As soon as Ander had his mana back, he plunged downward yet again. There was a spike in difficulty as he explored new depths, but his skills had also increased. Ander fought hard, taking every opportunity to raise his skills with each battle. Over time he worked on different skills, looking for new ways to use them. The most interesting one he tried was when he used Aeolian Vitality offensively.Ander encountered a couple undead creatures along his way, and Aeolian Vitality did a number on them, burning them like lightning or fire. But the interesting part was when he used it against regular monsters.

Looking into it further while taking a break, Ander found a term through Minds of the Void called overhealing. To him it sounded good, like regeneration, but the memories he witnessed showed a different story. Overhealing was somewhat like regeneration to a point. When a person was overhealed, their cells went into overdrive to expend the energy. That meant rapid division, and sometimes a reversion to their stem cell state. This had a tendency to turn people into exploding blobs of organic matter.

That took a lot of energy however. It involved wholesale creation of new matter from mana and that was quite an intensive effort. However, it was nearly as lethal to do this in a line through an enemy's body. It took way less energy, which meant it could be used in combat. Ander thought that it would be possible to choose a point within the enemy like their heart to target for an even lower expenditure, but lines were far easier to aim than points. The downside was that the higher the overall level of the enemy, the better their control of the energy in their bodies. More energy would be required to do this to higher level enemies than to lower level ones. A good reason to learn how to do the point variation.

The other thing he found after fighting an odd kind of toad with some wicked regeneration was that he could cause something called a healing burn. By inexpertly healing a damaged area, it prevented the regeneration from taking care of it properly. He had lopped off one of the frog’s forelegs, and before it could grow back, he healed the wound shut. It allowed his hits to actually be permanent without relying on fire. Fire had some effect on regenerative creatures, but Ander liked his solution better.

Congratulations! You have Levelled up!

You are now level 37!

+5 Strength

+10 Dexterity

+10 Agility

+2 Conductivity

+6 Wisdom

+2 Regeneration

+1 Beauty

+2 Presence

+20 Free Points

Congratulations! Skill: Way of the Wind has levelled up!

Skill: Way of the Wind is level 27.

Congratulations! Skill: Aeolian Vitality has levelled up!

Skill: Aeolian Vitality is level 14.

Congratulations! Skill: Soul of the Deep has levelled up!

Skill: Soul of the Deep is level 19.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Congratulations! Skill: Aquilo’s Whisper has levelled up!

Skill: Aquilo’s Whisper is level 21.

Congratulations! Skill:Concussive Fireball has levelled up!

Skill: Concussive Fireball is level 16.

Congratulations! Skill: Elysian Thunderweave has levelled up!

Skill: Elysian Thunderweave is level 18.

Congratulations! Skill: Windsoar has levelled up!

Skill: Windsoar is level 2.

Ander would have loved to level up Windsoar more, but in the ruins there was little opportunity to fly. But he was happy with the progress of the rest of his skills. With his Free points, he put 60 into dexterity, and 20 into strength. They were lagging behind agility, and Ander wanted both power and precision along with his speed.

Ander pushed on, but things slowed down again when the levels of the creatures passed 60. Ander was gaining levels very fast, and his skills were growing quite well. But he couldn’t level fast enough to get to the bottom in time. He needed something to allow him to get ahead of the curve. What he really needed was another week. Another week would allow him to get to the real depths of the ruin, assuming he continued to push himself so hard.

But there wasn’t that much time. He needed to get to the bottom, and he only had a couple more days to do it. He was on level 25, and had to get to level 32. He continued to fight, but every monster took longer and longer to take down. And by the end of day four, it took him a solid fifteen minutes to take down a single monster. Ander supposed he should congratulate himself. He was doing amazing, taking down things that were over 20 levels higher than he. But he couldn’t shake the fact that he would have to abandon the quest before it was done. If games had taught Ander anything, then the reward for this quest would be truly immense.

Ander kept fighting until something caught his eye. A shadow moved at the edge of his vision, and Ander was forced to expend a large portion of his mana to finish off the rock creature he had been fighting. Ander quickly turned as his opponent crumbled to gravel. There was nothing there. That said, the entire place was pretty dark, lit only by the light stones Ander was wearing at strategic places around his body. It made him more visible, a lot more visible, but stealth was never for him in any case.

Ander turned back around and started looking for his next fight. It was in the middle of his next fight that he saw the shadow again. This time he didn’t panic, but turned the fight so that he could see a little better. The shadow of a man watched from its place on the wall, being projected from a point not too far away. A glint of gold floated in the air above the ground where the shadow started from, and Ander saw that it was an ornate key. A treasure key. It almost made him laugh. His impression of the key shade had been so hopelessly terrible. Not that he could have imitated the thing any better.

In the same moment Ander’s enemy died, a bolt of lightning flashed from his hand and enveloped an invisible humanoid figure standing at the shadows convergence. It was invisible! Ander didn’t know how that worked with the key and the shadow, but there was a person there! And he was running. Ander pounded along in his wake, sending spell after spell at the shade. Nothing seemed to slow him down until Ander used a Concussive Fireball. The force that the spell created was quite strong, even in the minimised version, and Ander had not wanted to escalate the fight to such a degree, but it was the only thing that worked. The shade went flying, and Ander pushed forward with his spear to gore the shade mid air.

Ander’s spear was knocked aside in the last second, but a thin spray of blood splattered the wall. And that is when the shade changed tactics. Ander was barely able to dodge as the telltale whistle of a sword passed right in front of his face. Now he knew why anyone who tried to corner the shade died. He couldn’t afford to fight without being able to see the enemy. So he summoned water out of the air, out of the cracks in the stone, and finally out of nothing as he caused it to rush around the enemy, creating the outline of a lithe figure holding a sword.

The Shade tried to get rid of the water, but it was to no avail, as it had to deal with Ander’s attacks at the same time. After a few seconds, it gave up and rushed Ander with deadly force. Ander had to defend with all the skill at his disposal, but he knew the battle would be a loss. Every second he collected a new cut that Aeolian Vitality had to close, and it wasn’t keeping up. Ander was running ragged at the end of his mana, and knew that there was only one way he was going to win. He resummoned the spear, while at the same time casting a concussive fireball just behind The Shade’s back. In the moment before he was sent flying, The Shade was impaled upon his spear. They collided, and then went tumbling down the corridors to hit a wall. Ander struggled against The Shade, trying to get free before he realised The Shade was unmoving. He also saw that the shade was perfectly visible.

A creepy creature with grey skin, overly large eyes and pointed ears lay there, impaled by the spear. It was thin, but dressed in good looking spidersilk clothing. Ander had to assume that this was one of the elves that once lived in the other ruin. How it still lived, or had lived not too long ago, was quite the mystery to Ander, but the elf was obviously cunning and skilled. It had not lived this long by a fluke. Ander was disappointed by the elf’s appearance, but he set that aside to look at the creature’s spatial pouch.