Ding!

________

[Omnipresence (Rare)]

Grade: Transcendent (C)

Birthed from the harmonious yet complex fusion of indifferent sentience, exuberant vitality, and unyielding willpower, this rare skill allows the user to do things that seem impossible for those that are not endowed with the same level of sentience.

>Deal 200% increased damage to enemies within a certain radius

>All short-ranged attacks become long-ranged

>Reduce the enemies' stats by 20%

Time limit: 5 minutes

FP Cost: 2500 FP

________

"This skill is so powerful that it's incredibly disgusting." This was the only statement Aurus could let out after reading up on the description of the newly fused skill. Nonetheless, on the inside, he was looking at the skill in awe, wondering as to what the limits of skill fusion could be. Not only that, he was also pondering as to how he could make this newly fused skill a trump card of his in the upcoming battle.

After fusing the three skills that he thought were all useless into one skill that was actually incredibly powerful, Aurus could not help but have expectations for the skill fusions he was about to do next. Indeed, with the realization that he could create intrepidly strong skills, Aurus was now hooked on fusing skills together.

Whoos.h.!.+

Opening up the Skill Fusion screen once more, Aurus commanded the system to change the list of skills he was looking at to compose of all of his skills, not just limiting himself to active and hybrid skills. If active and hybrid skills could be fused, then why not pa.s.sive skills as well?

To be honest, after his first successful skill fusion, he started throwing skills into the Skill Fusion screen at random, only obtaining prompts from the system that informed him that the skill combinations he threw in would not work. It also informed him that the skills that were going to be fused together should have some relation, or else fusion would not even happen. Surprisingly, there was no downside to fusing skills randomly, just wasted time.

After that, he also tried fusing skills with the Ruler skills he obtained from the inheritance. Of course, a prompt appeared in front of his field of vision once again, informing him that Ruler skills could not be fused as they were tied to a t.i.tle of his. To be on the safe side, the system also informed him that he could not fuse two Ruler skills together. Obtaining a prompt like that, Aurus could not help but think that the system had some level of awareness.

After obtaining those prompts which told him about the limitations of skill fusion, Aurus decided to look at the list of skills once more, taking those words of advice into consideration as he made wiser choices this time, instead of just fusing random skills together w.i.l.l.y-nilly, hoping that the fusion would succeed.

And so, a few minutes later, after being bombarded with prompts, Aurus used the Skill Fusion screen once more. This time, with the skills he chose having some relation to them.

"System, fuse [Flux Chiliocosm], [Chiliocosm of Spirit], and [Stick-Flux Unification] together," he commanded the system, slightly trembling as there was a chance that the fusion wouldn't go through. Nonetheless, he was pretty confident that this skill fusion would work as all of them were related to his energy source. To be more exact, the vessels where he holds the energy.

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

Not long after, three skill names appeared on the Skill Fusion screen, each and every one being the skills Aurus mentioned for the system to fuse. A few seconds later, these skill names started to faintly glow as a prompt appeared in front of Aurus' field of vision not long after. Reading through the prompt, Aurus could not help but radiate an aura of happiness as he muttered to himself in glee, "It finally worked!"

Ding!

'Would you like to fuse the three skills together? As all three of them are of the same grade, 5 of your levels shall be consumed.'

"Of course, I do," Aurus replied without hesitation, with three motes of light appearing inside his mind once more not long after. They collided once more with one another as usual, eventually melding into a giant ball of vibrant light. A few seconds later, a notification appeared in front of Aurus' field of vision, informing him of the newly fused skill that had just been created, as well as the fact that his level had dropped down to 9.

Ding!

'Skill Fusion is successful. The pa.s.sive Species skill [Greater Chiliocosm of Supreme Spirit-Flux (Special)] has been created.'

Of course, since this was a new skill he had obtained, he could not help but read through the skill description, muttering praises in awe as to how amazing the effects were on the newly fused skill.

Ding!

