Sword Thread—It was a finely condensed Mana given a sharp edge with his exceptional control that highly excelled when it came to some particular areas, like a sword, for example.
To create the skill based on Sword Thread, Almond first designed it to make the Sword String appear like a spring-shape as he wanted it directly wrapped around a target upon manifestation.
He kept the trigger mechanism as his thought command. Upon command, the skill rune would absorb his Mana according to his desired amount based on his skill execution.
The core function was simple for this skill. He didn’t have any knowledge of how to give a proper attribute to his Mana yet as he reckoned he would need to learn Mana Transmutation to give different properties, elemental or non, to give to his Mana in this section.
He created ten nodes in a spring shape overlapping his visual of the spring shape he created in the design section and kept the power source balanced so that the entire string would have a constant flow of power to maintain its sharpness according to the design.
Lastly, he set the Execution section.
He set the channeled duration according to how he set up the core section. The spring sword thread would remain active as long as he fed the skill his Mana.
The aftereffect was nothing else aside from damage according to the skill’s effect on the target.
He didn’t know how to fill up the skill rune’s core section with attribute powers, so this skill didn’t have any buff, debuff, or additional effect to bring out aside from pure damage.
Efficiency was determined automatically based on the above things. But he could change it by changing the above parts of the skill to determine which part of the skill would get more Mana and potency. But his skill wasn’t anything complicated, so there was nothing to change.
He could change the thread’s width and length, but he wanted to keep it his current design for now and see how it would go first.
‘Now, let’s see if it actually works or not.’
Almond got up and moved towards a nearby crystal grown a meter long from the ground and roughly half a meter in thickness.
He gave command to that skill rune. Almond’s mind was instantly connected to the skill rune, bringing back the familiar feeling of having it in his control.
In the next second, a precise 4.7-meter length of sword thread in a spring shape materialized around the crystal in an even fashion from its head to bottom. It is tightly wrapped around it, its edges embedded inside.
‘Damn, that took 231 Mana?’ Almond was speechless.
He saw that the sword thread around the crystal was dispersing in the next second instead of shattering the crystal by gripping it.
‘Ok…so it was a failure.’
But Almond was grinning because he knew exactly why it didn’t work.
‘Using the skill once actually gave me full insight on what I need to do in the skill rune to make it work properly. I should first create a random crude skill simply using my Mana and determine parameters from it to input in the skill rune. Yes, this should work.’
Almond spent the next half an hour refining the skill rune thoroughly.
The result surprised him.
The skill cost lowered to 120 Mana, and it instantly shattered the crystal.
He knew he could improve further, but he was satisfied with this result.
Serpentcoil Thread Blade—after naming this skill rune, Almond pulled his mind out of this subject.
He took out the skill book—Lightning Dragon Skillset.
‘It’s time to learn this shit. I am definitely excited to have some flashy cool skill and how I might be able to delve into getting some lightning affinity to use it as an attribute.’
The requirement to delve into Mana Transmutation was having 200 Perception and Focus. Almond had exactly 200 Perceptions and Focus on his own, not including the bonus stats from the items’ perks he equipped.
Almond opened the book and turned to the first page.
After a few seconds, he couldn’t help but wryly smile.
‘I somewhat expected this, especially considering that this is an S-rank skill set, but still…well, I can’t say I am not a bit thrilled to try this.’
The first page’s most important content was straightforward.
—The best way to familiarize and affiliate yourself with lightning is to get struck by it with Fortification activated and powered just enough to make it shatter and feel the lightning with your senses and the resonance it invokes when struck to your Mana.
Almond had seen videos of Adventurers training in extreme environments, natural or unnatural, to invoke affinities.
Those who had gotten skill books with elemental attributes always tried this type of method.
‘Well, now where do I find a place with constant lightning?’
‘Wait, there ought to be a dungeon with lightning theme!’
Almond didn’t linger inside this dungeon anymore and left.
After contacting Marshal Lopol, he immediately asked him for a dungeon that had a lightning theme.
Almond bet that a lightning-themed dungeon would have a lot of lightning since it would have a lot of lightning attribute aspects as a whole! Lightning-attributed monsters, lightning biome, lightning materials, and such.
If he was in some small guild, it would be hard to find such heavily elemental dungeons. But he was in GAA!
[Marshal Lopol: I just checked. There’s no lightning-elemental dungeon in our city. But there’s one roughly a thousand kilometers away, in the Thunderbird City. That city has naturally lightning alignment, so lightning-elemental dungeons spawn there more. There are two identified there right now.]
[Almond: That’s awesome. So which one is mine?]
[Marshal Lopol: None. One is an A-rank dungeon that’s scheduled to be cleared by several top 20 guilds together. The other is a B-rank, and it is golden-bordered already. It’s scheduled to be cleared tomorrow by Thunderbird guild because it’s in their territory.]
[Almond: Damn. Is there a way for me to enter that B-rank dungeon somehow? It’s really important for me.]
It indeed was. The S-rank skill book was an absolutely legendary item in terms of rarity. If he learned those two skills, he was sure to get lightning affinity, and he would be able to master Lightning Mana Transmutation!
Almond wanted to enter that dungeon at all costs.