The Legend of William Oh

Chapter 268: Titan’s Grasp

Will was sitting with a selection of Sacrifices in front of him.

Will sighed and set the chunk of raid-boss down. It wasn’t that exciting, all told.

Will checked the wire hair gorillas.

For Phantom Hand, it enhanced the armor. For Aspect, it boosted Will’s protection against physical damage, and it was incompatible with Map and Uru Drake’s eye.

Will kept going for several hours, putting aside the potential upgrades he liked the most into piles based on which Ability they were for…until he reached the piece of what appeared to be wood.

The crimson puppeteer was a rare and elusive monster he hadn’t come across on the 9th Floor that took control of people and animals and used a variety of abilities through its puppets.

User may have their Abilities originate from any location on the map within the radius of the automatic update.

Will frowned, leaning his chin on his palm as he studied the description. Did that mean he could use Aspect to create earth spikes miles away?

Will set it aside.

After another half hour of looking, he’d narrowed his primary choice down to either Crimson puppeteer or Xanith Forgemaster for Phantom Hand.

Xanith Forgemaster Sacrifice for Phantom Hand.

User may fully manifest Relics slotted in Phantom Hand. If the Relic is destroyed, replaced, or modified, Phantom Hand’s connection to the Relic is lost, and the slot will take a week to regrow.

Will compared the two in his mind.

The Forgemaster Sacrifice would allow him to take out and modify the Wand of the undead retainer, and potentially replace certain valuable pieces like the Dimensional Coiled Serpent Amulet without breaking them.

The map ability would allow him to use his ability to modify distant terrain with Aspect of the immortal Serpent, create eyes and ears miles distant in an instant, and potentially lead to more powerful upgrades to Map in the future, such as directly modifying terrain and teleporting to locations on the map without requiring a fear anchor.

Beyond that, with the upgrade that allowed him to map his own body he could accurately use Abilities to modify the Miasmatic Structures inside himself...once he had the ability to do so.

The Forgemaster sacrifice was…great to have, but not critical. The Crimson puppeteer was a strong advancement in Map’s progression, which only had two upgrades so far.

Will thought.

Will’s body shuddered as his Ability was rewritten.

Will felt it as the map changed in his mind. It was no longer a flat lifeless thing, and more like a thin, stretchy film his Abilities could interact with and pierce through with a single mental command.

Will went onto the balcony of his tower and plucked a portion of the map, leaning on his years of experience with his first cantrip.

Miles in the distance, a portion of the mountain shot upwards in a cloud of dust before gradually sinking back down, creating an avalanche so distant that Will couldn’t even hear it.

Brianna walked out onto the balcony beside him, drinking coffee as she peered out into the distance. Coffee was definitely a luxury this high in the Tower, but she’d figured out how the farmer kids could produce a huge quantity of both coffee and sugar, so Will had no reason to complain.

“…Was that you?” Brianna asked, scratching her mussed up hair as she peered at the mountain, her oversized bedshirt rendered luminous by the morning sun.

Will made two fat pillars and a curved line, drawing a smiley-face on the distant mountainside.

“Hmm…” Brianna left and returned a moment later with a map of the surrounding lands.

“Flatten the spots in green, dig trenches in the red, and plow the checkered portions, milord.”

“Why can’t your farmers do it?” Will asked, overlaying her map onto his own.

“You’re faster,” Brianna said over her shoulder as she walked back inside.

Will was indeed faster, finishing the task in the three strides it took him to follow Bri back inside the tower.

Will sat back down at his table and mulled over his next picks while Brianna got dressed and left for work.

In front of him were a slew of preserved eyes from different monsters with eye abilities and enhanced senses. Uru Drake’s eye was kind of picky about what Sacrifices were compatible.

Will didn’t really need more ways to deal direct damage, even if it was as cool as shooting beams out of your eyes.

Who wouldn’t want an attack that cool?

It stung setting the Sacrifice aside and moving on to the next one. it was a flying eyeball called a Flitting Orb that was incredibly difficult to pin down because only the stealthiest Climbers could even get close to it. A good scout sacrifice.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

…

Will would’ve jumped at the opportunity to take it a few years ago, but now he thought twice about it.

Will saved the Sacrifice until the end. He was probably gonna take it, but best choose the other stuff while not dealing with sensory disorientation.

