As soon as Tyler raised his hands to cast Mind Sear, the boss, body sloshing about, seemed to turn its attention to him and Tyler swore. Just his rotten luck. Perhaps it had sensed him calling upon his card's energy or his relatively low level, but either way, it started lumbering towards him, making soft wave-like sounds as it did so. It raised one of its large, liquidy arms and shot out orbs of water that soon morphed into spears, all of which began to shoot towards him. With no time to think, he acted on instinct and soon found himself dodging spear after spear of water as the rest of the party struck the creature.
Dodge is Level 15
Dodge is Level 16
The fight seemed to drag on and on. While Tyler's allies were doing a slight bit of damage, chipping away at its health as far as he could tell, it was obvious that the five of them were on the losing end of the fight. Tyler had to do something different, and fast.
His mind raced back to what he could do. He had no working spell cards or abilities. Could he perhaps force a stream of mana without a card? Fizzlespark had mentioned such a thing was possible when he offhandedly mentioned Bronze Tier. While Tyler was sure he was nowhere near that level, he thought he could try his best. It was certainly better than dodging.
Part of his mind drifted back to what the gnome had said. His mana was unaspected. Did that mean he could force an aspect to it? If he could, he might have a way to at least slow down the boss. Dodging another damned spear of liquid, Tyler ducked behind a boulder and waited for Agha to draw the creature’s focus once more before he summoned his courage and hopped atop the boulder with surprising ease.
Instead of using a card as a medium, Tyler drew on his energy in its purest form, wisps of gaseous blue mana leaking from his body, then he envisioned the pattern on Mind Sear in his head. Not using the card itself, but the feel of it. A part of him worried his gambit would do nothing but when a small ball of condensed mana began to form between his cupped hands he grinned. Maybe envisioning it in this manner could be childish, but he would never claim to be mature. He moved both his hands to the right and on his side and focused.
The cold breeze of an early spring summer. The bitter chill of winter’s embrace. Tyler had to change his unaspected mana to one of ice, or cold, or something to that effect. If it was temporary or permanent, he didn’t care. It was all he could think of at the moment. He continued focusing. Chill, cold, slow, freeze, ice. He repeated the mantra in his head as he thought of more things. The feel of slush as it leaked into your boots, the way frost crept along windows. It felt like minutes passed but it was only a few seconds as the leaking mana began to take on a light blue hue, ice spreading onto the boulder beneath him.
As if sensing something was wrong, the boss turned around and started to move forward. But by then, it was too late.Tyler pushed with all his attributes, his Will, his Intelligence and his Wisdom. This was his mana, his power. And it would obey him. He thrust his hands forward as he let loose the beam, thin and weak, but enough power was packed into it that the icy ability struck the boss and it started to slow. Slowly at first, but eventually the thing froze solid. It wasn’t dead mind you, but now his team could properly damage the creature. Even if it would only last a handful of seconds, he had bought his team time, and that was all he could do. The last thing he saw before he passed out, was Agha summoning an axe made of fire twice her height and slamming it down with a cry of, “[Wild Strike]!”
Tyler floated in a void of endless gray smoke. Had he died? No that wasn’t right, he felt alive but drained. He had done something to shift his mana to an aspect, but it seemed to have gone back to its normal unaspected form if his guess was right. It was like a puzzle piece had slid into place at the very end as something in him fundamentally changed. Having nothing better to do, he walked in the smoke until he stumbled upon a small circle of a darker gray color. Then he noticed the patterns. Strange fractals of odd shapes surrounding him, looking like futhark symbols bent in on themselves and repeating indefinitely over and over. One felt like it wanted to punch, another felt like it wanted to roll away with the wind, and one felt like…a staff? Wait, these were his skills. Was this his Soulscape? He was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be here just yet, maybe that's why it looked like ass? Before he could think on that any further, however, he was somewhere else. Something else.
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He was a drop of water, rolling gently down an icicle on a tree. He had no thoughts, no will, no mind. He fell to the ground and became a puddle in the winter morning. He stayed like that until a passing cultivator dropped a glowing rock into him by accident. He, the puddle, wrapped around the magical object and clung to it, even as it tumbled down a hill and into a ditch.He stayed there all winter, keeping cool and absorbing the energy of the magic rock. With its help he had lasted beyond winter, and had managed to convince animals to come near it, where he consumed them as well. This gave him power, and he gained more and more power until one day, he became sentient, sapient. He had become an Ice Slime.
Years passed, and the newborn slime killed and ate, as all monsters did. He killed and he killed and he killed. Men, women, children, animals. It didn’t matter. They were all just food to him. Eventually he grew strong enough to mimic a human body. He killed some more. He froze people to death, making them statues before he ate them whole. He drained the air from their tongues, infected them with bitter chills, made them sick and ill. All for the sake of power. He was eventually dubbed Kamon the Cold.
