A Gamer Into Trails

As always, Giliath demands your power stones!

*

Whoosh...

Giliath saw me open my eyes, and he saw the once golden-color completely change into a crimson red. It looked pretty menacing, to say the least. Even though I'm still a kid, haha! Giliath felt a cold chill sweep around him, acting like he was being observed.

"So you do have those eyes after all.", Giliath murmured, making my ears perk up. It sounded like he expected this to happen.

"What do you mean by 'after all', dad?", I decided to ask while gaining interest. Are you suggesting I wasn't the only one with these eyes?

"Haha!", Giliath replied, just laughing. "Do your best to treasure those eyes of yours, son. Lady Aurora prized them as if it was her most precious thing in the entire world. Albeit her fighting was rare, she always made sure our blind spots were safe. She acted as a missing piece to the puzzle during combat. It warms my heart to see that legacy hasn't ended, yet.", Giliath continued, letting out a big laugh.

So that's the case of what he meant by, 'after all'. I really wasn't the only one with these weird eyes. I could say something cringe like it was meant to be, as I've had these eyes since my previous life, but there's no way silly shenanigans like that could really happen, right? We're talking about space magic here. Like actual space magic you'd see in other universes like Marvel. I'm sure my now-late Mother in this world having the same eyes I did was just merely coincidence. Surely.

It was a shame to learn I was the only surviving member of the ruined Phoenix House. I'll have to brush up on any confidential secret history records to see if it mentions such a thing. I'm sure Father has some records stashed away somewhere. If he knows that I have these special eyes now, he'll likely talk about Mother's origins.

"I will try to.", I replied, nodding. "But we've got several monsters nearby. I'll stay behind and watch. The thing I want to test will happen next, you'll be free to attack.", I said, locking eyes with the nearby monsters.

Thanks to the initial boost in my EP, I could actually cast Detection on all of them. There were five monsters total. A cool thing about Trails is if you played through certain scenes with one or two available party members, the number of monsters would be reduced to around one to three, normally. But with a full party size, the number of monsters you'd encounter could range anywhere from one to five or more. Maybe even ten to fifteen at once, depending on the monster size. They were mostly classified into Small, Medium, and Large type monsters.

The monsters before us fell into the Small category. They were completely visible now. A couple of them appeared to be bluish-purple squirrels whose tails were coated in different kinds of minerals. Beside them were a couple loud and buzzing blue flying beetles, and there was one large dragonfly that had mantis-like sickles buzzing about rapidly.

[Ding! You have activated Detection. 100 EP consumed.]

{Ding! You have activated Detection. 100 EP consumed...]

Ignoring the repeated messages, I saw that I had 150/650 EP left after using Detection five times. One window screen appeared over another, displaying the information of the five monsters before us.

[Jeweled Ripper - Level 10]

HP: 750 STR: 135 DEF: 115

ATS: 80 ADF: 100 SPD: 25

EXP: 25 DMG: 135 ADMG: 80

[Jeweled Ripper - Level 11]

HP: 800 STR: 150 DEF: 125

ATS: 90 ADF: 110 SPD: 28

EXP: 30 DMG: 150 ADMG: 90

[Blade Pincer - Level 9]

HP: 1300 STR: 140 DEF: 130

ATS: 85 ADF: 20 SPD: 25

EXP: 25 DMG: 140 ADMG: 85

[Blade Pincer - Level 10]

HP: 1500 STR: 155 DEF: 135

ATS: 90 ADF: 25 SPD: 27

EXP: 35 DMG: 155 ADMG: 90

[Crimson Dragonfly - Level 12]

HP: 1500 STR: 170 DEF: 100

ATS: 150 ADF: 50 SPD: 40

EXP: 75 DMG: 170 ADMG: 150

'Wow, it really is like from the games. What'd they call this again, a Monster Codex?', I mused, seeing this information display before me. It's a shame I'll be missing out on all this experience, but this is more about Father wanting me to show how Arts work during combat. I did see an orbal pistol hidden away at his side, but he didn't have any primary weapon, like his sword. He kept that back at home. They don't get pulled out of the void like you see in the games.

I know most of those system notifications just now were repeated, but I did decide to look at a couple of the ones that weren't. I wanted to see how my obtained experience worked when it came to using Vermillion Eyes. Sure enough, it worked like I thought it would.

[Ding! Detection has been used x5. Detection - Lv1 (0/100) -> (5/100)]

[Ding! Vermillion Eyes has received 5 EXP. Lv1 (2/100) -> (7/100)]

Using Detection five times also increased the skill experience of Vermillion Eyes. Would you look at that? So if I happen to use any skills underneath this umbrella, it will increase Vermillion Eyes. I can see its levels shooting up pretty quick because of this. If only Detection wasn't so expensive right now...

