Chương 57: Pride

My ears are fully perked. Ash drifts lazily through the open windows of the palace— —right up until my tail flicks through it, betraying me with unnecessary enthusiasm. A reasonable reaction. Its excitement is expected. After all, it is finally time to Inspect my newest additions. But first… I open my status window. At the very top of the menu, a new bar has been added, complete with small icons representing different tabs in a very classic RPG fashion. Efficient. Professional. I approve.

The currently selected tab—my status screen—is represented by a simple silhouette. A tiny Foxkin, presumably me. I appear to have been miniaturized. Slightly questionable. The next icon is what appears to be a fireball. Or possibly a particularly inspired rendition of a cat. The distinction is unclear, but either option feels thematically appropriate. Naturally, I select it. An entirely new screen pops up, displaying the two skills currently sitting in my Skill Storage: Twin Arc and Starfall Sequence. I nod sagely.

Excellent. Naturally, I slot them into my build immediately, replacing Improved Dash and Starline Thrust. Obviously. I do not require two separate active movement skills, and Starline Thrust has been quietly relegated to the completely useless bin ever since I invented my first Blazing Star step. Progress is ruthless like that. Now that my skill list has been properly optimized— —it is time. Inspection.

Starting with the least interesting option, because that is clearly the most logical and academically sound way to escalate. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Astral Veilstep (Rare)] An advanced movement technique that slips partially into astral space, refining evasive motion into seamless repositioning. (Active) Briefly phase through astral space while moving, allowing rapid repositioning and avoidance of incoming attacks.

Movement becomes fluid and difficult to track, leaving faint afterimages that distort the user's true position. Excels at evasion rather than resistance. Scales with Dexterity. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Expected. Overall useful. But not particularly interesting. Next. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Astral Reflex A celestial mutation of the Foxkin's reactive instinct. The user's body is attuned to the subtle distortions of astral motion, responding not only to what is, but to what is about to be.

(Passive) Enhances reaction speed and the effectiveness of Dexterity when evading threats. Allows responses to attacks at the moment of their formation, rather than upon creation. Particularly effective against high-speed projectiles, magical constructs, and spatial disturbances. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I raise an eyebrow, considering the description for a moment. So—predictive reflexes.

Depending on how strong the effect actually is, this could either be monumentally useful or a very questionable upgrade disguised as something impressive. More testing will be required before I pass judgment, so for now it goes onto the ever-growing pile of things I will absolutely remember to investigate later. Next. Something far more interesting. Twin Arc. The class skill. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Twin Arc (Epic)] One motion, two cuts.

(Passive) Slashing attacks produce a second mirrored trajectory, striking along a slightly offset path. The secondary arc carries reduced force. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I blink once. Then again. And, for scientific accuracy, a third time. My ears flatten slightly.

"… Huh?" This is just a worse version of Starfall Sequence, isn't it? My eyes narrow. Then widen. Wait. No. That's wrong. This is passive. Constant and immediate, while Starfall Sequence is an active echo, being delayed and stackable. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. … Oh. I arrive at a profound conclusion. This is extremely concerning. I am putting Pride on hold. This requires immediate testing. For academic purposes. Obviously.

I grab my sword and turn toward the nearest intact section of wall, which is about to become the site of a highly professional renovation project. The marble is pristine, polished, and tragically unaware of what is about to happen to it. I step forward and execute a clean diagonal slash. The blade meets stone with a sharp crack—and a second cut appears at the exact same moment. Not delayed, not separate, but perfectly mirrored.

Two intersecting lines carve into the marble in a single motion, forming a clean X as fragments scatter outward in a neat, symmetrical spray. I nod, pleased. That is already extremely useful. I shift a few steps to the right. Reset stance. Then I swing again—this time with proper dramatic intent.

"Starfall Sequence." The initial slash lands, and Twin Arc triggers instantly, forming the familiar X. For a brief moment, the cuts glow faintly, as if the air itself is reconsidering what just happened. Then the space above them distorts, starlight gathering along invisible paths before descending. Two additional slashes fall from nearby angles like condensed streaks of night sky, striking the wall with sharp, resonant impacts.

The marble fractures further, new lines cutting across the original X at offset angles, expanding the pattern into something far less structured. Not just intersecting lines. A constellation. Four slashes from a single motion. My tail swishes again, which is entirely appropriate for this level of dramatic aesthetic. I repeat the test with a vine summoned from my shadow, directing the motion through it instead. The vine lashes out, mimicking the same strike. Nothing happens. No mirrored arc, no falling stars.

As expected. Conclusion: Twin Arc mirrors my attacks in real time, while Starfall Sequence adds delayed, angle-shifted follow-ups. Used together, they create layered strikes that are significantly harder to avoid and far more destructive than either skill alone. I nod sagely. This was clearly the optimal outcome. Just as planned. Obviously.

I did not know the effect of Twin Arc beforehand, but given that I am the most intelligent and beautiful prodigy in existence, it is only logical that the System—or some other mildly suspicious cosmic entity—recognized this and nudged the coin flip in my favor. Encouraging. I attempt to flick my hair haughtily. It does not work. My greatest enemy. Ponytails. I decide not to dwell on this deeply unfortunate limitation and instead move on to the important part. The real part.

It is time to see what kind of trait qualifies me for the highest classification of calamity. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Pride] The certainty of one who does not yield. Pride is the unwavering assertion of self. Actions taken with clear intent carry greater weight, resisting interference and bending outcomes in subtle favor of the user. It does not grant power blindly, nor does it correct failure. Only decisions made with true understanding are reinforced.

Effects: • Grants complete resistance to all control-type mental effects.

• Reduces the impact of fear, intimidation, and pressure-based effects that conflict with the user's intent • In direct clashes, grants slight priority to the user's actions when competing against effects of similar strength • Grants increased combat effectiveness when engaging targets of equal or higher level • Reinforces the outcome of correctly judged actions, making them harder to disrupt, deflect, or invalidate Anchors physical form to self-defined ideal; prevents natural degradation and permanent deviation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I study the window in silence for a few seconds, reading through it again more carefully. Same number of bullet points as Starborn. That feels intentional. Which means this is important. Unfortunately, unlike my far more considerate stellar trait, none of these effects come with helpful numbers attached. This means I am now required to actually think about what they do instead of simply skimming and nodding like a genius who already understands everything.

A deeply unreasonable expectation. Still. We proceed. First effect: complete resistance to control-type mental effects. I pause. Then I reread that line. Then I reread it again, just to confirm that it really does say complete. … That is extremely convenient. It is also extremely concerning in a broader, philosophical, deeply unsettling sense that I am choosing not to engage with at this time. The existence of abilities capable of overriding a person's will is, objectively speaking, utterly unacceptable. However.

I am now immune to them. Which means, from a strictly practical standpoint, this is no longer my problem. I nod once, pleased. Ten out of ten effect. Zero out of ten concept. Next. Reduced impact of fear, intimidation, and pressure. I already have intimidation resistance from my title, which means this either stacks or becomes redundant. Given that the System appears to favor excessive reinforcement over elegant design, I am going to assume stacking. Encouraging. Next effect. Direct clashes gain slight priority.

I tilt my head slightly, considering the wording. So, if two attacks of similar strength collide, mine wins. Not through overwhelming force or through better technique, but because reality politely agrees with me. … That is extremely on-brand. Also extremely useful. Gold star. Next. Increased combat effectiveness against stronger opponents. I do not even need to think about this one. Anything within my level range is already at a statistical disadvantage from the moment I exist in the same general area as it.

This means that the majority of my fights—by necessity, by preference, and by basic entertainment value—will be against things stronger than me. Because fighting something weaker is, quite frankly, a waste of everyone's time. This effect is therefore not just useful. It is optimal. My tail gives a slow, satisfied swish. And finally. The last bullet point. Reinforces the outcome of correctly judged actions. I narrow my eyes slightly. This one is… vague.

Which is always a sign that it is either incredibly powerful or aggressively unhelpful. Possibly both. I consider a few scenarios. If I correctly judge that an attack should pierce something, does it become more likely to do so? If I commit to a movement with absolute certainty, does it become harder to interrupt? If I choose correctly, does reality simply… agree? That last one feels suspiciously accurate. And mildly concerning.

I tap a finger lightly against my arm, thinking it through from a more analytical perspective. This is not a raw power increase. It is not a safety net, and it does not correct mistakes. It rewards correctness. Which means the better my judgment, the stronger this becomes. A skill that scales directly with my decision-making. … Of course it does. I nod sagely, arriving at a very reasonable conclusion. This is either an eleven out of ten effect. Or a catastrophic failure condition disguised as one.

There is only one way to find out. Testing. Extensive testing. Possibly reckless testing. For academic purposes, obviously. Likely later. There is, unfortunately, nothing left in the Tutorial that could reasonably be classified as anything more than a minor nuisance, which makes properly stress-testing a reality-bending trait effect somewhat difficult. Tragic. If I fought the dragon again in this state, however… I consider it briefly. Then nod. Yes. That would go very poorly for the dragon.

In a deeply one-sided, highly educational manner. Something akin to a pitbull discovering a half-eaten taco bell burrito at three in the morning and deciding that fate has personally delivered it a gift. Efficient. Decisive. Utterly lacking in mercy. A reasonable outcome. My tail gives a small, satisfied flick at the thought before my attention returns to the final line. The one I have not addressed yet. The one that feels… Different. I reread it carefully.

"Anchors physical form to self-defined ideal; prevents natural degradation and permanent deviation." I go still. Then, slowly, I brace myself. Not because I expect pain, but because I am not entirely certain what I expect at all. I lower my gaze. My legs. My right arm. The scars. The burns. The patchwork of skin that never quite returned to what it should have been. I notice it. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. The edges of the scars are softening. Fading. Not all at once, not dramatically, but slowly and steadily.

The discolored skin along my arm shifts tone in gradual increments, uneven patches smoothing out as if reality itself is correcting a mistake it previously overlooked. The branching marks along my calves grow lighter, their sharp definition blurring as they recede. I focus harder. My perception sharpens. And there it is. It is not just fading. It is being overwritten. Not healed in the traditional sense. Restored. As if my body is referencing something else—something internal—and aligning itself accordingly.

I poke my arm experimentally. The sensation is immediate. Normal. No delay. No dullness. Just… correct. I rub the skin. Smoother. Responsive. Unhindered. I exhale slowly, tension I did not consciously acknowledge leaving my shoulders in a quiet release. Ah. So that is what it does. It does not heal. It enforces a version of me. One without damage. One without deviation. One that matches exactly what I consider… myself. It seems this particular problem has resolved itself before I even leave the Tutorial. Efficient.

My mouth curves into a small, genuine smile. Thank the stars.