_________

[Greater Chiliocosm of Supreme Spirit-Flux (Special)]

Grade: Transcendent (C)

Birthed from the fusion of three skills which served the purpose of containing a strong yet plentiful energy, this skill expands the limit of how much energy, energy being Flux Points, this skill could hold. As a resonance has formed between the three skills, a superbly great amount of FP can be held at once, as well as the fact that a great amount of energy can be regenerated at once. Not only that, the effect of the energy is also enhanced, allowing the user to exert more power into their abilities.

>Increases efficacy of FP-based skills by 30%

>Reduces cost of FP-based skills by 30%

>All that come close to the user gain a 15% increased energy regeneration rate buff

FP Capacity: 20000

FP Regeneration Rate: 500 FP per 10 seconds

________

"Tssss…" Aurus could not help but imitate the sound of sucking air between the teeth, aghast from the effect of the skill when comparing it to the effects of the three separate skills from before. "Although the amount of FP I can utilize is halved thanks to the Spirit Energy Core, that's still 10000 FP I can use at once! If I had that amount while I was making the Spirit Clone, I would've been able to create a Rank 1 Animate clone instead of Rank 0!"

As he continued to think about the possibilities of having a lot of SP, he could not help but say, "Then again, starting out as a Rank 1 Animate by relying through the system would probably be a worse choice than starting out from Rank 0 in the long run."

"Anyways, moving on." Placing these thoughts in the back of his head, he then continued to look at the list of skills that weren't fused yet, trying to formulate a skill fusion that would use up more than 3 skills as that would definitely result in an incredibly powerful skill.

A few seconds later in his attempt of formulating such a recipe of skills, he could not help but notice four Cla.s.s Skills that were around the same line of thought, being around the manipulation of Flux for greater power. Well…at the very least, that's how Aurus interpreted it.

Looking at the Skill Fusion screen once more, Aurus commanded the system, "Fuse all of the active skills regarding Flux."

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

At that moment, four intangible threads of light, that came out of Aurus' body, made their way towards the Skill Fusion screen, filling up four s.p.a.ces as the four of them glowed with vibrant light not long after, a decent contrast to that from the skill fusion before.

Aurus could not help but notice it as well, asking himself, "Is the amount of light emitted by the skills in the resonance proportional to the possible power of the skill?"

He tried to recall the amount of light that was released by the first skill fusion he did, slightly surprised that it emitted a bit more light compared to the fusion of energy storage skills.

Ding!

'Would you like to fuse [Unworldly Flux Weapon Fabrication], [Unworldly Flux Armor Fabrication], [Third Heaven Flux Enhancement], and [Grand Flux Samsara] together? As all of these skills are of the same grade, 8 of your levels shall be consumed.'

"Hoh? 8 of my levels shall be consumed? Since a fusion of 3 skills cost 5 of my levels, then a fusion of only 2 skills would cost around 2 or 3 levels? I'll have to find that out later," Aurus muttered for a bit after reading up on the cost of the fusion. Nonetheless, he accepted the prompt, dropping his level down to 2 afterwards. Of course, he used up a portion of his unused experience once more, getting back to max level in an instant as four motes of light appeared in his mind.

Unexpectedly, while the four motes of light collided with one another in an elegant yet vibrant dance of sorts, Aurus could not help but hear a dragon's roar resound from the collisions, with it becoming more frequent the closer the four were going to fuse as one. Eventually, the four had fused into one ent.i.ty of light, illuminating Aurus' mind in a vibrant light as multiple dragon roars resounded not long after.

Ding!

Which was followed up by a notification sound.

'Skill Fusion is successful. The active Species skill [Ancient Modular Flux Equipment Fabrication (Epic)] has been created.'

As Aurus read up on the notification he had received, he could not help but gasp in surprise, forcing himself to stay silent as he did not want to startle Fenrir and Charisa, shouting inwardly in extreme glee instead.

"An Epic skill! I can't believe it…I actually obtained an Epic skill!"

As Special skills were stronger variants of normal skills, Rare skills being stronger variants of Special skills, Epic skills were on a higher level compared to them. Once a skill had reached the Epic level, even if it was a Mortal skill, it would still output power equivalent to that of a Transcendent level skill, or better yet, a Divine level skill!

