[Alpha Rank: Combat Shop]
{Technique Kiosk}
{Talent Based Technique Books}
{It has been recognized that the User has the Talent: (Prymordyal) Psy-Kinesis; as you have obtained a Racial-Tier Talent, your available Alpha Grade Talent Books have been Unlocked.}
:{1: (Minor) Psy-Tag Talent Book (α) = 25,000 Α-Coins}:
:{2: (Minor) Psy-Shock Talent Book (α) = 27,050 Α-Coins }:
:{3: (Minor) Augmentation Stage 1 Talent Book (α) = 28,000 Α-Coins }:
:{4: (Minor) Control Stage 1 Talent Book (α) = 30,000 Α-Coins }:
’Those…those are…SO EXPENSIVE, WHAT THE HELL!’ Setting aside the fact that there were two brand new Techniques I had never seen before on the list, my eyes couldn’t focus on anything other than the Astronomical price tags attached to each one.
Minor Augmentation and Minor Control were both techniques I was entirely used to using, as I had unlocked them as Talent Skills in time, with both being obtained upon my Talent Reaching Beta-Rank.
When my Talent reached Alpha-Rank in the Origin Timeline, two new skills came along with the rank up, the first being an upgraded version of my current No-Rank Skill called Major Coercion, and the second was Minor Augmentation Stage 1.
By the time I finally advanced to Beta-Rank, my skill pool expanded, adding on upgraded versions of Augmentation and Control, which, as its name implied, was a more powerful coercion that would practically brainwash people who were weaker than me.
The downside was its immense PC cost, but that was neither here nor there.
I should probably explain that whole Major Minor thing… Right, let’s break it down into the simplest terminology possible. Minor is just a name for the weakest version of the Skill.
Whereas Major is its 2nd Stage, and after Major, there are two more stages, Major Plus and Perfect. To my knowledge, once a skill has Perfect in its name, that’s the ultimate form, and you can exert the full power of the ability.
Whether or not there are higher classifications for skills, I have no idea, but between the online message boards of the future and my personal experience, Perfect is the peak of power when it comes to Skills.
Further expanding, every Talent naturally comes along with its specific skill tree, which will flow along the Minor-Perfect line until you have reached the peak of what your Talent is able to produce.
Generally, every time you Rank up your Talent, a wave of information will flood your mind, revealing a rudimentary batch of knowledge explaining your unlocked skills, and it is up to you as to whether you are able to use them or not.
Let me add that just because a skill is in the Minor Stage, that doesn’t mean it’s stuck there; just like Training your Talent increases its proficiency and progress, prolonged use and training can but won’t always improve the Phase or Step your Skill is in.
Even by unlocking the ability to upgrade my Minor Coersion to Major at Alpha-Rank, that didn’t mean it would be forcefully pushed up to that Stage; no, instead, it only meant I would be able to break through if I trained the Skill hard enough.
The only time Arkadia gave you a freebie was when a new Minor Skill was unlocked, and even then, all it did was inform you of the method of using said Skill.
Holding up my right hand to block the crazy price tags listed on my display panel, I examined the names and grades of what would eventually become Talent Skills.
There is a pretty big difference between Skills and Techniques, mainly due to whether or not Arkadia recognizes it as such.
A technique can become a skill, but the opposite can not be said about the latter. Unlike techniques, which can be passed around and taught to others, Arkadia specifically annotates skills, and since they are generally attached to Talents and Talents alone, they are aspects that only apply to the person who learned them; thus, they can’t be passed on to others.
In the case of Technique books, just like with movement or fighting techniques, you would learn the basics of how to perform the technique, and it was up to you to push it further into the Skill category.
By showing me two new techniques, I now knew that there was more to my Talent than I had originally thought; it also revealed just how crafty that mistress named Arkadia was.
’Psy-Tag and Psy-Shock, while I can assume the second is some type of mental attack…I have no idea what Tag could be…is it a tracking technique, or maybe something more…’ I thought while clicking on the Psy-Tag technique in an attempt to get a description.
But of course, like always, Arkadia only gave a VERY rough description of the technique.
{Psy-Tag: A technique that allows you to tag your targets and gather information.}
’And how in the hell does it do that? What kind of information can I gather? Come on, Arkadia, do better,’ wearing a dead-eyed expression, I clicked on Psy-Shock only to get another vague description.
{Psy-Shock: A technique that allows you to Focus your mind to attack that of your target.}
’For once, I would like to have more answers than questions, like, I get that this damn system is all about us learning how to use our abilities and all, but at least give me some solid data for once.’
Looking at all four of my options, I had a hard decision to make. Honestly, an argument could be held that I needed both Control and Augmentation, as they would allow me to increase my capacity to succeed by a large margin; however, without the ability to regenerate PC, having them was more of a disadvantage than a positive thing.
Especially in the case of Control, even at its Minor Stage, it would cost me at the minimum 5 or 600 PCs to brainwash someone, whereas with Augmentation, at the First Stage, all I could do was augment my fists