Cipher looked at his system. He still had quite a bit of cards left, even after spending what he did. Not that he’d spent that many - just two Optimize, two Fork, and two Merge cards.
[Owned Cards: Mirror, Rework, Seed, Class (2), Blank (2), Import & Export (2)]
For the remaining cards, he thought about using the Blanks but paused.
There was no need. He didn’t need extra skill slots at the moment - his skill slots were growing faster than his skill count could keep up. In fact, he was thinking of merging some compatible skills to make them easier to manage. As for the Blanks, he was better off saving them for unique skills.
That way, he could have unlimited unique skills.
The other was Import and Export. Although he had some ideas, they weren’t applicable at the moment. He decided to deal with it later.
As for the Class cards, there was always a use for them. At the moment, his Aura could use a class. It was then that he remembered it already had the Rigged edition, so he couldn’t make it Elemental now. What a waste. He’d missed so many Deletes in the shop too. Well, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway since he needed both a Delete and a Merge.
He consoled himself with that thought.
Well, he supposed that would be his next project - looking for a Merge and Delete to make Aura both Rigged and Elemental.
As for the remaining Class card, he put it into Phantom Step, giving it the Dark element.
Although it seemed like a waste, he was actually preparing for something huge. While inspecting the cards through Appraisal for more details, he’d discovered a restriction in the Merge card - he couldn’t merge skills with different editions.
That’s right, he was planning to merge Phantom Step and Assassinate.
Having so many skills was not only hard to manage but also expensive to upgrade. That’s why he wanted to merge the two. That way, he wouldn’t have to upgrade each of them individually.
Since Assassinate was already Elemental, he needed to make them the same edition so they could be compatible. Of course, there was also the option of using a Delete card to remove the Elemental edition from Assassinate, but he felt he might need it. First, because he still needed the extra 300% damage while not using Demonic Qi.
And second, he wanted to see if the skills could mutate.
Since he wasn’t upgrading a skill by merging its duplicate but rather merging two separate skills, he felt that the chance of them developing a mutation was high. That’s why he wanted them to have the Dark element, just in case.
This meant that if a mutation was going to happen, then it would lean more towards Dark. The phantom movement effect was already good as is. If it managed to mutate towards darkness, it would be even better - not only erasing his presence, but also possibly increasing the utility of the phantom remnant.
At least that’s what he hoped would happen. There was no way to know unless he tried.
As for the Seed card, he didn’t think he had any ability that needed it at the moment, so he decided to ignore it for now.
Lastly, the Mirror and Rework cards. These two had very interesting effects and he wanted to experiment with them, but sadly, he couldn’t at the moment. For starters, there was no way he was going to experiment with his main skills, so he was going to need at least a few Forks.
Second, he needed Patch cards to safely experiment with them - you never knew what dangerous abilities you might get.
With that, he moved back to the Cheat Shop. He’d leveled up five major levels and could roll for another five new cheats. At least, he hoped they were new.
He pressed the roll button.
...
[Congratulations! You have awakened a cheat]
[Cheat: Map Editor (Max Level)]
[Dependencies: Infinite Inventory]
[Type: Toggle]
[Description: Allows the user to alter terrain and construct buildings or structures at will.]
[Note: Requires the necessary resources to be stored in Infinite Inventory. A blueprint of the structure being built is also required.]
Cipher observed the cheat. It seemed cheats with dependencies were beginning to appear more often now. Well, at least it wasn’t another ESP, he thought.
Reading the description, the cheat was actually pretty solid. The only thing he didn’t understand was the blueprint part. Did it mean a written blueprint, or did it mean he needed knowledge of what he was building to be able to build it? He decided to test it out later.
He pressed the button again, rolling for another cheat.
[Congratulations! You have awakened a cheat]
[Cheat: Overkill (Max Level)]
[Type: Passive]
[Description: Excess damage that would kill an enemy converts into a shield able to absorb an equivalent amount of damage. The shield can stack with multiple kills and persists until depleted.]
Another new cheat, he thought in excitement. It wasn’t supposed to be surprising to get a new cheat, but with how many duplicates he’d gotten, it was always surprising to gain something different. And this one was pretty good too. If he kept attacking enemies with overkill attacks, couldn’t he stack an invulnerable shield for when he eventually faced a strong enemy?
He needed to begin stacking this immediately. It could save him from a surprise attack that would otherwise kill him in one hit.
[I don’t like it] the Heavenly Demon suddenly spoke up.
"Why not? It’s a good skill," Cipher said.
He then smiled. He understood what the Heavenly Demon was thinking. "Just because I have it doesn’t mean I’ll just charge in with no thought whatsoever. I still need to make sure I fight carefully not to deplete it," he explained.
The Heavenly Demon just scoffed and went silent.
It must be quite hard for the Heavenly Demon to bear this, Cipher thought. After all, she was someone who had earned her power from nothing to the peak. She must look down on someone like him who used cheats and borrowed power. For someone who valued pride more than anything, it must be difficult to maintain her cool.
Well, there was nothing he could do about it. He pressed the button to roll for another cheat.
[Congratulations! You have awakened a cheat]
[Cheat: Infinite Stamina (Max Level)]