Eric shuddered with ecstasy of his own, howling with laughter when the Titan Wyrm before him lurched back to shuddering life, weaving in a sinuous dance as it ululated it’s undying devotion even as Eric’s potency crashed down to zero and additional sands were torn free from the hourglass of his ever-shortening life.
Congratulations! You have SUCCESSFULLY raised your second Underking!
You have saved versus Catastrophic Backlash!
Potency has been depleted to Zero!
You have lost an additional 101 Days of your life! (NOTE! Excess spiritual presence has mitigated 99% of potency cost! GOOD thing you raised this Underking in Soul-saturated Black-tier territory!)
You have reached the maximum number of Underkings that your Class, Perks, and Bronze-tier titles grant you access to.
Fire Fist is now Rank 23!
Unarmed Combat is now Rank 29!
Congratulations! Your multiple Necromantic feats this night has allowed you to ascend to Rank 35 as a Master Necromancer! You may now select an additional feat!
Eric wanted to how with joy even as he roared with sheerest triumph at having forged ANOTHER Underlord.
Of course he knew what his next evolution would be. The perk that would allow him to add another two Underlords to his retinue, thanks to his Bronze Tier Lord of The Dead title. And he knew there would be ever smaller penalties for each one claimed.
Yet all he had to do was to recall just how devastatingly SWEET it was to infuse his fists with the might of pure Transcendant higher order evolutions of Flame, radiating higher order concepts of both Creation and Destruction, that he could now FREELY experiment and master, without penalty, censure, or fearing rupturing some fragile pocket realm, for the duration of this beast surge alone. And as incredible as it was to take down yet another Titan Wyrm, those six punches that he had to unleash this time had expended a whopping 140 points in temporary Soul Reserves that it would take an entire hour of perfect stillness or sleep to recover. And he had just scratched the tiniest surface of a 10,000 square mile territory he actually thought he could clear. Somehow.
Fuck.
“Okay, clearly I’m taking hour long breaks here and there with Wormy II wrapping around me for safety and to scare the crap out of any scavengers.” He muttered to himself, receiving an approving rumble from the inconceivably massive titan now slithering right up to him.
“That first punch had tapped me for 40 Soul Reserves. But then I got a clue and summoned my Blood Orb and the Soul Reserve costs are now cut in half…”
He swallowed his suddenly dry throat, well are of the rate limiting step for so many of his sweetest powers. He only had 432 In soul reserves, now drained to 292, which was still a fuck ton compared to most peoples, but with 12 nodes, his Mana and Qi pools were twelve times their base numbers. In short, he had well over 5000 points in both pools that regenerated damn quick. Even Spiritual Energy now recovered at the exact same rate as he recovered mana when he wasn’t in Battle Time, both pools recovering all the faster when he allowed himself to move and process and think at standard human speeds, a sort of moving meditation trick that he was more than happy to call his own.
Which meant that Soul Reserves were his absolute Rate Limiting step.
He gazed thoughtfully at the happily bobbing crimson orb… knowing that with a single perk, he could double the number of fallen souls he could raise for free after every engagement, or double his hyper powerful Underlord total to 4, giving him 4 autonomous extremely powerful generals who could independently command their own troops. Or if he raised actual sapient humanoid creatures, he could allow them to serve as his personal managers or administrators, giving to them the joys and headaches of diplomacy, administration, or running the day-to-day operations of businesses he shuddered at the thought of cramping his care-free battle-happy life style.
“Fuck the day-to-day grind. I’ll definitely be leaving that shit for Blue Corp and my future underlords to handle,” he said with a soft chuckle, before licking his dry lips in the howling desert air and making his choice.
Trembling fingers caressed his crimson orb, which suddenly doubled in size.
You are attempting to ALTER your Crimson Orb perk!
NOTE there is no OFFICIAL perk path that allows for—
Inconsistency overruled. Limit Breaker is now in effect.
You have SUCCESSFULLY enhanced your Crimson Orb perk!
Crimson Orb is now Rank 2!
Crimson Orb now pays 2/3rds of your Soul Reserve costs with every spell, Qi power, or ability you channel through it! Note! You (or your revenants!) still must claim the life force of your foes to fuel this orb!
You have slain and claimed 35 Bronze-tier Velociraptor Revenants.
