Surprise chapter as a thanks for 1 million views.
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"WHAT. IS. THIS?!" Sera Vahl shouted.
Gerhard had decided to finally introduce her to some of his abilities, like the dungeon and a few attack spells. He had observed her closely when she thought he wasn't present, and through his different skills and increasing level of [Observe], he had gotten to the bottom of her character.
It was efficient to show her some things he could do. No matter what happened, even if she wanted to, she wouldn't be able to tell anyone. Gerhard had taken precautions and created a 'Mana contract' with her, stating that if she ever had the intention of telling what she saw here to anyone, she would die.
And because she swore it on Mana and her life, despite not having Mana, the system counted this as a valid contract between them. Now, whether the system had enough power to truly follow through with this... Gerhard wasn't certain, but he had seen the sliver of Mana enter Sera's mind and get dormant. So there was a very good chance that it was very real.
"It's called a dungeon. It's part of the abilities I told you about. It's an illusion."
"That doesn't look like an illusion, Gerhard! Those are Plague Zombies!!" she shouted and aimed her Long-Las at the Zombie.
PEW--
The Zombie dissolved into black mist instantly. This surprised Sera, since she hadn't ever seen that happen.
"What just happened?" she asked.
"You killed the zombie, and it dissolved into smoke. It's not real in the actual sense that it can exist outside of this dungeon. It can touch you and you it, and it can hurt you, but with me here, that won't happen."
"Can I die?"
"Well... yes, theoretically you could die from this. But let's be serious, Sera. You can take this dungeon on your own. With the Long-Las you hold in your hand, you can kill the boss monster with a single headshot."
"There are BOSS MONSTERS?! WHAT HERESY IS THIS?! Where did you bring me? Fuck, I should have known that you're--"
"Oi! I already told you! This has nothing to do with the Warp. You can't get corrupted here! You are by far safer here than you have been in the Underhive or the rest of the Hive."
Vahl managed to calm herself down somewhat. Her reaction was natural and understandable, but she also realised that if Gerhard had been a traitor, he probably wouldn't have gone out of his way to help her, train her and purify the corruption she had.
"Please tell me again, what is going on here and why we're here."
"This place is useless for me. So this is entirely for you to train. Honestly, this is a joke for you. All I wanted was to demonstrate it and show you what's possible."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Well, how about you give it a shot? Literally. Kill a few of the zombies and get used to the new power."
Gerhard had gifted Sera the newest version of the Long-Las series.
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[Long-Las - Rank: Special]
- Durability: 500/500
- Damage: 960
- Critical Chance: 33%
- Fire Rate: Mid
- Charge Capacity: 190
Special Effects:
| +80% accuracy
|+110% headshot damage
| shots pass through multiple targets
| reduced sound and reduced flash
| +20% damage on targets above 70% HP
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"What is this?" Sera asked as Gerhard explained the weapons stats to her.
"What do you mean? Those are the Long-Las' stats."
Sera quickly lifted the sniper rifle, looked through the optics and shot a Zombie through the head. The shot seared through the first Zombie and into two others, before cutting through the wall and disappearing.
"How much health does one of those Zombies have?" she asked.
"It has 800 health points."
"Did each one have that much health?"
"Yes. What are you asking?"
"If one shot does 960 damage and one Zombie has 800 health, then why did the shot kill multiple targets and not even stop when hitting the thick metal wall?"
"... because 960 is bigger than 800?"
"Yes, but the stat makes no sense. Give me a weaker Long-Las or any weaker weapon you have," Sera said.
Gerhard reached into the inventory and took out the first Long-Las he had created.
The Adept grade Long-Las had a damage stat of only 410. The reason for this was, of course, that Gerhard managed to improve not only his skill [Creation], but also the blueprint of how to create a Long-Las. He wasn't restricted to using only the skills he had learned; he constantly learned new things, which allowed him to make better items.
"How much damage does this do?" Sera asked."
"410."
She nodded, raised the Adept Long-Las and pulled the trigger.
The red beam pierced through a Zombie's head, turning it into dust immediately. But Sera wasn't done. Even before she saw the result, she had moved the rifle slightly to the right, pulling the trigger again.
The beam melted another Zombie's head, and Sera repeated the process. She pulled the trigger dozens of times, killing the Zombies with each hit, headshottign them all.
...
"See?"
"Yes, you made a lot of progress."
"No. Well, yes! But that's not the point. The point is that the weaker Las, which only does a bit over half of the Zombie's health in damage, still killed each one."
"I see. So that's what you meant. Yeah, in that regard, my abilities are a bit convoluted. It is a bit of a bother to explain, but here goes.
Imagine you fire at a human who is running at you and wants to kill you. You fire the Long-Las at his body and pierce his stomach. Theoretically, the weapon you fired had only delivered 410 damage and shouldn't have killed him.
But the human, shall we say, who isn't a traitor, will still fall to the ground and die a moment later.
That's because his health continued to drop after you did all that damage. So the initial damage you did was still 410, but the effect the wound had on the person was lethal.
If you had hit the person's head, you would have killed him right away."
"So the stat you describe isn't able to put the effect it would cause into context. It only tells you the base damage it would do."
"Yes. It tells me the cause, but not each effect. It's like an average. If I were to fire the Lasgun at an Ork and hit his stomach, he would still continue to rush towards me, despite having dealt the same amount of 410 damage. But his biology is differnet and therefore has a different effect."
"Hmm. I don't think that's a very useful thing then."
