Ronan figured he would work his way down the rarities this time. Saving the best for last wasn't as tempting when he had so many things to receive. Not to mention he'd just acquired the four skills he wanted the most.

He had three epic myriad skills tomes and four epic thesauruses of the trillion traits. That was going to be a huge power increase and he almost wished he'd invested more points into luck this iteration, purely to make the most of this windfall. Next time I join the Path of the Gladiator I might just put every point into luck and see what happens.

Since he had so many items to get through, he decided to open them in batches. He used the three skills tomes at once, preparing the thesauruses for when they were finished.

[Myriad Skills Tome (Epic)] has been consumed!

You have received the skill [Weapons Expert - Ranged (Epic)]!

Weapons Expert - Ranged (Epic): Mastery gains for all ranged weapons is accumulated infinitesimally faster. For every mastery tier you possess for all ranged weapons, deal 5% extra damage when using a ranged weapon

[Myriad Skills Tome (Epic)] has been consumed!

You have received the skill [Enchant - Explosion (Epic)]!

Enchant - Explosion (Epic): Allows the user to enchant objects with the (Explosion) enchantment. This enchantment causes the object to explode upon forceful contact with another physical object, dealing damage based on the quantity of mana used for the enchantment and the quality of the item which has been enchanted, multiplied by the user's intelligence stat at a diminishing rate.

[Myriad Skills Tome (Epic)] has been consumed!

You have received the skill [Artful Accumulation (Epic)]!

Artful Accumulation (Epic): The user of this skill receives a cultivation talent multiplier starting at 1.0x, and for every cultivation art they have reached full proficiency with, the multiplier increases by 0.1x.

The first skill was a little boring, but he had to appreciate the system's timing. He'd received a powerful rare bow earlier in this iteration and now it had given him a skill enabling him to master it faster. It seemed he would be getting some archery practice during the impending invasion.

The enchantment was where things got really spicy. At first he thought it would be a decent way to distract enemies. Enchant a shitty item with kaboom power and toss it. Simple.

Then he realised he had a bow that could summon arrows with his mana. The enchantment didn't specify 'real' objects. He was about to become a bomb archer.

All that was topped off with another fantastic cultivation skill. He hadn't even reached maximum proficiency in any of his cultivation arts yet, but he was close with the Nine Mouths Delta Mystic Energy Art. Things would only get quicker from here on out.

The thesaurus has read the fibres of your being, and bestowed a suitable trait upon you! You have been awarded the mutative trait [Luminous Nerves]

Luminous Nerves (Epic): The nerve system is reconfigured to operate using light signals rather than electrical signals, resulting in massively increased reaction times and sensitivity.

The thesaurus has read the fibres of your being, and bestowed a suitable trait upon you! You have been awarded the meta trait [Luck is a Skill]

Luck is a Skill (Epic): Instead of spending mana or stamina to activate a skill, the owner of this trait may choose to activate it using a gamble influenced by their luck stat. Depending on the original cost and the resources required, the form of gambling will differ. Losing results will result in skill activation failing or even backfiring, while winning results can empower the skill far beyond its original limits.

The thesaurus has read the fibres of your being, and bestowed a suitable trait upon you! You have been awarded the mutative trait [Dual Mind]

Dual Mind (Epic): Your mind is split into two separate streams of thought which can operate discretely, each possessing 60% of the capacity and power of your original mind. Both can be applied to the same mental task, working at 110% of your original mind's capacity.

The thesaurus has read the fibres of your being, and bestowed a suitable trait upon you! You have been awarded the evolutionary trait [MTP Mitochondrial Shift]

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MTP Mitochondrial Shift (Epic): The cells in your body are reconfigured to produce MTP instead of ATP, using mana as a primary fuel source rather than typical food-fuel sources. Food can still be burned for energy, but at a much less efficient rate. Mana drain is equivalent to 1 point per (kilo of bodyweight) per day.

Ronan used all four thesauruses at once. Looking back, that was a fucking stupid thing to do. The first thesaurus finished activating and he felt as though streams of hot lava started carving channels through his entire body.

The second finished, but he barely heard the sound. When the third hit, his mind suddenly felt as though it was being torn in half by the hands of an eldritch entity. He nearly blacked out, but clung on.

