Rare Trait: Vessel of Burning and Radiance

Although he couldn't see the effects now, Iver had long memorized the effects of these two rare entries.

He had memorized all the randomly generated entry effects from helping his friends farm Advancement Instances...

Good deeds are rewarded.

"Tainted Light" is an advanced entry that can theoretically be maxed out three times.

Its effect is that when any spell using only Light Affinity mana as a cost deals damage, it additionally inflicts one-third of that damage as poison damage. When this entry is leveled a second time, it grants an additional one-third as cold damage. When this entry is leveled a third time, it grants an additional one-third as shadow damage.

If all three advancements are put into this entry, you can obtain a simple and brutal 100% additional damage. Moreover, the additional damage is composed of three damage types, making it less likely to be resisted by attribute resistances.

However, this Path Trait of the Dedication Path is also very limited in its use.

It only takes effect for spells that use pure Light Affinity mana as a cost, and they must be damage-dealing spells.

The "Priest" class of the Dedication Path does not have direct damage skills.

In the entire Dedication Path, only the "Temple Warrior Monk" and "Fire Worshiper" have attack spells. And the latter's spells are almost all fire attribute, with only a few two or three attack spells composed of pure Light Affinity mana.

Although as long as you level "Light Affinity," the Priest will have the ability to do energy-based basic attacks... but this Path Trait is generally leveled by "Temple Warrior Monks."

After this class advances to "Shakya Lion" above level fifty, they can obtain a key class trait that allows them to cast all non-dark attribute spells below the Third Level that they possess using only Light Affinity mana. The final damage attribute is completely converted into light attribute, and the spell effect gains light attribute resistance penetration.

Paired with the family's low-level instant spell "Lion's Roar," and the maxed-out "Tainted Light" trait, it is the version's favored class in version 4.2, the famous "Tainted Lion's Roar" build—which transfers the additional 100% damage increase back to the light attribute, coupled with its own light attribute resistance penetration ability, it is a very violent pure output class, with extremely high sustained output, full of control, and can also deal burst damage, and all of it is area damage.

In various point-guarding and speed-farming activities, this class build is very popular.

Moreover, the official did not weaken this build. They didn't touch a single number. Their balancing method is very simple—

That is, they greatly reduced the proportion of point-guarding and speed-farming activities, and temporarily increased the frequency of challenging activities.

Because this class's ability to challenge is not very ideal.

The Shakya Lion's damage conversion and resistance penetration are limited to small skills. The big skills during challenges are still mixed damage, and they cannot benefit from resistance penetration. In addition, all kinds of bosses have poison resistance maxed out, so the final increase is definitely less than 33%.

Compared to this, what really made Iver's eyes light up was the second Path Trait.

Unlike the Tainted Light of the Dedication Path.

This entry is not a unique entry of the Dedication Path, but a universal purple rare entry.

It is also a kind of Vessel entry, but it will only appear on classes that can obtain two kinds of attribute mana at the same time when leveling up.

It can't be more or less, it must be exactly two kinds of mana.

For example, a Mage can obtain four kinds of wind, earth, water, and fire attribute mana when leveling up, while an ordinary Demon Scholar can only obtain dark attribute mana when leveling up. They will never randomly get this entry—unless they contract a demon like a "Flame Demon," then they can obtain fire and dark mana in Equilibrium.

Its effect is simple and practical, that is, the Vessel entry level of the two attributes is increased by one.

This also means that you can choose to get a Vessel entry for free, or you can choose to forcibly break through a Vessel entry with a maximum level of LV3 to LV4.

The number of times an Awakened can advance is really limited. Therefore, entries that can save an advancement are valuable.

The strongest Awakened in the current version is only over level forty. He is at the Fifth Level—the so-called Fifth Level is having five Path Traits, that is, having entries corresponding to the Path.

And except for the Path of Wisdom, which can obtain double mana when leveling up. Awakened of other spellcasting classes basically have to choose Vessel entries once or twice, so they basically won't lose out.

That's because for spellcasting classes, the mana gained from leveling up is simply not enough.

