Throughout the entire process of bonding magma he was hoping for some further insight into the Nephilim but nothing ever came. He followed the exact same process as before, fire and earth combined and controlled with ice. The worst part was when his flesh would literally melt off of him when he bought the motes of magma into his body, having to spend time rebuilding himself was just gross and painful. He missed when all he had to worry about was being electrocuted to death or frozen solid.

The biggest difference this time around was that when he finished bonding the element he didn’t lose consciousness, although he really wished he had. His body went through a horrible cycle of going from a solid mass to melting down to then become solid again, the process repeating over and over until he finally completely reformed. The entire process was hell, and he was more exhausted this time than any before due to being awake for the entire thing. But when he got the notification he knew it had been worth it.

*Affinity Detected: Magma*

*Magma (Affinity): Nothing can stand against the devouring nature of this molten earth. With the connection to magma the ability to spread its consuming nature is granted and with it control of turning the earth to flame through force of will. +50 Wil, +50 Soul, +20% Wil, +50% Soul*

The description was short and to the point, but also not what he had expected, the idea of turning the literal earth to flame made sense but the devouring and consuming parts were pretty intense. He wanted to try it out straight away but as soon as he tried to stand he felt how weak he was, he needed to rest for a bit and he would then make his way back to his apartment to recover. It took a while before he felt comfortable enough to attempt to stand again, having spent a few hours relaxing and eating, trying to recover his strength. When he found he could walk without looking drunk he left the dungeon and quickly made his way through the colosseum and to his room, hoping he wouldn’t have to deal with anyone. As soon as Shaun made it into his bed he quickly looked over the gains he had over the past week, seeing a huge amount of progress across the board.

Status:

Name: Shaun Clermont

Race Human (E)

Level: 60

Class: [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger - Level 72

Profession: [Advanced] Elemental Creator - Level 49

Health Points:1685/9050

Stamina:2158/6280

Mana:18753/24520

Stats: (Available Points: 0)

Strength: 683

Dexterity: 829

Endurance: 628

Vitality: 905

Intelligence: 593

Perception: 458

Willpower: 446

Soul: 2452

Affinity:

Basic: Earth, Fire, Nature, Air, Water

Advanced: Lightning, Ice, Magma

Titles:

New Initiate, Apex Predator, Planetary Forerunner, Elementalist, Expert Solo Dungeoneer

Heritage:

Azreal's Legacy (Hidden)

Skills:

Class: [Advanced] Blade Mastery (Level 30), [Advanced] Earthen Echo (Level 35), [Advanced] Enhanced Mind (Level 42), [Advanced] Elemental Strike (Level 33), [Advanced] Stone Skin (Level 27), [Advanced] Elemental Shift (Level 6)

Profession: [Advanced] Elemental Fusion (Level 21), [Advanced] Creators Control (Level 22), [Advanced] Element Coercion (Level 21), [Advanced] Meditation (Level 29), [Advanced] Mana Sight (Level 48), [Advanced] Runic Scribe (Level 18)

He was now nearly halfway through the E grade, an accomplishment considering it had been less than 3 months since getting integrated with the system, but that wasn’t the most impressive part of his sheet. The affinities listed and the amount of pure stats he had was ridiculous, and he was confident that he was a true standout for someone his level. His skill levels were lacking in comparison to his actual level, but he knew this was because he wasn’t getting much of an opportunity to really push his skills, which he hoped would change soon, especially once he got to Earth again and wouldn’t have to pay attention to anyone looking over his shoulder and reporting everything he did to the clans and reps.

When Shaun woke up the next day he knew that all he wanted to focus on was crafting, purely so he could get to level 50 and get a new skill, he also knew exactly how he planned to do it. He had 8 Constricting Silver Heart from the boss that was able to constrict space, allowing it to move instantly from one place to another, his plan was to concentrate the power in the hearts into a ring, one that he had made that contained a good quality obsidian gemstone in it. He had read a lot on rituals that allowed for the movement of power from one item to another, that combined with his profession skills and adding in his own design through manipulating runic cycles, he was confident that he would be able to perform a ritual that allowed for all of the power in the hearts to be moved into the gemstone. The one issue he had was that he needed much more space than his apartment offered.

