Chronicles of the True Wizard

As he drained the third pool he had found that was suffused with ice mana and sported a cool blue color, Felix caught a glint of a silhouette darting through the shadows far off to his right. He quickly closed his Pocket Home and dropped the makeshift pump then prepared himself.

He carefully looked around to try and spot the creature but it darted from pillar to pillar deep within the shadow. He caught a glimpse of movement to his left then another to his right, but closer. He spotted movement from, he wasn’t sure if it was a single or multiple creatures, every few seconds from every direction all around him.

As he noticed the glimpses of movement getting closer, he prepared himself by erecting his Force Shield and holding Eretheas tightly in his hands. Even though he was ready for it, the creature still managed to sneak up on him and pounce from behind. Luckily, Felix’s shield was enough to slow it down and warn him.

He felt a sudden jerk on his mana pool but significantly dampened to the point where it wasn’t harmful due to his improvements in spell craft.

Felix spun around and came face to face with something that resembled a werewolf with leathery wing like fins along the sides of its head, between its claws and under its arms. The creature moved in slow motion as the force of its leap was slowed by Felix’s force shield and its claw struggled to swipe towards its prey.

Felix started swinging Eretheas then dropped the Force Shield, because it would have resisted his swing as well. The creature started falling to the ground, all it’s momentum gone, but it still managed to twist and contort it’s body out of harm’s way.

Now that it was on the ground, just a few meters from Felix, it moved much slower than Felix expected. Instead of darting around as quickly as the movement he had seen earlier, it seemed almost slow.

[D - Rare] Dhantoa (Lvl 341)

As Felix finished his swing with Eretheas, the creature reached an arm out and grabbed the axe’s shaft, pinning it to the ground. Felix tried to pull back on the axe but, even with a Force spell assisting him, the axe was completely stationary.

Felix cast one of the spells he had planned out as part of his Persona’s skills and released a burst of flames around him using Force to propel it.

All of a sudden, Felix yanked the axe back as all the force resisting him vanished. Looking around, the creature had vanished as far as Felix could tell.

Felix recast his Force Shield and waited just a few seconds before the creature lunged at him faster than he could follow from his right. The creature once again hit Felix’s force wall and decelerated to a stand still where Felix swung out at them once more.

This time, as Felix released the Force Shield, he simultaneously cast a Force spell to keep the creature suspended as he swung horizontally. He figured that should make it difficult for it to contort it’s way free.

As Felix swung, he watched essentially in slow motion, as his eyes and brain were still much faster than his body, while the creature squirmed. It twisted, punched and kicked in every direction at a ridiculous speed. Felix saw just a blur of movement then, he felt a surge of mana before him and the creature slowed to a crawl as it reached out to try and hold the axe back.

The creature was easily strong enough to overwhelm Felix’s Force Spell, overcoming his dampeners that were keeping him from hurting himself and it managed to stop the axe before it did anymore than open a shallow cut.

In a blur just after another surge of mana, it was gone again. Felix recast his Force Shield and waited.

This time, he held it still once again but he made sure it was close enough that he could fight it for control of it’s own mana. Within a couple meters of Felix, he completely overwhelmed it and with no surge of mana, the creature squirmed but with far less speed as the axe buried itself halfway into it’s abdomen.

It was gushing blood as it tried to run but with the lower half of it’s body only half connected, it didn’t manage to get very far and Felix easily pounced after it. Felix finished severing its torso then hit it over the head with Eretheas’ handle to stop it from squirming at the end.

Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Dhantoa (Lvl 341)

Ding You have gained 3 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (278 => 281)

He immediately absorbed it’s soul then put it’s entire body into his Soul Space. He avoided using the blood ring because while the blood ring was great for storing, preserving and even examining and incorporating individual cells, it was not intended for examining entire systems. The blood ring split the bodies it absorbed into separated balls of cells creating essentially the most complicated jig saw puzzle ever.

Felix quickly entered his Pocket Home on one of the pillars then shut the door behind him so he could focus without worrying about his surroundings.

Within his soul space, Felix opened the body and started sifting through it’s internal organs using his mana senses to isolate the organs he was looking for. Though he wasn’t certain, he had a suspicion as to what was happening whenever the creature had surged with mana.

It’s mana core was located opposite it’s heart and seemed to have an almost mirrored set of channels that matched it’s circulatory system. Felix didn’t spend long comparing them but at first glance, they seemed like a match to him. Those arteries branched out and passed through one of two organs that seemed to be altering the attunements of mana based on a valve inside of it’s core.

He quickly mapped the two organs to see what their output attunements were.

Felix didn’t see any other organs in the body that mattered to him so Felix dropped the body out of his Soul Space and absorbed it with the blood ring. The ring didn’t seem to care that the body had been in his soul space rather than being fresh, luckily.

Once inside the blood ring, Felix started sifting through it’s cells and finally managed to find what he was looking for.

The creature’s muscles, bones and to a lesser extent, flesh, all shifted when it pumped mana through them. When it pumped mana through them that was attuned to High Energy Force combined with a few other lesser amplitude frequencies, they became energized and jittery. Felix was almost certain it increased the creature’s Agility which is what made it so fast.

When Low Energy Force mana, alongside some other lesser amplitude frequencies, flowed through the cells, they shifted to being energized but slower. They were also much stronger and carried with them much more force. Felix suspected this shift increased the creature’s Strength, which is what made it impossible for him to retrieve his pinned axe.

The unfortunate part was that the cells, when shifted towards Strength or Agility, were severely lacking in the other stat. When they were strong, they were really slow and vice versa.

If Felix was going to incorporate these organs and cells into his own body, which he was highly inclined to try, he had to figure out a way to avoid lowering his stats as a by product.

Felix experimented with the cells and realized that rather than the cells themselves changing, it was more like the structure of the muscles, bones, flesh and organs were all shifting. The connections between them and how they communicated shifted the most.

As Felix experimented, something was constantly nagging him from the back of his mind. Finally, after he had spent almost an hour trying to come up with a solution, he realized what it was.

The way the creature’s shifted between states of high Agility and high Strength reminded him of the tigers he had fought right before leaving the integration. The tigers shifted colors but Felix was pretty sure their stats had also changed though, to a much less significant degree.

On a whim he looked through those cells that he had left preserved in some far off corner of the blood ring. Though he didn’t have the entire organs and had no way of reconstructing and examining its systems, he almost immediately found something useful.

The tigers seemed to be capable of changing the cells themselves somehow though, they used energy to do so through some unidentifiable process.

Felix’s ideal was combining the two so that his muscles didn’t literally shift underneath his skin but rather his cells themselves changed. He wasn’t sure exactly how to do it but he just started trying things. He also wasn’t even sure if it was possible to increase his Strength, Agility or even other stats significantly without changing the structure of his body. Either way, he limited himself to changing just the cells themselves, and he figured he might as well try.

Examining the tiger cells, Felix tried to isolate what was causing the cells to change internally and how they were changing. He ended up with a rough idea for both but not nearly enough to act on. The cells seemed to be using energy to tighten and shrink or expand to different degrees by changing their excitement levels, sort of like a cell temperature.

Since he found nothing substantial in the tiger cells, Felix instead ran through all the different cells at his disposal until he had a few populated categories. He tested the stats of the different cells and separated them by which ones were particularly agile, strong or endurant. He focused on those stats because they were the most identifiable and the most desirable to him at the moment.

