Saintess Summons Skeletons

After a lot of deliberation, Sofia settled on [Ritual skulls of pulse] and[Ceremonial penumbra command] for her active skills. What she hoped for specifically with both of these was some kind of area control to go along with the graveyard. Either by repulsing enemies or drowning the area in shadows. Something like that. With both of these there's a good chance at least one does what I want. And that leaves me with only ‘Restore ’ left for later.

Sofia looked at her status but so far the three skills she had selected were all unavailable. Then the first skill finished processing it was the passive resulting from the combination ‘[Venerated Runic lord]’, the name was in the common language, [Runeforged Overlord]. But the description is in Draconic! Come on…

That’s one fat description too, especially for a passive skill.

As Sofia was trying to translate the skill, she felt her fingertips burning up. What is this?

It was a familiar sensation, just like an Angel’s bolt slowly crossing over the threshold where it started to hurt to channel it. In a sudden discharge of energy, the pain flowed through her arms as thick runes engraved themselves in her skin, then the pain moved to her chest and finally her wings. Though her bone wings usually had no sense of touch, she still felt the acute pain go through them as the runes were magically etched into her being.

What the fuck. This actually looks a bit cool. They’re glowing even. Is that holy light? Hmm, they feel a bit like scars to the touch. Thankfully there’s none of them on the palm of my hands.

The runes on her arms were softly glowing, it was a very dim yellow glow, meanwhile, the runes on her chest and wings were just like gray scars. Hmm, they’re all over my thoracic cage essentially, but they dodged around my breasts? Oh, they reach under them, though. What’s the point of those? No one’s ever gonna see them unless I wear something like Dopple, such a waste of cool runes. And the ones on my wings are okay I guess, gray on white isn’t very visible.

Can I make the ones on my chest and wings glow too? This must be some kind of self-strengthening effect, right?

I don’t really feel any different though.

In a hurry to discover the effects of her new runic tattoos, Sofia translated the skill faster than she had ever translated anything. She was very confident in her translation as well, seeing the numbers as she translated it, she used a level-up point from the second trial on it before she was even finished.

[Runeforged Overlord] ♢ : Your body has become one with runes of power.

This skill has three tiers of power, you may activate the higher tier at any time, but returning to a lower tier requires to either take no damage for 100 seconds or become unable to sustain the tier’s cost or conditions.

The effects and cost of subsequent tiers are added together when active simultaneously.

In your presence all undead and yourself gain the following effects:

___

Tier 1 (No cost; Requires the user to have arms) :

Become unwilling to attack this skill’s user.

+20% Speed (Skill level /10)

___

Tier 2 (0.5 (0.25)% maxmana per second; Requires the user to have a torso) :

+20% Speed (Skill level /10)

+20% Strength (Skill level /10)

+20% Agility (Skill level /10)

___

Tier 3 (2 (1)% maxmana per second; Requires the user to have wings) :

Successful attacks inflict a short lasting [Confusion]

Reduce all incoming damage by 20%

Omnidirectional free flight

Acceleration resistance

+100% Speed (Skill level /2)

+100% Strength (Skill level /2)

+100% Agility (Skill level /2)

Woah, it’s quite something. The scepter’s mana reduction is really an incredible thing to have now, it doubles the uptime of this whole skill. When I activate tier three I get a total of 140% speed, and it also allows Pareth to fly. That’s big news. But 1.25% mana per second is a lot, and having a ton of mana isn’t really helping. Also it says you can’t cancel the tiers unless you take no damage for a while but for tier three I can just cut and regrow my wings, can’t I?

Sofia tried just that, the runes on her chest started glowing as well, a bit stronger than the ones on her arms which then followed suit in the increased luminosity. 1% mana every four seconds, but I can feel the difference already. And this applies to all nearby undead! I could even boost TLDR now. After that, she activated the tier three, and her wings lit up like festival decorations, which also prompted the runes on her chest and arms to shine brightly. The difference in speed and strength was so much that it was disorienting when Sofia tried to simply walk on her bone platform.

