Analyzing Rewards

Five minutes and twenty-one seconds. That was how long Lucia lasted against Samuel this time.

With the Dragon King's Body empowering him, his physical defense and strength in his half-dragon state had already surpassed his opponent's, while his stamina and speed had also risen to the point where he could barely keep up. But between the two of them, there was still an unbridgeable gulf in their mastery of battle arts and incantations. Samuel's Godskin Stitcher could always create wounds on him from unexpected angles, and the lethally destructive Black Flame incantations were an even harder threat to deal with.

In the dozen or so recent remembrance battles, Lucia had always tried to compress his opponent's room to use incantations by seizing the initiative and attacking first. However, these tricks were still far too immature before Samuel's masterful combat technique. The moment even the slightest opening appeared in their clash of blades, the surging, blazing god-slaying Black Flame would immediately make him pay a terrible price.

What comforted him, however, was that after both his vitality power and divine power had improved, his attacks could finally break through Samuel's bodily defenses. Even when the latter used Black Flame's Protection in advance to boost his physical defense, the first-tier Claw of Ruin was still able to inflict enough damage.

This time, the two exchanged hundreds of blows. Although the result, as expected, was Lucia having half his body burned away by Black Flame, he had also severed one of Samuel's arms with Claw of Ruin before he died. If he encountered him again in reality, as long as he did not choose this kind of life-for-life fighting style, he was fully confident he could escape the other party's assault at a relatively small cost.

When the battle ended, both of them turned into countless bursting motes of light. The moment Lucia regained consciousness, he summoned Samuel's data panel, and the fairness of the Memory Battlefield revealed itself completely at this moment. Under the condition that he had achieved an unprecedented battle result, Samuel's analysis progress broke through the 20% mark in one breath and continued to rise, finally stopping at 25.6%.

The "Next Analysis Node" entry changed to 50%, and above the "Enter Remembrance Battle?" prompt, an additional new prompt appeared—

[Please choose one of the following three analysis rewards]

[1. Black Flame Blade: One of the Black Flame incantations used by the Godskin Apostles. It can attach the god-slaying Black Flame to the surface of a weapon, greatly strengthening its lethality while destroying the divine blessings on an enemy's body—the apostles under the Queen of Death once swung blazing blades, reaping the souls of countless clerics and knights.]

[2. Tibia Swordsmanship: The core component of the Tibia battle arts. A powerful sword art originating from ancient times, famed for its unpredictability and vicious moves, and thus placing extremely high demands on a swordsman's stamina and dexterity.]

[3. Swaddling Blessing: Permanently strengthens the blessed one's bodily recovery speed. What can be recovered includes physical injuries and mental fatigue, but it is powerless against attacks from a small number of special powers—the apostles stitched together holy swaddling cloth from the skin of gods, and the Queen of Death used it to embrace newborn apostles, making them grow into the death of the gods.]

Lucia stared blankly at the light screen floating in the air, only feeling his heartbeat grow uncontrollably violent. In those days when Samuel had tormented him to the point of living death, he had made many guesses about the reward he might obtain after the analysis progress reached a certain node—perhaps extra allocatable Rune points, perhaps a targeted interpretation of the other party's skill characteristics, thereby improving his ability to respond the next time he faced similar enemies... But no matter what, he had never imagined that the so-called analysis reward would actually be the unconditional extraction of his opponent's core skills!

As everyone knew, before the era of the Tarnished arrived, there were layers upon layers of insurmountable barriers between the major skill systems of the Lands Between. If battle arts and magic that did not have strict racial requirements still had the possibility of being learned across factions, then the various incantations that required corresponding faiths and bloodline enhancements truly were worlds apart.

Take the Golden Faith and ancient dragon faith that flourished in the royal capital as examples. In recent years, the former had slowly been refined into the original Erdtree Faith and the newly born Fundamentalism of the Golden Order. These three faiths each had their own incantations and divine arts, but because of ten years of cross-overlap, some individuals who had mastered all three systems of incantations had gradually appeared. The most representative among them were the Ancient Dragon Knights under Lansseax.

Yet even though they were already able to use most low- and mid-tier incantations from the three systems, they still could not master the Red Dragon Lightning unique to the ancient dragons because of their bloodline, and could only use the comparatively weaker Golden Lightning.

If even the Ancient Dragon Knights, who had combined the three systems of incantations to their peak, were like this, there was even less need to mention other incantation users. A monk loyal to the Golden Faith absolutely could not master the Black Flame incantations used by the Godskin Apostles, and when the Fire Prelates stationed in the Far North Ice Fields chose the Fire of the Fell God, they also lost the qualification to use Golden incantations from then on.

