To be stealthy.
An ancient art learned by many teenagers with wary parents and creaky floorboards to remain undetected as they were up to no good. That, or because they just needed to go to the bathroom really late in the night and didnt want to wake anyone up.
However, this was but one part of the stealth: the art of avoiding sound. Others were stealthy by lding into the environnt through camouflage or even found ways to hide their heat signatures or other traces of their existence.
There were countless thods in the multiverse to remain undetected, with Jakes current thod akin to being able to summon a fake boulder he could hide within, which also helped mask his presence and energy. It was far from perfect, and moving around while using it wasnt advised, but so far, it had kind of gotten the job done.
However, now, it was high ti to improve it, and he may as well learn from the best while doing so.
In the multiverse, Jake knew of two beings who had reached the ultimate peak of stealthiness. One of them was naturally Umbra, the leader of the Court of Shadows. Her ability to remain undetected until the mont she decided to strike was unparalleled as she could hide within the shadows themselves only to erge when she so desired. Her form of stealth was the most classical sort, but there was one person in the multiverse who surpassed her when it ca to remaining undetected.
Because another branch of stealth was one where you could be seen, but no one truly noticed you. Where you could stand next to your target on the street without them looking twice your way. The being who had reached the apex of this was, needless to say, Eversmile, the ultimate shapeshifter. He could take any form and beco anyone or anything he wanted. His form wasnt just limited to people, as far as Jake had been told, but he could even mimic objects or non-humanoid races.
So, if one apex erged out of nowhere, the other erged from right next to you unexpectedly. These two thods were often recognized as the main branches: obscuration and blending in. Jake was currently doing a bit of both which most stealth thods did but he did both kind of poorly.
Jake wanted to still do a bit of both with his improved thod, primarily because he wanted to try and learn what Artemis had talked about. At least he wanted to integrate concepts of what she explained, even if it was pretty damn complicated. He did have their entire discussion committed to mory, though, as he recalled what she said during what Jake would call a great discussion on progression thods, while others would probably define it as pillow talk.
My thod of stealth is a lot more simple than what you described, Artemis had explained. The Path of the Hunter is naturally intertwined with the world around us. It is one of the most natural Paths to anyone in the system, and anyone who fights and kills partly steps into the Path of the Hunter at least a few tis in their lives. Hunters are rely the na we use instead of predators for those of the enlightened races, and many civilizations even call those who fight monsters hunters by default, no matter what weapon or form of combat they use.
The basis for the entire stealth thod Artemis used was to be a natural hunter. A part of an ecosystem. At least, that is the ntality Artemis had when she first learned and improved the skill.
My form of stealth leans into becoming one with the environnt in a more literal sense. Feel the natural mana around you, feel the presence of the world itself, and breathe it in. Let it fill you and beco one with everything. Perceive the world as you let it perceive you, and through that, you will know how to hide at the end of Perception. Seek the very edge of where you recognize your own form within the world and obscure what little remains of you that remain as you blend in. If you do this, you will be able to move without hesitation and act entirely normal, as you will simply disappear from everyones spectrum of what they perceive. You will never be perfect in this; no one is, but if they cannot perceive the world as well as you do, finding you will prove difficult. Well, unless they have a cheat-like Bloodline, Artemis had further elaborated.
Jake had probed further and had kind of ford his own interpretation using more pre-system terms. Jake would liken this kind of thod to changing how you appear on the color spectrum. The human eye, before the system, was unable to see things like ultraviolet light but had a limited spectrum. The sa was true for what one could hear, and Jake wouldnt be surprised if the sa had been true for slls and pretty much everything else.
With the system, the spectrum had expanded. Magical elents were introduced; one could see and feel mana, and Jake could see things he never would have been able to before. With his Perception alone, he could easily peer through things like naturally-ford mist or clouds despite it being completely impossible to see through before the system, and with ti, he knew he would even be able to see through things like non-magically reinforced walls.
Where this spectrum being expanded truly mattered was in the realm of concepts. It was one of the reasons why soone like Arnold also had Perception as his highest stat, as it allowed him to perceive things others couldnt. Jake was the sa, and as an example, he had only recognized and gained his arcane affinity because his growing Perception allowed him to notice it.
