Chapter 51: Protocol.
(A/N Big thanks to everyone for the Power stones and Golden tickets, they mean a lot. As usual, please don’t hesitate to comment or drop a review. ENJOY)
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"You are on." She said, taking her seat opposite him, a frown on her face.
’And easy to rile up.’ Orion thought with a smile.
With a wave of Orion’s finger, a medium-sized chessboard with all the pieces arranged appeared between them.
"Your move," Orion said, turning the white to face her.
{Three hours later}
Iris was staring at Orion, considering whether to open up her nephew’s head and make sure it was a ten-year-old’s brain that was inside.
"Don’t stare at me like that, playing a game against the creator. You signed up for defeat," Orion said with a smirk.
The thought of shamelessly declaring such a thing didn’t faze him at all.
"Being the creator has nothing to do with winning, mark my words, someone even better is going to crush you", Iris said, her tone laced with frustration.
Orion was initially surprised by her words and tone before bursting out laughing.
Iris’ cheeks turned red, blushing furiously, her mind wondering why she had said something like that.
"Until then, I’m the best", Orion responded with a smile.
Iris turned her gaze outside, noticing the sun had mostly come down, evening arriving and with it, a drop in temperature.
"The sun’s down, we can go and train now," Iris said, her tone promising pain.
Orion followed her gaze before turning back to her.
"Sure," He said with a smile.
Iris was surprised; her eyes narrowed. She fully expected him to come up with an excuse or means of dodging.
"Don’t be surprised, Aunt, I’m not exactly against training; the sun was simply discouraging. Besides, I have something I want to test." Orion said.
"What’s that?" Iris asked.
"You’ll know. By the way, can we have a simple sword spar, no flashy spells or magic?" Orion asked.
"Sure." Alice agreed; she had no reason to refuse. But she was suspicious; magic had always been what Orion used to put up a fight against her. Besides,
"Considering you just entered the High rank, shouldn’t you be testing your magic?" Iris asked, perplexed.
"Oh, that can come at a later date," Orion said with a smirk.
"For now, sword fight." He said.
’I want to test my newest skill after all, STATUS, ’ Orion thought.
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STATUS
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NAME: Orion Chronos
AGE: 10
GENDER: MALE
RACE: HUMAN
ATTRIBUTES:
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STRENGTH: 100
AGILITY: 114
ENDURANCE: 143
VITALITY: 423
INTELLIGENCE:384
MANA: 384
CHARM: 115
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RANK: (HIGH) APPRENTICE RANK {Just transitioned}
TALENT: MYTHICAL
BLOODLINE: ???
AFFINITY: SPACE, TIME
ABILITIES:
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Innate Skills:
*Temporal Distortion (Peak proficiency)
-The ability to alter the space around you. You can break, mend, and control the fabric of space. Depends on your proficiency.
*The Seer (Peak proficiency)
-The ability to view glimpses of the present, past, and future with varying locations. It can be through visions or dreams. Depends on your proficiency.
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Acquired skills:
*Eye of truth and façade (Peak proficiency)
The ability to access the information of another party with a single glance in the form of a status screen and alter your perceived strength from others. Heavily depends on proficiency.
*Reflection
The ability to dive into one’s memories, recalling every single detail with unnatural clarity. (Requires no mana)
*Protocol (Low proficiency)
The Mental and Physical protocols of this world are yours to see; do with them what you will.
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Trained skills:
*Kairos step (Peak proficiency)
Acts at the perfect moment, improving dodges and counterattacks.
*Aether Step (High proficiency)
Short-range teleportation (≤ 10 meters).
*Nova Spark (Peak proficiency)
Compress a marble-sized pocket of distorted space, then release it in a small, concentrated burst.
*Nova Bloom (Low proficiency)
Collapse a larger sphere of warped space and trigger a massive, radiant detonation.
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Orion looked through his status, his eyes landing on his newest skill, ’Protocol’. He had just transitioned to High apprentice rank yesterday, and for some reason, it took a lot of his stamina, hence why he was still in bed in the afternoon.
And he was completely sure, this was the second most Op skill in his current arsenal.
The description wasn’t kidding when it said, every protocol was laid bare before him, information, information and even more information was directly provided to his mind whenever he activated it.
Situations and instances that normally seemed so random now made sense to him; calculations and predictions seamlessly flowed into his mind.
And it didn’t just factor in physical interactions, even mental ones, provided he knew and had studied an individual up to a certain level, he could almost always predict how such a person would walk, what actions he/she would take before even the individual could realise they had done such a thing.
It wasn’t omniscient like completely reading a person’s thoughts or thinking a million steps ahead, and there was a limited amount of info his mind could process at once; he had to focus on one thing at a time.
And all this was based on the limited amount of time he’d practised or used the skill, considering it was still at low proficiency, he couldn’t imagine what it’d be like at peak, maybe it’d be like Deus Ex machina.
But even he knew that was pushing it, no matter how much the skill provided info, if he couldn’t process very large amounts, it was pointless and factoring human and sentient actions was going to be even worse.
In the first place, in the hands of the majority, the skill would be very limited. The only reason he’d considered the skill very Op was the way it complemented his Spatial senses, and considering how in tune he was with space and how much he could see without his eyes, the skill was god sent.
The seer was currently his most OP skill; it’d be hard to beat seeing the future after all. After getting to peak rank, he could now willingly look far ahead, but he rarely did.
When he’d gotten to High and tried looking into the past, he’d thought the cost was incredible, but the future was practically draining and astronomical; his mana after increasing so much couldn’t even handle past a minute, and that was factoring in fainting immediately after.
Seeing that long was nice but very impractical considering the cost, still, he wasn’t discouraged; his mana was still growing, besides, there had to be other means of increasing mana.
But now, he’d gotten something similar, and this one wasn’t as draining as ’The Seer’.
’Let’s do this. ’ He thought.