Chapter 48
Rare Trait: Vessel of Scorching and Radiance
Although he couldn’t see the effects now, Eivass had long since memorized the effects of these two rare traits.
Helping friends clear advancement dungeons occasionally allowed him to memorize these random trait effects…
Good deeds are rewarded.
“Light of the Corrupted” was an advanced trait that could theoretically be upgraded three times.
Its effect was that any spell consumed solely by light-attribute mana would deal additional venomous damage equal to one-third of the damage dealt. The second upgrade would grant an additional one-third cold damage. The third upgrade would grant an additional one-third shadow damage.
If all three upgrades were invested in this trait, one would gain a simple and brutal 100% additional damage. Moreover, the additional damage would consist of three types, making it less susceptible to resistance.
However, this Path of Devotion trait was also very limited in its use.
Only spells consumed solely by pure light-attribute mana could take effect, and they had to be damage spells.
The “Priest” profession in the Path of Devotion lacked direct damage skills.
Throughout the entire Path of Devotion, only the “Temple Guardian Monk” and “Fire Worshiper” had attack spells. For the latter, almost all their spells were fire-attribute, with only a few, two or three, attack spells composed of pure light-attribute mana.
Although priests gained basic energy-attribute attack capabilities after acquiring “Light Affinity,” this Path Trait was generally chosen by “Temple Guardian Monks.”
Once this profession advanced to “Shakya Lion” at level fifty and above, they would obtain a crucial class trait that allowed them to cast all non-dark attribute spells below the Third Tier using solely light-attribute mana. The final damage dealt would be entirely converted to light-attribute, and spell effects would gain light-attribute penetration.
Combined with the low-level instant cast spell “Lion’s Roar,” and the maxed “Light of the Corrupted” trait, it formed the popular “Corrupted Lion’s Roar” build of version 2. This build would convert the additional 100% damage increase back to light-attribute, combined with its own light-attribute penetration capabilities, making it an extremely violent pure output profession with extremely high sustained damage, full control, and burst potential, all in area-of-effect damage.
This build was very popular in various defense-point and speed-farming event missions.
Moreover, the official developers had not nerfed this build. They hadn’t touched any numbers. Their balancing method was very simple.
They significantly reduced the occurrence of defense-point and speed-farming activities, and temporarily increased the frequency of assault missions.
This was because the assault capabilities of this profession were not ideal.
The damage conversion and penetration of Shakya Lion were limited to sub-skills. The major skills during assault were still mixed damage, not benefiting from penetration. Coupled with bosses having maxed poison resistance, the final increase would definitely be less than 33%.
Compared to this, what truly caught Eivass’s eye was the second Path Trait.
Unlike the Light of the Corrupted of the Path of Devotion.
This trait was not unique to the Path of Devotion but was a general purple rare trait.
It was also a type of vessel trait, but only appeared on professions that could simultaneously gain two attribute mana types upon leveling up.
It couldn’t be more or less; it had to be exactly two mana types.
For example, a Mage could simultaneously gain four attribute manas—wind, earth, water, and fire—upon leveling up. A normal Demon Scholar could only gain dark-attribute mana upon leveling up. They could never randomly obtain this trait unless they contracted a demon like “Flame Demon,” which would allow them to balance their fire and dark mana.
Its effect was simple and practical: it increased the level of vessel traits of the two attributes by one.
This meant one could choose to use it to gain a free vessel trait, or to forcibly break through a vessel trait that could only be upgraded to LV3 to LV4.
The advancement opportunities for Extraordinary beings were extremely limited. Therefore, any trait that saved one advancement was valuable.
The strongest Extraordinary beings in the current version were only in their early forties. They were at the Fifth Tier—the so-called Fifth Tier meant possessing five Path Traits, corresponding to five Paths.
Apart from the Path of Wisdom, which granted double mana upon leveling up, Extraordinary beings of other caster professions generally had to choose one or two vessel traits, so they wouldn’t lose out at least.
This was because for caster professions, the mana gained from leveling up was never enough.