He compared the cells within their categories and between the categories and tried to isolate specific changes he could make to his own cells to replicate the effects. He didn’t end up with much he could actually work with though so he opted instead to supplement his knowledge by experimenting.

He started modifying his cells in every different which way he could think of using mana and different mana attunements. He started with the attunements used by other creatures he had fought on this planet but quickly deviated from those when he found little to no effect.

The issue was that the possibilities for attunements, when he was combining multiple frequencies at different amplitudes all while changing the energy levels, were literally infinite. On top of that, the attunements themselves were incredibly finicky so he had to be very precise.

He tested one attunement, a variant of Electricity with a touch of Force and some of the Light spectrum and ended up with a cell that exploded. He ever slightly changed one of the component attunement frequencies and the cell seized up a little but seemed to otherwise be fine.

The other issue was that it seemed to him like the attunements he found that worked, only worked on some cells but not others. He managed to tune and combine multiple attunements based on their constituent parts so that they affected both cells, but the resultant effect was lessened.

For Strength, he focused on attunements that affected his muscles, Endurance his flesh and bones and finally for Agility he focused on his muscles again along with his nervous system.

He examined the Dhantoa body again and found that the bones became flexible and very elastic when it were buffed its Agility but rigid and unbending when buffing their Strength. He briefly spent some time trying to replicate the effect but unfortunately, their bones seemed to be structured so drastically differently from his, that he scrapped the idea entirely.

From there he spent time maximizing the effects of mana in his cells to get the most stats he could. He ended up with some tradeoffs that lowered other stats but ultimately they all balanced out as other constituent attunements buffed the stat back to normal. Overall he ended up with an increase in the desired stat with completely negligible or non-existent losses to his other stats.

His end result was an increase of almost 50% more Strength and Agility and 25% Endurance when he switched over to those specifically.

From there, he had to find a way to properly distribute the mana. Luckily, he didn’t need to modify his cells at all to accept the mana because he had tuned the attunements based on the cells currently in his Persona. All he had to do was find a way to distribute it. For the time being, he settled on manually changing the attunements and suffusing the blood within his heart.

With some experimentation, he made the ability almost entirely passive so long as he didn’t have to switch from Agility to Strength to Endurance. He could more or less subconsciously draw mana into his heart, shift it’s attunement, then force it into his blood. He had to spend a little while until he was completely comfortable with the attunement and had it memorized but once he did, it was trivial to do.

Switching between the modes took significant effort but he didn’t see himself switching mid battle just yet. When he was more comfortable with the effect, he would have actual mana channels and organs to process it all for him.

In the meantime, he didn’t need the bodily control his real body offered at all because he was just releasing mana into his heart, his body didn’t need to do anything other than pump blood normally.

He also made a mental note to look into having his heart or lungs embedded with a spell form that produced oxygen, like the one around his head, but decided he didn’t have time currently. He had spent enough time messing around and not enough time searching for more creatures and getting points.

In the future though, he now had some direction in terms of what he needed his mana channels to be capable of.

Exiting his Pocket Home, Felix didn’t see anything of note but he ramped up and maintained the new mana buff on his Strength. He thought about Agility but Strength made him do more damage with the axe and he didn’t feel like he was lacking much in the other areas at the moment.

His Agility was significantly lower than other creatures but his Perception and Intelligence, which largely passed through from his real body, were much better. He was mostly able to keep track of enemies and could react to them with spells, it was just that his body was too slow to react and dodge on it’s own.

He often felt like he was watching his Persona body and, he now realized to a much lesser extent his real body, move in slow motion.

Felix continued to drain the pools of mana suffused liquids with various plants growing out of them as he traveled through the under-coral. He was disappointed to find that while odd, none of the plants seemed to have any particular use case he could find upon initial inspection.

None of them were particularly tough or sharp so armor or weapons were out of the question. Other than that, the effects they produced were rather boring in Felix’s mind. It was possible they had value from an alchemical standpoint but Felix had no experience with alchemy, no desire to pursue it and more than enough credits at this point that they weren’t worth collecting. The only plant he actually bothered to take were lilies that grew over a pond of icy liquid.

The lilies seemed to be almost frozen and their petals were sharp and lined with frost. Felix was mostly curious about what would happen if he dropped them into the other pools. Theoretically, it might be a good way for him to identify the attunements of the mana in the pool since they often held complicated combined attunements.

He also encountered a couple more Dhantoa’s that he was able to slay much faster this time. It seemed like they were possibly territorial because as Felix walked from pool to pool, those were the only three creatures he encountered and they were spread far apart.

Slaying the other two, he preserved their bodies as much as he could by simply beheading them then dropped them into a pile in his Pocket Home.

Ding You have slain 2 [D - Rare] Dhantoa (Lvl 343 & 345)

Ding You have gained 5 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (281 => 286)

It was only once he had traveled a few kilometers out from where he killed the Dhantoas that he started encountering more creatures.

As he ran through the under-coral, Felix maintained his Force Shield at all times. It didn’t completely surround him, but it got close.

Suddenly he felt his mana jerk and spun around but there was nothing there. He still felt his mana being sucked into the spell so he looked up and saw just a meter above him, the bulbous end of a long and slimy tendril stuck in slow motion inside his Force Shield.

Were he not restricting his spell pool for secrecy and so he actually gained experience, he would definitely have dropped a delayed explosion spell grenade onto the tendril, like he had used in one of the combat dungeons. Instead, he summoned a Shade directly on top of the bulbous end then ducked to the side and dropped his Force Shield.

The tendril smacked into the ground along with the Shade but Felix was supplying plenty of mana so it wouldn’t dissipate. The tendril was then sucked up into the air in an instant, and Felix, after waiting just a second, started swinging wildly.

He couldn’t see anything as it was too dark and the creature was too far above him, but he just kept slashing away. Just a few moments later, he stopped as he saw a mass of black slowly falling to the ground above him. As he slashed, he saw the creature contort and jostle until finally, it spit up his Shade who remained in the air as the creature continued to fall.

Felix dismissed the shade and prepared to hit the creature when it got in range but instead, it’s tongue shot out, sending it’s body in the opposite direction for a few meters before the tongue found purchase. The body rocketed towards the end of it’s tongue and started scurrying it’s way around a coral pillar.

Casting a simple Force spell, Felix launched himself at the pillar and with his buoyancy, traveled far faster than he had intended. His aim wasn’t great either so he had to adjust a couple times but he eventually managed to bury his axe into the coral like an ice pick.

He yanked the axe free and stood up horizontally on the pillar using a single Force spell to overcome normal gravity and ran after it.

The creature noticed Felix coming and tried to launch its tongue off towards the ceiling but Felix was ready for it this time. He cast his Force Shield spell in front of the creature and watched as it’s tongue bunched up in front of it.

Felix ran over and swung down with his axe towards the creature that was clearly not used to melee combat as it just stood there. Felix buried the axe into it’s back then it’s legs to make sure it couldn’t run. The creature croaked out an awful cry just before it died and fell towards the ground.

Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Yiteriss (Lvl 402)

Ding You have gained 17 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (286 => 303)

Felix absorbed its soul before it even fell a meter through the air then hopped back down to the ground and stowed the corpse in his soul space on the way.