"It is useful in the regard that I get feedback on how I did when creating the weapon. I know that I more than doubled the damage when creating the newest Long-Las. So my skills have improved considerably."
"So it doesn't really matter then."
"Not for you, who is merely using what I made, no."
...
"Alright, then let's continue. Can we have faster targets? This won't help me at all."
"Sure."
.
Gerhard entered the Labyrinth Dungeon with Sera to have her train and for him to train as well. The reason was simple: he had realised it was now time to expand his magical repertoire.
He wasn't going to stop grinding his technologically focused skills, but that didn't mean that he couldn't use the dungeon to train his magic as well. And since he was here with Sera anyway, it was the best way to go about it.
Spinning Mana Arrow (Active) Lv. 10
| EXP: 82.3%
| MP: 4.25 ('Mana Control')
|A long-distance attack skill with increased piercing power by adding a strong spin to a mana arrow. Only possible for those talented in manipulating mana.
Arrows: 4
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This skill was still pathetically underlevelled. Gerhard hadn't focused on it and preferred to go with technology. And in terms of what would be accepted the most, he chose the right thing.
However, he had an idea for combining magic and technology that would make all his suits and weapons stronger than they were now. And that was, of course, through runes and magic circles.
But that wasn't all. Truthfully, Gerhard didn't necessarily have to join the Imperium and could become something akin to a Rogue Trader, or even join an Inquisitor's retinue, since those had enormous amounts of political power.
And since only those who were psykers themselves would know that what Gerhard used wasn't really the Warp, he could go for a long while being undetected.
Now, of course, that wasn't going to happen, since this galaxy didn't allow anyone to have nice things. Something would happen and mess those things up. Besides, Gerahrd wanted to make it to Cadia, if he could. And if not Cadia, then at least to Macragge in time to support them.
Again, that was his idealistic side talking and not realistic. But if Gerhard could become strong enough to face Greater Demons...
He immediately put that thought out of his mind. That was wishful thinking and not going to be possible. But it didn't matter. In the end, all that mattered was what Gerhard did with the time he had on his hands and how cleverly he abused his abilities.
Sera went through the dungeon, shooting Kobolds and giant snakes and the like, easily dealing with all of it on her own, allowing Gerhard to train while keeping an eye on her.
The thing he was interested in learning: Dual Casting.
Dual casting was a skill that allowed a magician to use two different spells at the same time. Truthfully, Gerhard knew that mastering dual casting would help him immensely, because there are spells that take all of his attention to cast.
It wasn't that easy, and Gerhard had to concentrate very hard on the task. It was essentially dividing his own thoughts into two. Gerhard imagined that on his left hand, he thought about spinning, and on his right hand, he thought about construction and deconstruction.
And after trying this for a while, Gerhard managed to do it surprisingly fast.
[A skill has been created through a special action]
[A skill to cast two spells at the same time, 'Dual Casting', has been created.]
Dual Casting (Active) Lv. 1
| EXP: 0.00%
| Allows the user to use two or more spells at the same time.
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"Yes! Let's go."
Gerhard immediately went further, doing what he should have done a long time ago.
He focused on his right hand again and used his skill [Charge], a skill that had seen a lot of use over the past months of his new existence. And on his left hand, he focused on using [Mana Arrow].
[Charge] [Mana Arrow]
[Your efficiency in Dual Casting has risen]
[Dual Casting has levelled up]
Gehard's right hand had chains of electricity running from finger to finger, and above his left hand hovered a Mana Arrow. That was what Gerhard wanted. He slowly brought these two together and concentrated, focusing on keeping his Mana under control.
Normally, this was ludicrous even to attempt, but for a Gamer using Gamer logic...
[A new skill has been created through a special action.]
Lightning Arrow (Active) Lv. 1
| MP: 10
| EXP: 0.00%
| You imbue the power of lightning into a magical arrow.
| The speed of this spell can be compared to the speed of light. Dodging this arrow after it's fired is impossible.
| To dodge this arrow, you must identify the direction of the arrow and dodge ahead of the cast.
Arrows: 1
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"What the..."
Gerhard had done it. He had created a skill that combined electricity and his Mana Arrow and turned it into one skill. And what's more, it was apparently as fast as light...
Was that logical?
No.
Should lightning be as fast as light?
No.
Was Mana involved?
Most likely.
Did all of this matter?
Absolutely not.
Besides, it only said the speed could be comparable to the speed of light, not that it was at the speed of light. So it was still slower. The wording of the skills was always rather interesting, as breaking the laws of conventional physics wasn't even that special for the gamer system, but it was still interesting to see to what degree.
Especially since the skill wasn't even that powerful and could be created rather easily. 10 Mana per cast was very cheap. Especially because Gerhard regenerated 12 passively per second.
Gerhard thought about it suddenly and came to a shocking realisation.
He had been a fool. He had worked so hard to scavenge materials and resources that he ignored Mana. Why didn't he simply create a Mana Bullet?
He went right ahead.
His Mana manipulation had grown over the months, giving him more and more freedom in the usage of the energy. He focused and slowly shaped his Mana into a bullet shape. It was still rather big, so he concentrated on making it smaller.
[A new skill has been created through a special action]
[A skill to create a 'Mana Bullet' has been created]
Mana Bullet (Active) Lv. 1
| MP: 5
| EXP: 0.00%
| A skill that creates a bullet made of Mana. It can be fired at the speed of a bullet on average, but can be increased through training and with more Mana.
Bullets: 1