Looking at the field of twitching and bloodied fighters he'd beat into the ground, Aki couldn't help but smile. He had teached them well, and there was no way to hide that as he’d long taken his armour out as it regenerated, his proud and warm smile shining over them with his less abrasive social skills doing overwork.

Alexandria was gleaming with the experience of having felt thirty fully formed images through his flesh, each one cultivated with his help and adding to his now main skill. Really, the regeneration buff made it so their long bout had him regenerate almost half of his mana pool through sheer natural regeneration, though his actual expenditure was covered by either potions or stealing it from his opponents.

The more important part was that through all this fighting he’d gained several small revelations about several methods and skill variations. By the time people were done powering up with the last drags of resources they had, he’d spent enough aether that no one would think this group was from a newly integrated world which had just figured out images were a thing.

Another happening of note however, was that he’d finally unlocked his own variation of a basic path. Something that he had only reaffirmed through the various information missives he’d acquired was that participating in the tutorial opened up a lot of paths, but he’d also found that he should still have plenty of those same paths available to him by being alive during the first generations of the integration.

Some examples included basic skills that allowed fighters to materialise their ‘aura’ for extra effects on their attacks and more control of their combat skills, plus another that increased the stamina cost of any action to grant it a slight increase in power.

There was even a monster slaying path that was more of a reward than anything, but according to some missives he’d already taken several paths that were considered more advanced versions of it anyway, so he couldn’t do much about those free stats, but he could improve enough that the basic paths were offered to him as a personalised version.

[Congratulation! You have completed the Arcane empowerment path (375/375)! +5 to Strength, Agility, Knowledge and Search. You have gained the skill… Synergy detected. Arcane power blow (Y) Lv 106, Brawling Lv 89, Kicking Lv 28, Roar (Y) Lv 51, Choke Lv 38, Wrath (G) Lv 147 have all fused into The fury of a wise man (B) Lv 1]

Now that was the good stuff.

Did he lose a ton of skills he could farm for points? Yeah. Did he just gain a skill that allowed everyone of his actions to be reinforced by both his stamina and mana by simply flowing both or either through his body at different ratios and speeds?

[The fury of a wise man (B) is now level 7]

Hell yeah he did. He had done jack shit, yet his body had just become much, much more powerful, which would only scale with his resource pools, regeneration and efficiency, all of which were ridiculously high considering he didn’t even have a class yet. A fighter clan or familia could be formed around skills like these exactly because people would kill to have the chance to learn even watered down versions of something that passively boosted them based on their resources instead of body refinement.

He’d been trying to develop something like this himself for some time now, but he wasn’t going to complain about free statistics.

Obviously it'd be harder to teach it as he didn't perfectly understand the skill, but give it a few years and he could guarantee being able to successfully implant the Aetheric construct allowing him to use a skill he didn't understand onto whoever paid the most.

The actual time would depend on how much study material he could obtain from the Nexus about aether and nether. Preferably he’d just throw himself at a study case and figure stuff out through experimentation, but it was rather unlikely he’d survive contact with nether without some modification to his soul and body and the amount of aether he’d need to manipulate would get him into trouble and likely cause strange mutation to his surroundings.

It was still ok if everything was immediately used, but otherwise, there would just be a mass of energy without direction, and while he could probably do something with it already, he didn’t dare be rash about it or even try to create a class for himself or something.

Really, he’d prefer to figure out chypheric weaves already and write a proper code, but that was putting the horses before the carriage unless he found some kind of five dimensional being willing to give him the knowledge for a ploy or another. Obviously whoever made the Nexus also had access to it, but such things were either extremely restricted or completely prohibited, so he could only long for it.

Nerding aside, he needed to optimize his energy flow. Connect Core, Heart and Mind, circulatory, respiratory, nervous and lymphatic system, blood vessels, veins, arterioles and those little things that nurtured the bone marrow, ligaments and all cartilage, skin layers and hair, metallic weave and sea… Wait, this shit worked partially with his armour and items touched by his soul as well? Sweet~!

[The fury of a wise man (B) is now level 48.

You have developed the skill Battle intent Lv 1.

………

The fury of a wise man (B) is now level 157.

Battle intent is now level 99.]

