Undying Warlord

"So to put it simply, binding abilities to our Essence crystal engraves the necessary talent, or requirements into our Essence crystal, which changes our body? At the same time, abilities bound to our Essence crystal will grow stronger the more often we use them instead of the need to meet certain conditions to upgrade them? Is that what this means?" Yvonne asked rather calmly as she looked at the bunch of shelves all around her.

"And we can learn abilities from books by studying and comprehending them. As long as our body innately possesses the necessary requirements we can also learn more abilities than we can actually bind to our Essence crystals…and by gaining a higher comprehension of the abilities we'll be able to use these abilities even if we didn't bind them?" Kathrine added not hiding her confusion.

Dilan nodded his head, but even he was not really sure if it was that easy.

"Let's not think too much about it for now. We can always figure out what is going on after the Log of the Ancient is accessible once again. For now, let's search for a powerful ability to learn, otherwise, we will be stuck in the first trial itself!" Dilan tried to motivate them as he approached the staircase to go to the next floor.

'If the library is constructed like it is in games and novels, we should be able to find better abilities on the higher floors,' He thought and it was only a moment later when he sensed the presence of a barrier that restricted him from leaving the first floor.

[Because it is the host's first time entering the Sanctum of the Blood Monarch, the techniques from all floors can be learned free of charge. Remark: Greed may make your life miserable but so will being a coward!]

Dilan frowned after reading the remark but he discarded it after a moment as he looked back at the three women.

They looked over at him and approached him.

"You guys received the system message as well?" Dilan asked and they nodded their heads, which was enough for him to climb up the floors.

He walked up to the highest floor of the Library and started to take a look at all the different techniques to see if there was something suitable up there.

[The host's constitution and Innate talent are not suitable for the <Dragon Breath> technique. Missing; Dragon Bloodline, Mana 1000 Units!]

[The host's constitution and Innate talent are not suitable for the <Seven Slashes of the Eternal Eclipse > technique. Missing; Darkness Constitution, Mana 600 Units, Strength 500 Units, Health 500 Units!]

[The host's constitution and Innate talent are not suitable for the <Purification> technique. Missing; Holy or Light affinity, Mana 800 Units!]

"Looks like the highest floor is too much for me to enter, let alone conquer it…" Dilan mumbled as he started to wonder who the Blood Monarch truly was.

He could tell that the system created the Blood Monarch's Sanctum but it would be weird for the Blood Monarch to be a resident of Milarn considering that he was given so much importance by the system.

The highest floor was small and it had only 10 books. All of them required him to possess some sort of special conditions whether they were stats one could only attain by being Tier-3 and with a similar stat-limit-increasing condition like the [Will of the Primordial], or by being a Tier-4 existence.

Thus, Dilan was forced to go down to the second highest floor again where roughly a hundred books were located. The three girls were also on this floor, picking up one book after another to see if they were compatible with any of it.

"This is much harder than expected. Why are there only so few abilities we're compatible with…and if they're compatible, I don't want to learn them because these techniques are not what I'm looking for," Kathrine pouted after a while. She could tell that there was not a single book on this floor that she really liked.

The only thing she could do was to dejectedly go to a lower floor, and sift through the books in hopes of finding a relatively weaker technique that she might like.

"In the end, even weak abilities can be powerful, you know?" Yvonne tried comforting her sister as she added, "If we can bind the technique to our Essence crystal upon comprehending it, we shouldn't be obsessed with binding powerful abilities but look out for abilities that grow powerful as long as we use them often."

Yvonne had realized this before already but given that their bound abilities would grow stronger the more they used them, the easier it would be to improve a weak ability to a certain degree.

Nobody said that it would be easy to improve abilities after they reached a certain threshold but learning a complicated ability that was not compatible with yourself might as well be considered useless.

"But we might as well try searching for a powerful technique which we don't bind to our Essence crystal," Victoria suddenly came up with the suggestion as she read through one of the books she seemed to be compatible with.

Only after a while did she realize that everyone was looking at her.

"What?" She asked in confusion, feeling embarrassed that Dilan and the sister-duo seemed to be staring deep into her soul.

"What you said is pretty interesting…" Dilan could only say. He had been focused on searching for a new ability to bind to his Essence crystal rather than a technique that he could comprehend and use as his 'killing' move.

The only disadvantageous factor was that he didn't really possess the requirements to learn any kind of technique. He didn't have many passive abilities that could be considered helpful and the only active ability that changed his constitution a bit was [Thunder Step].

Being able to manifest weak electricity currents around his feet was something he could only do because his constitution had been adapted to be able to do so after binding [Thunder Step] to himself.

Other than that, his body was in possession of extremely high regeneration and he was mostly immune to poison and so on. His Origin ability made it possible for him to learn a bunch of techniques but none of them could be used to attack. All of them were more on the defensive side.

'Even my occupational abilities are rather neutral, and the only thing that might be somewhat useful is [Green Magic], but I have no idea how to use it yet. I need to comprehend it but that is easier said than done if I have nowhere to start…' Dilan felt that his head was beginning to ache which caused him to stop moving and to start thinking about what he should do next.

Kathrine was great with lightning, Yvonne was closely tied to death and darkness, and Victoria could bind blood, ice, and demonic-related techniques. On the other hand, Dilan had nothing like this.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be bothersome because he wouldn't require any kind of special condition or something like that. However, since the second phase of the Primordial Ascension had been initiated, it would be troublesome if he was unable to learn techniques without binding them to his Essence crystal first.

'What if the system disappears in the future, and my bound abilities stop progressing? Will I be fine, or will my choice to focus on stats-amplifying abilities lead to my doom? What if I meet someone capable of countering my high stats with the use of some techniques? How will I escape?' Dilan wondered as numerous scenarios flashed through his mind, each more worrisome than the previous one.

He was bothered by the thought of being incapable of learning abilities, which was why he ended up taking a look at the possible occupational abilities he could procure with the 28 Ability merits he possessed.

And it was just half an hour later that he found something that caused him to smile foolishly.

[The host requires 30 Ability merits to undergo the desired change. Is the host willing to sell/remove one of his occupational abilities?]

**

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