Looking at his skill list, —— realized that he had forgotten to use Void Claws during the fight. While there weren’t many situations where it could have been used conveniently, it could’ve helped him not get thrown across the tunnel.
Laying on the hard ground of the dungeon, —- began to plan forwards. He still has plenty of Lacertae meat within his bag that could be eaten, even though it was probably kind of squished right now, along with a few more Relds which were just as equally squished.
After his mana would regenerate, he would cook some of the food and eat it, using Fire Magic to ‘barbeque’ the meat. The food he had on him should be enough to last 2-3 days, so he was going to go around fighting mostly solo ants and a couple groups of two or maybe three ants before moving further forwards.
It would be even better if he could level up once more before he attempted to take the boss on. There were nowhere near enough ants for there to be a Queen Patsate, so the boss would most likely be an even more oversized ant.
With a couple Void Blasts, he should manage to kill it. For now though, regening was the only goal. He wasn’t sure quite what his health and stamina regeneration were at but knew that it would be much, much slower than his mana regen.
Taking some of the meat he had taken off the Lacertae, —— quickly conjured a ball of fire and began yo cook the meat. He got the Fire Magic skill at Level 1. Soon, the meat was cooked, burnt actually, and he drank some water that he had summoned.
Looking at the part of his armor that got clipped by the ant’s leg, —- saw a faint white scratch. It was barely visible, so his confidence in the armor went up, even though it was of Horribly-Made or Badly-Made quality.
Getting up, the Voidling began to make his way backwards towards the entrance. He would find a calm spot to sit down and meditate, allowing his body to fully recover.
After going through tens of twisting tunnels, he eventually made his way back to the beginning of the dungeon where the tunnel was still made partly of stone.
Sitting down on the ground, —- began to meditate. The overwhelmingly comforting throb of mana and energy coursing through his body almost sent him back into another trance, but he quickly managed to regulate the energies going through him.
Instead of allowing it to run rampant through his body, he guided it and had it disperse evenly across his entire body. Though he couldn’t tell, his body began to glow and radiated a deep blue to his surroundings. As the mana dispersed, it intensified. While he was guiding the mana, it eased up.
As time passed, the gentle throbbing of mana rang through the tunnels. Combined with the fierce hum of mana coming from the center of the dungeon, a melodic song was formed.
The creatures nearby, whether dungeon-created or naturally born, all began to listen to the song. Together, the entire dungeon gained a sense of tranquility and peace.
An hour passed before —- stopped meditating. Getting up, his body felt different. He wasn’t stronger, nor more flexible, but it was almost as if he just had more control over his own body.
He could perfectly control how much power he put into any of his actions. Seeing a prompt appear in front of him, he quickly read it.
Congratulations! You have learned to spread excess mana and energies through your body. This action allows your body to tune itself with nature. Everything you do will now feel more.
Congratulations! Meditation has leveled up to Lv 9.
The prompt explained the sensation better than he ever could. Looking back at his status, his health and stamina had finally climbed back up to 250. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he wasn’t hungry yet so most likely not much.
Seeing how fast his Meditation skill was going up, he chalked it to the trance he had earlier and the fact that he was spreading the excess mana and energies through his body.
Soon, meditation would be raised to level 10 and he would finally become an Adept at Meditation.
Every skill, once it reached a certain level, would have a level of proficiency associated with it. For levels 1-9, one was a beginner. From levels 10-24 one was adept. Levels 25-50, and one was knowledgeable. There were more even further beyond, but getting to those levels would take a very, very long time.
His current task would be to begin farming experience and skills. A couple melee-only fights against solo ants would help quickly raise his Small-Arms skill.
Pulling out his skinning knife, he quickly recast the Brightening Orb. It lasted a couple hours but had likely gone out while he was meditating.
Moving forwards, he tried to remember all the tunnels and turns he had made while making it to the ants. Soon, he made it back to where he had seen the first ant, and once again there was another one there.
Before the ant could screech, —— put his new agility to use and rushed it. He shot a Void Orb at it and managed to clip one of it’s legs. Before it could react he twisted and jabbed the knife directly into the small jap between its head and chest.
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Screeching, the ant slides sideways with its legs. Before he could get hit, —— pulled the knife out and jumped upwards, landing on the ants back. His feet landed squarely on the part of its back that was covered by the ichor that had spilled from the cut, and combined with the ant falling over from being unbalanced, causing him to fall and collapse on top of the ant.
Opening his eyes, the Voidling was greeted with the ants mandibles snapping towards his neck. Before his back could get severed, —- quickly pulled back, feeling the wind smach against his adams apple.
Rushing backwards, he took a quick look at his health and stamina, seeing them at 243 and 223 respectively. The ant took this time to right itself, finally managing to catch is balance.
—- stepped forwards again, only to feel a sting across his cheek. The ant had, when he stepped forwards, sliced its front leg forwards to hit the Voidling’s neck. Luckily it had missed, as he believed that he would not have survived a slit throat.
