After finally waking up to the rising sun Ezekiel felt refreshed, more refreshed than he had felt in a long time.
While getting up and worrying about how he would clean his clothes he noticed a notification on his status panel.
~~~~~~~~~~
Elemental Affinity (Shadow) Increased
10% -> 37%
Skill: Mana Core lv10 (Apprentice) has increased in tier!
Mana Core lv10 (Apprentice) -> Mana Core lv1 (Experienced)
Increase base mana pool by 35%
Naturally regenerate 2.5% mana per second both in and out of combat. (Passive)
Naturally regenerate 5% mana per second out of combat. (Active)
Skill: Mana Control lv10 (Novice) has increased in tier.
Mana Control lv10 (Novice) -> Mana Control lv1 (Apprentice)
Reduces the consumption of mana for all skills by 10%
~~~~~~~~~~
Looking inside of his core with his mana sense he saw that his mana has actually gone from a liquid state and solidified into a core but it did not seem very secure.
After taking time to examine if more he actually realized that it resembled the slime core quite a lot.
He was very happy to see how far his skills had grown while he slept but he really wanted to know what happened.
The thought of gaining power without understanding how it was done made him a bit upset but he eventually let it go for now.
He got ready to meet the smiths again so that he could continue training his fire affinity.
During the night his shadow affinity had left it far behind, it now stood at 37%, he did not know what such a high affinity meant but he assumed it was a positive.
Returning to the smith he prepared himself for another day of training his affinity.
~
After spending the majority of the day training his affinity he reached a close equilibrium between them.
~~~~~~~~~~
Elemental Affinity (Fire) Increased
17% -> 32%
~~~~~~~~~~
He had to give up once he noticed that the rate of growth slowed significantly when he hit 30% affinity.
Since his efforts were slowing now he decided to go after experience points instead.
He did not know how far behind in levels he was but he knew that after using proper methods he hit lv5 in a matter of hours... what would the players who were grinding experience all day look like?
Reaching the wolves he decided to go further, he did occasionally have to take them out but he chose that as a good time to level up his fire orb spell.
Once he reached the deep woods he would carefully search for the next level of creature.
A few minutes of searching and he found a boar.
He got low and prepared himself before casting the spell.
With an intelligence of 25 and his mana being increased by 35% he felt like this boar shouldn't be hard to kill.
He cast the fire orb silently as the orb spells were easy to master... and it struck the boar right on the head.
Critical!
-64
Burn Applied.
-3
-3
-3
-3...
The boar charged him in a rage as he fled as quickly as he could.
He kept casting the fire orb while also letting the burn damage stack up on the boar.
The burn would last for ten seconds, dealing damage once every ten seconds.
He after a few more casts the boar eventually fell with a shrieking roar that echoed in the woods.
He heard the sounds of hooves on the ground which made him realize how badly he just screwed up and he began to search for a safe area.
All he saw were the trees.
He made the decision to try to climb a tree.
The trees that seemed thick enough to survive a charge from the boars were also the most difficult to climb but he had to make a decision.
The climb was tough but after getting an idea he began to use his mana bullets creatively, casting them in glancing blows on the trunk to create grooves for his fingers and feet.
After climbing for approximately fifteen feet he managed to reach a low branch that he clung to.
Watching below he saw the boar show up in a horde that investigated the area, with some cannibalizing the dead boar.
While he watched he made the decision to get a few easy kills by casting mana orb down below.
He cast fire orb after fire orb and the boars at first seemed to not be able to figure out the source.
After a few died they began to charge trees at random...
They knew where the source was but not the exact location and their numbers were growing with each rage filled scream.
Ezekiel knew this was a good opportunity to level up but he was very worried about what would happen when his tree was attacked.
After many uses of his orb combined with the experience he gained he had actually managed to level up his fire orb to lv10.
He did not care what the options were currently and quickly chose fire burst as he needed an aoe option.
He cast the spell attempting to whisper and dropped the little baseball sized orb of fire down below.
Upon hitting the ground it exploded in a roughly three foot diameter sphere... which harmed many boars at once.
Using mana burst took more mana than an orb so he had to stop a few times to actually meditate.
He felt very confident... until his tree shook violently.
Down below at the base of his tree he saw a singed boar ramming his tree over and over, each strike disrupted his casting as he was forced to hold on tighter.
After a few moments he heard his notification of another level up.
~~~~~~~~~~
Belial
Mage lv6. (Novice)
Infernal
Affinity: 32% fire, 37% shadow
Strength: 5
Vitality: 5
Agility: 9
Wisdom: 21 -> 25
Intelligence: 25 -> 31
Bloodline: child of the void.
Titles: n/a
Skills: Mana Control lv1 (A), Mana Sense lv9 (N), Mana Core lv1 (E), Spell Mastery (E)
Defenses: Fire Resistance lv2 (N)
Spells:
Mana Bullet lv4 (A)
Fire Burst lv1 (A)
~~~~~~~~~~
He put his points immediately into intelligence to increase spell damage and cast his spells as fast as he could while clinging to the tree.
The problem with what he was doing was that if he cast the explosive spells right at the base of the tree it would obviously risk toppling the tree over.
He needed a new plan, something that would make this less dangerous.
Mana bullet wasn't strong enough and fire burst was to strong.... what if he tried his second affinity?
He had to focus as much as possible, using his mana sense he found the denser black element in his body and began to infure it into a mana orb... but then he thought of something.
If he already knew how to form a spell and casting it with an element only infused the element into the shape.... what if he tried to infuse his element into the mana bullet?
So he tried it....
~~~~~~~~~~
Spell Shaped: Shadow Bullet (A)
~~~~~~~~~~
SUCCESS!
He couldn't celebrate for long though as he felt the tree shaking harder.
He aimed down, summoned his spell... and cast a rain of shadows.
He did not know why but once the shadow bullet struck a boar it went from angry roars to shrieks of pain that raised the hairs on his neck.
That creature's pain made him shiver but he could not stop otherwise he would be killed.
More than a dozen boars had crowded the base of his tree but after taking a hit from the shadow bullets they all fled.
He could only guess at the pain such a spell caused if it sent those frenzied beasts away so he began to climb back down.
When he was on the ground again he began to cast both the fire burst to enrage the boars as well as the shadow bullet to make them pause.
Such a strategy of pain and rage for the boars seemed to overwhelm them as they would eventually collapse in an unconscious state.
He felt sick from the way they reacted but he at least knew how to farm boars efficiently now.