Precognition

Precognition is the name of a divine ability given to Lucien. Unlike many other sources of divine power, Precognition is an innate ability—that is, an ability embedded into his soul.

Because of his connection to it, Precognition is an ability that can (and is) modified, but the core of it is the power to dramatically increase the strength of his next strike, if he calls it out beforehand.

Origin

In the current era, the world is dominated by elemental magic. No new divine equipment has been made in a very long time, with the existing sets only existing through regular purification, and consumable divine powers had been long forgotten. This has allowed for humanity to specialize and improve in elemental combat, but has created a staleness that some of the Gods do not care for. This is further exaserbated by the divide between sorceres and commoners, where the latter has almost been completely excluded from war and battle due to the sheer differnece in power/

In other words, elemental magic (to some) is a solved problem.

Mechanics

When Lucien snaps his fingers, he creates a four second window where his next strike is empowered. During or before the snap, he must call out what his next strike (either out loud, or much more commonly, in his head), or else the snap does nothing.

The empowered attack’s strength is affected by three factors:

• Opponent’s strength: Precognition will automagically try to deal the same amount of “hurt” to the target.
• Time: The attack increases in power the more time elapses.
• Specificity—The more detailed the call, the stronger the hit.
  • e.g. I will punch your chest, versus the back of my hand will hit your cheek.

Failing to land the attack will result in damage to Lucien’s soul and body. Neither are permanent, but both are unavoidable and cannot be mitigated.

Version 1

Precognition’s first upgrade introduces a momentary effect that heavily reduces any injuries he sustained during the attack window, and for a small period after.^[1]

As a consequence, the damage was heavily reduced.

Despite the reduction in raw power, Precognition ends up becoming an essential part of Lucien’s skillset. He ends up heavily abusing the cleanse function to do things such as punch through solid walls, or survive long falls by drop kicking the ground.

Version 2

The second upgrade gives Lucien the ability to alter the ratio between damage and force on his empowered attacks, letting him choose between a devastating strike or sending an opponent flying. Additionally, the cleanse functionality is given an upgrade, to where any injuries he sustains during the window are fully removed, no matter when in the window they happened.

To balance out these major strengths, Precognition can only be activated if Lucien is fighting alone, making him a pseudo-champion.^[2]