Etheria let out a challenging caw towards the Kreeker, who in turn accepted her with a call of its own. The two faced off, eyeing each other up, trying to see if there are any visible weaknesses. They walked in circles around each other, the Kreeker doing odd half-hops to never allow Etheria to get behind it.
Etheria was the first to act, she cast Etheric Wings to harden her wings and Ethereal Wind on herself to speed herself up. She rocketed forward and crashed her wing hard into the chest of the Kreeker, instantly doing 95% of it's health. The monster didn't even get a chance to react to Etherias monstrous agility stat.
Before Etheria could finish off the Kreeker, Donis mentally told her to stop, and decided to cast Immolate and finish it off. He wanted to explore the [EXP] gain between him and Etheria, to see how it all interacts.
Immolate didn't cast like a normal spell. It firstly hurt Donis, and instead required his own life force as the fuel for the ignition, it required his will to consume the life force and forcefully ignite it inside the other being. This time, the Kreekers health was low enough that the 20 damage from Immolate was able to kill it. There was no spark, there was no fire, it was a fire that burned out the heart of the creature.
He quickly checked his skill only to see that Immolate didn't receive the +10 damage specified but he did feel a change. It wasn't a visual change in the status window, nor was it a physical sensation, it was akin to his own ideas strengthening ever so slightly. He then checked to see if Etherias [EXP] bar increased, and to his surprise, it actually did.
'So, if I let Etheria fight it out, and I finish the kill, the System still awards us both [EXP]. Okay, that seems somewhat skewed towards the user of the skill, but I guess it was designed that way. It also seems that maybe my Will isn't strong enough to upgrade Immolate? The person in the memory did say that it starts off weak. I'll need to experiment some more,' thought Donis.
The two ended up patrolling the Balneer zone for a few hours, counting the local monsters with the Monster Logger and checking if the local populations aren't out of control by one of the species evolving or mutating.
The Monster Logger was actually quite ingenious. It collected all sorts of data without any manual input. It used your own senses to perceive the surroundings and recorded it that way. It made sure to remove as much human error as possible, since reports can be forged, and tampered with. This made tampering with the logger a little bit more difficult, so in theory it reduces the amount of false reports.
They came across a small clearing in the overbearingly dense woods that is the swamp. It felt like it was out of place since there was a river with clear water, rather than the usual murky, the trees actually had a bit more colour to them, even the air seemed less overbearing.
'This is odd, it's like something just took a cloth to the environment here and wiped it clean. Look Etheria, there's even monsters here drinking from the river without fighting! What is this place?' thought Donis.
The two decided to take a chance, since none of the monsters here were above the level of 10, Donis didn't feel threatened, nor did Etheria. They walked slowly towards the river, observing the creatures that seemingly cohabited in peace.
The monsters there wearily eyed up Donis and Etheria, but made no sudden movements to leave the vicinity, seemingly sure that no harm will come to them.
'This is so strange, what in the world? Why would they not be afraid of me? I far out level them and I'm human, or maybe monster aren't instinctively afraid of humans. Whatever the case is, I need to find out the cause of this, it's not mentioned in the Monster Logger at all,' thought Donis examining the surroundings.
He decided to follow the river upwards, and on his way he noticed all sorts of creatures. Ones far more powerful than the small critters drinking beside them, yet no one attacked anything drinking from the river. It was mind boggling. These creatures normally would stomp out the smaller ones for even daring to be in their presence, they were instinctively ruthless.
After an all too short walk, which was surprisingly populated and safe, Donis came across the source of all of this confusion. At a sharp bend in the river, overseeing a small waterfall, there was a giant plant that looked slimy, and disgustingly black and purple. It seemed like the sort of plant that would ooze poison, or miasma of some sort.
Yet checking the Monster Logger Donis was even more surprised. It was a beneficial monster to the ecosystem of the swamp! It was a Defungus.
