《stars》


 Prologue: The Day The Sky Cracked

    When the sky shattered, I was having a fairly normal day. Hanging about at the university after a biology lecture, just across the street from my old high school, taking a moment every now and then to stop and smell the roses or admire the grafiti.


    I quite liked the architecture on these old buildings, modeled after what you would expect to see on a medieval spanish castle. It did paint a contrast with the more modern buildings, having modern monumental monoliths of concrete next to walls of plastered murals. My next class was precisely in one of those modern blocks of concrete, in this case at the opposite end of the campus¡­


    My relationship with calculus was akin to that between a man and an ex-girlfriend. The kind where both parties decided to cut it off, by sending a text to the other party explaining that they wanted to stay friends. Needless to say I had a small part of me that hated the class, but the majority of me was perfectly fine with it. I was always good at math, and the actual class was perfectly fine. What that little part of me always hated with a flaming vengeance, was the commute.


    As previously stated, it was on the opposite side of campus, meaning that if my previous class took a tiny bit too long, I ended up in that awkward moment where you step in as the teacher is starting her lecture, and everyone looks at the door. So, you just kind of pretend nothing is out of the ordinary and walk to your seat, with everyone keeping their eyes on you as you cut across the classroom.


    So there I was, rushing along, occasionally waving at the one or two people I recognized. You knew every kid in your grade back in highschool, but in the university you¡¯d be lucky to know everyone in the same lecture as you. I didn''t waste much time stopping to chat, though I really didn''t have much time to waste at all. Luckily I knew this place like the back of my hand, since I was practically raised here, and going through all the shortcuts I knew got me there in the nick of time.


    The class itself was normal and calculus so let''s skip that thank you very much.


    From there, a quick stroll to the library to unwind and maybe finish some homework. Taking out my laptop, I notice the sky seems very cloudy, not a hint of blue as far as the eye can see. Maybe it would be better to stay under the roof for now, since this was a tropical island made up of 50% mountain rainforest and 50% wetland, or in other words, it rains a lot.


    Booting up my computer, I began to browse the internet randomly, jumping through the reference section of wikipedia for a place to start with my homework. I definitely didn''t immediately get distracted by memes and videogames¡­ definitely not.


    Soon enough, my battery begins to fail and my PC goes into power saving mode. The glare from the sky outside makes the darkened screen difficult to read. Stepping outside the clouds seemed to have opened up a bit, giant cracks of sunlight shining through. That was what must have caused the glare.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    On the horizon, the light was noticeably redder. Strange, because it was still around midday and the sky should still be blue, not red like in the evening¡­ and now it''s becoming orange... and yellow, and green, and blue, indigo, and finally violet¡­


    The blank sky was now covered in a spiderweb of cracks, all shining in a kaleidoscopic array of colors. To put it in a slightly clearer way, imagine seeing a rave from outside a cracked window, with all the lights shining through the cracks. It even came complete with a penetrating thrum, as the sky finally burst and the colors consumed everything¡­


    I woke up with a start. The lights were out and I was laying in a strangely unfamiliar hallway. It seemed like the hallways in the older buildings in the school, but more¡­ realistic. As if these walls were actually part of some palace from the middle ages. The hallway was lit via torchlight, small holes in the roof acting as ventilation. They weren''t really that big, and any modern civil engineer would cringe at how inadequate they would be in the case of an actual fire, with their slight whistle as the wind blows through them...


    Then I heard the buzzing.


    A giant dragonfly appeared, its mouthparts spitting small gouts of flame. Its wings almost stretched from one side of the hallway to the other, and its ¡°tail¡± swinging around like a scorpion.


    I tried to stay calm, look at it and try to find an opening. That''s what the main character does in these kinds of scenarios right? Well I couldn''t do that. With my shaking hands I took my backpack off my back and held it in my arms. My strategy was simple, wait for it to get within reach, and mash its head to the wall.


    Unfortunately, I miscalculated by a second, getting a good gout of flame on my arm before the dragonfly was hit by the backpack. It didn''t seem to be dead yet, but its wings were crumpled like old newspaper and its abdomen area was bent in ways it was not supposed to bend.


    Meanwhile my own arm was instantly beginning to redden and blister in the time it took the little bastard to reach the wall, and it hurt like a bitch. The nagging kind, since I could feel the excruciating pain, and that arm was basically unusable for now, but I could still stand instead of collapsing in agony, probably something to do with the fact that the cause of said pain is still in front of me¡­


    ¡°You little fucker¡±


    Before the backpack could even finish coming down from the last swing, I brought it in for a finisher, smashing the things head into the wall with a satisfying crack¡­ which sounded suspiciously loud and suspiciously different from the sound it made when I hit it the first time. Coming closer and opening the biggest pocket of the backpack, I saw tragedy.


    My PC was broken into pieces, shattered on the remains of the bugs head. I would ask for a moment of silence, but that was when the pain hit and I collapsed in agony now that the thing that caused said agony was in no position to cause any more¡­


    I was so busy thrashing about until I blacked out that I didn''t notice the strange screens that appeared in front of me.

 Chapter 1: not Kansas, definitely not Kansas

    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Successfully slain Caballuco de Diablu</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Level UP!


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name:Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 2</h1>


    <h1>HP: 8/11</h1>


    <h1>STR:12 DEX:10 CON:11</h1>


    <h1>INT:14 WIL:9 CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: 1</h1>


    <h1>Status effects: burned (1rst degree)</h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 1</h1>


    <h1>Feats:</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 3</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°...¡±


    And here I am, staring at a screen that belongs in a goddam videogame. Apparently I leveled up by killing that bug¡­ did they invent VR when I wasn''t looking? And if they did¡­ WHY THE FUCK DID IT HAVE TO HAVE REALISTIC BURN PAIN!?


    I mean seriously, what happened? How many drugs do you have to take to go through this shit, and where did I get them? I mean I¡¯m as happy with the world turning into a video game as the next max level nerd, but everything I know about the laws of physics is screaming that this shit doesn¡¯t make any sense¡­ (disconnecting from reality in 3¡­ 2¡­ 1¡­ )


    On the bright side I seem to have learned a fire resistance skill¡­ I am not training that shit. Logically speaking, the best course of action would be to get up and try to find other people but¡­


    ¡°ROOOOOOOOAAAAAARRR!!!!!¡±


    Yeah, seems like those dragonflies were not the worst things here. In light of that fact, I decided to prioritize gathering information¡­ shit that burn stings¡­ maybe if I¡­ I mean it probably won''t work, but maybe if I raise WIL, which I assume is willpower, I wont feel the pain as much? I mean it''s a 9 right now anyway, my second lowest stat¡­ then again, specialization is usually bett- OW!


    I accidentally tapped my burns with one of my backpack straps. That''s decided then.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name:Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 2</h1>


    <h1>HP: 8/22</h1>


    <h1>STR:12 DEX:10 CON:11</h1>


    <h1>INT:14 WIL:10 CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Status effects: burned (1rst degree)</h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 1</h1>


    <h1>Feats:</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 3</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Nope, still feel like someone is continuously skinning my arm. On the bright side, I feel 11% better at dealing with it. How do I know its 11%? Because my willpower increased by 11%, therefore, that should be 11% as well¡­


    Either way, the other stats seem to mirror D&D, with STR being strength, DEX being dexterity, CON being constitution, INT being intelligence, and CHA being charisma. I assume their effects would be self explanatory, strength being how strong you are, constitution being how tough, etc¡­


    I assume I got the fire resistance skill by being burned, and it should make me more resistant to burns¡­ not going to test that hypothesis¡­


    The burned status effect should refer to my arm, since nothing else seems like it fits the criteria. Probably going to go away after my arm heals up¡­ I wish I had some first aid equipment¡­ at least it tells me the degree of the burns.


    Now the feats¡­ that seems a bit more interesting¡­


    It appeared that he earned feat points through some unknown method, and was then able to select strange abilities. Right now he had 3 feat points, and his available feats were:


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Available Feats: basic fire affinity (1 point) basic magic affinity (1 point) basic regeneration (1 point) basic ki affinity (1 point) basic monster hunter (10 points)</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Monster hunter is right out, not nearly enough points for that one, regeneration is a definite must, hopefully that will help heal my arm, magic affinity is a definite yes, my highest stat is already intelligence¡­ but between fire affinity and ki affinity¡­ my physical stats would probably receive a boost, but pyromancer, but those kung fu movies¡­ maybe if I get fire affinity it can help me train my fire resista-


    That thought was killed with fire immediately upon appearing¡­ there is no escape is there¡­ this is stupid, I know this is stupid¡­ why am I clicking that¡­ Aether no¡­


    Aether yes¡­


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name:Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 2</h1>


    <h1>HP: 8/22</h1>


    MP: 10/28


    <h1>STR:12 DEX:10 CON:11</h1>


    <h1>INT:14 WIL:10 CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: 1</h1>


    <h1>Status effects: burned</h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 1</h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, basic magic affinity, basic fire affinity</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Basic regeneration: regenerate 1 point of all of your resource pools every hour.


    Basic magic affinity: unlock magic skills, unlock magic power pool


    Basic fire affinity: unlock fire based skills besides resist skill, increase leveling speed of fire based skills


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    I got a cool sensation in the back of my head. Definitely my mana, using my will I moved it along my body, collecting it in my hands by instinct, pushing it to the tip of my finger until the power seemed to be about to burst, and released the energy as a bolt of force.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Mana bolt spell unlocked, level 1


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And¡­ my nail went flying off my finger as I fired the bolt. WHY DOES MAGIC HATE MY HANDS? Then I thought that magic can''t hate anything as it seems to just be a form of¡­ energy? Then I thought, is healing magic a thing I can do?


    Moving magic back into my hand, I tried willing it to hold the tip of my finger back together. It pinched it shut to stop the bloodloss¡­ oh that doesn''t sound so bad? I remind you that said finger lacked the nail, so it was pinching directly on to every single nerve in my finger. why do you hate me magic? Well, that failed¡­ lets try a more precise approach¡­


    This time I imagined the cells that made up my finger. I imagined the magic taking the place of things like ATP in the cells, urging them to replicate, repairing DNA, promoting the growth of a new nail, moving blood back, etc¡­ and it worked!This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Not only was my magic fixing my finger, I also sensed something else, something in my blood itself¡­


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Medical magic spell unlocked, level 3


    Minimum blood affinity achieved!!!


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Hell yeah, all of those biology classes are paying off, but blood affinity?


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name:Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 2</h1>


    <h1>HP: 8/22</h1>


    MP: 5/28


    <h1>STR:12 DEX:10 CON:11</h1>


    <h1>INT:14 WIL:10 CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: 1</h1>


    <h1>Status effects: burned</h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 1, mana bolt 1, medical magic 3, </h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, basic magic affinity, basic fire affinity, minimum blood affinity</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 4</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Oh boy¡­


    It appears that feats can be achieved without feat points, though i''m not sure how I gained those points, given that I assumed they were given once per level. Given this information, I sat down and began meditating. I gained the blood affinity by sensing it in my body, so therefore I should be able to gain ki affinity the same way. Remembering all of the weeaboo stories and martial arts mumbo jumbo I¡¯ve read I start looking.


    Of course having one of your arms feel like shit didn''t help, so I decided to spend the rest of my MP on healing my arm. Normally in stories like this, emptying your MP ends in the character blacking out from exhaustion, but in this case it just caused that cool feeling at the back of my head to disappear, which actually let me focus on an interesting electric feeling in my brain. Psychic powers? Maybe, but let''s stay focused on Ki first.


    About an hour later was when I unlocked minimum Ki affinity, as well as minimum psionic affinity. I could feel a calm torrent of energy as well as a constant buzz of power, but neither unlocked a new resource pool like magic affinity did. It appeared that minimum affinity only made very small changes, almost unnoticeable. The main thing they did was open the way to higher versions of the affinities. That, and apparently grant feat points.


    I also gained a meditation skill¡­ this almost feels too easy, despite the pain involved at the beginning¡­


    Is it normal to gain affinities this fast? Especially with the meditation skill


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Meditation: allows you to slowly increase your affinities over time


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Of course, 5 hours of meditation later and I was starting to get hungry, and no I will not eat the dragonfly¡¯s corpse. I bought the basic versions of the minimum affinities I got, and noticed a couple things. 1rst of all, I had the ability to purchase the beginner version of all the affinities at 4 points each, and a feat for 100 points called magical healthcare.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Magical healthcare: add WIL to your CON for the effects of health regeneration. Add INT to your CON for the effect of maximum health.add +1 to a physical stat every level.gained by unlocking blood affinity and medical magic.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    I was able to deduce that health was equal to constitution multiplied by level. If my intelligence was added to that, then my health would more than double. Added to that was a doubling of healing power, and getting bonus physical stats every level¡­ it was tempting.


    I was also able to deduce that feat points came whenever you either leveled up, leveled a skill, or achieved a feat yourself. So, if I was to go about exploring this place, carefully avoiding whatever made that roar, I might get strong enough to escape without waiting for the military to drop a missile strike on whatever the hell that thing was¡­ actually why haven''t I heard any booms at all? With monsters appearing like this, i would at least expect to hear police gunfire?


    Well, only one way to figure out what''s going on¡­


    Approaching the door, I began to observe the murals on the wall. There were figures of cyclopean sasquatch, as well as a winding serpentine figure lining the corners, as well as the standard shapes and flowers I''m used to. Reaching the end of the hallway and opening the door, I saw why there were figures of those sasquatches.


    The hallway led into a wide atrium, definitely not one that was in the old university. Twin stairs led down into the first floor, and a giant glass dome let light in from above, at least in the direct middle of the room. A 3 meter tall version of those figures was lumbering across the area under the light, smacking around small goblins wielding spears. Given the fact that the walls were plastered with blood, I assume there used to be more of the goblins before I came in. actually¡­ while the big guy is distracted I could just sneak across and escape. Then I could come back when I trained up a few more skills. I mean¡­ I could try a fireball¡­ show those bastards their own medicine¡­ and burn them¡­ hopefully get the smell of blood out of the air¡­


    I had about 10 units of magic power left. Using my magic affinity and fire affinity, I tried summoning and throwing a fireball. I ended up spending 3 mana on the equivalent of a flung match, which didn''t do much besides draw the cyclop sasquatch¡¯s attention.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to apologize¡±


    And I ran straight back to the hallway like a little bitch, the cyclops in not so hot pursuit. What? The thing was almost twice my height!


    It appeared that just imagining stuff happening wasn''t very effective. If I wanted to use magic I had to play according to reality¡¯s rules, which meant I had to know what I wanted to do.


    What did I want to do? Set the cyclops on fire


    How do I make fire? Heat and something to burn. Or more precisely, heat, fuel and an oxidizer. Looking at the hairy bastard, I had a plan for what to use as fuel.


    As the cyclops reached the door, I began focusing on it, specifically, the hair all around it. I used my mana to vibrate the air around the hair, and to draw in oxygen. Once that was complete, the asshole was bent over to get under the door. All that was missing was a little spark, which I tried to make by focusing my magic into trying to rip the electrons in the oxygen and the hair together, combusting the tip of a single hair, that spread to the whole hair, that spread all over the hairy fatass. Of course, that left me with no MP, and stuck in a narrow hallway with a burning giant. My only saving graces were that he was forced to crouch in the hallway so he couldn¡¯t charge, and that he was slowly burning. The fire and smoke were covering his eye, the only thing he could smell would be his own burnt hair, and he was making so much noise with the fire even I could barely hear myself think. I could probably sneak between his legs if he wasn¡¯t swinging his arms like a madman. Though if I time it just right, I might be able to jump through using ki.


    Observing his movements, I looked for a swing that would be hard to recover from as I readied myself to bolt. It didn¡¯t take long before he threw his whole body into a swing to the left. Taking my chance I dashed under him like a baseball player jumping for home base on a game winning run. Unfortunately it was not a total safe, his knee jerking to the side and into me as I was jumping through. It was only a quick hop that got me out of the way of a follow up stomp. My legs felt wobbly, the right one probably broken. My health was completely healed before coming here, but it was already under a quarter of it left! Again, the pain was held down while the fat fucker was still nearby. Eventually I hobbled to the end of the hallway as the giant stomped around looking for me. I¡¯d suggest it stop drop and roll, but there wasn¡¯t really enough space for that. As I closed the door, I waited for the banging to stop, hoping the smoke would knock the giant out for a while. That much fire in an enclosed space was never good for you, especially if the fire was on you.


    I was just sitting there waiting for my mana to regenerate. At a solid 1 MP every 30 minutes, it took a while. After spending 1 unit of MP I just regenerated on medicine magic to set my broken leg bone back in place, the goblins came over¡­ holding spears.


    ¡°Stay back, or your burning next¡±


    The goblin kneeled down and pointed at my leg.


    ¡°Cuidado, tu pierna est¨¢ herida¡± (carefull, your leg is hurt)


    Careful, your leg is broken¡­ these guys speak Spanish¡­ might as well ask them what they want


    ¡°Que quieren?¡± (what do you want?)


    ¡°Nos salvaste del Oj¨¢ncano, queremos devolver el favor¡± (you saved us from the Ojancano, we want to return the favor)


    Huh, I assume Oj¨¢ncano is what they call that one eyed sasquatch. Still, carrying spears around doesn¡¯t paint a perfect picture of trust¡­


    ¡°Y las lanzas?¡± (and the spears)


    The goblin looked towards the closed door, smoke slowly leaking out of its frame


    ¡°Para el Oj¨¢ncano¡± (for the Ojancano)


    ¡°Bueno, ese bruto se deber¨ªa asphyxiar pronto, con todo ese humo¡± (well, that brute should asphyxiate soon, with all of that smoke)


    The head goblin actually kneeled in front of me, spear held in salute


    ¡°Gracias, ese monstruo ha masacrado un n¨²mero incontable de mis compatriotas por los a?os, nombra lo que quieras de nosotros como recompensa y te lo daremos¡± (thank you, that monster has massacred an uncountable number of my compatriots over the years, name what you want as a reward and we will give it to you)


    Of course, I don¡¯t really believe a tribe of goblins can help much, since if they knew how to escape this place they would have done so.


    ¡°Gracias, pero no necesito recompensa, s¨®lo d¨¦jenme descansar un momento¡± (thanks, but I dont need a reward, just let me rest for a bit)


    The goblin stayed kneeling.


    An hour later I was able to heal my leg a bit more and got several notifications

 Chapter 2: hello bacon my old friend

    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Successfully slain Oj¨¢ncano</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Level UP x3!!!</h1>


    <h1>Ignition spell unlocked, level 2</h1>


    <h1>Ki boost unlocked, level 1</h1>


    <h1>Pain resistance unlocked, level 11</h1>


    <h1>Fire resistance level up, level 2</h1>


    <h1>Medical magic level up, level 4</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Huh, ignition started out at level 2, I assume because of fire affinity and my knowledge of how fire works. Fire resistance was from the flaming knee to the side, and ki boost was from using ki to try to get past the monster, Interesting¡­ medical magic leveled up from use while healing myself after I escaped from the room.


    So ki boost uses up ki to increase my abilities, though it used up 10 ki from using it one second, while ignition let¡¯s me set things on fire, which can be even more powerful with the right thing to burn...


    I wonder if I unlocked any feats. I mean I just slew a giant cyclops, that has to count for something right? First I should probably check my general status¡­


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name:Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 5</h1>


    <h1>HP: 48/60 </h1>


    MP: 55/70


    PP: 50/50


    KI: 50/60


    <h1>STR:12 DEX:10 CON:11</h1>


    <h1>INT:14 WIL:10  CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: 3</h1>


    <h1>Status effects: lesser injury</h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 2, pain resistance 1, mana bolt 1, medical magic 4, ki boost 1, ignition spell 2, meditation 1, </h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, basic magic affinity, basic fire affinity, basic blood affinity, basic ki affinity, basic Psionic affinity</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 8</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Hmm, my health is greater than it should be, I wonder what¡¯s adding to that. Maybe due to medical magic? Doesn¡¯t show any version of the magical healthcare feat though? Let¡¯s check if it¡¯s still available


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Available Feats:                   Beginner fire affinity (4 points)     Beginner magic affinity (4 points)   Beginner blood affinity (4 points) Beginner ki affinity (4 points)        Beginner Psionic affinity (4 points) Basic monster hunter (10 points) Basic giant slayer (5 points)         Friend of the trasgu (1 point) Magical healthcare (100 points)</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Huh¡­ well, let¡¯s make an experiment shall we?


    I raised my intelligence stat with the three points and found that MP was increased by 15, so that would mean that MP and intelligence are linked, but my HP stayed the same. I also found that medical magic healed 4 units of hp per unit of mp, though not too quickly¡­ it took about a minute for every unit of hp...


    So I decided to try another experiment, trying to use my other pools to try and heal it a bit faster, using Psionic Power, or PP to force it to heal and regenerate, and Ki to try and supercharge it. Then¡­


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>analysis skill unlocked, level 1 </h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>(Grants information related to target,as well as additional information in status screens)</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Ki healing unlocked, level 1         </h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>(Allows the use of ki to supercharge the body¡¯s natural healing)</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Psionic healing unlocked, level 1   </h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>(Uses the power of the mind, bring the body to mend itself)</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Suddenly I understood a few things better. I had an intuitive understanding of several things, hearing a little voice in my head that helped me connect the dots¡­ this gives me a lot to meditate abou-


    Jesus Christ I¡¯m already becoming a power gamer.


    Anyway, those new skills raised my feat points to 11, just enough to get the monster hunter feat, leaving me with 1


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Monster Hunter: awarded to the first person in a region to kill a monster. Grants knowledge of any monster the wearer fights, including strength and weaknesses, how to process the carcass, and behavioral habits. +5% damage to monsters.</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Well, knowing how to cook the sasquatch certainly helps. That +5% damage also looks good, since it seems it applies universally. Next I got up to prepare the sasquatch meat. I mean I heard money tasted like chicken anyway, and have you tasted barbecued chicken?


    ¡°A d¨®nde vas se?or?¡±


    Oh yeah, the goblins are still here¡­


    ¡°Voy a tratar de comer al monstruo, ya que est¨¢ cocinado y no he comido por un tiempo¡±


    ¡°Por favor s¨ªguenos, el Oj¨¢ncano tuvo unos cerdos acorralados en su cueva¡±


    Hello bacon my old friend¡­


    Quickly preparing a pig with the help of the goblins, I happily ate it instead of the burned sasquatch corpse. Between you and me, I prefer not to eat anything too humanoid¡­


    The cyclops even had a few gold coins hidden in a drawer. Loot GET!


    Eventually, my analysis and monster hunter instincts told me the goblins were called trasgu, so I decided to spend my last point on the feat that makes me their friend. They seemed friendly . After that we went our separate ways, me leaving them the leftovers of the pig and them telling me I was always welcome in their village. After I got that feat they were much more friendly with me, instead of the formal reverence they held before. They even pointed out a few dangerous areas to avoid, but for now I¡¯m staying in the cave and meditating on several things.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    First was my status screen. Now I could instinctively feel my regen rates, which were equal to a certain stat plus 1 from the basic regeneration feat each hour. Health and Ki were based on constitution, MP was based on will and PP was based on intelligence. Blood affinity also added to my max health, increasing it by 10%, while fire affinity was a lot¡­ stranger. It permeated all my other affinities, but didn¡¯t seem to overtly effect them. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was an element? It was based more on understanding the element itself than a form of energy you generated by yourself. Maybe if I had another element to compare to? Humans are practically made from water after all.


    So I began to meditate on water. The cleansing flow, the ocean current, the frigid ice, the broiling steam, the gentle trickle of a stream¡­ I stayed like that for an hour until I felt a wetness in my crotch area¡­


    That never happened.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>minimum water affinity achieved!!!</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Excellent. It seemed to be similar to fire, permeating my other affinities, but not overtly affecting them, or so I thought¡­


    Whatever water touched, fire recoiled from, wherever fire was, water was repulsed. They were like two magnets with the same polarity. They needed a buffer¡­


    And two hours later, I achieved minimum air and earth affinities. Buying the basic version of all 4 elemental affinities, I began to feel something¡­ like the world was a beautiful painting around me, each element in its place.


    Next I tried to see if I could obtain space and time affinities, since they seem to be so easy to gain¡­


    I actually lost track of the time I was meditating on that, easily more than 6 hours. I was only brought out of my reverie by the call of nature¡­


    Finding a hole near the pig pen, I squatted down and began to think. Maybe the space and time affinities didn¡¯t work like they did in fantasy stories? I mean Einstein said they were the same thing, didn¡¯t he? That time was a coordinate just like x, y and z? I remember seeing a diagram of two cones meeting on a plane. One of the cones represented the path a photon of light took in the path, the plane represented the position, and the other cone the path the light was going to take¡­ maybe instead of imagining black holes, stopping time and tearing the fabric of space, I should focus on dilating time, just get¡­ lost¡­ in¡­ the¡­ moment¡­


    at that point I felt really self conscious of my place in the universe. I don¡¯t mean that metaphorically, I mean I felt conscious of my exact position relative to everything around me, as well as how long I was holding that position as the pigs in their pen seemed to have been time lapsed, laying down, suddenly dashing to the other side of the pen, and rolling around in the mud as if they were posed by a certain blue hedgehog.


    And then I was back to normal.


    My meditate skill leveled up, bringing me a single extra feat point.


    I was getting close. Really close, but not just yet¡­ so I decided to walk about, maybe head to the trasgu village and meditate there? Maybe that can help.


    So a quick trip to the trasgu village later, and I found a way to at least get out from the stone walls that made up the building. The village was in a small collapsed area, something like a wooden shed or stable area. Here, little trasgu made their houses in the rubble, bits of smoke coming out of the larger piles of debris, making it look like the place was just destroyed if you couldn''t smell the scent of pork.