“Battle what?” Murmured Aki as he finally awakened from his meditation. It’d been hours since he’d battled now, and he was not the only one who had sat down to mentally go over his gains and capitalize over the experience of the long ass fight they’d all just had, though a lot of people also chose to simply go back to bed to do that instead of sitting on the mawled dirt of their arena. “Discern strength, resist influence, influence and control how strong i look… Isn’t that just a pseudo domain generated through the soul’s influence expanding outside of the body? I’m pretty sure i’ve been doing that for a long ass time now, so i didn’t even think it could possibly be what the skill would do because of the name, so fuck me, but did i finally gain it because it was related to completing the empowerment path?” He sighed, again disappointed with himself and the System’s lack of care for whoever didn’t go through the tutorial. The children born after this would all have their first access through their parent’s base system, meaning they were integrated properly before even being born, so it was really only him who would suffer from these hiccups even after thousands of years passed.

Of course, he doubted he was the only one who was going to have been fucked up by the system or some 'investor', but he would like to think himself far more advanced than those people, though that didn't mean much as these kinds of things were hit or miss, so most would be dead already.

He'd look for them in the other zones when they opened up, but otherwise didn't expect much. Perhaps one faithful maniac worshipping someone who made themselves look like a God or a rogue trying to run away from the influence of another investor. Either way they'd be good connections and assets, but that was only if they were not too far gone.

Different from a 'sponsored player' though, he didn't have weird paths made to influence him nor special benefits besides whatever he could take from the path system. His family's misfortune seemed to have been entirely caused by coincidence, so he had no real ultimate target for revenge or anything.

[Battle intent is now level 100.]

"I haven't even… oh, right. Sorry everyone, new skill. Works great with my image so it kind of went overboard, I will be leaving you all to yourselves now." He explained to the field of wide open eyes staring at him. He’d been releasing his battle intent together with his mana so as to feel the surroundings due to the skill being on ‘auto’, and apparently his influence was pretty similar to the effect of his image, meaning he was constantly being given information about everything in greater detail, but it was extra invasive to the whoever and whatever he was learning about.

Reaching level 100 had unlocked a path called ‘Unscrupulous battle intent (0/???)’, but he wasn’t so sure about taking that one now. He knew for a fact that those interrogation marks could have their value change depending on his achievements on the related path, along with the reward for completing said path, so it was probably not that good an idea to try and receive something for a skill he leveled without even trying to.

He’d probably be taking elementalist after finishing the paths related to space and time plus something else for life and death so he could receive the maximum benefits for example, nevermind those paths for using armour or one specific weapon.

Now, he should probably do some proper image refinement after all, maybe give another free day out and start putting down some actual books inside of his library. He needed to figure out how to make several at a time after all, or his image would never be more than his own understanding or never be accessible for others, both options reducing it’s quality all around.

……………

They had been completely played with, there wasn’t even a risk of that man dying despite dozens going at him with all they had. Yet, no one could call themselves weak because of this. The two dozen who managed to form their images during the fight all grew in power, enough to walk around the dungeon unchallenged outside of the now haunted castle ruins.

The power level around camp was skyrocketing since then, but that power only made them question how in actual fuck had Aki become even more powerful even faster than this. The answer to that came to the commanders in a demon shaped fashion.

“Don’t act like you guys didn’t know i was here, Lin Huang sucks at keeping our conversations purely mental and that guy stared at me several times already.” She said when the tent flaps were closed, materialising as a spectral figure next to the embarrassed young man mentioned. Robert had long noticed the extra person his skills were affecting, but even he was surprised it was a demon. “I am Lucy Lin, the nerd’s cousin. I’m finally able to materialise without killing him off because he has finally embraced part of his heritage, which yes, is demonic.” The explanation shocked everyone but Septima, who had already heard Aki complaining about the half demon being too ‘soft’ to fully use his powers.

“Would you just explain to them why I called them here?” Hissed the only present person whose surname came before their name.

“Ok, look, the sword guy and the orc huntress, you have weird high grade skills, right? That’s basically a special thingy on your bloodlines that grants you benefits. What the system is unable to tell you is that it gives out several ridiculous bonuses compared to anything in the same grade or even one above. I take it both of you have gotten said skills above level a hundred or so? Well, those skills are taking your aether and giving it a certain quality that makes it even easier to improve in a certain direction. This idiot has finally reached a good enough level with the great sin of Greed, so don’t get too scared if his teeth start becoming sharper or his skin changes colour. Before any questions, know that I have little time like this and care even less to actually give more information for free."

Soon, there was a list of favours and items exchanged and promised, all present finding themselves with a new understanding of Aether and how to search for opportunities to improve themselves.