The Shepherds Are Dense-Chapter 48: Rare Trait — The Vessel of Scorching and Radiance

Although he couldn’t see the effect just yet, Aiwass had long memorized the effects of these two rare traits.
After all, he’d helped friends farm progression dungeons often enough that he could recite every random trait effect by heart…
Good deeds do pay off.
“Corrupted Light” was theoretically a high-grade trait that could be chosen up to three times.
Its effect: Whenever a damage-dealing spell that consumed only light-attribute mana was used, an additional one-third of that damage would be applied as poison damage. If taken a second time, it would add cold damage; a third time would add shadow damage.
If all three trait slots were invested into this one trait, it would result in a straightforward 100% bonus damage—composed of three types, making it hard to resist through elemental resistances.
However, this devotion-path trait was also highly restrictive in its use.
It only applied to damage-dealing spells that consumed
pure
light-attribute mana.
The “priest” profession of the Devotion path didn’t have any direct damage skills.
Within the Devotion path, only the “Temple Guardian Monk” and “Fire Worshipper” had offensive spells. And for the latter, nearly all spells were fire-attribute; only two or three used purely light-attribute mana.
While a priest could gain basic energy-based attacks after taking the “Light Affinity” trait, this particular trait was mostly reserved for “Temple Guardian Monks.”
Once they reached level 50 and advanced to “Shakyamuni Lion,” they would gain a critical profession trait that allowed them to use only light-attribute mana to cast all of their own non-dark spells of Tier 3 and below. All damage would be converted into light-attribute and gain light resistance penetration.
Paired with the class’s low-tier, instant-cast spell
Lion’s Roar
, and a maxed-out
Corrupted Light
, it formed the infamous “Corrupted Lion’s Roar” meta of version 4.2—a pure DPS build, boasting massive AoE damage, incredible sustained output, crowd control, and burst capability.
This class build remained highly sought-after in zone-defense and speed-clearing missions.
The devs never nerfed its numbers. Their balancing method was simple—
They dramatically reduced the frequency of zone-defense and speed-clear events, while temporarily increasing the occurrence of boss-focused raids.
Because the class’s boss-killing performance wasn’t exactly ideal.
The Shakyamuni Lion’s damage conversion and resistance-penetration only applied to low-tier spells. High-tier spells remained mixed-element and thus gained no penetration benefits. Combined with boss-level poison resistance, the actual damage bonus was less than the expected 33%.
But what truly caught Aiwass’s eye was the second path trait.
Unlike the Devotion-only
Corrupted Light
...
This was a
universal
purple rarity trait.
It was a type of “vessel” trait, but only appeared for professions that gained
exactly two
types of attribute mana upon leveling up.
Not more, not less—
exactly
two.
For instance, mages gained four elemental manas (wind, earth, water, fire), and typical demonologists only gained dark mana upon leveling up. They could never roll this trait—unless they had a contract with an “Ifrit” or similar demon, which granted both fire and dark mana.
Its effect was simple yet practical: it increased the level of both elemental vessel traits by one.
In other words, it could be used to
freely gain
a vessel trait, or to
break the cap
of a Level 3 vessel trait to Level 4.
Since the number of available trait choices during progression was extremely limited, anything that saved a slot was highly valuable.
The current top-tier transcendents were only around level 40 or so. That placed them in the “Fifth Tier” of power—meaning they had five path traits.
Except for the Wisdom path, which gained double mana per level, most caster-type transcendents had to pick one or two vessel traits just to stay viable—so this trait was never a waste.
Because for casters, level-up mana was
never
enough.
The mana gain system worked as follows:
Levels 1–10: +1 mana per level
Levels 11–20: +2 mana per level
Levels 21–30: +3 mana per level
… and so on.
Multi-element classes cycled through elements in order—no fractions.
For non-caster classes, mana eventually became abundant.
But for casters with little to no basic attacks, they were
always
short on mana.
The so-called “Elemental Affinity” referred to the mage’s no-cost basic attacks. While it could also be leveled up to Tier 3, most professions didn’t prioritize it.
And healers had it worst—
always
short on mana.
As dungeon combat intensity escalated, “Illumination” and “Sacrificial Fire” required massive amounts of light mana to sustain. Each cast of Illumination also required one fire mana as ignition.
Vessel traits gave:
First choice = +14 mana
Second = +28 mana
Third = +42 mana
All three combined = +84 mana
That was just enough to sustain a full high-intensity combat healing rotation—roughly enough to bring back 12 or 13 nearly-dead patients with amputations or internal injuries.
But even so, if your teammates face-tanked every boss mechanic, no healer in the world could save them.
After all, choosing three vessel traits also meant you couldn’t take any “Affinity” traits to gain attack power before level 30. And you’d have to forgo all rare traits.
Path traits were often more influential than class advancements themselves.
Purple rare traits and the golden Mythic traits unlocked at level 50 could permanently change how your skills functioned.
For example, nearly every priest went for the Devotion-path trait:
Salvation for All
.
A purple trait that changed all single-target buffs into AoE versions—duration halved, but effect retained.
And with the universal trait
Status Extension
, which doubled duration of all state effects, you could cancel out the halved time. Or you could dual-class to gain the Adaptation-path trait
Fountain of Life
, increasing all healing-over-time effects by one-third while shortening their intervals by the same amount—raising
Illumination
’s HPS and reducing mana cost per unit healing. Or you could use the Devotion-path trait
Body of Light
to triple mana cost and convert
Illumination
into a ranged, mobile, group healing skill—further enhancing team viability.