He figured he would examine its body later on once he had other corpses to look at as well. He was happy to find his Strength buff seemed to be functional, not that he had needed it in the fight. He was just happy it hadn’t hindered him or revealed significant downsides.

Felix let himself float down to the ground then continued traveling away from the evaluation building and roughly towards the weird sensation carried by the ambient anima, though he figured that was still far off.

He encountered a few novel pools and sucked them up, making sure to check all of the crystals that formed on the bases of the coral pillars as he passed them. He still hadn’t found any that were remotely interesting but he held out hope.

A few hours later, Felix finally managed to get the drop on a creature instead of the other way around. As he skirted around a coral pillar, he saw what looked to be something between a slug and a worm moving up the pillar.

[D - Rare] Aucore (Lvl 361)

Despite it’s low level, Felix was excited to see what it would do with its mana so he cast his Force Shield in front of him then summoned a shade next to the creature and swung. He had to make sure to avoid his own Force Shield with his swing but it wasn’t overly difficult to do so.

The Aucore didn’t even seem to react until just before the axe came down when suddenly, its skin shifted, becoming matte and far less shiny and reflective. The axe smacked the creature on the back and it squished a little bit but it was like Felix had hit the high grade equivalent of a diamond. The axe didn’t penetrate it’s skin at all.

Felix swung again and again, upping the force and weight of the swings to his limit but all he managed to do was harmlessly compress the creature over and over again.

It didn’t even react, it simply kept moving like nothing at all had happened.

Given his shade was having little to no impact whatsoever on the creature, Felix dismissed it and cautiously approached himself.

The creature, as it seemed was its nature, didn’t seem to care so Felix managed to walk right up to it.

He couldn’t help himself but experiment a little by first swinging the axe himself. As soon as it hit the creature, he felt like he had hit a floating chunk of ice. The skin was hard and impenetrable but the body underneath was gooey and flowed like water. The axe didn’t even scratch its back so he switched to spells.

He quickly ran through his entire array of nodes from Fire to Lightning to even Sound. Nothing he did seemed to affect it much at all.

This thing is like a fucking cockroach. It’ll still be here after the heat death of the multiverse.

Despite having failed to injure the creature at all, Felix only felt excitement. He was pretty sure he could kill it, he was just really hoping he could find a way to incorporate it’s resilience into his own body.

As with all the creatures on the planet, the Aucore used mana and every time Felix tried to injure it, he felt the mana within the creature surge. In theory he figured he could probably just hit it until it ran out of mana but he wanted to try something else.

He still wasn’t sure what the best way to kill it while preserving it’s body was but he was confident he could injure it just my manually interrupting it’s mana flow.

Orav had advised him to avoid Fire or Lightning because they caused too much damage to the body and mana structures so he was left with either trying to kill it with Sound or cutting it. Unfortunately Sound was just as likely to injure himself and he had no idea where to cut.

Instead, Felix had already developed a spell that created a breathing bubble around his head, he figured all he would need to do was adapt it in order to suffocate creatures. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure that would take forever.

He knew he was capable of holding his breath for hours and he was pretty sure a slug would easily be able to hold it for just as long if not longer. His best bet was using some kind of gas that would react with its body and kill it that way.

Unfortunately he had no idea if it breathed oxygen but he figured he would give it a shot anyways since he only had experience with oxygen breathing creatures. He modified the spell to be a little more solid so it could safely contain more harmful gasses within it then expanded it to fit the entire slug. After that, he swapped out the fresh air generating nodes with nodes that would generate carbon monoxide.

Felix cast the spell around the Aucore then simply stood behind it, taking a step every minute or so to keep up with it’s sluggish pace.

It took far longer than Felix expected but after almost 20 minutes of waiting, he got the notification he was waiting for.

Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Aucore (Lvl 361)

Felix had also been pushing his soul ring to activate so in the same instant the notification appeared, the Aucore’s golden white soul streamed the ring on his left hand. Felix reached down and stowed the body in his Soul Space then wiped the slime off on the coral before hopping back down to the ground.

He had been relying on the subtle light coming from the various plants in the under-coral and only supplementing it when absolutely necessary but Felix was really hoping to find more Aucores.

He quickly designed a spell then formed and fired it off. A small bead shot out of Felix’s hand that quickly vanished into the darkness before, just a few moments later, a burst of light sprung from the coral ahead of him. The Light lit up a wide area around it as long as it existed and he had designed it to stick around for a little while.

Unfortunately, it died a few seconds later so Felix tuned and adjusted the spell until he got it right.

Once the spell functioned as he wanted it to, Felix started firing off sustained balls of Light in every direction. Gradually he brightened the area from very dim light to completely lit.

Looking around him, he couldn’t help but smile as he spotted possibly hundreds of Aucores dotted across the coral pillars around him.

Felix jumped from pillar to pillar with a modified version of the spell he had used on the first Aucore. He made the ball much bigger which cost him a ton of mana but he also increased the Force around the outside to contain the Aucores within it.

Felix jumped to a pillar, brought the spell near the Aucore and interrupted it’s mana manually so that it was sucked in, then jumped off to the next pillar.

He was effectively jumping from pillar to pillar with a floating deathtrap behind him that contained a bunch of slugs. He continuously kept his soul ring active so the instant they died, he could harvest them. He made sure to stow a few of the bodies in his Soul Space and he absorbed a few with the blood ring but all the rest, went into a pile in his Pocket Home.

Ding You have slain 301 [D - Rare] Aucore (Lvl 350-377)

Ding You have gained 4 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (303 => 307)

He would have kept hunting down the Aucore’s too were it not for the creature he spotted a little ways off that distracted him. He was just about to send a Persistent Light Orb up ahead so he could see but he stopped when he saw a series of glowing ribbons dancing through the air.

They glowed with a dull blue glow and seemed to be drifting through the air, disappearing as they wove around coral pillars only to reappear and continue their dance. There were four of them that all seemed to be coming from or going in, the same direction.

Firing off a Light, Felix brightened the area around the ribbons and immediately caught sight of the creature they were attached to.

The four ribbons streamed off the back of what looked like a manta ray, though Felix had never seen one in person so he was mostly just guessing, flying through the air. Ditching his genocide of the Aucore population as he already had more than enough of them, Felix hopped his way across the coral pillars towards the creature.

[D - Rare] Elpux (Lvl 436)

As Felix jumped towards the creature, he realized it was actually much further, and much larger than he had initially thought. It wasn’t just a few meters across, it was more like dozens of meters. In order to swim through the pillars, it’s body twisted so it’s wings were vertical and it could fit through the, relatively, tight space.

Felix erected his Force Shield then tried to get it’s attention with a Force projected swing of his axe. The swings hit the creature but instead of looping around to fight as Felix had expected, it simply started to fly away.

Felix chased it down and jumped onto it’s back. He was about to swing down and kill it but the creature didn’t seem to mind him being on it’s back at all. He hesitated and started walking forwards to center himself better then used a Force spell to hold himself aboard.

He cast and fired his Persistent Light Orb spell towards the front of the creature so everything was visible as it flew then simply looked around and observed for a bit.

From his new found vantage point, as the creature soared through the under-coral, Felix realized it was actually rather boring. Although it was mystical and beautiful and from the standpoint of being interested in mana and visually diverse and vibrant, it was also incredibly monotonous.

