Chapter 141: Qualitative Increase


    <strong>You have selected [Charisma] as the beneficiary attribute for the +30% bonus! Confirm? Y/N</strong>


    Leif confirmed the prompt, the space around him seeming to ripple as his aura flexed from the sudden rush of power. The choice wasn’t difficult. His [Charisma], after the ten percent increase from the advancement trial and now the additional thirty percent bonus was effectively above three hundred and thirty. None of his other attributes had broken over one hundred, even after the percentage boost.


    Was there a chance he was overinvesting into a single attribute? Potentially. Did it feel amazing with the amount of ways he now scaled alongside the attribute? Absolutely. Was he going to stop investing in [Charisma]? Probably not anytime soon. The addictive aspect of watching the big number get bigger was not something he nned on fighting against. He could stop anytime he wanted though.


    <strong>You have gained 1 core skill point! You may select any skill to be a core skill! </strong>


    <strong>Core skills do not belong to any ss, and do not contribute to any penalties involving the number of owned skills! </strong>


    <strong>You may now defer skills during skill selection! Deffered skills may show up inter skill selections! </strong>


    <strong>Error! You do not qualify for one or more rewards due to not meeting prerequisites!</strong>


    <strong>Error! One or more rewards have been deferred until prerequisites are met!</strong>


    <strong>Your level has bestowed upon you an increased longevity! You now age 25% slower!</strong><strong>As you level up your body, mind and soul will be gradually reinforced as it is remade through mana! The benefits from this process vary depending on the aspects of your sses and skills!</strong>


    <strong>Mana reinforcement progress: 0%!</strong>


    <em>Core skills, skill deferral, mana reinforcement, slowed ageing. I know people have been telling me level fifty is where things start to get interesting, but this is a lot more than I expected. </em>Leif thought, re-reading the onught of system messages for a second time. All of a sudden the strength of some of the iron ranked adventurers he had sparred with made more sense. Sure, Leif had been the equal, if not superior to around half of those he had sparred with over the past three months, but the sheer amount of changes were still staggering.


    <em>And I’m missing out on some of them until my monster ss reaches level fifty. </em>He realised, rocking back in his seated position. There was a sharp knock at the door to the room, then it opened and three temple aides came running inside.


    Leif looked at them from under his mask. They looked at him. Nobody moved.


    “Ah… the senses in the room detected a spike in aura activity, we assumed the worst.” One of the aides said, looking around as if searching for the cause. “We apologise for the interruption sir, this was not our intention.”


    “It’s okay.” Leif said, more than a little relieved that he hadn’t done something foolish like disrobe or remove his mask. “I have a stronger aura than my level would suggest, I simply ckened my control over it after the trial waspleted.”


    That was partially a lie, and judging by the faces of the aides they suspected as much. But he had no interest in revealing just how much stronger his aura was than the expected norm. The aides dipped into an apologetic bow before hurriedly closing the door after confirming he didn’t need their presence.


    Leif stood and rolled his shoulders, feeling the changes to his body as he stretched and twisted. He felt reborn, remade, as if up until this point he had been living with weights tied to his limbs. And that wasn’t to mention the newfound mental rity and spiritual strength. As he targeted each of his attributes in turn with [Grand Action] power flooded through him. What had once been only a small increase in each attribute was now almost doubling each, though only one at a time.


    He retrieved both his spatial ring and the aura suppression bracelets from where he had ced them off to the side. Leif took the time to reattune to both, and only with more than a little self control did he stop himself from activating the suppression enchantment and running through the aura training. <em>I do not own this room. </em>He reminded himself. <em>I’ll get kicked out if I stay in here for too long. </em>


    He exited the room, noting how empty the temple now was. Hours had passed since his trial had begun, and night reigned over Ahle-ho. The cool sea breeze washed over Leif as he walked down the steps of the temple. Small groups huddled outside, kneeling in prayer over oil litnterns and candles. A patrol of soldiers, local and not imperial, stepped out from a nearby corner, the group walking in lockstep as they strode past the temple.


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the vition.


    As Leif made his way back towards the Twin Heart guild’spound, he let the system notifications he had been suppressing since the temple aides entered the room popte the corner of his vision.


