Chapter 174: Hindsight and all that
“Gott verdammt,” Isaac swore as his head began to pound, rubbing at his temples in annoyance.
“I thought headaches were psychosomatic at our Level?” Amy asked cheekily.
“Normally.” Isaac grumbled “But normally, I didn’t just get another lifetime of experience shoved into my head while I’m realizing that I made a huge miscalculation.”
“Wait, what’s going on?” Amy asked, now clearly confused.
In lieu of answering, Isaac showed her the description of his latest [Skill], the final one needed to fill out his set of training abilities.
Expert’s Insight (legendary)
What separates a soldier who just got out of training from a veteran? A student who just got his degree from a lead engineer? A wizard’s apprentice from an Archmage?
The answer to all those questions is, of course, experience. Some things are taught, yes, but others need to be learned from experience.
Sometimes, said experience takes the form of repeating an action over and over and eventually figuring out a way to make said action more efficient.
In other times, realization comes as a painful realization after a mistake reaps terrible consequences.
Either way, this Skill offers up both a massive pool of experience to the user and vastly improves their experience and Skill Level gain by granting preternatural hindsight. If the user has any knowledge on a subject, they find themselves making connections far more readily and related subjects will be far easier to research. Furthermore, Expert’s Insight acts as a general memory booster.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.
As with many other Skills in the Hildebrand’s Heir Class, a lesser version of this Skill can be granted to the user’s students using Legacy of a True Warrior.
However, unlike those other Skills, Expert’s Insight does not turn into a lesser version of itself, but rather transforms into a fundamentally different Skill called Veteran’s Knowledge, which allows the user of Expert’s Insight to directly impart their knowledge (note that this is a limited effect, this Skill will not directly put the taught individual on the same level as the user).
“You just got a lot of information, sure, but I’m not seeing where you went wrong?” Amy asked.
“I saw [Expert’s Insight] as something that would be very useful for training, but secondary to all the other [Skills] because they would help me personally as well as the people I trained,” Isaac said.
“But now you realized it also serves perfectly fine as a headache inducer?” Amy commented dryly.
“We did, and it hasn’t.” Isaac said “Because that’s not what we’re actually going to do. There is a reason cops and soldiers aren’t the ones who run nations, they tend to have a bias for action. The people I talked to aren’t going to be putting those plans into action, they’re merely going to recommend them, and the plans are going to be changed along the way.
“In that situation, some kinds of plans needed to be made before everyone started to do their own thing and everything devolved into chaos. The ideas we had are good, deep down, something to base our plans on, but I know how to turn them into something workable.
“For example, summoning regulations? My suggestion is going to be to make registration voluntary, and that that registration would basically amount to ‘I won’t summon anything unless I can handle it, based on the monster having been properly analyzed by a trusted source like a university, government agency or equivalent entity and being judged suitable’. That document would then be looked over by someone who can see lies.
“And I’d be leading by shining example, someone who made it this far without accidents or rule breaking, at least as far as anyone knows.”
“But isn’t summoning dangerous crap all you do when you’re not here?” Amy asked “If people find out you never actually stopped summoning ... I’m guessing you won’t include language like ‘researching entities have to be in this timeline’? You sneaky bastard!”
Isaac just grinned at her for a moment before answering “Exactly. Now, I know not everyone who does things by the book will automatically not cause any trouble, nor will anyone automatically be enemy number one just because they don’t register, but the option of registration should make spotting bad actors easier.”
“There’s more to the politicians as well, right? Something you know about how high-Level politicians work but can’t explain where you know it from?” Amy continued and Isaac nodded.
“Basically, there are two kinds of [Classes] that [Politician] can evolve into. Ones built to get the user’s ass into the big chair, and ones that help them do a good job once they’re in it. The latter tend to not do so well outside of democratic nations, but when people are able to vote for their leader, the guy who is able to show his whole character sheet during the election without fear of someone spotting an unsavory [Skill] tends to look pretty good.
“And then, you’ve got the [Skills] that improve the whole country just by having their user in charge. Roads that won’t crack open every spring even if the people who built them don’t have a single [Skill] to reinforce the things they build. The ability to predict labor shortages in certain industries, allowing policies to be adjusted when there’s still time. They can even adjust the weather in some ways, preventing the worst of droughts, constant rain and snowfall, and so on. If we can find a few trustworthy people, power level them and have them chose the Evolutions that will let them boost the nation, that could fix a lot of problems.”
“If they don’t pick the Evolutions?” Amy asked, then facepalmed “Then you shout the fact that they chose to pick a selfish [Class] over one that would have benefitted the voters.”
Then, she grinned wolfishly “But if someone else only has [Skills] to manipulate the vote but nothing to actually run the damn nation, then I suppose we’ll just have to be in the audience during debates, loudly announcing every time they use a [Skill] to manipulate opinions.”
Her grin grew even wider “it’s not like those tend to backfire when people know they’re in play or something.”
Isaac shook his head “I don’t want to run around fixing elections. If there’s an Alt-Right candidate who’s getting popular while using a ton of [Skills], I’ll knock ‘em down a peg or two. If there’s a candidate who looks like they’re going to win but has only gotten as far as they have via [Skills] digging up dirt on everyone who goes up against them, I’ll be sure to point that out in as public a situation as I can swing.
“But I’m not a political animal, if I were, I’d have picked [Machiavelli’s Heir] as my [Class] when it was offered and I’d be dealing with the situation from a chair somewhere.”
Amy nodded “And what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to head over to the engineer’s bunker, pass all the runes I remembered along to Karl, evacuate the building, and finally, I’ll run like hell,” Isaac told her.
Amy got up, waved at the fridge, and telekinetically pulled a pair of beer bottles out of it “Wait for me, I want to watch the fireworks.”