From Felix’s standpoint, it was a whole lot of the same thing in every direction. Just like the pink ocean above and the desert above that, it was an endless sea of the exact same thing for at least hundreds of kilometers in every direction.

He fired off Light Orbs every once in a while, these ones lit their surroundings more thoroughly as they traveled, so he could potentially spot any dense concentrations of enemies. Unfortunately, he barely saw just a few of them way off in the distance, nothing dense enough for him to farm.

While he wanted to go hunt down those creatures he had seen, what he was really hoping for was to spot something interesting, something worth his time.

He practiced his spell formation and simply looked around for almost an hour before he spotted something. He quickly killed off his ride which had a ton of health but didn’t really fight back then absorbed it’s body and soul. He didn’t really think there was anything worth his time in the body and it was too big for him to store for points.

Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Elpux (Lvl 436)

Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (307 => 308)

Gliding down to the ground, Felix approached what seemed to be a school of fish. The fish were the kind he expected to see at the bottom of the ocean, fish that were far too ugly to live anywhere they could actually be seen.

[D - Rare] Ubisk (Lvl 403)

They swam through the air just like a school of fish swam through the sea which was odd to Felix only because this was the densest collection of anything he had seen in the under-coral.

Felix fired off a few Light Orbs onto the surrounding pillars but stopped himself as he illuminated small pockets of other creatures all scattered about behind the school of fish.

As soon as his lights hit, the fish swarmed them but, they seemed to just be curious because, that was all they did.

Felix dropped himself down vertically then prepared a Force Shield along with a series of other spells then cast the bait.

A sudden burst of Light sprung out of Eretheas as Felix held it over his head.

As expected, the school of fish rushed towards the light, the school tightening into a stream because of how quickly they tried to move. As soon as the first few fish started to loop around the axe head, Felix cast his spell and a large ball of Force filled with carbon monoxide suddenly erupted.

It only took a few minutes for the first fish corpses to start falling to the ground through the hole he had made in the spell, their souls drained before they even reached it. Felix reached his foot forwards and stowed a few in his Soul Space then just stood still as the school’s curiosity killed them off.

He was honestly surprised they were so stupid that they just keep coming and killing themselves making him think there was something more to their fascination with Light than just curiosity.

Once the school was mostly dead, Felix shoved their corpses into his Pocket Home and leapt towards the pillars where a few Ubisks were still loitering around his lights. Normally he would have just left them, even if they were worth a few points. The issue was that they were completely blocking out his light.

Ding You have slain 114 [D - Rare] Ubisk (Lvl 397-410)

Ding You have gained 12 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (308 => 320)

Well those were some easy levels.

With his lights now unobstructed, Felix pounced towards his next prey, some kind of sea serpent with no eyes.

[D - Rare] Evunda (Lvl 432)

Felix jumped from creature to creature, their levels gradually increasing as he did so. He followed the levels, making sure he sought out the highest level enemies in the hopes that he was heading towards something interesting.

Given it was a planet that had evolved with mana as a core part of it’s ecosystems, he was hoping if there was a natural treasure up ahead, it had something to do with mana.

By the time he was exterminating enemies in the 450s, he finally spotted a change of scenery, somewhat. The ground, instead of being overall flat with rocks and outcroppings all over, started sloping downwards.

Looking far off to his right, Felix saw pools of various mana attunements that touched the slope slowly dribbled into it. It wasn’t steep enough for them to drain themselves but there was a trickle that made it a few meters down before running out of momentum.

Looking down the slope, Felix saw more creatures with their levels even higher so he leapt towards them.

The slope gradually grew steeper as did the levels of the enemies he faced.

Felix fought all kinds of monstrosities but unfortunately none with interesting abilities he had any desire to steal. The steepness of the ground overcame its natural friction as the pools of mana all around him didn’t fare well, pouring themselves into rivers that flowed slowly at first then combined and cascaded downwards.

Though the enemies were rather boring, Felix was growing increasingly excited at what he would find at the bottom. The slope stopped growing steeper at around 45 degrees where Felix started to ignore creatures as he leapt down the slope.

The other change of landscape the slope brought was the coral pillars. He didn’t spot a single one anywhere around him as he descended except for one massive pillar right ahead of him, at the bottom of the pit.

He wasn’t even close to being in range to light it up but he did have to actually start paying attention as the creatures around him were not happy with him skipping the line. They started launching ranged attacks, charged at him and tried to crush him but he fought them off rather easily. He stored a few corpses in case he wanted to get a little creative with his body modifications later on but decided to keep pushing ahead for now.

Even though he had been killing creatures over a hundred levels over his own, he had only gained 16 levels and he knew exactly why, the creatures were far too easy as prey. He decided he would stop and do some manual harvesting and integration as soon as he found either an interesting ability or a creature that actually challenged him.

Luckily, it didn’t take him long to find one as even before the entirety of the massive coral pillar ahead of him came into view, he was suddenly attacked by a burst of Lightning from his right.

It was one of the only things his Force Shield wouldn’t stop as he couldn’t effectively push back against it.

The Lightning was more like an explosion than it was a directed attack as some of it burst into Felix’s body but even more of it arced into the ground around him.

Felix immediately lost Eretheas to the slope as his muscles tensed and spasmed right after his health had plummeted by over 15k leaving him with just two thirds of his Persona’s health left. His health hadn’t stopped falling there though as the Lightning seemed to be sticking around within his body with a familiar sensation of cells burning and exploding along its path.

Felix reached into his body and all at once, grabbed hold of the hostile mana, forcefully pushing it out of his body. The Lightning arced into the ground and dissipated harmlessly allowing him to turn towards his attacker.

[D - Rare] Yaridore (Lvl 472)

What he saw was essentially a mutant eel with long spines growing out of it’s body completely at random.

Felix leapt towards and collected Eretheas then launched himself towards the creature as it charged it’s next attack.

The exposed spines arced between themselves as the lightning grew before it curled itself into a ball and Lightning along with Lightning attuned High Energy mana burst out of it’s body in all directions.

Felix was ready this time and had already cast his own Lightning spell just in front of himself. At the same time, he reached out with his mana control and readied himself to catch the hostile mana.

The Lightning that burst out of the creature, all in the same instant, simply diverted itself into the ground in front of Felix following his own Lightning spell, almost like he had taken a bite out of the ball. At the same time, Felix caught the hostile mana as it surged towards him and simply threw it off to the side then leapt forwards.

He raised Eretheas above his head as he came down on the creature and was already ready when it tried to charge itself. He reached out and held it’s mana as still as he could, leaving it unable to activate it’s spell then brought Eretheas down with a massive Force spell propelling it.

The axe launched both Felix and the Yaridore towards the ground but the axe head caught on the creature’s hard spines and instead of slashing into it’s flesh, the creatures body simply contorted around the axe.

Felix managed to cut a few of it’s spines shorter but ultimately, it looked to be largely uninjured as it’s body simply slithered away from the sharp edge of the axe. It was only pushed a dozen meters down before it slipped free and tried to slither away.

He pursued with leaps and force projected slashes but the creature was agile and the attacks that did hit, were stopped short by it’s spines.

Realizing he wasn’t really getting anywhere, Felix leapt after the creature and shot himself towards it’s head where he reached down and gripped it’s upper jaws. He cast a Force spell to push them downwards back to the ground where he could get more leverage as the creature bit into his fingers.

