As the group of four players walked through the ravaged rampart, headed for the Murky Woods, they were silent. Felix, on his part, was focused on his Status.

Name: Odin

Level: 5

Title: Runefather, Otherworlder

Class: Runic Mage

Profession: N/A

HP: 170/170

MP: 600/600

Vitality: 17

Spirit: 60

Strength: 16

Agility: 16

Intelligence: 60

Faith: 5

Free AP: 20

Skills: [Expand]

Equipment: [Expand]

20 AP to place could be quite the difference, as it more than doubled any of his physical stats, and as the fight just now had shown, he could do with a little more damage.

However, Felix’s little damage against the Ocumini wasn’t simply a difference in stats, it also involved Level Suppression. The larger the difference in levels between two opponents, and the more the damage would be affected.

If a high level target attacks a low leveled target, they wouldn’t face any resistance. However, the other way around, before the attack even went against any of the defender’s defenses, a part of the attack would be dismissed by the level resistance.

Were Felix Level 20, even with the exact same stats, he probably wouldn’t have needed even half as many attacks to fell the beast.

Felix thought about it for a while, and looking at his Stats, he felt a little reluctant at improving any of them. The reason for that was that he would be able to improve them through training, but if he went past their limit with the added AP, then no amount of training would be able to give him free AP.

However, simply abstaining from using his AP wasn’t a good solution either, as the rate at which he would level up would far surpass the natural increase of his stats, and he would face too many walls.

So, as he thought the issue over, Felix concluded that he would use his AP, but on something that would be really useful. With his current physical stats, he could already deal with the Ocumini, so he would rather improve his magic.

And since he was already having problems perfectly controlling his Mana with his current MP, he decided to dump all 20 of his AP into Intelligence.

[Intelligence: 60→100]

Felix wasn’t sure whether his title would also double the AP added, but he was thankful it did as his 20 AP suddenly turned into 40. This was another reason why he chose a magical state, as he suspected this would happen.

Felix did feel a little disappointed he did not get anything special for reaching 100 in his Stat. It was quite the milestone after all.

Well, at least Felix did feel the difference immediately. He felt like his connection to his Inner World had been strengthened, even if only by a little, while his Mana felt more malleable. His head also seemed to clear up, as his exhaustion from the previous fight started fading away.

Done with his level ups, Felix closed his Status screen as he took in his surroundings. They had already entered the Murky Woods, and it wasn’t pretty.

The first thing Felix noticed was how eerily silent it was, their footsteps and breathing being the only sound he could hear. There was no rustling of leaves with the wind or birds chirping away.

In a sense, the woods felt dead, despite the trees showing no sign of rot, and the grass behind green. There was also a low fog, not quite enough to obscure their vision of their surroundings, but it did make the forest creepier.

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The fact that none of his companions said a word did not help either, so he decided to break the silence by asking, "Hey, since we are moving together, is there anything I should know? You don’t have to tell me about your Quest if you don’t want to, but I would rather be able to prepare for any eventual opponent."

Drakon sent a look at the two younger players, and after they nodded, he said, "Our quest’s objective is to kill a Dark Wizard who works under Izrath. Since these creatures are related to Izrath, this Dark Wizard very might well be the cause of the attack."

"You all keep mentioning this Izrath. Anyone I should know about?"

Zed shrugged and replied, "We don’t know much about Izrath either, but I think he is some God of Darkness or something in that vein. A big bad guy you know."

Felix nodded, when he spotted something. His companions also noticed it as they took out their weapons.

Past some trees ahead, three Ocuminis appeared, speeding toward the group of players. They were only Common Level 15, but they could still be a threat.

As Felix was about to engage though, Drakon said, "Wait, let us deal with them. You already got the Elite one."

Felix looked at him, and did not move. Drakon smiled and unsheathed a giant sword, even larger than Chris’, and stomped his foot on the ground as he released a beastly roar.

The three Ocuminis, who were rushing at them, all turned their gaze to him as they ignored the rest of the group.

A taunt skill, Felix realized.

At the same time, Zed became much harder to see while Zara’s Mana congregated above her. A large icicle, about a meter long, formed after a second, and it was sent straight toward the eye of one of the Ocuminis.

Drakon’s Taunt had delayed the Ocumini’s reaction enough for it to be unable to dodge as the long icicle pierced straight into the eye. A large part of the icicle was still out, but the eye had been nearly pierced all the way through, causing the Ocumini to fall to the ground, dead.

At the same time, the other two Ocuminis reached Drakon, who made an upward slash, severing four arms that tried to reach out for him, while Zed, still in his shadowy form that made it hard to spot him, somehow appeared at the eye level of one of the Ocumini, and stabbed his two daggers into the eye.

