Chapter 8

Talent trees. They were and a source of much speculation and not a few conspiracy theories back on Earth. They also kept Redditors, podcasters and amateur spreadsheets nerds consistently busy trying to make the best predictions, the most accurate overviews. And they were the source to real power here on Ademia.

Attributes and quirks could make you stronger than Eddie Hall, faster than IShowSpeed and better at knitting than Auntie Gertrude. Skills would make you ever so slightly better at whatever you did. Yet, your talents were what could take you from insanely powerful into outright superhero territory. They could provide you with the magical arsenal to make you stand out from anybody and everybody.

And some sorry fucker had gone and cut off access to half their prospective talents from the get go.

I stared wistfully at my offensive talent tree, now entirely greyed out and inaccessible in front of me. Then I shook my head and focused on the defensive talent tree. I’d made my bed. Now, I was going to make it the most kick-ass defensive pillow fort ever!

First, however, I was sidelined by the return of that tremor, followed by the strange sensation. That weird non-scream re-appeared, making my bones thrum and my inner ear confused by what was happening. A group of newcomers stopped in their tracks and looked at each other, fear and insecurity in their eyes. Then, seconds later, the sensation faded like it had never existed, the newcomers shrugged and continued, and veterans acted like it hadn’t even happened. I returned to my plans.

One thing, everybody agreed about, back on Earth. The first few Tiers were mostly filler. Yet, they often contained a few must-haves or at least choices that would work well with your chosen path and grow along with you. One of my Tier 2 options shouted to the heavens:

Improved Defense

Passive talent. Adds to the effectiveness of your Fortitude, armor and shield. +5% per talent point.

0/5 points

Yes! Of course, I was going to choose that one. Eventually. It was going to have excellent synergies with my sky-high Fortitude and my positive quirk adding a fifty percent efficiency increase to all passive skills and talents.

For now, I needed my killing talent. I moved on, laser-focused on my target, on my need to find the right choice.

I laughed in stark relief. There. Tier 2. Shield Bash. Simple. Straightforward. Just what the doctor ordered. I grinned. Also, too weak. I was allowed to go for the top Tier. Why would I ever not do it?

Tier 5. Yes please. This was the stuff. I was practically salivating. And there we had it. I nearly shed a tear.

Force of the Elements.

Passive talent. For a full minute after activation, each corner of your shield will be imbued with the elements. Any subsequent shield bash will activate one of four different effects; burning, freezing, knockback or a localized dust storm. 5 points to unlock.

0/5 points

Wonderful. It looked powerful as hell, versatile, and since it was passive, it’d fall under the umbrella of my positive quirk and be stronger! I grinned and selected the talent in order to spend the talent points and unlock it.

A pop-up derailed my train of thought, like somebody tearing your headphones away, mid-track.

Warning: A shield bash counts as an offensive attack. As such, it will be made inactive by your negative quirk, Enforced Anti-violence. Continue? Y/N?

What? I re-read the notification twice. Then I started to sweat. No! This couldn’t be true. It was completely counter-intuitive. Of course, a shield bash was striking somebody. But it was still with a shield. And the talent was under the goddamn defensive talent tree! They couldn’t do this to me! I cancelled the selection and returned to the rest of the talents.

A few minutes later, my panic was devolving into horror. They could, and were, doing this to me. Tier 2 Shield Bash? Offensive. Tier 1 Taunt? Mental attack, hence offensive. Tier 4 Dome of Pain? A 30-second ongoing burst of damage surrounding the Fighter, aka me. Offensive as hell. Just like that, a full four of my twenty-one total available talents had been made ineligible – and my plan for survival had been shot to shit.

I panicked for a while. Well, first I spent at least five minutes trying to find a cancel button, the restart, any way to take back my stupid choice and get a do-over. Then I panicked. I also cursed a lot. Blamed whoever invented the system. The U-Nerds for urging people to choose quirks. And, obviously, myself for being the dumbest fucker alive.

Eventually, I found some semblance of broken calm, and realized that the deed had been done. I’d messed up and would have to try to salvage the situation. It was either that, or go back through the portal, and be penniless in the middle of nowhere.

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I slapped myself on the cheeks to calm down, then started going through the Tiers, one by one, to see if there was anything that could be done. Most talents, it seemed cost five talent points to max, with a few exceptions.

Tier 1

Hardiness

Improved Leap

Improved Stamina

Taunt

Tier 1 was mostly crap. Improved Leap was impressively useless. It also only cost two talent points, where most others cost five to max, but still. Hardiness granted health, and Improved Stamina gave stamina. Both slightly useful – but neither were an issue for me. Taunt was useless, hot, steaming garbage.

Tier 2

Improved Defense

Dodge

Improved Resistances

Shield Bash

Tier 2 got a bit better, but not much. Improved Defense, as mentioned, would be an excellent choice, but not just yet. Dodge was an active skill, hence not as good as any passives for me. Improved Resistances? Yeah, no. Shield Bash was offensive and not an option.

Tier 3

Burgeoning Aggression

Improved Run Speed

Life Steal

Slow Missiles

All lovely choices. All useful in their own right. All utterly useless for what I needed. Life Steal sounded promising, but it was a passive that would convert a percentage of any damage I did to health. Which, at this moment, was zilch. Improved Run Speed was a bit better, being a passive, and also only cost three talent points. It still didn’t give me a way to fight back! I did find Burgeoning Aggression intriguing.