The Meaning of Time Sculpting
Time sculpting just reached intermediate. Intermediate time sculpting makes it possible to literally stop time. Weed starts questioning the world of art since the one who succeeded in the last secret sculpting skill quest came from the darkness rather than pure artistic spirit.
Sculpting of Years: sculptures gain value over the years and it prevents damage from natural wear.
Sculpting of the Moment: moving alone within stopped time requires immense physical and mental strength. To use it requires a special energy called Energy of the Moment, obtained by making people happy. The longer you freeze time, the more rapidly Energy of the Moment burns. Continuous use for even a few hours consumes an enormous amount of health and mana.
Time Travel Sculpting: go back to particular point in time to proceed in special quests. Quests unrelated to sculpting and randomly changing the past incurs a penalty.
Currently Weed has 492 Energy of the Moment. He tests out Sculpting of the Moment. He observes a rabbit frozen in time and praises its beauty. Cause of the acceleration difference he ends up losing 2% health. He deactivates it losing 16 Energy of the Moment. He analyzes how stopping the opponent’s movements during combat might be useful. He can launch unblockable consecutive attacks, use his pin point critical attack, and avoid an absolute crisis without damage. Its biggest advantage in combat is at decisive moments. The main problem is it drains way too much stamina. At this point, Weed is still undecided on whether the skill is useful or not.
Yuu Byung Jun in the meantime is watching his behavior as usual. He calmly calls it amazing, but inside he is astonished. The atrocious odds of the ruthless quest difficulty. In fact, many jobs have missed out on the last secret skill. Users were limited to certain areas, but secret skills granted magical abilities akin to that of a god. The arduous year Weed suffered through gave Yuu Byung Jun joy. The scenery frozen in time is described as being very beautiful. He thinks how when time stops, you can see how truly beautiful the world is. He remembers lying in the grass reading a book when he was a child, causing him to tear up. He decides that for sculptors, to create beauty, they must first experience it properly. He thinks if a person can look at ordinary things as beautiful they will be great as both a person and a sculptor. Weed at this moment makes his judgment. Useless, he regrets everything. He doesn’t know what effect it would have in battle. Yuu Byung Jun goes mental at this. Weed then catches the rabbit that ran away from him and ate him. Yuu Byung Jun finally remembers what kind of person Weed was originally.
Hermes Guild found a secret sword skill, but the guy refused to teach Hermes on account of all their bad deed. Darius is the one in charge of acquiring it. He makes hostages of the women and children to force him to teach Hermes. Bradley (I can’t stand Ray Bard) uses strict surveillance letting him basically see everything happening in Haven Empire. He reminisces about when he started Royal Road. He made connections with a guy named Count Malkan and became his knight. Eventually he betrayed the guy to become a Black Knight and took over Haven Empire. Nature of Black Knights is the pursuit of power, what drives them is not loyalty or allegiance to the King but desire.
The Song Called Money