Versatile: Alternate World

[The Mark of Decay]

Type: Passive

Tier: EX

Info: Every attack dealt by this weapon will stack one [Decay Mark] with a maximum of 15 marks. Accumulating the 15 marks allows the user to unleash an extra attack, [Blast of Decay] that will inflict true damage against enemies and reduce their defense values by 50% for 5 seconds. The damage inflicted with [Blast of Decay] depends on how low the remaining HP of the enemy that got hit by the attack.

Every 5 stacks will allow the user to increase the attack of the user for 2 seconds by 50% with a maximum of 150% increase for a full stack. One stack will decay after 1 second of not attacking but for every 5 stacks, the decay time will increase from 1 second to 3 seconds.

Note: Perform combo attacks to immediately gain stacks. This is a message from your friendly neighborhood, Spid*r m*n!

...

The skill was not an active one but a passive one. However, it is a passive skill that relies on stacks huh? I am not sure but this skill is pretty strong. The activation is a bit hard but not impossible. And for the first time, the one who writes the note is not an as*hole and a joker for once. He is giving a piece of advice though it gives one pun, it's pretty lame.

But that advice was indeed the best way to accumulate stacks. Every weapon type can perform combo attacks. And for this reason, this might allow me to change my fighting style.

The 15 stacks will allow me to increase my overall damage to 150% which is pretty big depending on the enemy and with the 15 stacks comes the ability that will appear after accumulating the 15 stacks and its effects are similar to my other enemy defense down but with the addition of the damage, it can inflict which is true damage, a skill that is capable of ignoring defensive values. This is not something you will scoff about. This is one of the reasons debuffs are pretty good to use on bosses, as soon as their debuffs stacks, the enemies will slowly become bearable to handle.

Is this the mutation effect that happened after the Versatile Weapon devoured the spit of Cotton? I looked at Cotton but she is no longer there and went back to the side of the sleeping Lucia.

Now, I am more confused than ever on what kind of creature is Cotton. The night passed by while I am contemplating what is the purpose of Cotton and didn't notice that it is already morning.

...

After we took an order of food, we went back to the place where Tina is training. She is still quite battered up due to yesterday but with the help of healing, her wounds are not that big to be severe enough that would allow me to cancel her training.

"Have you already known what your flaws are based on the battle yesterday? Do you know what you really lack to survive in a battle?"

"I am we-"

"WRONG. You are not weak and I can say that your prowess is terrifying. It's not necessary you need to be strong to win. What you lack are awareness and a calculative mind."

"Huh?"

"I keep seeing you in the battle as getting undecisive especially if you are being faced into a tight spot. You get to panic so quickly that I am not sure why you do that. Due to this, you can easily fail and will instead use the method of fighting brashly and empty-minded. You lack the capacity to calculate things with quick timing. It is a big loss as it can definitely boost your capability in a battle. You need to think about whether you attack, press on, or defend and do proper actions during that time."

"I am doing that kind of thing?"

"Have you noticed it? Yes, you are doing a fatal error that would surely kill you in the process. Have you noticed the way Lina fights during the last mock battle inside the castle of Queen Tanya? Do you remember the time that Lina managed to counter your attack [Rainfall of Sirius]?"

"Yes. Ms. Lina performed it very well that I didn't expect her to do it like that to disrupt me."

"[Rainfall of Sirius] is a troublesome skill as they can hit really bad and they are hard to dodge. But Lina easily managed to defeat you while you are using that skill, if it was strong, why did you lose?"

"Because I lack the capacity to do a quick timing?"

"That is one of the reasons, but the main reason why you lost on that fight is that you thought the enemy will not be able to counterattack while you are using the skill and you can easily defeat them. But Lina used her wits and managed to bypass that trouble you made on her and defeat you before you can unleash troublesome hits on her."

"If that is the case, what can I do? I keep doing the training but nothing is happening to me! I need to get stronger!"

"No, you are plenty strong enough. You need to develop the ability to think about what to do next in quick timing. I prepared a simulation for you so that you can develop this ability much easier. We can't use the chance to fight against enemies as it is pretty dangerous to do especially since you need to confront your family, we need you to be perfectly healthy. Fighting against monsters might be the best method to do that but you don't need to do that."

I pull out one blueprint and similar to any blueprint I used at appropriate times, this blueprint is something I made in purpose for training for agility, however, this isn't solely for training agility, this will allow Tina to develop what she was lacking without the need to fight against monsters or enemies. A safe shortcut if I say so myself.

"Materialize! Now, let's continue the training yesterday!"

And as I said that, a volley of arrows fly straight to Tina.