Today I am going to learn how exactly the evolution system of this world will work. For this matter, I am going to Jack, who is the most knowledgeable goblin in this group.
Jack is resting in his tent completely exhausted from his previous excursions. The quarry is even deeper than I expected it to be. We must have hunted at least a hundred of those creatures and Jack had to use soul trap on all of them and that ritual is pretty mana consuming.
Well, he succeeded in only about ten resurrections, which had to be killed almost immediately. Those rats are pretty wild, but the failures will be pretty useful at the very least. They behave pretty similarly to normal undead.
well, at the very least I and Soldier one managed to gain a level, though I am not sure what I am supposed to be doing with this level up. anyway, I enter into his tent to see him sitting in his tent, reading a book.
Me - are you busy, Jack. I have a few doubts about leveling up and how I am supposed to become stronger.
Jack - no, troop master I am resting right now. Soldier one was telling me that you had something to ask me yesterday so I was expecting you here anyways.
Me - I want to understand how exactly this system of your works and I also want to talk about my status. Based on what I heard from Soldier one it is supposed to be incomplete.
Jack - yes, troop master. For you to understand how exactly the system works, I will need to speak about the life force. Do you have an idea what is it, troop master?
Me - not exactly. Soldier one was not exactly clear about this thing. All I know is that it is supposed to have something to do with strengthing my body.
Jack - essentially as far as we can tell, life force is a special type of mana and it is exactly this mana that fuels our evolutions and after every level up, we can also strengthen our body using life force.
Me - I know that. What I want are the rules that it functions with.
Jack - well, even we don't exactly understand how exactly does it function. We know a few rules, but we can't verify their authenticity. The first that I know of is that you can store only as much life force as Is your mana capacity. Any more and you will explode. We don't know where exactly we store life force, but it always disappears in our bodies a few seconds after absorbing it. Anyway, we need to absorb as much life force as possible and once life force reaches the limit, then the system allows us to utilize this life force. We call this phenomenon leveling up.
Me - so that is why I can't feel any life force in anybodies bodies.
Jack - yes, troop master, but from what I have learned you can't use your life force directly anyways.
Me - yeah, does it have anything to do with me about not having any stats.
Jack - yeah. Could you pass a piece of paper to me once.
He begins to write something on the papers and shows it to me.
Jack - this is how my status looks like troop master.
Name - Jack
Species - novice goblin mage
Level - 3/10
Mana- 25/25
Strength - 5
Intelligence - 15
Stamina - 5
Perception - 10
Skills - novice mana control - level 3
Death mana control - level 2
Abilities - darkness bolt - level 2
Death grip - level 3
Darkness shield - level 1
Jack - well, you see stats are the method for us to modify our bodies and since we have no way to directly control the life force, we need to rely on stats. Strength, intelligence, and all the other stats refer to various parts of my body. Strength refers to various muscles in my body. Intelligence refers to my brain and so on.
Me - well, are there any other methods to use life force other than relying on the system.
Jack - I don't think so. we mages always have a habit of breaking rules, but we don't dare to break this rule. There are some dangerous consequences to Any being that dares to try and control the life force. Entire empires have been collapsed by the champions of the systems for daring to research into this particular topic.
Me - is the system some kind of a living entity, the way that everybody speaks about it.
Jack - nobody knows. It seems to be pretty lifelike but many people have broken its laws many times and now most people can predict how the system will react, so it is more like a set of rules rather than a living being.
Me -leave that be for now, but I don't have any stats, do I? So what am I supposed to be doing here? Are there any alternatives for me?
Jack - well, there is still hope for you troop master. You still hold the ability to modify your mana storage for every unit of life force you can extend your mana storage by a single unit, though. Honestly, I don't know if it is a wise decision to use all your life force for such kind of a modification.
Me - I kind of understand, having that much mana must have some form of disadvantages. Too much of something is never a good thing in any world.
Jack - well as I have said before, for a being to level up, they need to fill up their life force and that amount is equivalent to the mana storage of the person. If you level up and put everything in your mana storage, you are essentially doubling the amount of life force that you need for every level that you gain. It can become pretty impractical in general for people to follow that path.
Me - well it is not like I have any other option in this case. Also having more mana would be pretty useful to me. I have many spells that need a lot of mana to be able to use properly. I can do some very interesting things.
Jack - there is also another problem in this case. Beings with that much mana are used as mana batteries by many races. They wouldn't mind capturing a being with a lot of mana to power their machines.
Me - well, as I have said before, I don't have any other option in this case and it is not like it is the first time that I have faced entire worlds before. I am not welcome in most world's. Then again, there are very few worlds I have see that are as strong as this, but I am not too worried. I have been in worse situations.
Jack - well, if that is the case then you should learn some kind of magical spells. If you want I can teach you a couple of basic spells of this world's, especially if you want to be a battery.
Me - well, you don't need to worry about all of that. I have many spells that I could modify to use in this case. Necromantic magic is something that I don't like to use. Anyway, what did you even call me?
Jack - well, it is a term referring to the people that follow your path. People that put every bit of their life force into mana storage, I mean. well, are there any other spells that I can use other than the soul trap?
Me - well, I have many spells but I would rather you focus on perfecting the soul trap. If Soldier one finds out that I have given you any other spell that guy will kill us both. He is in an emotional frenzy, nowadays.
Jack - yes, troop master.
Me - well, I have to thank you then. I need to see if I can modify a spell of mine to this world.
Saying that I left the tent. What Jack says is correct. Physical fighting might be a specialty of mine, but against magic, only magic could counter it and the spell that I want to modify is a particular favorite of mine.
It is known as mana strings and it is one of the more versatile spells that I hold the knowledge about. The very first ability that I have ever acquired in my life.
It does essentially what it is called. I hold the ability to create strings of mana. A very useful ability if you know what exactly are you supposed to be doing and believe me when I say that I know what I am doing with this. Though I will need to see if that magic will work in this world. Even the most adaptable of spells can't compare to the wide variety of laws that can be found in the world that I have seen.
Anyway, I begin to channel my mana compressing it, making it thinner and thinner until it took the shape of a string. Not very long, roughly about the length of my hand. Already I can feel the ambient mana of the world ripping the string to pieces.
For some reason, mana in this world seems to particularly tame compared to other worlds. In other words, such a weak string would have been completely obliterated.
Well, I will need to experiment with the spell a bit more, see just how effective it is going to be, and just how much I will need to modify that spell. How much mana should be given to the string, too much would be wasteful, and too little would cause the string to be ripped apart. Magic is a pretty complex subject, if I can say so.
(After a few hours )
Well, I finally managed to complete modifying mana string to suit the rules of this world. It is at the most efficiency that I can give it right now.
A single unit of mana can give me about a meter of mana string. Not too much but we can work something out, maybe even weave clothes out of it. Clothes made of mana tend to be pretty durable. not only cloth, but with enough time I can create weapons, armors, and even entire buildings if I have enough mana.
This particular spell is the reason that I have survived in many a worlds.
Well, it is time for me to increase my mana storage. I focus on the stat, feeling a strange emptiness in my body. It is a weird feeling, kind of like being hungry while having your stomach full.
Anyway, my mana storage is increasing in quantity. This is how my status is appearing right now.
Species - undead armor
Level - 2/5
Mana - 10/20
Skills - mana sense - level 2
Weapons mastery - level 2
Abilities - bone king - level 1
Armor possession - level 1
Passive - armor sharing - level 1