'A Defungus is a beneficial plant-monster that sits in heavily dirtied and nutrient poor water. It absorbs the minerals and vitamins from the local monsters that fall into the water, the surrounding dying plans, and the dirt that murks up the water to then re-distribute and filter the water that passes through it. It's a 12m bulbous plant-monster, with vines that reach deep into the soil to acquire nutrients. It's not sentient per-se, but it does have an instinctual feeding mechanism for dead/rotting materials. Most monsters stay away from it, as not only does it taste like actual death, it helps all the monsters to fresh and clean water that they desire. This peace-like quality of the Defungus allows it to grow to far far larger sizes than any other monster in it's vicinity.' - Monster Logger
'Well I'll be. This thing is actually a positive for the environment? Wait, I never even considered that. What even makes a monster? How do they come about? God, the more I live in this world, the more I'm intrigued by the machinations of this planet,' thought Donis as he stared on at the bulbous wall of plant-monster matter.
Deciding that he's had enough of all of this peace, he made his way back into the area where him and Etheria was currently in charge of. It was a quick walk, which was still surprisingly uninterrupted by the roaming monsters, as long as he stayed close to the river.
After telling Etheria to rile up a load of Kreekers, Donis decided to see where his strength is at. After breaking through the 20's with it, he wondered if he was twice as strong as an average adult, or is it calculated differently. When he took the combat job, he did feel stronger, but he wasn't certain how much.
He walked up to a tree and took an awkward stance, punching with all of his might. It trembled, and some of the bark ended up cracked but still intact. Satisfied, he decided to try another angle at this.
He took out his -Adentite Khopesh Sword- and took a much more comfortable stance, with both legs firmly on the ground. He took a casual swing with the sword and the sword pierced deeply into the tree. His body instinctually taking the path of least resistance when striking the tree was able to penetrate it deeply, but not quite half way.
Focusing slightly and taking an attack position, Donis released his full strength and was still just short of making it half way through the tree. Slightly disappointed, he decided to hack at it with Air Pulse and Flashpoint Strike. Air Pulse was a decent contender, as the base version of it ended up cleanly piercing the tree in three separate sections. When he changed the mana used in the skill, he was able to cleanly cut the tree with Void Mana. Flashpoint Strike needed no extra changes to increase the use of it, since the first strike from it nearly obliterated a tree, and the echo it creates from it's own shockwave destroyed what little remained of the tree.
Doing this Donis ended up creating his very own clearing for a certain experiment he was willing to try. He wanted to see if Dragonfury was locked behind his potential Will requirement too, or if it will increase like how the skill states.
Soon enough after Donis finishes, he feels Etheria nearing with extreme speed. He gets ready and feels out the will requirement for using Dragonfury. It's going to hurt, and he knows it. Using Immolate already hurt him, and this is going to cost 4 times as much, he knew he wouldn't be able to cast this often.
Etheria came flashing into Donis's view, and looking behind her he saw the horde of monsters she managed to irritate. There were probably 20-30 monsters all around the levels of 8-13. From reptiles that had multiple heads, to snakes that seemed to be made of vines, all of them were charging at Etheria, but also fighting each other if any of them got too close. He asked her to only get Kreekers, but it seems the other monsters didn't take kindly to her riling.
Donis spread his legs, and put himself into a half squat position. He straightened his back and looked deep within. He felt a rage boil inside of him, a spark of fire flickering but beginning to grow and threatening to turn everything into ash. He felt a strong pain seep into his bones and tear at him from the inside, he felt the pain of his life force being consumed yet he felt an even greater connection to the flame that was building.
As the rage hit a peak and began boiling over, Donis directed it all into his mouth and unleashed a white-hot beam that promised to destroy everything. It sizzled through the air, screaming at their targets like hot glass being rolled on marble. Within those 3 seconds, the entirety of the monsters that were there turned to ash. Not even the trees behind them survived, nor was there any great fire. Everything directly disintegrated, and fell to the power of the Dragonfury.
Looking at the carnage the spell created Donis was shocked, he couldn't believe he was the one who was able to destroy so much. He spent 5 minutes clearing out a couple dozen trees with his fists and melee abilities, yet this one spell was able to clear out half of what he saw in just 3 seconds. It was mind boggling, yet he did it.
After a few seconds of stupor, he looked at the skill in the status window and it was also unchanged, just like Immolate.
'Alright, it looks like this ability wont be as powerful just yet, maybe this is what the Dragon looking man was talking about. I need to work on the will behind it, and I think Immolate will be the best way forward,' he thought to himself.
'At least my HP regeneration is crazy after I became a Dragonfury Mage, it's currently sitting at 5HP/s. I wonder if I can upgrade that further with the [300SP] I have, or maybe there's even new spells for me in the shop!'