You have slain and claimed one additional Half-step Silver Titan Wyrm!
Your Underlord has Consumed 23 Velociraptors and 17 Abominations!
Your Crimson Orb now enjoys HEALTHY SATURATION!
The howling winds echoed with Eric’s triumphant laughter.
It had worked! Pressing his will forcefully against the option he desired beyond all others, an option he damn well knew some Necromancer or Blood Mage had made use of at least once before in galactic history, had been all he had needed. No doubt thanks to his VIP status and Conceptio’s odd fascination with him, pressing for the bending or tweaking of the odd rule or guideline here or there seemed will within the bounds of what he was permitted.
Even if he understood the cost as well.
One class perk had been needed to cut his Soul reserves down to half. And with a second point needed to lower it to a third, and another no doubt lowering it to a fourth… the cost of lowering the Soul Point cost to an 1/8th would be a whopping 7 Class Perks. Which was absurd. But throwing in 2 more points over the following levels to lower the cost to a 1/5th? That he had every intention of doing. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. Because if he could earn another 2 levels clearing this howling hell hole of a wild territory where even now he spotted a pack of no less than a full dozen velociraptors charging him… then he damn well would take advantage of the countless shrieking souls trapped in this territory that he halfway suspected were responsible for the territory’s rupture in the first place, the tragically scarred and doomed remnants of the countless millions that had been locked in eternal torment, thanks to goblin malice and trickery.
Souls that would be desperately eager to pay the price that would otherwise be Eric’s to posses and animate any future Underlords he raised. For as long as this territory’s unique status was preserved… a ten thousand day’s cost, near 30 years of life, for each half-step Silver Underlord would now be reduced to around a hundred days. And that was a price he would happily pay for another two half-step Silver Titans under his eternal beck and call.
The air rang with the shrieks of oncoming death.
Eric’s mind blanked of all plans and stratagems in favor of the visceral thrill of combat, the rush of fighting against multiple opponents eager to kill him right now!
Yet the last thing he wanted to do was play the fool.
A singular charge head on, full inertia to send the central most pair of velociraptors spinning away, Eric earning a pair of bite marks unable to penetrate his mithril mail, no matter their vorpal sharpness, even as the air erupted in a furious explosion of fresh superheated flame.
Mortal flame, though channeling every once of his strength, which was more than enough to shatter one raptor that erupted in a shower of super-heated gore. The closest velociraptors, being Low-Bronze beasties, merely snarled and hissed, hardly taking any damage at all.
Eric smiled even as he raced ahead, stretching the band of a dozen killers now after him into a desperately yearning line of death, the lead pair eager to snap his heals, outpacing their companions, before Eric spun around as if inertia didn’t exist, weaving under snapping teeth for an uppercut to shatter the skull of the closest raptor while a crescent kick shattered the jaw of the second, squealing as its teeth and tongue were obliterated by searing flame.
And then a laughing Eric was tearing right into the still charging pack, his foes clearly not expecting their talons and teeth to be met by an eight foot bar of obliterating crimson fire, sheering through necks and limbs before he pivoted at right angles to the squawking furious pack, down another three members as their mocking prey proved to be anything but an easy kill.
Burst of Strength!
Power Strike!
You have fatally slain two additional Velociraptors with Fire Fist!
You have slain an additional 3 Velociraptors with Bloodfire Strike!
You are attempting to fuse your arts!
Eric let the System messages wash over him as the pack regained their cohesion sans nearly half their members, hissing and snapping at Eric as one. Yet he refused to let them surround him, using his superior speed and mobility to outmaneuver them as much as he could.
Meeting snapping talons with Bloodfire.
Pounding snapping jaws seeking to chomp into his torso with fists filled with furious flame.
Yet he was far from perfect.
If anything, he was so focused on desperate illumination. So EAGER to find the commonality that allowed his fists to erupt with such devastating force, that he was comically unprepared when glistening white tendrils from unseen predators snapped around his ankles.
Sending him off balance. Falling. As a trio of Velociraptors struck at once.
Never mind his Underlord’s desperate howl. It was too large, too vast, too far away to do anything at all.
Eric flashed a smile even as he felt his calf, not protected at all by his mithril mail hauberk, erupt in blood and agony.
Before he washed the velociraptor in the essence of flame.