But even level 50 priests could only choose five of these traits—plus one free Vessel or Affinity trait.
Because each person had different leanings and rolled different path traits, their final builds were all unique.
The fear came from
not knowing
what path trait effects did—or regretting halfway, or getting lost entirely.
But unlike other transcendents unsure of their own future paths, Aiwass always had a clear goal—and knew how to reach it.
That meant every one of his progressions would be valuable.
I’ll pick the second one,
Aiwass thought to himself.
The moment he selected
Vessel of Scorching and Radiance
, the other two options shattered.
He felt the shallow wound on his cheek rapidly closing, as a warm current—an invisible seed of light—flowed into his body.
The Candlekeeper gave him a slight nod, then turned and walked away.
Inside him, the heat intensified.
Looking down, Aiwass found his skin becoming translucent, gradually glowing—
Like a firefly, flames ignited within, and light spilled outward—
And just as the brilliance in his chest reached its peak, Aiwass awoke from the dream, drenched in sweat.
He was still seated in his wheelchair, and the sun was only just rising. He had only slept for less than six hours.
As soon as he opened his eyes, his attribute panel floated before him, showing the changes that marked his successful progression:
Priest LV10:
[Basic Prayer - Lv2 (3%)]
[Sacrificial Fire - Lv2 (5%)]
[Illumination - Lv2 (15%)]
[Blessing - Lv2 (0%)]
[Pasture (Flesh) - Lv2 (10%)]
Mana Pool:
22/22 (Light), 5/5 (Dark), 44/44 (Fire)
Path Traits —
Devotion - Vessel of Scorching and Radiance:
Light is born of fire, and fire floats upon light. Your soul is nurtured by both.
Your
Flame Vessel
and
Light Vessel
trait levels are increased by 1.
Devotion - Light Vessel Lv1:
You consumed the blood of the Candlekeeper. Your soul has expanded.
Your max Light Mana increased by 14.
Devotion - Flame Vessel Lv2:
You consumed the flesh of the Candlekeeper. Your soul expanded further.
Your max Fire Mana increased by 42.
Aiwass exhaled deeply.
He felt a profound sense of relief.
With
Vessel of Scorching and Radiance
, he had a safety net!
No matter what trait he chose at the next progression, he was guaranteed to accumulate enough mana before level 20 to craft his first blank card!
No—more accurately, he no longer even
needed
the blue-grade trait
Flame Vessel
.
Next time, he could focus on acquiring a
rare trait
to strengthen himself!
“…That means I’ll still need to fight for first place at the next full moon ritual.”
Aiwass muttered, “Still… I didn’t expect the results screen to include
highlight reels
…”
That was an important revelation.
Very timely, too.
Thankfully, each “highlight moment” only lasted an instant—others probably couldn’t understand what he’d actually done.
That meant he had to act even more cautiously next time—to avoid exposing too much,
and
still score high?
He wasn’t sure how much performance rank affected rare trait drop rates—but Aiwass was fairly certain it
did
.
Otherwise, getting two purples in a first-time progression would be insane luck.
Most players only had access to blue
Vessel
or
Affinity
traits for their first two path traits—and didn’t bother rerolling. After all, every caster needed at least one or two of those, so might as well grab them early.
And the trait reset item,
Regret Potion
, was generally locked behind cash purchases, with only a few freebie events offering one.
Because rolling path traits was both grindy and paywalled, even though the rogue-like trait system offered deep customization and replayability… the developers still remained the undisputed
#1 orbital satellite
on the speedometer of player hate.
Aiwass had assumed he’d have to rely on RNG—and was pretty pessimistic about it.
He had no idea how to acquire
Regret Potion
in the real world, and the name alone screamed “legendary item.”
But after fully completing one ritual, he suddenly realized—
Holy sh
t… was the in-game ritual a stripped-down version?!*
The game’s progression ritual had
no storyline
, threw you against a random boss, and all trait drops were RNG-based.
At most, it gave you a “Weekly Featured” rate-up for some traits.
But the three traits Aiwass got… didn’t feel random at all.
He was offered
Light Affinity
likely because he was clearly lacking combat ability at a key moment. If Aiwass had been just another native without foresight, he might’ve been deeply impacted by that helplessness and chosen
Light Affinity
to gain attack power.
Vessel of Scorching and Radiance
was clearly awarded because he had burned his entire mana pool upon death.
Likely, the system “thought” he felt mana-deprived and gave him a trait accordingly—though in truth, it had all been spent in the
Pasture Ritual
. But the ritual logic evidently couldn’t distinguish that nuance.
As for
Corrupted Light
, it probably had to do with Aiwass’s slightly “off-brand” actions—merging with a demon, and even committing murder.
But thanks to
Pasture Ritual
, those actions were technically consistent with the Devotion path. Justifiable and legitimate.
So the progression ritual determined: “Aiwass is a more unorthodox Devotion follower,” and kindly offered him a matching, evil-leaning trait—perhaps suggesting a transition to an offensive build.
Setting aside rarity, all three traits were clearly “tailored” to Aiwass’s behavior and progression choices.
Quite a smart system.
So the traits I get might actually be influenced by how I perform in the ritual?
Aiwass fell deep into thought.
Maybe I should test that out during the next New Moon Ritual…
(End of Chapter)