Tristan

[Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 90 -> Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 93]

[Skill gained: Rivers of Mana]

[Skill Boost obtained]

[Skill gained: Roadmap to Victory]

Uh … those were a lot of Levels. Especially for now.

I mean, I hoped it wasn't too arrogant to say that I'd managed to make major contributions in the form of the citadel and all the traps I'd spontaneously (re)built, but still, that was, well, a lot.

And, as per usual, the moment things were calm enough for the System to risk distracting me, I also felt comfortable enough to start reading descriptions.

Rivers of Mana

The more effective your spells are, the more you can cast.

This Skill gives you a twenty-five percent increase to mana regeneration to start with, without restriction or prerequisites, however, this effect can grow up an up to tenfold boost to your ability to regain mana, depending on the overall impact your magic has upon the world, resetting when the situation changes (ex: a battle ending, turning in for the night, moving on to a different task, etc.).

Note: "impact" can take many forms, but more meaningful uses of magic will help you more

Well, that clears everything up … not.

I mean, it was simple enough; I got a higher mana regeneration that could grow to utterly absurd heights if I fed it sufficiently, but it was that second part that I had trouble with.

Because it was so fucking nebulous. Yeah, do something "impactful," that was clear, but what did that mean? Do good stuff? Do stuff that would impact the course of history, irrespective of whether or not it was actually a good idea? Do stuff that would put me in the history books, regardless of how deserved that was?

All of the above?

Honestly … honestly, my solution was as simple as it was lazy. I wouldn't even bother trying to lean into the Skill, not trying to do anything crazy in the hopes it would proc the ability.

If it worked, it worked; if it didn't … well, that sucked, but I also wouldn't go out of my way to stand out in a way that could very easily get me killed. And that was that.

Roadmap to Victory

Name a thing you wish to happen, and you shall be told how to make it happen … in theory.

Choose your goal, and this Skill will, once per day, grant you the information most immediately needed to best make it come about, including warnings and intermediary steps.

Note: this is no guarantee of victory, especially as these steps can be failed; using one's head when following the directions of this Skill is essential

Yeah.

That could be either completely broken … or utterly useless.

Either way, it needed to be upgraded.

You gain more information in each daily information packet

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Eh … I mean, it sounded good, but I had no real frame of reference for how much of a difference it did/would make.

Actually, I did have one idea, one I perhaps should have had five seconds ago, before I'd used the Skill Boost.

So, how does [Roadmap to Victory] compare to a video game quest log in terms of information and usefulness?

And [Akashik Retrieval] answered.

[Roadmap to Victory] will indeed give you a list of tasks similar to a video game quest log, with additional pieces of information to explain why these steps need to be taken; however, it is up to you, the user, to adequately interpret them. And, of course, failing to meet objectives will certainly have consequences for the ability of future actions to succeed.

Yep, definitely should have tried that before.

Once again, the System emphasized the need to actually "get good," it wasn't anything close to the "I-win-button" I'd imagined it to be based on the name, though I wouldn't have used it that way, even if it had been.

I was leery of handing over too much decision-making authority to a Skill.

Even so, where [Akashik Retrieval] was much more of a generic information gathering ability, [Roadmap to Victory] would give me the exact information I needed, directly.

Therefore … how do we beat the Fomorians?

Roadmap to defeating the Fomorian Empire

Step 1: Immediately gather the troops and get underway as soon as possible (within two days, minimum), due to an extreme mobilization and retraining effort underway as a result of your recent victory.

Yep. Helpful in the most depressive way possible.

Also … where the fuck was Charlemagne? Actually, where the fuck was everyone?

***

Dietrich

This part was also just like it had always been.

The blood, the guts, the corpses.

At least this time around, it was easier to tell which side the dead had been fighting on, and it was far harder for one's imagination to deceive you into believing, even for a moment, that all those bodies belonged to your comrades … but despite how one-sided the fight had been in the end.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand of their own were dead, and about three times that injured, though the consequences of injuries were massively less in the modern day, and had been even before the System arrived. Nowadays, the only injuries that would take serious work to fix were amputations, and even those could be undone; however, the span of time that would require was considerable, and far too many of the injured would not be able to continue the fight with them … but they'd live. And that was far more than they'd have gotten in the past.

Suddenly, a bird landed next to him, expanding back into the form of a very green-looking Tristan.

Ah … being at a distance from the carnage had to be very different from being right in the middle of things.

Dietrich took a step backwards to avoid the potential spray of vomit, but none came.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Peachy," the young man responded, in a tone that made it abundantly clear he was anything but. "We've got a problem …"

Two minutes later, Dietrich was ready to tear his hair out, start swearing, or both.

Turning around, he once again affirmed how much of humanity's army was not ready for immediate deployment.

Fifty thousand fighters, and maybe twelve thousand of the logistics/support/medical personnel. Against an army that would inevitably be far more massive than the one they'd just trashed, even if if, it was just the remnants of the Fomorians' original army, though it would likely be far larger, considering the new intelligence Tristan had just delivered.

"I think I saw Genghis Khan over there," he said, pointing. Of everyone, he was likely to be the one in the best position to move out immediately, to harass, if nothing else.

***

Genghis Khan

The Fomorians were learning lessons.

Unfortunate.

But hardly unexpected.

And that information was slowly spreading through the "united" army of humanity, prompting a whole series of different responses, ranging from swearing to a rapid flurry of planning to his own "okay, when do we leave?"

Because his section of the army was nothing if not mobile.

In fact, while it would involve leaving behind a decent chunk in the various medical tents, he could leave right this instant.

And perhaps he should.

Granted, the general idea of giving the enemy as little information to work with as possible still held water, but at the same time, only giving them information on a single portion of the army, one that worked very differently from the others, while endlessly harassing them, should have a rather significant impact on the efficacy of the enemy forces' training.

Therefore, it was time to go.

However … he had an idea, a way to easily let his advanced strike force create a beachhead the Fomorians would break their teeth on.

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