Will thought.

…

Uru Breath had gone from minor to major, and the damage had become ‘extreme’.

Will thought.

‘Stone Charge’ became ‘Scaled Charge’, adding a duration rather than a short fixed range, along with a venom effect.

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It seemed to be the Abilities Will got offered earlier that were being spontaneously upgraded.

It was one of the Abilities that had been around since the very beginning, and it had always been a tempting choice, overshadowed by other Abilities that Will needed more immediately.

The thing that finally convinced Will was Titan’s Grasp ability to interact with things that were than what he could usually touch.

Miasmatic Structures were awfully small. He could replace the crude tweezers he’d created from scorpion stingers, eventually manipulating miasma directly.

It would also improve his earth spike cantrip, possibly open the door for new telekinetic cantrips, and finally…allow Will to wield big, manly, two-handed swords with a single hand, which was icing on the cake.

Will shuddered as his Class rewired itself, taking copious notes as the miasmatic structures changed, especially around his fingertips.

Will reviewed the list again with an eye for taking a tertiary Ability.

Those were the only two that Will wanted, but didn’t care if they never got upgraded.

Uru Drake Breath was vastly improved since the last time he’d seen it, and , Will could blast any point on his map with it at any time, which would be absolutely devastating.

Serpent’s Senses was a synergistic combo with Uru Drake’s Eye, allowing him to peer deeper into the nature of reality.

Will waffled between the two for some time before he finally decided…not to take anything yet.

Will turned back to the Flitting orb, the preservation technique making it look like a white wrinkled prune more than an eye with wings.

Will thought.

Will waited with tensed shoulders for the crash of sensations to overwhelm him as his senses were attuned to the Uru Drake’s Eye.

Will cocked his head, frowning.

The sound of miasmatic structures bouncing against each other in the environment sounded like tiny windchimes.

Their smell was similar to freshly cut wood.

And the feel against his skin was something like the bubbles in a pond underneath a waterfall, tickling against his skin as they bounced off him.

All told, it was actually rather pleasant.

Will reached up with his right hand and seized a small section of air with Aspect.

There was a creaking noise, like an old man leaning back in a wooden chair as Aspect of the Immortal Serpent’s miasmatic structures formed a crystalline shape and solidified the air.

Will flicked it with his finger.

He watched and listened as Titan’s Grasp triggered from his fingertip and interacted with the crystalline shape.

It sounded a bit like wind breaking against a thin sheet of metal, and Will watched as the hardened air wobbled slightly under the warping effect of Titan’s Grasp.

The extra sensory information would make it easier to tell if something had changed in a miasmatic structure without even looking at it, and once he was familiar with them, it would make identification, mixing, modification and guessing the function…much easier.

Will moved over to the disassembled pod and leaned down to pick up a piece he’d been working on.

Titan’s grasp flared and the metal square flew into his hand the moment he considered it.

The small bolt flew up to hover above his finger. Will found that he could orient the thing any way he wanted.

The bolt began to spin.

Will oriented the bolt straight above his finger and it spun screwing itself back into the hole, securing the two panels back together.

Will mused.

Titan’s grasp flared and the cold cup of coffee Brianna had left for him was cocooned in altered gravity, flying across the room without spilling, landing in his palm without a ripple.

Will mused, carefully reviewing what he knew.

The Ability was one of the originals, and Will had been a bit confused as to why it hadn’t changed like the other originals…but it changed. The change was just so small he hadn’t even noticed. One word.

‘tries to hold’ had become ‘wants to hold’.

One word made a big difference.

As in, the sensitivity of the Ability had become much higher, the range had been increased, and the limits inherently reduced. ‘tries’ implied he had to actively try to touch the target, and that also meant he had to be close enough to try. At least, close enough to rationalize it as ‘trying’ in his mind.

But ‘want’?

That was carte blanche.

At Will’s mental nudge, the thousands of scattered parts rose into the air and began hovering in place.

It didn’t put everything together, though. Will simply couldn’t focus on all of it at once, but wherever he directed his attention would begin reassembling according to his direction.

At level 10, it probably would’ve made heavy swords feel lighter and more nimble. At level 65, the bonus was so high that the Ability could move objects by itself.

Will thought, sipping his cold coffee as he watched the pod reassemble itself.