Orthos smiled at the Elites. “I can see that even with the order, you are still skeptical. You can check the order, and see that it is a valid magical contract, created by your Archbishop. But we are willing to pay for your assistance to the Divine Beasts.”
Karl smiled. Now they might be on to something. The beasts had many good things that would be impossible to get for themselves.
“To show our sincerity, we prepared five tokens of our leader’s favour. The magic will fade with use, but you should keep them, as they are also used to secure safe passage through our lands.”
He opened a chest, and revealed five exquisitely carved black dragon scales from an Overlord Rank dragon, the faithful of the god of death.
[Oh, those are cool. They tilt the scales of life and death in your favour. Enemies take more damage, friends take less when the token is near.] Cara informed Karl in an excited voice.
[How do you know that?]
[I licked a black dragon one time, and this magic feels the same. It’s the good stuff.]
What sort of circumstance had led to her licking a dragon was unclear, but Karl didn’t doubt that she had done it. The Void Badger had no fear of anything in this world or the next.
Karl looked to his team for confirmation. Safe passage through the Divine Beast Nation was valuable, and as Misty had said, they did have the agreement of the Archbishop that this was the best course of action, even if he had given it after the fact, and possibly under duress when the other nations invaded to get to the Dungeon.
There were no objections, so he passed out the tokens, and let everyone put them in their storage bags.
“So, do you all have an active inventory? Or just a storage bag bonded?” Orthos asked.
Lotus was practically bursting to answer, but held herself back until Karl spoke first.
“I have an active inventory, but we all started out with storage bags from an instance reward.” He explained.
That way, if the others wanted, they could keep their power level a secret, and he wasn’t giving them anything that the nosy Temporal Dragon didn’t already know. What Misty knew, she would certainly tell the others if there was a need for them to know.
“How do I know if I have an active inventory?” Lotus asked.
“Just think the word status with the intention of bringing up system information.” Orthos explained.
The way Lotus’ eyes lit up made it clear that she had found something unexpected. The Nature Cleric would never be a good poker player, but that was enough of an answer for the beasts.
Dana nodded. “I have inventory as well. And the storage bag is in one of the spaces.”
“Can you see titles?” Orthos asked.
Everyone looked confused for a second, then Ophelia did a double take. “Over your head in white, your name is Orthos. Why is it white, when Karl is Red and Dana is blue?”
Orthos gestured over her head. “You are a very dark red, for Berserker. Karl is a blood-red for Beast Master, White is Cleric, light blue is Mage. When you see warriors with a fully active system, they are brown, Shamans are dark blue, warlocks are purple, and so on.”
“That is brilliant. To think that we were supposed to know all that about other people.” Ophelia replied with an enthusiastic smile on her face.
“Focus on me, and you can see more details when you have the Status view open. It will block much of your vision, so don’t try it in combat. But you should be able to see a few things.” Orthos added.
“Orthos, Bronze Dragon, Grand Priest of the Bronze Dragon God, Overlord Rank, Abbott of the Bruse Temple.” She read.
Orthos was obviously making a mental note of how much she could see, as Karl recalled that he used to have a Darklight Host Guild tag, which he didn’t see anymore. When the full function of the System had faded, the Guild must have disbanded, or there was something that he needed to do to bring his position back.
Of course, it could be that he just chose to only show certain roles, but Karl didn’t know how to do that, or if it was even possible.
Orthos took out one more item from his robes, a small bronze scroll case.
“This is for Karl, a reward from the Gods for his previous assistance.” Orthos explained.
Karl placed a hand on the scroll tube, expecting Orthos to hand it over, but the Dragon kept a hold of it, and information began to flash in Karl’s vision.
[Random Class Skill Acquired]
[Core Skill Tree Selected]
[Tier 3 Taming Ability: Skill Merger] The Beast Master Has a chance to create new skills by combining Shared Skills.
“You look like you got something good.” Orthos commented as he took the scroll case back and put it in his inventory.
“Indeed. It upgraded one of my Class Skills. With some practice, I might be able to adapt some of the skills that I can already use, so they are more effective.” Karl explained.
That was vague enough that it wouldn’t sidetrack the conversation, but it was also true, so they couldn’t accuse him of insulting the gift that the Beast Gods gave him.
He already had a few ideas on how skills might be used together to make something truly brutal. Bone Crusher, with its armour bypass, and Chain Lightning, with its stun and spreading damage, would be great together.
But if he could learn to use Cara’s Disintegration and combine it with Bone Crusher, the result would be nearly unstoppable.
Cara laughed in Karl’s mind as she thought about the potential of a [Disintegrate] attack that simply ignored armour and barriers. That would be the greatest skill ever. She would call it [Slap] and she would use it on every enemy she met.
[Blend Eternal Lightning and Circle of Protection. That would be way better.] Thor suggested.
[Circle of Protection] wasn’t a shared skill, but Thor thought that there should be a way around that. Maybe Karl just needed to upgrade his new Skill Merger ability.
[We need to teach you to use new skills. If you could blend Bodyguards with Ghost Beast, we could just go straight after the good food and shiny stuff.] Remi suggested.
[Or Golems with Bone Crusher.] Rae suggested.
[Alright, I get the point, you all want me to learn new skills so that I can make overpowered combinations. I will work on it. Maybe now that Skill Master upgraded, I will have an easier time learning more of your skills.] Karl agreed.
Hawk nodded in agreement. [If you could combine the extra beasts with all the attack skills, they could be real team members. We could teach Remi’s bodyguards to use proper magic, like fireballs.]
Hawk was getting better at putting [Flaming Body] on other people, but he had a point. If the summoned Naga Warriors could hurl fireballs, or create extra totems, they would be even better.
This gift was going to be a lot of work.