Transcendant Power Strike OBLITERATES Your target!
14 Soul Reserves expended.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Fuck!” Eric hissed, glaring as the remaining velociraptors, seeing him crippled, leaped in for the kill.
The air flashed with higher order concepts of flame once more, and Eric was down another 14 points even as he felt his mastery over higher order concepts crystalize with ever greater understanding. Yet it still didn’t keep him from cursing under his breath as Wormy II, howling with worry and embracing perks that allowed him to travel to Eric’s side at monstrous speed, tore up the land in an effort to surround Eric in a protective dome of near indestructible Wyrm coils.
Eric chuckled ruefully. “Nearly got myself seriously fucked there. Didn’t I, wormy? Still, I think I’m damned close to leveling up Bloodfire Strike again and maybe… just maybe... figuring out how to infuse it with Power Strike.”
Eric frowned while tapping into his Power Healing and Blood Orb to regenerate his shredded Achilles tendon and mangled calf in record time, doing his best to visualize what it felt like to deliver those devastating punches where physical force and generated power was somehow converted to inconceivably potent explosive heat.
If he could infuse his Bloodfire Strike with similar potency… because both 500 or 50 Strength would see his mithril blade cleaving through a hell of a lot. And yes, more Strength was always better, but if he could transform added kinetic force into an even hotter blade, with an even longer projection of Bloodfire… that would truly be an evolution that could make all the difference.
Power Healing complete!
Eric took a satisfied breath, his painful grimace easing to a smile as he promised himself, not for the first time, that he’d do what he could to get mithril that protected his lower legs in addition to helm and hauberk.
He then gazed down at the near dozen terror birds and the odd white jelly-like abomination covered in eyes, mouths, and spike covered pseudopods that reminded Eric just a bit of Slurpy, and belted out the words that would soon unlock the keys to taking over the entire continent.
“Surge Centuria! Imperator Imperat Tibi!”
The dozen butchered and shredded bodies began shuddering and spasming uncontrollably as pseudopods of blood streamed forth, hooking various gobbets of flesh before yanking them all into a dozen rapidly reforming bodies.
Eric smiled in fierce satisfaction when his latest recruits shuddered into existence. Not a single one resisted the call to a second chance at life under Eric’s command, perhaps sensing the pressure of millions of tormented souls heavy in the air and realizing they had a good thing going, staying right where they were.
“Ave Imperator Abedimus.”
“Wise choice!” Eric grinned in approval at the cawing throats and the bubbling words from the multi-mouthed abomination. “Okay, here’s the game plan, buds! We TEAR THROUGH this fucking territory and SLAUGHTER EVERY LAST ASSHOLE that crosses us! Then we RAISE THEIR CORPSES and forge an army that would make even our worst foes SHIT THEIR PANTS! Do we all approve?”
Each and every last velociraptor hooted its approval, Eric’s Underlord undulating in pleased satisfaction.
“Good! Because my Dominion Interface Map is showing a FUCK TON of heat! And I mean THOUSANDS of you Bronze-tier bastards. Which is AWESOME! Because step one is we hit and run! I charge in, bring down the smaller packs and stragglers without giving the larger packs any chance to engage!
“Hit and run, and we are far from fucking done! Because we’ll keep grinding and grinding and grinding these fuckers down, picking them off one by one, until we have several hundred fresh recruits fucking EAGER to serve! Then, when all the stragglers nearby are ours, we slam right into the mega packs I see forming up on my map, because we all know they’re getting ready to head out. So we will fucking intercept and slaughter, and I’ll let you and Wormy SMASH THE FUCK out of them with Death March and Undying Phalanx! We’ll knock ‘em over like bowling pins and then twist around and finish those shitheads off!”
Eric flashed a manic grin. “Now, ARE YOU WITH ME?!?”
His tiny proto-army of course screeched, hooted, and roared their approval.
“AWESOME! Now let’s get HUNTING!”
There were few sweeter things, Eric thought, as he weaved and twisted around vorpal claws eager to tear off ears, eyes, and throats before responding with cleaving slashes of his fiery blade, than forging one’s dreams into reality.
The snarls and roars of foes slammed into at hypersonic speed.
The sheer joy of sending one opponent after another flying through the air as he ranked up Charge like no one’s business before darting forward an eyeblink later, his crimson blade slicing them into blood-spurting chunks before they had even finished tumbling back to the ground.
