CH 285

Skill Presentation

“This is where the real thing begins. The next skill is called [Black Mist]. Ralf, open the window will you.”

“Window………? Sure!”

I hesitated whether I should use this inside the room but, I think using it once should be right?

I need to know what it feels like to use this skill inside enclosed rooms anyway, so I deemed it necessary for testing purposes.

“Now, my next skill releases a pitch black mist that covers the surroundings. I want you both to get a good taste of how this skill feels.”

“A pitch black mist huh? I don’t really understand how it’d work but………..understood. Please, go ahead and use it.”

“Alright. Here we go, [Black Mist].”

With a signal, I intentionally spoke the skill’s name and activated it.

Instantly, the entire surroundings got covered in black mist that I released, and the entire room got covered in darkness.

“Wha, what the hell is this!? I can’t see shit! Like, at all! I can’t even tell where the window is!!”

“We can hear each other’s voices at least……….But, we can’t even see a centimetre in front us, which would make it really hard to tell what was going on.”

“Esta, try lighting the place with fire magic.”

“Understood. [Fire]——!?! I can’t even see the light of the fire itself??”

“As expected, it’s the same for you too. Looks like the [Black Mist] really cuts off your vision entirely.”

“Man, getting hit by this mid battle sounds like it’d be insanely scary! Alright, we get how it works so disable the skill already!”

“I would love to but, this is not a skill that can be ‘deactivated’ at will. We have to wait for the wind to blow it away.”

“Wait really! That seems like a pretty big defect!”

I ignored Ralf who couldn’t seem to stop screaming, as we sat there waiting for the black mist to fully clear away, and in the end, it took a whole 30 minutes before the mist was fully cleared out and we could see properly again.

It would seem that inside, the wind flow is obviously not as good which makes the time for which the mist persists much, much longer.

If we had not opened the window, the [Black Mist] probably would have simply stayed here, and with the amount of time it lasts in places with bad air flow, I could always use it again to make sure the darkness never ended as well.

I’m sure if it wasn’t night right now, we would have caused a bit of commotion outside but, in the end it was worth it to use it inside a room to test.

“Looks it’s finally cleared out enough to be able to see inside the room huh. Chris-san, can you yourself not see anything either?”

“Yeah, I can’t. Although, I can use other skills to move around pretty accurately.”

“Then, doesn’t that make this skill really strong? If you get the timing right, you could completely one-sidedly slaughter your enemies.”

“Wait really? I don’t see how this skill is that good!?”

“Like Esta said, this skill is indeed very powerful but, it does have one more weakness. Esta, fire a wind arrow through the window.”

“Understood. [Wind Arrow]”

When Esta fired the [wind arrow] outside through the window, all the remaining black mist that was inside the room was blown outside alongside the wind arrow.

It had already dissipated a lot but still, to be so easily blown away by even the beginner level wind magic, made this a very obvious weakness of this skill.

“………..I see. It’s certainly very weak to wind!”

“Precisely. If I were to use it outside, even the natural wind blowing would quickly clear it away.”

“That is certainly a big weakness but……..I just thought of a good strategy to possibly use it. Couldn’t we also have Wind magic carry the black mist and have it cover a bunch of enemies far away from us as well?”

“That does sound doable. Let’s try it out next time we’re outside.”

“I feel like it’ll take some time to get the combination down perfectly but, if we can master it, it’ll make for a greatly useful ranged attack.”

Esta had already provided a great new idea on how to better use it.

It’s true, if we could trap it inside a [Wind Ball], we could then make the [Black Mist] envelop only the enemies and not ourselves as well.

Of course, it’ll have limited uses as well but, it still could be a powerful combination.

“Oi, don’t ignore me here! Enough about the weird [Black Mist] already, so show us what the other skill is!”

“Don’t get impatient just because your brain couldn’t keep up…………the other skill I have is [Effect Spread]. To be honest, even I don’t know how this one works.”

“The hell!? How does that even happen?!”

“it’s because I can’t sense any effect on myself even when I used it. Regardless, I’ll use it now so tell me if you guys feel any change instead.”

Since I didn’t know the effects of [Effect Spread], I was a bit worried of using it inside the room but………..

I already did a lot of tests and it didn’t seem to work as an attack skill so I think it should be fine.

“Alright, here it goes. [Effect Spread].”

After I activated the skill, all three of us just looked at each other silently for a few minutes.

Since the last skill had such a strong impact because of covering the entire room in a black mist darkness that not even [Fire] couldn’t light up, compared to that, nothing really happened which resulted in an awkward atmosphere inside the room.

“………….Nothing happened dude! Did you really use it?”

“Wait a minute. I’ll try a couple a more things from here. First——[Hearing Enhancement].”

I further activated another skill, and then tried to see if I got a reaction from either of them again.

Now if [Effect Spread] was a skill that, let’s say, allowed me to ‘widen’ the usage of the skill to effect other people, it’d make it a a truly monstrous skill but……….

“Still nothing! What is this skill honestly!”

“I feel no change either. Everything feels the same.”

I guess my hopes of being able to share a skill with this were dashed.

It didn’t really affect my attacks or magic either, and it didn’t spread the effects of my skills either.

There’s not much else I could try except, maybe it affected using items?

If it’s a skill that allows you to share the effect of a used item with the people around you, it’d still be a crazy good skill but, I can’t tell without trying.

“Ralf, can you make a little cut on your arm.”

“My arm? But why!?”

“Just do it already.”

While he looked at me doubtfully, regardless, he pulled out his sword and made a light cut on his arm.

I made a small cut on my arm as well, and then drank a healing potion.

Of course, the small wound that I made instantly began to heal but……….the question was whether it affects Ralf as well.

Looking towards his right arm that had the cut——–to my surprise, the wound on his arm was healing as well.

“Oh? What the hell is this!? My wound is healing up by its own!!”

“So that really was how it works. [Effect Spread] allows me to share the effects of an item I use with the people within a certain range. ———this might be a crazy good skill!”

I did a fist pump by myself but, it looks like these two hadn’t quite realized what had just happened.

I suppose I should give a proper explanation while also testing a few more things huh.