29.

Santi didn’t go to sleep, it was only the middle of the afternoon after all. He went and gave himself a wet wipe bath, trying to remove the worst of the offending odors and foreign fluids that had decorated him. He was going to burn through his clothes supply too quickly if he changed after every little scrap. The last few days of enjoying hot showers and being clean were seeming more like a distant memory with every passing minute.

Finally finding a minute to himself, he sat down in one of the dim rooms away from everyone and brought up his status sheet. Scrolling through the kill notifications of Cursed Subject lvl. 0. It was a good thing none of them had levels, the amount of extra vitality and strength the curse would have been able to drain from them would have made it that much more difficult.

Twice-Cursed Anchor lvl. 3 was a nice kill notification. The horrifying amalgam of human parts had been nightmarish. They also wouldn’t have been able to host the stone without having a strong enough connection to the curses the stone had contained. Based on what Corona had told him, Santi was willing to bet they had been the former management team.

His level five level up brought with it the normal boosts to his stats, both of his spare points being put toward his mana stat. The minor reward to potential gave him another 10% to his potential, along with the kills in the store, so he was sitting at 43% of the potential needed to ascend to Acolyte. He was starting to lag behind on experience at this point, nearing halfway to the potential cap. It would be a waste to keep gathering potential without a way to store it as he gathered levels.

The red goblins could be a cure for that. Creatures that had forsaken their potential instead for temporary and immediate power boosts. If he managed to kill enough of them while clearing the nest, he could get himself closer to a balanced growth rate.

Now that his kill notifications were done, he went to his new skill he could select. Every five levels offered a new skill or spell option and he had a decent idea of what spell he wanted to take. There wasn’t much in the way of powerful offensive spells as an Initiate, most of them minor things that could keep one alive for a little while longer. It wasn’t until one made Disciple that the real powerful offensive spells opened up. That didn’t make the spells available useless, he would just have to be a bit more creative in their uses.

Gust (Basic)

Identify (Basic)

Air Bubble (Basic)

Curse Detection (Common)

Air Manipulation (Common)

Winds of Time (Rare)

The only addition was the Curse Detection skill, which gave Santi pause. He had been a Survivor as an Initiate the first time he had to go through all this and hadn't exactly presented a lot of choices on his skill trees. He had obviously talked to others about what they had done, but most had been quiet about the skills they took, especially the upper ranks.

That experience could change your class options and was fairly well known. It was one of the many reasons Santi had made sure his friends had been armed and ready to fight, rather than just fortifying the dorm rooms. Knowing his skill and spell selection was changed by what he experienced was a good thing to know. He had no desire to pick curse detection, not wanting to head into a powerful but niche role like Exorcist. He was a mage through and through afterall.

Air Bubble would offer him a weak skill, but it could be upgraded or merged later. He had done so with that very spell to make his Air Capsule spell. He had used the Common ranked spell to do that though, not the basic. No, his choice was easy and he picked Gust.

A flood of power rolled through him, for a moment elevating him beyond his normal and weak senses as the spell was burned into his body. It was stronger than when he took Air Current, but he couldn’t complain as he suddenly just Knew how to use the spell. It was always like this, the spell just becoming part of him with ease. It was instinctive on how to use it in the most basic of manners. To truly make it his would take a lot more time and experimentation though. It helped that he had some of the previous knowledge of the weaker spell already, but he would need to test the limits on the weaker form.

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Setting out immediately he was looking for a spot to practice the spell without getting in the way of anyone. The entirety of two whole square blocks were completely consumed by activity, hundreds of people working together to form some sort of crude barriers. Cars were being smashed together, boards and pallets and anything else on hand was used to fortify the walls.

The heat of the early spring sun was in full effect, sweat trickled down Santi’s neck nearly immediately. He had to fight the urge to sneeze, pollen floating through the air thick as dust. Working his way off to the side of the building he found a small side street that was fairly deserted. There were a few people working on the street, but Santi didn’t think they’d mind him practicing as they were down the street from.

The street had been cleaned of any cars, leaving only some shattered glass on the ground. Standing in the center of the road, Santi let loose. He could feel the tug on his mana, a distinct pull in the pit of his stomach. Air Current was a continuously active spell that he only activated when he woke up. It just used up some of his rather weak mana regeneration rate to keep active.

Gust took a solid chunk on his mana pool, ripping free from his core. Air didn’t have any flashy movements to visually signify what was happening, only the spinning pollen in the air gave him indication of what was happening. A burst of wind came howling from his hand, yellow pollen pushed down the street as the spell activated. It ended nearly as quickly, the street returning to silence.

Santi watched in silent apprehension as the sizable cloud of dust and pollen he had just shoved out of the air overwhelmed the workers down the street. The four men descended into a fit of coughing and sneezing violently. Santi slunk away while the workers were busy sneezing.

A bit of shame clung to him over his improvised bio warfare, but he let that disappear as he rounded the corner. Causing a coughing fit wasn’t the worst thing he had ever done. It wasn’t the best either as the sounds of their coughing followed him. Santi didn’t even notice the mischievous grin he had on his face.

“What has you grinning like the cat that got the canary?” Chloe asked. She was sitting in the shade of the brick wall, her small clique of friends around her. Rayleigh was sitting off to the side, Amanda propped on her shoulder, with the last of the still unknown girls in the middle of them all.

“Oh, no reason at all. New skill.” Santi said, hedging his answer.

“I got one too. Talking with the girls about what to take,” Chloe answered, all the girls around her nodding along. Amanda still looked haunted, her eyes red-rimmed as she stared outward. Rayleigh looked more interested, likely because she was closing on her own rank 5 upgrade.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name,” Santi said, leaning toward the last woman he didn’t know.

“Violet,” the girl said, offering a slim hand that Santi shook. She was petite, her fingers completely swallowed by Santi’s own hand.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Santi said.

“We’ve met before.”

“I was kinda out of it that night, sorry.”

“No, we met at freshman orientation. We also had a class together.”

“Oh. Shit. My bad.”

The entire group fell silent as they stared at Santi. There were a few accusatory glares thrown at him as he was judged.

“I have a bad memory?” Santi offered.

“Poor excuse. I’ll take it though, because of extenuating circumstances.”

“Thank you, I’ll try to make it up to you.” Santi offered.

Violet smiled wryly and nodded. Santi turned from her and back to Chloe, eager to get away from his faux pas. He couldn’t remember her, but his memory was foggy from eight years ago. To them it had been less than six months since their freshman orientation.

“What are you going to take?” Santi asked.

“That’s what we were talking about. Defense or offense?”

“Are you going to keep raiding with us, or form your own team?” Santi sat down next to them.

“Can I form my own team?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t you be able to?”

“I don’t know. This shit is wild. There’s no rule book or anything,” Chloe muttered. Her friends nodded while looking at him like he had a second head.

“If you want to keep working with the main team, then defense. If you want to have a second team, then also defense.”

“Why’d you even ask me if I was staying with the team if your answer didn’t change?”

“I was just curious about what you were going to do,” Santi said. He was looking up at the clear sky, free of any clouds and just basking in the sun.

“You’re an ass,” Chloe said, with a hint of a smile in her voice.

“I’ve been told that.”