Kal wiped the sweat from his brow as yanked the fang from his fifth dark serpent kill.
Health:
1324/1970
Stamina:
1534/3320
Wrath:
1102
He had leveled up again after his third kill the day before, which was a lot longer than he had expected it to take after the first he had killed. Though he couldn’t complain a level or so every two kills was pretty great. As the rush of experience hit him after his most recent kill he smiled at the notification he was expecting.
Level up!
Skill Capacity Increased!
Choose a skill to be instructed in its creation.
Before continuing he looked over the description of Slayer of Fate to see what his new skill cap was.
Slayer of Fate [Epic] [Anomalous]
Something deep within you cries out for blood but through force of will you remain in control. You are a Slayer of Fate, though your power may stem from darker sources you do not lust for the kill but see it as a necessity despite your inner ferocity to break the chains that bind. Wade through your enemies as a bulwark of death, your will unyielding, your might indomitable. The Slayer of Fate is not bound by the archetypes of the lesser classes. Forge your own path through the blood of your enemies and stand apart from all as a paragon of man, your potential as vast as your will. Level benefits: +5 Strength, Endurance, Will, +2 Vitality, +6 Free points.
Anomalous: Your path is of your own making. From this point forward you will no longer be offered a skill selection every 10 levels, instead, you will be offered guidance in the creation of one of three skills that you have witnessed used, have sufficient knowledge of, or are judged to be predisposed to based on previously forged skills. Whether the inquired skill is forged is up to you. Additionally, your self-forged core allows such skills to be forged to a rarity up to the rarity of your Soul Forge skill. The amount of skills possible to incorporate into one’s core is dependent on the quality of your core and the efficiency of the skill created.
Future Class Evolutions: All future evolutions will be directly associated with the quality of the newly forged core and the skill incorporated at that time. Skill Capacity: 5/6
Disappointingly it had only increased by one, but again he shouldn’t be complaining since he already had more skills than somebody of his level would normally have. Kal had saved his level twenty-nine free points in case he needed to do something drastic in his fights with the other dark serpents, but in the end, he hadn’t needed to use them yet.
Kalum Lesta
Status
Class:
Slayer of Fate [Epic] [Anomalous]
Level:
30
Race:
Human?
Health:
2000
Stamina:
3400
Wrath:
0
Attributes
Strength:
294
Agility:
137
Endurance:
340
Vitality:
200
Intellect:
126
Perception:
168
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Will:
351
Wisdom:
153
Available:
12
Titles
Ascendant, Core Bane, Core Smith, Defier of Dhinir, Planeswalker, Planar Appetite, Slayer of the Strong, Endurance Elite, Strength Elite, Will Elite, Demon Slayer, Paragon of Man
Skills
Soul Forge [Rare], Wrathful Regeneration [Common], Wrath Incarnate [Uncommon], Abyssal Consumption [Rare], Flames of Wrath[Uncommon] [Soul Forged]
Race
Birthright: Confined
Right now he had twelve points to spend and he thought he might as well use them now that he was more confident in his dark serpent fights. His agility and intellect were always going to be lagging behind if he didn’t put his free points into them every chance he got but he still felt the need to reassess his attributes now that he had hit level thirty. Agility was proving very useful against the dark serpents who despite their snake-like forms were definitely on the slow side. They were still stronger than him right now but his higher agility allowed him to easily avoid most of their attacks, especially now that he could see them and his surroundings better. He wasn’t about to get cornered anymore. So for now, at least agility was still an important attribute but what about intellect? None of his skills currently scaled with it, but was it actually helping him besides the skills?
Most of the intellectual work he had done recently was for the most part to do with his soul forging. Compared to when he was back home the complexity of what he was forging had definitely soared. Now he was looking at the tiny constructs within constructs that made up the functions of skills, which was obviously way above the level he could even comprehend back home so he was pretty sure his intellect was having an effect. In soul forging, will was definitely the most important attribute when it came to actually doing the work, but when it came to figuring out how things worked it obviously had to be intellect that did the heavy lifting. Since he was about to learn how to forge a new skill, maybe having some extra points in intellect would help him learn more from the system’s guidance. Shrugging Kal threw all twelve points into intellect. Unlike most of his other attributes, there was no discernable change when his intellect increased, he just hoped they weren't wasted points.
Kal willed the skill selection screen to appear and noticed that the whole display had changed color. It now shined bright gold, just like the system event screens did whenever the waves progressed.
Choose a skill to be instructed in its creation.
First up was one that he suspected would be there.
Mage Sight [Rare]
See beyond the physical and begin to witness the essence of the universe in your surroundings. While this skill is active you will be able to see and filter through all mana that is sufficiently aligned with you, up to a radius of 35 feet.
