Tristan

Suddenly having everyone fall out of the sky when the World Boss was killed while ninety percent of all fighters didn't even have eyes on him had certainly been, er, something, but it wasn't an unfixable "something."

Between Merlin and Fionn, everyone got caught rather quickly, and even those who weren't still got stopped before they hit the ground.

Also, apparently, I had, in fact, earned quite a few levels beyond the initial trio I'd received after my temporary flight from the battlefield.

[Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 80 -> Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 83]

[Skill gained: Focussed Approach]

[Skill Boost obtained]

[Skill gained: Counterspell]

Of course, I immediately checked the Skill's description.

Focussed Approach

Once per day, you may temporarily unlearn as many acquired skills and talents as you want, and gain competency in a single field with immediate use instead, though said field may be as broad as, for example, "medicine," or as narrow as "endovascular neurosurgery."

The gain is calculated by considering how long it took/would have taken to acquire the sacrificed skills, then improving the focused-on field as though that time had been spent training on said field instead.

That being said, however, "perfection" is the limit of what this Skill can grant you … for now.

This Skill may only be used once per day; however, it can be undone at will.

"Only" reaching the absolute peak of human ability certainly was a limit, but not much of one. Nor would it be overly difficult to reach that point, since I had oh so. Freaking. Much. Knowledge.

In other words, I could use any of the countless proficiencies I'd acquired to boost whatever I needed at the moment to the maximum without really paying anything.

After all, while things like law, civil engineering, and architectural design all had their place, and there was a damn good reason why I'd learned those things, they weren't overly useful on the battlefield, so I could sacrifice them when I was in combat. And vice vice-versa, I could use a lot of combat skills, all of them not pertaining to situational awareness or being able to react to an attack, that was, to get better at doing civilian things, and then undo everything, just in case something did come up while I was otherwise occupied.

As for [Counterspell], it was pretty self-explanatory, but I looked it up anyway.

To paraphrase an old Mark Twain quote, the things that you didn't know that weren't the problem, rather it is the things you knew for certain but were wrong about that would bite you in the ass.

Counterspell

The quintessential ability of an Archmage, one who stands above all other mages, is the ability to counter their spells.

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You may now counter a spell by injecting your own mana into it, and tear it apart from the inside.

The more powerful, the more complex the enemy spell, the more expensive the Counterspell.

However, correct identification of enemy spells, as well as your degree of familiarity with the specific spell in question, can and do reduce the cost of using this Skill, potentially even below that of the enemy spell's.

Warning: Counterspell is not guaranteed to function against all spells, and even in cases where it could destroy an enemy spell, it will not automatically do so before the spell can activate. Furthermore, not all spells will be rendered fully harmless even upon being counterspelled.

Okay … that was pretty much exactly what I'd expected from the name.

Though that was the longest warning I'd ever seen provided by the System, albeit one I'd expected.

After all, being able to completely and freely counter any and all spells seemed like a little too much for a simple, unupgraded Skill.

Except maybe the last one. There were certain spells that might blow up in my face upon being disrupted, for example, dollars to donuts that counterspelling a [Fireball] would detonate it, rather than erasing it from existence.

And as for the Boost … I mean, I did love [Spell Fusion], and I'd only used it once, but I felt like [Akashic Retrieval] was a better choice, as I had twenty days to get the maximum use out of it.

Part of me had wanted to upgrade [Counterspell] instead, but while it was powerful in and of itself, it was also unlikely to be of too much use against World Bosses. Even if their abilities counted as spells for the purposes of this Skill, which I wasn't necessarily sure of, the chances of me actually having the power to stop their attacks were basically nil.

Anyways, the upgrade for [Akashik Retrieval] was …

Daily usage limit is increased to two.

… double uses for the best information gathering Skill I had, yeah, that worked.

And now that that was done, back to the grind.

First, teleport everyone who needed teleporting to where they wanted to be teleported.

Second, deal with the aftermath of this fight. A lot of people had died, and the wills I'd written up all those many months ago had activated, preserving their skills and abilities, passing them on to worthy heirs.

Heirs that would now wind up on the frontlines for the next fight.

Against a creature I'd long-since confirmed was the giant, sun-eating snake named Apophis.

Of course, said heirs were soldiers, or those who were technically civilians but who had volunteered and been fighting so long that the distinction didn't even really matter anymore, rather than random individuals who would now get yanked into the line of fire. That had been one of the conditions written into the wills, that the recipients would have to be people willing to do the job the deceased had been doing.

Ultimately, even if they were still lagging behind slightly in Levels, each of these people now had the skills and abilities of hardened veterans.

Which left a small issue: those Skills were now "at risk," as disgusting as it felt to say that.

For each and every single one of those people, I'd be writing up a new will, and a whole lot more besides, hopefully, enough that I'd hopefully never have to write another one … yet that was merely wishful thinking, I knew that already.

It'd never be enough.

No one had exact numbers on how much of the Earth's population had already been devoured by this mess, it wasn't as though one could simply do a quick little census, and even cities that had been burned to the ground should have no end of survivors … though trying to locate those people, scattered to the winds, let alone counting them was a Sysiphean task no one had the time to undertake.

Nor would many people be willing to do so; I certainly didn't.

Confirming deaths wasn't quite anywhere near the same as causing them, but emotionally, there wasn't much of a difference.

I guessed I'd just have to keep going, keep figuring out new and productive tasks to bury my head in, until in another twenty days, the third World Boss showed up to wreak havoc.

Perhaps … [Spell Fusion] had a hell of a lot of potential that deserved to be explored.

Oh, and [Catastrophe Sense] could allow me to ask some more precise questions for [Akashic Retrieval], since it was now telling me that the fourth and hopefully final World Boss would be in the Indian Ocean, forty days from now, water-related, and when I used [Akashic Retrieval], I got confirmation.

It was going to be the fucking Leviathan.

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