The Arcane Emperor - Chapter 161: Final Reward

[Calculating Rewards based on Classes, Skills, Spells, Familiars, and Miscellaneous factors.]

[Can Choose 1 of Each]

[Passive Skills Available: Soul Perseverance, Soul Severance, Soul Convergence]

[Items Available: Arcane Tattoo of Storage, Void Tattoo of Storage]

[Bonus Passive Skill: Spell Haste]

[Bonus Item: Cosmic Map]

Before anything else, Rainer took a look at the things given automatically. No matter how deeply the passive skills interested him, he needed time to make a rational choice. What better way to distract himself than with new rewards? And everyone else around him was just as distracted, so there was little reason to speak of what they would do next.

He stared at the dark orb that appeared in front of him. It stopped hovering the moment he picked it up. The small connection forming with his Soul was obvious, to him at least, but he let it do its work. It wouldn’t be hard to break the connection afterward. A few seconds of waiting later and Rainer got the distinct feeling it was copying his memories. He wasn’t sure how he understood that but assumed it was just a magic of the Soul.

Moments later, the previously dim orb lit up and cycled through a variety of the scenes Rainer guessed were places he visited. Getting a hunch, Rainer followed along the Soul connection to the orb and realized he could use it as a guide for [Void-walking]. Even if the current environment blocked him from actually doing so.

It was an item tailor-made to him. Especially since he currently lacked any means to return to the Abyssal Planes, and his child. And while [Void-Traveling] had its advantages, it was, in the end, for better or worse mostly unaffected by space. Which in turn meant [Blade of the Void] didn’t improve its function. Crossing to new worlds with [Void-Traveling] was a long ways away.

[Cosmic Map: A Soul-connected Map.]

He barely kept from throwing the thing, knowing it wasn’t ‘its’ fault that such a useless [Appraisal] happened. It looked like discovering any other features—something he felt was there given that a glance with [Arcane Revelation] basically screamed at him that it was far too complex and powerful to only do this—would have to wait till later.

Playing around with it for a little longer, Rainer quickly realized how pleasant that was. Whether it was the Soul connection or the material it was made of, he could not say. Was he a villain playing with a globe? Thinking of all the magic out there to bargain for or steal. Rainer chuckled at the thought.

He compared both the [Primordial Rock] and the [Cosmic Map]. There didn’t seem to be any similarity even if the previous Bonus item was directly related to the former. This one seemed to not be related. A shame.

[Spell Haste lvl 1/10: By imprinting one’s magical knowledge upon an area of one’s Soul, the speed at which they cast increases.]

He found nothing on his Soul to indicate the existence of this passive skill, making him guess this reward was far beyond his current level. In fact, he didn’t even feel a change while he was receiving the reward. He may have been focused on the orb at the time, but he wasn’t that focused to not notice that someone was playing with his Soul.

How exciting. He’d unravel it in the danger-free land of [Sleep Learning] sooner or later.

It took Rainer only a moment of testing with [Arcane Bolt] to guess the increase was somewhere between 15-20%. Impressive in the sense that a quick use of [Arcane Awakening: Surge] proved it was the sort of stacking that multiplied overall. Such an increase would of course be nothing if it counted alongside his 200% General Improvement from Archon or his Talent, but being a total effect made it astounding.

It addressed the problems of his recent battles versus the Demon Princes, the Wolf King, and the damned near immortal—perhaps even more than the ‘lovingly’ known Zombie King—Human Golden Aura user. Not to mention once he finally reached the coveted level 8 in [Avatar Control], the issue would be even lesser if he had an Avatar by his side.

How he wished to travel to that man’s world and unravel the secrets of his Aura for Kara. All he had left to worry about was Luna if Kara obtained such a survival method on top of her natural demonic strength. He frowned a bit as he recalled another person he loved was technically loathed or hunted by many of the Gods in the universe. It seemed he’d need another solution for that as well; even if she never returned his thoughts, she was a dear friend before that.

And she had more than proved herself just helping with this Dungeon. It had been hidden deeply, but it wasn’t uncommon for him to see a flash of pain across her face. Clearly possessing Aurora so often wasn’t easy when considering the injury she took destroying all the Gates the Void Lords possessed.

Still playing with the ‘Map’ in his hands, Rainer finally took a closer look at his skills.

[Soul Perseverance: Tempers the Soul to allow it to control and persist longer after the body loses consciousness.]

Rainer had already experienced this partially, being able to heal himself with [Arcane Invigoration] when by all rights his body shouldn’t be able to use that skill. If he had full access to himself while in such a state, combined with the use of his various body-related manipulation skills, he might truly be able to revive from actual death.

[Soul Severance: Tempers the Soul to allow all its offensive abilities to strike at the connections between life and death.]