His first thought was to do it in a dungeon, the downside of that was that if he got part way through preparations and then found he needed something he would need to leave and then start thing process all over again, losing all progress he would have made with the ritual. Instead he walked around until he found a reasonably large area where there was some chairs and a training area, plenty of room to do what he needed. There was a few people around but he didn’t mind, he wasn’t doing anything that weird, and really all they would see is him doing a ritual which may or may not work.

The first thing Shaun did was sketch out the circle, he started from the middle and worked his way out. There was a lot of interconnecting lines, mixed in with runes he had used before but majority of which he had not. He made sure to refer back to his own drawings before moving on to the more complicated aspects on the circle, he would need to place enough hearts around the outer edges in their own small circles which would then have runes leading into the centre along with some specific lines where the power of the hearts would travel into the ring. It took about an hour before he was happy with the outline, after which he moved to engraving them into the ground using a sharpened piece of metal, the whole process taking an additional 30 minutes. During this time he had gathered an audience, some tried to cover up their purpose of being there with training and others just chatting on the benches, he could have been wrong but having over 50 people in the area seemed a bit much.

When it got time to place the ring in the centre and the hearts in the outer circles he encountered his next issue, as soon as he tried to power up the circle he realised that there was not enough energy in the hearts, even with 8 of them, to make a powerful enough ring. If he was right, the gem could take ten times more hearts than what he collected, and if he wanted to do this right and create the best item he could, he would need more hearts. He also didn’t have the time or patience to collect them himself, which meant he was going to have to find a way to have others do it for him. Thankfully he had just the people to do it.

“I need some assistance, anyone willing to work for me?” Shaun called out to everyone that was in the area. When he spoke some people looked like they wanted to run, others though seemed much more curious. “Come on, I don’t bite. I will even pay you for the help.” Money was always a good motivator, and he had plenty of it, spending a little on this wasn’t going to have much of an impact.

Eventually he had 5 people come forward and volunteer to help him, better than no one, I guess. “You all know that the boss on the 15th wave of the low E grade dungeon gives a heart as its loot?” They all nodded as he spoke, showing they were paying attention to him. “I need as many as you can get, at least 50 but closer to 100. If people sold the heart in the store they would get 2 maybe 2.5 silver coins for it. I am willing to pay anyone who bring me one 5 silver coins. I need you all to spread the word and get me those hearts. For each one that you get me I will pay you a silver coin. All you have to do is get the person to tell me your name and I will make a tally. If you do well you could be earning yourself a lot of money. Now go.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

All five of them went running, and a number of groups in the area who had heard him also seemed to run off, either to run the dungeon and collect a heart or to grab people to do it with them. At this point a lot of groups could successfully get too the 15th wave of the dungeon so as long as they put in the work they would get the money from him.

It didn’t take long, maybe 15 minutes for the first person to come to him with a heart, he happily paid them and took down the name of who told them to go to him instead of the shop. Apparently a guy named Aaron was standing in front of the store telling anyone who approached where to go, it was a smart move as the store where everyone sold their loot was generally the first stop after completing a dungeon.

People slowly trickled over to him from all over the colosseum, but once about 40 minutes had passed the amount of people really hit a peak, to the point that a line had formed for him to purchase the hearts. Word had spread like wildfire, everyone knew what Shaun was after and they were more than happy to assist him, some even trying to make small talk when they came to him, trying to get on his good side for one reason or another. Some of the groups would immediately head right back to the dungeon as soon as they sold the heart while others would run the dungeon over and over again and then come to him when they were too tired to continue fighting and sell the hearts in bulk.

