Just as he had defeated this thing, he could w many more of these giant beetles revealing themselves from the large dungeon portal.
"Oh god." He thought to himself.
He had barely taken down one of those beasts and was now facing an army of them. He stepped back as they stepped forward, and he just wasn't in the condition to continue. He had drained his small MP stores, having absolutely no MP now.
His thin blood red aura vanished into thin air, and he was left without the vital power that he needed to battle.
'Is this really how it ends? My parents died to these beasts and now I do the same.' He thought, chuckling to himself.
'Wow. With an SS-Rank system I couldn't even keep myself alive.'
BOOM!
Ahead of him, though, a man in a black breastplate landed. He wielded a large sword across his back and had dark black hair.
Not only was he wearing a breastplate, but he also had greaves and seemed to almost completely covered in various items.
"Get out of here, kid. You're going to die if you stay here much longer." He stated, unsheathing his large sword.
"Slice of Excalibur!" He roared out, as white flames engulfed his blade.
He slashed at this mass of beasts and sliced many of them in half all at once. Rhys was behind him and, therefore, couldn't see the glowing white crystal in the centre of his breastplate.
Beast crystals were used and usually fragmented to manufacture weaponry and equipment through literally being incorporated into the material for the design, but they could also be added in its raw form to power these items.
[Quest Complete!]
[+20XP]
[Level Up!]
[+2HP]
[+2MP]
[+1 Stat Upgrade]
"Oh yeah!" Rhys thought to himself, upon receiving this reward.
With an extra stat upgrade, he decided to place it into his durability. Upon fighting those beasts, he just didn't want his HP to go down as fast as it did. He had received quite a lot of extra strength and speed, but his durability and mana stores were lacking quite severely.
Instead of doing so, though, a message appeared before he could do so.
[Would you like to use this stat upgrade?]
[Stat Upgrades are now exchangeable for 20 Emporium Shards]
"Ooh, that's new." He thought, upon seeing this new notification.
[+20 Emporium Shards]
It certainly was and now, it gave him 30 shards in total.
Upon peeking at his skill tree, he was met with another notification.
[Tier 1 Unlocked!]
[Hidden Quest Complete!]
[Unlock Tier 1 in your first skill tree]
[+1 Stat Upgrade]
[+20 Emporium Shards]
[Tier 0]
[Blooded Blow]
[The strength and speed stat double for a single punch]
[COST: 5MP]
[Fledgling Blitz]
[The speed stat doubles for 5 seconds.]
[COST: 3MP]
[Overdrive]
[Blood flow is intensified for 15 seconds. Increases strength and speed stats by 50% for 15 seconds.]
[COST: 4MP, 3HP]
[COST TO UNLOCK: 50 Emporium Shards]
With 50 emporium shards, he activated the final skill left in his skill tree at Tier 0. Overdrive. It sounded like quite a good skill to have in his arsenal, but what scared him was the HP it would take. It would regenerate, but he was starting to think that he needed human blood to feed his healing factor.
Now, his hunger had returned, and he was going to have to find another way to get blood. With his mask to hide his identity, he was sure that he would find something in time. The hunger wasn't as debilitating as it was before, but if he would enter another fight, he just wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to go for.
[Tier 1]
[Branches]
[Mind Manipulation]
[Blooded Warrior]
[Blood Mage]
[Which branch would the user like to choose from?]
Seeing this new message upon the pile of system panels now following him in his stroll, he took a quick glance and really thought about the choice. It was always good to take a good route within a skill tree, and there were usually two methods to accessing a skill tree.
The first method was using going depth first, as people would call it. You would choose one branch per tier and continue until you reached the very last branch, or the 'leaf' of that particular route in the tree.
However, there was another method called breadth first, where you would try to open as many branches as possible and expand in all routes across the tree to eventually reach the end again.
This was less common as it took longer and meant that users would be initially left with less powerful skills. Going depth first allowed someone to specialise in one thing and be handed powerful skills for such.
Looking at the three branches, he felt like blood mage would be the best option. It seemed the most versatile and mind manipulation just didn't really seem that interesting for him for now. His main motive was to get stronger right now, and he believed that it would be an asset but an asset for the future.
By this time, he was now in his apartment room, and ripped off the bloody shirt that he was wearing.
[Blood Mage Unlocked!]
[New Title!]
[Lv. 1 Blood Mage]
[Assistant Unlocked!]
[+4MP]
[Skill Upgraded!]
[Lv. 1 Mana Control] => [Lv. 2 Mana Control]
[New Item!]
[Lv. 1 Blood Container]
Just as he had seen this last message, a dark golden orb-like item appeared in his hand. It was like a flask, with an opening at the top that was covered by a cork. It looked old and rusty, and he gave it a weird look, spinning it around. It looked like the gold of a Pharoah, and had a royal feeling to it.
Looking up, his basic mana control skill had been upgraded, which was great.
"Soon enough, I might even build my beast core." He whispered in surprise.
Once a person's mana control skill had reached a certain level, they could use the mana within their bodies to form something called a beast core. These beast cores were then used to house the abilities of powerful beasts.
It was a lengthy procedure, requiring skilled people to manipulate the energy within beast crystals. Upon ingestion, the beast's power would become housed within the core and this power could be utilised upon activation with one's mana.
This power was almost exclusive to military cadets and personnel, since it required quite a lot of training and effort to complete. The beast crystals that were used for the process were also incredibly expensive, costing tens of thousands of shards.
His title seemed quite bland, and once again, he had no clue what it was going to do for him. However, something answered his call.
[The user's new title has provided various extra benefits, such as more MP being granted at each level-up, and an increase in likelihood for mage-related skills to level up.]
'What?' He wondered, looking at this message as it was read out by a robotic, female voice.
He had seen the assistant unlocked message and attributed this to that. Most system assistants were only exclusive to high-ranking systems, and people with C-Rank systems and below would usually never receive something like this to add to their systems.
Assistants could be used to help in battle, and even give information that wasn't immediately accessible to people. He almost couldn't hold back his smile upon seeing the messages that he had received.
"Right. What about this orb thing?"
[The user can use this container to store human blood, which will be used in all the skills that fall under the Tier 1 Blood Mage branch. It physically has a volume of 100 millilitres but can hold up to 400 millilitres of human blood.]
It took him by surprise that these skills would be using human blood. When he thought of vampires, he only thought that they would consume it, and not use it in battle. It did say blood mage after all, and it made sense to him the more he contemplated it.
"How do these skills use human blood?" He asked.
When he heard of the word mage, he just assumed his red mana would be used and the skills' titles would refer to blood just for effect.
[The life essence from human blood is extracted and combined with the user's mana to fuel each skill]
[Inventory Unlocked!]
[*EMPTY SLOT*]
Upon seeing this message, he saw the slot and decided to place this item in it. The container took up the entire slot, and he then asked about why he was even given this inventory with a singular slot.
[The blood container is provided to users in tandem with inventory slots so that they can be stored without having to be stored physically. It allows for these containers to be used with more convenience.]
"Will I only be given this singular slot, though?" He asked.
He wasn't happy with the thought of using just a single inventory slot, since it wouldn't be that handy. If this mysterious blood container would be taking up the whole slot, he wouldn't be able to use it for other purposes.
[No, the user will be given inventory slots as rewards for other quests and level-ups.]