Zarek stood in silence for a moment. Then, he began to pace, his thoughts running quite fast.
This would definitely make things much more difficult. The limitations of his body weren't something he could easily overcome. He also didn't have much experience with… whatever this was.
If this "unranked" status was above S Class, then it should mean that it likewise progressed faster than S Class, but it could also mean the exact opposite of that. It might also mean that it was outside of the system's purview to comprehend, in which case it might be a completely different sort of power than he knew entirely, and all of his experience was worthless.
The main trouble was, though, that even if he progressed a Talent a great deal, if Growth Potential couldn't keep up, then it would be like trying to fill up a well with a hole at the bottom of it.
Any ten units of effort would only be worth fractions.
According to common understanding, Growth Potential was more important than Talent Class. Usually, this wasn't a big deal because Talents affected Growth Potential. If one ended up with a good one, then it would result in a progression of one's Growth Potential.
Unfortunately… Zarek couldn't take advantage of that because of his Hero Candidate Role.
Logically, then, Zarek's most obvious choice to make would be to follow the map at the edge of his status screen to the end and hopefully find something related to the Heroes that would eliminate this weakness of his.
It wasn't a sure hope, and he might end up putting himself through all of that without receiving the reward he was looking for.
Even so, given everything, this would probably be his best course of action. Sitting here, hoping to upgrade Axiograft enough that the limitations of his body would become less impactful would be idiotic. Under normal circumstances, that is.
There was something peculiar about Zarek's situation, which was why he was thinking so hard. And that peculiarity was none other than his Profession.
Professions were interesting in that they didn't normally follow the same strict rules as other things did. They weren't necessarily linked to the body, and there were many methods of accelerating their progression.
When Zarek got the gnome's crafting Profession, he perfected it immediately because of his clever usage of Harmonic Recall.
This didn't sound very special considering this wasn't the first time Zarek had used one Talent to improve another. But the separation here was that a Profession was a lot more like a Skill than it was like a Talent.
With his C Class Scouting Skill, due to his past lives' experiences, Zarek had been able to progress it to perfection immediately. By comparison, with a Talent, the body needed time to adapt. So even if he got an identical Talent to a previous life, though there would be an acceleration, it wouldn't be as exaggerated as with a Skill.
A Profession was somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, slightly leaning toward a Skill at about 65% or so, with a 35% similarity to Talents weighing it down.
The elephant in the room was obvious. Zarek had never had Mnemonic Anato Scribe before, there was no previous life experience to pull on, so why was he even considering any of this?
Zarek had never even put much effort into Professions in the first place. He knew enough to protect himself from their unique quirks, but he had no personal experience.
What Zarek did have, though, were a few advantages.
The first was this A Class vial treasure.
The second was his time affinity.
The third was the fact this new Axiograft ability was actually a fusion of all of his previous Talents… including Atom Link and, most importantly, Harmonic Recall.
'The first Ability of Axiograft was Graft, and yet the first word in its description is "comprehend". If I'm right, then this comprehend portion probably means…'
The thoughts came faster and faster until Zarek stopped pacing. He used the A Class vial again, this time taking an even smaller portion of crimson liquid from the pool.
Instead of trying to use his Profession on it, or Decode, Zarek dug deep, focusing until he could touch on the remaining strands from Harmonic Recall and Atom Link.
It was difficult, but…
'It's working.'
Whether it was Temp Duplicate or Harmonic Recall, they both had the same limitation. They could only be used on inorganic items. In fact, when he tried to use Harmonic Recall on people, it didn't work, and it even interrupted their Skills.
But now, Axiograft seemed to have taken this weakness and laughed in its face. Everything worked on a quantum level now.
Godsfall Droplets and Crystals alike actually usually classified as organic. They were like a living cancer that impacted the life and death of people, forcefully mutating them into Turned. Even now, Zarek was quite cautious with how he interacted with this Godsfall, yet he'd die in the most idiotic way possible.
Flashes of complex memories came to Zarek's mind, but he had expected this already. This Godsfall Droplet pool probably formed from the droplets of countless Turned. Trying to use Harmonic Recall on them would force him to go through more lives than he could count. This was also why the Matrices he got out of the first batch made it so difficult to find whole ones.
But Zarek found that his control over this could become more refined. He followed the streams of time within the droplet, parsing out the streams and dividing them with ease. His ability to see through timelines and feel them out naturally came swiftly.
—
[Talent {Axiograft} has shown great progress]
-
>[Axiograft: F-]
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>[Axiograft: F]
—
Zarek ignored the notification. It didn't surprise him, but it also wasn't what he was looking for at all.
'There it is… that feeling…'
It felt like he had stepped into the body of the Turned, feeling their affinity, experiencing their power, wielding their Talent as though it was his own.
Zarek's eyes flashed open and his scroll and quill appeared once more.