Ashley

It proves to be a struggle getting close to the blue turret since the thing keeps zooming far away every time I try getting near it. And other turrets join us in this little game of tag as they get near the one flying away from me. Leading to the game expanding to over a dozen different blue turrets, each of which is spraying scalding hot water at me every now and then.

So, after ten entire minutes of chasing after the things, I don’t manage to kill even a single one. Instead I end up soaked to the bone and dripping wet. Albeit with dry clothes since the water just refuses to soak into my clothes.

I do find one thing rather nice though. Despite the water being steaming hot, it doesn’t burn me that badly.

Probably something to do with the skills I’ve gotten to improve my skin’s strength and durability, along with that other one from the moledrills. And the damage the water jets do end up causing isn’t bad enough to require health to heal. They heal simply through my regeneration skill.

But that doesn’t change how irritating this game of chase is getting.

And once in a while I end up being splashed by a surprising cold jet of water instead of hot. Although those aren’t anywhere near as common.

Eventually I end up resorting to using Dark Howl again. Which… gives me a pleasantly surprising result.

Unlike with those sturdy moledrills that just got dazed from it, these turrets instantly start falling. It happens so fast that a couple of them crash into the walls of the Domain and shatter into pieces before I can even activate Assimilate.

I manage to activate it though after the first two die.

{You have activated Assimilate. The skill will last for ten minutes, and you will gain the ability to permanently unlock the Skill Trees of anything you kill during this time.}

And the moment another one of the things dies, I find the corner of my lips twitching ever so slightly upwards. Not enough to form any sort of smile, but it’s more expression than I’ve shown any of those viewing stalkers watching me ever since I woke up from my coma.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a monster within the tutorial.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Water Elemental Turret}

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

That sounds like what I’m looking for.

I quickly open my Skill Tree and navigate to the tree in question before opening the skill’s description, not paying much attention to the other System Messages I’m getting from the other dying turrets.

{Scald – Allows the user to shoot out a jet of scalding hot water at a target using either one unit of water energy or two units of mana.}

Good. Very good.

My inner yet rather muted celebration of my new skill is stalled when one of the System Messages I get plays out telling me something unexpected.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a monster within the tutorial.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Water Elemental Turret}

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

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

Huh? Wait, is that the one that shoots the ice-cold water?

Cool.

I ignore the System Messages again as I open up the description to this next one. A skill placed in its own skill tree.

{Frigid Torrent – Allows the user to shoot out a jet of ice cold water at a target using either one unit of water energy or two units of mana.}

Several different uses of the two skills working together enter my mind while I look down at the last of the shattering turrets. Then I raise my head to look at the remaining water turrets that were out of my range.

That batch gave me a lot of potential skills in my Skill Trees and two levels. And there are only around a dozen or so more of the blue turrets left remaining.

As for the mana I spent on Dark Howl? I got two units back after the level-ups. So that’s not really an issue.

I cross my arms under my chest before tilting my head and looking upwards for a few seconds, just flapping my wings to keep myself in the air. Then I go ahead and move upwards, deciding to just deal with the rest of the water turrets with another Dark Howl. After I gather them all up.

Might try to get a fire turret or two to join the mix as well just to make sure they’re also weak to Dark Howl.

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A little while later

{Congratulations, you have now reached level 10. 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.}

The moment I get the last System Message about a level-up, I go ahead and collapse down onto one of the floating blocks. Having finally finished clearing out every monster in this Domain going down from the bottom to the top.

But I find myself surprised when another System Message appears after that one. A red message.

{NOTICE --- SUCCESSOR HAS ACHIEVED THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS TO UNLOCK A NEW SUCCESSOR SKILL --- NOTICE}

A new… successor skill? I can get more of those?

I quickly open the menu for Successors before navigating to the Successor Skills part. And low and behold, a new skill is sitting there amongst the other two. A locked skill.

{Unchained – As the Successor to Chaos, you may not be bound by anyone or anything. Not even Chaos himself.}

{Torrents of Chaos – Once a week you can draw chaos energy directly from nature itself, refilling your chaos energy reserves to full.}

{Chaotic Surge – Locked – Allows the user to send chaos energy through their body in a rampant surge, increasing their physical capabilities and granting random effects to all of their attacks. Both magical and physical.} – [Spend 300 Skill Points to unlock this skill.]

The moment I see that new skill, I immediately feel an itch to purchase it. Because it’s the first skill I’ve seen that’ll actually increase my physical strength. The other skills aren’t all that powerful outside of certain circumstances or are making weapons. Like spraying scalding hot or freezing cold water, or making a blade of energy. Or they’re not for offense. Like regeneration or stronger skin.

And it’ll give me something else to use my chaos energy on other than Assimilate. A skill that’ll actually help me directly in battle.

But… that price…

Should I really buy the skill now? I’m not sure.

Well, in all honesty, I can’t buy it now. Not considering that I only have around two hundred and thirty-four skill points.

Which is enough to unlock two skills in one of the many Skill Trees I have. So I’ll go ahead and start searching through them to see if there’s anything I can use for this upcoming mini boss fight.

Before that, though, I kind of want a peek at the mini boss.

So after a short rest, I begin to fly up again until I make it a little past the ledge. At which point I go back down again. Because just that single glimpse was enough to see what I wanted to see.

There’s a large golem-like creature standing still at the back of the large, cubic room, with an appearance similar to the pattern on the ground where the portal thing that led me into this Domain was. And adding that to the description of the three different mini bosses I saw in that quest thing…

This is likely the Goliath of the Maze.

I’m… not sure how I’m going to kill something like that.

I grit my teeth a little at the thought.

The creature was entirely made out of stone with some metal here and there. It was several dozen meters tall, and had glowing patterns on its hands and feet. And the creature’s level… was level fifteen.

Five levels above me.

With over three hundred potential skills.

I slowly lower myself to a nearby floating block as I take in that information.

Just… how am I going to kill something that big?