Chapter 620

“What do you mean I have everything I need to create a Pseudo-Mythic Skill?” Ajax all but yelled. 

“And this is why I was in such a hurry to move away.” Aurexion grumbled. “It’s not surprising that you don’t realize it, I have to say I am surprised you even know about Pseudo-Mythic Skills at all.” 

“Veyra, the sidhe I travelled with for a while, she answered a few of the questions I had about things us humanoids isolated as we were ignorant about.” Ajax explained. “How hard would it be for me to gain a Pseudo-Mythic Skill?” 

“As you are now, it should be pretty easy.” Aurexion answered. “Pseudo-Mythic Skills are just a combination of five Legendary Skills with enough overlap. Somehow you’ve gathered an absurd number of Legendary Skills in your short lifespan.”

“Will I lose the Skills creating it?” Ajax asked. “Will they upgrade?” 

Ajax was already trying to figure out which ones he should trade or focus on. Trying to game the System was how he had gotten so strong in the first place, more dungeons, more stats before spending his Free Points. Maybe he could get another edge there, but Aurexion shattered his hopes.

“That’s not how it works.” the dragon explained. “How to best explain this… Do you know about Mana Domain Skills?” 

Ajax was actually one of the humans who knew most about Mana Domain Skills even though he didn’t possess one himself. “I do, multiple Mana types released in one's surroundings for easier access and better battlefield control.” 

“That’s good but also not what I was getting at, the Domains themselves aren’t what I am getting at but you know there is a Skill that comes with forming a Domain.” Aurexion was starting to slow down and pace himself for what he knew would be a long flight. “When you gain that Skill nothing happens to your Mana affinity Skills.” 

“So it works like that?” Ajax asked, he knew plenty of people who had the Mana Skills but no Domain, forming one was considered a lot harder than just getting the Mana types. “Forming Domain Skills from Mana affinity Skills is not easy, or I’d have about 5 with the number of Mana affinity Skills I have.” 

“You’re focusing on the wrong thing.” Ajax could feel Aurexion’s impatience through the bond, he could also feel some annoyance but that wasn’t directed towards Ajax but somehow towards himself. “I may not be the best at explaining, the Domain Skill example was just to stop you from thinking you were going to lose Skills.”

“Okay, sorry.” Ajax didn’t really have anything to apologize for but he wanted to make things easier on his bond. It was easy to forget when just thinking about Aurexion’s age, but despite being centuries old, the dragon was the equivalent of a teenager who woke up from a long nap with an enhanced body and ADHD. “I’ll just let you explain.” 

“Pseudo-Mythic Skills are not hard to form once you have the Skills needed, at least not the first one, following Pseudo-Mythic Skills based on some of the same Legendary Skills become harder and harder to make but that’s not the point right now.” Ajax didn’t interrupt and tried to push the tangent to the side. “What matters is the power they bring as well as the danger.” 

“A lot of Skills are dangerous.” Ajax pointed out.

“No to you, not directly at least.” Aurexion chuckled darkly. “Take your [Telekinesis] Skill, it would be easy to hurt yourself with it, move an object and hit yourself with it or move your body and hit other objects with it. It might seem direct but it's not actually direct damage. You can use [Telekinesis] to rip someone in two but unless you specifically try it you’ll find it hard to do anything similar to yourself.” 

Ajax had to concede the point. What Aurexion just explained was how he had finally managed to get a small handle on the power output of [Telekinesis] by using it on himself; he wasn't always using it at maximum output.

“Almost all Skills that are Legendary or below have an innate safety you have to intentionally overcome to directly harm yourself. There are exceptions like your [Empowering Restriction] but that’s for another time.” Aurexion continued. “Pseudo-Mythic Skills have none of that safety, more than that they have the power of five Legendary Skills. It would be extremely easy for you to hurt yourself.” 

