The mana I had just pulled from the zombie streamed towards me and I analysed the other zombies, an animate dead spell was on the other zombies, so someone had clearly made these. I ripped the false life from the other zombies, peacefully ending their existence.
YOU HAVE SLAIN - SHAMBLING CORPSE
YOU HAVE SLAIN - SHAMBLING CORPSE
YOU HAVE SLAIN - SHAMBLING CORPSE
YOU HAVE SLAIN - SHAMBLING CORPSE
Apparently wrenching the life out of undead counted as slaying them, but I didn't get a level from it so I carried on.
It was strange knowing that it was pitch black in the caves but I could see as if it was bright in there. I managed to clear out another ten zombies but gained no levels from it.
"Seems like the zombies are small fry even compared with the boars outside." I muttered to myself.
The caves were curving around corners and leading to more pockets of zombies.
SKILL LEVELED UP - MANA WEAVING LVL 12
"Huh, at least something is increasing from this."
Rounding the next corner I saw what I was looking for. A boss, slumped over in a throne at the end of a run down throne room, pillars of stone weathered by years of erosion.
The boss sat on a large chair that could only be described as a throne, the boss itself was a large skeleton in robes and a crown that had merged with its skull.
Its face snapped upwards, glowing eye sockets locking on to me and a low grumble beginning in its chest. The large stream of mana was flowing into this being. But it, like the zombies had a thin layer of magic around and in it that sustained its life. I wrenched this out and the boss crumpled to dust where it sat, light in its eyes going out.
YOU HAVE SLAIN - HARKAT THE UNDEAD KING
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
MILESTONE LEVEL REACHED
ALL STATS INCREASED BY (10)
RACE SKILL UNLOCKED
JOB SKILL CHOICE UNLOCKED
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
"Woo!" I cheered. Four levels from just one weak undead? I was ecstatic. There were many skeletons littering the floor that I was sure he would've animated to fight me and had I not been what I was it may have been difficult but undead were puny to me.
DUNGEON QUEST COMPLETE
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
LOOT BOX EARNED
ARTIFACT FOUND
ALL ABILITY SCORES INCREASED BY (5)
"Hohoho." I laughed stupidly at the influx of rewards past what I was expecting. I opened my stat window and was greeted by a confirmation screen.
ACCEPT REWARDS?
Y/N
I pressed the Y.
A box fell to the floor, wrapped like an idealistic Christmas present, bow and all. A pendant fell to the floor next to it, red gem embedded in it. As I looked at the box a screen popped up with:
LOOT BOX
CONTAINS A RANDOM ARTIFACT
And when I looked at the pendant another came into view.
PENDANT OF THE UNDEAD KING
+300% MANA
+400% MANA REGAIN
GAIN 30% RESISTANCE TO PHYSICAL DAMAGE.
"Yes please." I grinned at the pendant, picking it up and wearing it. I immediately felt the buff take effect, checking my stats to make sure.
NAME - YOLEN ARCANUM
RACE - FALLEN
LVL - 32
HP - 49,280
HP/s - +490
MP - 22,848(91,392)
MP/s - +110(550)
JOB - MANA WEAVER
INDIVIDUAL SKILL - GENESIS/DESOLATION
STR - 70
AGI - 86
CON - 55
INT - 51
FTH - 22
ABILITY POINTS (45)
This was a serious buff, one that, in all honesty didn't really effect me at this point because of my lack of mana affecting skills. At least with this I didn't have to upgrade intelligence any more until I gained skills which cost an awful lot of mana.
I then picked up the loot box, opening it.
The box let out a blast of light from the top and the whole thing disappeared, leaving behind a ring. Looking at the ring a screen appeared.
RING OF FLYING
WHILE WEARING THIS RING THE USER MAY FLY AT SPEEDS INCOMPARABLE TO THE FASTEST HORSE.
"Oh my god, this is going to be great." I placed the ring on my ring finger, it grew to ft perfectly.
'Time to place my stats I guess.'
