A few minutes later, after recovering my self control, I walked toward the dead and burning mercenaries. Sniffing, I realized they smelled really delicious. I was seriously tempted to try a bite. Still, I decided against that. While I was hungry, I wasn’t ready to feast on a once sentient creature. Remembering that a notification had appeared just before I looked at the experience points, I decided to take a look at it.

ACHIEVEMENT - TITLE UNLOCKED: DEATH INCARNATE. You are less than a day old and have already slain over a hundred sentient creatures. You have gained additional Evil Favor.

I had to sigh after reading the notification. Although I didn’t want to be considered evil, I was starting to wonder. The main reason why was because I really didn’t feel much guilt after doing what I had done. I hoped it was only because the mercenaries were invading my city to kill my new family. However, I did wonder if the titles might have other effects, such as influencing my mind.

Realizing there was nothing I could do about it, I pushed aside my guilt about not feeling guilty and concentrated on more concrete things. Namely, the loot. Curious about what I might find, I cast the Detect Magic spell. This time, I didn’t cast it as a ritual since I was in a hurry. Whenever I saw something that glowed with magic, I set it aside until I had a small pile of magic items.

Each new item I found brought a new surge of joy into my heart. Once I had collected everything, I sat on the pile of magic items before rolling around on top of them. Just like a dragon, I had my own hoard. Finally, I sighed and decided to stop wasting time and looked for an item to identify.

The first items I decided to look at were from those who survived the blast and the one or two who were wearing more expensive armor. At first, I was going to ignore some magic boots since I knew they wouldn’t fit, but then a memory bubbled up which made me realize many magic items would resize themselves to fit the owner. Deciding to test it out, I pulled on the boots without even bothering to cast Identify on them.

“Interesting,” I said as they shrank down to size. In fact, they actually changed their shape to match my kobold feet. “Okay, I might as well Identify them.” While I hadn’t planned on doing so if I couldn’t wear them, I felt compelled to see what they were after discovering I could wear them. After all, there were a lot of items and only a limited number of magic points or time to cast the Identify ritual.

“Ohh, nice,” I muttered, caressing the lizard-scaled boots once I discovered they were Boots of the Firelands. Apparently, I would have resistance to fire damage and could survive in sweltering hot temperatures while wearing them. Just the damage mitigation would be worth an attunement slot. Of course, I was only wearing them now, and wasn’t going to get any benefit until I spent an hour attuning the boots.

“Let’s see what’s next. Will it be the necklace or will it be the cloak? Ohh, difficult choice. Let’s go with the necklace.” Since I was sure that I could wear it, I immediately cast the Identify spell on the necklace. I almost started drooling once I realized what I had gained. It was a Necklace of Adaptation. The necklace would allow me to breathe in any environment and double my chances of resisting harmful gases.

Unfortunately, it also required that I attune the item. “Gnome bones,” I muttered as I realized something. “I can only attune three items. Most good magic items require attunement. I might have to give up on wearing a few of my new goodies.” Sighing, I decided to keep inspecting the other items before impulsively deciding attuning to any magic items.

The cloak turned out to be equally as good as the other items. In fact, it might even have been better. It was a Cloak of Protection. Not only would it increase my armor class, but it would also improve my ability to save against spells and other dangers. Of course, it also required attunement.

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Sighing, I moved on to the next magic item, a magic gem of some type with a rune on it. Wondering what it was, I cast the Identify spell. However, this time I was quite disappointed. It was a gem that could hold one first level spell. In addition, the spell could not be changed. Not only that, it was an almost completely useless spell, Illusionary Script. On top of that, the spell was a ritual. It definitely wasn’t worth keeping.

I didn’t even bother any longer with it, but said, “Extract the magic from this item.” The extra magic points would be much more useful to me than the item itself. Although I was worried the pain would be bad, it wasn’t as painful as I remembered. Perhaps I was getting used to it, or perhaps my body was adjusting to what I was doing.

After the pain subsided, I wondered how high I could raise my magic points. If I extracted magic from thousands of magic items, I would be an unstoppable magic user. The only limit I would face would be that I wouldn’t be able to use that magic points on higher-level spells.

The reason was because casting those spells was stressful to the mind and body, which created a limit on the number of times each spell above fifth level could be cast. Notwithstanding this limit, I would be able to outcast anyone with lower-level spells.

Smiling at the dream, I eagerly picked up another magic item, a dagger. While I was tempted to use Identify on the magic item, I was already fairly certain that the dagger would just be a plain old +1 magic dagger with no spells. I had never heard of a powerful magical dagger. Now a sword I wouldn’t hesitate to check. Still, right before extracting the magic, I sighed and reluctantly wasted the magic points to cast the Identify spell.

Of course I was right. It was a plain +1 dagger. There was nothing special about it. Even though it had cost me a couple of magic points to cast the spell, I probably would have been more annoyed if I had wasted ten minutes casting a ritual to learn that information.

“Extract the magic from this dagger,” I said, bracing myself for the pain. While it could have been my imagination, extracting the magic actually hurt less than I expected. Was I really getting used to the pain or had the pain lessened? Did it hurt less because it was a low-level magic item?

“Well, it doesn’t really matter. Let’s do this,” I said as I picked up the next item. After casting Identify yet again, I discovered it was yet another useless item. After extracting the magic, I went to the next item and continued doing this with each item until the very last item, another ring.

Since I had an abundance of magic items, I also decided to offer a few of the items as sacrificial offerings to the system. My hope was to get more information out of the system. As it was, I felt like I wasn’t being given enough information to make the best decisions. By the time I reached the last item, I was eager to see my information screen.

“Finally, another useful item,” I said, excited to get something good after so many disappointing items. A Ring of Mind Shielding was actually useful. While wearing it, I would be immune to magic that allowed other creatures to read my thoughts, determine whether I was lying, know my alignment, or know my creature type. If I died, my soul could even seek shelter within the ring.

“Oh, fudge,” I muttered, realizing that there might now be a soul within the ring. In fact, when a soul was inside the ring, it could communicate with the person wearing the ring. Considering I had killed the previous owner, his soul might be lingering within the ring. Having an angry spirit screaming obscenities inside my head every minute I dared to wear the ring made it a lot less attractive to me.

“Wait, maybe I can gain the benefits of the ring by using it as an evolutionary material,” I murmured, not willing to let go of the thought of so many attractive benefits from a magic item. The thought of having someone read my mind really bothered me.

“I want to use this item as an evolutionary material,” I said as I swallowed the ring. At worst, I could poop it out the next day if I was wrong. However, as expected, I was correct. Of course, that wasn’t a surprise as I smirked and ran a hand along my head.

EVOLUTIONARY MATERIALS INGESTED: RING OF MIND SHIELDING. Do you wish to assimilate the ring in order to evolve the twilight dragon bloodline, create an additional dragon bloodline, or mutate the twilight bloodline?