69. Advanced Nearby Object Manipulation lv4

Advanced Nearby Object Manipulation lv4

With the attribute points distributed, the next issue was the more complicated matter of ability points.

The first step was to examine my actual options. I selected the ungrouped abilities that could be upgraded with eight points or fewer and asked for them to be listed. My ability panel responded.

Time Leap lv2: Move a perceived target weighing up to half a ton to the position it occupied two seconds ago, or to the position it will occupy two seconds from now.

Focused Invulnerability lv2: Once per minute, choose a single target and two specific actions from one source. Ignore that target’s attempts involving those actions.

Instant Action lv3: Instantly perform an action equivalent to five minutes of maximum effort over the course of three seconds.

Defensive Counter lv2: Harmful effects blocked, reduced, or recovered from through two chosen defensive methods are transferred to the originator of the effect.

Super Suit lv2: Create a customized suit in thirty minutes. The suit is as durable as you are, cannot be harmed by your abilities, and can share your abilities. Only you can wear it.

Spatial Distortion lv2: Selectively treat two distances related to yourself as between half and twice their original length. This does not directly affect other people.

Spatial Leap lv2: Within the same local space, change the position and orientation of a perceived target weighing up to half a ton by up to forty meters and one hundred twenty degrees.

Interesting.

Most of these changes were quantitative rather than qualitative, but a lot of the time quantity has a quality all its own.

Spending eight points here would mean four upgrades, since most of these abilities would go from lv1 to lv2. That would improve my flexibility and overall capability quite a bit.

On the other hand, none of these abilities were directly offensive or defensive, so my raw combat power would not change very much.

Nothing here was especially shocking, but none of it was useless either.

So what about the other category, the newly grouped abilities?

Area Force Control lv4: Selectively adjust forces and similar force effects within twenty meters, excluding the inside of other people’s bodies, by up to eight times. Activates automatically when you are harmed.

Personal Force Control lv4: Selectively adjust forces and similar force effects you are touching, excluding the inside of other people’s bodies, by up to sixteen times. Activates automatically when you are harmed.

Force Sense lv3: Perceive the application and distribution of force in your surroundings with the same accuracy as your eyesight, with no blind spots.

Force-Field Creation lv3: Apply your force effects to up to four cubic yards of space at a time, with reduced effect. Up to four simple geometric shapes may exist at once.

Area Forced Acceleration lv4: Increase the internal forces of all targets within twenty meters at every level, accelerating their movements and internal physiological processes by up to 150%.

Personal Acceleration Field lv4: Control internal forces at every level, selectively accelerating or slowing movements and internal physiological processes by up to 200%.

Constant Force lv3: Resist all changes except those produced through physical means. Immune to supernatural negative emotions, diseases, and traps.

Sustained Force lv3: Make your force effects permanent, though at reduced strength. The time and stamina required are proportional to the effect and inversely proportional to each other.

Multiple Nearby Object Manipulation lv4: When touching a target, apply a total force equal to four times your maximum strength. Each individual force may be at most one quarter of the total, and you may distribute and control those forces as easily as you can imagine doing so.

Advanced Nearby Object Manipulation lv4: When touching a target, apply and/or cancel a total force equal to three times your maximum strength. You may distribute and control those forces as easily as you can imagine doing so.

Now… that was different.

Having several lv3 abilities opened up multiple specialized choices, and every single one of them was extremely powerful.

Force Adjustment and Forced Acceleration both had area and personal versions. The area versions emphasized broad effects, while the personal versions emphasized raw power.

Similarly, Nearby Object Manipulation had one version that could apply multiple weaker forces on contact, and another that had lower total force but stronger individual forces and could also cancel force.

I could partially imitate that by reversing the way I currently used Nearby Object Manipulation. It was imperfect, but very useful.

Anyone with less total force than me could be rendered helpless the moment I touched them… and that was only scratching the surface.

In the end, the area abilities were relatively less useful.

Force-Field Creation could already turn any force effect into an area effect. It was weaker than a dedicated area ability, but it was far more versatile because it could be shaped.

There was no real comparison, especially since Force-Field Creation only needed to be upgraded once and could then be applied to any force effect I obtained, while area abilities had to be purchased separately.

There were other effects I could buy too. In fact, there were countless possibilities.

Some had already made the shortlist, like Force Creation or Personal Force Field, along with many variants for creating clothing or disguises, and even some attack abilities.

There were also endless lists of abilities I had not yet had the chance to study.

For now, I did not look at them. Fifteen different but similar abilities were already competing for limited upgrade points. Adding another one, unless it was absolutely necessary or extremely useful in combination with multiple powers, would only spread me thinner.

Versatility was useful, but trying to do a little of everything was a good way to become mediocre at many things and excellent at none. Humanity has built entire office departments around that philosophy. I preferred not to become one.

