With almost two dozen hours until his Solo Combat exam, Felix spent some time examining and finalizing his Mana Channel and core designs before switching over and cycling through constructing each and every one of the combat spells he knew.
He wanted to implement the mana channels before the rest of his exams but without the appropriate crystals, there wasn’t any point to doing so. Mark had continued to passively calculate permutations and he had made progress, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Felix needed crystals for a dozen attunements at least and the best combinations Mark had come up with were 13% efficient with half of them still at 9%. In the best case scenario, running his entire mana pool through a dozen 13% efficient crystals resulted in less than a single point of mana.
The issue wasn’t just efficiency either. The combinations he had calculated also weren’t stable. If Felix were to push too much mana through them, the wasted mana would cause the crystals to burst.
He briefly created and tested some permutations of crystals, with Nova’s help, to accelerate Mark’s computations but that didn’t take very long at all.
Felix also collected all of the mana computers that had been produced from the factory he had created in his dorm and found that about half of them were unusable. The rest were flawed and would require some manual attention to fix. He didn’t worry about them for the time being though and simply stashed them away for when he had time.
Based on the 50% success rate, he tuned the construct however he saw fit then made the computers accessible to his mind and refilled the construct with mana and manually adjusted its anima. He had already harvested from it a few times over the course of his recovery and the success rate of 50% was a noticeable improvement from the original 20% but he still had a long ways to go.
After that, anything else Felix wanted to do was closer to procrastination than actually necessary so, he practiced and trained however he saw fit for his Solo Combat exam the next day. He even took a half hour to manually check up on and accelerate the repair of his soul. He didn’t end up accomplishing much as all he really needed now was time, but it made him feel a bit safer knowing what was going on and manually examining things for himself.
He could only cycle through his spells so many times though before he realized he wasn’t really making any progress and he already knew all of them very well.
So, he dove back into other projects. First, he constructed as many Seeing Eye constructs as he had the materials for on hand, which amounted to roughly 40. He manually validated and briefly tested all of them himself before tossing them into the air and allowing them to fly around his dorm room so Mark could run longer term tests while he moved on.
First, he took another attempt at compressing his mana pool and core further and now that his will was just shy of being fully healed, there was nothing stopping him. Pushing down on it as hard as he could, he managed to compress it by another 50%, resulting in a ridiculous total mana pool of 150 million mana.
After that, he decided to try something he had been meaning to try for a little while now. Taking out the demonic chains Peace had just returned to him, he decided they were the perfect test subject.
Starting from one end, Felix slowly ran the chain through his hands towards the other end. The entire time, his Soul Tendrils ripped into the chain and tore the soul attached to them free. Judging solely from how annoying it was to separate the two, Felix was pretty sure these chains had existed as a soulful item for a long time. He had to wrestle and tear at the soul that seemed to be tightly bound to each and every atom of metal, rust, dried blood and grime that made up the weapon.
At first, it took him minutes per chain but after a dozen or so he quickly accelerated to half a minute per chain as he got more accustomed to what he was doing.
In total, it took him a few hours to finally separate the two, shoving the soul into his ring and feeding the chain to his familiar.
While it wasn’t even really worth the time with the chain, Felix was happy to have the experience and knowledge for any future items he came across which were stronger, with better materials and souls from possibly even other universes. Harvesting items would never outpace the anima collection of killing weak creatures, or even better, harvesting chunks of The System-not that he was sure he would be doing that again any time soon-but there was a chance the souls contained something of value.
Items progressed differently from people and over time, they often grew very aligned without a consciousness to drift and get distracted, or so he and Grim had read. That meant they could even sometimes develop convictions of their own. While the chains hadn’t, Felix was hoping to find one that had at some point soon because he wanted to try using other convictions without having them himself. Possibly having an island for specific convictions or convictions just for his tendrils alone.
It was a topic that was mentioned briefly in the compendium he had gotten from The Reaper though, all of the mentions included warnings about the convictions overpowering the host’s soul. Felix wasn’t worried about that though and he was focused entirely on the potential benefits from being able to use different convictions for different tasks.
The rest of the free time Felix had, he spent working on two separate spells, one of which would help immensely in combat but wouldn’t be ready for a few terms at at least. It was intended to be the replacement for his Mage Armor Spell that just didn’t hold up anymore and the enchantment on his cloak that had become, less useful recently.
The other spell wouldn’t help at all with combat but it was an idea he had thought about for a while that, after his Constructs exam, had resurfaced in his mind.
Walking into the designated room, Felix had a bit of time to kill as he was the very last student on the list to be examined. He continued to work through the two spells he was working on, jumping from one to the other as various ideas popped into his head. He didn’t do any actual experimentation though in the class and simply worked through and fleshed out all of the ideas he had come up with for each.
Once it was his turn, Felix was the only student left in the class and he headed through the portal.
Instead of the training room he had used a number of times himself and had been previously evaluated in, Felix found himself instead in the middle of some nondescript grassy plain.
[?] Auren: Eramith’s Grand Huntsman (Lvl ?)
Auren nodded to acknowledge his presence, “You ready?”
Felix nodded and assumed he was fighting Auren so he prepared the spells he thought appropriate.
“If you hadn’t noticed, this isn’t Eramith and The System won’t save you from death here.”
Felix nodded to indicate he understood then Auren held up a hand, “Alright, wait here just a moment. I’ll go bring over your opponent.”
Releasing most of the spells he had prepared, Felix relaxed a little and waited as Auren ran off into the plains and disappeared over the horizon of what was apparently, a tiny planet.