Nearly 4 hours later he had the hearts he needed and he politely asked a few people to spread the word that he would no longer be purchasing hearts for new dungeon runs, he even went so far as to have someone go to the dungeon and inform anyone over the next 10 minutes who approached that he was finished. He did continue buying hearts for the next 30 minutes, just to make sure that anyone who was already in the dungeon and missed his message wouldn’t be disadvantaged, he had the money to spare and more hearts were always better.

He had gathered quite the crowd, everyone was interested in what he was planning to do, and he couldn’t blame them. This was his first ritual and he was both excited and a little nervous as to how it would go, it would be embarrassing if he failed in front of so many people, but if he succeeded it would be a big deal not just for him but everyone who witnessed it.

He spent some time placing all of the hearts in their place, needing to change up a few things within the circle to account for the increased amount he now had. But when he was done there was an even hundred hearts used, spread into 10 smaller circles and then divided by 10 again. Now that everything was in place and all he needed to do was activate and start taking control of the ritual he decided to give everyone an idea of what he was attempting, not for himself, but for them.

“I think everyone is pretty curious as to what I am doing, why I needed so many hearts and what the hell this giant circle is. I’m not crazy I promise, there is a plan.” He got a few chuckles from the people present, he was impressed with how many people stuck around. He would guess that at least half of the people in the tutorial were here, crowded into the space as far away as they could get from the circle. “I am going to talk you all through what this is. This is a ritual circle.” He gestured to the engravings on the ground. “And how this should work, if I do it right anyway, is that the power in the hearts, that ability that let the Alpha boss move from one place to another in the blink of an eye, should be drained form the hearts and move into the ring in the centre where the power will be concentrated down and be even more effective than what the Alpha could do. But only if it works.” He had a reason behind addressing everyone, it wasn’t to show he was a nice guy or to show off what he was doing. The point was to show that he no longer had people he could rely on to help him, instead he needed to resort to going to random people for help and that he had no one to talk to but crowds of people he had never actually interacted with in his life. Usually, if someone was going to do something new and exciting, like the ritual he was doing, you would invite people you trusted to help and watch, but what he was showing was that he didn’t have those things. It was all just another to add to public perception, ensuring that he took Des’ advice and continued to show that he didn’t have any meaningful connections to anyone.

Shaun had nothing left to say and all that he had to do was get started. He knew what the next step was, he needed to infuse the entire ritual with his mana, and when powered up start the process of focusing his mana into each of the smaller circles, draining the hearts and then feeding that into the ring. The moment he started the ritual started to glow very softly and he continued pouring in a steady stream of mana, if he did it too quickly he would overload the lines and they would break, too slowly and it wouldn’t power up at all. It was a delicate balance but he adjusted quickly, getting a sense from the ritual itself as to if it needed more or less mana. It was a unique experience as he felt connected to the ritual in a way that he never had before when crafting, as if he was not only seeing the runes with his eyes but also through his mind.

It took just over 20 minutes before he felt the circle full activate, in his mind he felt the full circuit of mana flowing through the lines and with his eyes the circle was glowing brightly, an impressive sight for any who were witnessing the ritual. What he needed to do now was focus the mana in the ritual into the first of the smaller circles containing the hearts to draw the power contained within into the ritual and through to the ring. Shaun started focusing on the first group of hearts, pushing the mana in the circle into each of the runes on which the hearts sat, continuing to power them further until he saw the first heart crumble to dust. He felt that the power contained in the heart didn’t disappear but was held within the rune, the other 9 hearts in the circle followed quickly after the first and the mana in the circle was now fully powered by the magic that was inside of the hearts. The glow within had changed from a whiteish colour to a darker grey, and with no small amount of concentration on Shaun’s behalf he started pushing that power from the circle through the ritual and into the ring. Everyone could see the dark grey mana moving through into the ring, and when it finally entered the centre of the circle the gem eagerly absorbed it. He had utilised his Elemental Coercion ability during the end of the process to ensure that all of that power stayed contained within the gem, fully binding them together.

