NOVEL NEXT Book Five: Diplomacy - Chapter Nineteen: Choice to Merge
Beside my hut and alone once more, I take a moment to navigate to my notifications – I’m pretty sure that I received one on the sixth time I cast Inspect Flora. Sure enough, when I check it, I find not just one message waiting for me, but two.
Congratulations!
You have advanced a Class Skill past Beginner. Inspect Flora is now Novice 1. You are now capable of discovering more information about the plant in question and possible uses of it for the members of your network.
Next message / Close messages
It’s quite a short message. Vague too. What does ‘possible uses of it for the members of your network’ mean? Is it going to tell me whether others can eat something as well as me? Or whether whatever alchemical benefit it offers applies to more than just me? I guess I’ll have to find out.
Before then, though, I decide to check out the other message – I’m too curious not to.
Congratulations!
You have three Inspect Skills which you have practised sufficiently to attain the rank of Novice in each. You now have the choice to merge the Skills into one, or retain the individual Skills.
Choosing to keep the Skills separate will result in no change to the current situation. The Skills will advance individually and develop their own functions relative to your use of them. Merging in the future may be possible if all Skills are in the same rank; the further the Skills are developed, however, the more difficult it is to preserve all functionalities.
Merging the Skills at present will maintain all functionalities which do not directly conflict with each other. More functionalities may be discovered in the merging.
Note: the more complex the Skill, the more practice and understanding is required to advance it.
Merge Skills / Retain individual Skills
Interesting, I think to myself. My brain works busily to try to process the content and implications of the notification.
I’m immediately drawn towards combining the Skills, especially since it indicates that all the current functionalities should be preserved. At least, as long as they don’t ‘directly conflict’. Running through the various functions of each Skill, I don’t think they do.
Inspect Fauna gives me information about animals – about their health, their mana, their basic fighting strategies, how much Willpower I need to Dominate them at that moment, whether they’re open for a Bond, and sometimes a hint of how to get them to be more open to a Bond. It also gives me the option to gain less information, but for my probe to be less intrusive in order to not alert my target.
Inspect Environment highlights resources in the area around me which can be useful in one way or another with a golden colour. It also indicates threats in red, and allies in blue. It gives me a sort of x-ray vision to an extent, allowing me to see through thin plant cover to plants or animals beyond. Its recent rank-up now means that I can search for something particular in my environment – either something I can visualise, or all items which fulfil a particular function, like I did with trying to find the iron oxide in the iron ore.
Inspect Flora is arguably the weakest of my Skills, probably because I haven’t used it in many contexts. It gives me a little information about plants, telling me about whether the plant is edible or not, whether it has alchemical uses or not, and usually some sort of comment about its growth or how it should be treated. Now, apparently it should give me more information and links somehow to my Bound. Though, whether ‘more information’ means that it will tell me other facets – if it tells me how to plant the flora for the purposes of farming, that would be pretty useful – or it just gives me more detail of what it already says, I don’t know. Either way, it would be useful – maybe there will be fewer ‘unknown’s relating to alchemical uses.
Considered like that, I don’t see any ‘conflicting’ functionalities. Each Skill seems to cover a different area in a different way. Which means that I shouldn’t need to worry about losing any of those aspects. And what if the functionalities can actually combine? I could send out a ‘quieter’ pulse to discover information about everything in the area around me without accidentally alerting a higher tier beast hiding in the bushes. Or I could check if a beast is edible or not. Or perhaps search for a plant with a particular characteristic. So many combinations might be possible.
As long as it doesn’t mean it does everything all the time, of course. But I don’t think that that’s likely. It’s not like I’m forced to use all functionalities of a single Skill all the time with anything else. Why would it suddenly be the case with this Skill?
The warning at the end does give me a little pause – the one about merged Skills taking more practice and understanding to advance. It might mean that passing the bottleneck between Journeyman and Master might be nigh on impossible. But considering the number of other Skills I have at that bottleneck – with two even past it – I figure that I don’t need to rush my Inspection Skills to the top. Having a single multi-functional Skill which saves time and might warn me of things I wasn’t even aware of would be more useful.
Decided, I select the Merge Skill option and then quickly dive into my Core space. I’m sure it’s going to be interesting to watch.