The first thing Felix did was to surround himself in a Force Sphere followed by preparing a simple Force Burst for Movement and a Blade Spell with all of the focus that remained. The more focus he dedicated to the blades, the more he could manually stabilize the mana which was directly proportional to both how sharp it was and how much mana he could put into it.
As he had learned with the Ashound, it was always safer to end a fight as quickly as possible, before his opponents had the chance to use any of their unique abilities.
Felix waited, completely prepared, for 3 minutes before he heard loud, rumbling and fast thumping. Like the footsteps of a large creature that was moving far faster than it should ever have been allowed to, accentuated by the fact that the planet they were on was tiny. As the footsteps approached, they grew louder until the ground began to shake with each one.
Then, a head appeared over the horizon, followed quickly by 7 more identical heads all attached to serpentine like necks that stretched out of a fat, four legged creature.
[B - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 2439)
Woah… That thing is halfway through the B grade and is still a baby? I almost wish I brought Nova… Almost.
While he was allowed to fight with his familiar-most casters in Solo Combat would-Felix wanted the challenge and was willing to take on the added risk. On the other hand, he wanted to see what she could do if she were to consume one of these things.
It took half a minute for the Hydra to close the distance between them, it running a lot faster than any creature of its size should have been able to.
Using the momentum of the run, one of the Hydra’s heads snapped outwards towards Felix causing him to jump aside manually and released his Blade Spell. He then immediately hit himself with the movement spell he had prepared as another head slammed down into the ground where he had just been a moment ago.
Another head twisted past that one and tried to snap at Felix but he was too far away and it couldn’t quite reach far enough around.
Seeing him a few meters away, it opened its mouth to spew Acid in Felix’s direction and he quickly created a safe space within the breath for himself with a tight Force Wall.
Once the Acid subsided, he looked back and saw 5 of the heads were completely distracted from the fight and were tearing apart the first head, the one Felix had severed with his Blade Spell. In a matter of seconds, they had consumed almost all of it, leaving behind nothing but a bloody mess on the ground and their faces.
The Acid head kept trying to catch Felix while another exclusively bit at him, its fangs dripping in black liquid that he had to avoid with an activation of Reaper’s Movement.
Once they had finished their snack, the stump Felix had created was already halfway regrown and the once distracted quintet rejoined the fight. Suddenly he had a lot more heads to deal with.
Flying up and around, Felix managed to stay out of the Hydra’s reach in the air but that didn’t stop it from jumping and snapping at him with its heads. On one particularly excited leap, it snapped at him with the head on the far left and completely threw itself off balance, landing on its side. It quickly twisted and scrambled back to its feet but Felix was reminded once again, that it was a baby. More than anything, it reminded him of a puppy.
Flying above it, one of the heads tried to spew gas at him but Felix redirected it with a Force Funnel far up into the air. It later exploded but, it was far away and completely harmless at that point. He had originally designed the Force Funnel to deal with the Ashound’s ash, or any other similar effect.
A stream of fire spewed from another head and chased him down but wasn’t quite fast enough, despite the black venomed head smashing itself into the fire head’s neck to help move it.
The Lightning head got the closest but Felix just cast a redirection spell as soon as he sensed the the attuned mana coursing up through its neck.
He also had to dodge through a volley of icicles but none of it was too difficult. The Hydra was clearly severely limited in ranged options and couldn’t fly but on the ground, it had forced Felix to use his Reaper’s Movement after all of a second. His estimates placed the Hydra’s speed at at least 3 to 4 times his own and some of the heads were even faster than that.
From the air though, Felix showered the Hydra with every spell in his arsenal but none of the elemental ones did much. Blade Spells were by far the most effective and he even managed to shear off multiple heads and two of its legs at once at one point. That didn’t really slow it much though as the heads slithered over to each-other and fought until one of them inevitably won. That head would then eat the others and all the rest of its body then regrow itself entirely in a total of 10 seconds or so.
While the legends Felix was familiar with of cutting off one head and it being replaced by two weren’t true for this hydra, its regeneration was ridiculous. Seeing what was happening, Felix realized he didn’t have the mana to just sit back and cut it up, he had to kill it outright somehow.
Preparing the necessary spells from his perch up high in the air, Felix cut off one of the heads then immediately launched it straight up into the air. The head only moved half a meter at most though so he quickly hit it again with 10 times the Force to get it out of reach of the Hydra. Flying over, he caught the head and-using a ton of mana-suspended it out of reach then, waited and watched to see what would happen. He quickly tried activating his Blood Devouring Ring and he could feel it strain to devour the severed head but it didn’t work for whatever reason.
The main body of the Hydra continued to attack him and to his astonishment, after a few seconds, the missing head began to grow back. Even without consuming the severed head, the Hydra was capable of regrowing the head anew.
It has to be running out of mass though right? Even I can’t regenerate without mass in my body to repurpose into new cells.
As he pondered the situation and easily dodged through the weak projectiles, Felix suddenly felt something weird. Looking back at the head he had suspended, the severed neck had started to grow.
No way.
Using nearly half a million mana, Felix launched the head off into the distance not as far as he had hoped but far enough that it would be out of reach for the Hydra’s other heads.
2 million mana per blade spell to sever a head then 1 million to throw it far enough away, Felix repeated the process over and over again until there were nothing but chunks of Hydra spread throughout the plains in every direction. A short minute passed before, the Hydras started to appear.
