As the thread of Will wrapped its way around the burning thread of wrath, it suddenly snapped into place and stabilized leaving Kal with a blue-red cord. The end was not directly connected to his core and the flame within spewed crimson flame in a tight cone. Kal’s concentration once again faltered as he could feel more of his wrath permeating his being as more was able to leave his core.
Externally Kal could see his body as a flame with the mix of his birthright and his wrath. He roared out loud before he was once again able to bring his mind back within. Progress, but clearly not the effect he was going for, Kal started weaving a framework like the one he had made to cleanse the poisonous mana from his body the day before. This time however he didn’t think vital energy would work. Even if it did the effects of his wrath burning away his vital energy to remain contained didn’t appeal to him. So this time Kal would instead fill the framework of physical energy with his Will.
With Soul Forge now actually working with him the construct formed much more quickly than it had that time. But before Kal could finish the sphere he needed to somehow merge it with the Wrath Incarnate skill. If he could do that he was sure he would have more control over his rage. Holding the cord of energy and the construct was difficult but also manipulating the skill thread was daunting, but he needed to try. Kal reached out with his mind and teased the skill thread away from his core, its pale appearance stark against the deep tones of the rest of his core.
The skill thread inched its way toward Kal’s barely held together construct. He barely held onto his focus. Each second he could feel himself losing control again, his external self tearing more flesh from the carcass and swallowing the poisonous flesh. Finally, the skill thread was close and Kal fused the cord to the filling sphere and began weaving the skill thread throughout the framework of his construct. Every inch of framework the skill thread touched was like driving ice into his temples. Kal groaned as he forced himself to continue, the pain worsening his control. That was when Kal ran out of time, his perception of his core space vanished and he was charging through the burning terrain of the dome looking for anything to kill.
Still chewing on the flesh of the garghound he hunted pack after pack, noble after noble. His hatred never sated, his wrath ever growing. All the while a tiny piece of Kal continued his work, but all true thoughts of such things were a blur in his hate-filled mind.
Kal was tearing the flesh from yet another pathetic noble when for the first time in several days he was distracted.
Manual Skill Evolution Detected!
Warning risk of death or grievous bodily harm is likely.
Do you wish to proceed? Y/N
Kal sneered at the system's foolish assumptions, he could not be killed. He was the one who killed, he would never stop…
He snarled as he accepted the evolution, it would be as easy as taking the lives of those pathetic demons. Suddenly his true identity returned to him and he was once again in his core space. In front of him was the construct he had desperately tried to construct. Now it floated there attached to his core by the cord of power. The other threads acting as seal for his birthright and wrath were gone, replaced by the crimson threads of his core. Now all of his wrath ran through the cord directly to the construct. The glow started crimson but grew brighter and brighter moving through orange to white. His body burned in agony, the concentrated wrath radiating throughout his entire core space. Kal thought his body was about to tear itself apart as the pain reached its zenith but then the light dulled, the pain slowly receding with it.
Kal refocused on his construct, its glow now a deep violet. Kal sighed, with relief. It had worked, he had managed to block off all leakage of his wrath and bind it into his construct. But could he still use it? Kal put the thought aside for the moment and brought himself out of his meditation. His pain was once again brought to the forefront of his mind. He felt like he had been lit on fire again except this time it was everywhere. He looked himself over and saw that he was covered in hundreds of lacerations over every part of his body, and between them were severe burns. Kal wasn’t sure which was from the skill evolution but either way, it sucked. He didn’t plan on doing it again any time soon if he could help it. Hopefully, now he would be able to keep his thoughts straight.
Kal tried to sit up and found his muscles weren’t listening right now so he just opened his status where he was.
Kalum Lesta
Status
Class:
Slayer [Epic]
Level:
21
Race:
Human?
Health:
87/1430
Stamina:
3/2380
Wrath:
1878
Attributes
Strength:
175
Agility:
55
Endurance:
201
Vitality:
116
Intellect:
41
Perception:
102
Will:
189
Wisdom:
92
Titles
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Ascendant, Core Bane, Core Smith, Defier of Dhinir, Planeswalker, Planar Appetite, Slayer of the Strong !! See Notifications!!
Skills
Soul Forge [Rare], Wrathful Regeneration [Common], !!See Notifications!!
Race
Birthright: Restrained
Kal chuckled, his rampage had strengthened him once again. Sure he was laying in a pool of his own blood but damn did it make leveling feel fast. Kal knew he had actually been fighting for a few days but his blurred memory made it feel less real.
He was in pretty bad shape but even without his Wrathful Regeneration active, he could feel his vital energy starting on his recovery. It wouldn’t heal him much but it would certainly keep him from dying. Kal winced as he activated his regeneration and let some of his wrath burn away to speed his recovery a bit. He was half expecting the skill not to work after what he had done in his core, but it seemed to be working as normal. Now that his health pool was so large its healing didn’t seem all that effective anymore. Sure it was still fast but the wrath to health conversion was quickly becoming mediocre.
