Ashley

Time passes slowly as I walk through the corridors of the maze, killing a few more gargoyles along the way and assimilating two of their Skill Trees in the process. Not assimilating the other two gargoyles’ Skill Trees simply because I don’t want to waste all of my Chaos Energy right now. And over the course of half an hour, the number of potential skills I have listed under me grows significantly all the way to over fifty.

But that’s not the only number growing. Because, to my great discomfort, the number of followers shown on the corner of my interface has jumped all the way up above ten thousand. And it’s only growing faster and faster every time I look at it.

No doubt as word spreads about me.

Such a pain.

Other than that, I’ve noticed that all of the monsters in the halls so far have only been between levels one and three. And it takes a lot more EXP to level up than I would’ve expected.

Even after killing four more gargoyles I’m still only level 1. All of whom were between levels 1 and 3.

Something else I noticed is that unlike with the Dark Hounds who each had different root skills, these gargoyles all have the exact same root skill. So all assimilating them ends up doing is expanding the Skill Tree I have for them. Quite a bit in fact.

Regardless of how much it expands though, my eyes are firmly locked on that Minor Regeneration skill. Because I want to be able to heal faster without needing to use health to do so.

After walking through the maze for half an hour though, I find the hallways shifting slightly. Not a very big change, but a change nonetheless.

There are more floating blocks in the hallway, with a bit more rubble around them.

I ever so slightly furrow my brows at the sight.

It could be my imagination, but I doubt it.

So I stay on high alert, only using my knife and avoiding using Energy Blade for a reason. More than one in fact.

Then my suspicions are confirmed when a strange scraping sound echoes from around a corner in the hall, combined with the scent of more rock. But this time without the citric smell.

I stop walking while tightening my grip on my knife and narrowing my eyes a little. Only for what looks like a snake made out of rocks to quickly move out from around the corner before rushing towards me.

♢ Level 3 Stone Serpent – 10 Potential Skills – X ♢

My eyes quickly scan over the creature as it moves towards me, trying to spot any weak points. And I quickly manage to find multiple on the creature.

The first is its eyes, which glow with a faint green light. Then there are the segments between the large stones making up the several-meter-long serpent’s body. And lastly, the inside of the mouth.

I jump out of the way as the serpent tries to jab its head straight at me in a bite, dodging the thing. Then I move forwards while jabbing with my knife right in between two of the segments of stone, chipping away a little bit at it and making the snake let out a hiss of pain. The two stones separating a little bit in the process, but not completely.

Good so far.

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I quickly move backwards when the snake tries to bite at me, but it ends up biting one of my wings despite my attempts. And it’s at this point that I realize I need to consider my wings when fighting as well. Because whatever methods of combat I no doubt studied before my coma clearly don’t cover that.

And I had to have studied something, otherwise my body wouldn’t be moving so naturally in battle.

Unless I’m just a natural?

Either way, I let out a slight grunt as the serpent’s fangs sink into my wing. But to my surprise, the creature quickly lets go as I see a strange crimson, purple, and black liquid seeping out of my wing.

A bunch of bars next to each other appear on the corner of my vision showing what I’m assuming is my health with one bar grayed out and the others red. Meanwhile the wound on my wing begins to itch as if healing.

I focus on the stone snake as I find the blood shed from my wing seemingly mutating its mouth a little bit. Not to an extreme degree, but the stone flesh in its mouth is starting to morph.

And the serpent is not happy about it.

I take advantage of this to rush forwards and stab my knife right into the serpent’s eye. Only to pull it back out and – after activating Assimilate – stab the other eye right afterwards.

Then the creature collapses to the ground, and I get the System Messages I’m waiting for a few seconds later as the gray blood leaks out of the serpent’s body and its mouth slowly stops mutating.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a monster within the tutorial. EXP has now been allocated accordingly.}

{Congratulations, you have now reached level 2. Your PHY and MEN have increased by 1 point, and your MAG by 2 points. Please choose where you wish your 1 Free Point to be allocated.}

I quickly choose the same distribution as last time. Putting it in PHY.

Then more System Messages appear.

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Stone Serpent}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Iron Skin, is now unlocked for your usage.}

Another skin strengthening skill?

I tilt my head at the dead serpent before opening my Skill Tree and searching for the new root skill I have.

{Iron Skin – Your skin grows more durable than before.}

That makes my second skin strengthening skill.

I glance down at my skin while tilting my head, but I don’t see anything different about it at all. Even when I run my hand over my skin, it still feels silky smooth.

Huh.

Whatever.

I glance at the other two skills currently visible in the tree before finding that both of them aren’t exactly useful to me. One makes it so I’d be able to crawl faster across the ground, and the other is a paralytic bite.

So I close out of my Skill Trees before continuing through the maze. And it doesn’t take long to run into another stone serpent.

This time I try to use my physical strength to rush around it and tackle the serpent from the side after jumping back when it tries to bite me. Which proves to actually be a little successful. The stone still scrapes against my skin a bit, but it doesn’t even break through ignoring the light bruising underneath.

Until the stone pinches my skin together and rips it a little, that is.

That hurt.

I manage to maneuver my knife around to stab the serpent repeatedly in between two segments of stone until I completely separate them, making the thing let out a hiss of pain. But I managed to place myself at a point where its head couldn’t turn around to reach me, so the thing is stuck here wiggling around as that gray blood leaks out from the part of it I’m still holding on to. Somehow not staining my clothes at all.

Convenient.

What’s also convenient is that it’s been less than ten minutes since I killed the last stone serpent. So Assimilate is still active.

Giving me yet another Skill Tree without me even having to waste some of my Chaos Energy.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a monster within the tutorial. EXP has now been allocated accordingly.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Stone Serpent}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Iron Skin, is now unlocked for your usage.} – [ERROR – Iron Skin is already unlocked. No skills are unlocked. Skill ‘Petrifying Gaze’ will now be added to the preexisting Skill Tree: Stone Serpent.]

Huh. Well that’s new.

Stone Serpent has a petrifying gaze skill too. Just like Gargoyle’s Skill Tree.

Should’ve guessed some different Skill Trees might have skills that do the same thing.

I’ll have to keep that in mind when I unlock my skills.

Glad I didn’t waste Chaos Energy on this one.

My thoughts come to a halt when I notice a smell. One matching human beings.

Ugh.

That’s not going to be fun.

I briefly contemplate moving in the other direction of the smell, but then decide it would be best to see if I can get some intel. And I don’t necessarily have to interact with them to get that intel.

So I begin moving carefully in the direction that the people are in.

Only to find a surprise when I find them around a corner.

Where did they get those weapons?