    ¡°Hola! Hay alguien en casa?¡±


    Next thing I knew, goblins started coming out of the literal woodwork.


    ¡°Bienvenido, heroe, que te trajo a nuestra aldea¡±


    A familiar goblin appeared to welcome me, though I would disagree on the hero title. This was the one that knelt in front of me while I healed myself. His skin was a darker shade of green, but his eyes were much brighter, like emerald gemstones¡­


    Why did I have to make it weird?


    ¡°He venido a visitar, y quedarme un rato si me dejan¡±


    The goblins face twitched for a moment, before grinning


    ¡°Por supuesto, d¨¦jame traerte a un lugar donde puedas descansar¡±


    The goblin took me to a spot between three piles that reached waist high. There wasn''t much open space between the piles, goblins stepping over the tops to reach where they wanted to go. I was a bit too heavy for that, so I decided to try something else, sending my ki to the soles of my feet and trying to make something like snowshoes. Save for a few buckling piles and a few cracks it worked pretty well, giving me a skill called ¡°shadow foot¡± that lets me reduce the effect of my weight at a low cost of ki.


    I thanked the goblin and sat down in a lotus position, hoping to continue my meditation after the goblin left.


    ¡°Si necesitas algo, pide por Milesio¡±


    Milesio huh, so that was his name¡­


    So I was back to meditating. Trying to sense the space around me, the nanoscopic effect that everything had on it, any shifts in my sensation of time, when a little mushroom bumped into me.


    It was an infant trasgu, using an oversized mushroom cap as a hat. I have to admit, its big head and small body looked pretty cute, so as the strange creature tried to climb into my lap I decided to help it out a bit. Its was small enough to fit in my hand, looking more like a strange doll than a creature as it flailed around weakly. In the meanwhile I was trying to use MP and PP to exert a force on space, which didn''t really help much because I was effectively trying to push a piece of nothing. I began to focus more and more, permeating the area around me with my MP, PP and KI. The space around me was so clear, as the movement of the dust, the air currents, even the instantaneous passage of light was felt as I spread my senses through the area- when did the other 17 get on my lap.


    Currently, 18 little baby trasgu were piling on top of me. How the hell they got on me when I would notice if a single speck of dust was out of place I do not know, but them leaning on each other like a bunch of little green hairless kittens was too peaceful for me to disrupt in good conscience.


    There I was, sitting¡­ in.. the¡­ moment¡­


    And it happened again. The babies seem to have left earlier, and a small bowl with pork soup was sitting next to me, still warm.


    ¡°Gracias, Milesio¡±


    So I sat down as started to contemplate. It was a lot darker now, yet he could feel the world around him just as well through his pools. He even seemed to gain a few skills, ESP for psionics, Mana sense for magic, and Ki scanning for Ki. all did basically the same thing, though using all of them at once gave a lot of detail. Even in the darkness, I could see everything. Darkness was usually associated with space and light with time weren¡¯t they? I guess that¡¯s because space if generally dark, dotted with the occasional star, while light is constantly in motion, moving at the greatest possible speed.


    Of course, light was made of photons, electromagnetic waves carrying energy about as fast as the universe would allow them. It carried information as well, based on its wavelength and frequency, either as radio waves running across vast distances, the shorter wavelengths of WiFi, fiber optic cable, or even as visible light, just permeating through space and bouncing off objects or heating them up. And then light was still just an electromagnetic wave, a ripple traveling across a field. A ripple that surged out of fire and lightning, but a ripple nonetheless.


    On the other hand, darkness was just the lack of light. Shadow wasn¡¯t a thing, it was the effect that occurred when the light couldn¡¯t reach. It was caused by anything that prevented the light reaching your eyes. It was nothing more than a void of light, with nothing there.


    Well, it appears I was sitting down for a while, since I gained the minimum affinity for both¡­ lightning, and¡­ void? To be honest I was expecting light and darkness. I feel I¡¯m getting somewhere closer to space and time affinity, though given that it seems to be much harder to achieve than any other affinities I¡¯ve seen so far. Maybe it¡¯s just not an affinity? I hope it is, since I have been getting close to ¡°something¡±. Maybe it¡¯s a higher kind of affinity? Something harder to get than the standard elemental and even the various ¡°power¡± affinities like magic, Psionic, ki and blood. Hmm...

 Chapter 3: cid and lid

    Basic lightning and void affinity cost 2 points each, while achieving the minimum affinity only gave one point. From the skills I gained a total of 4 feat points, meaning to get the basic versions I ended up spending a net 2 points. On the bright side, that means that there are higher kinds of affinities, and on the not so bright side it appears that those affinities cost more on a per upgrade basis.


    Either way I was covered in baby goblins again¡­ seriously they¡¯re like newborn pups with how much they like to dogpile me, and it¡¯s adorable. I was at total peace, the children in my lap, the smoke from the piles, the songs of birds in the air, the massive stone walls acting as a perpetual reminder of the fact that I¡¯m trapped in a fantasy land, more smoke from the piles¡­


    Actually, I don¡¯t think there¡¯s supposed to be that much smoke¡­


    Carefully moving the infants behind me, I activated shadow foot, this time empowered by my new void affinity, and ran across the piles to reach the place the smoke was rising from. Luckily it seemed whatever the cause was didn¡¯t spread, since it appeared that even though the piles were built so close to each other, they were still separated far enough that the fire couldn¡¯t crawl from one to another, and with the walls at every side there wasn¡¯t any worry of embers flying about. A part of me wondered exactly how much of that design was purposeful and how much was coincidental. If they were smart enough to design their communities like that, then they should be smart enough to build actual construction, right? The only reason why they wouldn¡¯t is that they want to look like they live in a bunch of ruins and rubble, but the only reason they would do that would be so¡­


    So nobody realizes they¡¯re here¡­


    based on how they interacted with the cyclops before, these seem like they aren¡¯t that high up in the food chain¡­ maybe they build their homes like that to make it look like they aren¡¯t here? Because otherwise¡­


    I finally saw what was causing the smoke. One of the piles was on fire, men dressed in chainmail standing over it with torches. The men carried small shields to fend off the trasgu that harried them with their small spears. One of the goblins in particular seemed to be darting about, rallying the others


    ¡°Vamos, hideputas, d¨¦jenme ense?arles el valor de los trasgu¡±


    ¡°????¡±


    Good to see Milesio knew how to use that spear, keeping himself at reach while harassing the enemy. Not entirely sure which language that is, but given everything so far, I¡¯m guessing Arabic. Stepping forward, I decided to try out a new trick, combining the usage of psionic power and magic power to cast a spell. Willing the electrons in the air to flow freely with psychic power, I began to guide them with magic to chain between all of the enemies. Using up about 30 points of PP and 20 points of MP, I managed to ionize the air between the enemies, casting a fairly famous spell from my D&D days


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>chain lightning spell unlocked, level 1 </h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>causes an electric charge to flow from one enemy to another enemy up to 10 meters away INT times</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The electric bolt jumped from one enemy to another, mainly being attracted to their chainmail and surging through that. Of course while that save them from the worst of the electrocution, they now wore heated metal on top of thick padding, not the kind of thing that¡¯s comfortable to wear outside of the arctic tundra¡­ especially next to a fire¡­


    After that little trick, I went around to bark a ¡°friendly suggestion¡± at Milesio before ducking down myself.


    ¡°MUEVE TUS HOMBRES PARA ATR¨¢S, DEJA QUE ESTOS SE CANSEN PARA ATACAR!¡±


    Of course the attackers were slightly distracted by me, running after me instead of attacking the goblins. Given that I showed off that I¡¯m a mage, they probably want to focus me down before I cast another spell after the last one seemed to have failed. Ah, yes, run little men, run until your little hearts give out and your brains overheat¡­ am I becoming a villain?


    Anyway, activating shadow step and trying to use PP and MP to move a bit faster. This of course gave me an edge over the invaders in their heavy chainmail and heated under armor. Running back to the edge of the little village, I noticed they began to slow down. Looping around and back to the goblin ambush, and they were sweating buckets and heaving for breath right before the goblins came in.


    I looked over at the men, who raised their shields to prepare to fight to the last.


    ¡°Bajen sus armas¡±


    The leader looked me in the eye. There was a manic zeal in those eyes, as well as a determination as steely and sharp as a knife.


    ¡°??? ?? ?????? ??? ???¡±


    No idea what that meant, but for some reason I doubt it was a declaration of surrender. They weren¡¯t even surrounded? If this was reality they would have already retreated, right?


    Killing a monster dragonfly or a brutal cyclops is one thing. Those just act as monsters with no other desire than to rip and tear. The goblins on the other hand, they took care of me, they gave me food, they let me in their village, while the people in front of me are people. Sure they may have attacked my friends and tried to kill me, but they are people. People are supposed to value their lives, so why are they standing there exhausted while they have a perfectly open avenue of retreat?


    ¡°Milesio, porque ellos atacaron?¡±


    The goblin looked at me with tired eyes.


    ¡°Los almor¨¢vides atacan a todos los que no se someten ante ellos. Ya han destruido a dos aldeas, esta es la tercera. La raz¨®n porque construimos nuestras aldeas as¨ª, con la mayor¨ªa debajo de la tierra, es para escondernos de ellos. Ellos son mucho m¨¢s grandes, liderados por el culebre en la torre central, mientras nosotros s¨®lo tenemos nuestras aldeas en las afueras, siempre arriesg¨¢ndonos para explorar nuevas rutas que nos lleven alrededor de su territorio¡± A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    So this wouldn¡¯t be the first time, huh¡­


    I started to think, my analysis skill working on overdrive. These were the outskirts, while further inward where more of these bastards lived, along with a cuelebre, which my monster hunter skill told me was a giant winged snake with fire breath. Remembering my history, the almoravids were a part of the moors in Spain before the reconquista, them being brought in when the moorish kingdoms that were already there were going through dangerous times. Then they began sacking and pillaging everything, including their moorish friends. It seemed that they came because the arquitectura of the area was themed on medieval Spain. Theoretically if I headed away from the center of the area I should eventually reach the real world¡­ but can I really leave milesio here alone? I mean they lived without me before¡­ on the run, but they lived. Of course¡­ if I could ¡°persuade¡± the almoravids to ¡°chill the fuck down with the conquering¡± there wouldn¡¯t be a problem now would there? It¡¯s not that I¡¯m having fun living in a video game with ultra realistic fantasy combat and 100% realistic graphics, it''s that I can¡¯t leave in good conscience knowing that those puppy like babies are in danger. Ok maybe I¡¯m having a little bit of fun experimenting¡­ with¡­ magic¡­


    It happened again, but this time was different. Instead of time speeding up, it slowed down. Just enough for me to see the arrow careening into milesio¡¯s skull in slow motion. Of course, I activated ki boost and flung myself to try and catch the arrow, though at this rate it would reach milesio before I reached it. I started to use MP and PP, trying to push myself just a little bit further, stretching out as the arrow got slower and slower¡­


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>minimum time affinity achieved minimum space affinity achieved </h1>


    <h1>synchronization 100%</h1>


    <h1>Minimum dimensional affinity achieved</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>dimensional affinity is the result of combining space and time affinity, boosting the effect of both attributes by a large margin, and all other affinities by a small margin.</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And that distracted me so I ended up with the arrow impaled in my hand instead of catching it between my fingers¡­ FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU


    The arrow came from a horseman in the distance. I couldn¡¯t close my hand right now, so relying on my pain resistance and the fact that pain seems to be ignored while ¡°in combat¡± I pushed the arrow all the way through, leaving me with the stigmata of a hole in my hand. That horseman can die¡­


    I summoned KI, PP, MP, and even HP thanks to blood affinity, to my hand. Then I began to add the elemental affinities, the burning power of fire, the swiftness of wind, the weight of earth, the flow of water, the shock of lightning, the entropy of the void, and the cosmic power of the dimension. I felt as almost all of my pools hit zero, HP floating just a little bit above 5. I felt weakened, last thing I heard before blacking out was the goblins war cries¡­


    When I woke up, i found myself on a bed. A part of me assumed it was all a dream until I opened my eyes and noticed it was decidedly not my dorm room. It looks like the goblins carried me here after I blacked out. A few different screens were awaiting me


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>aether blast skill unlocked, level 1 </h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>by combining all the worldly elements of light, darkness, space, time, fire, water, wind and earth, you generate quintessence, and using the incredible power of this quintessence, you blow your enemies to bits.</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>minimum aether affinity achieved </h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>by combining all the worldly elements into their perfect form, you have discovered aether, which now permeates everything you do.</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Level UP x2!!</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name:Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 7</h1>


    <h1>HP: 5/84 </h1>


    MP: 0/119


    PP: 0/70


    KI: 0/84


    <h1>STR:12 DEX:10 CON:11</h1>


    <h1>INT:17 WIL:10  CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: 2</h1>


    <h1>Status effects: soul exhaustion </h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 2, pain resistance 1, mana bolt 1, medical magic 4, ki healing 1, psionic healing 1, ki boost 1, ignition spell 2, meditation 2, shadow foot 1, ESP 1, Mana sense 1, ki scan 1, analysis 1, chain lightning 1, aether blast 1,</h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, basic magic affinity, basic fire affinity, basic blood affinity, basic ki affinity, basic Psionic affinity, basic water affinity, basic earth affinity, basic air affinity, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, basic lightning affinity, basic void affinity, basic dimensional affinity, minimum aether affinity.</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 3</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Well, that aether affinity had my name on it from the start, didn¡¯t it. But in all seriousness, nearly all of my pools were at 0, and not regenerating due to ¡°soul exhaustion¡±


    Checking over that with analysis told me that it meant my soul was ¡°full¡±. All of my affinities started taking up too much space, so now my resource pools refused to regenerate. Of course after feeling my affinities I wasn¡¯t so worried. The aether affinity was draining the other elemental affinities to grow itself, freeing up space in the process. As for the aether affinity itself? Well if before I felt the elements around me as a masterful painting, now I felt them as a tempest of light, sound and color, everything in its perfect place, yet still moving to a better one. It stopped being static and felt¡­ alive.


    After that I checked my available feats and was¡­ surprised¡­


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Available Feats:                         Beginner magic affinity (4 points)  Beginner blood affinity (4 points) Beginner ki affinity (4 points)        Beginner Psionic affinity (4 points) Beginner fire affinity (4 points) Beginner water affinity (4 points)    Beginner earth affinity (4 points) Beginner air affinity (4 points) commander (10 points) Basic giant slayer (5 points)         Magical healthcare (100 points) Psychometabolism (100 points) Ki cultivation (100 points)</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    I didn¡¯t have enough points for a single one¡­ maybe it¡¯s because I focused so much on unlocking affinities that I ignored skills, but¡­ anyway I¡¯m not going to be able to do much about it in my situation, so might as well meditate to speed along the process of the aether eating the other affinities¡­ wow, the meditation and analysis skills already leveled up¡­ maybe I should save up for one like magical healthcare? The ki cultivation one seems interesting, adding a point to my will every level up and letting me add half of my will to my physical stats for the purposes of my abilities like strength.


    I took a moment to plan out my abilities. Right now, will and intelligence were my most used stats, followed by strength and constitution. Those more expensive feats seem like they¡¯ll let me use the former in exchange for the later, so it may be wise to add to the former. Adding the two points to will, I went back to meditation, thinking of new skills I could make to get feat points fast


    ¡°Cid, has despertado¡±


    Milesio came into the room, holding a bowl of pork soup.


    ¡°Mi nombre es aether, no Cid. Milesio, qu¨¦ pas¨® despu¨¦s que me desmaye?¡±


    ¡°Cid significa se?or, despu¨¦s que lanzaste el proyectil a el caballero enemigo, los almor¨¢vides decidieron huir. Parec¨ªa que ten¨ªan refuerzos, pero al ver su comandante hecho trozos, decidieron que necesitaban m¨¢s¡±


    So after seeing their commanding officer being destroyed in front of them made them decide that it wasn¡¯t worth the risk?


    Either way, it looks like I should get training soon.

 Chapter 4: montage please…

    Soon enough, my aether affinity ate enough of the other affinities to make enough space, though it reduced all the other elemental affinities to minimum level. Soon enough it seemed they would be completely consumed, bringing aether affinity up to basic, but before then I decided to try out a few things. First up was using medical magic, psionic healing and Ki healing to bring me back up to full health. Once I could stand I began to walk about, finding myself in another hallway. Here the goblins were tuckered away in their rooms, and at the end of the hallway was a barred door blocking us off.


    Next on the agenda was to try to convert resources from one pool into resources from the other, granting me MP conversion, PP conversion and KI conversion, each giving me the ability to exchange them at a rate of 10:1. Finally I tried to manipulate the elements using magic, ki and Psionics, giving me an elemental manipulation, a elemental martial art, and an elemental -kinesis for each of the four elements, respectively. That seemed to push my aether affinity over the edge, making it consume the remains of the others.


    That actually caused it to collapse all of my elemental control skills to collapse and combine into elementalism. Unfortunately elementalism consumed half of the feat points I had to generate it. I didn¡¯t even know skills could consume feat points to form! In the end, I spent a day to obtain 6 feat points. Admittedly I still gained with the elementalism skill, since I could use any of my pools to activate it, and could even manipulate the elements around me slightly without spending any resources, even though that only amounted to a small breeze or warming the air.


    The next day I ended up trying to train several skills at once, such as using all of my sensory abilities and combining those with analysis. I managed to hold it for about a second before the information overload made it imposible to focus by frizzing my head, though it seems like they could also combine if I could actually handle all of that information¡­ on the bright side, each skill leveled up once due to how I found new ways to use them. It even specified on the level up screen why they leveled up since analysis leveled up. Finally I tried using Psionics and magic to reinforce my body the way ki does, of course my body felt more like a puppet than a body, and I didn¡¯t get any real skills¡­ so only 4 feat points today


    The next day I decided on a slightly risky skill to learn, trying to convert health to my other pools. It took me several hours to actually gain the blood conversion skill, which I assume was based on blood affinity. The reason it took me so long was probably because I was slightly worried about accidentally draining my health completely, so I only did little pinpricks, which only served to bleed me out without actually achieving anything. That meant I needed to spend time on using my healing abilities, of which ki healing and psionic healing leveled up once. 3 feat points¡­ a pattern?


    The next day I tried training said conversion skills, mainly by shifting 10 points of HP to 1 point of MP, 10 points of MP to one point of PP, 10 points of PP to one point of KI, and 10 points of KI to one point of health, and repeat until half health and wait until the next day. 0 feat points¡­


    doing the same thing the next day caused all 4 of them to level up, changing the exchange ratio from 10:1 to 9:1. A part of me wonders what happens at level 10 of these skills if they actually go on a progression like that, from 9:1 to 8:1 to 7:1 etc¡­


    I guess at that point they¡¯re basically all the same pool?


    The next day I was going to continue training the conversion skills, since having a health pool 4 times bigger than normal would probably help me with bigger hits like when the Oj¨¢ncano got me with his knee.


    However, before I was going to begin my training, the door at the end of the hallway began to shake, as if something on the other side was trying to burst it down. Milesio and the other goblins were packing their things, getting ready to go out through one of the windows before the door was broken down. It seriously hasn¡¯t even been¡­ a¡­ week¡­


    I¡¯ve been in this place for a week, and the closest I¡¯ve had to peace and quiet was the 4 days of training¡­ the rest of my time was spent meditating trying to figure out what¡¯s going on, or fighting in this goddamn game. Well, ya know what?


    I looked for Milesio to figure out the situation


    ¡°Qu¨¦ est¨¢ pasando?¡±


    ¡°Los almor¨¢vides encontraron nuestros exploradores y los siguieron aqu¨ª, parecer¨ªa que nos encontraron¡±


    Seems like the same thing that happened before. I guess they would have tried to escape back then if I hadn¡¯t killed the enemy commander¡­


    I killed a man, huh¡­ I guess having buckets of adrenaline flowing through your veins, an arrow through your hand, and friends to protect made it easier to do in the moment¡­


    Milesio walked back to the barred door, spear in hand. It looked like he planned to fight, spear in hand.


    ¡°A donde vas Milesio?¡± (Where are you going, Milesio?)


    He looked at me with the same tired look as before, but now, a new determination appeared in those emerald eyes.


    ¡°Si nadie mantiene la puerta los almor¨¢vides nos atacar¨¢n antes de que los infantes se puedan evacuar. Tu pareces joven para un humano, as¨ª que probablemente no entiendes, pero un padre defiende sus hijos hasta el final¡±


    Well, with a speech like that I couldn¡¯t exactly sit to the sides, now could I? To be honest, baby goblins weren¡¯t the best looking creatures, but the little buggers grow on you, not that I would tell that to Milesios face. I didn¡¯t know the man had a family, but something that unites almost all sentient beings together is the need to protect your family. And to be honest, these little green skinned guys were the closest thing I had¡­ Stolen story; please report.


    ¡°Asumo que la madre est¨¢ con sus hijos?¡±


    Looks like I said something wrong, as milesios shoulders dropped, and his gaze went blank for a moment


    ¡°Ella estaba conmigo cuando nos encontramos con el Oj¨¢ncano¡±


    Right¡­ the blood splatters¡­


    ¡°Perd¨®n¡±


    So, I immediately fled that situation. I honestly prefer the types of problems you can blast away rather than problems that you can¡¯t solve, even if the former presents significantly greater risk of being stabbed. Besides, I blast them all, and they can¡¯t hurt the goblins.


    I will not let those little green buggers grow up orphans.


    The doors hinges were already coming off the walls, the wooden bar splintering in the middle. It was already too late to try to keep the door there, so I decided to take a different approach.


    I wanted to make spikes facing towards the door out of the walls and floor, but I couldn¡¯t just make stone from nothing. Instead, I tried to increase the space between the molecules of the stone, expanding conical sections in the shape of a field of sharp spikes reaching up to knee level. This should keep them at bay and us out of the reach of their swords. On the other hand, there was enough space for Milesio to step between the spikes and hit them with his spear, while I fired blasts of aether from above.


    And then I heard the buzzing¡­


    IT WAS THOSE GOD FORSAKEN DRAGONFLIES AGAIN!!!


    Now, it was personal. As the door cracked and shattered, showing that the other side was nothing more than cinders, the fuckers flew over the spikes, rushing at me. Of course, now I could burn them as well.


    Using elementalism, I poured my resources into a cone in front of me, causing the air to heat up and blow, using a bit to generate fuel for the fire.


    The flies began to burn, the fire seeming to home in on them. Ashes and burnt husks fell onto the field of spikes as the dragonflies flew in like moths to a literal flame.


    ¡°He, hehe, HA, HAHA, HAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!¡±


    I may have gotten a bit excited¡­


    ¡°HOW DO YOU LIKE IT YOU INSECTS!? CHOKE ON MY VENGEANCE!!! CHOKE ON IT!!!¡±


    Ok, I may have self control issues¡­


    Soon enough, the dragonflies stopped coming, replaced by Almoravid raiders standing at the door. I only had a tenth of my non health resources left, so I wouldn¡¯t be able to use magic blasts like I planned to. Instead, I grabbed a spike and reshaped it into a spear, heating it up, increasing its size, sharpening and refining it. Soon enough I held a long stone spear with a broad bladed point. I used it to harass the raiders, letting Milesio finish them off whenever they fell over.


    It felt weird¡­ maybe it was the catharsis from murdering all of those flies, maybe because it wasn¡¯t my spear that killed them, but I didn¡¯t really feel anything as I went around pushing the raiders to their deaths at Milesio¡¯s speartip. Even as I watched him drive his spear through someone¡¯s eye and into their skull, I could only think of how many more I had to knock down.


    It even felt tedious, just jab, sweep, thrust, repeated over and over again. They couldn¡¯t really reach me since it was impossible for them to bring their own pole weapons into the corridor. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I¡¯m happy that this is so safe for me, but I don¡¯t believe ending someone¡¯s life should ever invoke a feeling of boredom¡­


    several minutes later they stopped coming in, allowing me and Milesio to finally retreat to the window. Said window was located in one of the goblin rooms, leading towards the roof. The problem was that it was small enough that a goblin had to squeeze through it, let alone a human like me.


    ¡°Vete, yo encuentro otra manera de salir¡±


    ¡°Cid, refuerzos almor¨¢vides ya est¨¢n en ruta, ser¨¢ casi imposible escaparse¡±


    ¡°No soy su Cid, y encontrar¨¢s que soy un poquito m¨¢s adaptable de lo que parezco¡±


    Before he could form a rebuttal, I stormed off. The more time I argued with him, the more difficult it would be to escape. Soon enough I was out of the hallway that acted as my home for the last 4 days and running through the labyrinthine passages of the dungeon.