The mana rules are that for the first ten levels, you get one point for each level gained, from levels 11 to 20 you get two points per level, from levels 21 to 30 you get three points... and so on. Multi-class characters add points in sequence, with no decimals.

For non-spellcasting classes, their mana becomes more and more abundant... but for spellcasters who lack the ability to auto-attack, mana is never enough.

The so-called "Elemental Affinity" refers to the Mage's mana-free auto-attack. Although it can be leveled up to level three, not many classes will choose it.

And healers are even more universally mana-starved.

The intensity of battles in Advancement Instances is bound to increase.

Maintaining "Illumination" and "Sacrificial Fire" requires burning a large amount of Light Affinity mana, and each activation of Illumination also requires a point of Fire Affinity mana as a primer.

For Container-type entries, you can gain 14 mana points when you choose it for the first time, 28 mana points the second time, and 42 mana points the third time.

Filling it up three times grants 84 extra mana points—this amount of mana is enough to sustain full healing throughout a high-intensity battle, enough to save about twelve or thirteen people with severed limbs or damaged internal organs who are on the verge of death.

But even so, if teammates completely ignore all mechanics and take all damage head-on, it's definitely still impossible to heal them back to full.

After all, filling up the Container-type entry three times is only enough to fill up fourteen bars of health.

Moreover, this also means that before level thirty, he cannot choose any "Affinity-type" entries to gain attack abilities. Nor can he choose any rare entries at all.

The choice of Path Trait is even greater than the improvement of the class itself.

Purple rare entries and golden Mythic entries that can only be obtained after level fifty can permanently change the form of skills.

For example, the Dedication Path's [Salvation of All Living Beings], which is almost a must-have for Priest-type classes.

This is a purple trait that changes all single-target buff spells to affect the entire group, with the duration halved.

Because it only reduces the duration without reducing the effect, this is extremely effective for team battles.

In addition, Priests can use the common Path Trait [Status Extension] to double the duration of all status-type skills to make up for the missing duration; they can also multi-class to obtain the Path of Adaptation's [Source of Life], which increases the healing amount of all non-instant healing abilities by one-third and shortens the healing cycle by one-third, obtaining a greater amount of Illumination Spell healing per unit time and indirectly saving mana; or they can use the Dedication Path's [Body of Light] to increase mana consumption by an additional 1.5 times, switching to releasing "Illumination" with their entire body, transforming the Illumination Spell into a mobile, ranged, group healing ability that does not require continuous close-range channeling, further strengthening group combat capabilities.

But a level fifty Priest can only choose five from this pile, plus one free Container or Affinity.

It is precisely because everyone's inclinations are different and the Path Traits they obtain are different that the characters they build are completely different.

What's frightening is not knowing the effects of the Path Traits, so you choose the wrong one. Or regretting it halfway, or not knowing how to proceed.

But compared to other transcendents who don't even know what path they want to take in the future, Iver always has a clear goal and knows how he should reach it.

This allows him to make every Advancement valuable!

—I choose the second one.

Iver thought to himself.

After Iver chose the "Vessel of Burning and Radiance", the other two options shattered.

He felt the tiny cuts on his face that had just been made heal quickly. A stream of heat flowed into his body along with the invisible seed of light.

The Light Bearer nodded slightly to him, then turned and left.

And an increasingly surging heat came from within Iver's body; he looked down and found that his skin had become transparent and began to gradually shine with light.

Like a firefly, fire ignited in his body and light overflowed—

As the light in his chest reached its peak, Iver suddenly woke up from his dream, drenched in sweat.

He was still sitting in his wheelchair, and the sun had just risen outside. He had slept for less than six hours.

As soon as Iver opened his eyes, the changed parts of the stat panel appeared before him, reminding him of his successful Advancement: Priest LV10: [Basic Prayer - Level 2 (3%)], [Sacrificial Fire - Level 2 (5%)], [Illumination - Level 2 (15%)], [Blessing - Level 2 (0%)], [Shepherding (Flesh) - Level 2 (10%)]

Mana Pool: 22/22 (Light), 5/5 (Dark), 44/44 (Fire)

Path Trait—

Dedication - Vessel of Burning and Radiance: Light is born from fire, and fire floats on light. Your soul is nourished by both. The level of your "Flame Container" and "Light Container" is increased by one.

