Arthur sat in his kitchen and looked at the purple monster core in front of him. Indecision gripped him and he was unsure as to how exactly he should proceed right now. He didn't know if there was anything different about elite monster cores compared to rare ones he'd come into contact with, but he didn't want to waste such a powerful boon by just being hasty and treating it like he had the others.
In the end, Arthur decided to first peruse his status page and see about investing the stat points he’d gained after killing the Draconic Livertihion, in the hopes that the extra power could help him deal with the fallout if something went wrong with the elixir he was about to make. He had considered giving the ingredients to Mira to let her use her Alchemy skills to concoct a solution to make his elixir more potent, but he had quickly dismissed the idea as foolish.
Whilst the two were closer now, they were by no means friends, and he didn't want to risk ostracising her by revealing something that for all he knew was taboo. Maybe there was some sort of council of sapient monsters out there that hunted freaks like himself.
Looking at his status, Arthur whistled appreciatively. He had gained 21 levels from killing the overgrown lizard which had netted him 168 stat points to allocate with his bonuses from his soul affinity title. As he’d initially thought, the boon was proving its worth over time.
It was actually a far smaller jump in levels than he had expected from killing the beast, however, but he wasn't going to complain about the fact he had managed to stick to his goal of remaining under level 100. Perhaps the low levels gained could be attributed to the fact that the monster had reached its strength through unnatural and abnormal means and that it had fought with the strength of half its level.
Arthur wasn't sure, he was no genius when it came to magic and all his conjectures thus far were guesswork at best. Worrying about it would give him no meaningful answers and so instead, he carefully considered how to allocate his stat points.
Surprisingly, his mental attributes had managed to pull ahead of his physical ones, despite his heavy investments into the latter, courtesy of the rodent king’s monster core he had consumed. He almost started salivating thinking about the stats that an elite monster core from a level 200 monster would give him, but he quickly controlled himself.
There would be time for all that later and figuring out his stat distribution was far more important. Deciding to shore up on any glaring weaknesses he had, he realized that he didn't have any. Well, he wouldn't call them weaknesses, just lesser strengths so as to not hurt his ego, but all jokes aside, Arthur was at an impasse as to how exactly to go on from here.
With 168 stat points to spend in one go, Arthur could decide to take the path of a specialist if he wanted to, bumping one attribute far above the rest. Arthur didn't really feel like doing that, though. He wasn't the type of person to put all his eggs in one basket, and he didn't want to ever face a situation where his chosen specialisation was useless.
What would he do if he ever faced an enemy he couldn't use strength on or a foe he couldn't outrun? He would be out of options and die regretting his stupidity. No, the specialised generalist approach was the path for Arthur, a walking contradiction, even if all the games Mathew babbled on about involved taking extreme routes.
After all, he’d rather have a versatile skill set instead of one that was only useful under specific circumstances. Anything he could do with magic, he could do better with his body. For now. He'd promised he'd change
Observing his status, Arthur couldn’t help but laugh. He really wasn’t fully human anymore, was he? His status just didn’t make any sense. Honestly, I think I'll save these points for later. See what the monster core gives me first. I'm pretty sure my health is at least enough to let me survive it.
Arthur Ward
Level 60
Unallocated stat points: 168
Strength- 110 (100)
Vitality- 160*
Endurance- 50
Constitution- 182 (140)
Agility- 118
Intelligence- 323
Willpower- 190
Charisma- 95
Health- 2950/3200 (352(160)/hour)
Ether- 3200/3230 (323/hour)
Stamina- 497/500 (50/minute)
Arthur did the maths. He had the total stats of someone who... was pretty high levelled with a common class if he didn’t take his titles into consideration. With them, Arthur was a… Monster. There really was no other word for it.
As it happened every time he glanced at his status, Arthur became a little afraid of what he may one day become. He didn't want to reach the end of his goals and no longer recognise the man he was. He’d gone down that route before and it went nowhere pleasant.
Arthur sighed warily, most of his earlier cheer all but forgotten. Why did he always have to be so melodramatic? There was nothing to be done about his fleeting good mood, however, and all he could do was make sure his fears didn't come to pass.
Pulling himself out of his inner monologue, Arthur brought out the large bowl he had used to make his previous elixir of infection. Just as he was about to start the process, Arthur realised he had a serious problem. The last time he had tried this, it had taken him almost five minutes to hurt himself.
He was a lot stronger now and his constitution had far outpaced his strength, and with it, so had his ability to harm himself. I can’t believe I’m really having a problem like this. Trying to think of a solution to his conundrum, Arthur came up with something.
As most of his plans went, this one too was stupid, and he was glad no one was around to observe his idiocy.
A mans gotta do what a mans gotta do.
Closing his left hand into a fist, the absence of light formed a natural pool of dark shadow within its centre. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he was about to do. This is really fucking dumb.
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Feeling for his now familiar reserves of ether, Arthur called upon them, only a little trickle at first, which quickly widened into a stream until finally, a veritable river of stuff was flowing into his clenched fist.
10, 20…, 30…, 70…, 150…, 200…, 240…, 300…, 320…, 375…, 400.
When the amount of ether in his control had neared half a thousand, Arthur stopped drawing on it. As he felt the raging torrent of power trying to struggle out of his grasp, Arthur realised he had made a grave error. This was way too much ether, half of this would have been more than enough to suit his purposes, and yet now that he had drawn the ether out, it had to be put to use. He couldn't return it to his reserves.
He briefly considered trying to direct half the energy into another spell but quickly dismissed the idea. The situation was hard enough without him trying to make it worse by dual casting for the first time, something he was sure would end in catastrophic failure.
He’d already had one bad idea too many for the day and another one might just be enough to kill him. Well, here goes nothing. Directing his ether to serve its original purpose, he started to pour it into the shadow clenched within his fist. His plan was simple: like the time he had first used magic, against the wolves, Arthur was trying to make a shadow bomb. It required no skill, no finesse, just a shit ton of ether and a shadow; two things that Arthur had ample supply of.
Except this time, he had used so much more ether than before. His concentration and control were being tested to their limits, and he slowly began to pour it into his created shadow, steadily increasing the rate at which he transferred the energy into his clenched fist.
Beads of sweat began to run down his face, and he clenched his teeth so hard he was surprised that his gums hadn't started bleeding yet. Well, if he could bleed so easily, he wouldn't be having this problem right now.
The ether concentration within the tiny shadow had passed the 300 mark, and it felt as if it had been saturated to near bursting. He couldn’t pour any more into it. Arthur persisted anyway, forcing the stubborn piece of darkness to absorb more energy, force-feeding it like one would an unruly child.
Something within him changed then, and the whole process seemed to get a whole lot easier. A system notification clamoured for his attention, no doubt containing the reason for his sudden ease in casting his piss-poor excuse for magic, but he blinked it out of his vision. He couldn’t deal with any distractions now.
Finally, when he felt his last dregs of ether pour into the shadow, Arthur took a deep breath. In his hand, was probably enough power to kill a level 50 monster. Heck, it was probably enough to kill himself if he wasn’t careful.
Walking slowly towards the garden door, he stepped outside into the outdoors, all the while maintaining an iron control over his spell. Every step was difficult, maintaining control over the bomb contained in his hand akin to a weighted superset of Bulgarian split squats.
He could feel the pressure within it building and knew that couldn't hold it back for long. Gracelessly falling to his knees, Arthur punched his hand into the soft mud beneath him. Closing his eyes, he prayed for the best.
Arthur released his spell.
He immediately felt a huge wave of destruction travel directly into the Earth and felt the backlash on his own arm. It was only a fraction of the energy the true spell contained, most of it being discharged into the earth, and yet it felt like Arthur had just put his hand in a blender.
Arthur couldn't help it, he screamed, trying to muffle the sound by biting down on his t-shirt. The whole ordeal only lasted around 3 seconds, and yet it felt like the time of his suffering had been measured in minutes.
Carefully opening his eyes, Arthur looked down at the ground, afraid of what he would see. The entire lawn was a ruined mess, the carefully maintained earth now filled with potholes. And yet Arthur knew that the true damage was hidden underground out of his sight.
He hoped he hadn't damaged any important water pipes with his reckless use of magic. looking at his hand, he was at first afraid of what he’d see. Surprisingly, it was in much better condition than he had expected. That wasn't to say it was any good though. Just that it was a mangled mess of flesh and blood with bone visible instead of the complete disintegration Arthur had feared.
