With the Sub-Boss defeated, Hazel and Astrid used the time they had to recover as much as they could. Collecting the bag that contained their potions, they used the healing potions to recover from their injuries during the fight.

Hazel downed the cold yet bitter liquid, feeling the burning sensation in her side slowly fade away in the process. By the time the bottle was empty, her wounds were entirely healed. Once her injuries were gone, the mage made her way over to Nycteris.

Much like Hazel and Astrid, the Nightwing was in a pretty bad condition. The large carved wound inflicted by the boss was still there, inflicting an acid effect even when the Boss was defeated.

Instead of healing Nycteris with a potion, Hazel used a different method. Using one of Astrid’s daggers, she cut her hand, deep enough to where blood spilled from the wound. She then placed her bleeding hand over Nycteris’s mouth, letting the crimson liquid pour into his gullet.

“Don’t move, alright?” Hazel told her familiar.

The Nightwing said nothing and simply followed his master’s command.

Thanks to Nycteris being similar to vampires, he possessed the ability to recover and even grow stronger by drinking blood. He only ever drank blood from Soren and the others when they ambushed and killed the party.

Once they returned to their world, Hazel expected that Nycteris would be able to get stronger now that there would be plenty of blood bags for him to consume. Within reason, of course. She wasn’t planning to let her familiar run rampant and kill humans left, right, and center. She wasn’t heartless.

After consuming some of Hazel’s blood, the nightwing’s wound began to slowly heal. Even the large gash wound from the Jester was mending together as if time was being reversed. It didn’t take long before his wounds were entirely healed.

“How are you feeling?” Hazel asked, examining her Familiar’s body to check for more wounds.

“I am...better.” The Nightwing said. “Much...better.”

Hearing this, she smiled and stood up. “Rest a little more. You need to preserve your strength for when we head to my world.”

Now that the Boss was defeated, that meant Hazel was able to return to Earth. There was also Astrid’s world that she was going to be dealing with now that their worlds were merged together.

Leaving her familiar while he continued to recuperate, Hazel walked over to Astrid who was sitting on the stage platform, looking off into space. Or perhaps her Status Window.

“What level are you now?” The mage asked.

“Level twenty-one. You?”

“Same level. Who knew killing a sub-boss would give us three level-ups.”

“Well, for one thing, it’s a Boss, so that alone should tell you what you need to know.”

“I guess so.”

By defeating the Jester, both Hazel and Astrid rose to level twenty-one. A rather big surprise for Hazel since she only expected to level up at least once after killing the sub-boss. Of course, she wasn’t going to complain when this only made her stronger.

Speaking of which, by leveling up three times, that also meant she earned nine points for her efforts. And she knew exactly what stats to invest her points in.

Status Window

Name: Hazel Thatcher

Race: Human

Level: 21

Class: Mage (Class Evolution Available!)

Free Points: 9

Attributes:

Strength: 7

Agility: 16

Endurance: 20

Intelligence: 38 (+33)

Wisdom: 36 (+18)

Willpower: 12 (+10)

Pulling her up stats, Hazel immediately invested five of her points into Intelligence and the remaining four into Wisdom. Combined with her additional stats from her Arcane Dress and Magic Ring, Intelligence was now at seventy-six points and Wisdom was at fifty-eight.

She was less than thirty points away from reaching the three digits with Intelligence and less than fifty with Wisdom. She should be able to reach that threshold with Intelligence once she was at least level thirty.

Aside from her stats, Hazel’s eyes soon trailed over to her class. More specifically, the brackets talking about a Class evolution.

“A class evolution?” She leaned her head curiously. “Does that mean you can improve your class?”

“I would assume, so,” Astrid muttered, still staring at her status window. “By the way, what was that spell you used against the Jester? It gave off a very powerful and menacing energy and easily took it down.”

Hazel paused with a hesitant face. “I’m not sure. I think I created it. I was just trying to make my spell stronger so I could kill the Boss in a single strike.”

During their battle, Hazel’s cursed spells barely did enough damage to the Jester. And she couldn’t even hit it with Decay due to its speed and reaction time. That and Decay likely would’ve ended up with similar results to her cursed spells.

Because of that, Hazel needed a stronger spell, which was why she tried to combine the Rot and Curse Element together. And that was how she created her so-called Entropy Sickle.

Out of curiosity, Hazel pulled up the skill to read its information. And what she discovered surprised her quite a bit.

Rank 1

A sickle composed of both Cursed and Rot, becoming a source of Entropy; the end and disorder of all things. This sickle’s sole purpose is to destroy and end any and everything in its path until it returns to nothingness. The cooldown is thirty seconds.

Hazel’s eyes widened upon reading its description. “This new spell seems quite similar to Decay, but on a much more powerful scale. I don’t even know where to begin with this spell.”

According to the spell’s information, this Entropy sickle seemed to act similar to Decay, but on a higher scale. It was able to destroy anything in its path, no matter what it was.

This explained how the sickle easily destroyed the Jester. This spell was likely responsible for its grim death as well. When the Jester died, it didn’t burst into purple fragments but disintegrated into nothing.

So this spell doesn’t simply kill you. It erases every bit of your being. Until there was nothing left.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Then there was the thirty-second cooldown. It seemed that after becoming a strong spell, the cooldown got longer as well. Which annoyed Hazel greatly.

She also noticed something even more bothersome, she couldn’t find the old Baneful Sickle spell. Which meant that she could no longer use it, and was stuck with this spell. While she was grateful for the powerful spell, she wished that she could keep the original version of it.

This also seemed to apply to Hazel’s old Decay spell as well, which was now the Entropy Spell.

Rank 1

The Final Form of Decay that possesses the sole purpose of extinguishing everything in its path, reducing it to nothingness. By being inflicted with this spell, the User will deteriorate until they are nothing more than dust in the wind. Even the dust itself will be reduced to nothing in the end. This spell can only be used once per day.

“Great,” She grumbled, palming her forehead in frustration. “Just great.”

Judging from the Description alone, Hazel had created something absolutely insane in her desperation to kill the Jester. And the fact this spell could only be used once a day only elevated this spell’s potential power. And her fear of it.

She hadn’t even attempted to use the spell yet, and she feared what kind of devastation it would bring if she was careless with it. Just what in the world did she create?

“What’s wrong?” Astrid asked, looking both curious and concerned over Hazel’s reaction.

Before she could explain her troubles to the dark elf, their conversation was interrupted by another stream of panels.

[Reward Pending Process is now over! You may now receive your rewards!]

[Reward Ranking has been calculated! For Defeating a Sub-Boss of the Dungeon, Players who participated in the event will receive an Epic Chest Box!]

Out of nowhere, two chests materialized out of thin air before Hazel and Astrid. Each chest was presented in front of a player, gesturing that the chest was theirs and theirs alone.

“Nice, we got another chest!” Hazel beamed, looking at her chest box.

Much like before, there was a noticeable difference in the qualities of the Chest Box. The Common Chest box was simply a worn-down wooden crate that looked like it came from some junkyard, while the Uncommon Chest box was a bit more polished with metal bindings on it, to reinforce its structure.

But the Epic Chest was even more presentable than the previous two. It was made of some kind of bright red wood with gold rims reinforcing it, making it gleam from the light around it. Hazel stared at the box, practically salivating at the item before her.

A wide grin then formed on her face, displaying her glee and anticipation. “Let’s see what’s inside!”

Eagerly opening her chest, Hazel took a look inside, curious about what her rewards were. Unlike the previous chests, there was no food or water, which she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. But the other items inside certainly made up for that.

First off, there were more potions, and there weren’t just Mana or Healing Potions. Picking up a couple of the new ones, Hazel found a Stamina Potion, a Strength Potion, and even a Cure-all Potion that cures her of certain poisons and even curses.

Looking further into the chest, she then stumbled across another great item; a silver bracelet with a purple gem at the center. A bracelet that beat the potions by a landslide.

“No way...”

Rarity: Epic

A Bracelet that allows the user to store a certain volume of items inside. The item’s storage capacity is 500 cubic feet.

The mage’s eyes sparkled at the absurd item in her hand. “I finally got my bag of holding! Or I guess I should call it my Bracelet of Holding.” She snickered at her own joke.

Now that she possessed a sub-space item, she could store all of her belongings in her bracelet.

“Oh, you got a storage bracelet too?” Astrid said, causing Hazel to spin her head in her direction to see.

And sure enough, Astrid received the same item. However, Hazel noticed the dark elf’s bracelet possessed a different color gem. A Green one.

At first, Hazel thought Astrid received a different item because of the color, but after reading its description, she confirmed that they were both given the same item. Why the gems had different colors, she had no idea. Perhaps that was an aesthetic choice from the maker of the item.

Aside from the Bracelet, Hazel saw that Astrid was rewarded some kind of magic string for her bow and a dark green cloak that matched her Ranger outfit.

Instead of putting the storage bracelet on right away, Hazel placed it aside to experiment with it later. She still had a couple of items left.

Reaching for her next reward, she pulled out a pair of black gloves with purple designs on them.

Rarity: Epic

Magic gloves that allow mages to use magic without the assistance of staves or wands.

“This is nice,” She grinned. “This will definitely be a step up from the staff...especially since it’s destroyed.”

Because her magic staff was destroyed during her fight with the Jester, Hazel was in need of a new magic item to help her cast spells. So, she was grateful to obtain this item. Although she was still capable of casting spells without a magic staff, it was really the casting time that caused problems, and these gloves would be able to solve that little problem.

Once again, instead of immediately putting on the gloves, she set them next to the bracelet to test them out later.

Hazel then moved on to the last item. Though, out of all of her rewards, this was the one that confused her the most.

“Huh? It’s...a stone tablet?”

Pulling out the last reward, Hazel discovered that she was currently holding a large stone tablet. It was a dark gray stone slab, riddled with cracks and broken bits. What concerned her more was the purple engravings etched into the stone.

From what she could tell, the engravings looked like symbols, but she couldn’t understand what they meant. Or maybe she wasn’t supposed to understand it.

Curious, she decided to identify it and see what this item really was.

Rarity: Epic

A stone tablet that contains a mysterious power! Once unsealed, The User can obtain its power and use it however they see fit!

“Hmm...” Hazel mused while reading the description.

Other than being vague in terms of what kind of item it was, the description didn’t even tell her how she was supposed to unseal the tablet. Did she have to cite some secret word or something? Throw her a bone here!

Not only that but what kind of power would she get from it when unsealed? Why was this tablet so damn vague in telling her about its information.

“What’s up?” Astrid asked, still looting her chest.

“It’s this tablet,” Hazel showed the stone slab to the dark elf. “The description is saying that I can obtain some kind of power from it when unsealed, but I don’t know how to even do that.”

“It doesn’t say how?”

Hazel shook her head irritably. “No, it’s telling me to figure it out myself. What an ass!” She clenched her hands into a fist before smacking it against her leg.

The mage groans while intensely examining the stone, determined to figure out how to unseal its power. She couldn’t read the purple symbols engraved in the stone, nor could she sense any mana from it.

Then a thought occurred to her. What if this item was like the Magic Torch from the Tower? To activate the torch, she had to pour her mana into the item. Maybe the same concept applied to this tablet of power.

Eager to test this theory, Hazel placed both hands into the stone and immediately poured her mana into it. At first, there was a bit of resistance, as if the tablet was fighting back against the mana.

Sensing the resistance, Hazel narrowed her eyes angrily. “You think you have the right to resist, you bastard? Just accept my mana, dammit!”

She then forced more of her mana into the stone, practically overloading it with energy. Purple cracks soon formed around the tablet, as if unable to contain the power within anymore.

“U-uh, Hazel...?!” The dark elf noticed the cracks forming and instantly backed away with a concerned and fearful expression.

But Hazel could only smile in response to it. She was close to unsealing the tablet. She could tell from the energy leaking out.

So instead of stopping, she went all in.

“Unseal already!”

Unleashing more of her mana, more cracks began to form, spiderwebbing across the tablet-like glass that was close to shattering. The purple engravings then started to glow. And the more mana Hazel poured into the stone, the brighter it became.

The tablet trembled in her grasp as if threatening to break free, but Hazel held the item tightly, not wanting to let it escape. Not until she obtained whatever power was inside.

“H-Hazel, I-I think you should-!”

Before Astrid could finish warning Hazel, the tablet suddenly exploded in her hands, as all of them were blinded by the purple light.

Next thing Hazel knew...her eyes began to burn.