The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 432: Curse: Heart Of Sisyphus

Annan carefully checked the skills of the Victory Knight.

“…This profession is not bad.” He was amazed by it.

—As expected of a rare profession.

Hundreds of failures consecutively without committing any mistakes, but attain success in the end. Annan even doubted that there would even be ten people in this world who had advanced in this profession.

Victory Knight LV23: [Austere-Winter Swordsmanship LV10 (Max)], [Frost Sword LV10 (Max)], [Parallel Comprehension LV1], [Victory Will LV1 (Max)], [Brilliant Sword LV1], Available Skill Points 3

The first tier [Silver Hand] and [Silver Blade] had become two new skills, [Victory Will] and [Brilliant Sword].

Victory Will was a passive skill that only needed one level to reach its maximum capacity.

The skill effect was that when the sum of Strength and Agility was lower than the Will attribute, the user got to utilize the Will attribute as a skill check [1] instead of the Strength or Agility attribute once a day.

For every 10 points of the Will attribute, an additional chance to use [Victory Will] would be given. Currently, Annan’s Will attribute was 31, which means he could activate the ability four times a day.

This was also the first skill that Annan noticed where the attribute growth had to be suppressed to trigger the effect.

There was no doubt that this was a superb skill.

It was so strong that it scared Annan a little.

The ability signified the chance of “temporarily doubling the Strength or Agility attribute” several times a day.

As a matter of fact, the [All-out Blow] swordsmanship ability consumed three times the stamina, so it could only temporarily increase the Strength by 30%.

However, even if [All-out Blow] raised the Strength attribute by 30% ten times, it might not be as decisive as the effect of a 100% increment brought by the [Victory Will].

On the other hand, Brilliant Sword was a skill related to both Will and Constitution attributes:

Its description read, “Burning your will to its limit, increasing damage immunity related to the Will attribute (currently 31% saving throws [2]) and storing all damage taken. Using this skill again will send out a brilliant slash that delivers the damage stored; the lower your health, the greater the power of the light slash, reaching its peak when your health is lower than 30%.”

This skill could only be used once a day and was a true “ultimate move”.

Simply put, being attacked during the preparation phase of the attack would increase its damage and deliver a brilliant blow.

Its most remarkable value was that the preparation duration for the attack was flexible.

It was considered a guided spell.

As long as Annan did not use other guided or chant spells, he could maintain his charged state. Even if he utilized other swordsmanship abilities to attack, the charging phase would not be interrupted.

If Annan had [Elves’ Hand], he could use another guided spell while charging. It would not affect Annan’s status, which was equivalent to a long-lasting damage immunity.

So Annan allocated all three available skill points on the [Brilliant Sword] without hesitation.

Each level increment of the Brilliant Sword did not bring about significant qualitative changes. On the contrary, it only boosted the damage mildly.

However, when the [Brilliant Sword] reached LV4, the first special effect was finally triggered:

[Effect after acquiring LV4: The damage of this skill increases by an additional 50%.]

Annan had a complicated feeling about it.

After so long, he finally looked like a Boss.

Although he had become a Berserker-type Boss, he was still a Boss to some extent.

His golden “Elite Rare” template finally had some convincing power.

“I finally have my first ultimate move. My first reliable range AoE attack skill.”

Annan immediately realized the shortcoming of that [Silver Blade].

Sure enough, the new profession was splendid.

But since the skill was released in the form of a “slash”, it might interact with Annan’s first curse to further increase the damage.

“‘Victory Knight’…?” Annan muttered to himself.

A skill could be triggered only when the attribute was suppressed or in a poor state.

Annan found them a little ironic.

“Forget it. Let’s get the plot decryption rewards.” Annan sighed.

Preparation in giving out rewards…

Annan’s [Brilliance] had a 63% awakening depth. After the “Nightmare: The Great Hunt”, Annan had already amplified it to 73%. After calculating the improvement that could be achieved through element extraction, it would be 95% by then.

After this nightmare, Annan had officially crossed the 90% threshold. Therefore, there was no need to pursue 100% awakening depth. The reason being Annan could already fully extract the “Brilliance” element within a safe range. Even if Annan burnt part of his soul, the gap could be filled up quickly.

Then, Annan had to pursue the rest of the four elements: “Wisdom”, “Glory”, “Beauty”, and “Strictness”.

Counting in the “Brilliance” element that Annan had completed its awakening ahead of time and the “Frost” element blessed upon him since birth, Annan had harnessed six elements.

Only by perfectly clearing the Distorted-tier nightmare could the awakening depth of the elements be improved stably and safely. Although the awakening depth of an element did not translate directly as the awakening progress, it could be regarded as “aptitude” to do so.

In other words, that was to inherit the awakening depth of the nightmare owner. Of course, the premise was that Annan must have the qualifications for the element. Otherwise, the relevant rewards would not be triggered.

This was one of the reasons why many transcenders suppressed their attribute before advancing to Gold Rank.

In addition to looking for the advancement ritual compatible with them, they were looking for a Distortion-level nightmare that suited them. The goal was to absorb the nightmare owner’s elemental power and enhance the awakening depth. Like in the Immortal Cultivation Simulator, there was no hope for ascension if the Golden Core [3] was lacking.

At least 90% of the awakening depth could the challenger seek to complete the elements’ perfect crystallization without consuming drugs. Of course, if the challenger was a Truth level transcender or a direct descendant of a deity, they were born with an element that was 100% awakened.

But, if the first stage required 90% mastery, how would the second stage trigger?

Annan thought.

After he confirmed the prompts, two notifications crossed his eyes:

[You have acquired dungeon instance decryption rewards: Element (Brilliance) awakening depth is increased by 20%.]

[You have acquired dungeon instance decryption rewards: Curse “Heart of Sisyphus”.]

“…Eh?” Annan muttered lightly.

This was the second time he was given an additional curse in a nightmare.

This is not Danton’s final curse on me, right?

Annan glanced over worriedly.

“…”

Then, he went silent.

[Heart of Sisyphus (Taboo Type): You must not despair because of failure.]

[This curse is attached to you. It has no maintenance cost and is automatically triggered and released after the conditions are met.]

[Triggered when the ability check fails three times in a row and you try to make an ability check again——]

[Before this ability check is committed, all abilities you apply to it are temporarily boosted with a +1.]

[This curse can be triggered infinitely. However, the soul corruption rate will be increased by 1 each time it is activated; if it is triggered multiple times on the same ability check, the corruption rate will be increased by 2, thus a compounded +3 increment. Corruption rate will be raised by 3 when triggered for the third time, a total of +6, and so on]

[A loser’s last gift and tribute — Danton]

Is this your final Hamon [4]?