Finally realizing what it meant to fear for your life, —- decided to stop playing and simply kill the ant. Before it could react, three Void Blasts were shoved directly at its face.
Watching the ant die, —— noticed that it had dropped an item. Walking forwards, he picked it up.
You have picked up: Giant Patsate Chitin (Medium) (Average)
You have killed a Patsate(Giant Dungeon Variant) Lv 4.
You have gained 72(+3) experience.
His Small-Arms skill had gone up to level two along with dodge, and his Void Magic skill had finally raised to level 4. While starting with 25 in each stat was useful, only after nearly dying did —- realize just how truly weak he was.
Even though he started with many more stats than any other species, most people, when they unlocked their status at 15, would already have many skills that would be leveled to adept or even knowledgeable ranks. Meanwhile, he started without any skills. Even some monsters created by dungeons would be created already having skills.
The one thing that would come useful now was the fact that he was Plateau-less. A normal person in the world always has caps to their skills. At one point, you would get so good at something, or were so bad at something, that no matter how many thousands of hours you spent training that skill, it would not level.
Whether from the fact that he was made of Void or another, he had no cap to his skills. As long as he continue to improve and use the skill, his skills would continue to level up as far as his lifespan allowed him to.
For now though, he had lots of ants to kill, and lots of xo to gain.
:::::::::::::::
A few hours later, by —- 's estimate, he had found and killed his twentieth patsate. 16 of the kills were solos and there were two pairs he had taken care of.
There were 14 level 4’s and 6 level 5’s which netted him 1,554 experience, pushing him to level 3 and a third of the way to level 4. He put 4 points into intelligence and 2 into agility and dexterity bringing them up to 33, 29 and 29 respectively.
Skill wise, Meditation had increased to 12, Stealth to 3, Dodge to 4, Small Blades to 5, Void Blast to 6, Void Claws to 4, and Brightening Orb to 3.
For having gotten to Adept in Meditation, —— had been rewarded with a new prompt.
Congratulations! For having broken past the Beginner stage to the Adept stage in your Meditation skill, you have gained 500 experience.
When skills had leveled past a certain threshold , they would give experience that would increase as the stages increased. Breaking from Adept to Knowledgeable would give more experience than Beginner to Adept, though —- didn’t know how much the increase was.
This experience was the way that most normal citizens leveled up through their lives. Instead of fighting and killing monsters or others, they would continue to raise their skills and gain experience that way. Most people, by the time they were in their thirties, would have reached Level 10.
Compared to then, —- still had more total skill points due to him starting out with 25 in everything while very few other species started out past 15 in their stats.
The only species that the Voidling had in his implanted memories that started with stats near him were the Wyrms, an offspring of Dragons. They usually started with stats between 20-30.
—- could be considered one of the strongest Level 3’s in the world due simply to his race.
After killing all the Patsates he could find and traveling around the dungeon, the Voidling had a general idea of where the boss would be. The series of tunnels in the dungeon were built similarly to a cone. At the entrance, where he had started, the tunnels went a kilometer or so in every direction, but near the end there was a single tunnel which continued forwards.
--- didn’t know how far forwards the tunnel would extend as the number of Patsate’s in that tunnel was enough to even scar him. If his quick glimpse was accurate, then there was a pack of 8 or 9 of them in there. With his current mana pool, he could take out 6 of them before they could get to him. Leaving him with a few he would have to fully melee.
On the other hand, if he could survive 40 seconds against them he could have enough mana to fire off another Void Blast. He heavily doubted they would give him that much time though. If he could enchant he would prefer to use Void Imbuement as it would make the fight almost effortless. Magic Imbuement was an enchantment which let the user coat a certain weapon in a type of mana without affecting it.
If --- tried to imbue his knife with Void Magic it would be swallowed up instantly. If someone tried to coat a weapon with Fire Magic, it would likely catch fire or even start to melt unless it had been enchanted with Magic Imbuement. At the same time, the enchantment could only handle so much. The better and stronger the enchantment, the more mana could be infused into the weapons.
Imbuement was the largest reason why most people wouldn’t come close to mages. At long range, you could dodge their spells. Up close, their weapons coated with magic would chew through your own weapons durability and one strike would greatly wound you.
Alas, --- didn’t have the materials required to enchant, or even the skill itself. For now, it was time to fight the boss and leave the dungeon.
A half hour later, the Voidling stood near the entrance to the single tunnel. He had only met one pair of Patsates on the way which he had quickly taken care of. Looking off into the distance, he could once again spot the group of ants he would have to kill to move forwards. Now that he got a better look at them, he could count 8 ants.
If all the Void Blasts hit, that would be two left to melee. Very possible for him to do. Not wanting to get their attention too quickly, --- first began to sneak his way down the tunnel. At his current range, he would be lucky to have his attacks not hit the walls instead of the ants, but he still wanted to be far enough away that he had space to run back.
Getting within 75 meters of the ants, the Voidling raised his hand and began.