Decades, centuries passed as he climbed the ranks, leaving everyone behind either frozen like gem-like statues, or utterly shattered into dust by a mere glance. He had long since surpassed the limits of this world, and nothing remained but him. It was time to leave this place and feed. As he was meditating and attempting to break through, a disturbance caused him to open an eye. The last thing he saw was the sword of an executioner as it destroyed him and the planet he was working on. Leaving nothing but chunks of a destroyed icy wasteland that had once housed billions of people.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
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When Tyler came too, with most of the memory of that vision fading, he was surprisingly warm. That was when he realized that Agha was giving him mouth to mouth. Had his heart stopped or something? Seeing him stir, she quickly backed away and coughed , a dark gray blush on her ashen face. Tyler couldn’t resist teasing her.
“You know if you wanted to kiss me, you could have just asked.”
Her face grew darker before she huffed and turned away. “Don’t let it go ter yer head, I was just makin’ sure ye were alive.”
“I know, I know. But still, the offer is still on the table.”
She looked back at him with a furrowed brow before smiling. “I’ll hold ye tae that after we clean up here.”
That made Tyler pause as he took in the battle, or rather, what was left of it. The boss was dead, nothing left but the giant gold manacles and the skeleton of the shaman who had summoned the elemental in the first place. And also some goop. Gross. Wait, if the boss was defeated then where was the experi-
His thoughts were cut off as a flood of system prompts suddenly made themselves known.
Ah, perhaps this is why those golden bastards fear Transmigrators. You guys can REALLY think outside the box. Anyway, enjoy your rewards!
You and your party have defeated:
Lesser Elemental Lord of Water x 1
Bonus experience is awarded for killing an enemy above your level.
Because this is your first boss kill ever, you gain triple experience.
Congratulations, you are now Level 29. Break through your bottleneck to reach Level 30. You have five free stat points.
Excess experience is lost to the ether. Tough luck.
You have lost the temporary buff: [XP Aura].
Gained experience for all skills and leveling is now normalized.
No more cheating. I’m warning you.
As a result of your actions, a new skill has been discovered.
[Mana Manipulation]
Rare
Level 1
While most people are content to use Cards to bend reality, that is what I created them for after all, you decided to go above and beyond and managed to manipulate mana itself without a card, only using a pattern and sheer grit.|
Kudos.
Ease of mana manipulation in all aspects increases per level of this skill, and your mental stats.
Mana Manipulation is Level 2
…
Mana Manipulation is Level 7
You have formed your first Dao Shard!
[Dao Shard of Chill (Apprentice)]
Allows you imbue the aspects of ‘Chill’ to things you can touch.
You gain:
+25 Intelligence
+15 Dexterity
+5% Resistance to all source of Cold Damage
Combine this Shard with another, and increase your understanding of both to create a Dao Shard (Journeyman), increasing the bonuses of both Shards and perhaps gaining new ones as well.
Title Updated:
Seeker of Secrets I TO Seeker of Secrets II
Bonuses changed:
+5 Endurance TO +10 Endurance
+5 Luck TO + 10 Luck
Exploration Level 7
Tyler groaned and rubbed his head as the notifications and energy hit him like a truck and he lay down like a dead fish for a good ten minutes before Oren finally pitied him, using one of his spell card to mend Tyler's mental pressure.
“First bottleneck is always thae worst, lad. Plus that rush of experience? Surprised ye managed tae stay conscious after thae System hit yet hard!” Oren replied, giving the Voidborn a once over to see if there was anything ACTUALLY wrong with him.
Tyler groggily pulled himself to his feet as he responded. “Yeah, guess I’m just a stubborn bastard. So, what do we do now?”
Desha leaned down into goop and plucked out a palm-sized orb that seemed to glow. The dagger user wiped off the slime on one of her legs as she inspected the item before she grinned from behind her mask. “Common Tier Monster Core, this should net us a hefty sum. As for the manacles over there? You can take them, maybe use them as a treasure to break through? Let’s just say you’ll owe me one.”
She winked and Agha just rolled her eyes at her friend’s flirtatious behavior. “Her flirtin’ aside, she’s right. Most of us around here follow a path of fire and stone. That pair of items is water aligned, probably better fer ye tae try and use it.”
Shrugging, while squinting at Desha, Tyler walked forward to pick up the manacles each about as big as his thigh was thick. They were easily picked up though and he supposed he had to thank the System for that. With a 30 in his Strength attribute, he reckoned he was at least two times stronger than peak human, if not more.They were cumbersome to carry though. The party of five rested for a bit, letting Tyler shove his five points into Intelligence , bumping it to a whopping 89 and his Mana Points to 1391. Not too shabby if he said so himself. Fifteen minutes later, they packed up their things, ate the rest of their dried biscuits and trekked back up to the village to turn in the quest.
After that, it would be time to break through. Tyler wondered if he could find a way to boost his Intelligence to 100 before that though.He had a strong gut feeling that that would be important, or at the very least offer a special reward. Maybe it was just his hopefulness getting to him. Either way, it couldn’t hurt to try.