Packs of swarming raptors washed in furious flame with overhand rights, powerful hooks, or snapping kicks he grew increasingly comfortable channeling Spiritual Fire through, no matter the bitter pain earned when his timing was at all off, toes snipped off an instant before hideously sharp maws erupted in blood and fire.
And the entire pack of raptors closing in for a kill around a momentarily off-balance Eric would be knocked off their taloned feet by the growing swarm of savage revenants tearing into the flesh of their foes, healing up their own wounds even as they tore fresh ones into their living counterparts.
Sapient, ruthless revenants that knew neither pain nor fear, only fury and a desperate hunger as their opponents’ moral broke and they fled for all they were worth. Only to be chased down and torn apart by Eric’s growing army, before the air filled with eldritch chants now so dark and thick with potency in a territory so saturated with souls and power that the very rocks began to bleed.
Stone twisted into bleeding effigies and silent screams as fresh yellow-eyed revenants snapped to life once more, all of them screeching their devotion to the pack growing ever larger under the control of the massive Wyrm now directing them while a hooting Eric, laughing with sheerest jubilation and growing madness, raced across the basalt flatlands and desert sands tasting of spice and death and rapture, EAGER for the hunt once more as his racing mind grew ever closer to enhancing so many killing arts.
So close to fresh breakthroughs that could change absolutely everything.
Congratulations!
You and your revenants have successfully slain 207 Bronze-tier Velociraptors!
You and your revenants have successfully slain 37 Bronze-tier Slime Abominations!
You are now a Level 36 Master Necromancer!
2nd Tier Core Saturation is now at 69%!
Fire Fist is now Rank 24.
Fire Fist is now Rank 25!
Windfire Strike is now Rank 18.
Windfire Strike is now Rank 19!
Charge is now Rank 7.
Charge is now Rank 8.
Charge is now Rank 9!
Burst of Strength is now Rank 19!
Spirit Mastery is now Rank 35!
Rituals of Summoning and Binding is now Rank 32!
Swordsmanship is now Rank 34!
Unarmed Combat is now Rank 30!
You have achieved ELITE Proficiency with Unarmed combat!
Strength/Quickness/Finesse have each increased by 9 points! (Further modified by all applicable modifiers).
You may now choose an Unarmed Combat Evolution!
Possible evolutions include Brutal Kicks (standard), Iron Fists (standard), Cultivator’s Resilience (Legendary)…
You have Chosen Cultivator’s Resilience! You have chosen NOT to even look at the additional 7 evolutions also worthy of your consideration!
Cultivator’s Resilience – (Legendary) – You have dared to claim an avatar of Death as your mentor, and have fought Bronze-tier cultivators to submission! Your martial abilities are now inextricably intertwined with your cultivation foundation and thus transcend your physical body! After enduring the most grueling of duels against a Bronze-tier striker and facing down hundreds of Man-Eating Velociraptors that snapped off your fingers and tore free your Achilles tendons MULTIPLE TIMES, you both understand the devastating impact that Spiritual Energy-laden blows OR vorpal-tear talons and teeth can have on the physical body, and now intuitively understand how to counter those strikes in turn!
You have achieved true Dominion within your own mind and body!
Your body is now infused with Spiritual Energy that gives you added resilience against ALL attacks! - You may permanently invest Spiritual Energy points in each and every one of your resistances. Every point so invested will increase your resistance by 1 point! The maximum points that may be invested is equal to your baseline resistances.
Eric laughed aloud as he crashed to his knees, eyes gazing up at the brilliant stars overhead glittering and flashing like a million indescribably brilliant jewels, all the colors of the rainbow as flashing streamers so like the aurora borealis flickered and flashed over the heavens as the howling winds shrieked in Eric’s ears.
He couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off his face, reveling in the sweet salty tang of spice and blood and glory and torment in the air.
He had never felt more energized or depleted, his Soul Reserves nearly completely tapped out. He shivered in a state between epiphany and exhaustion in the middle of the most hostile territory imaginable, no matter that a swarm of well over 200 highly mobile and extremely aggressive Bronze-tier terror birds wove predatory loops around him, ready to slaughter anything and everything that might think Eric easy prey. And it said something that of the half a dozen abominations and still living velocis he sensed nearby, not a one dared get any closer than they already were.
Then the earth started to vibrate and tremble with a far more monstrous presence still, and Eric felt nothing but relief when skyscraper-sized coils of Titan Wrym began looping around him and a handful of the raptors, forming a perfect dome of defensive coils as Eric pulled out a Flesh-Sculpted mat of bone and sinew and warmth and comfort. “Just protecting myself against anything popping up from underneath,” he muttered to himself even as his attempts at lotus meditation somehow became curling up in a ball on his super comfortable bed complete with a very normal comforter that he might have accidentally totally claimed from Kelly’s apartment, then closed his eyes.
Yet it wasn’t without purpose. He needed an hour’s rest, at least, to refuel his Soul Reserves, and he was determined to spend these precious moments for stillness and reflection in the internal study of his own body and mind, doing his best to sense the flow of Qi through his meridian nodes and Lower Dantian, before allowing the intuitive sense granted by his Legendary Perk to sense how best to infuse his own Spiritual Energy into the physical shell that his body.
Even though he knew he was probably dreaming, still, he felt like a tiny spark of being gazing with awe at the rich, golden flood of potency filling all his primary and peripheral meridian pathways.
And how awesome it was to find that he could touch and feel the weight of that glorious, golden power. To sense the tight pressure of his meridians, containing that golden liquor so perfectly. Yet now, in this heady state between reality and dream, he could draw that golden potency directly from his spiritual veins and use it to flood every hungry cell of his body with sweet, golden power!
So rich, so creamy!
He wanted to laugh with giddy joy.
Just moments ago, he had been thinking of a cautious approach. A wise man’s prudence best embraced when exploring anything new.
How Silly!
He could sense how UTTERLY right it was, to nurture and feed his exhausted cells with power that would revitalize them! Like an elixer of youth bringing transcendence to the mundane, he somehow knew that even if the draw was permanent, so too was the benefit!
A modest fifty points? ABSURD! His cells were thirsty and sore. TIRED of being bruised and battered by nameless horrors. Tired of getting toes and fingers snipped off by the angriest of angry proto-birds, and his Achilles tendons could use some strengthening as well.
So why not fill then with as much golden nectar as they craved? And not a drop more, of course!
He wasn’t an exhausted fool lost in dream.
He was wise and strong and so VERY SMART!
Because the very second his cells felt at risk of bursting, he cut off the flow, eased back his dreaming self, and smiled with sweet satisfaction at what he had wrought.
His entire slumbering body was now a literal extension of his own Spiritual Power! Qi flowed as harmoniously through his cells as they did his meridian channels, rejuvenating and invigorating them just as much as ATP!
He then frowned his nonexistant head, for he was more than just a dreaming whim of existence.
Hadn’t he worried about balance?
Yes, he had!
And so what if his beautiful 508 Points of Spiritual Energy had been reduced by 130 points? He had DOUBLED his Physical resistance to 260! He was doing AWESOME!
But hadn’t he read dozens of novels about the limitations of pure body cultivators? Of course he had. The worst thing he could possibly do was limit himself to a single paradigm. The easiest paradigm. And that’s why he drew out another 60 points, eager to boost his Elemental, Qi, and Mental Resistance by 20 points each. Feeling the delicious rainbow tingle as his elemental resilience increased, the cool silver sweetness of boosted Qi Resistance, the wondrous neuronal surge of added Spiritual Energy permanently boosting and nourishing his neurons for added mental resistance and excellent cognitive health. Now, it would be effortless to infuse any of those areas of his body, including that grey zone where physical, cognitive, and spiritual elements intertwined. Like using physical body cultivation to boost the neurons that made up his mind that was the heart of Spiritual Cultivation. How neatly it all tied together!
Even as he allowed sleep to reclaim him once more, he couldn’t help but smile in sweetest contentment, seeing that his brilliant strategy had even more benefit than he had thought. Unlike other psionicists, he didn’t depend on a counter resonance field utterly unsuited to a Sylvan Brain. He relied on Physical and Mental Resistance alone, which meant that as those numbers increased, so did his Psionic Resistance, without having to waste a single point in it at all.
“I’m a genius,” he thought happily, before sinking right back into a gloriously deep and dreamless sleep.