Chapter 519

In the end, Arthur chose to go with the Quest Board. It gave him a way to control the group, and while further communication would have been helpful, it was a couple of upgrades away. He knew that the next major upgrade would actually open up Inter-Tower communications anyway, if he did get a major upgrade, which was what happened when you cleared your first Intermediate Tower.

If he just ran around clearing Beginner Towers, though, endlessly, he’d maybe get another minor upgrade but that would come nearly ten plus Towers away – if he was lucky. No, better to get the Intermediate Tower upgrade, faster than working the Beginner Towers. There was no point to it, beyond upgrading the Clan itself and getting enough time in the Tower itself and the stones enough for him to actually progress to the next level.

Also, the occasional enchanted items, the time he could spend pulling energy into himself so that he could ascend the next Intermediate Tower and the practice – oh, yes, the practice – in fighting. That would help, though these last two had mattered little. He knew the next Tower would be more of a challenge, they had been choosing the easiest after all to simplify matters.

In truth, Arthur debated if it would have been better for his team to go in by themselves, ignore spending time with him, keeping him protected and just increase their own strength. There was, of course, the issue of drain – too long in Beginner Towers, grow too strong and your drain, the amount of energy you spent on a regular basis went too high.

There was a balance point somewhere in there, one that all Climbers had to manage. That Arthur and his team were rushing to the end of that, to the tipping point where they all needed Intermediate beast stones and the more powerful energies in those Towers was unusual, at least for most.

After all, the increased danger in an Intermediate Tower was nothing to be scoffed at.

For now, though, the Quest Board would work well; even if getting another step closer to full communication was important. He could do that when they got the Intermediate Tower upgrades, if he truly felt that was necessary.

In the meantime, Arthur had the upgrade to the Seal to review. The Aspect of Guardianship had upgraded already, and saw no alteration this time; so it was only in the Sigil that he had to deal with. The Aspect was a direct upgrade on their existing bonuses, though the next upgrade would likely give him more options to choose from.

The Sigil, however, this time had updates to what it could do. Before he looked it over, though, he eyed the base bonuses.

 

Sigil: The Flame Phoenix

Sigil Bonus (Clan Head): Accelerated Healing – Refined Energy (Grade IVe)

Sigil Bonus (Clan): Cultivation Exercise – Accelerated Healing – Refined Energy (Grade IIe)

Sigil Bonus (Clan) - Enhanced Magnetoreception and Equilibrioception

 

The major aspect was the Accelerated Healing that was offered to everyone in the Clan. His own upgrades to the technique had given the Clan a massive bonus, though the magnetoreception and equilibrioception upgrades were much more subtle.

If Arthur paid attention, he knew he had a sense of the way Magnetic North was, and the Clan – his team – had a very good sense of direction in most Tower floors. Almost no one got lost, guided by the subtle prodding and understanding of where everything else was in relation to themselves. It was a subtle but noticeable change.

If they had a little more power, might they even notice the magnetic field around individauls? There was one, after all, it was what some believed to be ‘auras’ in the real world until the coming of the Tower and everyone – well, almost everyone – gained a very different viewpoint on auras.

Equilibrioception was much more useful on a daily basis, since it meant everyone was just a touch more stable. It gave him the ability o bounce, twist and jump around doing weird cartwheels and never truly lose his balance. How much of that was just his enhanced Body attribute, how much he had improved himself thanks to the Tower and how much the Sigil was hard to tell though.

Still, subtle as they might be, they made life a lot easier and Arthur would not have traded them away.

Didn’t mean he wanted another upgrade to their subtle side. Which was good, because the next upgrade in the Sigil was different.

 

Flame Phoenix Upgrade Options:

·       Heat sense

·       Conjure trivial flame

·       Increased flame resistance

·       Decreased mass

 

Arthur scanned the whole list before he made his first rejection. It did not take him much time to do it at all, since while the option might have made sense for some people and some members of his Clan, and certainly if they were a bird it would have been highly useful, the option was just a touch too specific that it could be tossed.

Decreased mass would mean his blows hit softer, it would meant hey could run further and jump higher and if you were a bird, fly longer. Not particularly useful for a bunch of humans though, so the obvious cancellation.

The other options were interesting. Arthur was tempted to get rid of the conjure trivial flame, since he knew most of the elemental upgrade options were almost worthless -e specially on the beginning side. A trivial size flame was quite literally the size of a lighter. It couldn’t be made bigger and it would take quite a bit of effort to even conjure a flame that big.

Useless – but it did open up the next upgradeand the one after that. It might take him anything from a half-dozen to a score of upgrades, but at a certain point the entire Clan could be a walking bonfire individually.

Fun, but he was tempted to get rid of it since he and Uswah would have little use of such a skill, since their Yin body’s would actually damped the sigil even further. He would be lucky to get a barely flickering flame to appear on the end of a finger.

However, like before – just because something was not good for him or Uswah did not mean the Clan could not benefit. Jan for example would see a not insigifnicant boost to her ability to control fire, to alter her aura. That would increase in strength, as would anyone who already had an elemental technique that dealt with fire or heat. Such individuals would probably kick Arthur the next time they saw him if they knew he had the option to purchase this, and didn’t.

On top of that, from all that he had read,it wouldn’t even harm those with elemental affinities that were directly opposite like water.  Sure, the Yin Body’s like he and Uswah weren’t doing great, but that was more because they were Yin, which was a little different from having an affinity for water. One was a wielding of it, another was an actual aspect.

There might be, of course, some minor changes; but adding another elemental affinity on top of it wouldn’t hurt much. So the choice, overall wasn’t bad.

Except, of course, only a small perentage of his people were currently geared towards using any elemental affinities. Now, they were still a young Clan, so there was nothing that would stop them from turning towards using fire more.

Not necessarily a bad thing, except that fire was such a common element, almost everyone had some form of resistance to it.

Like his next option, which would make them further resistant to fire damage. It was actually probably the most ‘reasonable’ choice, the most long-ranged useful. Fire was just so common, as both an attack and just general heat-resistance that adding it was a safe bet. If nothing else, avoiding damaging taken was better than healing it after.

It’d continue down the road of making the Clan a cockroach – between their healing and the heat resistance, if he could add a way for them to stop more damage at source, the Clan might become really hard to kill.

Whereas Heat sense was the most basic passive. There was some advantages – anytime one was in the dark – which was at least half the day, one would have another second sense to utilize. Not everyone had Arthur’s own Shadow Sense, though most of his Clan would purchase or acquire some secondary sensing technique.

On the other hand, the disadvantage here was that Sigil-based sense additions would trigger immediately, and couldn’t be turned off. It would be like having a second set of eyes that everyone would have to get used to, learn to compensate for.

Nor was it particularly powerful. It was not like they would immediately get IR vision, it would be an entire new sense that; as Arthur was led to understand from his reading, was more 360. Not a bad thing, in a way, but again; something that would require training.

Still, giving his Clan – himself – another sense to use, one that many would not expect could be a huge benefit. There were a variety of Towers that were not particularly visited or liked because they were shrouded in darkness. Cave or underground based locations that would be low competition areas for the Clan to expand into.

That, perhaps was the biggest benefit in Arthur’s thoughts. Even if he did not necessarily need it immediately, they could adjust their plans to visit other such Towers. Give themselves a bit more breathing room, while also becoming a source for cores and maybe even equipment that most others did not.

Decision made, he triggered the choice. And felt his world lurch.