[Profession Scroll {E Class Gnome Craftsman}]
—
Zarek looked at the scroll with interest.
A Profession wasn't as rare as a Role, and it could actually be swapped out quite easily, like a Skill would. Usually, a Profession did one of three things—though the best of them did all three.
The first was that it gave you certain stat boosts when you were in what was known as "Profession Mode." This couldn't be used in battle, but instead required very specific framing and timing, almost like a software engineer sitting down at their computer.
The better Professions had some flexibility when it came to that, and the requirements you needed to meet were much less.
The second was special abilities.
Interestingly enough, not all Professions came with such special abilities. Instead, what you needed might have to be picked up elsewhere. For example, an Elixir Alchemy Profession might require a flame or a different sort of processing agent, but the Profession itself might not necessarily give you that processing agent.
The third was that it taught you something.
Not all Professions came with learning guides for what they could do and what could be accomplished with them. But once again, the best were able to tick off all three of these boxes.
This Profession wasn't one of those, though. From what Zarek could tell, this E Class Gnome Craftsman Profession only ticked one of the boxes—and that was the last of the three.
It taught something.
Zarek plucked the scroll out of the air and opened it first. A series of incredibly tiny blueprints and calculations unfurled. If he accepted this Profession, then he would be taught how to build the crossbow-shield of the gnomes, as well as all the principles of physics and understanding that went into it.
Blueprints alone existed as rewards as well, but unless one had a unique blueprint-processing Profession, you would have to diligently study it from start to finish on your own. By comparison, Zarek would know how to make this from scratch immediately, and he would likewise understand how to find the materials needed, in addition to understanding all of their properties.
'Hm…'
Zarek's head tilted to the side as he thought about it. He wasn't actually sure if he should take it.
While swapping Professions was possible, it wasn't as easy as swapping out Skills. The latter required just a thought; the former required either a special Hub, an Elixir, or a special Scroll.
Well, it was also possible to just boot it out with a more powerful Profession too, but that would destroy the original Profession—and that wasn't ideal.
"Learn it," Priya said, peeking over Zarek's shoulder.
"You think so?" Zarek asked with a smile.
"Yes. Back in the hotel lobby, didn't you make me a blanket out of your sweatpants material? Your Talents have more flexibility than I thought they did."
Zarek nodded slowly.
Because of Harmonic Recall, he could learn about individual materials. Whereas Temp Duplicate was more general and couldn't get so specific, the synergy between it and Harmonic Recall allowed Zarek to produce very specific materials rather than just reforming items that he touched.
Zarek had actually tapped into this a little bit before he got Harmonic Recall. It was what had saved his life when he leapt out from the building that day. But not only had that eaten up an extraordinary amount of Godsfall, it had had no structure and no substance to it.
If nothing else, this Profession could help him learn to use it even more flexibly.
'Hm, if I have a Rolodex of materials I can pull from in my mind, and then apply them in battle, that could be an interesting path forward to take…'
Still, it was a far inferior path to the one that he wanted.
The third Talent Zarek had been hoping for… it was known as Atom Link.
It was a sensory ability, allowing you to entangle two items together and sense the location of one through another on a quantum level. At the highest levels of mastery, one could do more than just sense a location—they could even receive some sensory input from what was going on in another place.
Because of the unique nature of the quantum world, distance was also irrelevant. Even if the second item went all the way across the world, so long as the entanglement was maintained by a sliver of Godsfall, it would continue to hold.
Technically speaking, it would work even if it was all the way across the universe.
But as one might imagine, this ability wasn't very useful for much other than being a scouting Talent of sorts. An advanced one, to be sure, but it also wasn't something that most powerhouses would ever waste a Talent slot on.
Still… Zarek wanted it more than anything. That was because this ability could do one thing Harmonic Recall and Temp Duplicate could not…
Give him awareness of the atomic world.
Temp Duplicate—and what he could create with it—was so limited in durability because he could only recreate the general form of something. He couldn't reproduce it down to its atomic levels. Though the chemical structures would be decently close, without control over that level of detail, he would never be able to perfectly recreate an item.
Never.
Atom Link was the perfect ability—the last piece of his puzzle. And if he succeeded in grasping the method to fuse them into one, he was sure that he would forge a new S Class ability.
But this was just the tip of the iceberg. A certain new Envoy was wondering why it was that Zarek was so obsessed with abilities that were so heavily related to Intelligence and Charisma when these two stats were far from his strong points.
However… if he got Atom Link, the difference between organic and inorganic would become almost irrelevant—because he would be working on a much deeper level.
When that time came, and he successfully fused the Talents, people would long forget about his reliance on Intelligence and Charisma…
Because he would be too busy ripping holes through them with his fists.
Unfortunately…
Zarek reached forward, learning the Profession and feeling a flood of knowledge rush through him.
… He didn't know if that dream would ever get fulfilled at this point.