Damon's Ascension-Chapter 86: Upgraded Abilities (E Stage)

[You have achieved the first milestone of growth and surpassed the first tier! Your Abilities will be upgraded by a stage, unlocking new sub-abilities in rare cases and extending their overall power in actuality. Continue to strive and work, to reach the minimum standard to enter the Chaos Realm!]

This was something Damon expected, a token message given to everyone, everywhere regardless of race or creed as long as they possess awakened Abilities. Obviously, for those who were still unawakened, there was no need to inform you of this.

Damon checked the details of the upgraded Abilities.

First was Probability Manipulation as usual.

[Probability Manipulation - Reality Warp Type]

[Grade: EX || Stage: E]

[Effect: The owner of this Ability has the power to influence the flow of reality itself by increasing or decreasing the objective probability for any action, but not for inactions. Currently, the rate of increment/decrement is limited to 5 --> 10% per action.]

Since this was the first time his Ability got upgrade, its effectiveness was now doubled, a significant improvement. For any given action, Damon could now increase its chance of success by 10%, or reduce its likelihood by the same margin.

Even if you were right on top of him with a knife, seconds away from driving it into his brain with a 100% success rate, Damon could reduce that certainty to 90%. And if luck was on his side, if that 10% failure chance triggered, the knife might suddenly vanish, snap mid-strike, or crumble into ash before it ever touched him.

Now, one thing to be noted was that Damon had been using Probability Manipulation the most out of his Abilities. He always subconsciously used it to affect anything and everything, which is why he had so many awesome feats so far, especially in battle.

If Probability Manipulation increased by the same 5% every 10 Levels, he’d be wielding a 15% shift in probability at the D-Stage. At that point, the Ability wouldn’t just be powerful, it would be downright terrifying.

Next was Avatar.

[Avatar - Body Manipulation Type]

[Grade: EX || Stage: E]

[Effect: The owner of this Ability has the power to split themselves into a perfect copy which is fully connected to the main body, acting like an extension. All Avatars are in perfect sync and can display 100% of the main body’s power and Abilities at all times.

At the E-Stage, only 1 --> 2 Avatars can be sustained at any one time.]

Damon’s eyes narrowed as this was what he was most looking forward to upon reaching this milestone. Immediately, within the car, a new Avatar split from his Avatar within the car. As many might have guessed, the main body remained hidden somewhere doing important and secretive stuff, causing there to be two Damons.

The two Avatars smiled at each other without speaking a word, both looking forward to the same screen that appeared before them. Damon’s driver only glanced in the rearview mirror and shook his head, having been aware of his young master’s Abilities long ago.

Avatar was probably Damon’s second trump card after Probability Manipulation, because Avatar wasn’t just an auxiliary talent that raised his survivability to insane levels... no, it was an Ability that boosted everything else about him because each Avatar perfectly replicated his Abilities!

This meant that his other Abilities would synergize with his Avatars!

For skills, it meant that the two Avatars could separately use something like Silver Eclipse without affecting each other’s stamina, while conjunctively working in perfect sync!

For Items, nothing had changed. Unfortunately, he only had one in his possession, so unless he found a way to acquire more, only one of them would be able to make use of it.

For Abilities though, this was where the crucial factor lay.

Each Avatar could use Devour and Probability Manipulation, and could also use them in tandem!

What does this mean? It meant that if the main body plus the two concurrent avatars worked together, Damon could affect anything by not a 10% rate, but rather 30%!!!

This worked because Probability Manipulation never stated to have a range. It could affect anything, even halfway across the universe, but you’d best be sure that it would cost a hefty price.

And that was the important part that was usually left out in the excitement. freёnovelkiss.com

Once again, Abilities were powerful because they were akin to Skills, but the cost of utility was one tenth or less than what a Skill would take. So the amount of stamina it took Damon to create ice using Silver Eclipse, it would only take a tenth of that or less if he had an Ice Ability of the same Grade and Stage.

So even if someone got a great Reality Manipulation Item or Skill, to achieve the same effect as Damon’s Probability Manipulation Ability, the fellow would have to pay more than ten times the price.

What is the price?

The price here is mostly personal energy, usually in the form of physical stamina. If you overdo it and your physical stamina is drained by the Ability or Skill that has been cast, then it would move on to other energies like mental stamina, lifeforce, etc., until you would end up drained like a husk.

This was also why Damon had not gone rampant with Probability Manipulation with his two Avatars. The previous 5% doubled up to 10% could have theoretically let him bend some impossible situations, but he mostly used it to affect simpler things, which, given the low energy cost, was manageable.

But now that there were three of him, he could attempt things he hadn’t dared before. The energy cost would be divided among his three bodies, his main self and the two Avatars, making previously risky actions far more manageable. With their increasing investment in Fortitude, while it was ridiculous to say he could bend time and space, it should now be possible to truly bend small aspects of reality and make the impossible, possible.

This was his main assessment of Avatar’s value. As for the survivability, he was not really that afraid of death nor was he paranoid that he would be killed by the slightest mistake.

Hiding his main body wasn’t done out of fear, but out of simple common sense. Damon did it because he could, because it was smart, and because some tasks were best accomplished in silence.

Finally, Devour.

[Devour - Energy Manipulation Type]

[Grade: EX || Stage: E]

[Effect: The owner of this Ability has the power to drain the energy of any living or non-living thing through direct touch. The devoured energy requires time to ’digest’ and be converted into a usable form, which is Worldly Essence. The speed of conversion is dependent of the units of energy absorbed.]

Well, unlike the other two, the description had not changed in any way, but Damon already knew that Devour required intuitive understanding of its mechanism, so he tested it out on short notice.

Going by the ’three stomachs’, the situation had changed.

The first stomach, of which he still could not quantify the ’free’ energy within into units, had physically doubled in terms of space, meaning he could absorb twice the amount of energy for conversion or for expulsion.

At its current size, it was not yet possible, but when Devour reached maybe the B or A-Stage, Damon could see himself expelling the first stomach’s free energy in the form of that famous beam from that oriental anime show.

The second stomach previously could only hold 100 units of Worldly Energy for conversion at a time, and its space had expanded ten times!

This was extremely significant as the processing quantity had always been a problem. With the second stomach now holding 1,000 units at maximum capacity, it meant that Damon could push more into his third stomach for collection.

The third and final stomach was even better, increasing its storage by ten times as well, going from holding a total of 1,000 units to 10,000 units!

The conversion rate stayed the same, meaning that Damon now produced 10.000 units every 16 or so hours. Since he hardly planned to use it for himself but rather to sell for money and favors, that was 10,000 people who refused to spelunk in the Chaos Realm that he could grant character panels.

Sighing with relief, the two Damons relaxed into their seats and were soon taken home, where he greeted his parents and went to his room to access the VR Pod that he assigned himself to enter the virtual world.

You might ask yourself, why do this? Why not rush over to China or Europe to learn their magical martial arts or the famous knighthood battle stances?

Well, first of all, the urge had been there from the start, but Damon took it upon himself as a form of ’training’ to enter Essence instances and fight for Worldly Energy the normal way.

If he did not do this, he would likely be severely ignorant and ill-equipped to deal with things in the Chaos Realm since he would likely be a vanguard in that situation.

Now that he had achieved the first milestone and experienced a few instances, seen how the stats worked and especially understood his future fighting style, Ability growth, and modus operandi, it was time to cut out the nonsense.

They say one should work smarter, not harder, and Damon was about to do just that!