It didn’t manage to cut through his bones but it did completely tear through his flesh with thousands of tiny razor like teeth. Felix pushed his hand further into it’s mouth until he felt the teeth disappear then drove his fist into the ground.

The creature squirmed about, scraping Felix’s side with it’s spines but he ignored the damage and continued bashing it’s head into the ground with his fist deep inside it’s maw.

With Eretheas in his other hand, he started chopping at it’s body just to add to the damage in the hopes that he could kill it before it ran all the way through his Persona’s dwindling health.

Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Yaridore (Lvl 472)

Ding You have gained 15 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (336 => 351)

With just under 5 thousand health left, just a tenth of his Persona’s pool, Felix activated his rings to free the corpse from his arm. The body turned to dust, removing the teeth from his arm and harmlessly drifting away.

His health jumped back up to almost half which was very welcome but not nearly enough for him to continue onwards. Felix pressed his Pocket Home marble into the sloped ground and hopped through, closing his eyes so he could adjust to the sudden change in the direction of down.

He hopped over the corpses littering the ground but dragged a few of the Aucore corpses along with him. He activated his blood ring once he was far away from the other corpses, turning the corpses he had dragged to dust and almost fully refilling his health.

Before he went back outside, Felix created a couple more spells he could use in dire situations but specifically, he worked on one to deal with enemies that tried to run away from him. He didn’t want to be forced to always chase his enemies because eventually, they would be smart enough to lead him into a trap.

What he settled on was a variation of Mana Javelin where he added barbs and a second half to the spell. A few moments after it hit a target, the Javelin would be launched backwards with a burst of Force. He tested it on a few large rocks he had pulled out of the ground when he was digging room for the pools earlier and was very happy with the results.

After that, he quickly examined the bodies he had reserved for himself in his soul space. He sifted through their cells but didn’t find anything of value in any creature other than the Aucores, which he had saved for last.

The Aucores were especially interesting because they seemed to be the most resilient thing Felix had found yet and they seemed to be accomplishing said feat with mana.

He spent a few hours dissecting and examining them then tentatively added some of their cells to his Persona’s body to test them out. He only covered his arms from below his shoulder to just past his wrist but he figured that was enough for now. He didn’t even bother fully adapting and integrating the cells as this was intended more for him to learn about them then it was a permanent installation.

Due to this, his arms became a yellow green color that felt nothing like skin and much more like jelly.

He didn’t worry about it though and left his Pocket Home, heading back into the slowly descending pit.

Continuing downwards, Felix caught sight of a couple creatures he chased down but nothing of note. He didn’t even lose much health so he preserved the bodies in his Soul Space until the next time he opened his Pocket Home. He did manage to net himself another 20 levels though.

Felix finally managed to get close enough to the coral pillar at the center of the pit to actually see its bottom but unfortunately, the treasure seemed to be obscured by the pillar itself.

From all around the pit, mana suffused liquids of various colors flowed and combined into a cacophonous rainbow that poured somewhere under the pillar. Felix was really hoping there was something there other than just a pool of mana suffused liquid. Ideally he was hoping for a gem or crystal growing out of it that he could possibly turn into a battery. Given the liquids feeding it, he figured the battery would have some awesome effects.

Before he could figure out what was down there though, there were at least a couple of creatures he had to deal with.

Wrapped around the coral pillar Felix saw what he thought was a massive plant at first until its body burst into flames for just a moment and he realized it was a massive serpent. The serpent had wound itself all the way around the pillar and given how large the pillar was, the serpent was colossal.

From tip to tail, Felix was confident he would have to measure it in kilometers. Even just it’s girth was at least a hundred meters. Unfortunately he wasn’t close enough to identify it or discern any details other than its size.

Before he could engage the serpent though, there was another creature circling the pillar, staying far enough away to respect the serpent but close enough that it was ready to dive in.

As it swam around the pillar and towards him, Felix saw what looked to be a massive whale of some sort. It’s head and nose were more squared off though and it had three sets of fins along the sides of it’s body. The fins were long and rounded and seemed to act like wings as it soared towards him.

As it got closer, Felix also realized it was covered in scales of various sizes with large scales covering it’s back and small scales within the joints.

[D - Special] Damoth (Lvl 504)

That sounds more like a name than a species.

Felix readied himself as it circled closer then leapt into the air and onto it’s back. Ironically, the whale creature was significantly smaller than the serpent in the distance but it was still massive. It’s wing fins alone were easily big enough to play some kind of sport on them.

Damoth seemed to either not notice or not care that Felix had leapt onto it’s back at first so Felix had plenty of time to prepare himself. He carefully crafted a number of spells he thought would be useful and held their spell forms orbiting around himself. He also put all his free points into Intelligence.

Since he was able to entirely focus on them, he was able to use his focus to prepare 12 total spell levels of complexity with a couple mobility options along with a whole lot of attack options. He didn’t bother with any complicated defenses because realistically, against something as massive as Damoth, he was far better off just trying to avoid it’s attacks.

Felix didn’t bother focusing on having Eretheas actually cut the creature because he didn’t think the size of the cut would make much of a difference. Instead, he used Eretheas as the vehicle to deliver his other spells.

He started with charging up a mass of flames at the end of the axe, which was unaffected, and once the entire axe head was completely engulfed and as hot as he could make it, he swung down.

It was so hot, even he was taking a modicum of damage just from being near it and even though he was trying to avoid fire to preserve the body, Felix didn’t think this amount was going to destroy much. On top of that, Felix wasn’t sure if he would even hand the corpse in for points at all. Not only was it far too big for him to move, he was also hoping it had awesome abilities he could steal.

The superheated axe head and attached ball of flame slammed down into the creature’s back and exploded outwards, creating a small charred crater. Most of the flames were directed downwards but Felix still singed his legs and part of his pants.

He quickly cast a cold spell to stop the flame from spreading as he ran forwards because he really didn’t want to not have pants. Felix ran further up the body so he could attack it from somewhere else but before he could get there, Damoth, moving far faster than they should be able to, spun around and dove towards the ground.

They positioned their back so Felix would be sandwiched between the ground and its body as it spun to the side.

Although it wasn’t incredibly fast, it was so big that Felix wasn’t sure he would make it in time. He cast his mobility spells and overcharged them by shoving mana into them as fast as he could causing him to fly far faster than he was comfortable with.

He flew off to the side and smashed into the ground, just barely turning himself to the side so he didn’t break his neck.

Felix activated the new cells in his right arm to try and absorb some of the blow but still felt his shoulder dislocate, ribs shatter and leg fracture. He rolled himself over and dulled as much of the pain as he could from his soul then looked towards Damoth.

The whale seemed to be turning away from him so he happily took the time to get to his feet. Although his arm had survived, he was pretty sure his ribs would have fared much better if he hadn’t activated the Aucore cells. With his arm solidified, it transferred everything into his ribs rather than absorbing any of the impact at all.

He forced his arm back into the socket and picked up Eretheas then turned towards Damoth and quickly realized they weren’t swimming away. Damoth had turned themself so they could crush Felix with their tail.

Felix gritted his teeth and dropped all his prepared spells then started running to the side while he prepared a Force spell to get him out of the way.

He made sure to aim himself into the air this time and launched himself once again, far faster than he was comfortable with.

Before he managed to get his bearings again, he heard a massive explosion behind him from the tail hitting the ground. He cast a Force Shield in front of himself to slow down, then another when he immediately punched through the first.

