Oh? Rael looked on in anticipation, fully aware of what was about to happen.
Reading the warning, Rael let out a slight chuckle. Evelyn had given him a lot of shit for his arrogance, but when it came to handling a skill, he was sure that unless it was some world-scale pocket nuke skill, he could handle it.
Especially since the skill was related to the mind and control. He literally had a race that focused on such things. Another of his races focused on fear that directly tied to the mind as well.
In the end, he didn’t think too much over it. If he wasn’t ready, then he just wouldn’t use the skill until he grew strong enough. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novel·fiɾe·net
With those thoughts in mind, he went ahead and pressed "Yes."
Immediately, the ring on his finger flashed brighter, surprising Kareth and those nearby.
"What are you doing?" Kareth asked, turning to Vatyra. "You made the ring, right? What’s happening?"
Vatyra tilted her head. "Not sure? Uhh... He’s upgrading it? I think?"
"He’s upgrading my ring?" Kareth repeated in disbelief. "And how exactly is that possible?"
As the question hung in the air, Vatyra finally narrowed her eyes at Rael. He was out of it, but the ring around his finger continued to glow brightly, sending miniature pulses throughout the surroundings and making the mana of the Supreme Monsters flare up momentarily.
It wasn’t a drastic change, but whatever was going on with Rael was something serious. Therefore, all three of the remaining Supreme Monsters walked up to him, inspecting him closely.
"Perhaps he’s going to grow a tail?" Vatyra mused.
"He’s already done that when he fought Zarkul," Chronos replied flatly. "Maybe he’ll manifest greater time powers?"
"You two seem to be forgetting this is my ring," Kareth interjected with a scoff.
Vatyra raised a brow. "A ring that I made, remember? Just give it a moment. Looks like the glow is dying down."
And of course, she was right, as within the next minute, Rael’s consciousness returned. For him, only a few seconds had passed, and he didn’t even know he had blacked out.
But when he came to, he saw the three Supreme Monsters staring at him with curiosity defining their gazes.
"Is there a problem...?" Rael asked skeptically.
"What did you do just now?" Vatyra stepped closer. "If you tell me how you modified that ring, then the lesson on the movement skill is not the only thing you’ll get."
"Hmm... I might tell you during the lesson," Rael replied flatly, turning to Kareth. "You said there’ll be something else, right? What now?"
"Indeed..." Kareth nodded slowly. "I was going to give you a rundown on how things work around here. Also, just so you know, you’ve been accepted as the successor, but you’ve yet to be officially recognized as one. There’s a ceremony I have to do, but that’ll take at least a month to set up."
"Seriously...?" Rael muttered, then remembered he wasn’t exactly talking to his bestest of friends. "That’s fine. I have time."
Kareth raised a brow at Rael’s change in attitude, but without thinking too much on it, he continued.
"I also promised I would teach you how your skill worked, yes? You should inspect it for starters. I’ll tell you how to synthesize it so you can get the most out of it."
Hearing that, Rael remembered he had just merged the skills together. So after refocusing on the pop-ups, he was met with a pleasant sight.
This wasn’t something he had expected in the slightest. Sure, Puppetry and Neuroweb shared some similarities, but this time, he wasn’t even asked permission and the skill merged by itself.
In a way, he was a bit angry since he might lose something important. However, when he looked at the skill that was produced, his frown turned into a cheeky grin in an instant.
Eternal Marionette [Level 100 | MAX] (Unique - Primordial)
—The culmination of strings and stage. With this skill, all beings are bound to your eternal performance.
1. Sovereign Strings (Passive): Every being within 1,000,000 meters is threaded. Threaded beings share damage, debuffs, and emotions at 50% efficiency. Their movements, speech, and abilities may be directed at will. Resistance is only possible for entities 2 full Grades above you.
2. Marionette Dominion: Instantly seize full control of a target’s body, soul, and abilities. Stronger beings can resist, but doing so inflicts True Mental Damage equal to 0.01%~1% of their Max HP per second.
↳ Cost: 1 Trillion MTP | Duration: 300s
3. Eternal Theater: Rewrite the battlefield into your Eternal Stage. All threaded beings are forced to enact the roles you assign: ally, enemy, traitor, or victim. Resisting beings fracture their own souls with each attempt.
↳ Cost: 10 Trillion MTP | Duration: 120s
4. Curtain of Eternity (Ultimate): Sever all strings. Enemies instantly lose 50% of their maximum HP and suffer permanent soul damage (10% if the enemy is at least 1 Grade higher than you). Allies are restored to full health and gain +200% to all stats for 24 hours.
↳ Cost: 50 Trillion MTP | Cooldown: 7 Days
5. Marionette Forge (Special): Create puppets from flesh, memory, emotion, concept, or causality. Higher materials grant greater effects.
Max Puppets: 99 (exceeding limit drains Willpower).
There’s no direct damage like Neural Collapse... But that’s fine, Rael thought, excitement building up in his chest. When I figure out how this skill synthesis, as Kareth had called it, works, then I’ll be able to use this skill to attack.
But not only that, he basically retained the most important skill from Puppetry, Marionette Forge. Its name had changed, but the effects were the same. Except now, it had a limit of 99 puppets instead of 15.
And I can also go beyond that if I wanted to... Rael chuckled, basking in his luck as he met Kareth’s gaze.
The man did say he was going to teach him how to synthesize the skill, so Rael would take full advantage of him.