This spectrum continued to expand even now, and while Perception was far from the only criterion to see concepts and beco able to understand them, it was definitely an essential factor. Not to say everyone needed it to reach the peak, as soone like the Sword Saint was so in tune with the concepts that mattered to him, it wasnt as much about perceiving them as it was simply living them, if that made sense.
All of this is to say that Perception allowed you to detect and see more on the spectrum of the world. This spectrum was eternally expanding without any end. Jakes Bloodline allowed him to see everything within the physical spectrum with his Sphere, and as it existed outside of the system, it wasnt limited. Of course, it wasnt entirely accurate to say that he saw everything as if he actually could; his brain would explode from perceiving concepts even Primordials couldnt comprehend. It was more right to say he saw everything he already knew could exist, with perhaps a bit more shown here and there.
Also upon reflection, what had happened in the final monts of Jake fighting Valdemar probably included expanding this spectrum far more than he could usually handle, which was also why Jake couldnt rember everything he had felt back then anymore. He had touched upon things that simply didnt exist to him yet.
Anyway, to get back on the topic of creating a stealth skill, the thod Artemis used was to see yourself on this spectrum of the world and then beco one with it. To move yourself on the spectrum from where even a level 0 could see you to sowhere no one would know you were there, even if you stood right next to and breathed them down the neck. Simply because they wouldnt be capable of registering you even existed. Jake would liken it to himself from the visual spectrum of light into the ultraviolet in pre-system terms and move every sound he made into the ultrasonic, with the sa being done for every other trace of his existence.
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Of course, this was Artemis thod, and Jake had the feeling he wouldnt be able to replicate sothing like this perfectly. In fact, he was pretty damn sure he wouldnt be able to, as that sounded like at least a Mythical C-grade skill that would effectively make Jake entirely undetectable to anyone who had less Perception than himself.
Whats more, Artemis said that her stealth skill even worked in combat to help keep her hidden, even if the effect was lessened while fighting due to how much energy one had to give off that inadvertently disrupted and warped the natural world around her. Not that it mattered, as this was definitely out of Jakes realm of possibility.
However, he did believe he could move himself in the physical realm of Perception. He had plenty of experience observing that, after all, and could even make use of so of what he learned from his Bloodline. As for the rest of the stealth capabilities? That would have to be mimicked using other ans. Primarily, his arcane energy, where he already had so good ideas and a stealth skill already with that ability.
It had to be reiterated once more that Jake had thought about how to improve his stealth for a long ti and just never got the opportunity. That is where all his ideas for using arcane energy ca from. Artemis had just given him even more good ideas to put on top, and now, in this House of the Architect, Jake would throw them all together.
Whats more, he wanted to build a skill that could serve as a foundation for more upgrades. One that he could potentially even train on together with Artemis if they ever got the chance to further improve it.
This is how Jakes next period of intense practice began. He would spend his ti working on the stealth skill at the House or doing practical testing while also completing so rit Point Missions, which would fund his Grimoire experintation once a month or so. In between, he would sotis help out Temlat and make sure he was also making progress.
After only the first two weeks, Jake already had his first little bit of progress as he implented so improvents to the stealth skill he had long been considering, which resulted in a nice little notification.
*Skill Upgraded*: [Arcane Stealth (Rare)] --> [Improved Arcane Stealth (Rare)]
It was small and nice indeed. The skill stayed within the sa rarity, which indicated it had been a pretty low-level C-grade rare skill after Jake evolved. Which made sense, considering the skill had avoided getting downgraded a rank after he evolved. This upgrade had brought it back to be considered a pretty good C-grade rare skill, but it was naturally far from enough. All Jake had really done was tighten up what the skill already did and improve all aspects of it using all he had learned since he made the skill while still in D-grade.
Only another one and a half months later, Jake had failed another two Grimoire crafts primarily because he wanted a good one and felt both wouldnt turn out well but had also made plenty of progress when it ca to improving his stealth skill.
He infused more stability into the mana constructs around him, making him appear more like a physical thing and not a person than ever before. When he stood still, he beca nearly indiscernible from his surroundings when he camouflaged the mana around him, and even if he moved and used energy within this construct, it couldnt be detected on the outside. It beca as if he had placed a do around himself, hiding him away from the world. The concept of Jakes original Arcane Stealth skill had been taken to an extre, and the system recognized it.
