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Chapter 153.2: Connection

That’s…less enticing.

“Yeah, yeah, you probably don’t wanna keep a bunch of slaves around or whatever. Thought you’d object to something like that. Though I do need to say it—don’t get mad at me here—if you use it that way, it is extremely, extremely good. Assuming you can get around legal restrictions—”

No.

“Fine. Again, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t tell you.”

Well, it could be possible to use it in other scenarios, so maybe it could still have some sort of use for me. But for now, what about Hypnotic Bond?

“That one’s pretty neat, too. Got quite a few use cases, as far as I can identify.

Yeah, Index was right. It was obviously nice to have in a fight. In the cases where I could manage ten full seconds of contact with an enemy, the Upgrade would effectively allow me to paralyze them for ten more seconds. And, yes, the Hypnosis would end prematurely if I ever damaged them, but there were still plenty of ways it could be used regardless. I could get away from them if I needed to, I could move out of their sight and, since they couldn’t turn and keep looking at me, hide while they couldn’t see me, or hells, and so on. Even just getting a ten-second break so I could regain my Mana for a bit, maybe activate Regenerate. Which would be phenomenal at times.

“That’s not all,” Index cut in. “Again, pay very close attention to the wording there. It’ll end if you damage the being ‘from a source other than any already-active Status Afflictions.’ So, obviously, that means Sanguine Bond’s own Health drain won’t end the Hypnosis, but also any other Curses you’ve already put on the target. So, if you hit them with a Crippling Chill and then with Sanguine Bond’s Hypnosis, then both of those curses will be allowed to run rampant on them for ten full seconds while you just get to sit back and watch. You basically guarantee you’ll get all ten seconds’ worth of Sanguine Bond., since they can’t possibly move out of range. Plus, yes, the extra regeneration from your Mana/Minute.”

That was true. The way this worked, if I could touch something for fifteen seconds before I used Sanguine Bond, then that meant I could get the full ten-second effect of the Spell without having to worry about fighting back, plus

the full effects of any of my other curses. That certainly moved the Upgrade up in my mental ranking of the three options.

And then there were the non-combat applications. Like I’d considered before, there was certainly something about being able to use this for stealth. Sneak up behind someone, just barely touch their arm or something for a bit of time, and then boom—they can’t do anything for ten full seconds afterward. I wouldn’t even have to sneak, honestly. If I just walked up and shook someone’s hand for a bit longer than was normal, they wouldn’t have any idea until it was too late that I was stalling to activate this ability and effectively paralyze them. Quite the Spell to be able to use on an unsuspecting victim. Sure, in combat, I’d only really be able to maintain ten seconds of contact with certain enemies. But outside? If social conditions allowed, I could touch a Level 50, and it’d have the exact same effect. Always useful.

So, what was best out of everything here? …Well, that was a difficult question to answer. I’d gotten a bit distracted by the flashy effects of Soul and Hypnotic Bond, but Unbreakable Bond was certainly not out of the running. A strict numerical increase in effectiveness was nothing to overlook, especially when it was something as extreme as doubling the duration of the Spell’s effects, plus making it way harder to actually break.

And, while Soul Bond wasn’t really something I wanted to use with what Index seemed to think was the “optimized” use case, it still had some interesting applications that I could envision maybe finding some way to exploit for way higher regeneration values.

Between the three, though, I couldn’t get Hypnotic Bond out of my head. Once a person was Hypnotized with it, you could move them around and everything as long as you didn’t damage them, so it served as a phenomenal nonlethal way to completely incapacitate someone, which seemed very nice to have now that I was integrating myself back into Human society. As a Classer, there would be a lot of conflicts where I’d want to subdue someone without killing them, and as things were, I didn’t really have many ways to do that. So increasing my options in that respect was great. And even in high-stakes combat, the Upgrade could buy me precious seconds of stall time where I could deal damage to my opponent, drain their Stamina, regenerate my own Health, Stamina, Mana, and also have quite a bit of time to rack up triggers with my newly-gained Talent, Cumulative Catastrophe. With Crippling Chill and Sanguine Bond active, ten seconds of effective paralysis meant twenty triggers, which meant twenty percent more effective Spells. Very powerful, indeed.

That ten-second contact requirement was steep, but still doable. Maybe tough now, but as I Ranked my Spells up more? Crippling Chill and Ray of Frost, if I could get them Upgraded and pushed to Rank 20, would be much better at draining Dexterity and preventing my enemies from avoiding contact—and that was ignoring the fact that it was possible their Upgrades would most likely have options to help reduce the mobility of my opponents even more.

And, at the end of the day, even if it wasn’t as good as I hoped in combat, there were still the non-combat applications. Not that I fancied myself as a career criminal, but if I ever needed to steal something…well, there were a lot of ways that were worse than freezing the shopkeeper in place for ten seconds while I did whatever I pleased. Ten seconds was a long, long time if you used it wisely. A lot of applications there.

So I felt like that settled it. A decent increase in power while in combat, plus a solid increase while out, this felt like it turned Sanguine Bond into the perfect versatile tool I’d need while trying to navigate the tricky social landscape of being a foreigner in a new country, while fleeing for your life from the one neighboring it.

Noxious Grasp has gained the Upgrade Venomous Grasp.

I opened my eyes and stretched, cramped up from sitting against the tree while I’d been meditating. Damn, I was looking forward to finding a decent place to sleep.

And speaking of sleep, I looked over at Erani, who was just beginning to stir. I’d done my best to move her into a somewhat comfortable position when I’d woken up this morning, but doing so without waking her up was a challenge, and it was clear just by looking at her face that she felt like shit.

“What is…where…why…ugh, I have such a hangover,” she muttered as she attempted to blink her eyes open.

“Yeah, I think we both had a bit too much to drink last night,” I nodded. “Kinda went overboard, with that being the first time I’d had anything other than dirty river water in what felt like forever.”

“Mhmm,” she said, still in a daze. “Where’s…oh.”

She looked around and found Ainash, who was now asleep, herself, after staying up all night keeping watch over us.

“You doing alright?” I asked. “I think you had a lot more to drink than I did.”

“Yeah, just need some time,” she groaned. “What…happened? Did you…did you punch Jannin?”

“Bon,” I laughed, “but yeah, I think I did. Definitely took things too far. Sorry for, y’know, getting us kicked out of the first building we’d entered in weeks, by the way.”

She laughed weakly. “Yeah, yeah, you’re fine. Uh, why did you punch him? I think I was asleep until he hit the floor, so I didn’t really catch the leadup.”

“Uh…” I thought back, remembering the interaction. I didn’t really remember his words, but I did remember that Bon had said some pretty awful stuff about Erani and her injury. I obviously regretted taking things as far as I did, but…well, he definitely deserved to get hit for that, at the very least. “He was just being a little shit. Someone needed to knock some sense into him.”

“Hm. Well, whatever. Didn’t really like those guys anyway,” Erani shrugged. “Hells, I really drank a lot. Headache.”

“I really wish we had some healing magic we could use, or something,” I frowned. “Maybe antagonizing the group that had Jannin in them wasn’t the best idea.”

“No, no, I doubt it’d help all that much, anyway. Like I said, just need some time.” She rubbed her eyes with her palms. “Distract me. What, uh…what did you get for your Level-ups?”

“Oh, well I moved up to Level 20 from killing Xhag’duul, so I got quite a bit.” I explained all of my new abilities that I’d gotten to her, as well as the fact that I’d gone ahead and done the Spell Crystal plan we’d discussed beforehand and Upgraded Sanguine Bond.

“Damn, I’m out for just a single night and you’re getting all kinds of stuff,” Erani chuckled.

“What about you? What all did you get?”

“Oh, um,” Erani suddenly looked embarrassed. “I haven’t actually…made my choices, yet?”

“What? Why?”

“Just, sort of, y’know…” she absentmindedly rubbed the stump that her left arm ended in. “Distracted.”

“Oh, uh, right,” I blinked. Of course she’d have been distracted. I was such an idiot. “Sorry. About, y’know, all of that. I probably could’ve handled that fight with Xhag’duul better, and—”

“No. Don’t.” Erani shook her head, then sighed. “It’s not your fault. Just…y’know. Um, thanks for talking with me last night. When I was, y’know, drunk and hysterical.”

I laughed and reached around her, pulling her into a side hug. “You weren’t hysterical. And it’s no problem. I meant what I said, too.”

She nodded silently, leaning her head on my shoulder.

“Anyway,” I said, “Ainash is taking a break to sleep for now, since she was up all night watching us.”

“She was? Ugh, poor girl.”

“Yeah, we probably need to watch ourselves drinking so we can at least stay sober enough to not pass out on her like that. But I was thinking we could just stick around here for a bit while she gets some rest, and then head out to that nearby town. Shouldn’t take more than half a day to walk there with Expedite.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll go ahead and go through my Level-ups. Need to grab a Spell and a Talent.”

“Nice. You know what you’re gonna choose?”

“Absolutely not.”