Seed Of Speed

Poor Tovao had no chance from the beginning. He was immediately ensnared by the illusion, and the first set of winds threw him into the back wall of their small, private arena. Needless to say, Diego won the first fight without having to use the three clones to fight that he called forth throughout the spell.

When the song spell finished, Tovao slumped to the ground and laid on his back while staring up at the stone ceiling. "How? How have you gotten so crazy strong in this short of time?"

"Well, I have been spending all of my time practicing, just like you. You were the first person I used my custom spell against, you should feel honored," Diego said, storing away his instruments.

"I get people say that, but I feel no honor in getting my b.u.t.t kicked so hard," Tovao grumbled.

Diego walked up to Tovao's side and offered a hand. With a groan, Tovao took it and let himself be pulled to his feet. The pair made their way out of the small arena, Diego not forgetting to collect his winnings at the door where the two had deposited their bets to guarantee fairness between the students.

"You didn't even give me a chance to show-off what I've learned," Tovao said as they left the Gambling Arena.

"You where the one who was all gung-ho about fighting me… I just needed to make sure you remembered who was in charge," Diego replied with a mischievous grin.

"Without your magic though, you wouldn't stand a chance against me."

"While that may be true now, it won't always be that way, and it's not like I'm giving up my magic, either. My master has given me permission to take more classes, so you'll start to see me showing up in your morning classes," Diego said.

"You better be careful, or you may wind up on the receiving end of a beating. Shamans are forbidden from using magic while in martial classes, so don't be too surprised when I beat you," Tovao snickered.

"No one can say what the future holds." Diego said with a grin. "Now, why don't you take me over to the Skill Tower and help me spend these eleven hundred pellets."

Tovao's face sunk as he remembered the hundred he had lost and shook his head, "Unlike you, I have to work for my money. I'm going to head to Commission Hall and see what I can find for work today."

"Alright, but in the next week or two, I'm going to start trying my luck in the Catacombs. Once I do, you'll need join my team," Diego said with a thumbs-up.

Tovao chuckled and shook his head, "I would just hold you back from getting a group. You'll understand once you see the que inside the Catacombs."

"You forget my abilities as a Soul Singer! Let's see them refuse a simple request like bringing my flesh-and-blood brother along!"

"Your gifts are great, but in the end, you are just a Supporting Shaman. It is Attacking Shamans that lead a group and taking a martial student as low as I am, no one will want you," Tovao continued to refuse.

"Then we will form our own group! I don't care, Tovao, you're not getting out of this."

Tovao smiled, his brother's words warming his heart, but he still had a better understanding of what all Diego's words meant than he did himself. "I'll await the day you get a group compass then. I'll see you at dinner."

Tovao split from Diego and made his way towards Commission Hall, disappearing around a corner. Diego kept walking down the path towards Tri-Tower Plaza. As usual, there were a number of people lingering around the area, chatting or studying, but it just made the area more inviting.

Unlike the Great Library or the Spell Tower, the inside of the Skill Tower was much more humble in appearance. There were no magic shelves, or anything elaborate inside. The floors and walls were made of sandstone bricks, just like the common buildings all across the desert. There were no books, only scrolls, and they were placed on a similar set crisscrossing of shelves to the ones that had been in the Telryn library. The only magic that was incorporated into the building were the hundreds of floating white lights that acted as the only source of light inside.

The rows of scrolls were divided by the type of skill and what weapon, or lack-there-of, it used. Diego could easily see why Tovao had claimed he wanted to show off what he had learned as there was an entire row devoted to glaive techniques. Just like Spell Tower, the skills were marked clearly with a tassel in black, green, and a few blues which defined the rank of skill much like Shadowbolt's personal tower.

Diego glanced over some of the spear techniques, but at the price of a hundred pellets for a black-rank skill, he simply put them back after he realized they were on the same level as the one his clan used. He wanted around for a bit longer before he found what he was looking for: Evasion Skills. Unlike magic, he was more restricted on what element he should work with because his natural affinities would play a more significate part on how powerful the skill would be. Most of the evasion techniques were green-ranked which cost three hundred pellets each and there were two blue-rank skills, but at the staggering price of fifteen hundred pellets, he did not bother to look at them.

(So, my wonderful System… What should I do? Can't you just scan them all and save me the trouble?) Diego asked with a bit of amus.e.m.e.nt.

::As I told you upon entering the Spell Tower, if it is revealed that you have spells or techniques that belong to the sect without proof of purchasing said ability, the punishment is death. Instead of looking for the easy way, read some of the description of the skills and analyze what you want::

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Mission Acquired!

- Choose five evasion techniques based off of your affinities. The better the skills harmonize together, the strong the final technique will be.

- Requirements: Learn five evasion techniques

- Reward: Customized evasion technique and 50 skill points

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(Damn… if I had just kept my mouth shut, would that have been a hidden quest?)

::Yes, worth two hundred skill points, but assigning the quest reduces the reward to fifty no matter the original amount::

Diego banged his head against an empty section of shelf for a moment at the massive lose of skill points. In the end, he sighed and started looking through the scrolls. Thankfully, they were divided into smaller groups by the elemental affinity, so he focused in on the Light and Thunder sections. After an hour of reading, he had finished reading the description of all of the skills and had narrowed them down

[Dazzling Dance] was a light-based technique that would have the user 'dancing' around their opponent's attack in close-range with a complex series of steps. It was a green rank, but the selling point was that it used a tiny amount of chi.

[Flash Step] was another light-based technique that would the user to virtually teleport to another location within a small area around the user. It was also a green rank, but unlike [Dazzling Dance], the drain of chi from the skill would limit him to a handful of uses.

[Lightning Rush], like the name suggested, related to the thunder element and the last of the green ranked techniques he picked. The user would burst forward with incredible speed and power, but the drawback was that it could only be used in a straight line.

[Electric Arc Hop] was a strange sounding skill for sure, but it worked similar to [Flash Step] as the user would jump between to points at high speeds. The major drawback was that the 'jumping points' were fixed once the ability was deployed and, while the skill could be redeployed, it would magnify the draw on the user's reserves.

[Shimmering Steps] was a light-based technique that was more dependent on the footwork than the usage of chi like [Dazzling Dance], but where the latter focused on close-range evasion, the former focuses on long-range evasion. The footwork would allow the user to move at high speeds and sidestep attacks with ease. The reason why it was only a black ranked skill was that it was useless in close-range.

There were a lot of common reference between the five skills, so Diego hoped that his custom skill would be able to incorporate all of these techniques and cover up the flaws while making it stronger as a whole. He took the scrolls to the counter to exchange for a copy of the complete techniques and kissed away all of his pellets. It seemed his martial classes would just have to wait for now.