From all around him, Hydras ran towards him. Their footsteps no longer shook the ground but they were just as big and even faster than before. However they looked, identical to the one he had just diced moments ago.
How the fuck am I supposed to kill these things?
Now, with their significantly lighter bodies, the Hydras had gained a whole new ability. The ones running at Felix from all directions began to leap off the ground and snap at him, a hundred meters in the air.
Activating Reaper’s Movement to dodge past the black venom fanged head-seemingly the fastest-Felix flew as high as he thought necessary then flew up a bit higher. The Hydras looked up towards him, tried leaping a few times then quickly gave up and turned to each-other. They began fighting one and other until only one remained, literally. The winner consumed the losers until once again, Felix was dealing with a single Hydra and a massive pool of blood.
Once it had become a single entity once again, all of the heads turned to the ground and began to consume the grass, earth, rocks and anything it could get its heads on.
Felix had answers for everything, the Fire Breath, Necrotic Venom, Acid, Explosive Gas, Lightning and Ice. Yet somehow, he found himself severely lacking in damage. He quickly ran through all his other spells just to be sure and the only conclusion he came to, was that he understood why it was in the B grade as a baby.
[B - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 2491)
Wait… IT GAINED LEVELS BY SPLITTING, FIGHTING AND EATING ITSELF? THIS THIS IS BROKEN! Grim, is it possible to obtain a second familiar?
Yes but not through The System as far as I’ve read, you’d have to manually bond to it. Also, unless it’s part of your System skills, it will be banned in classes and so on.
Still… Seems worth it to me. Later, first… how do I kill it?
Grim didn’t have an answer for him and he wasn’t really expecting one, he was mostly just thinking out loud.
Okay, someone check my logic on this… no Hydras grew from the torso alone so it’s all in the heads. If I can obliterate the heads… enough? All at once? I can kill it?
Grim nodded in his mind, Seems logical, what is ‘enough’ though?
Guess we’ll find out… if I have enough mana to find out.
Technically there was no time limit on the exam that Felix was aware of so it was possible for him to simply keep going and regenerating his mana but he did have an exam the next morning. If he were to split off the heads and destroy them one by one, they would keep regrowing until it ran out of mass and he had no idea how long that would take. If he had to regenerate mana in between, there was a very good chance he ran out of time before his next exam.
He was pretty sure the only way for him to succeed then, was to destroy or damage all the heads sufficiently, at once to prevent it from regenerating.
Still weaving through the various lame attempts the Hydra made to hit Felix in the air, he prepared exactly 8 Blade Spells of the appropriate strength and aimed them all carefully. Dodging through and waiting until there was a lull in the incoming attacks, he released his spells into the Hydra… and missed with 5 of them.
The three that did hit, cut deeply into the Hydra’s heads then quickly healed. They just weren’t strong enough by themselves to do any serious damage to the heads. He was splitting his focus between so many blades, each individual one was too weak, too dull and too slow by the time they closed the distance between them.
He tried again and missed with 6 then again and hit with 4 but that was the best he could manage. Blowing through half of his mana out of frustration, Felix tried again and again but no matter what he did, he couldn’t hit them all at once and couldn’t do enough damage with any one of them alone.
Alright so… My spells don’t do enough damage… I don’t have enough mana… I can’t hit it accurately enough… I know exactly what to do.
Honestly, Felix had no idea if what he was planning was even allowed in the exam. It might be frowned upon as it wasn’t entirely dependent on him and his combat abilities. On the other hand, he had no idea how else to fight this thing.
Flying high up into the air, he moved himself far outside of the Hydra’s range then shot himself off in a random direction. His goal was to get as far away from it as he could but looking down, it wasn’t making that easy for him.
He had lost its attention earlier, when it started eating the ground, but he was beginning to realize he hadn’t actually lost its attention at all. It was simply restoring itself and the matter it had lost by apparently, eating anything it wanted. Without something to distract it, it didn’t seem possible for it to even look away from him.
As Felix flew, it followed directly beneath him, like an ever present shadow. He was faster at his top speed but not by much and not by nearly enough to get as far as he needed to be.
Realizing he wasn’t going to lose it and gain himself any real peace easily, he pulled out the necessary materials and began working as he flew through the air. That lasted for a grand total of a few seconds before Felix realized he couldn’t be precise enough with a quill if he was flying through the air and as soon as he stopped, its lame ranged attacks would hit him even as high up as he was. He very briefly considered flying up into space but seriously doubted that was allowed for the exam and was pretty sure it would be seen as him fleeing so, he discounted the thought.
Flying around the planet, he began looking for mountains, caves or something like it he could hide in but as far as he could see, the entire time he had been flying, all there was were perfectly flat plains. It got to the point where he was convinced the planet, moon or whatever celestial body he had stepped onto was manufactured.
Eventually, nearly a half hour later, he found water. As soon as he saw it though, he was certain the planet wasn’t natural as the stream was perfectly straight. Nevertheless, water was better than flat plains and gave him options so Felix flew down and over to it then dropped a couple of spells into the stream.
Circling around them as they worked, Felix felt like he was walking a dog, the Hydra-once again-reminding him of a puppy. It chased after him, almost looking happy, like it was playing. It almost made him forget the savagery of it consuming itself over and over again but the blood still caked on its various heads reminded him.
It chased him in circles for four laps before Felix’s spells began to really pick up.