The mana rules were: for the first ten levels, one point was given for each level increase; from level 11 to 20, two points were given for each level; from level 21 to 30, three points were given, and so on. Multi-colored professions would add points in sequence, without decimals.
For non-caster professions, their mana became increasingly abundant. But for casters lacking basic attack abilities, mana was eternally insufficient.
The so-called “Elemental Affinity” referred to a Mage’s mana-free basic attack. Although it could be upgraded to level three, not many professions would choose it.
Healers were even more universally short on mana.
The intensity of combat in dungeons was bound to increase.
Maintaining “Illuminate” and “Fire Worship” required a large amount of light-attribute mana, and each activation of Illuminate required one dark-attribute mana as an introduction.
For vessel traits, the first choice granted 14 mana, the second choice granted another 28 mana, and the third choice granted another 42 mana.
Maxing out all three would grant 84 additional mana—this much mana could sustain full healing for a high-intensity battle by oneself, and could roughly save twelve to thirteen people with severed limbs or damaged organs, who were on the verge of death.
Even so, if teammates completely ignored all mechanics and took all damage, it would still be impossible to heal them.
After all, maxing out three vessel traits would only provide enough mana to heal about fourteen tubes of health.
Moreover, this meant that before level thirty, he could not choose any “Affinity” traits to gain attack power. He also couldn’t choose any rare traits at all.
The choice of Path Traits had an even greater impact than the progression of the profession itself.
Purple rare traits and gold mythical traits, which could only be obtained after level fifty, could permanently alter the form of skills.
For example, the “Universal Salvation” of the Path of Devotion, which was almost mandatory for all Priest-class professions.
This was a purple trait that converted all single-target buff spells into area-of-effect spells with half the duration.
Because it only reduced the duration and not the effect, it was extremely effective for team combat.
In addition, Priests could use the general Path Trait “Status Duration Extension” to double the duration of all status-related skills to compensate for the missing duration. They could also multiclass to obtain the “Source of Life” from the Path Adaptation, increasing the healing amount of all their non-instant healing abilities by one-third, and reducing the healing cycle by one-third, thereby achieving greater Illuminate healing per unit of time and indirectly saving mana. Alternatively, they could use the Path of Devotion’s “Body of Light” to increase mana consumption by an additional 1.5 times, using their entire body to cast “Illuminate,” converting it into a mobile, ranged, area-of-effect healing ability that did not require continuous channeling at close range, further enhancing their group combat capabilities.
However, a level fifty Priest could only choose five from this list, plus a free vessel or affinity trait.
Precisely because each person’s tendencies differed and they obtained different Path Traits, the characters ultimately constructed were entirely unique.
The fear was not knowing the effects of the Path Traits, thus making wrong choices. Or regretting it halfway through, or not knowing how to proceed.
But compared to other Extraordinary beings who didn’t even know their future path, Eivass always had a clear goal and knew how to reach it.
This ensured that every advancement he made was valuable!
“I’ll choose the second one.”
Eivass thought to himself.
After Eivass chose “Vessel of Scorching and Radiance,” the other two options shattered.
He felt the tiny wound on his face quickly heal. A warm current flowed into his body along with an invisible seed of light.
The Candlemaster nodded slightly at him, then turned and left.
A more surging heat emanated from within Eivass; he looked down and found his skin had become transparent and was gradually radiating a glow.
Like fireflies, fire ignited within him, and light overflowed—
As the radiance in his chest reached its peak, Eivass suddenly woke up from his dream, drenched in sweat.
He was still sitting in his wheelchair, and the sun had just begun to rise outside. He had slept for less than six hours.
As soon as Eivass opened his eyes, the changed parts of his attribute panel appeared before him, informing him that the advancement was successful:
Priest LV10: [Basic Prayer-LV2 (3%)], [Fire Worship-LV2 (5%)], [Illuminate-LV2 (15%)], [Blessing-LV2 (0%)], [Shepherd’s (Flesh and Blood)-LV2 (10%)]
Mana Pool: 22/22 (Light), 5/5 (Dark), 44/44 (Fire)
Path Traits—
Devotion – Vessel of Scorching and Radiance: Light is born from fire, and fire floats upon light. Your soul is nourished by both. Your “Flame Vessel” and “Light Vessel” levels are increased by one.
