MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

'All the available skills are bangers, but this skill alone is worth more than any other, and I dare say even the time skills,' Alex thought, looking at the single skill that made all other skills look lackluster.

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Name: Concept Erasure

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 63000 Skill points.

Effect: Allows the user to erase selected elemental concepts of reality.

Description: The user chooses which elemental concept of reality to erase before manifesting abyssal darkness, which can be molded to take any form, and once the manifested darkness touches the target, it dissolves and integrates with the chosen phenomenon, erasing the selected concept in mere moments.

(Mana Required: ???)(Cooldown: None)

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The skill was outright broken, as it could literally erase elemental concepts, meaning it could erase the freezing of ice, remove its chilly nature, dull the wind, or outright make the fire lose its ability to burn.

However, the skill had two stages, and in them were its limitations. At first, Alex had to choose the elemental concept he wanted to erase, a process that consumed an unknown amount of mana, depending on the strength of the concept.

Once the first step was completed, for the next thirty seconds, he would be able to manifest darkness only capable of erasing his chosen concept and nothing else, and in how much quantity and for how long he would need to generate it would all depend on his choosing, but it all came at the cost of high mana.

The limitations were somewhat bad, as at one point, only a single concept could be chosen, and there was an attack window or a sort of cooldown for thirty seconds, but in no way did it make the skill anything but a nightmare to deal with for his enemies.

One thing that struck Alex like a lightning bolt after seeing this skill, other than its immense use case in battle against any individual of almost any power system, was how he could simply erase the sealing concept of an Elemental Domain or, similarly, a barrier, momentarily making it breachable.

Similarly, Alex could also use the darkness on himself in multitudes of ways, such as to erase a debuff or literally erase the concept of death to momentarily escape certain death.

'It cost me nearly half of my skill points, but it's worth every penny,' Alex thought as he finally closed the skill window after reading its description more than ten times.

Alex had gained the usual one hundred thousand points from the rank promotion, while an additional nearly forty or so thousand points were left from the previous rank promotions, so he now had a little over half of the points left to build an arsenal of good skills.

Alex looked through the long list of skills and started by eliminating all of the less complicated natural phenomena skills, like Nullfire Meteor Shower, Abyssal Lightning Storm, Chaos Whirlpool, and so on.

Alex understood that with his current understanding of both elements, he knew he could create such a level of skills on his own with some effort.

The utility skills of the likes of Air Walk and Arcane Parry were also removed without a second thought, but Alex did put aside skills like Arcane Trance and Thought Acceleration, knowing how useful they could be in battle.

The following skills in line to be eliminated were all the skills that served the same purpose, or he already had access to, such as the Death's Mirage and Abyssal Chimerabell or Summon Undead and Summon Elemental.

Alex also eliminated the less useful skills that, even after the Sixth Rank upgrade, appeared lackluster compared to other skills, and while none were bad, he only had limited skill points that he could use.

Now that Alex had finished selecting from the skills he was already familiar with, he began to look through the skills he had seen and had not seen before.

After some searching, Alex did find a few skills that caught his attention but eliminated them for one reason or another.

The first on the list was Void Sculpting, a skill that allowed him to create barriers and weapons alike from consuming darkness that could not defend himself but also ate away at life and energy alike, yet since he could learn to do such things himself, he eliminated it.

The two real honorable mentions that made even Alex think a few times were the Living Shadow Control and the Abyssal Echoes skill.

The first skill could allow him to summon permanent creatures of pure darkness that were capable of evolving through pure dark essence and could not die unless their connection to his shadow was cut off.

The other skill allowed Alex to draw upon echoes of events that never happened in the minds of his enemies, illusions far more potent than simple visual tricks that can evoke genuine emotions or sensations in the victim.

Alex decided not to pick the first skill since it cost a lot of points, and since Ricin's new species was connected to the spectral plane, he believed that that little glutton should be able to access it and gain skill, allowing him to command Jinn and other spectral creatures, while he had a better and cheaper alternative for the second skill.

'I need to leave some good skills, but I am more than satisfied with this selection,' Alex thought, a rare smile stretching across his face.

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•②:

Name: Ruler of Emptiness

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 7,700 Skill points.

Effect: Allow the user to wield aspects of emptiness.

Description: This skill allows the user to wield aspects of emptiness, allowing him to achieve singular Focus, shield his mind, blend into the shadows, manipulate the truth, drain life and mana from touch, and even create a domain of emptiness to suppress all aspects of the strength of his enemies and while within the Domain of Emptiness, all abilities of emptiness are enhanced. (Mana Required: 100K mana to 2 million each Minute) (Cooldown: None)

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•③:

Name: Thought Acceleration

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 9,200 Skill points.

