Nature's Barrier

*Brave a thousand storms with Gaia’s protection.*

## Summary

Nature's Barrier is a F-Grade skill available on the first floor of Towers of Myriad Dao, one of nine high-quality skills. It is a barrier skill that creates a storm of maneuvering leaves to protect the user from physical attacks. It is somewhat unusual in that it scales from Endurance instead of Intelligence. The barrier can be extended to protect others as well as the user and one can continue to infuse Cosmic Energy into the skill to renew the leaves.

Zac fused his Hatchetman class skill **[Chop]** with Nature's Barrier to create the skill **[Nature’s Edge]** and its defensive functionality was replaced with the E-Grade skill Innate Ward just before heading off-world to fill out his limited title slots.

## Skill Window

Nature’s Barrier – Proficiency: Early. Brave a thousand storms with Gaia’s protection. Upgradeable. **Book 2, Page 500**

Nature’s Barrier (Late): Brave a thousand storms with Gaia’s protection. Upgradeable. **Book 4, Page 611**

## **Early Proficiency**

* It was a High F-Graded skill that created a barrier of leaves that automatically intercepted incoming projectiles. Their movements weren’t haphazard at all, but rather followed some intricate pattern that Zac still couldn’t make heads or tails of. **Book 2, Page 396**
* However, the leaves quickly restored themselves, only at the cost of some Cosmic Energy. **Book 2, Page 396**
* It provided an extremely durable extra layer of protection. **Book 2, Page 396**
* The durability on the leaves was based on his Endurance, which was quite unique for barrier spells. **Book 2, Page 397**
* The leaves could also be empowered with his Dao of Trees, making it was a perfect fit. **Book 2, Page 397**

## **Middle Proficiency**

* Another welcome surprise was that **[Nature’s Punishment]** and **[Nature’s Barrier]** both had evolved from the last battle. **Book 3, Page 112**
* The continuous consumption of his defensive skill was higher since the upgrade. But the leaves were also far more resplendent, almost lighting up the building with their green luster. **Book 3, Page 112**
* He also saw that the veins on the leaves had changed a bit. They slightly looked like fractals before as well, but it was much clearer now. He still couldn't make anything out from the fractals due to his lacking insight into that field, but he knew that each leaf could block far more force compared to before. **Book 3, Page 112**

## **Late Proficiency**

* As expected, he saw that **[Loamwalker]** had reached Late mastery, and even **[Nature’s Barrier]** had improved a step as well. **Book 4, Page 365**
* *No other textual information.*

## **Peak Proficiency**

* Luckily, he had a whole army to take out his annoyance on, and a storm of purple leaves flew around him as he waded into the army that desperately tried keeping him at bay. It was **[Nature’s Barrier]** that had changed its appearance after getting infused with the Fragment of the Bodhi and reaching Peak mastery. Not only had the leaves become shockingly sturdy, but the skill even provided a restorative effect in the eye of the storm now. **Book 5, Page 238**

## Synergy

* He also summoned **[Nature’s Barrier]**, and he was happy to see that he finally found a use for his new Dao. The skill had a pretty surprising change when it was infused with the Dao of Sanctuary. Zac had always been able to change the size of the area the swirling leaves protected to a certain degree, but after he infused it, he could extend the area by almost ten times compared to before. Even better, as the size increased, the number of leaves increased as well, so the actual strength of the barrier didn’t decrease with the increased area protected. However, such a large sphere of protection consumed a huge amount of Cosmic Energy, so Zac quickly removed his Dao before he was drained. **Book 3, Page 260**
* The Dao of Hardness worked as well, and it turned the leaves slightly wooden from their earlier glistening emerald. The defensive properties were clearly improved, but he felt it wasn’t quite up to the level of the Dao of Trees. **Book 3, Page 260**
* Zac immediately activated **[Nature’s Barrier]** and infused it with the Seed of Sanctuary. The skill had no problem covering the entirety of the convoy since the seed had been upgraded to the Middle stage from the Dao Impartment. **Book 3, Page 668**
* **[Nature’s Barrier]** naturally became even better at defense as the leaves mutated [*when infused with Bodhi*], ... **Book 5, Page 239**

