Transcendent

Transcendences and Bloodlines are often compared with both being considered abilities “outside” the system. However, they are vastly different. A Bloodline is an innate augmentation of the Truesoul. A Bloodline heavily affects the person with it at all times, shaping the personalities of the people around them, with no real way to separate the two. Becoming a Transcendent also leads to a mutation of the soul, but is far less pervasive as the transcendent skill is born from who the person already is.^[1]

More importantly to become a Transcendent, one needs to have made a Transcendent Skill. And skills could be upgraded.

A Transcendent skill is, in the words of The Malefic Viper "essentially a self-created skill that breaks some fundamental rules [...] otherwise not allowed within the system's current parameters and limitations."^[2] In this way, transcendent skills are akin to bloodline abilities. However, they differ in that whereas bloodlines are inherent to a person's True Soul, a transcendence is something "surrendered" to an individual by the system upon that person meeting some invisible threshold and gaining enlightenment. Naturally, considering their reality bending aspect, transcendent skills are extremely rare. According to the Malefic Viper, there are "more gods than transcendents"^[2]

However, while some transcendents skills are incredibly powerful, this power comes at a tremendous cost to the user. For example, the Sword Saint's transcendent skill costs him Path levels to use.