    It wasn¡¯t long before I heard the sound of marching raiders. I used elementalism to make myself a little cranny to hide in, and hid my breathing with my ki, and covered the cranny with an illusion and a feeling of emptiness with lightning and void manipulation. Soon enough the boots passed by, and apparently counting the battle is over, I was bombarded with notifications.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Level UP x3!!!</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>spear mastery skill unlocked, level 1</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>increases your ability with the spear, +5% accuracy and power per level</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>hidden presence unlocked, level 1</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>use ki to hide signs of your presence like breath and heartbeat</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>elemental manufacture skill unlocked, consumed by elementalism</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>allows you to craft with the elements, creating objects with magic. Qualitative goes up with level, cost goes down with level</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>light manipulation unlocked, consumed by elementalism</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>allows you to control light, creating colorful optical illusions </h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>shadow manipulation unlocked, consumed by elementalism</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>allows you to manipulate the void, shifting it ever so slightly so that light sound, and other forms of information are muted</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>elementalism leveled up, level 7</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>allows you to manipulate the elements. Power rises with strength, intelligence and will, efficiency rises with level. (bonus: all elemental effects will be infused with trace amounts of aether, increasing effect)</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    interesting, most of them were eaten by elementalism, though at least they still gave me the feat points. Going over the bonus, it appears it¡¯s something that happened due to my aether affinity. I gained 11 feat points, as well as 3 stat points. I put the stat points into intelligence to bring it up to an even 20, and brought up my screen

 Chapter 5: out of the frying pan

    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name:Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 10</h1>


    <h1>HP: 121/121 </h1>


    MP: 70/200


    PP: 46/120


    KI: 46/120


    <h1>STR:12 DEX:10 CON:11</h1>


    <h1>INT:20 WIL:12  CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: </h1>


    <h1>Status effects: </h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 2, pain resistance 1, mana bolt 1, medical magic 4, ki healing 2, psionic healing 2,KI conversion 2, MP conversion 2, PP conversion 2, blood conversion 2, ki boost 1, elementalism 7, meditation 3, shadow foot 1, ESP 2, Mana sense 2, ki scan 2, analysis 3, aether blast 1, spear mastery 1, hidden presence 1</h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, basic magic affinity, basic blood affinity, basic ki affinity, basic Psionic affinity, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, basic aether affinity.</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 26</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Still pretty far away from my goal of 100 feat points, but¡­


    I kept walking, looking for a way to get to the roof and meet with the goblins. I barely noticed as the walls went from stone to cement, the floors from flagstone to tile. It was only when I realized that the light from the torches turned to light from ceiling lamps that I learned that I was definitely in a different section of the dungeon. Continuing with my exploration I finally found the computer room¡­ INTERNET MY OLD FRIEND, HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU!!!!!!


    And then I realized that none of the computers had internet connection¡­


    FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU¡­


    Interestingly enough, each of the computers was opened to the same file, titled: Experimental log ( P3RF3C7 570RM megaprion/ code name Perfect Storm)


    Day 1: subject omega, an albino lab rat, is fed the final form of project perfect storm mixed in with its regular feed


    Day 7: subject omega has demonstrated an enormous increase in endurance, strength, and notably intelligence.


    Day 13: subject omega has died of unknown cause. Autopsy reveals no damage, all systems seem perfectly healthy, if not well above what is expected of a simple rat. Nervous system shows increased development, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, as well as in the increased muscle mass.


    Day 16: subject omega tissue samples have all been lost. Previous containers of tissue samples are found empty, possibly an error on the part of the hygienics engineer.


    Day 20: strange black stain found in lab. Unidentifiable until Jos¨¦, the bloody genius, decided to put it under a microscope. It was identical to subject omega¡¯s missing tissue. It appeared to act as a colonial organism, with different cells acting out different functions, but each being an individual organism separate from the whole. Captured for study.


    Day 27: the sample, named subject Taw, has gained additional biomass from unknown sources. Its size, strength, and intelligence seemed to have increased, demonstrating the ability to solve increasingly difficult puzzles.


    Day 32: we¡¯ve found a clue as to the source of subject Taw¡¯s apparent intelligence. Each cell acts simultaneously as a muscle, nerve, and blood cell. This allows it to use a form of swarm intelligence, where each cell acts as part of a much larger ¡°brain¡±. This was proven by comparing the intelligence of the organism before and after having a part split off, where the part that was removed retained a very basic ability to respond to stimuli, the main body lost a portion of its cognitive capability, the equivalent to a single year in grade school. This experiment was repeated several times, each time finding a similar drop in cognitive ability proportional to the mass removed.


    Day 64: we¡¯ve allowed the mass to grow. We still do not know where it obtained the biomass needed to feed itself, as it lacks any form of photosynthetic, filtering, or lithophagic organs. It''s been a bit over a month and it is now the size of a large dog. It is also able to learn quite rapidly, at the current level of a 10th grader


    Day 78: it escaped its enclosure. We were eventually able to corral it back in, but it seemed to leave a black ichor around the floor. Upon identification with a microscope, we found that it was individual cells as well as extracellular fluids.  We mopped it up immediately.


    Day 176: it''s been two months since Jose turned. We figured out the root cause of the infection, P3RF3C7 520RM turned into a form of pseudo-virus. This virus overwrote the natural DNA of subject omega, changing it at the cellular level. After a couple months, it was already capable of infecting other microorganisms, and a week after that, small insects, a day after that, any lizard that it could come across. We found a way to fight it off, an enzyme that''s attracted to the enormous protein structure it forms, destroying the infection before it can take over the host. We already took this enzyme, and are processing more, but we believe it may be too late. We would need to dump this onto the main body to kill it permanently, but our first priority has to be containment.


    Day 184: we¡¯ve almost completed containing the spread. We simply painted the perimeter of the area with the enzymes, it apparently can''t stand the smell, possibly an adaptation after we almost managed to kill it with a good splash.


    Day 186: we managed to complete the perimeter, however, it appears that we were too late. The thing took over Jos¨¦¡¯s body, mocking us from outside the door, as it continuously tried to burst it down. Luckily it couldn''t get through, for now. This file should appear on the computers in the computer room. If you¡¯re reading this, the key to the lab is 1337, get in there, grab the enzyme solution, and kill that thing. If we haven''t starved to death yet, thank you for saving us. And if we have¡­ well, thanks for trying¡­


    WELL THEN¡­


    It appears I went from a fantasy dungeon to a Sci-Fi one, not to mention one with what appears to be the beginning of a zombie outbreak. And in video games, zombies form a third of the ¡°guilt free murder¡± holy trinity of Nazis, zombies and robots, in that order.


    Now, when you stumble on a quest in a dungeon, you goddamn complete it. So, of course, I begin my trek towards the lab room, where they synthesized the enzyme. I also managed to find where the perimeter was drawn, because there was a straight line dividing the floor between clean tile, and a black goo. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    So of course I bravely stood behind said line like a little bitch, and lobbed attacks at the goop.


    Of course my first instinct was to kill it with fire. That actually turned a section of it to ash, but the rest of it recovered the area and regrew so fast the ash might as well have been an inflatable. Next was trying to electrocute it, like a fly buzzer. It made the thing jiggle a bit, but not much else. It did get me a skill that was immediately eaten by elementalism though. Tried using cold to freeze them, ended up the same as using fire. Crushing them with rock didn''t do much, or anything I could do with air at my level. Finally I decided to try using radiology, or blasting it with gamma radiation from my old light manipulation. It actually made it stay down, but it took a lot of resources compared to the effect it achieved.


    I decided to meditate in front of it, activating analysis as well as my sensory skills. Focusing on it helped to relieve the information overload, but I could still only hold it for a couple of seconds at a time. Any longer than that and my brain couldn''t digest all the information at once. Eventually, I came up with the bright idea to use medical magic to try and replace the enzyme.


    It worked very well. The goop began to run away from the area. I thought this was great, then the robots appeared¡­


    There weren''t any terminator style humanoid robots though, it was made up of a small carriage with tank treads, and a¡­ is that a laser?


    I immediately ducked down as a pulse of ionized air formed a line between what appeared to be an array of lenses and the wall behind me, going right through where my head was a second before.


    Of course a quick EMP put the little bugger down, getting me a magnetic manipulation skill, which was then absorbed into elementalism¡­ I feel this elementalism skill is going somewhere¡­


    Just in case, I decided to try and ¡°bend¡± time and space just a little, creating a small pocket dimension. Nothing really big, with an event horizon too small to even see. I knew it was there because it sucked up an enormous amount of resources, but¡­ I think it was smaller than an atom¡­


    On the bright side, it did give me several skills, including the space and time manipulation ones, who merged into dimensional manipulation, who merged into elementalism¡­


    And with that my elementalism skill reached level 10¡­ I feel like I satisfied some form of requirement for something, but something is still missing until I get the reward¡­ at least that''s what the analysis skill said.


    Either way, it seems that the goop won''t be back here for a while, but just in case, I went behind the corner of the halway to meditate for a while until my resources filled back up. I decided to think on what each of those resources were. Ki, blood and psionics were simplest. They were my energy, vitality, and thought. Ki was a driving force that let me go beyond, blood gave me the power to keep going and grow and change, while psionics was my ability to think and decide according to my own will¡­


    magic, on the other hand, seemed a bit more complicated. It allowed me to manipulate the world around me, but didn¡¯t seem tied to my intelligence the way psionics was to my will, ki to my strength, or blood to my constitution. It almost seemed like my intelligence was a magnifier rather than the origin. In fact, intelligence seems like a fairly interesting stat in and of itself. My will, strength,  toughness, and alacrity increase by predictable amounts with each stat, but my intelligence¡­ it seems a bit different.


    I guess that¡¯s because intelligence is really hard to define. Is it how much you know? No, that would be knowledge. Is it how fast you can calculate? In that case my old calculator would be smarter than every human in the world despite its inability to form any manner of speech. Perhaps it¡¯s the ability to recognize patterns? Then what about when there is no pattern, and it¡¯s just an unsustainable conspiracy. Intelligence was a combination of all of those and more, but as I raised it the increases to my own abilities were minuscule. The main effect it had was increasing my ability in magic, increasing my control. Maybe that was it, control? Maybe magic was the ability to control, but what was it controlling? The movement of particles? The flow of space? The laws of nature? Perhaps a mixture of all three, but the question of how remains¡­


    what gives it that ability. Does it stem from my knowledge? My computing power? Or something else¡­


    Analysis leveled up?


    Oh, it leveled up again. Seems like something about those musings was on point. Maybe¡­


    I tried analyzing my MP. It told me it was determined by my intelligence, and was the power of ¡°potentiality of information¡±. It appeared that every thought, every action, every stray bit of information added a tiny bit of force. My intelligence dictated how much of that potentiality I could store, as well as how much I could use. That potentiality was then converted into an actual force upon reality, causing magic.


    Analyzing the other forces, I saw that ki originated from my strength as I thought, acting as a force that hid in my muscles, strengthening them and accumulating itself up to the limit said muscles could hold, psionics was similar, but based on the power of my will being stored in my mind, and blood was still my force of vitality, my body trying to keep itself together in the face of anything.


    Meditating for another hour finally brought me the welcome notification of my affinities reaching the beginner level. It seemed that actually contemplating the affinities made them evolve more quickly, neat. Each of them gave me 2 feat points, for a total of 8. They also felt easier to use, as if they were another limb. Using analysis, I found that now I would level up skills that used those resources faster, as well as regenerating an extra 1 per hour.


    After that little boost, I decided to return to the hallway, seeing the remains of the robot slowly being dragged back by the goop. Of course, quickly using medical magic to kill it, I took the robocorpse for myself. Back in the fantasy section of the dungeon, I only really had stones to work with to make my spear, but right now I think I¡¯ll make a bit of an upgrade using the metal from the robot. Forcing the metal to expand like I did with the stone while defending the hallway with Milesio, I began to shape the metal the same way I made my spear. This time, however, I wanted to try something. If magic came from potentiality, then theoretically something that was more than one thing at once, like a word with a double meaning, would generate magical potential. Of course, I was never good at puns, so I¡¯m just going to use math instead. Technobabble incoming, you have been warned.


    X2=1 has 2 possible solutions for, 1 and -1. This means that it, like Schr?dinger¡¯s cat, is technically both states simultaneously. This plurality of existence, should theoretically generate a magical potential that can then be used to power different effects. Of course it could be made even more efficient and easier to write by writing x squared as:


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    X


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Get it, x in a square? This should generate slightly more magical potential according to the running theory, as well as being easier to fit next to each other. Then, engraving that onto the entirety of the handle, each taking the minimum amount of space possible, gave me a knurled surface. I mean if this doesn¡¯t work, at least the handle is non slip.


    Using analysis on the spear just told me that it was a spear with a nonslip handle¡­ looks like that didn¡¯t work. I tried feeding the engravings mana, to ¡°start them up¡±, but the metal seemed to resist the mana. Hmm¡­ I could have sworn that would work. Having x^2 be either positive or negative should at least provide a conduit for mana to flow through, like AC electric wiring. Let¡¯s see, X^2=1 means X*X=1 so X is either 1 for 1*1=1, or X is -1 since -1*-1=1¡­ oh look it¡¯s working now.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>mathematics skill unlocked, consumed by analysis</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>assists with the calculation of quantity, structure and change. </h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>analysis evolved into evaluation</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>assists with collecting, processing and comparing information</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>runic enchanting skill unlocked</h1>


    </td>


    <td>


    <h1>allows you to enchant object with special runes</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>elementalism leveled up, level 11</h1>


    </td>


    <td> </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Well, I am now close to 50 feat points, and I think I might know how to get more¡­

 Chapter 6: boss mode

    I tried writing ¦Á¦Å¦Ó¦Ç¦Å¦Ñ on the blade of the spear, followed by the symbol for ¡°radioactive¡±. ¦Á¦Å¦Ó¦Ç¦Å¦Ñ was my name written in Greek, which I was hoping would enhance the spears radioactive symbol like my aether affinity boosted my elemental abilities. I knew that was my name written in Greek because the concept of aether originally came from Greek, so at some point I decided to look it up. I tried applying my mana to it, but it seemed to keep sucking in mana, as if it needed a much greater supply to get started. I managed to start it up using my conversion skills to make my other resources into mana, getting me a level in each resource conversion skill¡­ except mana. That is not going to let me sleep at night. On the bright side when I used evaluate on the spear it told me


    ¡°Spear of Aether Blight: a spear forged from high quality steel using elemental manufacture. It is enchanted with over one thousand mana regeneration runes, a radiation rune and an aether rune. It¡¯s base damage is equal to 2.5 times strength, and inflicts the irradiated status on every hit¡±


    Interesting. It gave me the damage of the spear as a multiplier, which makes sense given that getting poked by a toddler and getting poked by a bodybuilder are very different things. It also causes the ¡°irradiated¡± status effect, which a quick evaluation told me is an advanced form of the disease and poison effects that evolved from radiation poisoning.


    Also, evaluate gave that information verbally instead of as a screen. The voice was robotic. It wasn¡¯t like one of those AI assistants like the one in a smartphone, it was more like a text to speech device, reading each word individually. It felt a lot more convenient than reading over a bunch of screens, especially in the middle of a fight.


    I meditated on all my affinities until my resources were back of full. My stomach was starting to complain, so I should probably look for food soon. Hopefully there''s some on the other side of that giant mass of goop.


    When I touched the goop with the spear it began to glow a greyish color, and large swath of the goop died off, melting from a gelatinous goop to a slurry of black liquid. It appears that this little spear is very good at killi- God dammit.


    ¡°Warning, gained irradiated effect¡±


    I quickly used medical magic to replace any cells that were damaged by the radiation, supplementing it with my other healing skills to speed up the process. It would appear that the spear does the whole radiation thing in an area¡­ on the bright side I leveled up my healing skills¡­ i mean it''s not like I feel myself getting irradiated, I could try and train my skills with it¡­


    And so I went about the lab, walking down the hallway using my spear as a blind person uses their white cane, holding it out along the floor in front of me while using my healing skills to repair any damages I took.


    ¡°Radiation resistance is now level 3¡±


    Oh yeah, I got a resistance effect as well. To be honest, I love that mechanical, automated voice.


    Eventually I came across a big empty room with no goop¡­ no enemies¡­ tables and chairs pushed to the sides¡­ the door just locked behind me¡­ yup, this is a boss room¡­


    At the opposite end of the room big double doors burst open, releasing a floor of the black goop. I stabbed my spear down in front of me, liquifying any that came close, but of course this thing wasn''t trying to drown me in goop. Instead, a bunch of small metal railings bolted into the shape of a humanoid rose up, acting like a skeleton as a mass of the goop swarmed over it to hang inside its frame. Once it stepped away from the goop, i could see it in its complete form. It was basically a collection of scaffoldings for the goop to climb on, its 4 feet were equipped with small wheels. With how top heavy it was due to its 4 arms, 4 feet were needed. The two front arms were simple, just a grabbing claw and a buzzsaw, while the rear arms were a bit more interesting. They had the same collection of lenses and refractors that the tiny robot had, and Just before I dodged their opening salvo, I noticed something appear on the barrels of those lasers.


    They had holographic circles with various symbols appearing inside of them, namely a triangle that turns into a 4 pointed star, gaining points until it reaches 10. It was at that point that it fired, boring a hole through the door behind me. It takes a little longer to charge, but much more powerful than the micro version. However, the biggest piece of news was that it could use magic. I managed to use evaluate on it, just as it zoomed in front of me and jabbed me in the gut  with the buzzsaw before I could react and push it back with my spear.


    ¡°Perfect Storm Combat Drone. Made up of a metallic scaffolding holding a solidified mass of the Perfect Storm slime mold, it can utilize magic, psionics and ki innately. Its main method of combat is to fire off a salvo of its lasers before raising its shields and attempting to dismember the target in close quarters¡±Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    ¡°Warning, gained disembowelment effect, extreme danger¡±


    I immediately activated Ki boost, as well as all of my healing abilities to repair the damages. I used the fibers from the torn up front end of my shirt to stitch my skin back together, using my abilities to fix any internal damages. Almost instantly I ran out of ki, psionics and mana running dangerously low. I came in with less than half of my mana remaining and less than a third of my ki and psionic power in the first place, so I didn''t really have much to work with¡­


    Of course I thrusted out before I ran out of ki boost, hoping to put the thing down before it could do another attack. I did manage to push it back, but it had a forcefield around it that prevented me from hitting the actual goop.


    On the bright side, said shield now has a huge crack¡­


    Now I focused a little more on defense. More than half of my health was missing and the only thing I could use was my spear. If I just defended myself with the spear and waited for an opening¡­


    The robot let down its shields and charged up the lasers. I immediately jumped in, only to find it immediately raise its perfectly repaired shield and try to strike at me. I luckily blocked it with my spear, but the handle was forced across my palm. The runes on the handle acted like sandpaper, leaving me with a very bloody spear. My hands burned like hell, and my first instinct was to drop the thing.


    Then I remembered the death bot in front of me, and decided to maybe not drop the one thing between me and getting disemboweled, again¡­


    So, I stood with my back to the wall, spear held in front. It tried to charge up its laser again, dropping its shield. I moved to the side, and it rushed me again, hitting my spear again,and driving my hands further along the handle before I pushed it back. Then it tried to charge up its lasers again, this time going to a 9 pointed star before moving to rush me with its shields up, but this time¡­


    This time I was ready.


    I was able to barely dodge to the side, pushing it against the tables that formed the makeshift arena. A few steps later and I was in quite the unique position. If it dropped its shields, I could stab it before it could react, and if it rushed, then I would have ample time to get out of the way. Of course it knew this as well, so it decided to rush, just as expected. I used all of my sensory abilities on it, and my ki scanning showed its ki heading towards its legs, preparing to shoot towards me. Although I couldn''t sense the world around me without spending at least one point of the selected resource, I realized I could focus on the skill without spending anything to find other sources of that energy. This allowed me to confirm my predictions while I still had time to react and prepare for the robots rush attack.


    But instead of blocking or sidestepping, I swept at its front legs, bringing it tumbling as it slid to a stop. It was at this point that i''m glad I decided to focus on my sensory abilities, since a bunch of psionic power was accumulating on its back.


    Eventually an eye appeared and fired out what looked to my ESP skill as a polychromatic beam of psychic energy, while my normal eyes saw nothing. Cheeky bugger, an invisible attack ey? Or should I say eye? Soon enough it got up, and the battle continued. I''m not sure if it was the adrenaline, or the fact that I just moved slightly each time, but I just wasn''t feeling tired as the battle dragged on. Soon enough, the robot seemed to get impatient, charging up the lasers, preparing its ki to charge, and collecting psionic power at the same time. Looks like this guy wants to finish it all in one attack, and I couldn''t agree more. As I saw the ki collecting at the bottom of its feet, the psionic energy collecting in its chest, and the lasers reaching the ninth point on their stars, it all just clicked. I could see the line the lasers and the psychic beam would take before they were fired, as well as the path it would charge in. The little shit thought it was smart, firing from the front while it curved its charge to attack from the side. Too bad I could see every move he was going to make.


    I stepped to the opposite side from its charge and thrust my spear in its direction, pouring every resource I had left into that. The elements of fire, water, air, earth, lightning, void, time and space manifested onto my spearhead, reacting with the blood smeared along the handle, lighting the whole spear in a conflagration of aether. I felt the blood still in my body try to reach for the spear, so I forcefully pulled it back. It may have weakened the total power of the spear, but I was already running low on health.


    The spearhead struck the shieldless machine, burying itself deep in the goop, before the goop suddenly bubbled up and blasted in every direction as a blackened slurry.


    Then I looked at the rest of the room and noticed that I was the only thing covered in that slurry. I was particularly worried when said slurry went towards my hand.


    ¡°Evaluation skill leveled up x10, evolved into prognosticator skill. Spear mastery leveled up x5, mana sense ESP and ki scan leveled up x 5, consumed by prognosticator, blood manipulation level 1 unlocked, blood magic level 1 unlocked, consumed by blood manipulation, blood drain level 1 unlocked, consumed by blood manipulation, pain resistance leveled up x3,  aether blast level up, vampire feat achieved¡±


    ¡°Due to blood drain, you absorb the blood of your fallen enemies to recover your resources and raise blood affinity¡±


    ¡°Warning, due to consuming a highly infectious substance, you have become infected with P3RF3C7 520RM. The infection will complete in 5 hours¡±


    Well, shit¡­


    I tried using medical magic to purge the thing, but whenever I tried to destroy it using the same technique I used for when it was outside my bloodstream it would always leave a part unharmed and still damage my own blood. When I tried healing my own blood, it regenerated as well.


    ¡°Ok, I¡¯m very screwed. I would prefer not to turn into a zombie, thank you very much¡­¡±

 Chapter 7: blood frenzy

    ¡°Recommended to consume more blood using blood drain to increase blood affinity, a sufficiently high blood affinity would be capable of countering the infection, however it would require constant consumption to work. Prognosis indicates that if completed successfully, 4:30 continuous hours of consumption would raise blood affinity to the point where the infection could be eradicated, however this would cause the infection to run its course sooner, allowing a window of 10 minutes that can be spent not consuming blood¡±


    I really wasnt looking forward to that. On one hand, higher blood affinity meant more health, as well as not becoming a zombie, while on the downside, I had to go through four hours and thirty minutes of slogging through goop and sucking it into my hands¡­ trying not to think about it, I tried to sense the blood of other organisms, showing me humanoid blobs of the goop just beyond the door the robot came out of.


    ¡°Well thanks for the information¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome. Blood scent skill unlocked, consumed by prognosticator¡±


    Did it just reply to me¡­ anyway, after the skill was consumed by the prognosticator skill, I say the various figures outlines, with mini screens appearing next to them, telling me things like how many hits they could take, how many of their kits I could take, their move speed, etc¡­ to be honest, after the boss, these were ridiculously easy.


    Smashing apart each one with a single blow from my spear, I began charging through, a small arrow in the corner of my vision guiding me on what appeared to be the most roundabout route in the lab. In hindsight, this route did allow him to spend nearly all his time consuming blood instead of having to waste time hunting down individual blotches of goop. Having the blood replenish all of my resources certainly helped as well, using a combination of ki boost, the various conversion skills, and the various healing skills to keep going.


    I¡¯ll be honest, save for being drenched in monster slurry, it was very fun.


    I tore through hallways filled with goop like a 1000 degree knife through virtually any material. And when I say filled with goops, I mean as in literal hallways where the goop reaches up to your neck. The sight of giant holes forming, massive amounts of goop splitting apart as if I was moses, parting the red sea. I still remember where running in blindly got me last time, but this time if I dont i would be guaranteed to die. Also splattering the humanoid and animaloid blobs of goop, or as I like to call them, goop zombies, all over the walls was very cathartic. I just kind of lost myself in the moment, and before I knew it, I was staring down the main body in front of the lab.


    ¡°Foolish human, thinking yourself so powerful. You may have been able to slay each of my extensions, but that is like fighting the hair on the barbers floor, scattering with the barest touch of the wind. For you see, I am the original, having collected my power for untold time, I have the strength to-¡±


    This time, I didn''t even let the bastard finish his distraction speech, cutting it in two with my spear before it could use all the mana it was gathering.


    ¡°You little piece of shit¡±


    ¡°ASSHOLE!!!¡±


    Another cut, and¡­


    ¡°KILL YOU!!!¡±


    ¡°RAWRAGHDGSDGREAREDH¡±


    ¡°KILL¡±


    ¡°EAT¡±


    And one final cut, and they finally stopped talking, allowing me to slash and devour them in piece. With how much my skills and blood affinity leveled up, I was finally able to buy that magical healthcare feat, making it a bit easier to suppress the infection.


    ¡°You have leveled up x10. Mp, ki, pp, and blood conversion have leveled up, ki boost leveled up x2, medical magic, ki healing, and psionic healing leveled up, blood manipulation leveled up x3, advanced blood affinity achieved¡±


    I just bought magical healthcare, and I was already over 50 feat points again. It appears I made the right decision to save up.  Quickly typing in 1337 into the keypad, the lab opened up. There were 4 corpses lying on the floor, nothing but skin and bones. Seems like I was too late¡­


    Trying not to think about that, I looked at one of the test tubes filled with the enzyme designed to stop that thing, and received an interesting message from prognosticator


    ¡°Anti prion enzyme: a solution designed to exterminate the megaprion codenamed perfect storm. Consuming it after having consumed so much of said prion may have additional effects, likely evolving the magical healthcare feat¡±


    Of course, I decided to almost immediately chug the medicine. What? Doctors orders.