Health:
287/1430
Stamina:
3/2380
Wrath:
1078
Most of his wounds had healed enough that Kal could get to his feet and get out of the open, he was lying near the corpse of the garghound noble when he came back to himself. So he made his way over to an alcove and took a seat again.
The next thing Kal had to check was his notifications. Kal let out a breath and opened his log.
Kal’s jaw dropped when he saw the torrent of notifications come through all at once he didn’t bother reading it all and willed the log to simplify its report.
You have slain:
[Gargound | Abyss Spawn 7-9] x 63
[Gargound Noble | Abyss Spawn 14-24] x 15
Level up! x 6
Points to distribute: 36
Title gained: Endurance Elite
Garghound Eradication: Completed!
Title gained: Demon Slayer
Title gained: Strength Elite
Title gained: Will Elite
Bonus Objective Added!
Skill Evolution Success!
Wrath Incarnate [Common] > Wrath Incarnate [Uncommon]
Select Class Skill:
The simplification barely helped, “Holy shit!” Kal chuckled, he knew he had been fighting for a while but he didn’t think he had killed enough to finish the quest. He had even somehow gotten four titles out of it all. Kal took a breath and looked over his attributes again.
Strength:
211
151
Agility:
79
66
Endurance:
237
158
Vitality:
143
106
Intellect:
67
52
Perception:
128
99
Will:
230
144
Wisdom:
116
97
Kal arranged his attributes so he could see their base level without the percentile bonuses from his titles. His attributes quite frankly seemed insane. It felt like only hours ago that he reached level fourteen, and now he was bloody level twenty-one and had two hundred in three of his attributes. His new attributes made his Agility and Intellect look even worse, but even they had grown significantly.
Kal had a look at the “Elite” titles first since they were probably related.
Endurance Elite [Rare]
Achieved an Endurance of over 200 during Tier 0. May your shell withstand the might of all who would oppose you. +5% Endurance
Strength Elite [Rare]
Achieved a Strength of over 200 during Tier 0. May your foes know your might. +5% Strength
Will Elite [Rare]
Achieved a Will of over 200 during Tier 0. May your enemies fear your undying will. +5% Will
Well, it was now abundantly clear the system liked people achieving high attributes early. Each of the titles even came with a percentile boost to the associated attributes encouraging people to double down on their choice. Kal had barely invested any of his free points into those attributes, most of his progress in those came from his base class points and his other titles. He was pretty sure having three of these titles wasn’t normal.
Kal wished he could get a look at Melisia’s status again so he could check. He wondered how they were going. It had still probably only been a few days for them judging by the time difference. Hopefully, Dalen hadn’t done anything stupid and whatever that tear business was all about had been dealt with before it could put his family at risk. Kal sighed, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it now. He was trapped here for the foreseeable future apparently, at least until he was strong enough to do something about it. Kal moved on to the last title thinking he might as well get them all out of the way before moving onto his free points.
Demon Slayer [Rare]
Gained by slaying over 100 demons single-handedly during the system quest Garghound Eradication. +20 All Attributes.
Well, that explained the major boost across the board. The title was simple, and right now the twenty free points to all his attributes was great but he could see the title not being all that good in the long run. It was basically equivalent to six or seven levels worth of points. The best part about the title honestly was that it gave him points across his non-class related attributes which he had a much lower budget for. Kal smiled and switched to the distribution screen. Since he had gotten titles he was sorely tempted to dump all thirty-six points into Vitality, and with his titles, it would bring it up to around one hundred and ninety-one. Then next level he would probably hit two hundred. But when he saw his measly seventy-nine points in Agility and sixty-seven in Intellect he decided against it. He promised himself he would put more points into Intellect at least and he knew Agility was worth every point he spent in it. Ultimately he decided to split the points between each of them, bringing his Agility to one hundred and his Intellect to ninety-one.
Kal felt the rush of power as his attributes increased again. It was amazing how fast he was getting used to the feeling, thirty-six points earlier on would have felt like a huge increase but now it didn’t feel like such a sudden change. He still had a lot to look over so Kal moved on once more to his evolved skill.
Kal focused on the notification and the skills new description appeared.
Wrath Incarnate [Uncommon]
[Soul Forged] [System Assisted]
A Slayer’s wrath is as much a physical presence as it is a mental state.
Active Effect: Empower your form with your Unleashed wrath and wade through the masses unimpeded. While in this state your inner self is let free, crushing all emotions it deems as weaknesses. In addition, all attributes are increased by 40% at the cost of wrath until you deactivate this skill. If your wrath is exhausted it will instead use three times more Stamina until you deactivate this skill.
Passive Effect: Your very presence is unnerving to all but the strongest of will and those you choose to leave unaffected. All living things can sense the wrath deep within you and will fear you. The more affected by this aura the less wrath is consumed while using this skill's active effect.
Warning, due to manual manipulation of the core and an abnormal resource, this skill is being used as a seal for the abnormal resource. If the abnormal resource’s value ever exceeds the maximum value of your Stamina resource this skill will break and all of the abnormal resource would be left uncontrolled.