“So I should take Skills that don’t harm me?” Ajax asked, thinking [Enigma] and [Inspector’s Eye] would be good for that. 

“Thinking of using your inspection and privacy Skills, that won’t work, they don’t have any overlap with the others.” Aurexion shut that down. “As far as I can see you have three options so far, [Mana Syphon],[Last Stand] and [Physically Enhanced Battlemage Style] are the ones you have to take. You then have a choice in which combination of two you take from the other three to make a Skill based around enhancing your body and fighting Style.” 

“That’s why Veyra said Legendary Mana affinities are so valuable, because they are versatile enough to be combined with so many different Skills in different ways.” Ajax caught on. “But why is my Style core, couldn’t I leave it out and use the other three with [Mana Syphon] and [Last Stand]?” 

“Not before you have all those Skills at level one hundred, at least, it’s not.” Ajax could feel the disapproving glare through the bond. “While the safety aspect would be removed, Style Skills still lead you in how you act, without it a Pseudo-Mythic Skill based on body enhancement would cause you to tear your own body apart. I would also highly recommend Life Mana as a way to heal yourself and lessen the burden on your body but it's not a requirement.” 

“Okay, so that tangent aside, how do Pseudo-Mythic Skills form and work?” Ajax asked. 

“Pseudo-Mythic Skills work like a fusion of the five Legendary Skills that are used to create them.” Aurexion said. “While using the Skill you lose access to the individual Skills and only have access to the combination. This sometimes means losing access to parts of the original Skills. Your [Mana Syphon] for example in any combination you make now would lose any control you have over the syphon effect outside of it happening or not. While using it to boost yourself you would only choose if you use your Mana alone to fuel your boost or supplement it with Mana from outside. Any control over what Mana you draw in or what spells it disrupts will be lost.” 

Ajax knew that this would make him a liability when working with allies. “Won’t that make me weaker?” Ajax asked. 

“One Pseudo-Mythic Skill is not equal to another.” Aurexion explained. “Depending on the overlap between the Skills you lose more or less all in exchange for an amplified effect. [Last Stand] will lose nothing, same for your Style. Life Mana would lose all non healing effects if you choose to add it. You can’t even level the Pseudo-Mythic Skill, its level is the average of the five Skills that are used to create it.” 

“That’s why it has no thresholds.” Ajax now understood the reasoning behind Veyra’s mention that Pseudo-Mythic Skills worked differently than all other Skills.

“Exactly!” Aurexion rejoiced. 

“So how do I unlock it?” Ajax asked. 

“The first step would be in restoring your lost limb.” Aurexion said. “You can’t risk trying to gain it before you get rid of the werewolf issue. After that you just have to use the five Skills at the same time with the same goal, preferably while pushing yourself, since it's combat Skills doing so in combat would be best.” 

With the Pseudo-Mythic Skill explanation out of the way Ajax chose to change focus and try to learn more about his bond while they traveled. He knew not everything was set in stone but he didn’t want to make plans about which Skills to choose just yet. Instead Ajax was now focusing on his return home.

Even with all the gifts he had given out to Ruinflare and Shifty, Ajax still had a decent number of valuable items he had collected, first among them the everburning tree that Aurexion still held on to with his tail. The only remaining question on his mind was if he wanted to stop by the odd cave with the super Mana dense ore guarded by the overgrown hamster. 

In the end Ajax decided to leave that for his next trip into the Wild Lands, while he was pretty sure with his growth and Aurexion they would be able to take out the rodent in a straight up fight the tight tunnels would mean a lot of excavation to get Aurexion in the fight and they just didn’t have the time for it. He’d leave it for his next trip to the Wild Lands.

With Aurexion’s speed in flight and the safety he provided by being a dragon, no other Ascended races would attack so long as he was just flying by, Ajax was making much better time than he could have expected. He would be back in Gryndor in less than two weeks at this rate. Less than two weeks to think up an explanation for his family when a dragon landed in their training yard.