    <strong>Congrattions! Banked experience will now be distributed! </strong>


    <strong>Level up! ss [Scion of Aeons] is now level 21!</strong>


    <strong>For ying a [Regal Scale Merfey] you have gained a level!</strong>


    <strong>+1 to [crity] +1 to [Spirit] +1 to [Charisma] +5 free points!</strong>


    <strong>Level up! ss [Scion of Aeons] is now level 22!</strong>


    <strong>For spreading the boons of the amber throughout thend you have gained a level!</strong>


    <strong>+1 to [Might] +1 to [crity] +1 to [Willpower] +5 free points!</strong>


    <strong>Level up! ss [Inspiring Brawler] is now level 11!</strong>


    <strong>For meeting powerful foes in battle and demonstrating your prowess you have gained a level!</strong>


    <strong>+1 to [Might] +1 to [Spirit] +1 to [Charisma] +1 free point!</strong>


    <strong>Level up! ss [Adept of Self-Restoration] is now level 11!</strong>


    <strong>For healing those often ignored and defending the weak you have gained a level!</strong>


    <strong>+1 to [Might] +1 to [Spirit] +1 free point!</strong>


    <strong>Mana reinforcement progress: 20%!</strong>


    Leif missed a step, stumbling as a cool feeling spread throughout his body, soothing his mind and flowing into his soul. While the attributes from levelling up were a familiar sensation of gained power, this new sensation felt not unlike the absorption of mana shards to fuel skill fusion, only that the sensation had washed over his existence before fading away.


    <em>So that’s what mana reinforcement feels like? Is it five percent progress per level up? </em>He mused, scanning the level up messages to see if anything was out of the ordinary. Other than the system putting a name to the sea serpent he had defeated in the quarry vige, a rarity in his experience, nothing seemed wrong, no errors had appeared, thankfully. It was a little strange reaching level twenty two in his monster ss and not getting a skill selection, but that was because tier three sses had skill selections every five levels instead of every two.


    Leif had twelve free points, it was tempting to ce them into an attribute like [Spirit] or [Intelligence], but knowing that the twelve points would effectively be almost thirty if they went into [Charisma] made the choice not difficult at all. His t total jumped to one hundred and sixty one, and his aura rippled in the darkness of the city street. Leif took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, flexing and retracting his aura in time with the action.


    <em>I’m not addicted. </em>He told himself. <em>I can definitely stop investing into [Charisma] whenever I want. It would be easy, I could do it right now. </em>He lied.


    A part of Leifmented that he would need to give back the aura suppression bracelets in a few days, but he doubted Lars would be particrly pleased with him absconding with a valuable magical item. An owl hooted from somewhere overhead, voices came from a nearby home, flickering light barely visible through drawn curtains. Under the pale illumination of season Ahle-ho’s colours seemed washed out, the city having finally calmed after months of tension.


    It was an illusion, an effort of self deception that made him hope that along with his sudden change and growth, that the city he had called home would have magically changed with him. There is to be a summit of the guilds, a grand meeting to discuss Ahle-ho’s future. If the lingering anticipation he can sense in the air is true, then the future of this ce will likely be determined in theing months. If all goes well, hopefully it will happen without violence.


    But there was nothing he could do. Even if he had the desire to intervene in the growing political struggles, how would he even begin? It was humbling, to havee so far from when he was just a sapling in the ground, yet still be barely a dot on the map that was the interconnected webs of power that criss-crossed not just this city, but all the human territories. Was he a formidable power? Sure. But there was only so much one person could do, no matter how monstrous.


    The owl swooped down from above. It silently alighted atop Leif’s hooded head, the sensation causing him to realise he had been standing perfectly still in the middle of the wide street. “I’m thinking grand thoughts.” He told the bird. “When I don’t even have a firm grasp on my own problems. Am I arrogant, or just stupid?”


    It flew off, startled that its perch hadn’t been the kind of tree it had expected. Heughed, the sound was freeing.


    Leif returned to the Twin Heart headquarters, taking the longer, scenic route through the city as he did so in order to get used to the new strength coursing through his body. He was waved inside by the two tired looking guards at the main gate as he approached, and then returned to his room in the adventurer dormitory.


    <em>Less than a week, then I’m out of here.</em> He suppressed the spike of anxiety that came with the thought. <em>I better make use of every resource I have avable to me before I leave. </em>


    He settled down, and got to work. There were things to do in the morning. People to meet and information to gather. But before that…


    The familiar sensation of the suppression bracelets washed over him as he triggered with a mentalmand. Leif smiled internally, then got to work.