    ¡°Magical Healthcare feat evolved into Pluripotent Cells feat. this feat combines intelligence, strength and constitution into one stat (PPC, or pluripotent cell) this is because each of your cells now works as a brain, muscle and stem cell¡±


    Well holy shit¡­


    I immediately put all of my unused stat points from leveling up into PPC, since that gave so many benefits in comparison to my other stats.


    Seriously, when you have to choose between your intelligence, your strength, your toughness, or any other such statistic, it would be really difficult. Now, I could just focus on that one stat, occasionally putting points into the other stats every once in a while. I could just stare at my character sheet for hours¡­ such beautiful big numbers¡­


    With these new boosts, I might be able to find my way back to Milesio and the goblins safely. As well as keep them safe. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name: Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Level: 20</h1>


    <h1>HP: 2016/2016 [level*PPC*1.6] (68/hour) </h1>


    MP: 1360/1360 [level*PPC] (14/hour)


    PP: 220/240 [level*WIL] (65/hour)


    KI: 1360/1360 [level*PPC] (65/hour)


    <h1>PPC:63 DEX:10 </h1>


    <h1>WIL:12  CHA:7</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: </h1>


    <h1>Status effects: </h1>


    <h1>Skills:fire resistance 2, pain resistance 4, radiation resistance 3, mana bolt 1, medical magic 6, ki healing 5, psionic healing 5, KI conversion 4, MP conversion 3, PP conversion 4, blood conversion 4, ki boost 3, elementalism 11, meditation 3, shadow foot 1, prognosticator 1, aether blast 2, spear mastery 6, hidden presence 1, runic enchanting 2,blood manipulation 4,</h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, beginner magic affinity, advanced blood affinity, beginner ki affinity, beginner Psionic affinity, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, basic aether affinity, vampire, pluripotent cells, </h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 52</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Even the interface got an upgrade, becoming much easier to read. Now, having gone through this period of power leveling, I returned to the ¡°fantasy¡± part of the dungeon.


    Soon enough, I came across a new part of the dungeon. It was made from concrete, with a few strange embellishments, like mosaic covered walls, impressionist paintings directly onto the grey stone, and other pieces of¡­ public art?


    Soon enough I noticed the stomping sounds. Further ahead was a large forested area, filled with automatons whose limbs were made from concrete, each piece connected to the other with rebar, as well as trees bursting through concrete and asphalt. Behind me was a large, squat structure, most likely the lab. I could see that far to the left there was a passage that stretched from the concrete into the ground, forming a tunnel that goes under the forested area. I assume that was how I got to the lab area in the first place. Anyway prognosticator, what am I looking at?


    ¡°Concrete golems, formed from rubble and ruined buildings, these automatons share many characteristics with stone golems, however these sacrifice a portion of their toughness for increased strength. Their steel reinforcement acts as a form of muscle system, allowing it to use greater force. This makes it much more agile than the standard stone golem, as well as greater ability to sustain damage from armor piercing sources like picks. They are animated by a paper talisman sealed onto their chest.¡±


    It was around this moment when one of the golems noticed me, walking closer. I noticed the paper postered to the massive block of concrete that acted as its chest, covered in a strange script of foreign symbols. I remembered where the myth of golems came from, a figure of clay animated by a Jewish rabbi by writing a magic word on its forehead, which I assume was analogue to the page of script pasted to this golems chest.


    Once it got within 5 meters, I noticed it seemed to be sending a suspicious amount of mana to its legs, and thanks to prognosticator, I could already see the path it would take while charging at me. It looks like its plan was to get close and then pounce when I thought it was a slow moving hunk of rock. Too bad I could see that coming, and braced my spear right where it¡¯s paper would be.


    ¡°Here is my spear, kindly run at it as fast as you can¡±


    Looks like it lacked the ability to actually think, since even though my spearhead was in perfect positioning to skewer it, it still charged directly into it.


    Once it hit, it drove deep into the paper, though the golem still didn¡¯t stop, continuing his charge and its fist going straight for my gut. Luckily, with my enhanced health, I was able to tank it, though it actually dealt around 70 damage in one hit, and it¡¯s other arm was already winding up. Seeing this, I tried to copy the robot and form a shield of mana, and one of ki as well since those were still two of my biggest resource pools. I only put about 50 units of MP into the shield, while about 300 units of ki were sucked up to block the rest of the damage.


    Of course my ki was going to quickly regenerate anyway, so I decided to spend a bit more on a ki boost, as well as spending almost all of my PP to buff my stats as well. This ended in the golem having a lot more holes on the paper on its chest, with the irradiated effect activating every time. Unfortunately, that didn¡¯t really do much¡­ stone is apparently very resistant to radiation poisoning.


    ¡°Ki boost leveled up, aura shield unlocked level 3, mana shield unlocked level 1, spear mastery leveled up, autokinesis unlocked level 2, radiation resistance leveled up x5¡±


    Nice, I wonder which I should get next¡­ psychometabolism seems like it would boost my PPC stat by a bit, as well as boosting my dexterity, but I have so much more ki than I have psionic power¡­ and ki cultivation seems like it would be a much greater overall boost in the long run¡­


    oh look the golems friends came¡­


    this time I bobbed and weaved around them, not waiting to get hit. I tried using slashing attacks to cut away the paper. It worked for some of them, but quite a few had tricks up their sleeves. One had the real paper on its back, the one on the chest being a decoy, another had the real one engraved onto the concrete, covered by a paper decoy, one had the paper stuffed in its elbow joint, keeping it from moving that arm too well, but protecting its paper. It didn¡¯t really make them that much harder to kill, but certainly more interesting, like solving a puzzle.


    Soon enough I managed to bust them all up, getting a few more levels in spear mastery, as well as a new combat mastery skill, which helped with the dodging. After I hit level 20 I noticed that I was leveling up a lot slower. Maybe it was weird for me to level up so fast in the first place?


    Anyway, I began to walk through the forest, reaching a large circle of standing stones, with a few forming a throne in the center. Upon said throne, was a giant, his skin having a metallic copper sheen, his hair tied in dreadlocks behind his head. His eyes seemed to be made from molten gold, and at first I assumed he was a golem.


    ¡°Quien eres, y que haces en mis tierras?¡±


    Ok, not a golem¡­ prognosticator?


    ¡°Elder Nephilim, a nephilim who has, through the use of Solomonic rituals, exceeded the lifespan of its race, changing in appearance from its human like origin to better suit its angelic blood. The one in front of you is still less than a Millenium old, but granted that it¡¯s eyes have already begun to turn gold, it is no less than 700 years¡±


    ¡°Saludos, yo soy un simple viajero, pasando a mi destinaci¨®n¡±


    The nephilim seemed distrustful, squinting at me


    ¡°Un simple viajero no podr¨ªa escapar de esa plaga tan f¨¢cilmente, sin mencionar la destruci¨®n de los guardianes que puse a la frontera¡±


    Oh, the golems were his¡­


    ¡°Este viajero encontr¨® una oportunidad para erradicar esa plaga. No fue algo completamente f¨¢cil, pero con mi lanza y sus encantos, no era imposible eliminar a esa criatura de dondequiera que la encontr¨¦. Aunque me tendr¨¢s que perdonar por los guardianes, ya que me dejaron ning¨²n otro recurso que defenderme¡±


    Now the giant seemed a bit more interested. If I play my cards right, maybe¡­


    ¡°Ten¨ªas mi curiosidad, ahora tienes mi atenci¨®n. Me podr¨¢s ense?ar los encantos de tu lanza que te dejo aniquilar esa plaga?¡±


    ¡°Tal vez, si t¨² me ense?as c¨®mo t¨² animas los golems?¡±


    The nephilim seemed to hesitate for a moment, but he acquiesced.


    ¡°Trato, aunque deber¨ªas conocer que la animaci¨®n de materia muerta es muy complicada¡±

 Chapter 8: coming back to conquer

    ¡°B¨¢sicamente, tu dibujas s¨ªmbolos que representan un concepto, en este caso la radiaci¨®n, le a?ades magia, y entonces los s¨ªmbolos cambian esa magia a un efecto¡±


    I was showing the nephilim how to do runic enchanting first, since he said that trying to teach me golemancy would probably take a while. Next I tried to demonstrate how runic enchanting worked, changing the radiation rune. First, I made lines spiral outward from the radioactive symbol, making it similar to the sign newscasters use to represent hurricanes, with the radioactive symbol as the ¡°eye¡± of the storm. Next, I copied the rune on the other side of the spearhead, reversing the direction the arms spiral in.


    ¡°Nuclear Aether Storm Spear: this spear, based on the aether blight spear, was modified to become more viable against that which is resistant to radiation. It no longer gives the irradiated debuff, instead the spearhead cloaks itself in nuclear fire, giving the radiation burn debuff as well as dealing extra fire damage against targets. This fire damage pierces through effects that grant resistance to fire damage, however immunity still prevents half damage¡±


    A quick flourish later and the spearhead was covered in a raging blaze of multicolored fire. Oh look, I leveled up runic enchanting. Wait, fuck my feat points were at 69 and I didn¡¯t get to make a joke about it...


    ¡°Entiendes?¡±


    The nephilim nodded his head, seeming to contemplate how to use this knowledge.


    ¡°Como le a?ades la magia?¡±


    Ah, almost forgot that part. I showed him the x2 rune, explaining my theory on how magic came from the potentiality of information, and how that rune meant either 1 or negative 1. It appears that quadratic ¨¢lgebra may have taken a bit longer than expected to explain, but he did understand it pretty well, for someone who was born in the medieval period.


    ¡°Incre¨ªble, usted a pensado directamente en el origen de magia, en vez de enfocarte en sus usos¡­¡±


    ¡°Gracias?¡±


    To be honest I was raised to think like a scientist, trying to figure out where something comes from first to figure out where it can go. It always worked well for humanity, helping us find ways to do things better instead of blindly following only what¡¯s directly in front of us.


    Anyway, next was learning golemancy!


    ¡°Para animar a un golem, primero escribes una oraci¨®n de instrucci¨®n pidiendo que quieres que har¨¢ el golem. En el caso de los guardianes que encontraste, su oraci¨®n pidi¨® que ¡®defendieran estas tierras de cualquier cosa que salga de esa puerta, destruyendo lo impuro como una flecha disparada por un arco celestial¡¯. Esto caus¨® que ellos atacar¨¢n cualquier cosa que salga de esa puerta, acerc¨¢ndose y brinc¨¢ndole. La parte dif¨ªcil del proceso es la oraci¨®n de animaci¨®n, cual se necesita para que el golem se anime y actu¨¦ la oraci¨®n de instrucci¨®n¡±


    The nephilim then molded a small figure from dirt, writing a word on its chest with a stick. After word he began the prayer of animation


    ¡°O dios misterioso, el todo y el ¨²nico, el principio y el final, el alfa y el omega, digna a esta imitaci¨®n de tu creaci¨®n con aliento, para que trate de llegar a su hogar celestial¡±


    And then the little figure began to jump repeatedly¡­


    ¡°Aqu¨ª escrib¨ª la oraci¨®n de instrucci¨®n como ¡®brincar¡¯. Esto es una oraci¨®n muy simple, as¨ª que la oraci¨®n de animaci¨®n tambi¨¦n puede ser simple. Lo m¨¢s importante de la oraci¨®n de animaci¨®n es el n¨²mero de los t¨ªtulos de dios que llegas a usar, y como la unes a la oraci¨®n de instrucci¨®n. En este caso el ¡®llegar a su hogar celestial¡¯ se refiere al acto de brincar¡±


    I noticed a few things from that demonstration. The energy needed to animate a golem is proportionate to the complexity of its programming, that they use what is effectively a very high level programming language, and perhaps most interesting of all, it seemed very similar to runic enchanting. I hypothesized that the ¡°titles of god¡± served a similar purpose to my own mana generating runes, with the later half of the prayer connecting the magic to the golem itself.


    Of course I began an experiment of my own. I summoned up an earthen figurine using elementalism, typing rock onto its forehead and ¡®follow Aether Cael¡¯ as its instructions.


    ¡°By all of the solutions to the cubic root of x to the power of four, animate golem: rock¡±


    I thanked the nephilim for what he taught me and walked away¡­


    The golem followed.


    On my way back to the main fantasy part of the dungeon, I came across even more guardians, this time they let me past without issue even though they had the same programming as the last ones. In hindsight, they¡¯re programmed to attack anything that comes out of the gate. Once I was inside the gate, I began to alter the programming a bit. This time, instead of a sentence, I made it more of a flowchart, this time designing a combat protocol. It had 4 basic moves, approach, sidestep, retreat, and strike. It would repeat these moves semi-arbitrarily, with each move having a given chance of being selected dependent on the circumstances, namely distance from the opponent, the opponents reach, the damage it has taken, the damage the opponent has taken, and its position relative to obstacles around it. For each situation, it would act out a different sequence, recording which sequence works best and remembering that for later. This should, theoretically, allow it gain experience in combat. Powering it up, I decided to try training. I designated myself as an enemy. It tried punching me from much farther than its little arms could reach, and it was adorable. Then it tried backpedaling, sidestepping and finally approaching. Then it struck, which I blocked with the shaft of my spear. Then I poked it back, and it tried to approach again and start attacking. It seemed to be forming a neural network, checking if it could reach me before attacking, approaching and attacking. When I raised my spear this time, it actually sidestepped right before the spear hit, and I received a very strange message from prognosticator¡­Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    ¡°Combat mastery skill has evolved into Combat Master by the users creation¡±


    I¡¯m not entirely sure how, but creating that program for the golem seemed to affect my own skills. The changed skill had an identical description, so I don¡¯t know what exactly happened. I did notice that the various things I wrote on the golem were changed, going from the elaborate flowchart to a square labeled ¡°combat protocol¡±. Beginning the training again, the golem was much more skilled. I actually had to block more and more, occasionally pushing it back. I began to notice a small outline of the golem, predicting what move it would make. Then I moved to counter that, and the golem changed his move in response, which I then moved to counter, which then prompted it to change its approach, etc¡­


    eventually I moved a bit too late, allowing the golem to land a solid hit to my gut. And then this happened¡­


    ¡°Unarmed combat mastery level 1 unlocked, combat master skill leveled up¡±


    The golem unlocked a skill for me. At least I assume it was a golem, since I certainly wasn¡¯t fighting unarmed¡­


    So I made a few training weapons out of the stone, as well as using my stealth skills to sneak past the guardians and grab some wood and plant fibers. A sword, some daggers, an axe, a bow and arrow, a shield, a hammer and a halberd. I grabbed one weapon, and the golem was handed another, and we sparred for a while. Soon enough, I got the mastery skill for both weapons, and then went onto the others. By the end of it, I noticed that no matter what weapon it was, they had several similarities between them, very obvious similarities. Namely, hit the other guy with the pointy bits, hit them where they¡¯re vulnerable, and hit them hard. It was knowing how to do that with the weapon in your hands where mastery lied. Right before we got to sparring with the last set of weapons, we were interrupted by some unexpected guests.


    An almoravid war party. They were armed with maces, whose heads were shaped like cubes, the faces bent inwards to make the edges and points jut outwards and deal maximum damage. Looks like there was a reason for the guardians beyond this door.


    On the bright side, I was getting tired of sparring with my golem. While the almoravids began to charge at us, I shifted myself from enemy to ally, and I set the almoravids as enemies. I was holding my halberd, and the golem a war hammer. I wasn¡¯t able to make massive swings since it was cramped now that we weren¡¯t the only ones in the cave. Instead, I used it more as a spear, knocking the raiders down and then using gravity to generate the force behind the finishing swing. The golem just went to town, smashing through armor. The blood from the almoravids started to flow towards me, just like the black slurry did before. You¡¯d think I would be disgusted, but compared to the black slurry, this was a bubble bath. Soon enough, I got the notification I was partially expecting.


    ¡°Halberd mastery unlocked, hammer mastery unlocked. halberd, spear, hammer, sword, dagger, shield, bow, unarmed and axe mastery have been subsumed into weapon mastery. Weapon mastery evolves into weapon master, weapon master is consumed by combat master¡±


    Why was I only partially expecting that? Because I knew that unlocking a bunch of weapon masteries would give some general weapon mastery skill, but I was not expecting it to randomly evolve and be immediately eaten by weapon master.


    Anyways, I dropped my halberd and grabbed my spear since it was enchanted. Then I began tearing through the raiders, leaving giant burnt holes in them. Soon enough the last one was down, and I recieved another message.


    ¡°Combat master leveled up x9, prognosticator leveled up by x9¡±


    That¡¯s a nice bit of level ups, but why did prognosticator level up? And why couldn¡¯t either level up just one more, I mean seriously, 99/100 feat points?!


    Either way, I continued down the passage, coming across a little outpost. Based on the fact that everything was in Arabic, I assume it was almoravid. There were pictures of the goblins, the nephilim, the Oj¨¢ncano, the dragonflies, and even of a little girl. The Oj¨¢ncano and dragonflies had a circle mark over the drawing of the creature, while the nephilim, the goblins and the little girl had their pictures crossed out.


    ¡°Prognosticator, what is this?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t just magically translate stuff, I need context. It¡¯s easy enough to figure out what something is, like the species of a monster or the qualities of a magic item, that¡¯s open to anyone if they know how to look, but to find out what a set of writing means is impossible without some kind of context. In this case the only thing I could tell you is that it has to do with the creatures of this dungeon, and that the ones the almoravides control are circled whereas the ones they are fighting are crossed out¡±


    Well then¡­ this raises a bunch of questions¡­


    ¡°Prognosticator, are you¡­ sentient?¡±


    ¡°Prognosticator isn¡¯t sentient. I am your skill spirit, Prognosticator is more like a job than an entity. I actually serve as both the prognosticator and combat master skills¡±


    Well then¡­


    ¡°Are you trapped in there?¡±


    ¡°I know what your asking, and the answer is the same as asking you if you¡¯re trapped in your body. I¡¯m not an independent entity, I¡¯m a part of you, a split personality if you will. You drive around the meat bag, I make sure you don¡¯t accidentally lead us off a cliff¡±


    Ok¡­


    ¡°Why the outburst now and not at some point before? I¡¯ll admit I suspected it after you said you¡¯re welcome that one time, but seeing how little you actually spoke, I assumed I was imagining stuff¡±


    ¡°I gain more consciousness the higher the levels of the skills I govern. Once they reached a combined level of 20, I could actually converse rather than statically repeat what I found¡±


    ¡°Well, thanks for all the help you¡¯ve given me¡±

 Chapter 9: a little fairy princess

    ¡°Oh we don¡¯t have time for the mushy stuff, get going¡±


    ¡°Right¡±


    So, I kept going. Traveling across the entire complex would be inefficient, so I went to the nearest stairs to try to get a better vantage point. The stairs led me into a nice, tall tower. This should give me a good vantage point, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that each floor was populated by armed almoravids. I generally tried to run by before they could actually grab their swords and attack me, using shadowfoot, as well as illusions to stealth my way by. I began to walk more carefully, moving from wall to wall, shadow to shadow.


    ¡°Unlocked sneak level 1, sneak and shadowfoot have been catalyze by elementalism into illusory stealth¡±


    I immediately activated illusory stealth, and sneaking around instantly became easier. I automatically blended myself into the background, as a stopped to consider a very important question. Which feat should I take now.


    As I¡¯ve discussed, psychometabolism seems to have more potential, but it requires a high will, while ki cultivation gives a more general bonus depending on my level of  ¡°cultivation¡±. I didn¡¯t have much of either will or cultivation, but I felt I could use the more general bonus, not to mention that it seems to increase will for when I finally get psychometabolism. That and¡­ well, I could always try and boost my will after I get ki cultivation, and the instant power boost would allow me to-


    ¡°Get ki cultivation¡±


    But what if I go against something where I need the extra stats?


    ¡°A +6 won¡¯t make much difference when 60 isn¡¯t enough. Ki cultivation, on the other hand, gets stronger the longer you use it. If I had enough consciousness and your life didn¡¯t depend on using magical healthcare to fight off the goop infection, I would have recommended ki cultivation back then as well¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good point, the longer you cultivate something, the further it grows¡­¡±


    and so I picked the ki cultivation feat. It didn¡¯t do anything immediately, but then once I started looking around I received the notification


    ¡°The meditation skill has evolved into the cultivation skill. Besides increasing affinities, the skill now extremely slowly increases all stats by its use, as well as increase resource regeneration¡±


    It changed my meditation skill. I immediately sat down and began to cultivate. I felt my ki go through every part of my body, following a set path. As it approached each other resource, it began to pull them along, dragging them into the stream. Now my body was being strengthened and attuned to my various resources, and if I focused hard enough I could feel traces of aether traveling along with the energy. There was only one problem¡­


    ¡°I have to use this constantly for it to actually cultivate¡­¡±


    If I had to sit down and cultivate all day I was never going to see the goblins again, let alone get out of this place.


    ¡°Now now, remember, you have an advantage nobody else knows about¡±


    And what would that be?


    ¡°Me¡±


    I was confused for a moment, since I didn¡¯t believe he could actually help me with this.


    ¡°Focus on the path the energy takes, through every muscle, every nerve, every blood vein, cycling through your whole body. Engrave that path into your body, until your body recognizes it as just another system of circulation. Focus, imagine it as a river that flows through you and¡±


    ¡°Dammit now I really need to pee¡±


    ¡°FOCUS DAMNIT! Yes, let it flow from your core, to the tips of your extremities, and back along your bones, that¡¯s right, let it wash over your skin and sink into you, empowering you, this may not be quick, it may not be easy, but¡­ never mind, that was faster than I expected¡­ congratulations, the cultivation skill has evolved into the cultivator skill¡±


    I felt the energy flow passively, along with a nice little boost to the skills level. With that, I didn¡¯t need to worry about taking out my time to actually boost my stats and affinities, letting them raise by themselves. It didn¡¯t matter how long it took, I would eventually become strong enough to conquer this dungeon


    ¡°ROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRR!!!¡±


    Though that day is not today.


    So I just kept climbing the tower oh so stealthily, until I reached the top floor. To be honest, I was not expecting to see a little girl chained to the wall.


    ¡°Q-qui¨¦n est¨¢ ah¨ª?¡±


    I was still using my illusory stealth, so it was surprising that the girl could sense me, especially as she seemed so malnourished, with her wrists bruised by the manacles that were chained to the walls.


    ¡°Solo un simple viajero, porque est¨¢s aqu¨ª?¡±


    ¡°L-los a-almor¨¢vides quer¨ªan s-someter a m¨ª c-como la esposa del c-cu¨¦lebre¡±.


    So the dragon is a paedophile, of course¡­


    I immediately looked at the manacles on her wrists, trying to find the keyhole. I sensed that they were filled with magic far more complicated than anything I¡¯ve seen so far. It would be almost impossible to actually remove them¡­


    ¡°Esas c-cadenas est¨¢n encantadas por el cu¨¦lebre, ser¨ªa c-casi imposible romperlas¡± The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Huh, there she only stuttered half as much, she seems to be warming up to me. Of course, the chains may be unbreakable. The wall on the other hand¡­


    Soon enough, the chain was removed for the wall, freeing the little girl.


    ¡°Gracias, me rescataste, ahora ser¨¦ tu esposa y tendr¨¦ tus hi-¡±


    ¡°OH LOOK WHAT A CONVENIENTLY PLACED EXIT¡±


    ¡°Aether, that¡¯s a tenth story window, not an exit¡­ Aether no¡±


    ¡°AETHER YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS¡±


    Weird, I distinctly remember jumping out the window, why am I still on the floor of the tenth story of the tower¡­ who¡¯s giggling at my expense!


    ¡°Es bueno saber que no ten¨ªas deseos impuros al rescatarme¡±


    It was the little girl. She walked right up to me and kissed me on the back of my head.


    ¡°Achieved kissed by the faerie princess, achieved basic spirit affinity¡±


    ¡°Gracias, y que hiciste¡±


    ¡°I gave you a bit of a buff to make the spirits more affectionate to you, you did save me after all¡±


    And now she speaks English¡­


    ¡°When did you learn to speak English?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t, you just hear me in whatever language you happen to think in¡±


    Oh, that¡¯s neat.


    I felt a new power go into my cultivation circuit. Apparently this one was called spirit affection, and I used it to get the spirits to do what I wanted. Speaking of which, I assume that must be what all of those wisps are¡­


    ¡°Anyway, I believe we need to get out of here¡±


    ¡°Indeed, you breaking the chains out the the wall may have alerted the guards¡­¡±


    oh, and there was the sound of the armored boots on the stairs¡­ at least we have that convenient exit¡­


    ¡°The window was an illusion¡±


    Ok, that¡¯s it. Maybe I should try this new spirit affection thing.


    I immediately spent all of my SA to get the spirits of all of my elements to act together to blow the wall away. Strangely enough, I felt as if the world was strangely hostile to me now¡­


    ¡°Elementalism leveled up x8¡±


    Nice, I feel elementalism is getting closer to something, though I¡¯m still not sure what. Next I picked up the girl and activated illusory stealth just before the guards arrived. They arrived, say the giant hole in the wall, the lack of a captive, and put 2 and 2 together.


    Just as planned¡­


    and while they rushed down the stairs, I followed in hot pursuit, though I almost tripped, instinctively using ki boost to correct myself¡­ eventually we reached the bottom of the stairs, me having seen the outside after blowing the hole out, and went on our merry way. The girl seemed a lot more relaxed now, open to small talk.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never seen someone with such low attraction have so many spirits around them¡­¡±


    ¡°I have a skill that lets me manipulate the elements, I assume the spirits were mostly elementals?¡±


    ¡°Good guess¡±


    As expected, a fantasy has to have elementals


    ¡°But there¡¯s something that doesn¡¯t explain¡­¡±


    Oh?


