie” among players.
It appeared to be a trait of the Twilight Path, but it was actually a unique trait of the Transcendent Path.
In the game, this was undoubtedly a god-tier skill. There was just one problem: its resurrection was a false resurrection.
Its effect was that upon death, one could immediately respawn at full health, entering the “Silent Dead” state. The Silent Dead form was considered undead, automatically removed all status effects applied by others, and granted the “Transcend Death” resistance status, temporarily resisting most control effects.
However, one’s life would decay faster and faster, and one would be affected by spells like “Dispel Undead” and “Dread Undead.”
Generally, a resurrected player who didn’t receive healing would last seven to eight seconds. With healing, they could last ten seconds longer at most before they couldn’t be healed back. In PvE, many dungeons might be cleared with only 1% or even 5% health remaining, and those few seconds of berserk output after standing up, even without healing, could determine victory.
In PvP, Fiends generally favored this trait.
Because Demon Scholars were too fragile. As a backline caster, if they were killed by the enemy, they would likely be killed a second time upon standing up.
But Fiends were different.
The career specialty of Fiend-class professions was to instantly regenerate a large chunk of health when severely injured, then enter a rapidly decaying demonic state. Most Fiend abilities could only be used in the demonic state, so their abilities in a healthy state were mostly self-damaging skills. They would charge into enemy attacks while burning their own health, seeking to enter the demonic state quickly.
When resurrected by “Silent Dead,” the demonic state would still persist.
In other words, Fiends had three lives—and the third life was directly in an awakened state.
When a Fiend who had entered the demonic state was immediately controlled and killed, they would stand up again. This would usually cause the opponent’s brain to freeze for a moment, facing a dilemma:
Because even if they ignored him, he would die quickly. The combined decay rate of the demonic state and Silent Dead was very high, and killing him again would waste time.
But if they truly ignored him and moved past, the Fiend, now in a demonic state, would relentlessly attack them—because the Fiend knew he would die again soon, so those few seconds of stationary, frenzied output were truly formidable. After all, the characteristic of the Transcendent Path was that the conditions for dealing damage were harsh… but once the conditions were met, the numerical output was of the highest tier.
“Transcend Death” also provided resistance. If they tried to control him and wait for him to die naturally, the control might be resisted, which was extremely annoying. As a melee profession, the Fiend’s tankiness was significantly stronger than that of a Demon Scholar, and it would waste too many skills to kill him again.
The greatest significance of this trait was its ability to lower the opponent’s intelligence, forcing them into a dilemma. As long as the opponent reacted quickly, a Fiend who stood up and could only live for five or six seconds was not a significant threat.
But usually, players would be stunned when they saw someone they had just killed standing up again at full health. And in that moment of hesitation, the Fiend, who had long been mentally prepared, would have already completed a combo.
In the real world, such an ability to briefly resurrect after death would indeed be useless.
Its greatest significance would probably be to take the enemy who killed oneself down with them—after all, players somewhat knew about the “Silent Dead” trait, and upon seeing a Fiend, they would suspect if the opponent had this trait.
But the native inhabitants of this World did not. Seeing someone who had been killed stand up again would catch them somewhat off guard. It could even serve as a sneak attack.
—Although there were quite a few resurrection abilities in this World. But at least in this version, the conditions for resurrection were still relatively harsh, or the resurrected individual was incomplete.
The Twilight Path had the most resurrection routes, but they were all somewhat peculiar.
Preservers could preserve memories and implant them into infants, achieving a form of rebirth through body-snatching, but it was only partial memory, not a true soul. Amber Artisans could create something similar to a Phylactery for themselves, but currently, it could only be used by specific puppets, golems, or corpses because they couldn’t yet create normal body backups. Necromancers could also raise the dead, but the resurrected dead had to obey the Necromancer’s commands and had their Path Adaptability stripped away.
The most complete resurrection currently was a high-level ability of the Path of Devotion.
There was a ritual divine art that could exchange one life for another—as long as the opponent’s soul had not yet dissipated or was not immediately preserved, a Priest could sacrifice themselves to save them, manifesting as giving their own body to the other. Rituals of the Transcendent Path, on the other hand, had various bizarre possibilities, anything could happen.
The resurrection spell that healing class players commonly held, and could even be used with a brief cast time in combat, didn’t exist in the storyline and certainly couldn’t be obtained in the early stages.
This was a spell purely based on game mechanics. The evidence was that all NPCs who were killed could not be resurrected.
The two traits above were both beautiful in theory but ultimately not very useful.
The only one Eivass could choose was the third one.
Or rather, he had come specifically for the third one—Eivass had specifically used a Shadow Demon throughout, hoping to acquire this trait.
—This was the best trait among the purple-tier slots that a Demon Scholar contracted with a Shadow Demon could obtain during their first Ascension Ritual!
【Shadow Incarnation (Purple): You are a vessel, and also an avatar. Shadows are no longer your enemies.】
The effect of this trait was similar to “Vessel of Burning and Shining,” a combination of lower-tier options. The difference was that this was a specialized trait that exclusively reinforced a single attribute, thus its attribute bonus was slightly stronger than that of multi-attribute reinforcement.
Its default effect provided one level of Shadow Affinity and one level of Dark Container simultaneously. However, if one possessed at least one level of Dark Container in addition to this trait, its effect could be converted through a ritual to provide two levels of Shadow Affinity; if one possessed at least one level of Shadow Affinity, it could be converted to provide two levels of Dark Container.
Its effect could be transferred or not. It could be adjusted once during each New Moon and Full Moon.
In other words, this was a specialized trait designed for supplementing weaknesses.
Because specializing in a pure attribute required both the container and affinity traits for that attribute. This trait was not very useful for players, mainly saving them from reallocating points… but for Eivass, who lacked point reallocation items, this trait could effectively solve the problem of wasted slots!
Currently, its effect on Eivass was to raise his “Shadow Affinity” to level two and add a level one container slot. This made it more convenient for Eivass to use the Shadow Demon and to create the “Field Card: Shadow Pit” with Mana!
With this, regardless of whether Eivass obtained an “Affinity” or “Container” slot of the dark attribute in his next Transcendent Ritual, he could change Shadow Affinity to level three—thus, Eivass could escape the wheelchair!
Ideally, he would obtain Dark Container, so that this trait could exert its full potential.
If Eivass cultivated the Shadow Demon into a superior Phantom Demon and sealed it into a card, he would not need Shadow Affinity and could escape the wheelchair. At that point, he could convert the specialization into a container trait to increase his own Mana.
And if he were preparing for a difficult battle and needed to specialize the Shadow Demon, he would need to further increase the “Shadow Affinity” trait to raise the ceiling of his combat ability. At that time, he could use a ritual to convert the “Dark Container” trait back.
Although it was only a purple-tier trait, due to its flexibility, it could theoretically be considered as adding four levels of basic traits!