Chapter 265: Jorn’s Hunting Dogs

Sourdough.

“Damn that itches,” Will muttered, carefully watching as the potion grew his hand back.

The kid, Jorn, was watching Will’s right hand sprout from his forearm in a matter of seconds, his eyes bulging out of his head.

Good potion, Will thought, storing the expensive potion back in his Dimensional Storage.

What he was paying the closest attention to was the miasmatic structures that ran throughout his hand. He knew it would probably come back, because he hadn’t sacrificed the hand yet, but he couldn’t help but be paranoid, given his history.

Will watched as his Class grew inside his arm, pulling his flesh along with it as it grew a brand-new right hand.

Hmm. Will flexed his hand a few time, making sure everything was in working order. It was a bit weak, but that was normal.

Will nodded, and Loth handed him his preserved right hand to offer to the Tower.

William Oh’s right hand Sacrifice for Phantom hand.

Phantom Hand gains an extra hand. The extra hand has all the abilities of the first. Despite having two hands, only one of the 10 preserved Relics can be slotted.

Do you wish to Sacrifice William Oh’s Right Hand to Phantom Hand?

No.

Just to check, Will offered the hand to Aspect, Map, and Uru Drake’s Eye.

Map rejected it on account of being too similar to a previous Sacrifice, Uru Drake’s Eye gave him the ability to see Notoriety, and Aspect…

Qualitative upgrade to Aspect of the Immortal Serpent detected!

Aspect of the Immortal Serpent Becomes Aspect of William Oh.

Abilities of Aspect of the Immortal Serpent are retained and bundled in with Aspect of Wiliam Oh.

Qualitative Upgrade increases Upgrade Slots from 6 to 9.

Aspect of William Oh: The Coil guides you to your fate.

…Well, that’s creepy.

Will thought about that for a moment. Perhaps it would be best not to take that qualitative upgrade.

In layman’s terms, if he was planning on punching fate in the nose, he should probably not have a leash for it to tug on.

Will switched back to offering his hand to Phantom Hand.

Do you wish to Sacrifice William Oh’s Right Hand to Phantom Hand?

Yes.

The hand disappeared in a flash of light, and Will immediately checked his right hand to make sure it still had miasma in it.

Will let out a breath when he spotted his Class still shimmering under the skin of his right hand.

“My guess is that when your Class imprinted on you without a left hand, it assumed that was the default.” Loth mused. “It doesn’t have a blueprint for your left, but it does for the right…which is why you can use magic and potions to grow it back.”

Phantom Hand has been upgraded. It is now Phantom Hands. Check the Ability Description for details.

Phantom Hands *(X7)

Passive

Active: 1 charge.

Toggle: 14 Focus

Gain the use of two armored* ethereal Phantom Hands. Access a tiny amount of dimensional storage with a Charge. Items inside the Dimensional Storage shrink, scaling with Acuity.

Sacrifice a stored Relic to imprint its effect to one of ten slots. Only one slot can be active at a time. Switching to another slot causes the previous one to be inactive for 24 hours, and overwriting a slot causes the slot to be inactive for a week. Relic potency scales with Acuity.

Create a physical manifestation of a stored item for the Toggle cost. May also manifest imprinted Relics and grant them to allies. The imprinted Relic has its full boosted stats, lasts only a short time outside the ally’s possession, and disintegrates immediately if revoked or relinquished.

While manifested, the Relic is not available to the User. The manifested Relic cannot be modified, and if damaged beyond a certain point, it will disintegrate and return to the user, regrowing over 24 hours.

There were probably more aggressive choices Will could’ve made, but with this, he could easily create custom Relics for a handful of Vassals that would perform far beyond their capacity.

Only two Phantom Hand upgrades left, Will thought.

Will still had a Primary, two secondaries and a tertiary to sort through…but that could wait until he got his new Vassal brought up to speed.

“Alright, I’ve got that taken care of, let’s take a look at your status,” Will said, turning his attention to Jorn and bringing up his status in the Party.

Jorn Hreinnson

level 32 Abyssal Guide

96 Strength

128 Resistance

32 Kinesthetics

96 Acuity

96 Focus

Charges: 88/96

Free point: 32

Primary Abilities: Totem Guardian, Bone Arrow

Primary Ability Upgrade Available X6

Secondary Ability Upgrade Available! X3

Tertiary Ability Available!

Very tough, but his Kinesthetics means he’s probably not gonna be amazing in a dynamic fight, Will thought, studying Jorn’s Class. Kinesthetics made a good duelist or scrapper. Someone operating at high speeds with a narrow margin for error. An archer simply didn’t need more Kinesthetics than necessary to land a shot. Especially with accuracy Relics available.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The raw stats are better suited for camping out in one spot and hitting a creature with a devastating strike. Maybe trading blows in close combat rather than dodging.

He’s had some hunter apprenticeship, so maybe…Will shook his head. He didn’t want to be heavy-handed when consulting for the kid’s Class. Maybe Jorn would come up with something that suited him better. He should ask him directly.

“What kind of hunter did you want to be?” Will asked.

“My father had a taming skill. He had a couple dogs who would flush prey out for him and he’d shoot them. The prey, not the dogs. I picked Totem Guardian because I thought I could use it like that.” Jorn said.

Hunting dogs. So that’s what he was thinking. Makes sense.

“There’s so many roads available to you at the beginning. let me go through them.” Will said, writing down Jorn’s Abilities and guiding him through their description.

Totem Guardian

Active: 5 Charge

Upon slaying a creature, the user may pay 5 charge to create a bone totem.

Toggle: 7 Focus. User may break a totem to summon the spirit within. The spirit has all the abilities of the original, and fights on behalf of the user. Its power scales with the user’s Focus, up to the limit of its original strength. Dismissible.

Bone Arrow

1 Charge

Craft Focus/10 Arrows from a single bone. When used against targets of the same species the bone originated from, these arrows ignore a portion of their Resistance. Arrows apply a necrosis debuff. Scales with Focus.