## Fusion

### Justification

* It had been a pretty big disappointment to see that the Endurance-based defensive skill clashed with **[Deforestation]**, forcing him to give up on getting a new defensive skill now that **[Nature’s Barrier]** was lagging behind. **Book 6, Page 631**
* The leaves of **[Nature’s Barrier]** were disintegrated almost as soon as they were conjured as well, utterly incapable of blocking either the Base Power or the spikes. **Book 7, Page 117**
* Zac growled in annoyance as his chains turned into a blur, forming a defensive barrier even more effective than **[Nature’s Barrier]**. **Book 7, Page 163**
* **[Nature’s Barrier]** was all but useless by now, leaving Zac without any real defensive options. Between his huge pool of Endurance and his Dao Fragments, he was definitely hard to kill, but he needed a skill that actually took advantage of his strengths and pushed his defenses to the next level. **Book 7, Page 634**

### Result

* This was exactly what Zac had wanted to see, and he was extremely relieved relieved to see that his fusion of **[Chop]** and **[Nature’s Barrier]** had worked out just as he hoped. **Book 7, Page 682**
* Meanwhile, **[Nature’s Edge]** was a perfect fusion between Nature and Axe, using the form of **[Nature’s Barrier]** and the function of **[Chop]**. Losing his only real defensive skill was a bit of a shame, but **[Nature’s Barrier]** had long lost its ability to protect him. **Book 7, Page 683**

## Commentary

* He quickly rotated his Cosmic Energy, and a few large emerald leaves started to flutter around him as though he were sitting in the middle of a hurricane. **Book 2, Page 396**
* Nature’s Barrier wasn’t one of the nine high-graded skills in the repository for nothing. **Book 2, Page 396**
* The stopping power of most spell shields was based on Intelligence, meaning the shields a physical warrior would summon could barely provide any safety. **Book 2, Page 397**
* However, after testing the skill out on the island, he’d found that the rounds that the sniper rifles fired would easily penetrate the leaves. So he would need to imbue the skill with his Dao to protect himself from that type of attack. **Book 2, Page 397**
* He activated **[Loamwalker]**, and with two instantaneous steps, he found himself standing in front of Kenzie, and a storm of emerald leaves started to whirl around the two. **Book 2, Page 512**
* He was pushing his **[Nature’s Barrier]** skill to the limit, and unless powerhouses like the Corpselord showed up, they could forget about getting through in the short run. **Book 2, Page 513**
* A large reason he once chose **[Nature’s Barrier]** before heading to the Dead Zone was that it gained power based on his Endurance, which meant that the skill had received a huge upgrade in the past weeks. The leaves were far sturdier compared to before, and Zac believed not even the dangerous sniper rifles would be able to get through them any longer. **Book 3, Page 22**
* The skill itself had also been given a huge upgrade with the help of his massive Endurance, and he felt that he wouldn’t be completely helpless against Inevitability’s chains any longer. **Book 3, Page 261**
* Zac frowned and activated **[Nature’s Barrier]** and infused it with the Dao of Sanctuary, creating a canopy to protect the three. But the flames passed straight through the leaves and fell onto their bodies. **Book 4, Page 639**
* He could only move forward the normal way, but each step was contested by a barrage of strikes that kept ripping the leaves of **[Nature’s Barrier]** to shreds. **Book 5, Page 157**
* Resonating sword waves kept coming at Zac from every angle, and he found himself incapable of blocking them all with the help of **[Nature’s Barrier]**, as the leaves were getting destroyed faster than he could create them. **Book 5, Page 157**
* If Zac had had the fragment [Bodhi] while fighting the swordmaster in the Battle of Fates, he probably wouldn’t have needed to use any other defenses than this skill. **Book 5, Page 239**
* Zac dodged most of the attacks even if he was blind, but he found out that the projectiles automatically detonated into a kinetic storm that contained some mysterious energy that almost completely ignored the leaves of **[Nature’s Barrier**] and caused painful wounds across his body. **Book 5, Page 279**
* Zac still gave up any thought of defending that long with the help of **[Nature’s Barrier]**, as the arrays alone would prove too much to handle. His defensive skill in his human class was designed to withstand many smaller hits, not to take on extremely powerful blasts like this. **Book 5, Page 592**
* The emerald leaves of [Nature’s Barrier] appeared to create a nigh impenetrable wall against the assailant, but it was like a blur completely unfettered by gravity or its own momentum, as it made seemingly impossible turns around the leaves and roots alike. **Book 6, Page 379**
* Layer after layer of emerald leaves was incinerated, but Zac kept infusing Cosmic Energy to create a storm of leaves that filled the whole corridor. **Book 7, Page 212**