Although Aurus had obtained a lot of Epic skills back in ISE, Legendary skills even, this was the first time Aurus had obtained an Epic skill in his current life, which was based on ISE. Of course, since it was his first Epic skill, he was quite excited to read the skill's description, bringing it up not long after.

Ding!

________

[Ancient Modular Flux Equipment Fabrication (Epic)]

Grade: Transcendent (C)

Birthed from the fusion of four skills that specialized in the usage of Flux for greater power, a skill that could surpa.s.s the power of a lot of skills had been made, allowing the user to forge equipment out of the user's Flux. Not only that, the skill also allows the user to create modifications to the equipments made in terms of effects, even allowing the equipment to be given out to other users.

>Grade Range of Crafted Equipment: Grand to Mythic

>Attachable Effects to Crafted Equipment: Enchantment, Party Resonance

>Attachable Set Effects to Crafted Equipment: Rejuvenation, Arcana, d.a.m.nation, Fortress, Vitality

>Types of Craftable Equipment: Physical, Magic, Ignition

FP Cost: 500 FP

________

If Aurus had eyes, those eyes of his would definitely twinkle like a million shooting stars due to the sheer amount of awe and reverence he had for this skill. Not only that, multiple ideas for trump cards started to pop out of Aurus' mind due to the great amount of modularity Aurus could do to the equipment.

At the very end of his thinking session, Aurus could not help but mutter, "If this is what skill fusion can give me…why don't I fuse up even more skills?"

And so…that's what he did.

While Aurus was basking in the feeling of obtaining a lot of ideas, as well as greater combat power due to the fusions he was doing, something different was happening within a certain portion of the Celestial Plane.

Celestial Plane, Kurohana's plane.

"Success." Kurohana could not help but lightly chuckle as she looked through the white orb in front of her, looking at Aurus, who was currently fusing up his skills together.

While looking at Aurus, she raised both of her hands into the air, manifesting a few threads of green light that went towards the orb not long after. These threads were infused with the Law of Natural Flow, which Kurohana had asked for permission to manipulate as she did not want to be berated by Phatia again.

As she looked at the green threads slowly meld with the orb, displaying Aurus' surroundings, a light smile appeared on her face as she said in a slightly proud manner, "Finally, I removed that invincibility skill from his skillset. With him not having that skill, there would be greater chance for him to lose in the upcoming war that's going to happen, forcing him to recuperate. While he's recuperating, with the help of the threads I infused, that will make someone find him and use him as a weapon!"

"I'm a genius, a true genius." Kurohana could not help but laugh after going over through her plans. Not long after though, she continued to look at her orb, letting out a sigh as she muttered, "To be honest, I would have definitely waited for a year since that would allow Aurus to mature even more, increasing the nurturing speed of the weapon. But due to the plane's current circ.u.mstances, I have no choices but to do this."

As she said this, she could not help but recall the war that happened back then in the Celestial Plane, which killed off a lot of Lesser G.o.ds, but allowed a decent number of Lesser G.o.ds to become Greater G.o.ds in the process. Nonetheless, the memories of the Divine Demon War to Kurohana was something she did not want for others to experience, which forced her to hasten Aurus' fate of becoming a weapon.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stop him from forming a Spirit Clone." Kurohana sighed as she panned towards another section of Erudinia, the orb displaying an old yet wise-looking man drinking a bit of tea. She could not help but slightly frown as she continued to talk. "If he did not craft a Spirit Clone, then the strength of his soul would boost the nurturing speed of the weapon even further. Unfortunately, it seems that someone in my world has become aware of my actions…"

She let out a sigh not long after, muttering, "If I had the time to do so, I would definitely eliminate this fellow, but I have to focus all of my efforts to getting Aurus crafted into a weapon as fast as possible. The weapons I've crafted, although having a high grade, don't have enough power and affinity to fight against the demons."

"Only with a soul like Aurus' soul would I be able to create my true masterwork weapon, a weapon that can cut through anything and everything."

"By then…I would also be able to fight against those that plotted against me. Just you wait."