Alex stared at the description, properly paying attention to it this time. The System was calling the Wild Orc Shaman a Mage Killer, and the reason was obvious. The Wild Orc Shaman could absorb Will from its targets, and without Will, Mages could not properly control Mana, which would leave them nearly useless in battle.
Alex read the effect of the staff next, and his brows furrowed slightly. There was no mention of absorbing Will. Instead, the staff only improved the rate at which Faith recovered.
This meant there were three possibilities. The first was that the Wild Orc Shaman could use the staff differently from Ascendants, meaning Ascendants could not use the ability to absorb Will through the staff. The other possibility was that the ability belonged to the Wild Orc Shaman itself rather than the staff.
The last possibility was that Will was somehow related to Faith. Countless thoughts passed through Alex’s mind at high speed, and the conclusion he eventually reached surprised even him. Will was Faith, or at least the two were directly connected.
More accurately, Priests could absorb the Will that escaped from people’s bodies and convert it into Faith. It matched what he had been observing, especially with Petra’s Faith recovery rate during their Hell difficulty run.
Alex remembered the information Sarah had given them about how many people Petra and she had encountered. When he organized those events in his mind, he realized that Petra’s Faith recovery rate had been higher whenever there were more people around her.
’So for Priests, the more people they are surrounded by, the faster their Faith will increase,’ he concluded.
The realization immediately brought even more questions. How large was the range of Faith absorption, and could Priests absorb Will from specific individuals if certain conditions were met? Or was proximity the only thing that determined their targets? Wild Orc Shaman could clearly control the target for absorption. Priests might be able to do that in future too.
Alex also wondered how Faith could heal injuries and recover fatigue, since it did not appear that Will itself could do either of those things. Or perhaps it could, and he simply needed to learn more about Will before he could understand the connection.
He instinctively knew one thing though. No matter what he did, he could not convert Will into Faith like a Priest could.
That was a unique ability of Priests. Just as only Mages could keep enormous amounts of Mana inside their hearts without allowing it to solidify, and just as Warriors could control Aura naturally without even having a stat dedicated to controlling it, only Priests could convert Will into Faith.
Alex was not discouraged by that fact. He could not use Faith, but he could use Life Element, and he already predicted that it could accomplish similar things if certain conditions were met. More importantly, understanding how Faith worked gave him another valuable piece of information about the classes in this world.
Alex thought about it for a while before reaching another conclusion. Unless there were other factors that affected Faith recovery, powerful Priests would not necessarily want other Priests in their group, because having more Priests nearby might actually slow down their individual recovery rate.
He looked toward the headless corpse of the Wild Orc Shaman. Before this battle, he had considered Priests to be support units, but the battle had proved that assumption not completely true. Priests could be monstrously powerful in combat, and even the System considered them Mage Killers.
Alex needed to keep his thinking flexible. The world was constantly giving him information that challenged what he thought he already understood, and it was better to accept that than to force new information into his existing assumptions. If he started believing that he already knew everything, his growth would eventually stop.
He tried to store the staff in his inventory, but after several attempts, he gave up. The item felt too ’heavy’ for his mind, which was already exhausted from the battle. Will was like a muscle of the mind, and Alex could flex it and use it, but he had abused it so much during the fight that his mind now felt sore in a way physical exhaustion could not explain.
Alex finished collecting everything with Roan, and the two of them moved toward a nearby building where they could rest. Since he did not want to risk losing the staff, Alex placed it inside the side pocket of his giant trekking backpack that was meant for water bottles. He made a small hole at the bottom of the pocket so the staff could be kept there.
Once they were inside the building, Alex changed into a different set of clothes. His previous ones had been torn badly during the battle, and Roan’s clothes were in no better condition. Fortunately, Alex had brought spare clothes in his backpack, so he took out a set and handed them to Roan.
The clothes were a little tight around Roan’s chest and arms. Roan had a decent amount of muscle, unlike Alex, who had never exercised until recently.
Roan gave an awkward chuckle as he looked down at the clothes. He then started taking them off, apparently intending to put his old rags back on, while Alex did not react.
Roan could have searched through one of the abandoned houses for clothes that fit him, but he had not done so. He probably still respected the privacy of the people who had once lived there, even though they were now dead.
While changing, Alex noticed something surprising about his own body, and he paused as he looked down at himself. There were already faint contours of muscles across his arms and chest, something he had never had before.
Alex had never been particularly muscular, and he had not put any stat point into a physical stat yet. After thinking about it for a while, he realized what had happened. He had brutalized and healed his body so many times during his battles that the repeated process of breaking down and recovering his muscles was essentially tempering his body, allowing him to gain muscle at an unusually fast rate.
’Why haven’t my stats increased if I’m getting muscles?’ he wondered. The answer came to him soon after, as he remembered that he had barely eaten anything proper recently, so although his muscles were developing, they were still weak and lacked the nutrients needed to properly grow and strengthen.
Once everything was over, he needed to rest and eat a proper meal. If his understanding was correct, his stats should increase once his body had enough resources to support the changes. He could probably achieve something similar by having his body completely healed. Priests were not capable of fully healing him yet, though, so he would need to level up if he wanted to gain more stats by providing proper nutrients to his muscles.
Wait, could leveling up provide nutrients? That was another food for thought.
After changing, Alex explained some basic information about Mid Rank species to Roan. He did not go into too much detail, since there was still plenty they needed to learn themselves, but he made sure Roan understood the important differences between Mid Rank and Low Rank species.
Once he finished, Alex told Roan to message their groups and let them know that the two of them were safe. Roan nodded and took out his communication device, while Alex finally sat down in the corner of the room.
His body was still injured, and although the pain was manageable, Alex could feel that he needed time to recover. Before resting, however, there was something else he wanted to check, so he brought up his status screen and focused on the spell evolution options.
[Mana Bullet Spell can now be evolved. Choose an evolution: Advanced Mana Bullet Spell, Mana Snipe Spell, Weapon Shot Spell, Mana Scatter Spell]
There were four options. Advanced Mana Bullet Spell was obviously the basic upgrade, and Alex expected it to improve the spell without changing its fundamental nature. Mana Snipe Spell was more interesting, and he suspected it would teach him a better method of using elastic nature of mana to generate enormous power without depending on fire mana for propulsion.
Weapon Shot Spell was probably related to how he had used mana during his battle with the Mid rank Species’ Mantis. He had fired mana daggers repeatedly, and during the previous battle, he had also thrown a mana sword, so the Talent had likely taken those actions into account when creating the evolution options.
Mana Scatter Spell seemed more straightforward, as it would probably allow him to fire several Mana bullets at once, making it useful for dealing with groups of enemies in short range, like a powerful shorgun.
All four spells were good choices, and more importantly, each one seemed capable of teaching him something new rather than simply increasing the power of his existing spell arsenal. Alex did not want to choose immediately, though, because there was another possibility he wanted to test first.
He wanted to know whether he could combine Fire Bullet Spell and Mana Bullet Spell to create stronger evolution options. Both spells had reached Level 10, so this was probably the right time to find out whether the new effect of his talent actually worked.
As soon as Alex thought about fusing the two spells, several System screens appeared before him.
[Checking compatibility between Fire Bullet Spell and Mana Bullet Spell. Compatibility confirmed.]
[Fire Bullet Spell and Mana Bullet Spell can be fused for an evolution. Choose an evolution...]
..
Author’s Note: Sorry for not uploading yesterday. I had surgery, and it took longer than expected. Anyway, more Chapters will be uploaded in a few minutes to make up for yesterday. The rest will be today’s Chapters.
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