Effect: Enhances the user's mental processing speed to adjustable levels, facilitating rapid cognition and decision-making.

Description:

Allows the user to heighten their cognitive abilities beyond normal limits, and the speed of mental processes can be adjusted at will, ranging from 100% to 1000% of their baseline capacity, with it costing 200K mana points to 4 million mana points per minute. (Mana Required: 200K to ???)(Cooldown: 12 hours)

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•④:

Name: Dark Dominion

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 9,300 Skill points.

Effect: Allows the user to manipulate the emotions of his enemies, instilling fear, anger, arrogance, or self-doubt.

Description: The user marks his enemies with multiple unavoidable spectral hexes, each representing a different extreme of emotions.

Each second the hex stays active, it consumes 50k points of mana, and the mana consumption increases linearly (50k extra mana) rather than doubling with each additional hex on the same target.

The affected target will also lose mental energy, reducing the target's mental resilience and, in turn, boosting the effect of various curses.

(Mana Required: 50K mana to ???) (Cooldown: Six Hours)

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•⑤:

Name: Abbysal Rejuvenation

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 11,100 Skill points.

Effect: Allows the user to create a field of darkness, on which he could freely wield dual forces of darkness for unparalleled harm and healing.

Description: The user can create a field of darkness stretching for a thousand meters, costing him a million mana points every minute.

Within the dark field, the user can mark any number of individuals with a Hex of Corruption, and to establish the connection with the mark of corruption and the skill to work, he needs to mark one or a maximum of the same number of individuals marked with a corruption mark with the mark of Renewal.

Each connected Mark pair costs 100K points every minute, and within the field, those marked with corruption will steadily lose vitality and mental strength over time, and those marked with renewed will gain the majority portion of the uttered vitality and mental energy. (Mana Required: 1 Million to ???)(Cooldown: Six Hours)

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•⑥:

Name: Chaotic Nexus

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 11,600 Skill points.

Effect: Creates a field of chaos with a radius of five hundred meters, containing scattered chaos runes, covering ground, air, and even the void of space.

Description: The runes have a five-meter diameter, and they activate when anyone besides the user steps on them. They could also be triggered or stopped manually by the user.

Each rune activation costs 50k mana points, triggering advanced elemental disturbances, manifesting phenomena ranging from massive eruptions of lava, towering ice pillars, intense gravitational distortions, and severe space collapses to potent acidic eruptions, while each used rune is replaced with a new one at the cost of 20K mana points. (Mana Required: 1 Million Mana to ???)(Cooldown: Six Hours)

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•⑦:

Name: Reaper's Contract

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 11,800 Skill points.

Effect: Allows the user to establish a contract with the worldly law of death and, by fulfilling all the requirements, bring the wrath of the Reaper on himself or his enemy.

Description: To establish the Reaper's Contract, the user needs to select a target, and once the first requirement is met, a timer ranging between sixty to three hundred seconds will begin instantly, with the time selection being at the wimp of the user.

At the end of the timer, the intangible entity of the Reaper will manifest and will deliver a single attack claiming the same percentage of life from the individual who has received the most amount of damage in the window of time opened after the contract was established.

Additionally, if the enemy is targeted, he also loses the same percentage of mental energy he had used since the user established the contract.

(Mana Required: 10-Million Mana)(Cooldown: Twenty Four Hours)

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•⑧:

Name: Summon Elemental

Grade: Sixth Rank

Cost: 14,300 points.

Effect: Allow the user to open a portal to the realm of summon, allowing the protected Elemental creatures to enter it to help the user do his bidding, or the user could also summon a creature of a specific nature according to his needs.

Description: The User can form up to four permanent contracts with the summoned Elementals, dissolvable at will. Contracted Elementals can be summoned to stay in the user world for as long as the user can support it. (Mana Required: 500K to ???)(Cooldown: 24 hours)

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Alex had only taken two new skills, one of which was a replacement, the contemplated acceleration skill, because it was better than the Arcane Trance in everything, even after the latter was upgraded to new heights, so truly, the only new skill was the first skill he chose.

All the skills were self-explanatory except the second one, which was a mix of multiple skills, precisely five skills on top of the domain, that elevated all of them with a major boost.

The skills were namely the Mind of Emptiness, Crown of Emptiness, Cloak of Emptiness, Tounge of Emptiness, and finally, the Hands of Emptiness.

Alex finally opened his status window to take a look at the fruit of his work, to mentally capture an image of it, fully aware that the next significant change would require considerable effort and time.