I raised both my strength and agility above one hundred with the points I had accumulated. I was beginning to feel fatigued though, just from wondering around a cave mostly. I used deep traversal to get outside and then created a stone room on the side of the hill to sleep in for the time being.
Before finally bedding down I got thinking,
'where was that quest? And how do I know there is one?'
As I was lying there, looking up at my status screen I tried thinking of a quest log screen, a place where all my quests would be stored.
Nothing happened.
And then a screen appeared in the air.
QUEST LOG
MANY MEETINGS
OBJECTIVE:
VENTURE TO THE VILLAGE OF EPHYXIA AND TALK TO THE BARKEEP AT THE WHISPERING OAKS.
REWARDS:
+5 ABILITY POINTS
CREATIONISM
OBJECTIVE:
LEVEL UP GENESIS/DESOLATION TO MAX LEVEL.
REWARDS:
SECONDARY INDIVIDUAL SKILL
+25 ABILITY POINTS
MASTER OF MANA
OBJECTIVE:
LEVEL JOB -MANA WEAVER- TO MAX LEVEL.
REWARDS:
+40 ABILITY POINTS
UNLOCK OF SECONDARY JOB
DAILY QUEST
OBJECTIVE:
CREATE SOMETHING NEW.
REWARDS:
+5 ABILTY POINTS
+1 SKILL POINT
The final one, the daily quest was shimmering. After reading through the other quests, including the strange one that told me to go somewhere, I pressed on the shimmering quest.
QUEST COMPLETED ×3
+15 ABILTY POINTS
+3 SKILL POINTS
ACCEPT REWARDS?
Y/N
'Of course' I pressed the Y, super excited to see what the skill points would give me. I pushed the quest window aside and focused on the stats window.
NAME - YOLEN ARCANUM
RACE - FALLEN
LVL - 32
HP - 49,280
HP/s - +490
MP - 22,848(91,392)
MP/s - +110(550)
JOB - MANA WEAVER
INDIVIDUAL SKILL - GENESIS/DESOLATION
STR - 100
AGI - 101
CON - 55
INT - 51
FTH - 22
ABILITY POINTS (15)
SKILL POINTS (3)
There was a new catagory for skill points. I opened up its description window to see what it was all about.
SKILL POINTS
CAN BE USED TO LEVEL UP A JOB OR AN ABILITY ONCE PER POINT USED.
It was exactly as I had suspected, add the ability to level a job via the point as well.
'Oh man, which skills should I level? Wait, level jobs?'
I checked the job page.
JOB - MANA WEAVER LVL 32
LEVEL UP REWARDS:
+1 ABILITY POINT
+1 INT
LEVEL UP JOB SKILLS
ACCEPT REWARDS?
Y/N
Accepting the rewards, the mana floating around me, inside the room which I had made became several times brighter and in the spaces between the mana particles, more appeared.
"Woah." I mouthed, speechless at the difference. Even more than that though, was the sudden boost to my mental scope, it appeared that intelligence had a different purpose other than just actual thought, it also increased the acuity of my senses. I understood the rustling of the grass outside that had now become loud to my ears, I could guess the windspeed.
"This is amazing."
I looked at my job skills, most of which had risen to the thirties and forties in number. Wondering what may have changed with the mana weaving skill I decided to make the mana focus above my palm.
An implosion of blue light followed as every piece of mana in the room was sucked into a star the size of a marble, floating above my hand. Even more than that though was the streams of light from outside rapidly flowing into the orb above my hand making it swell in size.
Whether it was my spell analysis skill being at a far higher level or not, I understood roughly the value of the ball of mana above my hand. The basketball of magical power contained over seven million points of mana in it, and climbing. I stopped the growth of the orb, looking around at the absence of mana around me. Strangely enough though, small dots of mana were popping into reality around me, filling the room up to its original capacity again.
"So the mana replenishes itself, cool."
Looking back at the orb in my hand, I noticed something for the first time, it was actually shining a light on the walls around me. Did that mean that people who couldn't see mana could see the orb in some way? I couldn't answer that by myself so I chose to drop the issue.