While the description was less clear, Rainer guessed it meant skills like [Devil’s Soul Language], and perhaps even spells like [Arcane Bolt]—when empowered by [Soul Presence]— strike directly at the Soul and perhaps kill someone before they truly die. His [Arcane Awakening: Final Arcanum] of the final round came to mind.

[Soul Convergence: Tempers the Soul and brings its contents closer together. The Soul is improved in both strength and efficiency.]

Rainer nearly asked if the system was being serious. When had he ever received such an obvious description of a reward, class skill or dungeon wise?

Sadly, the choice was obvious. [Arcane Invigoration]’s capabilities combined with his manipulation skills and [Soul Presence] meant to pick anything else was borderline suicidal. No matter how much the other two interested him, [Soul Perseverance] was by far the most needed.

He not only stared at himself with [Arcane Revelation], all his will focused on his Soul and the contents within it. To his surprise, the changes were easily seen and felt. And once more to his surprise, he had no idea what was happening from start to finish. All that he learned was that he had a new 1/10 passive skill, and it didn’t seem to cost anything.

[Arcane Tattoo of Storage: Allows the storage of an Arcane Spell or Skill made of up to 250 points of Arcane Power within the tattoo for instant usage. Takes 1 day to recharge after use.]

Rainer raised an eyebrow, wondering if he could literally store a stronger Final Arcanum than he could currently produce. But then there was a problem. Could he store the act of using [Soul Presence] onto the spell or skill? Or even the use of certain manipulation skills?

It would still be incredibly useful, but he got the general impression that the skill or spell needed to be pure.

[Void Tattoo of Storage: Allows the storage of a Void Spell or Skill made of up to 250 points of Void Will within the tattoo for instant usage. Takes 1 day to recharge after use.]

His eyes widened. Did the system really think these two items were at all equal? Did that then mean [Soul Presence] could be added on to the storage method? But as he thought of more uses of the Arcane one, whether a smaller, yet still powerful [Absolute Frost], or a possible instant use of 250 points of [Arcane Invigoration], he realized they really were equal.

It depended on what ‘instant’ meant. Instantly start the spell or skill, or instantly in an absolute fashion were in entirely different leagues. Instantly start a [Void Call] was the same as always. Instantly create a [Void Call] meant a death no one could escape from.

And that wasn’t even considering that he could likely give either item to someone else after charging them.

That last thought had made the decision for him. While the uses in the Arcane were essentially as limitless as his magic, having an escape button or alternatively a powerful trap was harder to pass up when he thought of giving the item to another to use at times. Not to mention he had no idea how storing [Arcane Awakening] or [Arcane Invigoration] would work on another…

But how dearly did he wish to find out. Giving someone on his side 100% to all their attributes? And a 250 point worth of [Arcane Awakening] would last quite a long time. And having it run through their body, what could they learn from that experience?

Rainer groaned and even felt a bit of sweat on his forehead as he constantly flip-flopped his choices. He lost track of how much time passed, making the ‘final’ decision who knew how many times.

[Creating Final Reward based on all choices throughout the Dungeon]

Rainer was stunned as he looked at this message, more than a little excited. And mostly relieved to be temporarily taken away from making a choice. When had he ever been so indecisive in his life? The feeling was unwelcome. How did anyone deal with this?

Given the experience reward that had leveled not only his Primary but also his Subclasses to level 25, he had been a little underwhelmed at the offered rewards. They weren’t worse but they also weren’t that much better than previous stages. Even if their party’s triumph was mostly related to the Void and a last burst by Art’s uniquely developed magic from Earth, they had still defeated hundreds of top 2nd Tier parties.

But now it seemed they’d be getting the reward he expected.

He thought over his choices and realized the final result would undoubtedly be Soul and or Arcane related. Both [Living Storage] and [Soul Sheath] related to the Soul, Magical Perception and [Arcane Necklace of Combat] related to his magic of course, if indirectly. He had only Soul related choices this time, as he didn’t even finish choosing between the two items.

‘All choices’ though. It might not even be referring to the items. His guesswork was quickly put to an end, however.

[Final Reward: Void Tattoo of Storage]

Rainer covered his face, feeling oddly embarrassed. He briefly glanced around, wondering what else people had received and noticed a good portion were waiting for him. Perhaps he was the only one yet to make a choice.

It was a few seconds later that both his right palm and left palm were covered in a ‘tattoo’. Selecting the [Arcane Tattoo of Storage] became obvious now. One shaped like the primary Rune for Arcane, the other… a Rune similar to the one in the Avatar Ritual for connecting Void Will between bodies. Given it’s relatively easy removability, it was only a tattoo in appearance. He had just to express the desire for it to be removed, and he could peel it off. Something he hadn’t even considered until now for all his various plans. The runes themselves quickly became near invisible after being put on.

But when he thought of the idea of combining them together once he figured out how to use the Void and Arcane, he felt it a very fitting reward.