Devotion – Light Vessel LV1: You consumed the Blood of the Candlemaster, and your soul was expanded. Your Mana Pool (Light) maximum capacity increased by 14.
Devotion – Flame Vessel LV2: You consumed the Flesh of the Candlemaster, and your soul was further expanded. Your Mana Pool (Fire) maximum capacity increased by 42.
Eivass let out a deep breath.
He felt an unparalleled sense of peace.
With “Vessel of Scorching and Radiance,” he had the minimum guaranteed mana!
—Regardless of whether he chose a vessel trait in his next advancement, Eivass was certain to accumulate enough mana before level twenty to complete the crafting of the first blank card!
No, rather—he no longer needed the Flame Vessel blue Path Trait at all.
Next time, he could use a rare trait to strengthen himself!
“…So, for the next Full Moon Ritual, I still need to find a way to aim for first place.”
Eivass murmured, “However, there’s a highlight reel during the settlement phase…”
This was a significant reminder.
Very timely.
Fortunately, each “highlight” only lasted for a moment, and others should not be able to understand what he had done.
So, next time he had to act more cautiously, not exposing too much—while still scoring high?
Although he was not sure of the exact bonus to the rare trait from the point rankings, Eivass was fairly certain there was a probability bonus. Otherwise, getting two purple traits in the first advancement ritual would be too terrifying.
Generally, the first two traits for Extraordinary beings could only be blue vessel or affinity traits, and players were usually too lazy to reroll—after all, “Affinity” and “Vessel” were bound to be taken once or twice, so it was better to get them early on.
The material for rerolling traits, “Heart of Reshaping,” had to be acquired through microtransactions.
Because Path Traits were both grindy and costly to reroll, although this Rogue-like trait system had extremely high playability and possibilities, the developers’ mothers were still often flying at high speeds outside the atmosphere at the speed of light.
Eivass originally thought he would have to rely on luck for random rolls, and felt quite pessimistic at the time—after all, he didn’t know how this microtransaction item for removing Path Traits could be acquired in reality.
The name alone suggested extreme rarity.
But after he completed a full ritual, he suddenly realized one thing—
Dammit, wasn’t the ritual in the game a watered-down version?
Not only did the advancement ritual have no plot, but it dropped players directly into battling a random BOSS—and the loot was also random.
At most, there was a “Weekly Special” from the developers, which could probabilistically increase the drop rate of some Path Traits.
And the three traits Eivass received didn’t seem very random.
His chance to choose the “Light Affinity” trait was likely related to his obvious lack of combat ability at critical moments—if Eivass were a native without precognitive abilities, he might have realized his own fragility and weakness during the ritual, thus choosing the [Light Affinity] trait to gain combat power.
The trait “Vessel of Scorching and Radiance” was clearly because Eivass had burned through his entire mana pool upon death.
Similarly, he might have felt a lack of mana for this reason and chosen this trait… although his mana wasn’t actually depleted from casting spells, but was instantly burned away by the “Shepherd’s Method.” However, this judgment mechanism clearly didn’t recognize the difference.
As for “Light of the Corrupted,” it was most likely related to some slightly unorthodox actions Eivass had taken. His soul had briefly merged with a demon, and he had even actively killed someone.
But the existence of “Shepherd’s Method” did make this behavior consistent with the Path of Devotion, making it plausible and reasonable.
Thus, this advancement ritual might have considered Eivass to be a “rather unorthodox follower of the Path of Devotion,” and kindly gave him a similarly unorthodox Path Trait, asking if he wanted to switch to output.
Aside from the rarity issue, these three traits were essentially Path Traits “customized according to Eivass’s personal style” by the advancement ritual.
It was quite intelligent.
—In that case, did his actions and evaluation during the ritual affect the category of Path Traits he randomly obtained?
Eivass fell into contemplation.
Perhaps he could conduct an experiment next month during the New Moon Ritual to verify this?
At the same time.
The other participants also opened their eyes one after another.
Six thousand words! Requesting follow-up reads for the new week~