Once the levels do come in though, Detection's cost will lessen the more I use it.

Welcome to the grind!

And would you look at that? I had enough to cast one more Detection, so I opted to use it one more time. Not on the monsters. This time, I used it on Father. He said he limited his strength to the level of the monsters in front of us.

[Ding! You have used Detection. 100 EP has been consumed.]

I'm going to have to get used to this...Every single action I do will likely prompt a notification of some sort. Still, this one was enough to see Father's information displayed before me. It left me shocked.

"Wow...", I uttered, seeing Father's information before me.

[Giliath Osborne - Level 12.]

HP: 5000/5000 EP: 2000/2000

DMG: 1500 / AMG: 1500

Unable to view the rest of stats.

'5000 HP just at level 12!?', I thought, wanting to cry. I mean sure I had 1000 at Level 3, but even that was boosted because of my equipped Title! And that damage output. Don't even get me started on the EP too. Holy shit...

Should I say it?

As expected of Giliath Osborne. He truly does have the strength to back up his actions as both a General and future Chancellor of Erebonia.

I looked back up at Father. As if sensing my readiness, he spoke out to me without even turning his head. His gaze focused on the monsters before us. They were relatively tame, and didn't immediately attack.

"I take it you've done what you wanted to do, Naoto?", Giliath asked me.

"Uh-huh.", I replied, still shocked when reviewing Father's information.

I mean seriously, can we talk about the damage here? Most characters around Level 12 would range from 150-300 Attack Damage. He has a whopping 1500! It's like equipping post-game equipment when you start out again on a new game plus. And even then, that'd only equate to around a third of his Attack Damage. The rest came from hard work and labor. Seriously, just how juiced are Father's stats going to be at max level?

And here's a fun little fact, the highest known level cap in all of Trails is 250. I've never seen the games go beyond that. I wouldn't be surprised if Father reached this cap already. I am not sure if Daybreak can reach this point, and I likely won't be able to find out, either. Vermillion Eyes only allowed me to peer into events. It couldn't give me such details.

While I could sing praises about Father all day long, I knew we had to get the ball rolling. I nodded my head, signaling that I was ready. I made sure to keep a fair distance away, and not interrupt Giliath's battle with the five monsters.

"Very well. Keep your eyes peeled, son. Arts have relatively quick casting times. Most can be casted in just a mere few seconds, unless you've honed your Skill to cast them even quicker.", Giliath said, drawing my attention to him. I made sure not to blink. His words held true.

This is real life, not a turn-based role-playing game. You have to dodge. You have to time your attacks. And you have to wait around to cast Arts. Anything that you can think of that could happen in real time, you had to be ready for it.

"Arts activate...", Giliath uttered. I saw Giliath's fingers quickly trace along his open Combat Orbment in rapid succession. It lit up, and a bluish glow appeared over his body. Don't confuse this glow with mana, though. This glow was orbal energy!

I figured he'd try to attack the small group of monsters with his orbal pistol first, but he opted right away for casting Arts. And just as he said, the casting only took one or two moments. The Art was ready. And I was left shocked once again. Not from the fact that I saw the physical phenomenon happen before my very eyes. I admit, seeing magic-like skills used in real life like this is great to spectate. But that wasn't what I was referring to here.

I was shocked by the insane damage numbers Father put out once he connected his attack with the monsters.

Father moved his body to draw the five monsters in, but suddenly jumped back, and reached his hand out. I felt the earth start shaking a little near the heart of the monster group, only to proceed to suddenly split apart. Craaack. Fwooosh!

"Flame Tongue!", Giliath roared, revealing his second Art for me to witness. I do consider this as part of the demonstration still, despite it being practical now. These monsters don't threaten Father one bit. They're what you call, trash mobs.

An interesting thing to point out while seeing flame after flame spew upward from the earth was the health bar the monsters had. They were green, and it only took one mere moment to see them rapidly deplete, turning red. Then it zeroed out, and they perished. I saw gigantic numbers come through as the attack was still happening!

[-13,463!]

[-14,024!]

[-12,988!]

[-11,689!]

[-8,109!]

Five deep red damage numbers appeared, causing my eyes to almost pop out of their sockets. They weren't even frickin' critical hits!

Those poor monsters...

I saw the five monsters vanish into the void. They didn't leave any drop items behind, I was a bit disappointed. But I was just left there, stunned while I saw Father simply shrug his Combat Orbment off acting like what he did was nothing.

"That ought to do it.", Giliath simply said, looking back at me with a big smile on his face.