Dedication - Light Container LV1: You consume Light Bearer's Blood, and your soul is expanded. The maximum capacity of your mana pool (Light) is increased by 14.

Dedication - Flame Container LV2: You consume Light Bearer's Flesh, and your soul is further expanded. The maximum capacity of your mana pool (Fire) is increased by 42.

Iver took a deep breath.

He felt incredibly at ease.

With the "Vessel of Burning and Radiance," he had a guaranteed minimum! No matter whether he got the Container trait next time he advanced, Iver would definitely be able to gather enough mana before level twenty to complete the creation of the first Blank Card!

No, or rather—he no longer needed the blue Path Trait Flame Container at all.

Next time, he could take a rare trait to strengthen himself! "...So, next time, I still have to find a way to get first place in the Full Moon Ritual."

Iver murmured, "However, there's actually a highlight reel during the settlement phase..."

That was an important reminder.

Very timely.

Fortunately, each "highlight" was only a moment, and others probably couldn't understand what he was doing.

So, next time, he had to act more cautiously and not reveal too much—while still getting a high score?

Although he wasn't sure exactly how much the score ranking boosted the rare traits, Iver was basically certain that there was definitely a probability bonus. Otherwise, it would be too scary to get two purple traits in the first Advancement Instance.

Basically, transcendents could only choose blue Container or Affinity traits for their first two traits, and players were generally too lazy to reroll—after all, "Affinity" and "Container" always had to be taken once or twice, so it was better to take them early.

And the material for rerolling traits, "Heart of Reshaping," had to be purchased with real money.

Because rerolling Path Trait traits was both grindy and expensive, although this Rogue-like trait system had extremely high playability and possibilities, the game planner's mother was still frequently flying at first cosmic velocity outside the atmosphere.

Iver had originally thought that he would have to rely on random chance, and he was very pessimistic at the time—after all, he didn't know how to obtain this real-money item for rerolling Path Traits in reality.

Just the name sounded extremely rare.

But as he completely finished a ritual, he suddenly discovered one thing—

Holy moly, wasn't the ritual in the game a castrated version? Not only was there no plot in the Advancement Instance, and you directly fought a random BOSS upon landing... but the drops were also random.

At most, there was a "Weekly UP" given by the planner, which could probabilistically increase the drop rate of some Path Traits.

And these three traits that Iver got... didn't seem very random.

He got the opportunity to choose the "Light Affinity" trait, probably because he was obviously lacking in combat ability at critical moments—if Iver was a native without prophetic abilities, he might have sensed his own weakness and powerlessness in the ritual, and therefore chosen the [Light Affinity] trait to gain combat power.

The "Vessel of Burning and Radiance" trait was obviously because Iver had burned out his entire mana pool when he died.

Similarly, he might feel that he lacks mana and choose this trait as a result... although his mana was not actually exhausted by casting spells, but burned away in one go by the "Shepherding Method." However, this judgment mechanism obviously did not recognize the difference here.

As for the "Tainted Light," it is likely related to some of the slightly heretical actions Iver has taken. His soul briefly merged with a demon, and he even took the initiative to kill someone.

But the existence of the "Shepherding Method" does indeed make this behavior consistent with the Dedication Path, making it reasonable.

So this Advancement Instance may have concluded that Iver should belong to "the more heretical type of Dedication Path follower," and kindly sent him an equally heretical Path Trait, asking him if he wanted to switch to damage dealing.

Apart from the issue of rarity, these three traits are essentially Path Traits that the Advancement Instance "customized according to Iver's personal style."

Quite intelligent.

—So, one's behavior and evaluation in the ritual might affect the type of Path Trait one randomly receives? Iver fell into deep thought.

How about doing an experiment to verify this during next month's New Moon Ritual? At the same time.

The other participants also opened their eyes one after another.