Before my mental eyes, I see my Core space beginning to vibrate, a hum that is more felt than heard buzzing through me. Moving closer to where the three Inspect Skills are situated close together, I watch as they begin to shift.
It’s similar to when I’ve seen Skills evolve and change in the past, yet different too. The Skills almost come to life, their lines and patterns reaching out to embrace each other, dancing together like flames in a fire. The weave that forms them becomes ever more complex, lines from Inspect Fauna interweaving with lines from Inspect Flora, which themselves have become entangled with Inspect Environment.
It’s like a ball of yarn that a kitten has been playing with, yet there is clear organisation too. As the lines begin to settle, I see flashes of patterns I recognised from the individual Skills, but they are so interwoven with the patterns from the other two Skills that I couldn’t hope to separate them again.
I see now why it would become more difficult to merge the Skills at higher ranks. Each time a Skill ranks up, it gains more complexity, the pattern in my mandala reflecting that. With how the three Skills have now interwoven, their task mesmerising enough, adding further complexities would have risked the lines being unable to find the right space to feed into while keeping the pattern the same.
Right now, the combined Skill rivals my Journeymen Skills for complexity, though there is something missing. Some…depth to the Skill, or to the lines which form its pattern. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I can tell when I look at Tame that it is a higher rank than either Dominate or this new Inspect Skill, even though it is not more complex. And I can tell that Dominate is higher than this new Skill, even though it is less complex. Its patterns are…brighter. Clearer. More definite.
Since the process seems to have ended, I pull out of my Core space and go to check the notification waiting for me.
You have merged three Skills: Inspect Fauna, Inspect Flora, and Inspect Environment.
You have created a new Skill: Inspect.
Your Skill level of Inspect has been reduced to the level of the lowest of the three combined to make it.
Close messages
I look at the last line in dismay – the lowest of the three was Inspect Flora which has only just got to Novice one. Is this the effect of the greater practice and understanding which the pre-merge message warned about? Well, too late now.
I focus on the new Skill name, calling up its description.
Inspect
Use this Skill to discover information about living and non-living beings in and aspects of the environment around you. Choose to limit the amount of information available to you in exchange for maintaining secrecy. If you have a particular item, being, or feature in mind, use this Skill to search for it around you. Limitations may depend on your line of sight or your strength of will, according to the type of information you seek.
Close messages
It’s very vague – I’d have liked a detailed list of exactly what it can and can’t do. Then again, I suppose that the vague Skills have proven to be the most flexible ones. Look at Fire-Shaping or Earth-Shaping, for example. Their lack of definition was because of their lack of limitations. Perhaps Inspect will be the same.
Closing the message, I decide to test it out.
First not trying to focus on anything in particular, I invoke the Skill with its name.
Inspect
It feels like a wash of mana goes out in a pulse around me. I see a chunk of actual mana disappear from my bar – it seems it’s more resource-heavy than my other Inspect Skills used to be. I hadn’t considered that when I was deciding whether to merge it or not. Well, too late now.
Focussing on the results of my Inspect, I see that the mana has lingered in several areas. It’s lighting up the iron oxide which I’ve powdered and the charcoal I’ve recently made. Those two are highlighted in bright gold, as are the spear I leant against the wall of my hut, and the axe which I’ve been using to chop up branches which are too long.
The firewood waiting to go into the charcoal oven is also glimmering slightly gold, but not as brightly as the previous bits. The stone which I’ve separated from the iron oxide glimmers too, as does the charcoal oven itself.
Beyond my immediate circle, I become aware of the presence of samurans. Walking past, inside the huts near me, sitting against a wall…I apparently don’t need line of sight to know where they are and that they are not a threat to me.
Information filters as well into my mind about the composition of the earth beneath my feet, the materials lying around me, and the hut behind me. And this is only a small area which has very few items lying around.
The pulse seems to have reduced in strength the further it went, most of the information coming from the area directly around me, but it’s still a lot of details. I’m abruptly both excited and nervous about the idea of trying this out in the forest. I’d better make sure that the first time I try it out, we’re in a safe place and I’ve got several fighters with me to help protect me if I end up reeling from information overload.
Hopefully that doesn’t happen – it won’t be much use if so. Though perhaps it’s just because I didn’t focus on something in particular. It seems like more experimentation is needed.