Is it Wrong to Copy Abilities in Apocalypse?

[[Beastly Instinct (Rare): An ability that lets one notice even the smallest of details in the surroundings while also alerting them about a life-threatening danger within their perceivable range. ]]

Alex looked at the skill's description through his analytic eyes.

This is what the skill's description was, and Alex only wanted the latter benefit; the former was just an additional boon.

No matter what, this skill was a very good skill that anyone would feel envious of.

Then he called out for his status window.

"Status."

A blue illusionary screen appeared in his vision, showing him everything he wanted to see.

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[Name: Alex Matthew.

Race: Human.

Title: Undead Slasher (Uncommon), The First Ones (Heroic).

Coins: 1196.

Stats:

→ Strength – Level 10 (Tier 1)

→ Defense – Level 10 (Tier 1)

→ Agility – Level 10 (Tier 1)

→ Stamina – Level 10 (Tier 1)

→ Mana – Level 10 (Tier 1)

Skill:

→ Analytic Eyes (??) (Level 6 - Tier 1)

→ Sovereign of All Weapons (Mythical) (Level 10 - Tier 1)

→ Deathbringer's Gaze (Legendary) (Level 10 - Tier 1)

→ Unnamed Battle Art (Rare) (Upgradable) (Level 10 - Tier 1)

→ Basic Royal Medical Art (Common) (Level 15 - Tier 1)

]

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Alex kept walking on in the forested area of Sikraudha in Roorkee as he went through the information on everything once again.

He had upgraded his skills a lot, especially the one that required the least number of coins to upgrade—Basic Royal Medical Art.

But then he sighed as he realized just how much coin these skills would take to keep upgrading them.

Analytic eyes, the ability that didn't even have its rank visible for Alex, took 200 coins just to get to level 2, and then it took 40+ coins for every next level, for example, 240 for level 2, 280 for level 3, and so on.

Just to get that skill to level 6, Alex had to expend 1440 coins, but then he stopped.

He decided to upgrade that ability after he had a lot of coins.

There were not many changes in this ability after being upgraded, but the change it had was not something to be ignored yet, not something that would be urgently needed by Alex.

With every two level-ups in the skill, the level limit of the 'Inspect' ability of the skill is moved up; for example, with the level of the skill being upgraded to level 6, Alex could now see the complete status of beings up to 13 levels above him and the stats of the beings up to 56 levels above him.

Any being above that would only have their levels shown to Alex.

Then there was Sovereign of Weapons; this skill took around 1350 coins to get up to level 10, and although not as high as the Analytic Eyes, it still was a lot.

Its first upgrade from level 1 to level 2 took 70 coins out of Alex's stock, and with every next level up, it took the amount of the last upgrade plus 20.

As for what it provided Alex with, well, not many notable changes like the last skill, but Alex could feel a type of connection with his weapons.

It was as if he was getting better and better at using them, and slowly, they were turning into something more than a weapon to him—a body part of his.

But that was not all, as Alex could now easily detect some weak points in his rare ranked dagger, and although they were not that glaring weaknesses, he knew that if he were to fight with someone whose weapon had this kind of weakness, he would be able to destroy their weapons.

After that was the only legendary skill that Alex had right now—Deathbringer's Gaze.

This skill took about 1240 to get up to level 10, with its first upgrade from level 1 to 2 cutting out 60 coins from Alex's stock, and every next level taking out the 20 coins added with the amount the last level took.

Alex could feel the changes in this skill, and the changes were that if Alex were to use this skill without upgrading it, then the longest he could use killing intent was 60 seconds before his mana ran out.

Now, however, he could keep on doing the same for 70 seconds, i.e., each level gave 1+ seconds to the duration.

This was not all, though.

Alex could feel the change in his death's command ability as well; he could feel the power of this ability elevated even if it was just for a bit.

After Deathbringer's Gaze, the next one was the 'Unnamed Battle Art'.

This skill was still rare-ranked, so it took the same amount of coins any other rare-ranked skill would take—630 coins to go up to level 10.

The first upgrade cost him 30 coins, and every next upgrade expended 10 more coins than the upgrade before.

The change in this skill was almost the same as killing intent, as the duration of his battle analytics got upped by 1 second for every level up, which, although didn't seem like much right now, would be a lot more helpful later on.

These things made Alex realize what AI meant when it said that upgrading skills would be better help in the long term.

His gaze then finally moved to the skill that had the most notable changes.

Maybe it was because he had upgraded this skill the most, getting it to level 15 in one fell swoop, or maybe because it was meant to work like this, but in his mind, Alex could now already imagine himself making different kinds of ointments and creams that could help him in many situations.

This skill was common-ranked, and it cost him the lowest among the skills to upgrade.

The first upgrade cost him 10 coins, and after that, it went on like 20, 30, 40, 50, and so on.

Now, what did he mean by this being the last skill? Didn't he have more skills, which are Beast Liaison and Wind's Grace?

'I don't have to upgrade those skills?'

This was Alex's question when he asked the AI how he should increase those skills' levels.

They were not there on the status window, so he couldn't increase it in a systematic way, but the AI's answer surprised him a bit.

This was the AI's answer, and for the first time, Alex thought that the copying ability was a cheat ability.

If he could just keep on copying skills, and they would keep getting stronger without having him expend his coins for them, then wouldn't he just keep getting powerful without even doing anything?

[A Certain God is grumpy about the fact that you are not talking to her even after all she did.]

His thoughts, however, were interrupted by the notification flashed in front of his eyes, causing him to sigh in defeat.

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