CHAPTER 41: HEAVENLY DEMONIC SWORD ART [PART 3]

Damn, even her class had changed.

But that name... Cipher wondered if it was related to the Time God. She said she was so desperate she awakened it. Skills could be born from desires - in fact, they all were. Classes, skills. Someone like Dante, who had the desire to protect those around him, awakened the Tank class. And he didn’t want to die to the cultists, so he Glitched.

He exhaled, deciding to think about it later.

"Thanks. And congratulations," he said, looking at her with a smile.

"Hehe," she smiled back.

"Why don’t you go have some rest? Tell the rest of the team that today is a day off too," he said.

"Oki!" she responded and left.

Now it was just Cipher and Elaine left. His expression returned to serious mode.

"How will the Association handle this?" he asked.

"Hard to say," she spoke as she continued moving her stuff around. "Normally, she would be recruited into a special team for training so she could become a valuable asset to the Association. But since you’re a branch head and you’re also actively diving into dungeons, the Association will most likely have her stay with your team. They’ll just add training her to the list of your responsibilities. More precisely, Selene’s responsibilities"

Cipher nodded. It was good to know the Association wouldn’t just take his teammates if they happened to have special abilities. Of course, this was just Elaine’s speculation, but since there didn’t seem to be a hard-set rule, he could push back if they tried to do too much. Iris would help him too.

She turned to look at him. "Don’t worry too much. I’ll support you in case things go wrong." She paused. "At a price, of course," she added with a mischievous smile.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"That. I want you to stop that," she said.

Cipher was confused. "What do you mean?"

"Why are you acting so distant with me? Always suspicious of me?" she said.

Cipher just looked at her. She just looked like someone who was up to no good.

He sighed and walked up to her. "Looks like we got off on the wrong foot. Let’s get along from now on," he said, extending his hand.

She looked at it, then looked at him.

"Sure," she said, extending hers and shaking firmly.

"Alright, I’m leaving now. Thanks for taking care of me. I’ll visit you tomorrow for appraisal work," he said as he turned around and left.

"Okay," Elaine said, waving her hand as he left.

But when the door closed completely, her expression turned serious and her eyes flashed a slight pink.

"It didn’t work," she spoke aloud.

...

A while later, Cipher was back in his room.

After checking his phone, he confirmed that he’d been out for about half a day. He exhaled.

There was something he’d been putting off ever since he woke up. After gathering some courage, he finally decided to check and summoned his system screen.

[Name: Cipher]

[Level: 61 (8,000/61,000)]

[Species: Human]

[Class: Cheater]

[Health: 4000/4000]

[Mana: 330/330]

[Strength: 40]

[Stamina: 40]

[Agility: 40]

[Intelligence: 33]

[Stat Points: 0]

[Cheat Points: 880]

[Skills (8/9): Pain Tolerance (S), Mana Manipulation (A), Regeneration (C), Aura (D), Dagger Throw (D), Mana Recovery (D), Voice Transmission (D), Assassinate (E)]

[Unique Skill/s (1/1): Heavenly Demonic Sword Art (Unique)]

[Cheats: Cheat Shop (Max Level), Absolute Appraisal (Max Level), Aimbot (Max Level), Fly Mode (Max Level), ESP (Level 2), Infinite Inventory (Level 1)]

He held his breath as he summoned the status screen, but when he finally read it, his eyes widened.

He had succeeded. He really got the unique skill.

But he noticed something strange. Why did it have the designation "Unique" despite being in the unique skills section? He had noticed this with the others too. Did this mean that Unique was just a rank for unique skills?

Was it possible for unique skills to be stronger than others? He remembered seeing something similar with the Heavenly Demon and the Demon God.

He would think about it later. For now...

He checked the description of his new unique skill:

[Unique Skill: Heavenly Demonic Sword Art]

[Type: Passive/Active]

[Cost: 0 Mana]

[Description: A supreme sword art born from extreme violence. All sword attacks deal 300% base damage. Grants immunity to curse, fear, and charm status effects. 80% resistance to all dark elemental damage. Can convert mana to demonic qi at a rate of 10:1. Can substitute demonic qi for mana costs at a rate of 1:1. All skills executed through demonic qi deal an additional 300% dark elemental damage.]

[Note: Skills with effects adapt when used with demonic qi. Defensive skills gain an additional demonic shield. Light-based skills and healing skills have reduced efficiency when powered by demonic qi.]

He looked at the ability. He was at a loss for words but also conflicted at the same time.

To be honest, he felt his unique skill was kind of weak compared to the others he’d seen. Some were legit game changers, but his was... well...it wasn’t exactly weak, more like he had expected more from something used by the Heavenly Demon, the strongest person he knew.

If he asked the Heavenly Demon about this, she’d probably say that she was strong because she was herself, not because of some skill.

Still, it wasn’t that bad.

The demonic qi aspect, for example, had some potential. If he converted mana to demonic qi when out of combat, he could have two charges of his maximum mana. This could be useful. And for the damage, when he looked at it more closely, it was actually quite powerful.

Since it was a unique skill, it didn’t cap at any rank. This meant that all his sword strikes would always deal three times the damage forever, and six times when using demonic qi.

At his current 40 Strength, if he used demonic qi, his base damage would be 2,400 when using a sword.

And if he decided to use techniques like Aura and Assassinate...

Since Aura was D-rank, it would scale from 390 damage, meaning the base damage would be 2,340 (390×6). Multiply by four from Aura, and it became 9,360.

And if he wanted to layer Assassinate on top of that...

Since Assassinate was E-rank, it scaled from 190. Multiply by six: 1,140. By four: 4,560. By three: 13,680.

He didn’t calculate the additional 300% from the elemental edition as he wasn’t sure if the dark elemental edition stacked with the elemental effect from demonic qi.

Dealing 13,000 damage at C-rank was no joke.

And this was without accounting for the damage that scaled normally. If he accounted for that... 40-19 = 21. This remaining 21 Strength didn’t get the effect of Assassinate, but it still got the rest. 210×6 = 1,260. Minus 60 that didn’t scale with both assassinate and aura. Then ×4 = 4,800.

In conclusion:

With Assassinate (E-rank, caps at 19 STR): (19×10)×6 = 1,140. Multiply by Aura’s 4x: 4,560. Multiply by Assassinate’s 3x: 13,680. Overflow from Aura cap: (39-19)×10×6 = 1,200. Multiply by Aura’s 4x: 4,800. Overflow from STR cap: (40-39)×10×6 = 60. Total: 13,680 + 4,800 + 60 = 18,540.

He blinked. 18,540 damage at C-rank? How was this even possible?

It seemed he had underestimated the Heavenly Demonic Sword Art.