He was employing the same trick he had once used to lay siege to a castle surrounded by guards he couldn’t otherwise fight. It was effective then and he was hoping it held up now as a small pop sounded from the stream followed by a hissing sound, one for each of the spells he had cast. Two columns of steam rose upwards from each of the spells but before they could rise up high into the air, Felix released the last spell he needed, a Wind Storm.
Picking up and spinning the steam around, along with a trickle of water from the stream, the air around them gradually grew thicker as a fog began to collect and appear.
Looping around the fog, Felix baited the Hydra after him so he could let it collect and grow dense enough but, he was reminded once again, the Hydra was a child. Seeing the collecting ball of dense grey that, it had likely never seen before, the Hydra stopped paying attention to Felix and immediately dove into it.
Sighing as he realized it really was that easy and he was overthinking this, Felix darted off as the Hydra was distracted and flew as far away, as fast as he could.
He managed to clear a huge distance relatively quickly and as soon as he felt safe, he dropped to the ground, carefully so the Hydra didn’t hear him, then pulled his quill back out.
Starting from the spell form that was most effective against the Hydra, Felix adapted it to his needs then began inscribing but just a few lines into the inscription, he was interrupted, Oh, I have something for you.
The Nucleus was the last being Felix expected to speak to him unprompted, even lower on the list than the Hydra, Is this really the time?
Yes. Now is the perfect time. I’ll give it to your book.
A moment later, the image of a number of inscriptions appeared in Felix’s head, Wait… these are… great? Where did you get these?
System records everything, this chunk recorded the ins and outs of the event. One of its main tasks was deciding what could be brought in from the outside. It saw all the items made in the event and brought into the event.
Holy shit. You aren’t useless after all.
I am more than just an information repository I’ll have you know. I’m a SYSTEM like a-.
Not right now you aren’t.
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
Looking back over his shoulder, Felix didn’t actually see the Hydra but he definitely heard it, and felt it, Son of a bitch. Can it smell me or something?
Leaping up into the air, Felix darted off at a right angle just in case it threw the Hydra off but, he wasn’t expecting much.
Hearing it behind him, after groaning when he realized it had tracked his turn, he quickly dropped to the ground and placed a spell beneath the earth then flew off into the distance. Stopping on the horizon, Felix took out the necessary supplies and got back to work.
Luckily, by the time he had his quill in hand, he had already examined and combined the various enchantments the Nucleus had sent over. They weren’t so novel he needed a ton of time to dissect and examine them but, they were novel enough that what he ended up inscribing was unrecognizable from what he had originally wanted to. The patterns made the entire design cleaner and less cobbled together as well as vastly improving the remote triggering mechanism he had come up with himself.
Just halfway through creating the first of what needed to be many of these devices, Felix was forced to run away as the Hydra had moved on from trying to kill the weird sound and movement he had left in the ground. He used a similar trick but with this time with a spell that repeatedly exploded within the ground every few moments randomly and scurried off into the distance to continue working.
Using his Matter Control where he could, Felix was able to slightly alter some parts in shape mostly and assembled the devices without looking.
As he flew, once again avoiding the Hydra chasing him, he began compressing down a disposable battery, as he had many times before. It had been a while though since he had focused on the process and in doing so he realized how much better he had gotten.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
They used to be a quarter million mana and about palm sized, now he could compress down nearly 5 million mana into roughly the same space. While it was a huge improvement, he wasn’t even sure if the devices he was making now were capable of handling 5 million mana like this. It already had to siphon off of a solid ball which was unnatural for a spell.
To make the entire process a little easier, he imbued a bit of anima affinized to him, to improve the overall stability and grant the spell itself just a sliver of his Mana Control.
Flying into the air once again, Felix coalesced as much mana as necessary from his pool and the Aether to form another disposable battery. He distracted the Hydra once again to gain distance, inscribed and constructed as quickly as he could until he was forced to move once again.
This went on for hours until Felix finally had twice as many devices as he thought necessary.
So, instead of placing a spell in the ground to distract the Hydra and flying away, Felix finally turned and faced the Hydra.
Letting the Hydra approach him, Felix was ready to react to everything he had seen it do and so when the head with the black venom snapped forwards ahead of the other heads at many times Felix’s own Agility, he dodged it. Being ready for what the Hydra was going to do, tracking which head was which by having his mind color coat them in his vision, and being able to predict what they would do from that information, was the only reason it was possible for Felix to remain relatively unharmed.
There were still however, two heads he hadn’t seen do anything but eat. Weaving his way through the Fire Breath, Ice Spears, Lightning and siphoning away the Explosive Gas all while dodging past the Black Venom head, the other two heads just waited, and watched.
It was eerie once he had noticed it and Felix’s initial assumption was that they coordinated the other heads. Removing them though, didn’t seem to have any adverse affects on the already abysmal and arguably non-existent coordination of the heads.
He wasn’t entirely comfortable taking all the risks associated with just planting the devices without knowing what those heads did so, he tried to bait them out. Unfortunately, he had no idea how. Removing the other heads, they simply ate them and healed. Poking them and getting close to them, they bit at him but weakly and although generally faster than he was, still slower than the venom head which was designed to bite.
He couldn’t just tire it out because he was pretty sure it would actually win a battle of attrition so, he was forced to just try it and find out.
Felix had thought the black head would be the easiest as constantly snapping at him meant he could simply throw a device into its mouth. He waited for it to spring forwards then aimed for the fleshy bits and tossed it right before knocking himself off to the side with a spell.
Seeing it in the air, the black head snapped out and instantly crushed it in its back teeth, like it was a game.