Now that he had done one of the smaller circles he knew what to expect from the remaining 9 and didn’t waste any time in getting started. He was confident that what he was doing was working, but when he finished the 8th circle of hearts he felt the gem starting to push back on the amount of power he was forcing into it. When he started on the 9th circle he needed to spend a lot more time in condensing the power into the gem, not wanting to crack it due to brute forcing the power into it. The 10th circle was where everything started changing, now that he was on the last step of the ritual the mana that was throughout the circle started to all pull into he centre, leaving only the circuit around the ring glowing. This final step was delicate, he felt that all of the mana and the last of the power from the hearts needed to fully combine and settle into the ring, the only issue was that he was unsure whether the ring had the capacity to hold the remaining power.

He took his time slowly pulling everything into the ring, the ring shaking on the ground as he went, literally buzzing with power. He used his ability as much as he could to complete the final binding of power, and he knew if he didn’t use the ability than the entire ritual would have failed, the ring unable to bear everything he had put into the circle. When he was done the ring stopped shaking, but the power radiating from it was unmistakable, not just to him but everyone watching.

*Successful New Creation – Bonus Experience provided*

*[Epic] Space Constricting Ring – A ring created from an Elemental Creator, enhanced through the binding of the space element. The wearer can utilise the ring to instantaneously move through space, the cost of mana being dependant on the distance travelled.*

*Profession: Elemental Creator has levelled up by 1 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Creator has reached Level 50. +5 Int, +2 Wil, +3 Per, +5 Soul *

*Race: Human has levelled up by +1 levels. Human (E) has reached Level 61. +16 Ap gained*

Shaun couldn’t help the joy from bubbling out from him, he had done it, his first ritual and he had not just done it successfully but he had created exactly what he had set out to do. He walked over to the ring and picked it up off of the ground. “Who wants to see how it works?” He yelled into the room, getting cheers from so many people that he felt like he was on stage about to perform for a crowd. Shaun put the ring on and focused on the feeling he got from it, he knew if he concentrated on a spot he could see and willed mana into the ring that it would move him to that point instantly. He tested it out, focusing on standing in front of one of the people watching him, scaring the crap out of him and then moving back to the spot he was just standing, doing so in seconds. He was in love with his new ring, and when he checked how much mana it had cost him it barely made a dent in his overall mana total. He also got the message that he had wanted, the reason behind the entire ritual.

*New Profession Skill Available: Please choose from one of the following options:*

*[Advanced] Elemental Storage – The skill allows you to drain elemental magic from both items and natural treasures and can be stored in an internal storage space to be used at a later time.*

The skill was useful, especially because it seemed that it didn’t have any limitations in terms of what the elemental magic could be used for after he stored it. It meant that he could use it in crafting or he could use it for potentially collecting enough of the same elemental magic to actually bond it into an affinity, although it would be a very slow and potentially weaker variant of the element, regardless it could be useful.

*[Advanced] Creators Bond – The skill allows you to place a bond on any item you create. This bond will tie any item to the person who bonds with it so that it can be recalled to the bonder no matter where the item may be.*

If only I had this skill when I was throwing daggers around. The skill would be useful for any weapon really and he bet that it was a sort after skill for crafters and would increase the price of whatever was sold. But it wouldn’t have a huge benefit to him personally, not at the moment.

*[Advanced] Creators Domain – The skill allows you to enter an internal domain where you can utilise your imagination, conjuring any items or material you have previously acquired to test different crafting methods and see what items can be crafted with materials, gaining an understanding of final creations before utilising materials in the real world.*

This skill was different, and when he thought back he was probably offered the basic version a while ago when he was offered the skill to plan out what he was crafting. This was more than useful and would take away the guess work of what his end creations were. If he was going to go down the route of being a full time crafter he would have jumped on this skill but that wasn’t the life he was choosing to live. All three of the skills were good, each had their own benefits, but he knew which one he would get the most use out of so didn’t hesitate to pick the skill.

*Skill Gained*: [Advanced] Elemental Storage (Level 1)