That was a mistake.

The fourth thesaurus hit and Ronan didn't even have the words to describe the sensation that struck him. The closest he could get was that a trillion-armed cosmic jellyfish reached into his body and struck every single cell with a supercharged electric sting.

At that point, he did black out, but not before suffering for at least two seconds.

When he woke up, his body still ached all over. The pain was gone, but the phantom memory of it clung to him like a day's worth of grime. He rubbed at the skin on his arms, but it did little to alleviate the uncomfortable sensations.

Still, he knew that all the pain was worth it when he read through the messages floating in his vision. The three traits that had directly adjusted his physiology were all incredible. The most disconcerting one to get used to was dual mind. When he first tried to split his thoughts in two, he nearly knocked himself out by falling onto his face.

Gradually he got used to it by focusing on simple tasks, like having the two streams of thought count upwards in different sequences. Once he was used to those basic tasks he worked upwards until he had two, slightly slower, brains.

The real benefit was when he merged them. He'd basically just gained a free hardware upgrade to his processing power and calculation speed.

Being able to use mana to fuel his body was neat, but not exactly a gamechanger. He rarely starved anyway, due to the fact that he wasn't that bothered about dying and often didn't live long enough to require substantial meals.

The real crazy trait was luck is a skill. It could clearly lead to some incredible power-ups of his skills in a battle, but he would risk hurting himself drastically in the process.

It was perfect.

The rest of the gifts were still good, but not as impactful as the first load of epic rarity ones. First up were the two rare myriad skills tomes.

[Myriad Skills Tome (Rare)] has been consumed!

You have received the skill [Pressure Cutter (Rare)]!

Pressure Cutter (Rare): Carve apart your enemies using a pressurised jet of water. Lasts for 10 seconds and can be controlled from the origin point. Damage scales with user intelligence. (Cost: 70 Mana + 15 Mana per second)

[Myriad Skills Tome (Rare)] has been consumed!

You have received the skill [Arcane Piercing Strike (Rare)]!

Arcane Piercing Strike (Rare): Combining a deft application of mana with a physical weapon, this skill enables the user to bypass a portion of their target's armour, dealing lethal damage. Must be used in conjunction with a weapon capable of piercing damage. (Cost: 25 Mana + 40 Stamina + 2.5% Max Mana)

[Reverberating Chronosphere has subsumed duplicate skill potential towards free chronos merit accumulation. Current progress: 3.9%]

Pressure cutter was another decent magic skill. The number of skills he had to turn into sorcery was growing. He hoped to figure out some kind of underlying principles of mana and magic soon, so that he didn't have to individually decode every single skill and turn it into sorcery, but it was slow going.

The duplicate didn't bother him that much. It was the first he'd received in a long time, to the point that he'd almost forgotten they could crop up.

Next he had a bunch of stat fruits to chow down on. A veritable buffet of sweet delights. He started with the 'weakest' of the fruits and worked upwards, finishing with his second ever epic rarity fruit. It was a Miraculous Kiwi of Quickness, giving him more much-needed agility.

In total, he gained 10 tenacity, 22 strength—from two of a new kind of fruit, the power pomegranate—and 21 agility. It wasn't much compared to his current stats, but in terms of his base stats it was a huge leap forward.

One of the gifts had been a few health potions, which might come in handy during the invasion of the planet, while the last, but certainly not least, was a common legacy grimoire. When he used it, he was granted the knowledge of how to safely sanitise water in harsh conditions.

He assumed the person who gifted it to him thought it might be helpful on the path, but for someone with his unique advantages it was pretty useless. Having random fun information was always a cool party trick, he supposed…

With that, all that he had left was a skill upgrade shard and a crapton of cultivation shards. He could upgrade another rare skill to epic, or save the epic shard and hope to acquire enough to push one of his epic skills to legendary later on in the iteration.

He opted for the second choice. Death could come at any moment and he might regret not using the shard now, but at the same time, he would have infinite opportunities to get exactly the same gift in future iterations. Pushing for a better reward made sense.

Before he began cultivating, Ronan pulled up his status to check how much progress he'd made. It had been a while since he read through the full thing. It was a damn long read.

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