Nevermind then…
The Brownish Green Gas head shot towards him just after he had dodged away from the Black head and used its momentum to spray gas everywhere. Felix already knew what it did and he kept a wide gust spell at the ready just in case.
Dropping it around him, the gust threw the gas way up into the air just an instant before the Red Fire head snapped forwards, spilling Fire out in every direction. Felix had seen the muscles in the Red neck tense after it had positioned itself so he had more than enough time to see it coming and dodge out of the way. The Fire spilling from its mouth though, was sprayed in every direction.
Diluted by the air between them, the fire dripped off of the enchantment on Felix’s robes without any real effect but the gas he had launched upwards immediately exploded.
Being underneath and still partially inside of it, the Hydra was thrown into the ground with the Ice head partially missing but it really didn’t seem to mind. A few seconds later, it was whole again and happily, if a little dizzily, running towards its prey once more.
The Hydra quickly closed the distance, the black head both the fastest and most eager, leading the attack and snapping outwards. With a complete lack of coordination though, the black head threw the entire rest of the body off balance causing the Hydra’s heads to all smack down into the ground as its butt flew up into the air.
It had happened a few times before and Felix was expecting it as soon as it began stumbling towards him. Without any way of baiting out the other two heads, Felix decided to just go for it as this was likely his best opportunity.
As the Hydra used half of its heads to push itself back up onto its feet, Felix shot himself into the tangle.
The black head was eager and he expected it but he ignored it for now, it had to be the last one he hit. Knocking himself upwards, with enough Force to avoid getting bitten but also enough to do a decent chunk of damage to himself, Felix dodged just over the head at the last moment and floated just slightly above it. His position wouldn’t protect him though as the other heads didn’t care about hitting each-other or itself as a whole, seemingly ever.
The next most eager head was the brownish green one that dove downwards right into Felix from above. He waited for the last moment once again then tossed a pair of his bombs into the air and knocked himself to the side. The head slammed its teeth down into the black head’s neck and Felix felt the first mechanism of the bombs he had created activate. He just hoped one of them had stuck.
Fire poured out of the red head as it always followed the gas and looped through the neck of the brownish green head to try and sneak into range. Felix already had the necessary spells ready as the head darted out of cover from behind the neck and released a stream of flame that would have made Endycor jealous, not that that required much.
Waiting for the last moment, just as the fire subsided, Felix threw three bombs into the maw just as it was closing and felt them activate, though not with any way to confirm they had correctly. Even any blood they drew, the Hydra would just swallow so there really was no indication. The only other way would be to open their mouths himself to confirm the barbed spikes had properly protruded and stuck themselves into something fleshy.
The Ice and Lightning heads were more careful and kept their distance, waiting for him to be in the open or occupied so he had to close the distance towards them himself.
Launching himself down one of the necks then slightly redirecting himself with an instinct cast, Felix twisted around the black head’s neck to avoid its over eager chasing and closed the distance towards the white ice head. It immediately noticed and tried to back up a little but Felix forced the issue by placing himself right in front of it.
Finally opening its maw, the white head released a chilling roar that likely would have frozen Felix solid, had he not swung himself upwards and landed on top of the head. He once again waited for the breath to subside then reached around it’s snout and threw bombs in from both sides, this time relatively sure they had landed on something fleshy as he was able to somewhat target his throws.
Shaking itself back and forth to try and get rid of the pesky flea on its face, Felix timed his jump and used the momentum from the white head to close the distance towards the lime green acid head.
It was more timid and sneaky, usually trying to surprise and sneak up on Felix but he was always tracking it. Soaring past the lightning head, he dove through the necks and grabbed the lime green head’s right eye lid. Releasing the spell he already had prepared, Felix exploded the eye near his hand then threw three bombs in, just to be safe.
In its painful writhing, acid sprayed everywhere and actually opened up some wounds on some of the other heads, the perfect target for Felix.
The violet lightning and black venom heads were the fastest and hardest to plant anything in or on so Felix saved those for the end leaving just the two heads he hadn’t identified yet.
As they were perched as far from Felix as possible to watch and wait, he had to launch himself towards them because they were too far and too fast for a simple jump. Starting with the light blue one, Felix rushed towards it and waited for it to inevitably dodge out of the way then instantly used an instinct cast to follow as much as he could.
Being as weak as it was, his instinct cast wasn’t enough for him to keep up with the head but it was just enough for him to reach out and grab hold of its nostril with the tips of his fingers. Swinging around with his momentum, Felix’s body slammed into the side of its head, hurting both him and the eye he smacked into, then he immediately pulled himself forwards a little.
Reaching up, he threw five bombs into its nostril then let go and let himself fall back behind the head, catching himself in the air and avoiding the black head as it smacked into the light blue one.
The grey head was next and Felix had to weave his way through all of the heads to the opposite side but he didn’t get past more than a couple necks before Felix was crushed into the ground.
In an instant, his health dropped by over a third as he was pushed halfway into the soft ground and multiple of his bones were shattered. He had no idea what had hit him though because he was far enough from all the other heads and this was nothing like what they did.
He launched himself out of the hole, self-inflicting a sizable chunk of damage due to his already broken bones, to make sure the Hydra wasn’t about to eat him, the black head specifically.
Rising up and spinning though, the Hydra was nowhere near him. It was upside down, rolling around and trying to right itself about a hundred meters off.
Looking around him, Felix tried to figure out what had happened and seeing five bombs crushed into the ground around the hole his body had made at the center of a flattened crater, gave him a decent idea.
That was a sneeze? Yeah… definitely saving the Force head for last I guess.
Racing back towards the Hydra before it recovered and started shaking more bombs loose, Felix flew straight at the black head and met it head on. It eagerly snapped at the air a bit then waited and prepared itself to finally catch its elusive prey, timing its bite as Felix approached.
Just a meter out of range, Felix triggered his Reaper’s skills and used his heightened Agility and Perception to toss multiple bombs directly down its throat then kick off its nose.
The sheer force of the impact of both Felix and the head moving towards each-other as fast as they could fractured all the bones in his legs and shattered his right thigh but it didn’t matter. Felix dulled the pain and took a mental note to avoid anything that required the use of his legs for the moment.
Lightning was next and Felix wove through a couple necks, the constant pressure of the black head gone for a moment as it tried to hack up the bombs lodged in its throat. Slamming his fist into the creature’s head just to move the spell, Felix surrounded its head in ionized air while simultaneously slamming a trio of bombs he had in his other fist, into its nostril. This time he was certain they were anchored in and as he pushed back off of the head, it attempted to fry him with its breath.
Felix’s dream of the head frying itself was only partially realized as the violet head at least, seemed to be mostly resistant to lightning.
Chasing down the grey head, Felix flew in and waited for it to snap at him then, grabbed its nostril and swung himself around. He let go almost immediately, allowing his momentum to drag him past its head where he manually slammed multiple bombs directly into its eyeball.
Hopefully this one doesn’t have laser eyes.
That just left the Force head that had sneezed Felix into the ground.
Approaching and getting around it wasn’t very difficult because it was calculating and slow to come to decisions. It didn’t eagerly snap like the black head and definitely wasn’t nearly as fast. It watched and waited patiently for the perfect opportunities but in the way a timid child would, as it missed viable options in favor of potential, future optimal options.
He targeted the eyes specifically but just as he leapt over its head and was about to reach over, he found out what the grey head did.
The Force head had slammed him down into the ground in an instant so the first thing he noticed then, was pain. This time, the first thing he noticed, was not pain as that was disabled but rather reality itself seemed to vibrate around him.
It wasn’t just Felix and his body, it was him, his clothes, the Hydra, the ground, the grass, the air around him. The moisture in the air around him visibly vibrated making it impossible to see which only exacerbated the fact that his ears had been blown out as he was already having trouble keeping his own balance.
As much as it felt like reality was falling apart, Felix had enough of his brain still intact to realize it was just the grey head roaring, even if he couldn’t hear it at all.
His health plummeted as he pulled himself over towards the Force head’s eye, struggling just to hold on as his hand and the Hydra itself began to fall apart from the vibrations. He barely managed to plant just a single bomb into its eye, jamming the spike in manually before he let go and pushed himself away with an instinct cast.
Before the roar actually did cause his body to explode, Felix released a wave of mana at a very specific attunement and triggered all the bombs.
Suddenly, the awful sound was gone as every single one of the Hydra’s heads exploded at once. The bombs were both a mess of Blade Spells and a simple Force Explosion just to push everything apart. Watching it happen before his eyes, it just looked like they all suddenly burst, a sphere of blood and organic matter replacing them in an instant.
Felix wasn’t actually planning on catching himself in the air but there was no notification. With little disregard for his own state, Felix launched himself back down and saw the Force head still somewhat in tact, having only had a single bomb attached to it.
He immediately rushed over as it began regenerating and diced it up with most of his remaining mana until it stopped moving.
That only took a second, thankfully as the notification for the kill was still curiously absent.
Felix’s head darted around until he spotted the Hydra’s body, still standing, with eight severed necks flapping about.
Seriously!? Fuck off.
Flying towards it, Felix collided with its back then severed the nearest neck at the base. Reaching over and using his Matter Control to hold himself stable, Felix used one hand to hold its neck open as his other threw every remaining bomb he had into all three of the holes he found in its severed neck. He had no idea which led to its stomach and which to its lungs, or where the other hole led, but he threw some in each, all of them with their auto deploying spikes disabled.
Flying straight up into the air, he activated all of the remaining bombs with another wave and watched as viscera was splattered all over the ground and his own body floating above it.
Ding You have slain a [B - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 2491)
Ding You have gained 153 levels in [C - Ancient] Reaper
Congratulations!
You have upgraded a title.
Titan Killer: Legendary => [B] Titan Killer: Legendary: This title is given to those who single handedly slay a creature of a higher tier than they are, the rarity corresponds to the slain beast’s rarity.
Letting himself drop to the ground, Felix activated both of his Devourer’s Rings and watched, astonished, as his health jumped back up by nearly 50%. Even with its regeneration, he had expected only a small percentage of the corpse to be applicable to his body but it seemed, the sheer mass it carried around so it could regenerate, more than made up for that.
In the few moments before Auren reappeared, Felix briefly considered adopting some of the Hydra’s regeneration within his own body, but almost immediately discounted it. He would examine and take whatever he could but the Hydra seemed to carry around an absurd amount of weight just to regenerate. If he did the same, it would make moving himself, flying, dodging, multiple times more expensive than it already was.
Those spells being more expensive, even by a few times, he could swallow. With the added mana requirement though, the cast times would increase exponentially as he had to handle more mana and the spell forms themselves had to handle more mana and he had to move more mass. They would need more complex and higher order nodes, even if he finally managed to remove the attunement node requirement.
“Not bad, kid.”