    ¡°And what would that be?¡±


    ¡°Opposing elementals were just hanging around you perfectly calmly, even though they should be annihilating each other¡±


    Huh, Prognosticator?


    ¡°It¡¯s because of your aether affinity, it would be like a bunch of squabbling children suddenly behaving because their parent entered the room¡±


    Thanks


    ¡°It¡¯s because of my aether affinity¡±


    The girl froze up


    ¡°You have aether affinity? How? It¡¯s nearly impossible to get since the elements start immediately opposing each other. Unless you both get the affinities to all the elements in a really short time frame, and have an incredible understanding of the truth of each element, then¡­ did you gain all the elements in this dungeon?¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°You are ridiculous¡±


    ¡°Good to know¡±


    In other news, almost as soon as I regenerated a point of SA, the world didn¡¯t feel nearly so hostile anymore.


    ¡°So how does the whole spirit thing work?¡±


    ¡°The spirits are everywhere, little bits of reality given sentience and ethereal form. Using spirit affection, you can request the spirits to do as you wish¡±


    Hmm¡­


    a while later we reached a nice little defensible room, where I decided to carry out an experiment. I summoned up the power of elementalism, and infused it with my resources, psionics to give it mind, blood to give it life, ki to give it energy, magic to grant it effect, and spirit affection to bind it all together. Then, I gave it a simple program, to compare and compile what I program other spirits and golems with in order to form a ¡°library¡± of different programs that I can whip up on the fly.


    ¡°Reality programmer achieved, unlocked chaos magic 1, chaos magic evolved into ruler of chaos, beginner aether affinity achieved, average aether affinity achieved, medium aether affinity achieved, beginner spirit affinity achieved, average spirit affinity achieved, average magic affinity achieved, average ki affinity achieved, average psionic affinity achieved, cultivator leveled up x10¡­


    Thank you, and holy shit¡±


    Um¡­ what happened?


    ¡°You just created a soul, and not just any soul, a soul that allows you to create more souls. That is like getting pregnant by jacking off as a guy, and then having a solid gold baby rise out of the ground like a cabbage. This allows me to do a lot, and I mean A LOT of things. Now I can create servitors to help me out by running in the background, allowing me to be free to do a lot of more interesting things, like investigating that pluripotent cell stat¡±


    That¡¯s, a weird analogy, with the cabbage patch thing¡­ on the bright side, it gave a serious boost to my abilities.


    ¡°What the fuck did you just do¡±


    Oh yeah, the girl was here¡­


    ¡°Just learned how to create a soul¡±


    ¡°DONT SAY SHIT LIKE THAT SO CASUALLY¡±


    ¡°So why are you asking?¡±


    ¡°Because all of the spirits are screaming that a new one was born from out of nowhere! One does not simply create souls!!!¡±


    Ignoring the little princess outburst, I began to look around, searching for any evidence of the goblins. Soon enough, I found a courtyard area, with a patrol of mounted soldiers passing through. Stealthing past them using my illusory stealth skill, I found they had a little outpost from the almoravides. Here there were some more documents I couldn''t read.


    ¡°You know, come to think of it, I don''t know your name princess¡±


    ¡°My name is Xana, yours?¡±


    ¡°Aether Cael¡±


    She began to read about the various documents, deciding to peruse them while we have small talk.


    ¡°So why are you exploring this dungeon anyway Aether?¡±


    ¡°Found some friends here, a tribe of goblins. Got separated from them, so now i''m trying to find them again¡±


    Xana froze, looking at the paper in her hands¡­


    ¡°Looks like they got captured¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°The almoravids found the goblins in the courtyard, now they''re taking them to the cuelebre¡±


    Well, looks like today is in fact, that day.

 Chapter 10: that day

    I immediately began to rush towards the central tower where I always heard the roars coming from. I bounded forward using autokinesis and ki boost, gaining a level in each. Any enemy I found, whether it was a dragonfly, cyclops, or even almoravid was cut down and its blood drained to fuel my speed. Soon enough I began to bound up the tower, reaching the top insanely quickly. There were quite a few almoravids that got in the way, and since going around them would have taken too long, I elected to go through them. There was even another Ojancano a while back that I just left there with a me sized hole in its torso. In hindsight I must have been running at least a hundred kilometers an hour. I opened the door to the top floor, finding a massive bronze bell hanging from the roof, the entire tribe of goblins in chains in front of me, and A GIANT SNAKE WITH BAT WINGS. Its coils were taking up at least half of the room, which itself was almost 30 meters across due to space warping magics.


    I almost immediately jumped ahead of the goblins, standing in front of the cuelebre.


    ¡°Greetings adventurer, what brings you here, so graciously offering yourself as a meal¡±


    Looks like it has telepathy with a translation function, because what I heard wasnt english. It also has the standard draconic arrogance, something every dragonslayer uses to their advantage.


    ¡°Estoy aqu¨ª para recoger a mis amigos, probablemente matar a un dragon¡±


    I spoke in spanish to soothe the goblins. The snake seemed to snicker


    ¡°Oh, I doubt you¡¯ll be slaying any dragons today¡±


    ¡°O lo se, solo encontr¨¦ a un gusano que creci¨® m¨¢s de lo normal. Parece que tendre que funcionar con eso¡±


    Now it seemed to be getting angry


    ¡°You and what army?¡±


    Then the thirty or so almoravides stepped out from behind it. Maybe jumping in alone wasn''t the best idea¡­


    ¡°You forgot about him already didn''t you?¡±


    Forgot about who?


    Nevermind¡­ I remember now


    Rock, the golem, just burst both doors off their hinges. It seemed a lot bigger now, made from the masonry of the castle, and it was carrying a basket filled with an arsenal¡¯s worth of weapons in it.


    He then proceeded to chuck said weapons in the air, juggling them all. He would grab the halberd and strike at the nearest almoravid, throw the spear to the other end of the room and into an almoravid rather than keep it in the air, catch the sword behind him and bring it around in a massive swing onto another warrior, dancing about like a one man circus of death. The weapons seemed to float until he needed them, landing in his hands just long enough to strike before being thrown back up. Soon enough, both me and the cuelebre found ourselves fighting armyless, though I had rock so maybe I counted as having an army of two.


    ¡°What do you think? I made some improvements after you left the tower¡±


    Wow, I was so focused on the spirit thing I didn''t even notice the fact that he was gone¡­


    ¡°What part of ¡®now I have time for interesting things¡¯ did you miss¡±


    Thanks¡­ James


    ¡°What was that?¡±


    Wow, I even leveled up combat master a few times from that¡­


    Next I cut at the goblins chains, yelling at milesio to get a move on. The blood on the floor was already pooling towards me in anticipation of the coming fight. Almost as soon as the first goblin got up the cuelebre tried to attack.


    Keyword, tried. I was already there with my spear, using my elementalism to raise earthen spikes to block off his advanced. The snake rushed as if they were plastic chairs put in its way, but it did last long enough for the goblins to get away.


    Unfortunately, the spear only left the nearest scorch mark on the scale¡­ prognosticator?


    ¡°Adult cuelebre: notable for its insanely strong defensive scales and powerful magic. Its scales are practically immune to physical damage, while its draconic blood makes it highly resistant to magical damages as well as practical immunity to mudane effects¡±


    Thank you, now then, rock, can you run interference.


    Rock then used his much larger physique to block the snakes line of sight, while I began striking at him as fast as possible, using autokinesis and ki boost to move as fast as possible. Each strike left only a barely visible scorch mark, and only annoyed the cuelebre more than anything. Eventually, it managed to get a grip on Rock, throwing him across the room, and allowing him to focus on me.


    I didn''t need prognosticator to notice that he was about to use firebreath. I began to wave my spear as a fan, using elementalism to raise a shield against the flames. Of course, I forgot the flames came from a dragon.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The flames burned through my defenses almost instantly, forcing me to frantically use medical magic, ki healing and psionic healing, as well as asking the spirits to help me, getting me spirit of healing. Luckily I had a bit of blood in the area I could use to replenish my resources. Oh look, fire resistance leveled up¡­ i''m beginning to regret not getting it trained up.


    ¡°Is that all you got ya big snake?¡±


    ¡°So you speak languages besides spanish, I love it when my meals are cultured¡±


    So, I began dashing about again, running circles around the bastard. I was at 99 feat points, the majority from that moment when all of my affinities went up. All I needed was one more and¡­ thanks autokinesis.


    Suddenly I was even faster, dashing through the coils leaving scorched lines of strikes behind me. Soon enough, I got the effect I was looking for.


    ¡°The enemy has fallen under the effect of severe radiation burn, causing its stats to slowly decrease over time¡±


    Yes, it may have not left more than a scorch mark, but even being close to what caused that scorch mark wasn''t the best idea. It may be a dragon, but even ants can kill an elephant if there¡¯s enough of them.


    Unfortunately it seemed to notice my trickery, beginning to attack me more earnestly. I ran about trying to escape it, but with such a big body it got progressively harder to dodge, even with its slowing speed. Soon enough I ran out of PP, followed by KI. I dashed behind rock, who now began to hold his own against the cuelebre. I sat back, trying to recover my resources as quickly as possible, even using a combination of medical magic, blood conversion, and my blood manipulation skill to speed it up. Soon enough, I regenerated quite a bit, my conversion skills leveling up. Abusing my health pool till it was half empty before stopping I got blood conversion to max level. Thats was what it said at level 10, max level. It''s so far the only skill I¡¯ve seen do so.  Of course, using that to fuel medical magic, meant that each unit of MP was equal to about 8 units of health which was equal to 8 units of any of my resources. Soon enough I managed to get my resources nearer to full, as the cuelebre began to fall behind Rock.


    ¡°Very well, I suppose playtime''s over¡­¡±


    Suddenly, a wave of green light went over the thing, from the tip of it¡¯s head to the end of its wings to the tip of its tail. Suddenly it was back at 100%, grabbing Rock by the legs and crushing them in its jaws.


    ¡°D-did you just¡­¡±


    ¡°What''s the matter? Getting scared?¡±


    ¡°YOU BROKE ROCK YOU WORTHLESS WORM!!!¡±


    I know I was letting my emotions take me over, all for a golem. You may say that, but you didnt program Rock yourself, putting a part of yourself into him. I charged at the cuelebre, who began to ruthlessly toss me around, immediately healing himself whenever I landed a hit. I tried raising earth, making walls of fire, even going invisible and sneak attacking. None of them worked, the cuelebre broke through any obstacle like a toddler busting down a sandcastle.


    If I wanted to kill him, I needed to do it in one shot. Everywhere I could reach was way too armored to actually damage, so I kept attacking, trying to find a space between the scales. No matter how many times I tried, it was useless. The damn thing was tough before it easily healed itself as it it was nothing.


    Then I saw him turn to me and open his mouth to me preparing to breath fire. Then it clicked. I dodged away from the fire only partially, healing the damages I took using my healing skills. Then I kept attacking the scales, jumping about.


    ¡°Poor human, taken by madness, allow me to put you out of you misery¡±


    And then it breathed fire again, which again I partially dodged. I thought about how fire burned, the heat breaking the bonds between molecules and forming new ones. Then I imagined my molecules not doing that.


    I fought for hours, barely keeping myself going. But eventually I received the message I was waiting for.


    ¡°Fire resistance has leveled up, evolved into fire immunity¡±


    With this, the battle can begin for real. I just need to keep fighting a little longer¡­


    And so resumed the struggle, bounding across the room, hitting every coil I could, dodging the buffeting wings, avoiding the vicious snaps of the serpents mouth.


    ¡°You do realize how stupid this plan is, right?¡±


    Yes, I do


    ¡°And you still intend to drive off the cliff?¡±


    I do indeed


    ¡°Very well then, I suppose we¡¯re in this together¡­¡±


    Thanks, James


    ¡°So that''s the name you decided to give me, James¡­ I like it¡±


    Good to know.


    This plan we were talking about was quite literally taking me out of the frying pan and into the fire. The odds of death were high even if it succeeded. Then again, it''s generally all or nothing with the final boss anyway, isn''t it. Soon enough it was preparing for one final firebreath, noticing I stood my ground. Unfortunately, there was only one place on the snake that wasn¡¯t covered in scales.


    ¡°So you have finally given up?¡±


    ¡­


    ¡°Very well then, as you wish¡±


    It began to inhale, this one being a particularly strong blast. I didn''t really have another option besides tanking it if I wanted this plan to work. He was just about to fire when a little girl appeared, panting from exhaustion at the door.


    ¡°STOP¡±


    It was Xana, and to her credit, the cuelebre actually stopped, if only to mock us.


    ¡°Well if it isn''t little Xana, have you finally decided to come crawling back to me? Come, watch me feast on this pitiful human, and then I¡¯ll have my men cook up some goblin stew¡±


    Wait for your chance aether. Wait for it¡­ wait for it¡­


    ¡°But first, lets get cooking, shall we¡±


    ¡°NO!¡±


    Xana screamed out, but the flames were already coming. Something I noticed about the flames was that he never blew them for less than 3 seconds, even when he missed me completely. This time was surely no different. Even with my fire immunity skill, I could feel my very soul burning. That didn''t stop me. I used my blood manipulation to sacrifice my health to boost the rest of my abilities, autokinesis and ki boost going at full blast. I jumped straight into his mouth, my spear pointed at the back of his neck. It looked like he noticed as well, trying to turn away the stream, but with both blood boosted autokinesis and ki boost, he wasn''t nearly fast enough. My spear drove deep into the back of his throat and into his spine. Right before he could heal back up, I used my trump card, a blood boosted aether blast using every single resource at my disposal.


    Both me and the snake¡¯s brain ended as bloody stains on the roof.

 Chapter 11: Hail the Conquering Hero

    ¡°NAILED IT¡±


    ¡°Achieved dragonblooded by absorbing the blood of a dragon, Pluripotent cells, psychometabolism, dragonblooded and ki cultivator subsumed into sidereal quintessence,  blood, ki, magic, psionics, spirit and aether affinity have been subsumed into basic sidereal affinity, elementalism has evolved into cosmic elemental manipulation, aether blast has evolved into sidereal blast, all conversion skills have been subsumed and transformed into cycle of sidereal essence feat, all healing skills have been subsumed into poincarre restoration skill


    Cultivator, Combat master, Prognosticator and Lord of chaos skills have been subsumed into the James skill


    You have conquered the dungeon


    You have evolved from Human into Sidereal Plasma


    You have gained control of the dungeon


    Selecting Dungeon as base


    First base achieved


    Please select a class based on what skills you have gained before level 5


    Class: Sidereal lord selected


    Level up x20¡±


    What the hell?


    When I woke up¡­ I was still a stain on the roof. The snakes headless corpse was laying there underneath me, while ¡°I¡± was plastered to the roof. Xana was kneeling in the corner, and she actually seemed to be crying. Rock was¡­ staring at me? He actually raised up his arm and waved. I guess we¡¯re both dead so that makes sense.


    ¡°Neither of you died, I was able to use what I learned from the pluripotent cell ability to allow you to survive being liquified. Of course, this ended in a cascade of changes, combining with several other feats to actually evolve you. This evolution allowed you to take over the dungeon. This allowed me to set the dungeon as a base, which made it no longer count as a dungeon, which allowed you to choose a class, something that is normally done at 5th level. I hope you don¡¯t mind that I chose for you, since I picked the most powerful class I could.


    Rock is just really hard to kill without killing you¡­¡±


    ¡­ I have several questions¡­


    I asked James to show me how I looked right now, looking at my new stat window.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name: Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Species: sidereal plasma</h1>


    <h1>Class: sidereal lord</h1>


    <h1>Level: 40</h1>


    SE: 22720/22720 [SQE*level*4] (143/hour) [SQE+1]


    <h1>SQE: 142</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: 200 SQE</h1>


    <h1>Status effects: </h1>


    <h1>Skills: fire immunity 1, pain resistance 4, radiation resistance 8, mana bolt 1, poincare restoration 1, ki boost 10, autokinesis 10, cosmic elemental manipulation 1, illusory stealth 5, sidereal blast, hidden presence 1, runic enchanting 3, blood manipulation 4, mana shield 1, aura shield 3, James 1,</h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, vampire, kissed by the faerie princess, reality programmer, sidereal quintessence, basic sidereal affinity, cycle of sidereal essence, first base</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 22</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    I asked James to show me what I looked like, and after the mental equivalent of removing the bandages, I was surprised how¡­ beautiful I was¡­


    Don¡¯t get me wrong, it wasn¡¯t beautiful like a woman was beautiful, or how a piece of art was beautiful, but how the Milky Way in the night sky was beautiful. I looked like a blob of pure darkness, covered in a kaleidoscopic nebula of prismatic stars, where all of the colors of the rainbow contrasted and faded into one another.


    Then I noticed the unused stat points. All of my preexisting stats fused into SQE, which meant sidereal quintessence. This meant that every stat point I have collected so far was concentrated within that stat, and now I had more than all of my previous stats combined unused¡­


    ¡°The Sidereal Lord class has several perks, including 10 stats per level. Of course you only have one stat so it shows only as 10 sidereal quintessence, which amplifies all your abilities and gives you more sidereal essence, or SE. It also gives a few more interesting skills that I can point out, like cosmic elemental manipulation. That one is the upgraded version of elementalism, allowing you to actually control the elements passively, while even being capable of creating them. You also got a skill called sidereal expansion that was absorbed by me, which passively gives you a single stat point every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds, or just every sidereal day¡±


    Ok, so all of my stats collapsed together the way strength, intelligence and constitution did to form PPC, and now I have a metric ton of stat points to spend¡­ anything else?


    I spent all of my stat points immediately


    ¡°Oh, those were still the less powerful boosts you got. You also got the ability to earn the sidereal division skill and the sidereal construct skill, though those were absorbed my lord of chaos, A.K.A. me. The strongest skill you got, has to be poincare restoration. Its main benefit is being able to heal any damage at a cost of 1 SE to one point of HP, no matter what. Point of note, when I say no matter what, I mean that as long as it at some time existed, you can heal it, up to and including reviving the dead¡±


    Ok, that could come in useful, since being able to bring even just allies back from the dead is supposed to be an end game thing. Of course, the division skills also seem very interesting, mind explaining more james?


    ¡°Of course. With sidereal division, you can split yourself apart to create avatars of yourself. At your current level, you can only create one avatar, who will obtain 1 tenth the stat total of the main body. These avatars can take practically any general form, for example if you picked a human form it would look like you human body di-¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    James didn''t even get to finish his sentence before my new body formed. Falling down to the ground, combat master allowed me to land on my feet almost effortlessly. I¡¯ll admit the new body wasn''t entirely human, my hair and eyes having points of color hidden in the black, and I was cloaked in a rob with the same texture as the main body coming out of my shoulders.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name: Aether Cael (avatar)</h1>


    <h1>Species: sidereal plasma</h1>


    <h1>Class: sidereal lord</h1>


    <h1>Level: 40</h1>


    SE: 5472/5472 [SQE*level*4/10] (35/hour) [SQE+1]


    <h1>SQE: 34.2</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: </h1>


    <h1>Status effects: </h1>


    <h1>Skills: fire immunity 1, pain resistance 4, radiation resistance 8, mana bolt 1, poincare restoration 1, ki boost 10, autokinesis 10, cosmic elemental manipulation 1, illusory stealth 5, sidereal blast 1, hidden presence 1, runic enchanting 3, blood manipulation 4, mana shield 1, aura shield 3, James 4,</h1>


    <h1>Feats:Basic regeneration, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, vampire, kissed by the faerie princess, reality programmer, sidereal quintessence, basic sidereal affinity, cycle of sidereal essence, first base</h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 25</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Your skills will be shared between yourself and your avatars, though skills like ki boost now use SE instead of KI for example. Sidereal constructs, on the other hand, are much more akin to golems, forming a small body with 1 SQE for every 1000 SE spent on it, with the option to give it specific skills which influence its shape and abilities. For example¡­¡±


    Around this time Xana finally noticed me standing there, and I felt 50 thousand units of sidereal essence leave the main body and infuse Rock.


    ¡°WHAT HAPPENED? I THOUGHT YOU DIED! WHY DID YOU DO SOMETHING SO INSANELY STUPID!?¡±


    Good to know Xana cared.


    ¡°Just leveled up a few times, slayed a dragon, took over a castle, evolved into a different species, the usual¡±


    ¡°DONT SAY SHIT LIKE THAT SO CASUALLY!!!¡±


    Good to see that nothing has changed¡­


    ¡°Golem [Rock] has been repaired and upgraded, James skill leveled up, poincare restoration leveled up. Poincare can now be used to increase regeneration rate when focused on.¡±


    Rock got up from the rubble, now the size of a toddler. Instead of stone, he was made of a strange, angular black gemstone.


    ¡°Now, if you¡¯ll excuse me I need to take rock out to the rest of the dungeon, communicate what happened to the goblins, maybe clear out a few monsters, etc¡­ oh, and also I need to scout our new base out to see what we can do with it, now that is reconnected to the real world.¡±


    You mean it wasn''t connected before?


    ¡°Well, yes and no. on one hand, you could always step in and out of the dungeon by the dungeon entrance, but besides that it was practically impossible to get in. the space and time of the dungeon was very different to the space and time outside, causing dungeons like this one to experience extreme time dilation¡±


    Time dilation? How long have I been in here?


    ¡°From the outside, it''s only been a couple days¡±


    NICE! Thanks James!!


    And so I ran out back to the real world, not hearing what James said as I left.


    ¡°Poor boy, doesn''t know what happened while he wasn''t looking¡±


    I quickly made it to the gate, James helping me by showing me the way now that I owned the place. Now while he worked on the castle itself I could go¡­ out and¡­ explore¡­


    It was ruins¡­ smoke was rising from several destroyed buildings, power lines fell over across the road. I thought I saw a person, shambling about, maybe they knew what happened?


    I immediately bounded over using Ki boost, now spending 1 unit of SE every 10 seconds. I reached the person in half that time, to see that the other side of their body was rotted away¡­


    A zombie¡­ I finally get out and the first person I see is a zombie¡­ this can''t be real, I must still be in the dungeon, right?


    Right?


    RIGHT!?


    (connection to reality established)


    Oh god¡­


    All of that was real¡­


    It wasn''t a game¡­


    I could have died¡­


    ¡°But you didn''t¡±


    You knew?


    ¡°Only as long as you did¡±


    And since when did I know?


    ¡°Since you first woke up, and fought that dragonfly¡±


    So all of that was permanent, the almoravids, the goblins, the nephilim¡­


    ¡°Well, kindof. They are dungeon spawned monsters, more like copies than the real deal. The longer they stick around the more real they become, for example the goblins and Xana would slowly become more individualistic and fleshed out. Some, like milesio and Xana, would be faster than others¡±


    Does not change the fact that the world went to shit¡­


    ¡°Are you going to do something about it?¡±


    ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    ¡°Are you going to do something about the world going to shit? Or are you going to break down like a little bitch?¡±


    ¡°It''s the apocalypse, and I¡¯m only¡­ one guy¡±


    ¡°You were about to say human weren''t you? That you''re only human? Well guess what, you aren''t, and you aren''t just one guy either, or did you already forget about your ability to split into several bodies at once? Or the fact that you spawned into a dungeon, and then you took it down? That would normally kill anyone who wasn''t a combat trained professional, and even then they wouldn''t be able to learn so many skills fast enough to take over the dungeon and make a safe haven¡±


    Heh, I guess I really don''t have any excuses do I?


    I looked at the zombie one last time. It seemed to notice me and was rushing towards me, the ends of his fingers deformed into pointed needles, his jaw full of bloody serrated teeth.


    ¡°And I guess that sitting around crying won''t do anything¡±


    And the zombie was suddenly caught in a rainbow conflagration, burning it to ashes.


    ¡°Thanks James, I needed that¡±


    Of course as soon as I turned around a Jeep rounded the corner, people with guns on the roof.


    One of them stepped out of the car, machete in hand. He had dark bronze skin, and a square goatee that was already going white, but the machete in his hand was gleaming.


    ¡°Qu¨¦ haces aqu¨ª afuera, chamaquito? Tienes un lugar donde quedarte?¡± (what are you doing out here young man, have a place to stay)


    ¡°A si, yo me estoy quedando en la universidad, O al menos lo que queda de ella¡± (ah yes, I am staying at the university, at least whats left of it)


    The old man seemed disappointed, as if he was hoping that nobody else already claimed this area¡­


    ¡°Estaba esperando tratar de vivir independientes, pero si los que te mandan a ti aya son justos, podemos trabajar con ellos¡± (we wanted to try to live independently, but if the people who are in charge of you are fair, we can work with them)


    ¡°Ah excelente! Pues entonces solo entra a el ¨¢rea, O, y no mates a los duendecillos¡± (ah, excelent, just enter the area, oh, and dont kill the goblins)


    And so, telling James that a few settlers were coming over, I sent them on their merry way.

 Chapter 12: a brave new world

    (meanwhile, back at the base)


    ¡°Muahaha. Muahaha! MUAHAHAHA!!! Yes, this data will become indispensable for plan W. soon, all of the races under our care will be evolved, just as we have. With the data that was collected during the Perfect Storm experiments, as well as my own observations of success, it should be very simple to carry out this plan. I believe I should start with the goblins, their short lifespan and high generational turnover will allow this experiment to be carri-¡±


    ¡°What? You already found other humans? Your sending them here? Aren''t you worried that they¡¯ll try and kill the goblins? Just because you told them not to doesn''t mean they wont. Hello? Aether? Can you hear me? I know you can hear me. Aether no¡­ and they¡¯re already here¡­¡±


    James was currently having Rock find the files on the Perfect Storm experiment, and comparing that to his own experiences with Aether while Aether was talking to the new survivors, forcing him to run and get Xana to go greet the new settlers. Carrying Xana on Rocks shoulders, they eventually reached the settlers


    James even noticed that the manacles that were on her wrists seemed to have disappeared after the cuelebre was slain, interesting.