Mage Sight’s rarity had increased since he was last offered it at level twenty and it looked like it came with the additional function to freely switch between different modes so he could see specific types of mana. It was still limited to mana that was sufficiently aligned with him which he was pretty sure didn’t apply to his self-taught variant of the ability. Either way, though it was still tempting since learning how perception skills were made could be incredibly helpful in the future. He wasn’t sure exactly how but it was something that he had no experience with up until this point.
Arcane Hunter’s Mark [Rare]
Mark your prey for death and steal their mana for yourself. While this skill is active all active fear effects are amplified and you will generate a small amount of mana every second scaling with the target's maximum mana pool.
Warning: This skill is not compatible with the Slayer of Fate [Epic] [Anomalous] class and will require additional forging to incorporate into your core.
Now this was a great skill. The name was pretty uninspiring but the rare tag and description quickly turned those thoughts aside. The fear amplification would definitely be useful but what really called to Kal was the mana generation. Like the warning said it was clear that it wouldn’t work for him as it was since it used mana but if he could work his wrath into the equation this could be an absolute game changer when it came to single combat. Right now his most dangerous fights were against singular powerful foes, the main problem being he couldn’t generate wrath. Even if the amount was tiny it would mean he could at least intermittently use Flames of Wrath, or heal the many tiny wounds that eventually built up to real issues.
There were also several things he could learn from the skill. It obviously had some kind of external effects that he had no experience with besides the practically brute force method of his Flames of Wrath. Kal nearly chose it straight away but he still had one more to look at so he held off for now.
Rolling Flames [Rare]
Hurl the flames of the great phoenix to incinerate all who oppose you. This skill creates a rolling pillar of flame towards a location of your choice covering a large area. Scales evenly with Will and Intellect.
Warning: This skill is not compatible with the Slayer of Fate [Epic] [Anomalous] class and will require additional forging to incorporate into your core.
“Well fucking shit, of course, this one had to be good too,” Kal grumbled. He really needed an area attack to help deal with the horde of garghounds and gods knew what else back outside the seeker shadow’s territory. It was the same as Arcane Hunter’s Mark in that he would need to customize it a bit to get it to properly work with his wrath but he didn’t think that it would be much of an issue compared to Arcane Hunter’s Mark. He was probably offered the skill now that he had essentially staggered his way through the creation of Flames of Wrath. The question is, was it wise to take it now? He suspected he would be fighting the dark serpents for a few more days and with any luck he could get to level forty before even needing to leave the seeker shadow’s domain.
“Damn it, Rolling Flame just sounds so good,” using spell-like skills was very appealing but ultimately he knew that right now it wasn’t the wise choice. He just hoped he would be offered it again when he reached level forty. Maybe even learning how to do external effects from Arcane Hunter’s Mark would let him make that skill on his own too. Kal sighed and selected Arcane Hunter’s Mark. He didn’t really know what to expect when the display vanished the moment he made his choice. It took a few moments before Kal felt anything at all but then it was like his mind was being crushed in a vise, his eyes rolling into the back of his head he gasped and fell to the ground beside his latest kill as an infinite tapestry of woven chaos stretched out before him.
Kal’s mind shuddered as he suddenly found himself somewhere else, assaulted by an overwhelming weight pressing down against him, barring him from the knowledge he should not see. All around him was an infinite tapestry of unending threads of such complexity it felt his eyes would burn away to nothing if they were able to comprehend even a fraction of each thread's meaning. He knew that this was the guidance the system was offering him, but how he was supposed to learn anything from this felt so far beyond him that his will faltered. Kal felt his mind whisked away by a current of power constantly threatening to crush his mind for good. He fought against it with all the will he could muster but it was like trying to fight a mountain with a twig, the force utterly indomitable. Kal could not just let this go, it was his chance to improve himself for his coming trials and every loss of progress was a horrible blow, so simply kept fighting.
It felt like hours had passed as he was swept along the infinite tapestry, but suddenly he felt the inevitable pressure lessen. It wasn’t weaker exactly but it was as if its hold over him had changed somehow. With another flex of his will he felt something crack inside his mind, followed by a horrible pain behind his eyes and a voice in his ear, another wall fractured. Kal flinched at the voice and turned to look toward its source. His eyes burned but an invigorating rush filled him as comprehension blossomed inside him as a spherical construct of a complexity he could only dream of achieving appeared in front of him, witness the arcane forger.
The infinite tapestry was gone, replaced by the dark, a gloomy cobbled street of a world corrupted by the arcane. Forever doomed by those who should never have been given the right to rule.