Rising to his feet now that all his major injuries were healed from the Blood Ring, Felix turned to face Auren who stood, arms crossed, wearing the same impassive expression that seemed so accustomed to his face.
Felix nodded, “Yeah, barely.”
Auren just blinked though Felix was unsure if it was in response or an involuntary reaction.
“This was my exam right? How’d I do?”
“Well.” Auren shrugged, “I didn’t expect you’d kill it.”
Felix cocked his head, “You thought it would kill me?”
“I was hoping you’d surrender.”
Felix was completely taken aback for a moment and shook his head as he tried to make sense of that statement. In his mind it was such an impossibility, he wasn’t sure why Auren would be hoping that.
“The Ashound. Your evaluation.” Auren explained, “You chose the hardest thing on the list then flopped like a fish for a couple of seconds before it tore you apart. You knew The System would stop you from dying and you abused that. As much as this class is about how well you can fight a single opponent, it’s a class about combat as a whole. Surrendering, giving up, running away and living is a fantastic option in a lot of cases.”
Felix shook his head, “Maybe but… I knew I could kill it. Knew I could win.”
Auren nodded once, “Yes. Seems I was wrong. I wanted to force you to fight something stronger, something you couldn’t kill. I wanted to see you put all of the various spells and skills you’ve learned to use, I would evaluate that, then you finally decide it was impossible and make the smart choice.”
“So… In hindsight, you just wish you had picked something stronger?”
“Yes.” Auren spoke so flatly, he didn’t even nod, “I was hoping being here, where The System wouldn’t protect you, you would make smarter decisions. Fight differently. It seems I was wrong.”
Felix chuckled, “Are you saying my grades for this class would have been better if I had surrendered instead of killing it?”
Auren cocked his head a few degrees, “Different.”
Felix nodded, “Would you have let me take that long if I weren’t the last student?”
Auren’s head tilted a little further as his brow furrowed, “Sure. I’d have just left you here longer. You aren’t even the last one to finish your exam. There are still 7 students in their own exams right now.”
Felix snorted but didn’t bother asking who, he was pretty sure Auren wouldn’t say, “Can we head back now?”
Auren responded by taking out an item and using it to open a portal back to campus that Felix stepped through alone.
Heading back to his dorm, Felix was actually pretty satisfied with the fight, and especially the absurd amount of levels he had gained. Putting all the points into Intelligence, Felix snorted as he saw it still wasn’t his highest stat yet.
Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 745,026 Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,282) DEX 1,096,365 Race: [C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,295) AGI 845,640 Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309) PER 987,662 Health: 8,298,990 / 8,298,990 VIT 839,399 Mana: 150,000,000 / 150,000,000 INT 1,064,630 END 767,140
Not too long before all my stats surpass 1 million… What a stupid and meaningless number though. At this point, I feel like I’m measuring the height of a building in millimeters. What’s the point? Hey System, can we just divide all my stats by 1,000 on my Status Screen in the future?
Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 745 Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,282) DEX 1,096 Race: [C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,295) AGI 845 Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309) PER 987 Health: 8,298,990 / 8,298,990 VIT 839 Mana: 150,000,000 / 150,000,000 INT 1,064 END 767
It’s not rounding? Actually, I guess I’m okay with that. That way it isn’t showing stats I haven’t gained yet. This is way better though. Gaining 1 Strength now actually means something… or at least, more than it did. 1 Strength on my Status Screen is still a seventh of a percent. Also… I need something in this empty row instead of Energy…
Poking around in some setting screens, Felix managed to find a list of options and scrolled through until he found one he liked.
Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 745 Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,282) DEX 1,096 Race: [C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,295) AGI 845 Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309) PER 987 Health: 8,298,990 / 8,298,990 VIT 839 Mana: 150,000,000 / 150,000,000 INT 1,064 Resistance: 87% END 767
The value didn’t mean much-for now-as it was directly proportional to his Endurance but, it was better than an empty row in Felix’s eyes. Even being as close to 100% as he was, every percent he gained meant more than the last because it shrank the amount of damage he was taking by an even bigger chunk. 1% now was a thirteenth of the damage he took. 1% if he were at 95%, was a fifth of the damage he took.
The biggest reason he wanted it there though, was that he was planning on creating a new defensive spell over the break and he wanted to be able to measure how effective it was.
Working on his spells and refining construct-and now bomb-designs, Felix would have missed the start of his next exam were it not for Grim because he wasn’t really checking the time and it started much earlier than the others had.
He made sure to grab Nova as he headed out because it was Group Combat anyways, she might as well be there, and it was more fun for her than sitting around in his dorm.
Walking across the courtyard before the sun had risen, while most other students slept, Felix walked into the Group Combat classroom and found Adaline already sitting there waiting. She didn’t even turn as he entered but he was certain she knew he was there.
From behind, he first saw her left ear twitch as he entered then just a moment later, a wave of abhorrence that was, seemingly stronger from when he had first started noticing it.
He didn’t bother approaching her, greeting her or trying to interact with her in any way and took a seat at the back of the room. As much as she hated him or was disgusted by him-Felix wasn’t really sure what it was or why-he couldn’t help but like her. She was great at what she did, she was always inscribing-as she was now-and she didn’t try to talk to him, like many of the other students did.
The worst offender stepped into the room next-or rather skipped-and greeted them both cheerily. She tried to strike up a conversation with Adaline but it was almost entirely one sided for a few minutes until Melody finally gave up and sat next to Felix.
“How was Solo Combat?”
Felix shrugged, “Went well. Killed the thing.”
She grinned, “Good. I noticed Auren keenly watching you and planning something. He thinks he’s sneaky but,” Melody wagged her finger in the air and scrunched her face up like a child who had come up with a master plan, “What did he throw at you?”
“A Baby Hydra.”
Melody’s eyes widened immediately, “And you killed it?”
Felix shrugged again, “Yeah, I mean it was annoyi-”
She shook her head, “No. I mean, he let you kill it?”
He cocked his head in confusion, “What?”
“I have full faith you can kill a whole lot of shit. I don’t know for sure but, from what I’ve sensed from him over the epoch, I’m pretty sure he breeds and raises monsters. I had him followed in the city by someone who owes me a favor and… long story short, he bought a Hydra egg. I could have sworn it was his prized monster from what I sensed from him over the following days.”
“You can sense that much from souls? Also, you had him followed?”
She shrugged guiltily, like it was no big deal, “He was trying to be all sneaky and conniving, I had to be sure. Yeah, I get a lot. Normally I wouldn’t even need to have him followed but he’s very good at masking his soul. Considering he’s a hunter, I understand why… still though.”
Felix frowned a little, “Are beasts and monsters better at sensing souls than sapients? Also, have you ever had me followed?”
She nodded, “Much. They aren’t bogged down in the complexity of their brains and they rely a lot on instinct. Given the same Agility and Perception, a beasts reaction time is usually a fraction of a sapient’s for example. That’s also why they tend to have stronger, more aligned souls and develop convictions much easier and faster than we can.” Looking at him, she winked, “And no, haven’t felt the need just yet. Also, it’s not like I go around doing that all the time, this was a special case, I swear.”
“Huh…”
“Anywa-” Melody’s eyes widened as she suddenly grabbed Felix’s shoulder, “WAIT! You didn’t evolve from a beast, did you?”
Felix snorted, “No.”
“Oh. I thought maybe that was why you’re impossible to read.”
“You say that, but you do get something from my soul.”
“Meh. I get the…” She thought about it for a seconds then gestured towards the only other person in the room who’s ears immediately perked up upon hearing her name, “With Adaline, for example, I can almost read her thoughts. Well, not her thoughts but her experiences. Very recent events haven’t had time to settle so most of the time, I can almost read thoughts. Kind of like short term memory. I can also read emotions, instincts, intent and all kinds of other shit. From you-most of the time-I feel big emotions really loudly and that’s it.”
Felix nodded slowly as he began to understand, “So if I’m particularly mad, annoyed, frustrated, if I get hit and feel a bunch of pain y-”
“Yes, exactly. I feel a huge spike, like you’re broadcasting the emotion. Most of the time though, those don’t last very long. They’re big spikes that almost immediately go away. Most of the time when you’re lost in your own head, like Adaline, you radiate a constant wave of satisfaction, unlike Adaline.”
He looked at her for a moment and she shrugged, “It’s nice.”
Pointing at the back of Adaline’s head, Melody shook her head, “You should teach her how you do that. All I ever feel from her is anxious urgency, discontent and determination. Oh and rage, loooots of rage.”
Felix laughed out loud as he saw Adaline’s left ear twitch a few times but she didn’t turn or address them, even though she could obviously hear them.
Melody proceeded to tell him all about the franchise of bakeries she was thinking about investing in and Felix politely listened and nodded along but the vast majority of his attention was pointed inwards.
A few minutes later, Peace, Auren and Haris all entered the room at once. Peace joined Felix and Melody at the back as the two Professors walked over to the front of the room and turned to face them. Haris looked at each of them in turn with a smile then nodded, “Alright. Couple of things.” Summoned from a spatial storage, Haris dropped a couple of small bags that were no more than a few liters big, “No items, no spatial storages. You get these bags which contain some basic provisions for a single day and whatever you have in your pockets right now.”
Felix immediately moved a couple quills into one of his pockets along with some other basics.
Auren nodded, “Either leave your spatial storages here-” He looked right at Felix, “-or if you have a Soul Space, just don’t use anything from the outside. We will be watching.”
Haris looked at Adaline who hadn’t said or done anything yet, “Your guns are fine but nothing else.”
She nodded once, like she already knew that was case then drew one of them and removed the cylinder. She then held her hand above it and a stream of bullets, perfectly aligned with the various chambers began pouring out into the cylinder.
Adaline repeated the process for her other revolver afterwards but Haris continued as she did so, “Any questions?”
Melody raised her hand but started speaking before it got very far, “Where are we going? What are fighting? Why no items?”
Haris nodded, “You’ll see. You’ll see. Because.”
Before Felix could even ask the question, Auren shook his head, “No. The rules aren’t because of yesterday.”
Felix nodded and the students all looked at each-other, except Adaline, to confirm they didn’t have any other questions amongst themselves.
With a wave of his hand, Haris opened a portal next to himself and the students all filed in followed by both Haris and Auren after them. They ended up in a small room that was big enough that their shoulders weren’t touching, but not by much.
Auren looked at the rest of them, “Oh one more thing, if you try to open a portal leading anywhere other than the planet you’re on, we will fail you.”
Haris nodded, “Yup. Good luck, see you in a few days.”
Felix frowned a little, “With the portal rule, co-”
A frigid wind suddenly slammed into Felix, carrying his words soundlessly away as his body began to freeze solid. With the wind as strong as it was, they couldn’t hear each-other at all as Haris shoved them all through to the other side and unceremoniously closed the portal behind them .