*Skill Upgraded*: [Improved Arcane Stealth (Rare)] --> [Supre Arcane Stealth (Epic)]
Now, this is where the truly hard part began. Jakes newly acquired Supre Arcane Stealth was a good skill in its own right, but it had severe drawbacks. First of all, he couldnt really move when it was fully activated. He had to maintain the construct around him to stay hidden, and if he did move, it would look as if so big rock or sothing was gliding around.
This led to another problem: the skill could only really be used in places where there were other things to mimic. He could use it on an open field and try to just make it entirely transparent, but it wouldnt work nearly as well as, say, within a forest. Plus, he would still have the problem of being unable to move around, as even if it was transparent, it would still affect the world around him and leave faint distortion.
To conclude, Jakes original upgrade path for Arcane Stealth was severely limited by design. It was essentially a camping skill for Jake to sit still and wait for his mont to attack while even hiding him when he charged up his often devastating opening strike.
It did this extrely well, but its limitations did an getting it above epic rarity wasnt likely. This is where the concepts Artemis spoke of ca in.
Jake simply wasnt skilled enough to move everything on the spectrum of Perception like Artemis talked about. However, he was confident in moving himself when it ca purely to the visual realm. He kind of already did sothing similar when he made his arcane construct invisible, as concepts would bleed through, but this ti, he wanted to do it fully.
This in itself would usually not result in a good stealth skill. Hiding from sight was, in general, not considered super difficult; the truly hard part was hiding everything else. Your energy signature, presence, mana, internal energy you gave off, traces you leave behind, and so forth.
However, for Jake in particular, he was confident in sealing in those things. That is what his entire Arcane Stealth path was all about, after all.
His plan was to rge these two concepts. On the one hand, he would make himself one with the world when it ca to the visual realm, and on the other, he would hide everything about himself using his stable arcane energy that didnt exist in the physical realm.
This was not as good of a technique as what Artemis talked about, as Jake wouldnt truly make himself one with the world as she talked about, where everything that was Jake would rge with the environnt. Even so, it would allow Jake to do things he couldnt before. It would allow him to move around even while using his stealth skill, and sneak to a better position to attack from.
Jake wanted to retain the functionality of effectively creating a camping do when he wanted to attack, as it was very difficult to hide the level of energy he gave off otherwise. This did an that Jake couldnt use skills that required too much energy while using the stealth skill he wanted to make, but that was a sacrifice he had to make. He wasnt going for perfection the first ti around, after all.
Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months. Jake was getting close with his Grimoire project but still wasnt satisfied and purposefully failed every craft so far, even if he could have succeeded. In the stealth departnt, things were also moving along, but this final step on the upgrade path was by far the hardest, as Jake had to integrate a new and pretty high-level concept. There was progress, though.
One day, Jake was ditating on a bed in one of the many rooms in the lab area as he worked on his stealth skill. He breathed deeply as he tried to mimic his environnt and move himself on the spectrum as he had done many tis before. Once more, he felt a faint shift, and opening his eyes, things appeared distorted for a fraction of a mont until everything returned to normal once more. Jake kept focusing as he tried to rember this feeling, not even knowing if he had succeeded with anything that mattered.
Just then, a figure peeked into the room. Temlat walked by the door with a book as he looked in, and Jake was just about to greet him when his student frowned. He looked around and seed to focus a bit on where Jake was sitting as he muttered. Weird, Im sure Lord Thayne was in here
Right as he turned around to leave, Jake spoke up: I am here.
When he did, Temlat whipped his head and looked straight at Jake, clearly capable of seeing him. Alright, when I announce myself like this, the effect drops as others beco aware of my existence got it.
Lord Thayne, did you just arrive, or? Temlat asked, confused.
Just working on sothing, Jake smiled. Can you tell , when you entered the room, did you know I was here?
I felt your presence, but I couldnt see you, so I just figured you had just left, Temlat answered honestly. Am I interrupting? I can co back later.
No, its fine, I think I am ready to move on to the next step of my experint. Now, did you have a question?
As he looked at his student, he got a nice idea. Wouldnt his little student be the perfect test subject for Jake while he improved? You know, sneak around and see if Temlat could find him and try to ss with him a bit purely for research purposes, of course. Definitely not sothing Jake would ever take pleasure in.
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