Chronos shivered as he realized how powerful pure void skills were and how much damage they could do to the world if misused. As this realization hit him, he came to an even more horrifying discovery.
When he had practiced the Divine Beast Method his beast heart had two powers in it.
One of them was void.
That meant that any member of the Beklaedning clan could have access to the power of the void and his clan wasn't exactly known for restraint.
He needed to look into this now.
In a rush, he started reading through the skills searching for anything that could help him and his clan.
"Oh, there's even an illusion showing me what each skill does. I wonder if I can convince Hrólmir to add that feature to other skills. Reading about them isn't bad but seeing them performed is so much more impressive." Chronos marveled at the effort that had been put into showing how dangerous pure void was.
[Void Fang]: Condense the power of pure void into a narrow point which can pierce matter or energy on its path. The lengthy casting time leaves the caster open to attack.
[Void Maw]: Creates a small hole in the world through which pure void seeps into the world, destroying everything it comes into contact with. Appearing like a maw that devours the world. Establishing the opening takes considerable time and must be carefully closed afterwards lest the caster fall into it.
[Starved Void]: Embed a tiny piece of pure void within a target slowly destroying it from the inside out and growing larger in the process. Its small size makes it near undetectable until it has grown larger.
[Voidfall]: After a prolonged casting time the world's resistance to the void is weakened within a designated area. Flecks of darkness appear destroying pieces of whatever they touch before disappearing. Frost and ice spreads across the affected area. Voidfall is indiscriminate and will destroy anything in the affected area.
After reading a dozen skills Chronos was exasperated.
"Geez, all of these skills are highly destructive, and they can't tell the difference between friend and foe. I just need a skill for destroying a small amount of miasma, not a huge swath of land. Ah, finally something that can help me."
Chronos was halfway through the list when he found the first skill that might be able to help him.
[Hollowing Touch]: The caster painstakingly creates a minute layer of pure void above their hand, weapon, or any object this skill is used on. The pure void layer destroys anything the object touches. Maintaining the boundary between the pure void layer and the object it's on requires exceptional control of void power or the object will be destroyed.
He could use this skill to carefully destroy the miasma but trying to maintain the skill long term looked like it would be problematic. There should be a simpler skill that could accomplish a similar effect.
[Perfecting Void]: A caster exposes an item to minute amounts of pure void. Using the pure void, the caster can target impurities, microscopic fractures, poorly bonded materials, imperfect magical pathways, and structural irregularities destroying them to increase the strength of the crafted item at the cost of total mass.
That sounded exactly like what he needed but it was a crafting skill costing 500 system points. He hadn't seen anything that expensive anywhere else. There was no way he could afford it in time to create his spear.
Just below it there was an even higher rank more costly crafting skill that he refused to look at. He didn't want to lose his determination now.
Continuing to read he finally found skills that might be able to help him, not just destroy everything around the target.
[Abyssal Void Ice]: A speck of pure void forms a shell of ice that absorbs heat and energy making the ice impossibly cold and hard. If the shell is broken anything in direct contact with the pure void is destroyed. This destruction causes an explosive drop in temperature creating more void ice in its immediate surroundings.
[True Void Flame]: Flames formed of pure void erase whatever it touches. Feeding upon matter energy and power of all kinds it cannot be smothered and must be controlled or allowed to collapse. Being formed of void it doesn't give off any heat instead giving off a bone chilling cold that spreads ice nearby. The appearance of flame yet the chilling cold gives a sense of wrongness that can't be ignored.
Those were some impressive skills, and they could help him create the spear he wanted, making him excited.
Except when he looked at the price, he realized that they still cost too much. Looking back at the other skills he found out that the cheapest pure void skill cost 100 system points.
It was no surprise that they were so expensive when they could allow someone to fight well above their rank, but it was still discouraging for Chronos.
This wasn't going to work. He was momentarily confused about how he could forget that he was working with limited points so easily, then he saw some purple energy touching his arm. Glancing up he saw Sariah trying to curse him and scowling while she wrote notes.
"Sariah! Stop trying to curse me with [Wandering Thoughts]! I'm seriously trying to find a skill right now."
"Fine, it wasn't really working on you anyways." She pouted as she left.
Chronos turned back to the system skills with a relieved look.
He would never tell her that it had worked very well, there were just so many different void skills that he had kept reading different ones before he could be distracted by other things.
Now that he could focus better, he knew that he couldn't afford a pure void skill but living void skills were much cheaper. There was a good reason for that.
Pure void was the full power of the void slamming into something while living void was the power that living creatures adapted to the void utilized. Living void was much weaker than pure void due to this but that made it easier to use. Which also made living void skills much cheaper to purchase.
In fact, many of the living void skills involved summoning creatures from the void to be commanded in the physical world rather than using the living void directly.
Now if he could find the right skill amongst the living void skills, it would be greatly beneficial for creating his spear.
He looked at the pure void skills longingly one last time thinking that he wouldn't be able to get them for a long time then realized that the [Abyssal Void Ice] mentioned void ice.
Was there an inferior version of it?