-Quest Complete-

Objective: Defeat all enemies involved in the ritual. Complete!

Optional Objective: let the ritual complete. Complete! Adding additional rewards.

Hidden Objective: Defeat the mini-bosses. Complete! Customizing rewards.

Rewards calculating [■■■□□]

Rewards: 3 Ability Points, Asterion's Mantle, and Sanguine Panda Charm.

-Asterion's Mantle-

Once the Mantle of the proud marauder, it now serves as proof of his defeat at your hands. +10% Spell resistance, +5 armor. **Note: Cannot be worn with a cloak. Can be worn over armor. Some pauldrons may have to be worn over the coat.**

-Sanguine Panda Charm-

An adorable silver charm of a fierce Sangen Ailurus Fulgens that attaches to a sword hilt. Adds a stacking 5% chance of causing the Bleed status effect with each attack. Chance resets once Bleed is applied.

**Note: only one Charm can be attached to a weapon at a time. Some Status Effects can stack, such as Bleed, while others, like Paralyze, reset the effects timer with each instance applied.**

I smiled softly at the rewards before the mantle and charm popped into being above me and fell, landing on my chest. The warmth of the coat draped over me added to my exhaustion and had me closing my eyes before I could worry about hiding or cleaning up.

My body ached as I woke up. Everything hurt, but my health was just below half, so I forced myself to my feet, pulled my new coat onto my left shoulder, and drained my mana, casting Minor Self-heal six times. Asterion's and Tychon's bodies were gone, and in their place sat a silver chest. I shook my head and left that for later. First came finding the charm I got.

I knelt, running my hand through the grass in an ever-widening spiral. After about an hour and a half, I stood back up and rubbed my forehead. I had searched the whole clearing with no signs of where the charm was. My eyes slowly drifted to my new coat. It was a lovely royal blue gothic Victorian coat with a split tail, silver silk lining, and buttons. Oh, and of course, it had pockets, four of them to be exact, two external, and an inseam left and right breast pocket.

I groaned and squeezed the bridge of my nose. I lightly pat each pocket, finding the charm in the left breast pocket. I pulled the small chain out, finding the charm was a red panda, its head centered in the ring attached to the chain, its front paws clung onto the ring as the rest of its body dangled. I smiled softly at it before putting it back into the left breast pocket.

Unfortunately, my search didn't reveal the missing loot from my kills before Asterion's summoning. Fortunately, I did find my missing helmet, and with my mana back to full, I was finally able to heal back to full with three more casts, leveling up Minor Self-heal in the process. Funny enough, I didn't gain a point in Intelligence.

‘It looked like there was a timer to loot drops, and I had missed out on that, or it all went to the chest.’

Clicking my tongue, I walked back to the chest. After taking a cautious stab at the chest, dungeons and dragons teaching me never to trust a chest you don't see spawn, I flipped the lid open. An armor stand slowly rose from the chest.

Hanging on it was a set of half-plate armor, each armor piece having red fur with black and white markings lining and trim. The armor differed from my current set in many ways. It had extra articulation in the chest, longer rerebraces, and scale male sewn into a gambeson covering the armpit and under the upper arm. Most exciting to me were the gauntlets, which had the knuckles reinforced, and each finger had the last knuckle removed, leaving it open, allowing my claws to be useful again.

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‘Analyze.’

-Blood Steel Half plate-

A set of armor that, through various methods, imbued a blood affinity into the Steel, allowing the armor to self-repair by absorbing blood.

+40 armor

I let out a soft whistle. The extra armor was nice, but the ability to self-repair would undoubtedly come in handy. I pulled my new coat off my shoulder and draped it over the armor. It looks good to me, but my fashion sense didn't get much of a workout in my past life. I opened up my inventory, clicking my tongue at the lake of space. I let out a sigh.

‘It looked like it was time to create another backpack…after I put on my new armor.’

After about thirty minutes, with a break in the middle to down some water and freshen up a bit. I had successfully switched armor, leaving my helmet off for now. I pulled lightly at my coat, making sure the pauldrons and rerebraces I chose to attach to the coat sat correctly. I rolled the sleeves up to halfway over my bracers.

Feeling refreshed, I promptly sat down and drummed my fingers against my thigh, thinking over my three options. First, I could just leave my extra gear here and hurry off to the exit or boss. I was not a big fan of this, but I did recognize that it was the easiest and fastest solution.

Second, I use my cloak and sewing kit to make a knapsack to lug the armor around. It would probably be the second quickest and had the side benefit of maybe giving me another skill. However, I'd still have to physically carry it around, having zero free space in my inventory, and it would mostly get damaged if I got into another fight.

Lastly, I could use the boar hide and maybe a rabbit pelt to make another backpack, hopefully, better quality than last time. This would take the longest and be more expensive than making a sack, but it would push a skill I already have higher and free up at least one inventory slot, so everything would be safe the next fight I got in. Right before I decided, a thought struck me as I looked at my cloak.

‘There's no way this works. It would be so stupid if it worked.’

I laid the cloak out wide on the ground, pulled my other set of clothes out, and laid them onto the cloak. Next, I took Zimari's Primer to Spell Craft, Gelenor's Runic Encyclopedia, and my spell book, setting them onto my clothes. Calmly, I folded my cloak up, creating a nice little bundle before holding my breath as I tried to shove the package into my inventory. The bundle slipped effortlessly into my inventory, taking up a single slot.

‘I can't believe it worked. I'm such an idiot. The tool kit should have given it away. I should have bought crates. I need to buy crates! And Spices! I have to stop forgetting to buy spices.’

I quickly gathered my damaged half-plate and sent the set to join my inventory. With my physical loot all sorted out, it was time for upgrades. The first thing I did was add my new charm to my khopesh. I was planning to get a sword custom-made after returning to the city, hopefully one that had some enchantment on it, but there was no reason not to give it a little boost. With that done and my blade sitting across my lap, it was finally time to pick up an ability or two.

Finding Imbue Blade was quicker than before, and for five points, it was mine. I tapped the claws on my left hand against my khopesh as I rested my cheek against my right hand, scrolling through the list of available abilities. The options just seemed to keep expanding. Most were out of my price range or just didn't hold any interest for me. After who knows how long of scrolling, I finally found an ability I liked and could afford.

-Imbue Blade-

Infuse a spell into your blade, causing an n% chance of inflicting a status effect based on the spell.

n=spell level×Imbue Blade's level.

Cost to Imbue a spell=½×[spell cost-Imbue Blade’s level]

-Accelerando [passive]-

For every minute in battle, gain one instance of Tempo. All instances of Tempo granted by Accelerando expire when combat ends.

-Tempo-

For every friendly instance of Tempo, gain a 10% bonus to Agility. For every hostile instance of Tompo, reduce Agility by 10%

Imbue Blade was quite what I expected, but it was still a powerful ability. Accelerando was very promising and opened up another skill tree that was more than likely going to eat up all my foreseeable Ap. The next ability in the Bound Blade path was Dual infusion for another five Ap or Empowered Blade for ten Ap. In comparison, Accelerando leads into Prestissimo for seven Ap. What looked fun was Ritardando’s ability tree that merged into Accelerando’s tree on their third ability.

‘Hmm, maybe I should take Ritardando next. It's only two Ap, and if video game logic can be trusted, I'll need both to get the third ability. A thought for future me. First thing first, getting out of here.’

That was when my stomach decided to wake up, grumbling loudly at the lack of food. I hopped up and gathered some wood, creating a small fire to roast a pound of rabbit lightly salted. With my stomach satisfied for now, I drank a bit of water before heading back into the twisting labyrinth, my ten-foot pole in hand.