Once he had slowed down enough to control his flight, Felix looked back over his shoulder and saw the ground had simply shattered around Damoth’s tail. There was a huge crater than vaguely resembled the silhouette of its tail but it had also opened up large crevasses that reached out through the stone. Felix saw the ground already adjusting and crumbling into the newly created fissures as it settled.

Damoth had used the momentum to push itself back into the air where it adjusted it’s flight to catch Felix. Felix was faster though so he flew ahead of Damoth while he quickly put together an upgrade on a spell he had used a long time ago.

He looked back at the whale and stopped himself as he funneled almost a million mana into the newly upgraded spell. Damoth opened it’s maw to swallow Felix and he responded by launching a ball, easily large enough to contain his body, into it’s mouth.

Felix waited right up until the ball was in it’s mouth then shot himself away from Damoth, continuing the chase.

He flew with his head pivoting over his shoulder every few seconds to see if it had worked. When a couple minutes passed with not even a sound, Felix decided to try again.

He stopped and cast the same Mana Shrapnel Bomb spell as before, using another million mana and waited. This time, he launched the ball into it’s throat as it approached then flew off out of the way so he wasn’t also eaten.

Please don’t make me go in there myself.

Grim mentally scoffed, Why the hell would you do that?

Felix was surprised he had responded because his thought had been entirely rhetorical, Cause it’s easier to injure it from the inside…

Grim was completely flabbergasted which came through both through their bond and in the voice he heard in his head, Possibly? Why would you assume that? What do you think it eats? It clearly has to have a hardened stomach to survive until they die in there. You could also just throw spells in there. Why… why would you even think of doing that?

I guess… it’s a story from earth.

Grim radiated confusion into his mind, A real one?

Good question.

Once again Felix watched the whale chase him from over his shoulder as nothing happened. He was starting to suspect Grim was right, that its stomach was just as resilient as it’s exterior so it could eat the creatures around here.

He even tried placing a Shade inside its mouth and throat but they seemed to be just as ineffective as everything else. He tried one last time, this time with an upgraded Pocket Star.

Damoth rushed towards him at its glacial flying speed and Felix charged up the star, slowly moving it away from himself so he didn’t burn. He couldn’t throw the star very far so he waited until it was very close then launched it towards the roof of it’s mouth, hoping to get somewhere close to its brain.

As soon as he let go of the star, Felix launched himself away from Damoth as fast he was comfortable with and off to the side.

This time something did happen, Felix’s eardrums were immediately shattered as he felt his body shake from Damoth’s groaning. Felix was free of it’s maw but still far too close. It’s head thrashed around in pain and accidentally knocked Felix flying towards the ground.

He tried casting a spell to slow himself but only got off one spell that shattered almost instantly as it tried to slow him. He landed on his legs, his left fracturing and his right shattering after the damage he had sustained last time he had hit the ground.

Damoth, enraged, turned towards Felix, who was struggling to stand, and charged much faster than they had earlier. Felix ran as fast as he could off to the side and put together the simplest Force spells he could think of because he just needed to get out of the way.

He looked up and watched something the size of a sky scraper turn it’s body towards him as he scrambled to cast a spell and get out of the way. His brain and eyes moved faster than his cast speed this time and he watched in slow motion, as the outer ring formed for the Force spell around the inner node that he wove together. He pushed it to solidify and willed it to cast faster then suddenly, the spell form he had been constructing was out of range behind him and shattered.

Felix flew off into the air, well out of the range of Damoth as they slammed their nose into the ground.

What the fuck… just happened.

Felix could feel that Grim was just as confused as he was but it wasn’t the time to think about that. At the same time, he had brushed by Nova’s soul bond and felt joy and relaxation which caused him to chuckle.

At least you’re having fun.

Grim mentally chuckled, So are you.

Yeah but… well, yeah.

Grim mentally chuckled again and Felix focused back on the fight.

Damoth’s entire body had fallen to the ground and it seemed to be a little shaken from the impact. All around it’s head, the ground was falling apart as the multicolored liquids that were flowing down to the center of the pit were diverted.

All the liquid in the area was suddenly rushing into the massive fissures and craters in the ground instead of flowing down to the coral pillar in the middle.

Felix’s ears were still non functional so he was having a bit of trouble with his balance but still had a few thousand health left.

Felix shot himself towards Damoth and stopped right on top of its head then increased Eretheas’ weight to the limit and slammed himself, and the axe, downwards with as much force as he could cast at once.

He rotated himself so all the force went into the axe and so he would impact after it then thanked himself that he had kept his arm in tact with the Aucore cells earlier. He activated the Aucore flesh again to keep his arms working and roared, because it felt natural, as he prepared to finish Damoth.

The axe slammed down into the creature’s head but Felix could barely tell what happened because at the same time, his shoulder joints were completely ripped apart. His body smacked into the creature just a moment later and his remaining leg was shattered followed by his hips fracturing beneath him.

Ding You have slain [D - Special] Damoth (Lvl 504)

Ding You have gained 27 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (356 => 383)

Finally aware enough to figure out what had happened, Felix was astonished to see he still had just under a thousand health. He was completely expecting to temporarily destroy his Persona’s body in that last attack.

He activated the soul ring then the blood ring. He didn’t even think about trying to store the body anywhere else. It was far too big for his soul space or his Pocket Home and he was willing to sacrifice the potential 40 thousand points, based on the chart he had seen.

Unfortunately he would have to piece its systems together from their constituent cells but he felt like he was so close to dying that, at the moment, he didn’t really care. His Persona body was, as expected, fully restored from absorbing the body, making him much happier with his decision to do so. He fell to the ground slowly due to his buoyancy then looked towards the coral pillar in the center of the pit.

What he saw though, was just the pillar. The serpent had vanished.

Felix frowned and stepped towards it as the remaining dust from Damoth’s body drifted away then suddenly felt a searing pain all over his body and his vision when white then instantly black.

He didn’t even have time to cast a spell before his health hit 0.

Luckily he was in his Persona body so it burned away to reveal his real body where he instantly activated the Mage Armor spell he had inscribed into plates strapped to his body. The spell blocked the rest of the damage causing him to only take a few thousand points from the heat by the time the column of flame disappeared.

Felix stowed Eretheas then launched himself into the air and caught sight of the serpent above him. Large enough to swallow Damoth, though it would have taken a few bites, Felix saw a massive serpent that was covered in bright, chromatic, fish like scales. The entire thing, aflame.

It had multiple fins and gills with sharp spines and spikes covering the back of its head like a mane. Just behind the head, Felix caught sight of a portion of its body that twisted through the air effortlessly. It’s scales formed spikes and spines all over it’s body, some of the spines supporting fins, others were just there to protect it’s body it seemed.

The serpent stared right at Felix with it’s mane flared and it’s mouth stretched wide as it roared with a terrible, unnaturally echoing screech that Felix had to muffle with his hands and hood.

[D - Legendary] Mana Infused Leviathan (Lvl 572)

The flames covering the creatures body suddenly blew away and the spines along it’s body retracted as its head shot towards Felix far faster than he was flying.

Felix wasn’t willing to beat up his own body as much as his Persona’s so he didn’t launch himself to the side as fast as he could. He controlled his flight and overcharged his Mage Armor just in case.