It hurt like a bitch and it took all of Arthur’s self-control to not heal it on the spot.
Instead, cradling his damaged arm like it was a fragile newborn, Arthur quickly made his way back to the kitchen, careful to not get blood everywhere. Holding his destroyed limb above the metal bowl, it only took seventeen seconds for it to be filled to the brim.
As fast as possible, Arthur used his uncommon Regeneration skill on himself, wincing in pain as he felt bones pop back into place and flesh knit itself back together. It took a considerable amount of ether to heal the nearly half thousand amount of damage he had managed to do to his health.
This was definitely the last time he did some crazy magic without taking any safety precautions. He made a firm promise to himself. Picking up the core from where it had rolled off the table onto the floor, Arthur held it above the bowl of his blood. He hoped nothing would go wrong now.
He was too tired to deal with anything unexpected at the moment. Arthur dropped the orb and quickly ducked down in preparation for any explosion or strange reaction that occurred, utilizing every part of his 118 points of agility to great effect.
When nothing happened, Arthur sheepishly got back onto his feet. Looking at the bowl, he saw that the volume of his blood seemed to have decreased by a third in the few seconds he’d looked away from it, and the liquid was now a bright purple colour. Arthur casually overlooked the strange phenomenon and identified the fluid in front of him.
?? Draconic Elixir (Elite)- Contain the powers of ??? ??? ??? ??? chances of success: 97%..., 96%..., 95%
Even as Arthur watched, the numbers rapidly dropped lower, and panicking, he did the only thing he could think of. He quickly brought the bowl to his lips, momentarily surprised by the immense weight of the elixir.
500ml of the stuff must've weighed about 10kg, which just straight up ignored the law of conservation of mass. Dismissing the abnormal features the liquid possessed, Arthur began to drink it.
He didn’t have time to worry about whether or not he was doing the right thing. Every second of delay decreased his chances of success, and Arthur decided to rely on his high health to deal with any fallout his irresponsible consumption of strange liquids might cause.
Just as he finished consuming the solution, he immediately regretted the decision he had made. He’d almost killed himself of terminal stupidity a few minutes earlier and had now consumed a weird liquid that he had absolutely no information about.
A stabbing pain in his stomach just a few seconds after his drinking confirmed that once again he hadn’t thought through his actions enough.
It felt like he’d swallowed a bowl of nails and then some magma to top it off. Falling to his knees, Arthur tried to throw up the liquid he’d just drank, ramming his fingers into his mouth to vomit it up, but his body didn't seem to respond to his commands, the muscles in his throat locking up.
It took five agonising minutes for the sensation to pass, in which he felt like he was simultaneously melting and freezing before Arthur felt ready to get back to his feet.
Stumbling towards the sink, Arthur got himself a glass of water. The elixir didn't seem to have done much. He felt much the same as he had before, and he checked his system notifications to see exactly how and if the elixir had worked.
The message that had been clamouring for his attention during his earlier spell-casting was the first to be read.
You have developed the Incomplete skill Shadow Bomb (common+) …
The description will become available after the skill is complete.
Arthur smiled when he saw the skill. It explained why his spell-casting had suddenly become so much easier earlier. This was the first skill he had made himself, and whilst it wasn't anything groundbreaking, Arthur was proud of what he had created. After all, a journey of a thousand miles started with a single step or something along those lines. Arthur was never one for inspirational quotes.
Checking his status Arthur realised it was practically the same as before. Well not exactly, but the changes were minimal, only a 10 stat increase on his strength attribute. His endurance however had shot up by 410 points, making it his newest highest stat at 460. That however was almost useless to Arthur as his 50 points in the attribute had been more than enough all this time, though it had often come close to running out. VERY CLOSE. So maybe it wasn’t a waste after all. It just wasn’t what he’d expected from an elite-ranked elixir.
Just as Arthur began to despair, a new notification appeared in front of his eyes. It took him two re-reads to understand it and it also explained the seemingly minuscule gain in strength he’d received from a monster that specialised in the attribute.
Arthur smiled. He’d gotten a better boon than anything he could have asked for or even expected.
New title acquired- Unstable Strength (Survived the poison of an unstable monster core before unlocking a class) Increases strength attribute by 10%