Skills

This is about the mechanics of skills themselves. For information of particular skills, consult the Skills List.

## Skill Categories

These categories are all outlined in chapter 45.

#### Cost up front

These take mana and instantly form. Fireball is a skill like this.

#### Channel Skills

Channel skills have two types.

* One type is like Mages Retreat where they take only mana per second and increase in power the more mana you give it. These have no cap on how much mana can be channeled but the cost increases exponentially.
* The second type require an amount of mana up front and then a mana per second cost to maintain the effect. These skills can be modified to accept more mana, but not an infinite amount like the other type. Example: Hail

#### Reserve Mana Skills

Reserve mana skills have two types.

* The first type locks down a certain amount of mana in the mana pool. These usually create fake essence to increase some aspect of cultivation. Example: Mana Strength.
* The second type is rarer. It holds the reserve mana in the skill structure in the spirit.  Matt's Cracked Phantom armor is also this type of reserved skill. that's why the skill breaks when he tries to put too much mana into it. It is possible to increase the amount of mana that the this kind of reserve skill takes, but it is much harder than increasing the second type of channeling skill.

#### Manipulation Skills

These are similar to channeling skills but are considered different because buffing and debuffing does not work on them.

Manipulation skills tier 14 upgrades are that they become cheaper and easier to use. There is a one and a trillion rare upgrade where the manipulation becomes instinctive like another limb.

## Absorbing

You absorb skills into one of three layers of your soul, and where in your soul skills reside. You can move them forward and back but it takes months of meditation.

### Core Skills

A tier 1 has two core skill slots. it increases to three at tier 5 and four at tier 10. every subsequent 10 tiers increases a slot.

Core skills are more powerful, cheaper, and have a lower cast time. around 30%

### Inner Spirit

A tier 1 has 6 Inner Spirit slots and gains 2 slots every tier after. these are where 'average' skills go, usually combat ones.

### Outer Spirit

A tier 1 has 20 Outer Spirit slots and gains 5 slots every tier. Skills in this layer are cost 50% more.

## Skill Expansion

Skill expansion is usually done at tier 15 or higher.

There are two ways of expanding a skill:

The slow way is to use it and push it to its limits.

The fast way is focusing on it in your spirit, finding the part of the skill structure that effects what you want to change and changing it manually. This way is very dangerous to do. If it fails then at best it will destroy the skill, and worst case it will cripple your spirit and you'll need a tier 40 healer to fix you. This is also the basic process for creating your own skill. skills are most easily changed when they first enter your spirit.

A skill manipulation cube can be used to allow you to simulate skill modifications to practice without danger of losing the skill or hurting yourself.

## Healing

There is a cap to how much you can heal. After a certain amount healing stops being effective and might not take In theory you could keep healing people forever, but the body rejects regrown tissue if the body is under too much stress. Especially after repeated healing. That danger increases exponentially if the healing was done badly.

Healing is split into two types: Directed and Undirected.

From Chapter 5:

> "Cast the spell, and it does its thing. Each spell will be different, but it just heals, the problem is, get a limb chopped off and only have a basic healing spell, and it will just seal the wound. It's technically healed." "You need other spells like [Regrowth] or [Regeneration] to heal missing limbs, though [Regeneration] is a self-cast spell. The point is, they will save your life but are kinda limited in their execution." "The other type is a directed heal, it's like.." Melinda paused and pursed her lips before continuing slowly. "The best way to describe it is if someone gets their head chopped off, an undirected heal won't do anything, the spell will just consider them 'dead'. Despite the fact you don't instantly die with decapitation, even mundane medical technology can reattach a head."
> "A directed healing skill is able to reattach ahead, it just takes dozens of times more mana and absurd amounts of control and knowledge of anatomy. The spell doesn't guide you if you mess up. You just killed somebody while trying to save them."
>
>

Directed Healing is far cheaper than undirected healing. but with undirected healing, you don't need to know what you're doing.

Overhealth allows undirected heals to function like directed ones. They can bring someone back from the dead

##### Spiriual Damage

Spiritual attacks they're very hard to heal and heal very slowly. The spirit will eventually heal to match the body again over time.

Indiana's 3rd and 6th methods are both ways to heal the spirit, used by Wrangle.

## Upgrade Orbs

"Upgrade Orbs only dropped rarely after tier 25"

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 95
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Chapter 3
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Chapter 26
4. ↑ Chapter 5
5. ↑ The Concept of Death 6
6. ↑ Concept of Death 1
7. ↑ The Concept of Death 7
8. ↑ Chapter 6
9. ↑ The Concept of Death 5
10. ↑ Chapter 107
11. ↑ Chapter 32