The Leviathan twisted it’s head to follow Felix’s flight and caught up to him in a matter of seconds. Felix cast a Force spell to launch himself in the opposite direction at the last second but had to brace himself against it’s sharp mane as its head rushed by.

His boots luckily managed to keep him from being cut and his training with Mihto ensured his footing was stable. He pushed off the Leviathan’s head an instant before its body jolted with electricity for a brief moment, the spines reappearing suddenly to act as lightning rods and offering him enough forewarning.

Felix was pretty sure it would have some kind of natural resistance to most of his spells because it engulfed its own body in them so often. He either had to find somewhere softer and less resistant, which likely wasn’t its insides as he was learning, or he had to use other spells. Ideally he didn’t want to ruin its body either because it was both worth a ton of points, and with a legendary race, he was excited to see what he could steal from it for himself.

Felix settled on simple Force spells and so he dropped a barrage of 4 Force Bombs overpowered 8 times over behind himself as he flew away. 8 times was where the node started to fall off and become really inefficient so he didn’t dare go higher. With the spells he was using to fly, he couldn’t cast any more than 4 but when he dared a glance over his shoulder and saw it’s scaly flesh crater for a few moments before bouncing back, he was satisfied.

Even if the damage wasn’t visually apparent, Felix was confident he was crushing and ultimately bruising its insides underneath. If it wasn’t showing wear soon though, he wouldn’t keep gambling on it and would try something else.

The Leviathan flicked its body to the side to rapidly turn its head then used its body like a spring to launch its head forwards again. Felix was already ready to push himself aside but only managed to prepare two Force Bombs as counter attacks.

He dropped them then launched himself to the side, avoiding its head entirely this time.

Felix watched the spells hit which meant he didn’t see its tail swinging around from the other side. It whipped him towards the ground and shattered the Mage Armor around his left thigh, ripping through it and breaking the bone underneath in the process.

He managed to catch himself before he hit because he had been launched mostly to the side instead of down and shot back at the middle of the Leviathan’s body as his spells slowed then reversed his momentum.

The beads of Force raced through the air easily as fast as bullets but somehow, the Leviathan knew. It’s body twisted and the beads flew right by, completely harmless as they sounded off from the ground in the distance.

Felix cursed under his breath and turned to keep track of the head, seeing it just a few dozen meters behind him. It’s eyes were glowing red and it’s mane lit up as its body was engulfed in flames starting from the head, in little bursts, towards the tail.

Felix already knew this attack had almost instantly killed his Persona, which had almost the same health pool as he did so he knew he had to dodge it at all costs.

He dropped all the spells he didn’t need and put every bit of focus he could muster into a Force spell to launch himself out of the way. He watched its maw open and the flames build in its throat, the light growing from non existent to blinding in fractions of a second as he constructed his spell.

They both fired off at the same time, the stream of fire easily 50 meters wide appeared in the air where Felix had been as his spell launched him upwards and right through its edge. He felt his skin singe and burn then his muscles as the heat penetrated deep but it didn’t get further than that and he had limited his health lost to just over 20 thousand.

The stream of fire dissipated quickly as the Leviathan’s head twisted around to bite at Felix once again. Felix was already preparing another Force spell but he only got it off right at the last instant. Its head shot by just barely a meter behind him but as soon as it realized it had missed, it immediately twisted its head away and used its neck to smack Felix aside.

His Mage Armor ate the majority of the blow, but it had cost him a half a million mana to do so. Felix caught his momentum and spun himself around, maximizing the distance he had so he could prepare himself.

Pulling out the batteries he had, Felix drained them as fast as he could before stowing them again as he quickly modified his Force Bomb spell form. Felix repaired his Mage Armor by simply recasting it then started constructing his new Force Bombs in the air around him.

The Leviathan pursued with its spines retracted, which seemed to be making it faster somehow, but this time, Felix was ready.

It, predictably, tried to bite at Felix so he dropped 3 of his new, Directed Force Bombs, onto its head and shot himself upwards at the same time.

The beads raced towards its head and this time, they exploded just like last time except with more Force. The craters they temporarily created were wider and deeper before its skin bounced back into shape.

The Leviathan’s spines extended in an instant then it’s body charged up with electricity. Felix didn’t really know where the attack would come from because its body was all around him so he quickly modified a spell and cast it.

The attack as it turned out, came from everywhere. A barrage of Lightning fired out of the creature towards Felix from every meter of its massive serpentine body. The Lightning arced towards him but was diverted around him forming what appeared to be a ball of Lightning with Felix at it’s center.

After a few moments, the Lightning died down and Felix immediately let loose the spells he had been preparing.

Three tiny beads raced out from around him and struck the Leviathan along it’s body. He stuck with 8 times overpowered and on its body rather than its head, the effect was much more promising.

Felix watched as its body, in three separate locations, was crushed under the force of an invisible explosion. The same craters as before appeared but along its body, they were twice as big and dug easily halfway into its body when they struck.

Instead of bouncing back, its flesh seemed to be permanently marred by the spells, its body not quite straight after the attack.

Felix redirected his flight towards the ground and baited the Leviathan into chasing him, dodging to the side at the last second when it inevitably tried to bite him. It’s head smacked into the ground but it seemed to almost bounce off, unfazed.

It still gave Felix time to drop more Directed Force Bombs along its body though, an opportunity he didn’t dare waste.

As the Leviathan turned towards him, he could tell it was slower and pained as it moved.

Not much longer now.

The Leviathan turned itself towards Felix but, unexpectedly, flew above him. Felix prepared himself for a wide array of possible attacks but wasn’t ready at all when it’s entire body started vibrating.

It seemed to be starting from the spines as the creature vibrated gradually faster and generated a high pitch whining noise. Felix quickly cast an air bubble around himself to dampen the sound but his ear drums were still obliterated. He felt his body starting to vibrate as well but luckily, he only lost a couple thousand health.

Looking over at the Leviathan, it seemed to be damaging itself in the process as well. Felix watched as some of its scales fell off, its crater like wounds opening as blood started pouring out.

Seeing how much damage it seemed to be doing to itself, Felix just decided to sit and wait it out.

After almost a minute, it died down but the Leviathan immediately had another attack ready. Felix fired off another trio of Directed Force Bombs during its brief transition period then pushed a little extra mana into his Mage Armor.

Suddenly, the temperature started dropping rapidly. Felix quickly cast a spell to keep himself warm but frowned because he wasn’t sure how this was supposed to do much of anything. The room got colder but it wasn’t difficult to deal with cold temperatures, even for non spell casters.

He figured the Leviathan was just running through the rest of its arsenal as a last resort and he sighed.

He cast a duo of Directed Force Bombs, only two this time because he had to waste a spell level of focus on keeping himself warm.

As soon as the Force spells hit, the Leviathan gave up on the Cold and it’s spines retracted. It turned itself away from Felix then rocketed away at its full speed.

Seriously…

Felix replaced the Force spells keeping him in the air with overpowered ones then prepared as many Feather Fall and Force Shields as he could with his remaining focus. He sent his own body careening through the not quite air after the Leviathan and even dropped a few thousand health from the g-force alone.

He dropped a single Directed Force Bomb onto its back because he wasn’t willing to give up any of his other prepared spells and just barely hit it as it was difficult to aim at his current velocity.

The Leviathan groaned out in pain and squirmed around as Felix tried to hit it again, taking an embarrassing 5 casts to finally hit it.