At present, I felt that I could not improve Force Sense any further from lv1.

Information overload was a dangerous problem, and often indirectly fatal. Trying to process even more information on top of my already enhanced senses was not workable.

So that option was eliminated, and I moved on.

Force-Field Creation and Sustained Force were two complementary abilities with the potential to change the battlefield. They let me apply my abilities over a volume of space, including objects and people, and then make those effects permanent.

Some of the most impressive and complex things I could do came from combining those two skills, including what were essentially magic items.

Hell, the only reason I could take a bath that actually felt hot was because of those skills.

Normally, they would have been my top development priority. The only problem was that their current levels already allowed me to create magic items.

Improving them would bring greater output and stronger effects, but it would not grant me a new capability.

Lastly, Constant Force was a broad passive defense. It had saved my life against mental influence, curses, and dark magic, and it had almost certainly helped resist the old man’s power-nullification as well.

For all the pain the old man had caused me, the main weapon he used against other magic users was not actually as strong as the best skill someone like him should have possessed.

Something had to have weakened it, and the only thing that made sense was Constant Force.

On one hand, improving Constant Force now would give me stronger all-around defense.

On the other hand, it was already effective at weakening enemy abilities, and I really wanted to use these points to obtain another fourth-level skill.

At the moment, a clear, active application of power appealed to me more than passive defense, especially because fights against certain enemies were getting harder and harder, and too many of them were turning into wars of attrition.

I wanted to beat some people’s asses, okay?

Especially the necromancer who had tried to save that old bastard and threatened to roast me in the process.

Personal Force Control lv4: Selectively adjust forces and similar force effects you are touching, excluding the inside of other people’s bodies, by up to sixteen times. Activates automatically when you are harmed.

Personal Acceleration Field lv4: Control internal forces at every level, selectively accelerating or slowing movements and internal physiological processes by up to 200%.

Advanced Nearby Object Manipulation lv4: When touching a target, apply and/or cancel a total force equal to three times your maximum strength. You may distribute and control those forces as easily as you can imagine doing so.

That narrowed my choices to three.

Personal Force Control was a pure force multiplier, both offensively and defensively.

It worked with most of my other abilities. It made me effectively stronger and more durable against many forms of attack, an overall improvement across the board.

It might not give me anything new, but the enhancement it provided to everything I already had made it a powerful choice.

Personal Acceleration Field was entirely about speed: the speed of anything happening inside my body.

At the upper end, it could triple my physical movement and mental processing, make me heal faster, or, in the rare cases when I needed it, make me heal more slowly. It could alter my metabolism and more.

The biggest improvement, though, was that it could now reduce the speed of those processes. If I was understanding “slow by up to 200%” correctly, it could effectively reverse them.

It might not directly affect other people or monsters, though punching faster still worked, but for personal alteration it was incredibly powerful.

For one thing, it could provide complete immunity to any kind of chemical, infection, poison, or other unwanted subtle attack by reducing the speed of those reactions to zero, or even reversing the damage they had already done.

It could likewise prevent bleeding, suffocation, and strangulation by stopping those processes as if freezing them in place.

Last, and absolutely not least, it could adjust the chemical composition of my body, as long as I knew what I was doing.

Advanced Nearby Object Manipulation was simply lethal.

Unless the target had some form of defense, a single touch could kill.

That was not an exaggeration. Even with its limitations, carefully applying or canceling force could create fatal situations with far less than its maximum output.

Even against an opponent on my level, how much force would it really take to cause an aneurysm?

What about canceling the force of an enemy’s heartbeat?

And even those examples were trivial compared to what was possible with enough control.

The fact that I also used the same ability to fly, defeat enemies, and endure attacks was basically a bonus.

I thought it over. Reconsidered. Changed my mind an instant before spending the points, then changed it back again.

It took me more than an hour to decide. Fortunately, the water heated itself and did not go cold.

But in the middle of a war, there was only so long I could afford to delay.

Eventually, I made my choice.

Name: Ye Lin
Profile: Human female, 17 years, 3 months, 13 days old

Word of Force [41 points]
Force Adjustment lv3, Force Sense lv2, Force-Field Creation lv2, Forced Acceleration lv3, Advanced Nearby Object Manipulation lv4, Constant Force lv2, Sustained Force lv2

Other Abilities [24 points]
Time Leap lv1, Enhanced Regeneration lv4, Focused Invulnerability lv1, Instant Action lv2, Defensive Counter lv1, Super Suit lv1, Spatial Distortion lv1, Spatial Leap lv1

Ability Points: 0/65

Attributes [0/65]
Strength 33, Agility 16, Intelligence 6, Perception 9, Spirit 16, Luck 2

My only regret was that I could choose only one.