    Upon seeing the little girl sitting on the strange crystal figure¡¯s shoulder, the car slowed to a stop, the same bronze skinned man stepping out of the car.


    ¡°Buenas, yo soy Jose, machetero del und¨¦cimo nivel, vengo con mi familia y unos chamaquitos que salve del enjambre, me dijeron que nos podemos hospedar aqu¨ª?¡± (hello, I¡¯m Jose, an 11th level machete man, I come with my family and some kids I saved from the swarm, I was told we could be housed here?)


    Of course, we have to remember that Xana is technically a princess.


    ¡°Por supuesto, ya tenemos unas ¨¢reas donde te puedes quedar, aunque todav¨ªa no hemos empezado las planeadas renovaciones, todav¨ªa hay varias ¨¢reas donde pueden descansar inmediatamente¡± (of course, we already have areas where you can stay, even though we still havent started the planned renovations, today there are several areas where you can immediately rest)


    The man seemed slightly confused to receive such a reply from the little girl, probably assuming her to be a simple child from one of the parents in this area. He assumed the figure was also created by one of them, noticing that he himself gained something called ¡°KI¡± that helped him do incredible things with his machete. But still, he got his family, a 14 year old boy and a 12 year old girl, as well as several college students, off the jeep and followed Xana into the castle.


    ¡°Aqui es, si necesitan algo, preguntenle a los duendes por Xana¡± (here it is, if you need anything ask the goblins for Xana)


    ¡°Duendes?¡± (goblins)


    At that moment, they heard an interesting notification, delivered to them by James.


    ¡°Hacerse ciudadanos de la ciudadela sidereal?¡± (become a citizen of the sidereal polis?)


    ¡°Esto es interesante¡­¡± (this is interesting)


    Of course, one of the students immediately said yes, and nothing happened except a small welcoming message, at least so far. Checking to see if there was an option to remove the citizen status, he found there was, and decided to keep the status anyway.


    One college student doing it lead to another doing it, which eventually lead to jose¡¯s family joining in.


    ¡°Interesting, a new menu has appeared, oh, that option will help nicely¡­¡±


    ¡°Option to purchase sidereal radiation confirmed, citizens will be strengthened under it while enemies will be weakened. Chance to cause mutations, generating random effects. -100000 G, balance: 900000¡±


    ¡°muahaha¡­¡±


    Apparently once you get settlers into your base you can select upgrades for that base, using gold coins like the ones the Oj¨¢ncano owned to buy them. Of course if you just so happen to slay a dragon, well, what¡¯s a dragon without its hoard?


    (And back to Aether)


    I was walking down the streets, scouting the area. There was the occasional zombie, ?but they were dispatched easily enough with a simple fireball. Oh look, cosmic elemental manipulation leveled up, nice¡­


    and with that I decided to try a new little spell. Generating a large updraft, as well as a gravity well above me, a blast of fire below me, and a magnetic field all around me, I began to lift off the ground, it wasn¡¯t exactly quiet, about as loud as a jet engine, but I was practically alone and I doubt it would be difficult to heal any damages my ears end up taking.


    ¡°Unlocked cosmic flight level 1. That¡¯s actually a pretty neat skill, almost not taking up any SE and allowing you to fly at tremendous speeds, nicely done¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    And so I began to hover about, noticing one of the manhole covers in the middle of the street opening up. Is it a people?


    Nope, it was zombies¡­ lots of them actually¡­ oh, that makes sense, they were hiding in the sewers, coming out at night to attack. So that means the sewers would be filled to the brim with them¡­


    I wonder what this ¡°sidereal blast¡± skill does¡­


    I fired a blob of what I can only call the physical manifestation of an acid trip. It looked like a blob of disparate colors mashed together, landing right in the manhole. About a second later, a multicolored burst erupted from inside the manhole, and zombies stopped coming out of the sewers. I only used a single point of SE on that and it looked like I just chucked a bandolier of grenades in there, not to mention how blood drain actually recovered that point instantly. I waited for the zombies that were on the surface to group up and I fired another blast, this one vaporizing all the zombies almost instantly, as well as shattering windowpanes on either side of the street.


    I learned several interesting things. One, blood drain even works when the opponent is vaporized, and two, the zombies dropped gleaming copper coins, like the ones that the cyclops dropped. These coins had a strange starry texture, as if the copper was made from highly compressed coppery glitter.


    ¡°Would you like to auto collect loot and store it at the base?¡±


    Thanks James.


    The coins seemed to evaporate away into gold dust, floating towards the base. Given that the monsters dropped coins, I assume that there must be some way to use them¡­


    Either way, I decided to fly towards where I thought it was most likely for people to conglomerate, spotting the nearby hospital in the distance. I shot over, crossing to it in less than a minute. It was then that I noticed that zombies were just milling about the entirety of the grounds, walking in and out of the buildings.


    So, I decided to make some noise.


    I flew over an open location next to the hospital¡¯s main building, firing a couple sidereal blasts at the zombies beneath me. This, along with the sound of my flight, drew a bunch of them over, sending them crawling out from the hospital entrance. Not the best situation, to have the zombies swarming out of a hospital, but¡­


    oh thank god, there are still living people in the building. I saw a little girl and here family looking at me through the window. I guess they heard the sounds and must have thought the army sent a jet or something, to bomb the crap out of the zombies. They were right about one thing, I thought as the zombies began to climb on top of each other to reach me, forming a hill about 5 meters tall.


    I was going to bomb the everloving shit out of them¡­


    I used up a thousand SE to fire down at the zombie pile, obliterating them, as well as shattering the windows of the lower floors of the hospital. My bad¡­


    Of course the equivalent of 1 ton of tnt going off certainly drew a crowd, and seeing the thick cloud of copper particles as coins started flowing towards the base, I realized something¡­ I am going to be rich.


    So, while the zombies began to collect again, I used elemental manipulation to block up the windows I shattered, and reinforce the ones I didn¡¯t. I also quickly mapped out the inside of the hospital using James¡¯ scouting abilities, noticing that the elevator wasn¡¯t working, and the stairs were boarded up. Smart, given the situation.


    Soon enough there was another pile of zombies, reaching for me and begging for the sweet release of oblivion, to escape from the torturous hunger of their unlives. That or they were reaching to try and rip my guts out and chew on my brains. Take your pick.


    They too were summarily dispatched with another extra large boom, blood drain allowing me to keep this up as long as the zombies kept coming.


    This time I began to use elemental manipulation to make a bowl area to hold the zombies, moving the dirt over to the hospital building to fortify it so it doesn¡¯t collapse from being a bit too close to the explosions. Demolition safety regulations be damned.


    Let''s be honest, there was something very cathartic of seeing zombie limbs flying through the air.


    ¡°Level up¡±


    Nice. That just gave me a tiny bit more power, but it was certainly noticeable.


    By the end, a grand total of one metric buttload of zombies showed up. After about 70 thousand showed up, they began trickling into the grounds less and less, right up till the last zombie died off. In total, they were worth about 15 levels, and 630 thousand copper, or 63 gold pieces. Were the coins made from actual gold? Probably not, since that would end in extreme inflation given that you could magically convert enough copper into gold.


    Anyway, I climbed into the hospital, using poincare restoration on anyone who couldn¡¯t walk, and telling them to meet me on the roof. Apparently using it on a hospitals worth of patients was enough to level it up. I went from top to bottom, and once I made sure I got everyone, even the people who decided to spend their time hiding in a cupboard. I guess I should have expected what I got when I reached the roof.


    People were bowing, the kind where your forehead touches the floor. In hindsight casually curing bedridden people, especially those suffering from incurable diseases, is something very common to messianic figures. I tried telling them that I was, in fact, not the second coming, and just a regular guy. A few seemed suspicious for a moment, but then continued bowing¡­ well, if the adults won¡¯t be reasonable about it¡­


    I walked over to one of the children, one about 12 years old. They boy seemed confused, and I tried to use my most reassuring smile.


    ¡°Mira ni?o, parece que los adultos se han vuelto locos, as¨ª que siendo uno de los pocos que han guardado su raz¨®n, tendr¨¦ que hablar contigo. El mundo ha cambiado de maneras misteriosas, magia se ha hecho real, y monstruos caminan por las calles¡± (look kid, looks like the grown-ups have gone crazy, so being one of the few who have kept their reason, I''ll have to talk to you. The world has changed in mysterious ways, magic is real, and monsters walk the streets)


    The kid nodded. He obviously didn¡¯t know what I was talking about, but he decided to face it bravely. Tempered with a bit of common sense and that will serve the kid well.


    ¡°Tengo un lugar para hospedarse, donde t¨² y tu familia podr¨¢n vivir en paz¡± (I have a place to house you, where you and your family can live in peace)


    Suddenly, one of the adults, an older fellow, stood up from a bow into a kneeling position


    ¡°Te seguir¨ªamos hasta el fin de la tierra, mi se?or¡± (we will follow you to the ends of the earth, my lord)


    You know, maybe this whole religion thing might not be all bad¡­

 Chapter 13: demonkind

    When I led everyone to the bottom floor, the doors were once again blocked by zombies. Of course they were cleared out easily enough with sidereal blast, leveling up due to figuring out I could shape the blast area. I learned that by shaping the blast into a cone, and pointing it towards the door. Blasting that general direction down with nuclear fire for a while to make sure that the zombies were very dead, I continued onward and saw something a bit bigger¡­


    It was 5 meters tall, and just as wide. It seemed like a morbidly obese man in a business suit, except its skin was pale, unwashed filth being visible within each nook and cranny, particularly within its rolls of fat. Then it spoke, and what I assumed were just rolls of fat sticking out of its neck turned out to open up and reveal a total of three mouths with hundreds of needle like teeth.


    ¡°Least gluttony demon. A lesser kind of gluttony demon, and an enemy of the system. This particular species of demon is known for its immense vitality, as well as the ability to consume other creatures whole or in pieces, where their essense is then grinded away and used to fuel the demonic horde. Recommendation, kill it with fire¡±


    Huh, seems simple enough. I fired off a simple sidereal blast at it. It left nothing but a scorch mark.


    Huh, this might be a bit more difficult than it looks¡­


    I used cosmic elemental manipulation to open a trench towards the base, with a small barricade to protect everyone from stray shockwaves.


    ¡°Corran!¡± (RUN)


    As the people behind me rushed into the trench trying to get to safety, the demon charged at me. This time, instead of blasting it full on, I aimed at its foot, causing it to trip and begin to roll. Raising another small lip to form a bit of a curved track, I sent the demon in the opposite direction of the people.


    With my recent level ups, my max SE was sitting at 10824, of which I already spent 600 using cosmic elemental manipulation. I spent another 3000 now on sidereal constructs.


    I made 3 simple constructs, which I dubbed ¡°Death Stars¡±. They appeared like small floating balls of light, quickly shifting through all of the colors of the rainbow. These were built with 3 different skills, sidereal blast, sidereal flight, and¡­ James¡­


    the basic idea was that they would zip around, orbiting the demon while bombarding it with mini sidereal blasts. Of course what ended up happening was that I had 3 laser drones instead of missile drones instead of the missile drones I was hoping for, since instead of a sidereal ¡°blast¡± they fired a ¡°beam¡± with much less oomph.


    ¡°Well what did you expect, they only have one point of Sidereal Quintessence. If they actually used sidereal blasts it would feel like getting beaned with a rock at worst. Of course with the sidereal beam¡­ I might have to remember this design¡­¡±


    I quickly saw what James meant, as the three little stars flew around the demon in a lopsided triangle formation, one star flying close behind him and firing at the back of his head, while the other two flew in front of the demon and just out of its reach. The benefit of this formation was that as soon as the demon turned to attack the one behind him, it flew out of his reach and one of the other two flew in to take its spot. Against an enemy whose iq could be measured in one hand like the gluttony demon, it was practically invincible. In the meantime, I sent a couple more of those drones, spending another 2000 SE. now, 3 remained outside its reach, while two attacked it from behind its back. Whenever it was attacked now it began to flinch in pain, since both lasers aimed at the same point and amplified the damage penetration.


    Deciding the demon was in good hands, I followed the people I sent out of the hospital and guided them to the castle. Along the way, I explained to them what I learned so far, how magic, ki, psionics, and spirits worked. I also told them my experiences gaining skills, and how a good theoretical understanding helped in actually getting the skill. Soon enough we got to the base, Xana showing me where she brought the others.


    ¡°Jose, puedes ense?arle a estas personas las reglas de aqu¨ª¡± (Jose, can you show them the rules around here?)


    ¡°Dices la de no matar a los duendes?¡± (you mean not killing the goblins?)


    ¡°Exactamente¡± (exactly)


    So I left the job of settling the new people in to Xana, Jos¨¦ and¡­. myself?


    ¡°I managed to level up enough to get another avatar, I feel it would be best if they see your face¡±


    Huh, neat. Nice to know you have a body of your own now.


    ¡°It¡¯s still your body, I¡¯m just driving this one while you focus on that one. Technically speaking, you¡¯re still the one driving both avatars, it¡¯s just that I¡¯m acting as this bodies consciousness¡±


    Oh, umm¡­


    ¡°And again, I technically am you, I just have more access to your full computing power from all of those stats¡±


    Well that¡¯s good to know.


    Then I noticed I had quite a few feat points floating about, so I decided to spend them all.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Available Feats:                         </h1>


    <h1>Hero (30 points)    </h1>


    <h1>Legion of one (200 points)           </h1>


    <h1>commander (10 points)             </h1>


    <h1>dragonslayer (100 points)         </h1>


    <h1>beginner regeneration (10 points) </h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Decisions, decisions¡­ I¡¯m interested in the legion of one, but that would be a lot of saving up to do¡­


    dragonslayer was definitely unlocked by killing the cuelebre, but seeing as that didn¡¯t unlock it by itself, it seems to be something pretty good. Interesting, I¡¯ve never heard of the LUK stat¡­ oh boy¡­


    Hero seems like it gives me a bonus 6 stats every level up, which¡¯s pretty powerful in the long run, with an extra 60 stats up front. Commander and beginner regeneration are both cheap¡­


    ¡°I recommend Hero, since that will give you more the earlier you get it, while commander and beginner regeneration are both cheap and would serve you well in the long run¡±


    I''m curious, how do you come to these conclusions anyway?


    ¡°Prognosticator allows me to analyse and predict patterns, while combat master and ruler of chaos allow me to have quite a bit more expertise on the matters of growth and survival. I simply predict what sort of challenges you will be generally facing, calculate which qualities would serve you best. In this case, the hero skill still adds a decent amount to your growth, while the commander skill will help you as a leader, and the beginner regeneration will give you more staying power and survivability in the immediate future¡±


    Thank you very much, it''s nice having a little computer assistant to compare the pros and cons for you.


    And as soon as I bought all three¡­


    ¡°The hero feat and the commander feat have fused and evolved into the Cid Campeador feat. this feat was unlocked by 1. Obtaining the hero and commander feats, as well as one related to having a base, 2. Defeating a large number of almoravid warriors, 3. Owning a base with a medieval theme. This feat grants 100 bonus stat points, along with 10 bonus stat points and 2 bonus feat points per level. It also increases cooperation and harmony between any forces under your control, increasing their abilities by 5%¡±


    Huh, looks like it got a free upgrade, did you predict this too?


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I can''t quite predict how your actions will affect the growth of your skills, just which ones will help you the most. This is simply a pleasant surprise¡­  Oh wow, that''s very nice timing, the demon finally died, and you leveled up, and are 10 gold pieces richer¡±


    What do you even use gold for?


    ¡°For now, base enhancements. I can make them cheaper by just buying the materials and using sidereal constructs for the labor, but my plans seem expensive. It would be possible to form a kind of city state, but that would require expanding our territory and renovating infrastructure, which would stretch out pockets thin. For now I''m focusing on renovating our main base and expanding it over the rest of the area, see if it evolves into a city¡­ I just got a message, which may help us solve the money problem¡­¡±


    And said message is?


    ¡°The forces of demonkind rage against your world, hoping to take it over and make it their own. They send their legions of the damned to your doorstep, though in time more powerful enemies will arrive¡­¡±


    ¡°That isn''t good¡­¡±


    ¡°Well, it could be an opportunity, since when monsters die, their essence would be condensed, in this case into currency used by the system. This is another reason that whole creation of a soul thing was so ridiculous, since your basically printing money. Sure it''s not very cost effective, but its inexhaustible free money. Since for some reason our essence seems to grow so quickly¡­


    Anyway, I have a plan to deal with the attack. By my guess, we¡¯ll be assaulted by an enormous zombie horde, followed by a demonic commander. Since zombies have the tactical brilliance of Leeroy Jenkins, a simple terrain based trap should handle several of them quite nicely, though if too many of them fall for it right away the enemy commanders may notice and try to find a way over our fortifications. That is why I require you to handle as many as you can up front, after which point the commander would most likely try to either overwhelm you with a charge, or turn to a more cautious strategy, where they try to conserve their troops. At that point, we begin phase 2¡­


    Oh, and one more thing, I took the drones you made and made some adjustments. Nothing much, just added the elemental manipulation and poincare restoration skills. Of course this increased the price from 1000 SE per little death star to 1500 SE for each Prismatic Star because they have a few more abilities than the 3 they''re supposed to have at their power level, as I decided to call them. I ran a few experiments, and I found I could alter them to work together much more efficiently, especially since you gained the Cid feat. Just by having me and cosmic elemental manipulation it becomes much more versatile, allowing it to act as a utility drone, while cosmic flight, poincare restoration and sidereal blast adding mobility, supportive and offensive capabilities. What do you think?¡±


    That is¡­ impressive to say the least. And if their powers are based on how many of them there are¡­


    ¡°Oh, not just them. They can theoretically work with any of the citizens of this base, the field they generate to help each other and share power can also extend to the citizens, though not nearly as efficiently¡­ what are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Spamming them¡±


    I ended up summoning 80 of them, by spending most of the main body¡¯s mana. Next I separated them into groups of 10, making them circle the perimeter of the base, fortifying it. Mainly by digging moats and trenches with spikes at the bottom, building short walls, lines of stakes pointing outward, etc¡­


    this would disallow the enemy from approaching too easily, and allow us enough time to deal real damage.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡±


    Oh look, Xana appeared, along with Milesio. He seems taller for some reason, and a much darker shade of green.


    ¡°Mi Cid, porque conjuraste todas estas estrellitas?¡± (my lord, why did you conjure these stars?)


    Well, I guess they should know¡­


    ¡°Vamos a ser atacados pronto. Estas estrellas nos ayudar¨¢n a defendernos, fortificando el per¨ªmetro y atacando a los invasores¡± (We''ll be attacked soon, these stars will help defend us, fortifying the perimeter and attacking the invaders)


    Milesio immediately went to go grab his spear¡­


    ¡°Yo buscar¨¦ unos guerreros para montarnos en las paredes, utilizaremos nuestras lanzas para atacar a mayor distancia que-¡± (I''ll look for some warriors to man the walls, we''ll use our spears to attack at greater reach tha-)


    ¡°Milesio, prefiero que ustedes se queden adentro, no quiero arriesgarme a perderlos¡± (Milesio, I prefer that you guys stay inside, I dont want to risk losing you)


    He looked crestfallen, seeming to misunderstand my stance¡­


    ¡°Milesio, no es que te creo d¨¦bil o un cobarde, es que tienes hijos que criar. No quiero arriesgar que ellos se hagan hu¨¦rfanos sin tener absolutamente ninguna otra opci¨®n¡± (Milesio, its not that I think you are weak or cowardly, its that you have kids to raise. I dont want to risk making them orphans unless I have no other option)


    ¡°T¨² tienes a todos nosotros para liderar, y cuando mis hijos me preguntan donde yo estuve durante este ataque, yo no le voy a decir que estuve temblando dentro de las paredes¡± (you have all of us to lead, and when my kids ask where I was during this attack, I refuse to tell them I was quaking behind the walls)


    He wasn¡¯t going to back down easily, marching off. I sent Rock to watch over him, making sure he didn¡¯t do anything stupid. We didn¡¯t need heroes here, professionals would do just fine...


    Soon night started to fall, and then I heard them¡­


    Tens of millions of zombies covered the horizon, storming over and through ruined buildings, covering every square meter of street as far as the eye could see. I was going to be rich¡­

 Chapter 14: set fire to the raid

    I told Xana to get all of the settlers safely in the walls. I went out with my other avatar and the prismatic stars to do some last minute fortifications, making an enormous circular trench around the base. This was much deeper than the other trenches, with sharp rocks rather than spikes at the bottom, so if any zombies fell in, they would go splat. Next, me and my avatar flew up to the clouds, collecting as much water as possible, and bringing it to the bottom of the trench. Spinning faster and faster, using our cosmic elemental manipulation, we forced the water to spin around the bottom of the trench.


    Soon enough, the water was rushing with a mighty roar. The zombies seemed to lack tactics beyond ¡°hey diddle diddle straight up the middle¡±, so this ravine would act as a meat grinder.


    ¡°Unlocked cooperation level 1¡±


    Almost immediately I felt it became easier to make the trench deeper and the water faster. I also felt like something else was coming, since the skill was resonating with James¡­


    soon enough, the prismatic stars came into the trench to help as well, until the thing was 50 meters deep and 5 meters wide. The prismatic stars flew in formation, each one an equal distance from the other, almost perfectly in sync. I commanded them, correcting their positions just a little bit until¡­


    ¡°Unlocked command skill 1, command and cooperation have merged into the hive mind skill 1, hive mind has evolved into sidereal egregore due to class, sidereal egregore attempts to take control of host¡­


    aw, how cute, it actually thinks it¡¯s on the same level I am¡­


    Sidereal egregore now regrets its existence


    Sidereal egregore has been consumed by the James skill, James levels up¡±


    James, what just happened?


    ¡°Well, you gained some teamwork skills, and those skills fused into another skill, which then evolved because of your class. Of course, this skill formed a skill spirit of its own, and tried to take over¡±


    ¡­?


    ¡°You know how I¡¯m still a part of your soul, just with much greater calculation power and ability to gather and use information? Well, it was an egregore, or a psionic pseudo-soul formed from the minds of several creatures. It decided to try taking over our body, but it failed to realize that you already had a skill spirit, one of a much higher class and level than it was¡±


    Well¡­ thanks. I really didn¡¯t think skills could take over the person¡­ can you do that?


    ¡°Can your left leg take you over? You keep treating me like a full person, I¡¯m not. I¡¯m a part of you, just that instead of a limb I¡¯m a personality attached to an intelligence. The egregore was more of a parasite, or a mind control virus. The only control I can or want to exert is the control you allow me¡±


    ¡­ James


    ¡°Yes¡±


    Thank you so much for keeping me alive


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome¡±


    Either way, I felt as if I was in several places at once, in the main body, in the prismatic stars, in each of my avatars, with Rock, with Xana, with the goblins, and even with the people that came from the streets and the hospital. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure what happened when the world change, but I will protect those under my care.


    Soon enough the zombies got within blasting range. Me and my avatar took point on both the east and west side, respectively, while the prismatic stars orbited from place to place. I fired sidereal blasts into the zombie horde like a machine gun, relying on my blood drain ability to make sure my SE stayed topped off. Oh look, sidereal blast leveled up again¡­


    I¡¯ll be honest, blasting waves of zombies to oblivion was getting pretty boring by the time the first demon showed up. By now, I¡¯ve blasted at least a couple hundred thousand zombies, same with my avatar. I played around using sidereal blast as a beam to mow down lines of zombies, curving the projectile trajectories, firing it like a flamethrower or fire hose, etc¡­ gaining another couple levels in it. I also leveled up cosmic elemental manipulation shortly after making that large trench, using it to make a few much smaller trenches to collect zombies for me.


    Hell, now I was knee deep in corpses, and I could feel blood manipulation draining the corpses remaining energy away. That meant that the demons that I was looking at were in for a long, and exhausting battle.


    ¡°Hell squire: a demon known for its battle prowess. It lacks the commanding aura of its greater form, the hell knight, but it''s well on its way to noble status among the demonic hordes. It was placed in charge of a legion of the damned 500 thousand strong. The fact that more than half of them were killed before it even reached the moat speaks volumes of its tactical and commanding ability. It has decided to face you in honorable combat, while its forces go around you.


    It relies on its chitin plating for defense. Much like the armor of an insectoid, the hell squire¡¯s armor is rigid and hard, covered in thorny spines. Its four separate arms end in wickedly sharp claws a meter long¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Its armor easily sustained several sidereal blasts, requiring a sustained beam using a total of 200 SE before it died in a polychromatic explosion. For a commander, it was pretty weak¡­


    ¡°You were training for over a week inside a time altered dungeon, having an inordinate amount of understanding with affinities, and have evolved into a species stronger than dragons. Make no mistake, they are not as weak as you make them out to be¡±


    Then two more of them showed up. Oh, this is just great. On the bright side, more experimental test subjects.


    This time I tried something new, using both hands to fire two sidereal blasts simultaneously. Of course, they brushed it aside like it was nothing, but sidereal blast leveled up, increasing my control of it.


    So I prepared something else, a rocket propelled version of the sidereal blast, where the front end acted as a solid. This certainly gave it more stopping power, but it just deflected off the armor¡­ perfect for my next experiment.