Ding You have slain a [D - Legendary] Mana Infused Leviathan (Lvl 572)

Ding You have gained 65 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (383 => 448)

Holy shit.

Felix quickly cast every one of the spells he had prepared, in sequence, to slow himself down as he activated his soul ring. The Leviathan’s body fell to the ground with a massive boom sending rocks, dust and mana suffused liquid in every direction.

Felix pulled out Eretheas and carefully carved out a couple large sections of its side then stored them in his soul space. He activated his blood ring and the rest of the body turned into a thousand red ribbons and a bit of dust on the wind.

Ultimately, the body was once again far too big for him to store. He figured he would get a good amount of points for the chunk he planned on handing in and based on the chart he had seen, wasn’t losing out on too many points if it was graded low.

Before looking at the body or soul or anything, Felix flew off towards the pillar of coral at the center of the pit. He activated his Persona as he flew and caught himself just after switching back to his freshly restored Persona body.

He figured it was unlikely anyone had seen him switching between them but didn’t want to risk doing that ever again, not that it had been his choice. Having a second body and in some situations, a second life, had essentially just saved him. It was possible he never would have been in that situation with his own body’s higher stats, but the peace of mind was enough for him to be very happy with his decision to apply to the job under the guise of his Persona.

Felix fully expected all the scavengers that had been just been standing around and waiting to come running now that the Leviathan and Damoth were dead so he wouldn’t have much time.

He reached the coral pillar relatively quickly and saw that it looked just like any other coral pillar, a massive winding trunk that erupted from the ground and held the sky aloft.

Dropping himself down to the ground where the mana suffused liquids seemed to be draining out, Felix saw the coral pillar slowly grow until, it split. Near the bottom, the pillar branched out into multiple winding roots of coral that all reached into the ground. The roots were tightly knit so all the gaps were less than a meter wide and they seemed to almost form a sphere, like they were protecting something within.

As Felix directed himself to fall into a gap in the roots, he saw the inside of the pillar come into view.

At the bottom of the pit there appeared to be a well of some kind as the rainbow cacophony of colorful liquids all poured into a small pond without it seeming to grow at all. In the center of the pond, sat a single little sapling with a wooden stem and a pair of leaves.

That’s… that’s it?

Suddenly Felix turned as he heard screeching just a short distance away to his right. He flew back out of the coral cage containing the sapling and saw a wave of monsters moving in from every direction. Some were closer than others and there was plenty of infighting, but the wave seemed adamant on reaching the sapling.

Felix estimated he had just a couple minutes before they arrived so he dropped down to the ground and opened his Pocket Home against the coral next to him.

He, as carefully as he could in just a minute, took Eretheas and slid the blade under the sapling then pulled it free from it’s current location. He had to cut through a number of crystals that the sapling seemed to be growing through but eventually, he got it free and placed it in his Pocket Home in a random mana suffused pool.

He then closed his Pocket Home for now and confronted the wave. Once it was dealt with, he fully planned on draining the well below him.

Popping out of the coral, Felix leapt at the nearest monster and swung Eretheas, the axe head entirely engulfed in flame. He slammed down into the creature, crushing it and creating a massive explosion of flame in every direction.

Felix was equally bathed in flames but he flicked the axe to the right and beheaded some ugly fish then absorbed it’s body and his health was full again.

He leapt towards another clump where a particularly big turtle creature was fighting against a pack of small shark like creatures. Felix swung the axe in a wide arc, projecting the slash a short distance then slammed the axe down and released a series of Lightning Bolts at the same time.

He leapt towards another group and slashed at them one by one, absorbing a couple bodies along the way to keep himself topped up.

Felix continued ripping through the wave which was much easier than he had expected as he absorbed bodies to restore himself. A lot of the creatures were distracted by the enemies all around them and the prospect of getting to the treasure at the bottom of the pit. It made it so that Felix could jump on and surprise most of the creatures, landing a solid blow right from the start. Once he had landed a single solid blow, all the creatures had been easy pickings from there.

He slew the creatures as they approached in an attempt to keep them away because although the sapling was gone, which he assumed was the natural treasure, he wanted the liquid for himself. Also this was the densest collection of random creatures he had found to date so he was more than happy to slay them all and hand them in for points.

He mostly avoided Fire and Lightning after his first few tests but still used them occasionally. Mostly relying on the axe and the ring, Felix ripped his way through the wave until there was nothing left. Though he hadn’t quite ran out of energy, he had gotten frighteningly close.

He was a little disappointed he had only gained a single level from the entire wave but a level was a level and he didn’t complain.

No other creatures dared get close to the treasure once the wave was dealt with so Felix collected all the bodies and piled them up then opened his Pocket Home.

First things first, he had to create a spot for the tree to grow. It didn’t seem to require light at all since he had found it in the under-coral so he didn’t worry about that. Instead, he knew it had been growing in a well of mana suffused liquids so he dug out a hole as big as he could and ran small channels from each of the pools he had around his tower.

Lastly, he expanded his makeshift pump to be much bigger and therefore much faster then set it up to drain the well in the pit and fill the hole in his Pocket Home.

He activated the pump and strapped a consumable battery to it causing liquid to gush through like a fire hose. While the well drained from the under-coral, Felix started moving bodies over to a designated area, which was really just a large hole he dug out.

He wanted them to be accessible and if they were all piled up neatly, he could move them out himself with a big Force spell, meaning he didn’t need to allow anyone inside.

Once he was done organizing the corpses, he added the pile he had just created outside then checked on the well.

As far as he could tell, the hole he had made in his Pocket Home was getting close to full but the well in the under-coral was at exactly the same as before. Considering he couldn’t really dig any deeper, Felix decided to test something he realistically should have tested a while ago.

Walking over to the edge of the space, he poked at the edge of the pocket dimension. He found it was solid but flexible and elastic. He tried pushing against it more firmly with a large spell and found that it expanded itself outwards then, over the course of a few minutes, contracted back to it’s original size.

He knew the item description had mentioned the space expanding but he hadn’t had any reason to try doing so until now.

Felix walked over to the new hole he had been filling up and expanded it temporarily for the time being then dug a hole straight down, right next to it. Once he poked a hole right through the stone island, he moved the pump over and started filling that hole instead.

He added additional pumps so the liquid moved faster and even supplemented the Force spells himself because it was taking so long.

It took nearly an hour of adjusting, digging and re-fusing stone to his island but Felix finally started to see the effect he had been hoping for. Instead of the hole filling up like the last one had, the pressure of all the liquid simply pushed against the edge of the pocket dimension and it expanded outwards.

As the liquid pumped in, the edge of the pocket dimension extended from right up against the stone island, to an inch away, then a few inches.

Many hours later, the stone island became a proper island with a multicolored sea just a few meters below the ground level. Felix shaped the bottom so it was shaped somewhat like an hourglass and added some permanent enchantments to make sure it didn’t tip over.

He had to extend his pumps a few times as the liquid level of the well in the under-coral finally started to lower. As the liquid lowered, it revealed the crystal formations Felix had had to cut through to retrieve the sapling. He carefully removed a big chunk of them and placed them in the deeper hole in the center then relocated the sapling there.

Once he had finally completely drained the well outside, Felix made some final adjustments, deactivated his pumps after they pumped in some fresh air for a few minutes, then closed his Pocket Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .