As the pincer lord rushed toward him, Paden settled his feet into a ready stance. He then summoned his power and raised his club into the proper position. Performing an action that he’d practiced to the point of muscle memory, he stepped forward, swinging his club downward. In the last years of his training, he and the other trainees had learned that by combining physical action, mental constructs and spiritual focus, certain attacks could achieve special effects. The success of combining these three factors was called Proficiency. The better you adhered to the specific combination needed for a special attack, the greater the power it would evidence. When attacks could take less than a second, it was easier said than done. Anyone who had undergone combat training knew that even a simple punch required diligent training to perform effectively. That was why it took years of practice to even reach the first rank of a Combat Expertise. When a technique’s Proficiency reached a certain level, energy would surround a weapon. The same energy that had surrounded the warrior’s maces when they had raised the stone wall to block the flash flood. The same energy that was surrounding Paden’s club now. With a heavy fall, the stone club slammed into one of the pincer lord’s claws and knocked it aside. The dwarf’s blow continued forward, striking the hard armor of the monster’s face. Its stone carapace was crushed inward and orange-red blood leaked from the cracks. It keened, all four claws waving wildly in pain. A prompt appeared in Paden’s vision. Richter easily read the notification as well. Special Attack, Crush, was successful! Proficiency of 52%. +2% effect. 0 Proficiency Points obtained. After living through Paden’s memories, Richter knew the importance of improving Proficiency. 50% was the minimum required to even trigger an attack. Anything less would just be a normal swing of your weapon. Fifty might not sound like a lot, but many warriors never even achieved that benchmark. Every Proficiency percentage after that gave a 1% boost to the attack, up to 60%. 61-70% increased the boost to 2%. 71-80% improved it to 4%. After that, the boosts to attack power grew much stronger until a Proficiency of 99% magnified a special attack by an astounding 250%. There were also other bonuses that came with high Proficiency, depending on the special attack being used. This was the moment that Richter finally understood the true power of possessing combat expertise. He’d thought it was as simple as just knowing how to fight. The difference between a trained swordsman and someone picking up a blade for the first time. It wasn’t only that, however. It was the bonuses to damage that could come through special attacks. The move Paden had used was called Crush. It increased base attack by +5, but more importantly, magnified the damage to armor. The initial +5 damage was doubled to +10 against armor. The 2% boost to attack power from his 52% Proficiency wasn’t enough to move the needle, but at higher Proficiencies, that increase might be enough to cripple an enemy in heavy armor. Even the 52% was enough to add ten points of damage to Paden’s attack and crack the pincer lord’s hard carapace. Richter had also learned that a warrior with combat expertise had greater potential than a Professional Warrior who bought a special attack with Talent Points. While a swordsman with a combat expertise and a Professed Warrior could both learn Thrust, the Proficiency of the Professed Warrior’s attack would be stagnant unless they spent more Talent Points to level up the attack. The chaos lord knew full well that Talent Points were precious. No serious Professional would invest all of their points in just one Talent. The swordsman with a Combat Technique however, could practice their learned special attacks at will to advance them. Achieving a higher Proficiency could level up the special attack. Paden, for instance, had received 0 Proficiency Points. That made sense because there was only an infinitesimal chance to earn any points with a Proficiency of 52%. Even if he had been lucky to gain a point, he’d only have earned one. One could easily say that combat expertise was superior to combat Professions. That was a bit of a misnomer. The other side of that argument was that it took time and knowledge to excel in a Combat Technique. Paden has started his training at the age of four and after years of hard work was only now reaching the lowest rank of Granite Breaker. It was obviously easier to just buy an attack if you managed to become a Professed Warrior. Without a teacher and the innate Talent to make the tutelage useful, even spending years on a form of weapon expertise might not yield meaningful results. One unexpected piece of Lore he picked up was that there actually was a correlation between skill affinity and the expertise to use that skill. One of the primary reasons Olrich had cut trainees from his program was that their innate affinity for Mace Wielding was too low. Until someone reached skill level fifteen, they could not reach the first rank of Granite Breaker. The fact that Paden was able to fulfill the requirements at such a young age showed what a prodigy he really was. Having lived through these memories, Richter also finally understood why Yoshi was always practicing the same moves over and over. He’d thought it was just about muscle memory. That was definitely part of it, but the half-sprite was also trying to achieve higher Proficiencies and gain more points to level up his special attacks. It would have been super helpful if Yoshi would have just told him that, but even though the man was only half-human, he was definitely full asshole. Richter turned his focus back on the battle. Kong, Aleron. The Land: Monsters: A LitRPG Saga (Chaos Seeds Book 8) . Tamori Publications, LLC. Kindle Edition. So much knowledge left unmined in book 8. This should answer most of our old questions about professions.
First off, I am surprised at how huge the potential damage bonuses are from level 1. Don't miss the fact that crush adds to base damage, not final output. That's potentially another 35 (10 +250%, normal aleron rule) base damage before skillbonuses and other stuff are added. Its a way to oneshot most lowlevel creatures with an attack that apparently has no extra per use cost beyond the high difficulty of triggering it. That's just the level 1 version. You can even strengthen the attack by grinding proficiency points through training, which is what Yoshi is doing. I am intrigued by the potential. Its also terrifying to think of how powerful even a seemingly lowlevel mountain dwarf might truly be. Even if your affinity is too low to go much past level 20 in mace wielding, if you spent some of the many years a dwarf has just grinding points, you'd be able to grow powerful regardless. Really looking forward to the dwarf mercenaries now
Richter should look for other Trainers in Techniques for other Weapons, especially for LongSwords (BlackIce), Bows (if possible), Spear and Unarmed Combat. If possible also for Daggers, Shield&Armour Combat, Mounted Combat Techniques and just for novelty Whip &/or Chain Weapons.
Anybody that might have developed some type of Bow Technique, I suspect that Bow Techniques are probably more limited then most other Combat Techniques. Unless that is it is combined with some type supplemental Combat Techniques, such as Channelling Magic Energy through his Bow/Arrows (similar to the Sprite Imbue Arrow Skill but preferably more flexible and less unstable, slight Elemental Energy Infused into the Bow&Arrows, plus 1 Fire, or Water, Air, Death, or Air, ect), &/or training in his to use a Bow in conjunction with Close Combat Techniques/Skills (both Body Combat (fists, feet, ect) and Close in Weaponised Bow use (small blades added to the Bow) and Close in Shooting. I do think that it is past time that Richter Upgraded his Bow to a stronger more Powerful and probably Larger Bow, he should have really gotten a new one by Book 6, and definitely now that in Book 8 he so significantly increased his bodies Strength. Once he gets back to the Village he should have the new Sprite Master Bowyer make him a new more Powerful Bow, either a StrongBow or a LongBow for greater range and damage. He can still keep his Original Sprite Bow for more confined or crowded area's. Having him find or have Crafted a Mechanical Double Stacked Dual use Crossbow for his use, one crossbow part for regular powerful single shot heavy Bolts for long ranged heavy damage and the second for Rapid Auto Firing of light Bolts from a ammo box for close in light damage on multiple target's or on one target. Enchanted for further faster reloading and fire rate for both and maybe an integral Wand for shooting a Spell from (maybe either something with a Shotgun effect or a Binding effect like a Web Spell). Would be great for Building & Room Clearing and combating multiple foes.