The Ocumini fell straight down, one shot just like the other.

As for the final Ocumini, it did not last long either. After cutting some of its arms, Drakon took a couple of steps back, and stayed still for a fraction of a second, before suddenly rushing at the Ocumini.

It looked suicidal, as the Ocumini reached out with its hands towards the approaching Drakon. The Ocuminis were strong creatures, after all.

However, as Drakon reached it, he did not even wave his sword as he slammed into it with his body. The arms that were stretched out deformed horribly, failing to even slow Drakon down as he smashed into the Ocumini’s main body, knocking it down.

Then, Drakon stabbed his sword through the large eye easily, as the beast had been brought down to the ground.

The three Ocuminis down, Zara looked at Felix with a smile as she said, "This is but a fraction of the power of our Guild. You could receive training if you joined too, if you wished so. I’m sure even an expert like you could learn something from us."

Felix smiled back at the beautiful mage as he replied, "My answer is still going to be no."

Was he being nicer because she was an attractive girl?

Yes. Absolutely so.

Zara and Zed had the same dark blond hair, Zara’s being rather short for a girl. It suited her however. She was on the shorter side, around 1.60 meters tall Felix would say, and her body seemed fit under her robes.

She wasn’t particularly voluptuous, although she couldn’t be called small, but the main catch for Felix was her cute face.

Drakon, seeing Felix’s attitude, snorted softly and said, "We should go, before the Dark Wizard escapes."

Felix looked away from Zara, nodding as he said, "Let’s go then."

Zed looked at Felix with squinted eyes, while Zara was smiling, but neither said anything as they started walking too.

And as they walked, Felix decided to experiment with his Mana. Until now, all he had used were single Runes, but while easy to make, for him that is, they lacked in power. Hence, Felix aimed to use more of them, to make for a real spell.

In essence, it should work like Enchantment or Warding. Placing several Runes so they would work together.

Before beginning, Felix warned the others, "I’m going to try something out, don’t be alarmed."

They looked at him curiously, but he ignored them as he started doing his thing. Focusing on his Mana, Felix first made a ‘Stasis’ Rune, freezing the air above him, before quickly forming several Runes one after another.

‘Fire’, ‘Grow’, ‘Large’, ‘Concentrate’.

Felix quickly stopped though as he noticed the effects. What he wanted to try was to create a Fireball. There was no Rune for Fireball, as it was a Spell, and for it to form several Runes had to work together.

However, as he cast the Runes above him, Felix quickly noticed two problems. One, the MP used. Each Rune took 10 MP from him because of the Curse, as each Rune was counted individually for the Curse, so he had already expended 50 MP for the failure.

The second problem was that the Runes did not work together. Instead, in the frozen air above him, a small flame appeared in a small area, and the other Runes did not seem to do anything, except for Concentration that created some faint mist.

"What was that?"

Zara, the magician, asked. Whether she asked because she was interested as another magician, or because she had understood she was the most likely to receive an answer as the attractive girl, Felix did not know. In any case, he replied, "It’s complicated to explain."

Zara showed a brilliant smile, waving her staff around as she asked, "Not like there is much else to do."

Felix thought about it for a second, using his brain, before deciding to speak. Not because of Zara, but because external insight might help with his problem. Besides, even if he didn’t say anything , it was rather obvious he was using Runes for magic, so there was not much to hide.

It wasn’t like anyone was about to master his Runic Magic anyway.

"My Magic is quite unique, but think of it as programming. I have an alphabet of Runes, each with a function, and using several of them I can produce a certain effect. The effect here is the final spell, or a Program."

Drakon and Zed both looked confused, but Zara looked even more interested as she asked, "What is the problem then? Is there a problem with the order? Or maybe you did not use the right Runes?"

Felix replied, "Well, I probably will face these two problems later on, but for now my main problem is that they all act independently. The functions don’t work together to make the intended effect."

Zara pondered on his words for several seconds, fiddling with her staff, until she concluded, "Well, if it were coding, I would advise you to add parenthesis, to contain your functions under one entity. Then, I would add another function to have them work together. For example, put the condition ‘If x is under 3’, and follow with ‘Then the structure is square’. I’m not sure how that translates to your magic though."

Felix rubbed the stubble he had grown over the past few days of intense work, and said, "Interesting idea. I could contain them in a mana structure, and have it work as a sort of link between the Runes."

Nodding to himself, Felix added while looking into Zara’s eyes, "Thank you for the help, Zara."

The young woman looked happy as she replied, "Glad to have been of help."