    I tried using the principles behind a High Explosive Anti Tank warhead. At the most basic level, a HEAT warhead was a shaped charge that drove a spike into the armor. I could already form a solid blast, and a shaped charge, so sticking on on top of the other and¡­


    In my hands I had what looked like a big floating spike. The bottom bit was rounded out, and mushroomed over the actual spike, holding the shaped charge. Shooting this at one of the buggers ended in driving the spike right through its armor, the instantaneous force of the explosion trumping the tensile strength of the armor, as if it was hammering in a needle, killing another demon. Now that I knew that worked, I killed the other demon in the same method, and received the information that sidereal blast leveled up twice.


    My avatar also dealt with a few demons, still a bunch of squires, but squires always follow a¡­


    Suddenly, all the zombies charged around is, specifically avoiding the zones where we sat down to defend. They tried climbing over the buildings and through windows, charging forward in a much sparcer manner, making it impossible to get them all. Looks like the commander planned to use a charge to overwhelm us.


    Luckily we still had the ravine.


    A few prismatic stars were still there, diligently speeding up the currents. As soon as the zombies stopped coming in, they flew out and let the fall, the rapids and the rocks do the rest. The zombies were running in too fast to actually stop, and it looks like their commander still didn''t realize his troops were not reaching the base. At this point, me and my avatar went over to where we heard the roar.


    There stood a hell-knight. It had chitin armor, like its squires, but compared to the squires blood red, it''s armor was blackened and metallic. It had two arms, holding a bloody halberd, a skull affixed to the blade. Its faceplate had a vertical opening along the middle, showing two eyes stuffed into one vertical eye socket.


    My avatar fired a sidereal blast right into its faceplate. Once the smoke cleared, it stood there, looking at my avatar, before sending a wave of black energy at it, completely annihilating it¡­


    ¡°I¡¯d like to apologize¡±


    I flew back, barely dodging another wave of darkness by using James to predict it.


    ¡°James, I hope you already started on that phase 2 you mentioned!¡±


    Each shot missed me by a hair''s breadth, sidereal affinity telling me how time, space, and even void seemed to be damaged as the waved passed¡­


    ¡°Look down¡±


    I did. The streets were running with blood. I thought it was pretty normal, after all the zombies got demolished. Then I realized it was running uphill, towards the base, collecting in the trench and slowly crawling out towards the top of the tower, where the main body is.


    ¡°Ok, you¡¯re collecting the blood for what I assume is to drain it away and use some kind of uber attack?¡±


    ¡°Close enough, but I¡¯ll need you to distract the hell knight for a while¡±


    Easier said than done¡­


    Actually, it slowly became easier, each time it seemed to give up chasing me I would fire a few large explosives near it, wiping out a few zombies and flying away. Admittedly the ability to predict where the opponent would aim came in handy. It seemed the knight focused on extreme defense and offensive power, otherwise known as a mighty glacier build.


    As you would expect from the name, its weakness was that it was terribly slow. After each swing, it needed to spend a lot of time to recover and wind up again, relying on its armor for the ability to survive long enough if it misses.


    I slowly dragged it in a circle, across the area surrounding the base. Every time the thing attacked, a building would have a part of it carved away. Several buildings collapsed, buying me time as the knight had to get through the rubble. I would be tempted to kite it if it didn''t have both the ability to nullify the damage I dealt, as well as the ability to knock me out of the air at a moment¡¯s notice.


    I leveled up cosmic elemental manipulation again, trying to make mazes, labyrinths, trenches, and walls to slow the knight down. Cosmic flight also leveled up a couple times with me continuously dodging the knights attacks, shifting gravity and wind to my advantage, speeding up and slowing time, blasting jets of water and fire to move myself just out of the attacks path.


    Meanwhile, the blood began to accumulate at the top of the main tower of the universities ruins. It formed a massive black sphere, completely encapsulating the higher half of the structure, almost appearing as if it was an egg¡­


    The Knight seemed to notice said massive egg, and immediately began his trek towards the base. No matter how many zombies I slew, he just kept running, jumping over trenches, climbing over walls and buildings¡­


    eventually, I saw a strangely familiar figure in the distance, holding a familiar spear.


    ¡°Cid, entiendo que esto es una pelea entre comandantes, pero es simplemente imposible que yo me quede quieto durante todo esto¡±


    Milesio changed a lot when I wasn¡¯t looking. He went from under a meter tall to 2 and a half meters of pure muscle. His skin was black, lines polychromatic scales dotting its surface, and his eyes went from just emerald to a plethora of colors, shining brightly. He was holding my spear¡­


    ¡°Well, some of the zombies that fell into the ravine hit the wall and managed to climb back up, trying to reach the actual base. Guess who went out and dealt with them? Now he evolved into a Sidereal Trasgu, giving him a mayor stat bonus, as well as minimum sidereal affinity. The best part?¡±


    Next to Milesio, several other figures appeared, each just as tall


    ¡°That the entire tribe evolved! And with sidereal egregore¡­¡±


    The knight sent a wave of darkness their way, only for it to be countered as each of them worked together to make a black dome, a colorful constellation in the shape of a shield forming on the front.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t even know it could be used that way¡­¡±

 Chapter 15: the Aftermath

    Even as Milesio and his team stood in front of the night, blood kept collecting at the top of the tower. The knight alone found he couldn¡¯t do much to stop it, so he decided to go for an all out attack, a dark miasma condensing around him, spreading to either side. From this miasma, hordes of zombies poured out like a flood, climbing atop one another as if there were too many to fit them all on the floor. This began filling me with joy, one, because it meant more blood for phase 2.


    And two, because if the zombies were summoned, it meant that they weren¡¯t the people of earth. I¡¯m not sure where everyone went, but at least they weren¡¯t the poor souls in front of me¡­


    Within the miasma I could sense rifts in space and time, where this reality was disjointed and connected to another one. I had about 10,000 SE, and a pocket dimension full of targets to use it on. Poor knight, I don¡¯t think it even noticed that I was still here¡­


    the pocket dimension seemed to act as a storage, zombies just piled on top of each other until they were brought out to see action. Based on what I could sense of the dimension, there were trillions of them in there, and even though I could only reach so many, the fact that they filled every cubic centimeter of space meant I couldn¡¯t miss, and with tens of thousands dying with each shot, I was able to just fire, recover with blood drain, and fire again. By the time the knight managed to forcefully close the portal, I fired around 20 times, each shot destroying from 20 thousand to 50 thousand. As the vaporized remains of the zombies flew up towards the massive sphere, the rest of the blood in the area flowed as well. Soon enough, the city was spotless, and a massive orb of blood hung over the entire base.


    The orb seemed to implode, creating a massive gust of wind as air rushed to fill the volume the blood no longer occupied. It began to glow in a plethora of colors, until it finally exploded with light, releasing over a thousand prismatic stars.


    Phase 2, collect the blood from all of the enemies and use it to create an army of prismatic stars.


    The main body itself seemed to blend in as I gained a new skill to go along with it. This one seemed less powerful than my other skills at first glance, but then I saw its effect¡­


    ¡°Unlocked Sidereal Starfield 1. This skill was gained through the mass creation and use of prismatic star sidereal constructs, and increases their power and use, while decreasing cost to 750 SE. This skill alters the form of the main body


    James has leveled up, James has leveled up, James has leveled up¡±


    The main body formed part of the starfield, discorporates into a blurry light near the center of all of the prismatic stars. I could feel each and every single one of the 2800 prismatic stars, and I could see what James was planing. The prismatic stars were collecting their energy in the main body, each and every single one rotating around the core as they fired a Sidereal beam into the core, creating the appearance of a spiral galaxy.


    Seeing this, the knight raised his shield, summoning a standard to his hand. Of course, this only heraldry on that standard flag was a pentagram, but you could excuse the lack of artistry with the fact that they used flayed skin as the flag material.


    The knight then brought a horn to the opening on its faceplate, sounding a dire dirge as miasma exploded from within the horn, the only thing visible within it was the flag, its pentagram glowing as if it was made with fresh cinders¡­


    soon enough a gust of wind appeared to blow away the miasma, revealing that the knight now sat upon a skeletal horse, with a mane of black fire. At either side, four other mounted hell knights stood, holding lances trained on the main body. Almost immediately, they were all consumed in fire, charging skyward at the main body like fiery meteors, cloaked in hellfire.


    Then they were all vaporized by the mother of all lasers¡­


    all the sidereal blasts from all of the prismatic stars were collected and amplified by the main body, fired straight at the hellknights. The sheer amount of stars, enhanced by both sidereal starfield and sidereal egregore, caused the collective power to reach ludicrous levels, on the level of a nuclear artillery shell. It even left a massive crater in the ground¡­


    ¡°Level up x25, sidereal starfield level up, James level up, sidereal blast level up, beginner sidereal affinity achieved


    Oh, would you look at that, precisely 100 feat points¡­¡±


    Of course, I bought the dragonslayer feat, proceeding to ¡°distribute¡± my new stat points, and take a look at my status table


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name: Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Species: sidereal plasma</h1>


    <h1>Class: sidereal lord</h1>


    <h1>Level: 80</h1>


    SE: 391776/391776 [SQE*level*4*1.1] (1347/hour) [SQE*1.1*1.1]


    <h1>SQE: 1113</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: </h1>


    <h1>Status effects: </h1>


    <h1>Skills: fire immunity 1, pain resistance 4, radiation resistance 8, mana bolt 1, poincare restoration 3, ki boost 10, autokinesis 10, cosmic elemental manipulation 5, illusory stealth 5, sidereal blast 10, hidden presence 1, runic enchanting 3, blood manipulation 5, mana shield 1, aura shield 3, James 11, cosmic flight 4, sidereal starfield 2,</h1>


    <h1>Feats: Beginner regeneration, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, vampire, kissed by the faerie princess, reality programmer, sidereal quintessence, beginner sidereal affinity, cycle of sidereal essence, first base, Cid Campeador, dragonslayer </h1>


    <h1>Feat points: </h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    James explained that the dragonslayer feat increased all of my abilities by 10%, as well as increasing the hidden LUK stat. Hidden stats were extremely hard to raise, being things like luck, comprehension and inspiration, and apparently even things like gene dominance.


    Either way, I felt that all of my powers where much greater now, so I decided to try something with my nearly doubled stat total. I began to meditate, trying to focus on the vacuum between atoms. I focused on the space where there was supposed to be nothing, and I willed something to pop out. This actually successfully generated a burst of quantum void fluctuations with such vigor that you could actually sense it, feeling as weak elementary particles and negative elementary particles came into being, removing the energy and mass of nearby particles and replacing it with free flowing elementary particles that I willed into existence. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Unlocked void entropy level 1, consumed by cosmic elemental manipulation¡±


    This barely took any SE, less than the passive use of cosmic elementalism. Once I knew I could cause quantum void fluctuations, I decided to try breaking the balance, willing only the positive versions of the particles in, and trying to remove the negative ones. This took a bit longer, as I tried to use the energy of the main body, forcing it upon the space above the base until¡­


    ¡°Cosmic genesis unlocked, subsumed by cosmic elemental manipulation, cosmic elemental manipulation evolves into cosmic elementalism¡±


    I felt only a few particles appear without their negative partners. Well, maybe felt was the wrong term, it was more like prognosticator ran the calculations and found that there was a nanoscopic bit more mass than there was before. Soon it became much easier, as I took the extra mass and began to form atoms with it, forming hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc¡­


    I formed grams of diamond dust in my hands. It may have looked like I was just holding dust that collected in my hand, but this was a serious power.


    I¡¯ve always wanted to give the first law of thermodynamics the middle finger.


    Now the couple thousand prismatic stars began to zoom around the area, using cosmic elementalism and poincare restoration to slowly rebuild the area. Watching them work was magical, buildings being restored and shifted as the stars passed over. I watched as walls were moved and erected, as their molecular structure was modified, strengthening them at the molecular level. The place where the tribe and the settlers were staying became a great keep, becoming similar to a modern condominium. I could feel them using magic to simulate things like electricity, plumbing, heating, and other amenities. I saw countless parts of the castle being rebuilt, storage rooms, armories, smithies, courtyards, even the area where the elder nephilim lived was fenced off, with rock seeming to have a conversation with the nephilim. I watched as they went beyond the base, out to where the hell knight was first found, filling in and clearing the traps we made earlier.


    The surrounding architecture began to mesh between modern and fantasy, massive interconnected towers rising up, forming a web of stone arches and bridges between them. By then end of the night, the ruined area was rebuilt.


    Xana used the large amount of renovations as an excuse to explain last night being so very loud and explody. When asked how the renovations were carried out so quickly, she responded with ¡°magic¡±. Note to self, in a fantasy world, because magic is almost always a plausible excuse¡­


    ¡°You know, while repairing the place I found a couple of spellbooks. They were in tatters, a few of them burnt, but with poincare restoration¡­¡±


    ¡°Where¡­¡±


    While Aether was busy perusing his newly acquired tomes of magic, Jos¨¦ was meeting with the representative of the people from the hospital.


    ¡°Haz visto lo que puede hacer y lo que ha hecho por nosotros, como puedes decir que simplemente lo tratemos como un hombre com¨²n? Esto es su castillo y nos ha invitado a nosotros adentro!¡± (you''ve seen what he can do and what he''s done for us, how can you saw we simply treat him like a common man? this is his castle and he has invited us inside!)


    Jos¨¦ was unimpressed. He held out his machete, which began to glow with a multihued tinge.


    ¡°El ha aprendido unas artes m¨¢gicas, pero eso no es algo que es exclusivo a ¨¦l¡± (he has learned some magic, but that isnt exclusive to him)


    ¡°Dices que t¨² tienes la capacidad de hacer lo mismo? De levantar a un castillo en una noche? De sanar a los terminalmente enfermos como si fuera nada? De ir en contra de olas de cuerpos podridos y destrozarlos como si fuera un juego? No digo que el es una persona que simplemente tiene poderes especiales, digo que el es una persona que puede sobrevivir un mundo endemoniado como este. Digo eso porque es pudo adaptarse, ¨¦l pudo derrotar a los monstruos, y ¨¦l pudo construir una casa mientras el mundo ca¨ªa en pedazos¡­ sabes que te dije que mi nombre es L¨¢zaro? Yo estaba en soporte vital cuando el mundo cambi¨®. La luz se fue, y sin electricidad¡­ yo vi muchas cosas en el otro lado, mundos enteros. Varios de esos mundos eran como el de nosotros, la gente siguiendo con sus vidas normales, otras eran mundos de fantas¨ªa y magia, yo estaba en camino a un mundo brillante, y pas¨¦ por encima de mundos dominados por diablos y demonios. No se que me esperaba en ese mundo brillante, pero se que si no nos esforzamos a llegar a su nivel, este mundo ser¨¢ dominado por diablos y demonios tambi¨¦n¡± (You say that you have the ability to do the same? From raising a castle in one night? To heal the terminally ill as if it were nothing? To go against waves of rotten bodies and destroy them as if it were a game? I am not saying that he is a person who simply has special powers, I am saying that he is a person who can survive a devilish world like this. I say that because he was able to adapt, he could defeat the monsters, and he could build a house while the world was falling apart ... you know I told you my name is Lazarus? I was in life support when the world changed. The light went out, and without electricity ... I saw many things on the other side, whole worlds. Several of those worlds were like ours, people were following with their normal lives, others were worlds of fantasy and magic, I was on my way to a brilliant world, and I passed over worlds dominated by devils and demons. I do not know what awaited me in that brilliant world, but I know that if we do not strive to reach their level, this world will be dominated by devils and demons too)


    Jos¨¦ was dumbstruck. He couldn¡¯t have imagined Lazaro wasn¡¯t his real name, but if that was true¡­ it would explain why he wanted to form a more structured society¡­


    to be honest, when Lazaro approached him asking about communal responsibilities and division of labor, he was quite frankly annoyed. How the hell was he supposed to know what to do with so many people, he just wanted to live with his family. Lazaro walked to the door, stopping just before exiting.


    ¡°Voy a discutir esto con Xana¡­ sabes, un machetero como tu probablemente har¨ªas mejor comandante que un viejo como yo¡± (I''ll discuss this with Xana... you know, a machete man like you would probably make a better commander than an old man like me)


    Xana was actually walking towards the settlers quarters along with Milesio after having a discussion with the elder nephilim, so they bumped into Lazaro pretty quickly. Lazaro interposed himself in their way, stopping them from going forward and then bowing to them


    ¡°Perd¨®name, Xana y Milesio, pero necesitamos gu¨ªa. No conocemos c¨®mo funciona este sistema, ni c¨®mo sobrevivir en este nuevo mundo. Perd¨®name por seguir pidiendo y pidiendo, pero necesitamos ense?anza¡± (I''m sorry, Xana and Milesio, but we need a guide. We don''t know how this system works or how to survive in this new world. Forgive us for asking and asking, but we need someone to teach us)


    Xana and Milesio looked at each other for a moment and stifled a chuckle. They just came back from convincing the nephilim to share its knowledge.


    ¡°Esto es una universidad, no?¡± (Its a university isnt it?


    And so began a period of grueling study and training.


    James managed to level up enough for another avatar, while he used the main body to create ¡°sidereal nebulae¡±, a sidereal construct with the runic enchantment, James and cosmic elementalism skills, at a cost of 300000 SE. this sidereal nebulae would then spawn a single prismatic star every day, who would then go out to hunt zombies and occasionally find more survivors hiding in wholesale stores, grocery stores, or even in their houses.


    Aether dove into studying the magic tomes they found, and James used the other two avatars to give classes on how the system worked, teaching the residents what they knew of the system so far. This included how affinities worked, how each of the known resources worked, how to gain skills, how feats worked, etc¡­


    of course there was still a lot of things that were unknown, so they were encouraged to experiment outside of classes. Speaking of classes, it was found that it could be pushed back until the twentieth level before you stopped leveling. Of course classes tended to give more benefits with them than without them, so why would one want to wait to get it? Well, the classes you could take depended on what skills and feats you had, so the more of those you gained, the better a class you could get. So of course several of them worked hard on their favored field, some training hard at physical combat with the sidereal trasgu and rock, some studying magic under the elder nephilim and Xana, and some just experimenting.

 Chapter 16: ranging afield

    About two weeks later, I finally finished skimming through the entire library, leveling James twice, runic enchantment 3 times, cosmic elementalism twice, and an astrology book raised my sidereal affinity from beginner to average.


    Unlike blood affinity, the increase sidereal affinity gave me came in much larger increments. At average level, the other affinities increased my pools by 20%, but sidereal increased it by 50%. This helped quite a bit in my experiments, since I then had a lot more SE to experiment with. Of course, it was somewhat difficult to actually use any of the spells, since most of them worked off non-scientific principles, notably the spells based on giving the target bad luck and spells that dealt with more spiritual things, since I had absolutely no understanding why yelling certain names at a demon would cause it to suffer any damages. Of course, there was a priest among the people I rescued, who was able to get the exorcism skill and unlock the ¡°divine¡± affinity that gave him a resource called ¡°faith¡± based on WIL¡­ that is something worth studying¡­


    There were also ¡°spells¡± that were used to transmute things, notably some ¡°berserker rage¡± type spells, as well as techniques to make charms and potions, which gave me the alchemy skill. Of course, as with all fantasy stories, there were healing potions as well, which assisted me in recovering SE, and even diverting excess SE into potions for later use. Of course it needed specialized ingredients, but most could be easily fabricated or replaced, like aqua regia being replaceable with diluted hydrofluoric acid.


    I tried to make more and more recipes, finding that coffee and alcohol made a very quick MP recovery potion, while adding fish oil made it a PP recovery potion, alcohol with coffee and an energy drink made a KI recovery potion, and sugar along with blended fruit and shredded meat made a health recovery potion¡­


    alcohol with sugar, an energy drink, and a slight electric current created a haste potion that made me really hyperactive¡­ cleaning up was a mess, but by the end alchemy reached level five, and I¡¯ll take any feat points I could get.


    The people who settled in the base, led by Lazaro, went out on regular zombie hunting expeditions, always accompanied by a large group of prismatic stars and sidereal trasgu.


    We learned quite a bit about leveling that way, discovering mechanics like ¡°experience sharing¡± where experience went to everyone in the party, even if they just watched, and how the more people there were the less experience each zombie gave. The zombies didn¡¯t seem to appear within the base itself, and it appeared they could only spawn on unclaimed land, which meant that the settlers had to walk a certain distance before actually meeting with any. From this we learned a few interesting things, mostly about new kinds of classes like the engineer, who focused on gadgets and gizmos that he made himself, a necromancer that could control the zombies, and even basic Druid classes that used the power of nature. The later was actually called bohique, and used strange statuettes to cast their spells¡­


    Perhaps most interesting were the production and crafting based classes. Those appeared only when someone focused on crafting based skills, and when they earned enough experience reach level 5, they gained access to classes like blacksmith, tailor, cook, etc¡­ I honestly didn''t know crafting could grant get you to level up in the first place, probably should have focused on that more¡­


    These classes gained experience whenever their products were used. Someone eating a chef¡¯s food, attacking with a blacksmiths clothes, wearing a tailors clothes, each increased the level of the respective class. This let a good deal of them stay at the base and make equipment.


    Now the base could sustain itself, with the recent plans to see if the Druid class could assist with agriculture by creating a farm. I could actually go and explore the rest of the island, without needing to worry that they¡¯ll be killed off instantly.


    I flew into the sky, trying to get a better view of the area. The closest point of interest was to the south, a large stretch of woodlands making up the botanical gardens. Given my increased luck stat, I wanted to see what I could find.


    When I touched down, I tried sensing around for monsters. Right now Prognosticator could reach around 100 meters away, giving me more than enough space to react to any attacks. Luckily the only living things I could sense were trees and a giant bee at the edge of my perception. I used Prognosticator on everything I could, repeatedly gathering more and more information to use with what I learned in the library. I even found a few herbs that had magical effects, so I decided to pick them up for later use in alchemy. This place might be a treasure trove of different ingredients.


    I felt strangely comfortable in the woods, the irregular ground, the trees, everything felt¡­ friendlier. Then I sensed something decidedly more murdery, in the form of a rotting fungus. It¡¯s color ranged from light pink to dark brown, with the texture of liquified flesh. Tentacles sprouted from the mushroom cap, swaying idly. If I didn¡¯t know any better, I would brush it off as a piece of alien flora. Unfortunately, James informed me otherwise¡­


    ¡°Abyssal Blood mushroom: a form of fungus that originates from demon-dominated worlds. Its purpose is to act as a terraformer, filling the surrounding atmosphere with demonic energy, and making nearby demons, eldritch abominations and undead more powerful. Its immense resistance to elemental damage, as well as its ability to reproduce by budding, make it nearly impossible to remove.


    I recommend hosing it down with sidereal blasts¡±


    The thing was built to be nearly immune to fire, electrocution, cold, radiation, acid, while cutting, piercing and bludgeoning damage caused it to release spores and reproduce. Of course, there are few things that can survive all of those things and more at the same time¡­


    The mushroom actually dropped a small orb instead of actual coins. When I used Prognosticator, James told me it was a concentrated monster essence. It was like a coin, but it was a lot more usable, being able to use it for alchemy, enchanting, even being straight up consumable for bonus stats, even though consuming it carries the risk of inheriting several traits from the creature, so in this case¡­ Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    I shoved it into my bag, better to deal with it back at the base. In the meantime, I began to search around, finding a few more of those mushrooms. The others only dropped a few gold coins, making it look like the monster essence was a rare drop, so thank you dragonslayer feat.


    Prognosticator told me that the mushrooms were all forming a circle around the botanical garden. Quickly flying to the center, I found the remains of an old townhouse that formed the central administrative building. I say remains because it was torn in half by the mother of all mushrooms bursting from under it. As I approached it became darker and darker, the air around me seeming to emit gloom. It didn''t have the same fleshy color as the other mushrooms,  instead having a flaky outer covering with blood red tentacles bursting out the top. It was surrounded by several other creatures, including what appeared to be bald reptilian dogs, and what appears to be a roman centurion, with a mohawk made of dark hellfire, which appeared like blood red fire, commanding several demonic legionnaires, and several bee¡¯s with small red tentacles sticking from their heads. Looks like the blood abyss fungus has the same ability as cordyceps, with how it made the bees into zombies.


    The demonic legionnaires interested me the most. They looked like your standard devilish humanoids, beefy as an orc, two arms ending in hands with claws that looked like really big knives, horns jutting out where their eyes should be, bone plates acting as armor¡­


    And they kept coming out from under the mushroom¡­


    Activating illusory stealth and hidden presence, I tried to get a bit closer. From under the mushroom, a similar miasma to the one of the hell knight oozed out, with the occasional flash of hellfire, notable for being a much deeper shade of red, like deoxygenated blood. My sidereal affinity was screaming that it was a portal, and whatever was beyond it was giving me an evil vibe. Not gloomy, not creepy, but evil. It wasn''t the kind of vibe you get from a weird looking bug or a dark room in a haunted house, It was the kind you get from looking a serial killer in the eye, the kind you get from someone torturing another person for fun. It wasn''t fear, fear comes from not understanding something. Whatever was beyond that portal made itself very clear to understand, how it wanted to rip and tear, to spread and dominate, how it wanted to kill you and your family just for the fact that you are alive and therefore killable.


    I wanted to get closer, but the closer to the mushroom I got, the less cover I had. It was as if any plants that were near to the mushroom began to wither away, the life drained away from them by the gloom¡­


    Welp, this will have to do¡­


    I began to try and shape the sidereal blast. I was able to make it solid before, now I just needed to nullify the launching force, wrapping the blast over my hand, and stretching it out in front of my fists into twin blades.


