The quiet inside my head was something I had to get used to again. Until three days ago, it was normal, but ever since Veraxia popped into my head, I just kinda got used to her being there more than I thought.

I had expected the moment where she left my head to be liberating and pleasant, but all it came down to was somber boredom.

She could have at least waited until my mana recovered, but instead I had to wait and wait. And she did not even tell me how long she would be gone for or at least nothing precise. In the end, I was powerless to do anything, but wait.

Well, not entirely. While I lay down on the floor, I listened to the quiet scuttling of tiny legs, interrupted only by the occasional screech. Another drone was on its way here and looking for a fight. And I was in no position to avoid it. But, the drone was not really the fastest, so even if it was furiously moving my way, it was still far away.

Veraxia said it would take at least an hour for the drone to reach me, how long that was and how much time already passed, I had no idea. However she said in five hours, another passage would open, so I should enjoy that fight as much as possible, because it was going to be the only interesting thing to happen in the next few hours.

Enjoying a fight with my life on the line? Heh, I think I am finally going crazy.

I sighed and patiently waited for my opponent to arrive. And sure enough, after what felt like an eternity, the Exapoda was almost here, so I got to my feet and dusted myself off.

For a brief moment, I considered activating Shadow Cloak to mask myself, but with my mana pool in mind, I had to focus on offense. And at this point, it wouldn’t be strange if the bug already knew that I was here.

Luckily, for this fight, I knew exactly from where the bug was coming and thanks to it being a hole in the ground, I would be able to attack before it even fully emerged from the depths.

Beside me, in the ground, stuck the pincer, which I pulled out with a small finger gesture. In an instant, it floated towards me until halting at the tip of my finger. Making a circular motion, it spun around, its tip pointing at the opening in the ground.

Closing my eyes and focusing on my ears, I listened carefully to the movements beneath me and waited. As the inevitable drew closer, my left arm erupted in golden light that poured into my hand as it formed itself into a brilliant orb.

3

2

1

…

Tension built up in my body, my fingers twitched and my expression hardened. All of my attention solely laid on the hole before me and the approaching enemy.

The sounds of its dozens legs tapping against the ground, the cackling of its mouth and its back plates scraping against the earth, I could hear it all.

There you are!

Two long pincers emerged from the dark hole, followed by a pair of thin antennae. The drone crawled out of the hole, but before even half of its body could fully emerge, I swung my right arm down and the pincer shot forward, piercing the back of the drone and nailing it to the ground.

Having successfully immobilized the drone, I dashed forward and readied my orb.

But in its anguished frenzy, the drone thrashed about wildly and hit me with the side of its head, sending me tumbling to the ground.

Gasping, I tried to regain my senses, my head spinning from the unexpected blow. I slowly pushed myself up, gritting my teeth through the pain and throb in my head, but the mana in my hand had already dissipated. Only my telekinetic grip on the pincer remained.

Time to tear you apart!

Raising my arm, I pulled it back and the pincer started to slowly cut through the drone’s flesh, causing it to shriek and screech in pain. Eventually, the pincer cut out off its body and returned to my hand, leaving the drone almost bisected, gushing blood and writhing in pain.

As it flew my way, I stopped it midair and turned it around. Getting back on my feet, I blew some hair out of my face and watched as the rest of the drone’s body left the hole.

I halted it mid-flight and redirected it once again. Finally rising to my feet, I brushed aside strands of hair that were clinging to my face. All the while, the drone pulled the rest of its body out of the hole. Seeing that, I was in awe at the tenacity of this insect.

Its behavior had also calmed and it was now quiet, not showing any signs of agony. If it weren’t for the blood leaking from its wound, I would not even suspect it to be hurt.

The drone turned my way and emitted a loud screech, causing me to flinch. In that moment it rushed forward, its pincers clicking aggressively. I sent the pincer flying at it as fast as I could, but just before it could pierce its head, the drone moved to the side and the pincer embedded itself into the drone’s side.

This caused a reaction from the drone as its body flickered to the side, cancelling its charge.

Then let’s try this.

Swiftly narrowing the gap between us, I put my left hand onto the drone’s back and activated the only skill I had never used before.

Aggravating Touch.

A black mist clung to my hand, almost like my aura, but it tore into the Exapoda’s wound and just like that, cuts grew larger, more blood splattered and the drone went wild, slamming against me again and sending me to the ground.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

However, there was no follow up to the attack. The drone screamed louder than ever before, a painful cry of sheer agony that almost shattered my eardrums. Its body writhed, as it repeatedly slammed its head into the ground. Its pincers cracked, its antennae bent and twisted and its back plates shattered.

You have slain [Exapoda Drone | Lvl. 8]. Experience will be awarded.

[Novice Witch] has leveled up! Stat points have been allocated! 1 Free Stat Point acquired!

[Novice Witch] is now Level 2.

Fuck me, what the fuck was that!?

Almost scared, I looked at my own hand. The black mist was gone and when I touched it, nothing happened. I had no sympathy for the Exapoda whatsoever, but what I just witnessed was nothing short of horrifying. The thing killed itself in an attempt to end the pain.

Suddenly my knees buckled and I slumped to the ground, feeling as if all my energy was spent. And sure enough, it was.

Mana: 12/1,000

I was lucky. If the Exapoda hadn’t killed itself, I would have been in trouble. One usage almost sapped me completely dry. A shame, as there were quite a few bruises on my arms and legs, but healing them would just be a convenience, not a necessity.

After a while, my breathing steadied, I got back to my feet and took a deep breath. Walking over to the corpse, I took a good look at it. Shattered would be the only word to describe the state it was in. It really had put energy into this suicide.

But I could understand. Sometimes, when you feel pain worse than anything you ever imagined, your hope of surviving will turn into a wish for death. I couldn’t confidently say that I was never at that point. I was disgusted for thinking the skill would help me a lot, but it was a reality I could not deny.

“Maybe I shouldn’t use it…,” I mumbled to myself as I watched the puddle of blood beneath me grow.

Even if I said that though, I was not in a position to do without strong skills. It was a weapon I would have to use if I wanted to come out of all of this alive. There was no place for doubts or restriction set by myself. For my own goal and survival.

I fetched the pincer from the corpse and shook off any blood and flesh. It had taken a bit of damage and the tip had a few tiny cracks, but in comparison to the two pincers of the this drone, they were in solid shape.

It was a shame that it had destroyed two good weapons, but the other corpse should still have one intact one. Guess I had to dig around in gore again.

Since the ground was overflowing with blood, I stepped away from the corpse and sat down a few feet away. This fight had not only been an opportunity to test my third skill, but it also gave me an anticipated reward. Something that I was dying to test and see if it was real.

Vitality: 10

Strength: 2

Agility: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 12

Willpower: 17

Perception: 21

Faith: 0

Free Stat Points: 1

Even though this was how it was supposed to be, my eyes widened nonetheless. My stats had increased, like really increased. The numbers went up, only by a bit, but they went up. My first reaction was to laugh and I did not hold back.

It did not matter that only a few stats increased by a tiny bit, or that I could feel no change whatsoever. The change was real and that was all there was to it.

Allowing myself to sink back, I stretched my arms and legs with a smile directed towards the ceiling. All of the prior bitterness was gone, replaced by happiness and euphoria. Going through each of my stats, my eyes came to a halt at the bottom.

Free Stat Points: 1

My first Free Stat Point. It was my decision to allocate it, but should I do it now or wait for Veraxia? Should I wait for Veraxia and consult with her about it? I found the answer almost in an instant. In this very moment, my excitement would not allow for a wait.

That opened the question, which stat should I increase?

The most reasonable choices were to either bolster the stats that are most important to my skills, like Willpower or Intelligence or to raise my lowest stats to keep them from falling behind too much. Especially stats like Strength or Vitality which did not increase with every level up.

That said, I already removed Faith entirely out of the considered stats. To be frank, I had no idea what it did and even if it did something, I was getting along without it at the moment, so instead of wasting points in Faith, I should focus on stats were improvement was certain.

And after some consideration, I decided on Strength. It was my lowest stat after Faith and one of whose inadequacy I currently felt the most, so it was only reasonable to fix that problem.

After my stats had been dealt with, I was now free to do whatever for the next four or so hours. At first, I just planned to sit and wait, but I soon learned that boredom was indeed a thing. I was not bored for a single second during the last ninety or so years, so it came as quite the surprise to me.

First, I simply fetched the other pincer from the pile of gore, but that barely did anything nor did it take long, so I was soon back to being bored. That was when my eyes landed on the nearby corpses of two Exapoda drones.

It was as clear as day that I would have to fight more of them, so it might not be the baddest idea to learn about them.

As I took a step forward, my foot hovered above a small root growing out of the ground. I kept my foot in the air, looked at the root and placed my foot behind it without stepping on it. She was helping me, so I might as well show some consideration.

Anyways, to learn about their body, I had to appraise the body of the first drone I killed, since the other one’s body was not in a good shape. First, I checked the back and body in general, taking a closer look at its plates and individual segments. It actually had tiny gaps between each segment and in each of them, the flesh was very soft. If they walked, they would be barely visible, but still like this, they were a weak spots to exploit.

After that were the legs, but they were nothing special, except that they were even less mobile than I anticipated. They didn’t even have joints or something similar. The only notable thing about them, was that the ends of the legs were covered in tiny bristles.

Lastly was the head, but thanks to me exploding its head into oblivion, I had to check the other drone’s head, which even though it was still existent, was not really in a good condition. They had a small mouth on the underside. Maybe all of its teeth were shattered, but I made out that instead of teeth, they had six pairs of small versions of their legs. I could only imagine how they ate with that. But in all honesty, I was quite curious to see.

Like that time passed and my mana soon passed the two hundred threshold, then the three hundred and when it was closing in on the four hundred, a part of the wall in the back of the chamber suddenly split in half, and two giant roots—acting like hands opening a door—forced the tear to open even wider.

Had it been five hours already? Veraxia had not said anything, so she was likely still busy. It would be a lie if I said I was not a bit worried, but then I reminded myself about her boasting and my worries slipped away.

As for the hole in the wall, it revealed a passage leading out of the chamber, the walls were covered in a layer of moss that emitted a dim light. The passage was wide enough for at least ten of me to walk beside one another. In height, it almost seemed to go up endlessly as only a veil of darkness lay above my head.

Naturally, I went to take a closer look, but strangely enough, when I did, one of the roots moved. Thanks to my time with a certain creepy tree, I could vaguely interpret the meaning behind it.

“Here I am again, speaking fucking tree.”

I sighed, knowing that there would be no way around this anyhow, so I stood up and slowly trudged towards the dank passage.

Could have just told me to move.

I directed a single message at Veraxia, but there was no response.