This phenomenon would continue until after the Shattered War that destroyed all order. Only those Tarnished who had lost grace and turned their backs on all faith could use various Sacred Seals as catalysts, ignoring distinctions of faith and faction to use all kinds of incantations and magic that contradicted each other in standpoint and origin. Only in that era would there

emerge existences like Sir Gideon Ofnir, who was practically a kaleidoscope of skills.

Previously, Lansseax's hopes for Lucia had only been based on Leyndell, this stage at the center of the world. She had hoped he would absorb as many excellent parts of various faiths and cultures as possible, draw on the strengths of all schools, and become a king whose wisdom, power, vision, and breadth of mind were all sufficient to lead the Ancient Dragon Dynasty. In reality, she had never expected him to truly reach the peak in every field.

After all, even the most renowned demigods of the current age each had their own strengths and shortcomings—Miquella stood far above all others in incantations and divine arts, but because of his overly strong affinity with divine power, he simply could not refine magical power. The three siblings of Caria were all famous for their magical talent, yet none of them had accomplished much in incantations. Even the nearly perfect Golden Prince Godwyn's greatest power was limited solely to the orthodox Golden system.

But now, with the analysis function of the Memory Battlefield, Lucia could ignore race, faith, faction, and bloodline to learn the most top-tier skills in the world today. In other words, he had truly gained the possibility of becoming the one and only strongest demigod.

His gaze swept repeatedly over the three choices on the light screen, and he quickly made his decision.

Black Flame Blade could certainly greatly improve his offensive ability, but this was no longer the time before he had activated the Dragon Bloodline Inheritance, when he had been extremely lacking in attack methods. The destructive effects that Claw of Ruin and Dragonbolt Incantation could provide would only exceed Black Flame Blade.

More importantly, there was simply no chance of using this skill in the short term. He was a hostage in the Golden royal capital of Leyndell. If he used, without the slightest warning, the signature skill of the mortal enemies of the entire Golden Dynasty—the Godskin Apostles—it was hard to say how strong his combat power would be, but before Queen Marika, he truly would have no way to explain himself.

As for Tibia Swordsmanship, he was not particularly afraid of exposing it. After all, it was an ancient sword art with over a thousand years of history, and it was not inherited solely by the Godskin Apostles. But he already had Storm Swordsmanship now, and next he would definitely come into contact with Leyndell Swordsmanship and Carian Swordsmanship. Learning too much all at once would easily result in biting off more than he could chew.

After considering everything, Swaddling Blessing, which could further strengthen his life-saving ability, was the best choice.

After he made his final choice, a beam of starlight immediately shot out from the star representing Samuel and plunged straight into Lucia's chest. He felt a warm current spread from his heart to his limbs and bones, and from his bones to his muscles and then to his skin, every part of him filled with a wondrous vitality.

"So this is Swaddling Blessing?"

Lucia impatiently left the Memory Battlefield and returned to reality. He looked around, thought briefly, then drew the dagger he carried with him and lightly cut across his palm—

Nothing happened. Everything was normal.

The fine dragon scales that automatically emerged on the surface of his skin blocked the blade, not even leaving a scratch.

He scratched his head awkwardly, used his will to restrain the dragon scales' natural defense that resembled muscle memory, then slashed hard again with the dagger. This time, he finally cut open a wound, and thin streams of blood seeped out from it.

The next second, the blood that had just emerged immediately flowed backward into the wound, and the inch-long cut rapidly healed as if being zipped shut from both ends. In the blink of an eye, not even a scar could be seen.

Lucia jumped up from the ground in excitement and swung his fist hard. When he had dueled Samuel before, he had suffered greatly from this skill. The light wounds he cut on the other party could practically be ignored and healed in the blink of an eye. It was only after he mastered Claw of Ruin that he gained a true countermeasure.

Now the times had changed, and from now on, it would be his turn to use this thing to disgust other people.

After leaving the training room, he went to the specially made medicinal bath in the sleeping palace and soaked himself properly. By the time he returned to his bedroom, it was already close to midnight. Lucia glanced at the little nest prepared for Sherry by the door—as expected, it was empty.

Pushing open the room door, he immediately spotted a bulge on the surface of the blanket. At the same time, he could hear the little fox's soft, steady breathing. Ever since this fellow had somehow taught herself to use her tail to open the door latch, this sort of scene had become the norm.

Lucia sighed, closed the door, lifted the other half of the blanket, and threw himself onto the bed.

After a month of observation, he had basically confirmed that his Shadow Beast posed no threat, and there was absolutely no possibility of her colluding with Epsilon. Since that was the case, he would let her decide such a trivial matter as where to sleep at night. He could just barely endure it and get through...

About ten minutes later, the soundly sleeping Sherry suddenly felt the world spin. She opened her eyes in a daze and discovered that at some point, she had been scooped into her master's arms. The little fox immediately let out a string of happy purrs, pushed her luck by licking Lucia's chin, then buried her head and soon entered sweet dreamland again.