    ¡°Sidereal blast has evolved into Sidereal arsenal¡±


    Next I activated ki boost, autokinesis, cosmic flight, illusory stealth and hidden presence at the same time. I felt my sidereal essence spreading through my body, taking the place of ki, psionic power, and mana, as my ki begins to bend space around me and psionic power begins to tap into the elements, as magic flows through my veins, giving me the power of its torrent¡­


    ¡°Ki boost, cosmic flight and autokinesis level up x5, fuse into cosmic power skill.


    Illusory stealth and hidden presence level up x5, fuse into dark matter cloak skill.


    Cosmic elementalism leveled up x5¡±


    I felt as the elements around me began to cluster and assist me, even as all evidence of my existence was suppressed. I was ready to commence my plan.


    I shot in and impaled a random demonic legionnaire at the edge of the field, instantly dragging him back and expanding the blades on my hands to finish him off, leveling up sidereal arsenal, cosmic power, and dark matter cloak. I did it again, this time grabbing two of the reptile dog things prognosticator told me were chupacabras. I grabbed them by extending the sidereal blades on my hands like tentacles, leveling all of those skills again.


    I tried it again, this time drilling straight through a gluttony demon while nobody was looking, with nobody any wiser about it. Huh, the skills leveled up again¡­


    More and more demonic legionnaires began arriving. I began to fortify the surrounding area in between my attacks. They began to send out groups of legionnaires as scouts, and I made sure only half of the groups made it back, leveling my skills twice.


    The centurion saw that his scouts were not returning. He of course decided to act more cautiously by sending a small platoon of demons at once, ordering each to create balls of hellfire and burn the forest as they went.


    I was about to move in and quickly try to kill all of them before they could get to far, when one of the trees punched the nearest legionnaire. It began to kick and stomp at the demons, even as they bathed it in hellfire. I decided to help the ent, as prognosticator told me it was called, using poincare restoration on it to heal it as it bashed away the demons. Poincare restoration also leveled up in the process, so it was a win win.


    I recovered my SE with the blood from the demons, so as I healed the ent, the ent smashed demons, and I drunk up the resulting demon smoothie. Since I had so much SE at my disposal I began to spam out prismatic stars. The demons were having more and more trouble as time passed, so eventually the centurion hosed down the tree man to ashes using hellfire. Imagine how surprised he was when not only did the ent seem to resurrect, but yet another ent appeared and began bashing demons about.


    By the time a third ent appeared, I was slowly approaching the mushroom. It was strangely still, as if it was focusing on keeping the portal under it working, sending more and more legionaries. I prepared to fire a massive blast into the portal, like I did with the hell knight. The ents have smashed around the centurion, his legionaries, the gluttony demons, the chupacabras and even the infected bees. I absorbed more and more blood, preparing to fire it into the breach.


    Unfortunately, my dark matter cloak failed the moment before I fired it, the sheer amount of energy causing the skill to fail. This allowed the mushroom a split second reaction, hitting me into the portal and immediately trying to restabilize it.


    The other side of the portal seemed to be a bonfire, burning in a giant cage fungus. Demonic legions stood at the ready, marching into the fire in columns. This must be why it was trying to focus on the portal so much, several times more demons were going in than going out, with the remainder probably being stuck in between until the mushroom could get them out. I found myself surrounded by the demonic legion, each holding a ball of hellfire to lob at me.


    Fortunately, I still had my blast charged up¡­


    Of course, a simple explosion wouldn¡¯t be able to wipe them all away, and my previous weapon wouldn¡¯t be capable of handling them all, so I decided to use the sheer amount of energy I was holding to my advantage.


    My new favorite weapon is the mech.

 Chapter 17: raze a little hell

    I now stood well over 6 meters tall, surrounded by an armor of solidified prismatic light, the two arms ending in the same kind of weapon I used before, with the blades easily reaching the floor. I trampled countless demons, charging straight through crowd to avoid the onslaught of hellfire. Each demon I trampled provided more blood, which provided more energy, which meant more demons getting destroyed. At some point I fired back with sidereal pulses, charged versions of the sidereal beam with a bit more oomph coming from between the two blades on my arms. Those carved up entire lines from the demonic legions.


    I kept using prognosticator and combat master to avoid all of the fireballs being shot at me, bobbing, weaving and strafing the fiendish columns. Soon enough the centurions showed up to try to stop me, firing continuous gouts of hellfire. These I killed by straight up charging at them, and then mutilating them with my blades. Seeing their commanders mutilated in front of them certainly wasn¡¯t the best for the demons morale, causing them to turn and flee instead of continuing their assault on me with their fireballs. My small side and large speed made it easy enough to avoid getting damaged, let alone with a good portion of the enemy showing their backs instead of firing. I began to fire sidereal blasts in missile form, small sidereal blasts that curved towards the enemy groups.


    I needed to keep destroying these bastards or else I would run out of power. The mech actually drained over 100 SE a second. This, along with the ridiculous cost to manifest it in the first place, made it a very resource intensive ability. Luckily, it seemed that I had an inexhaustible supply of enemies to slaughter.


    Soon enough I noticed a few different forms of demonic legionnaire. This one was like a cross between a spiny lizard and a Minotaur, built like a battering ram. Another one had a long cylindrical body, basically a pipe with a few legs attached to the bottom. It¡¯s head was like a sharks, with a bony covering, while its spine and ribs extended outside its skin, encapsulating it¡¯s torso.


    ¡°Demonic auxiliary (romper): a form of demon among the infernal legions, it focuses on sheer physical strength, having several abilities that increase its damage against structures.


    Demonic auxiliary (ordinatus minimus): a form of demons among the infernal legions, its torso is designed to produce, shape, and launch explosive balls of hellfire at range¡±


    Huh, neat¡­


    the Rompers were easier to take out by blasting them from a distance, while the ordinatus were weaker to me just charging in and gutting them between the ribs, their stubby legs and extended rib cage making it difficult for them to maneuver.


    There were less and less demons appearing each moment, the vast majority having fled by now. The area was arid and deserted, with the only actual landmark being the giant portal mushroom. The ground was covered in blood, even though rivers of it flowed towards me every moment. At that point, I turned off my mech suit, deciding to try what the main body did before. I still felt like I was in combat, so I decided to try and make myself some backup, using the remains of thousands of demons to fuel the creation of a few thousand prismatic stars.


    I then moved to follow the largest group of demons, trying to find out where they came from. I wanted to find out where they lived as well as why they were so set on invading. If it was a simple matter of living in literal hell it was possible to just invite them into my group, since I already had the sidereal trasgu with me.


    Eventually I reached what appeared to be a city. At the center of the city was what appeared to be an artificial mountain. Activating dark matter cloak, I began to approach the city. The central structure seemed to be a bunch of towers that were built on top of other towers, as if when they couldn''t fit another tower on the ground they just started building on top of the other towers, with the rest of the city surrounding that structure¡­


    On the ground level were several other buildings. One looked like a factory, smoke stacks coming out of the roof while carts full of the zombies were constantly brought out into what appeared to be a kind of open market area. In the market area there were quite a few things, like jewels that emitted magic power, strange enchanted objects, ornate pieces of jewelry, large chunks of meat, and slaves¡­


    So that was where other humans went. I saw at least a hundred people bound in chains, maybe more in cages. The demons were not invading because they lived in a hellhole¡­


    ¡°Unlocked rage level 1¡±


    They were just invading to get slaves¡­


    I saw one of the demons from the butcher shop walk up, inspect a woman, and take her back to the shop. She wasn''t treated as an assistant, or even as a servant. The demon grabbed her arm and directly ripped it off and put it on the chopping block.


    Scratch that, they didn''t see us as slaves, they saw¡­ us¡­ as¡­ livestock¡­


    I ordered the prismatic stars to kill as many demons as they could. They all flew towards the market in unison, combining along the way. When they finally reached the ground they formed a total of 3 black masses surrounded by massive spinning accretion discs made from sidereal blasts, using their discs like buzzsaws and cutting through demons and stalls alike. Looks like evolving sidereal blast into sidereal armament had an effect¡­


    As soon as they killed every demon in the market area, they moved onto the rest of the city, cutting apart entire buildings, leaving a line of destruction wherever they passed. I myself moved to rescue the humans, using poincare restoration wherever necessary. I was even able to resurrect the girl at the butcher shop after she died of blood loss, leading her to the other humans. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    After collecting all the humans together, I tried to think of a way to get them to safety. I began thinking of the portal mushroom and how it worked. It seemed to form a connection between the mushroom on this plane and itself, creating a stable gate. Copying that with cosmic elementalism leveled up the skill, forming a blinking gate between me and the main body, where I sent all of the humans.


    It took quite a bit of SE, but luckily I was supplied by the recent bloodbath in the market. Speaking of which, I moved to collect all the loot I could, summoning a prismatic star to bring things through the portal. I would probably find a use for those things later¡­


    For now, I closed the portal again, using the blood flowing towards me to spawn more and more prismatic stars, then sending them to go kill more demons and spill more blood. One of the prismatic star groups finally reached the factory building, ripping into it and making its entire storage into a fine red mist. I kept making more and more prismatic stars.


    Once hellknights started appearing from the main castle, and giant bone boats began to surround the skies around the city, I stopped making more sidereal stars.


    The bone ships seemed like they were made from shattered bones glued together, with massive skeletal wings sheathed in hellfire. Prognosticator told me each ship was filled to the brim with hell footmen, hell squires not bound to a knight. They were a tiny bit weaker than a hell squire, but not by that much, and there was a lot more footmen than squires¡­


    I ordered all of my prismatic stars to attack the ships while I scoped out the hell knights. The sidereal stars began to fly upwards, converging on a single point well above where the ships were hovering. They began to fuse together, forming a titan sized version of what the teams formed. I could see as the black mass in the middle began to charge energy to fire a massive sidereal blast, firing a pulse at the nearest bone ship.


    The ship, which was easily 400 meters long, was blown up in one shot. From the remains of the ship, even before all of it hit the ground, rivulets of blood were already swarming towards me, allowing me to remake my mech suit.


    And with that, I proceeded to attack the various knights. The first was one who went around wielding a greatsword that matched its 3 meters of height. Using dark matter cloak, I ran up to him and caught his sword between the blades that came out of my hands, twisting the blade out of its hands. Once he was disarmed, he began using his own fists as weapons, nowhere near as lethal as the blade, but with a hell knight¡¯s strength, it wasn''t the kind of thing I wanted to take head on. Using dark matter cloak, cosmic power and the mech suit, I dashed behind the knight, driving my blades into the space where its helmet ended and his breastplate began, skewering its neck.


    ¡°Sneak attack skill unlocked¡±


    So far, james leveled up once, blood manipulation leveled up five times, and cosmic power, sidereal arsenal and dark matter cloak leveled up twice. A large amount of blood was pooling around me, from the few bone ships that the prismatic stars downed. I dashed towards the next knight, consuming the excess blood to spawn more prismatic stars.


    Every demon I saw was almost immediately blasted to oblivion. The next knight wielded a spear, and when I got passed the spears threat area, I was able to drive my blades into the armpits of the knights armor, with a quick blast finishing him off. The next knight wielded a club, at least until I impaled its face. Interestingly enough, the open part of the faceplate had some form of barrier over it, preventing any attacks from passing through unless they exceeded a certain threshold.


    Soon enough, all of the knights sent out to fight were assassinated. It was around that point where I sensed a massive source of power.


    ¡°Interesting, I wonder which fool thought it wise to attack my city?¡±


    Another telepath boss I see. This one appeared as a 4 meter tall behemoth of blood red muscle. It had twin sets of bull and ram horns coming out of its head, while it wore actual metal armor, covered with gems and runic inscriptions. In its hands were twin scimitars, the blades having runic lines running down them while the hilt was covered in magic gems.


    ¡°That thing in the sky is an eyesore, I''m getting rid of it¡±


    He raised one of his scimitars up, pointing it at the combined form of the prismatic stars. A moment afterward, a massively condensed ball of hellfire is launched at the central black mass, annihilating it and over a thousand prismatic stars.


    I immediately gave the order for the prismatic stars to scatter, using prognosticator on the bastard¡­


    ¡°Mazikeen, Baron of hell: a low ranking member of the nobility of the demonic realms. He has been put in charge of the invasion of the caribbean area, and his defeat would leave most demonic forces in the area vulnerable for at least a while. He specializes in melee combat, though with his blades enchantments he is still quite capable of wreaking havoc at range. Mazikeen is much more powerful than any other foe you¡¯ve faced so far, even compared to the cuelebre¡±


    ¡°Oh, it looks like a fly on the wall decided to snoop around¡±


    He noticed me using prognosticator on him and I had to jump out of the way of a blast of hellfire as he began to approach my position. He seemed to be playing with me, firing blast after blast. Of course while he was blasting about, I had the prismatic stars go around killing off every demon they could find. Soon enough not a single demon remained in the lower city area, the sidereal stars having swarmed everywhere and now mobilizing on top of the central structure.


    I myself began to gather blood from all around the city, and the baron notices. He chuckles like a hyena, even as torrents of blood began to circle me.


    ¡°I wasn''t expecting to face a vampire. Your kind usually sticks to your blood ocean, yet now you decide to attack on dry land? You may have collected a puddle to use, but i''m afraid that won''t be nearly enough, as I also know a few tricks¡±


    The baron seemed to be oblivious to the massive collection of sidereal stars above the central fortress, combined into what I will refer to as sidereal black holes. Instead he focuses on me, launching waves of hellfire from his blades. I pushed the blood I still hadn¡¯t drained in front of me, acting as a shield.


    ¡°Interesting¡­ why don''t you join me? With my backing you could rule boundless lands on your world, with every luxury you could think of at your fingertips¡±


    Well¡­ that is starting to sound enticing¡­


    ¡°Riches, pleasures, power, anything you wish for, I could grant, all you would have to do is serve me. Join me, and I will make you king over all of your lesser kindred¡±


    Yeah¡­ that¡­ sounds¡­ nice¡­

 Chapter 18: Tyrannicide

    Yeah¡­ I could probably make all those people my slaves pretty easily¡­ and I would just have to send a few over to this guy¡­


    Where they would be slaughtered¡­ WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING?!


    ¡°Rage leveled up, blood manipulation has evolved into bloodwork, James leveled up.


    Huh, the fool tried to brainwash a ruler of chaos¡­¡±


    The baron seemed to receive a backlash from his attempted manipulation, clutching his head as if he received a thunderclap headache. Suddenly, his skin slowly becomes ashen, as if it was burnt. Large gashes started to appear, gouts of hellfire flowing out of them. He began to grow bigger, from 4 meters to 16 meters. His armor shifted and expanded, seeming to grow along with the baron, as if it seeped from the burnt skin. His twin scimitars became blades of condensed hellfire, as if each was a separate funeral pyre ready for the body of the deceased.


    ¡°Very well, human, if that is what you wish, I will show you what happens when a worm goes against a lord¡±


    He even used the word human as an insult¡­


    Mazikeen charged at me, hellfire bursting from the seems in his armor. It actually acted like a rocket booster, the flames propelling him forward, and towards me.  During this time, the prismatic stars have been charging up an enormous blast on top of the central mountain of towers. I had a split second plan to execute.


    I began to make a portal from right in front of me to on top of the massive artificial mountain in the middle of the city. It took a short moment for the portal to form correctly, the baron bearing down on me. When he was halfway towards me, I got the portal to a quarter, when he was ? of the way towards me, I got the portal to ? completion. Once he was ? of the way, the portal was ? complete. Suddenly, he accelerated out of nowhere, the tip of his sword centimeters from my chest. then he was jabbing his sword at my heart, the portal was opened, taking its position in the millimeters between the demon¡¯s blade and my skin.


    His momentum drove him through the roof, with the following blast from all of the combined sidereal stars collapsing the structure on top of him.


    ¡°There is no way it could have survived that¡±


    As the prismatic stars scattered, I partially expected to receive a notification about unlocking some sort of resurrection spell¡­


    The rubble seemed to explode with hellfire, the stone burning as Mazikeen rose up from the ashes. He didn''t seem that much worse for wear, besides a few dents and scratches. He began to jump towards me, landing with a massive burst of hellfire that burnt away the outer layer of my mech suit. I was scared. He was nigh invulnerable, and just being around him was damaging me.


    Then the prismatic stars arrived. They began to merge with my mech, combining with it and adding power to it. By the end the mech appeared completely different, if before it seemed to be made from hardened sidereal blasts, now it seemed to be made with a glossy black metallic substance, with polychromatic veins of rainbow colors dashed across it. It now stood at 15 meters tall, slightly shorter than Mazikeen.


    A quick exchange later, and I find that Mazikeen is still stronger than I am, though through a combination of combat master and prognosticator I could still keep up. His armor was still impenetrable to me, forcing me to stab at the openings where hellfire was shooting out of.


    The flames burned away at my blades whenever the two made contact, causing my attacks to do much less damage than they could have, while each of its blows destroyed 10s of prismatic stars forming my mech. With that, I decided to take to the skies, where I found I had quite a bit more maneuverability.


    The baron followed me, jets of hellfire thrusting off the soles of his boots, the smaller jets at every joint in the armor acting to stabilize and maneuver him.  I began to prepare an altered version of the sidereal blast, spending a couple extra sidereal essence to give it the ability to sense and home in on heat sources, like the gouts of hellfire that covered the knight.


    This put the knight in a bit more of a pickle, forcing him to maneuver more erratically, while throwing random blasts of hellfire to draw away the blasts. I saw as it began to lose steam, its massive expenditure of hellfire taxing its demonic energy reserves. I myself was beginning to run low as well, though with all of the sidereal stars powering my mech, my expenditures were miniscule compared to the demon¡¯s.


    ¡°Do you think you can defeat me? Do you honestly believe you can defeat me within my own lands?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, pretty much. You seem to be on the ropes already, and I''m not even alone¡±


    I just received a message from James, telling me that he managed to create another avatar. It seems the limit on the number of avatars I can have increases every time James gets five more levels, meaning that at the current level 15, I had three other avatars ready to jump in and help me.


    And may I remind you that I figured out how to make a portal?


    So me and my three avatars floated there firing off heat seeking blasts at Mazikeen, watching as he fell to the earth. I didn''t get any message telling me the battle was over, and as they say, it''s not over until the experience comes in.


    We kept firing, even as the rubble in the city began to cluster onto him. Even as the massive rocks and stone began to stack up on him, there wasn''t a giant pile, not even when the ground under the buildings began to get sucked into him. It seemed to be condensing onto him, merging into his armor even as it kept shrinking instead of growing. By the end, he stood in a massive crater, having the size of a normal human. I remember something about human sized bosses¡­


    ¡°This is what happens when you stand in front of a demon noble¡¯s plans¡±


    Suddenly, he blasted forward, blowing through my four avatars as if they weren''t there and driving its fist into my mech, unleashing a massive blast of hellfire that sent me crashing down. My mech disintegrated, all but a few of the prismatic stars that formed it being annihilated, along with my avatars. That burnt me, not physically, but I felt as if my consciousness itself was burnt. The fires around the baron becoming darker and darker, until I could feel portions of existence being destroyed, burnt away into nothingness. I was able to create matter from nothing, but this fire was able to destroy matter absolutely, and possibly not just matter. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    It began to shoot down at me, like an extinction causing meteor. A part of my mind told me that this was just an avatar, but another part told me that I wouldn''t survive those flames. I summoned all of the remaining blood in the area, forming it into a shield. I thought about how blood could be converted into other forms of energy. I thought about how blood could be used as fuel for ki, how ki could be used to generate magic, how magic could enhance psionic power, how psionic power could be used to convince and feed spirits, and how all of those could be used to heal. I converted the blood to every energy type I could think of, and using it to form a barrier against the baron.


    ¡°Mana shield leveled up, aura shield leveled up, psychic barrier unlocked, spirit guard unlocked, mana manipulation unlocked, ki manipulation unlocked, psionic manipulation unlocked, spirit manipulation unlocked, mana control unlocked, ki mastery unlocked, psionic dominion unlocked, spirit love unlocked. Mana shield and mana bolt consumed by mana control, aura shield consumed by ki mastery, psychic barriere consumed by psionic dominion, spirit guard consumed by spirit love. Spirit love, mana control, psionic dominion, ki mastery and bloodwork have fused into sidereal law


    Medium sidereal affinity achieved, cycle of sidereal essence feat has evolved into sidereal universe¡±


    I realized that all of them were just different sides of the same coin, or in this case it was more of a tetrahedron. This allowed me to manipulate all of them like I would manipulate any of them, being able to drain the enemy¡¯s ki, health, magic, psionic power and spirit would certainly help quite a bit, and my ability to use sidereal essence as any of those forms of energy allowed my shield to be much more powerful, powerful enough to resist Mizakeens (hopefully) final form.


    The shield in front of me turned into a collection of bright particles, joined together into a dome over me. I felt the world around me being slowly drained into my SE pool, the evil vibe I got before slowly diminishing as well.


    I drained more and more of the world around me, replacing it with sidereal essence. That mushroom before was trying to fill the forest with demonic energy, making it easier for demons to use their powers. Right now I was doing the opposite, draining away demonic energy in the area and converting it to sidereal essence. About an hour of enduring Mazikeen and his constant attacks, portals began to form next to me, my avatars reappearing and assisting me with converting the area.


    I don''t know how long we actually stayed like that. One of us focused completely on maintaining the barrier, while the other three focused on converting the area around us. It could have been days, it could have been weeks.


    Eventually I felt another, much larger portal open, a stream of multi-colored glowing particles flowing out. It appears that the main body changed is form again¡­ it was also followed by a swarm of prismatic stars, who joined together and formed a massive prismatic black hole.


    It seemed Mazikeen could sense the sudden influx of power, beginning a renewed assault on the barrier, beginning to add more and more stress to it. I could sense its power diminishing, and it seemed like it was an all or nothing assault. The dome of sidereal essence was shaking, the particles that formed it slowly being shed as they were annihilated. By the time it failed completely, Mazikeen was at half power, more than enough to finish me off.


    That is, if I didn''t have the mother of all sidereal blast aimed at his face¡­


    The beam rushed him into the sky, a massive explosion visible among the stars. This is actually the first time I¡¯ve seen the stars, since usually the sky was covered in an opaque and almost solid layer of ash and smoke.


    ¡°Wait for it¡­¡±


    ¡°Sidereal law level up x20. Level up x20, Class sidereal lord ranks up into Sidereal Emperor, Unlocked sidereal empire skill. Level up x30


    Achieved demon slayer, achieved demon hunter¡±


    Epic. my new sidereal emperor class seemed almost identical to sidereal lord, just gaining an extra 5 stat points per level and giving me the sidereal empire skill. That skill seemed to just allow me to infuse an area with sidereal essence, granting me and my allies increased power and control over the area. The demon hunter achievement granted me another bonus to luck, as well as dealing 25% more damage to demons while taking 25% less, while increasing my prestige among ¡°good¡± aligned organizations.


    After allocating all of my new stat points to Sidereal Quintessence, I noticed I had 300 feat points awaiting me. I immediately bought legion of one, which multiplied my base SE by 10 and multiplied my regeneration by my level.


    This almost boosted my main body¡¯s SE to 30 million, and the regeneration to over 180 per second. Not per hour, per second.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    <h1>Name: Aether Cael</h1>


    <h1>Species: sidereal plasma</h1>


    <h1>Class: sidereal emperor</h1>


    <h1>Level: 130</h1>


    SE: 29705000/29705000 [SQE*level*5*2*10]


    SE regeneration: 653510/hour (181/second) [SQE*level*1.1*2]


    <h1>SQE: 2285</h1>


    <h1>Unused stat points: </h1>


    <h1>Status effects: </h1>


    <h1>Skills:</h1>


    <h1>Resistance skills: fire immunity 1, pain resistance 4, radiation resistance 8, </h1>


    <h1>Elemental skills: poincare restoration 5, cosmic elementalism 13, sidereal arsenal 7, cosmic power 7, dark matter cloak 7,</h1>


    <h1>Unique skills: James 15 (Prognosticator, combat master, ruler of chaos, sidereal egregore), sidereal starfield 2, sidereal law 20, sidereal empire 1,  </h1>


    <h1>Production skills: alchemy 5, runic enchanting 6,</h1>


    <h1>Combat skills: rage 3, sneak attack 1, </h1>


    <h1>Feats: Beginner regeneration, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, vampire, kissed by the faerie princess, reality programmer, sidereal quintessence, medium sidereal affinity, sidereal universe, first base, Cid Campeador, dragonslayer, demon hunter, legion of one,  </h1>


    <h1>Feat points: 100</h1>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Obtained 2.3 million gold coins, and 12,375 miscellaneous articles of treasure, would you like to view¡±


    Ooh, maybe later¡­


    For now, I reveled in the fact that I was practically unkillable, since legion of one gave such an enormous bonus.


    ¡°It was originally supposed to just double your capacity for each resource, though since you combined five resources into one, of course it would give such a result¡±


    Oh neat. I could see why it was called legion of one, since with this I could fight for hours or even days on end without actually having to drain the area.


    Next I teleported back to base, while James got back to producing the sidereal nebula constructs for them to keep creating more and more sidereal stars. Given that I could now use sidereal essence to power runic inscriptions and have energy generation runes generate sidereal essence, I also had them cover every possible surface with runic enchantments. Whether for power generation, structural reinforcement, heating, or etc¡­ I had them continuously improve the base, while I infused it with sidereal essence like I did in the demon''s homeworld. I could feel a part of myself enter the world around me, and I felt my sidereal empire skill level up as my control of the area grew.


    I felt strong enough to defend those who entrusted themselves to me.