The Legend of William Oh

Chapter 178: Skin Can’t See Color

Will sought out a nice quiet spot in the ever-bustling caravan and brought up his list of possible Secondary Abilities.With a quick scan, Will dismissed the Abilities that were simple attacks or things that he wasn’t particularly interested in:

Uru Breath, Stone Charge, venom Strike, Mighty Leap, Prey’s senses.

They were Abilities that had been offered early in his Climbing career, and they weren’t very powerful, sophisticated, or they were slightly redundant.

Next he went through the new abilities offered:

be

Will thought. It mimicked Sin Amalgam’s tactic of warping reality so it couldn’t be escaped from.

Will thought, studying it. There were probably some tricks he could do with the Ability, upgrades that might give him a boost of healing on arrival, or add a damage effect. Add a lifesteal relic, recover from any wound he got on the way.

Could be a good way to buy time to recover from mortal wounds.

It was an interesting ability, but Will’s defences and traversal were both already pretty solid, and the idea of stuffing himself through a pipe or the seam of a vault door were…not fun. Will was sure he would feel every bone getting crushed in the process.

Will wasn’t sure, but if Sourdough be used with it, he might be able to consume a Relic and preserve it with Sourdough, basically allowing him to pseudo-equip an extra relic for a certain amount of time without even losing it.

And of course he could custom-make Relics specifically for that use with Sourdough.

Will added it to the list and moved on to the next new Ability.

Will thought, musing.

Will thought.

If so, it might be excellent. Despite being multi-Stat scaling, Will was pretty good at all of those things.

Without upgrading it to teleportation, it was about on par with what he could do with his Phantom Hand for free, bouncing himself around a battlefield wildly.

a teleportation upgrade, it would probably be slightly better than the Dimensional Coiled Serpent Amulet, because Will imagined the range would be much higher, since the amulet was only ever meant to unexpectedly close a few feet of distance for a killing blow. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on NovᴇlFɪre.ɴet

Will added to the list of potential acquisitions, then turned his attention back to the full list, minus the ones he’d dismissed already.

Will reviewed and dismissed four more before he listed out all the remaining possible choices.

Will could imagine himself upgrading it and then using those decoys to do the things he didn’t want to do, like feeding the oxen, signing papers, attending meetings.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Will thought. If he could add an extra ability to an already Sourdough-ed weapon and then add it to Phantom Hand…that was hard to say no to.

Will sat and reviewed all of his choices and imagined how they would impact his Class:

Deceivers Molt would make him trickier, allowing him to fake his death a couple more times before people caught on. It also gave him a self-heal Ability.

Will already had a self-heal Ability with his Set, offloading wounds onto his snakes.

In essence, this was a purely defensive Ability and didn’t really help him win a fight. Even if it was upgraded to allow the copies to have some of his Abilities, they wouldn’t be any stronger than he was…most likely significantly weaker.

Will thought, reluctantly setting it aside.

Will dismissed Serpent’s gaze and Climber’s Piton.

They were both good, but Serpent’s gaze branched off his Build into a debuffer, and the Piton was slightly redundant. If he could travel miles in a minute, medium range teleportation wasn’t that appealing.

That left him with: Titan’s Grasp, Blood Binding, Consumption, and Uru Drake’s Eye.

Blood binding and Consumption both leaned heavily into the Relic exploitation that his Build focused on. Titan’s Grasp would likely boost his Aspect cantrips even more than they already were. A simple boost in his raw, baseline power.

And Uru Drake’s Eye…

Will almost dismissed it, but he couldn’t help but keep thinking about it, a nagging thought that kept resurfacing from the churning waters of his mind…what was it reminding him of?

Will thought back to his brief conversation on the subject of Cantrips.

Will had asked.

Ghoul had said.

The Uru Drake’s Eye offered…information. The kind of information that Will couldn’t get anywhere else. Flexibility above and beyond his Archetype.

Sure, he could Charge being used with a high degree of accuracy, but there was probably more information underneath.

It was like this:

Will’s Acuity was high enough that he could sprint through a hallway with his eyes closed just by feeling the proximity to the walls with his skin and ears…but he couldn’t read the map on the wall that said ‘you are here’.

He couldn’t perceive color with his skin.

Will would never know, unless he gambled on this one Ability.

Will mentally reorganized the Abilities by how they might affect his Build:

Consumption, Blood Binding: Relic Exploiter

Titan’s Grasp: Terrain Master

Uru Drake’s Eye: …Wizard, maybe?

From the very beginning, Will had envied Nukers lording it over everyone with their truly magical Abilities that could level buildings, or even cities. was power. was magic, to Will. That was what he had wanted: Magic.

Over the course of his career, Will had gotten a lot closer to a Nuker, through incremental upgrades to his Build.

If Will could use the Uru Drake’s Eye to enhance his understanding of Miasma and develop new cantrips…maybe he could be a wizard like Ghoul?

Will’s thoughts turned towards Reese’s prediction of Will’s untimely demise. How he was Fated to die sometime in the next four or five years, on the 50th Floor.

Somehow, every Coil there was someone like him who rose to prominence, then died young mysteriously. They were all strapping young men with outlandishly powerful Classes that laid waste to their competition and made names for themselves as legends…right before the end of the Coil.

He hadn’t tried excercising all his power since he hit level 40, but Will was absolutely confident that he could already tear apart a castle or small city if he really wanted.

That brought Will back to his earlier rumination about making the transition from a Climber to a Lord. There was a limit to what more power could get you. More on the other hand…

Will thought with a half-chuckle.

Will closed his eyes as the shudder of his Class rearranging itself went through his whole body, collecting in his spine and travelling up through the back of his neck, creating a subtle pressure that seemed to gather behind his eyes before it faded a moment later.

Will took a deep breath and opened his eyes.