The omni-directional flight is better than what I can do with my wings. I can just move however I want. That’ll be incredible with [Evasion]! And Pareth is going to be a real monster with this.

Sofia tried to then cut her wings to disable the skill, but she struggled to do so.

Oh, right, they’re part of the blessed construct now, I can’t even really reshape them anymore. Well, whatever, I’ll just wait for my mana to run out and the skill to go back to tier 1. Good to know that this is how it works. Depending on the circumstances I might want to remove the blessing from my skull.

Sofia sat back down and watched as her mana was drained all the way down to zero by the shiny runes. I might want to start wearing sleeveless robes now. I already had to have an open back for the wings anyway so it’s not that big a jump.

While she tried to understand the runes on her right arm, letting her mana regenerate, a system notification appeared suddenly.

‘The skill [Ritual skulls of pulse] has been renamed [Skull Choir], effects are unchanged.’

We’re doing aesthetic changes now? There’s been precedents of slightly altering names like [Blessing of Deep] becoming [Blessing of the Deep] but nothing like this. Though I guess I was able to name both [The Book of Skeletons] and [Erredian rot] myself so it’s not much different. What matters isn’t the name anyway.

“Finally! A skill I can read!”

[Skull Choir]: Invokes the Skull Choir Array formation to attack and blow away your targets.

The skulls of the skull choir are counted as a single skeleton.

The choir may only move in predetermined resizable array formations, will follow the user and attack autonomously unless manually controlled.

The choir may use a different type of attack depending on the type of skull used as a model. Models will be consumed and permanently added as an available skull type.

If no skull model is selected, the default type is : Human, sonic attacks.

You can invoke a choir of at most 10 skulls (10 + Skill level/5; rounded down).

Requires a 1 (0.5) second channeling time.

Costs 100 (50) mana per skull per second to maintain.

If defeated or dismissed, the choir may not be invoked again for 3 minutes.

Currently known Array Formations:

• Ring system Array

(Next Array unlocked at skill level 50)

This one is quite chunky too. I can definitely feel the religious theme carrying over from whatever skill became ‘Ritual skulls of’. The upkeep is a bit on the expensive side for now but it’s manageable thanks to the staff. At least it’s not a maximum mana percentage.

So now I need to feed this skill skulls? Bookie’s not gonna like this.

Interestingly, it doesn’t say anything about the strength of the attacks. I suppose it’s because the skulls will be of my level? It mentioned blowing away targets, so that’s exactly what I wanted. Is this luck or is it Mr Scribe being nice?

Either way, thanks. Even if I don’t quite understand everything.

Sofia activated the skill with the maximum number of skulls. Ten small black swirls appeared around her, it reminded her of the teleportation hole in the arms of the Annihilator’s statue. Out of these swirls came cracked human skulls, they all had bright yellow light burning in their eye sockets exactly like Pareth. Without a sound, they started orbiting in a circle around her in an orderly manner.

Hmm.. What do I think of this?

Sofia flew up, and the skulls flew up with her, still perfectly spinning, as if tethered to her. No matter how she moved, they followed perfectly with no delay, only slightly moving out of the way of her wings if necessary before reentering the orbit. If she got too close to a wall, they would stop turning, and if she stuck her back against the mountain wall, they would arrange themselves in an arc to protect her from the other direction. She also found out that she could have them orbit as close to her as she wanted until it formed a sort of spinning skull belt, and up to about a hundred meters away at the furthest.

After a bit more testing, she found how to increase and lower the rotation speed. Then she wanted to try out the ‘sonic attacks’, but she ran out of mana and the Choir disappeared.

It’s not even that expensive but I played around too much without even trying the main thing and now I’m forced to sit out the three-minute cooldown…

Sofia was a bit grumpy that her testing was interrupted early when the skill resulting from [Ceremonial penumbra command] was finally ready.

[Reign over shadows]?

“Wait… It’s a summon skill?”

“I’m getting my fourth hero right now?!!!”

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