Degritone slashes down left with his mana sword as he steps forward, causing the Ambush Grimalkin to jump away, towards the bushes, but as it does, Degritone has already adjusted his grip slightly, slashing up right as he steps forward once again, cutting into its back right leg.

After landing in the bushes, its name tag disappears and Degritone loses sight of it, despite the fact that it should still be visible. "Ah, so you have some camouflage slash invis skill. If you know what's good for you, run away, and stay away," he says to the creature that probably can't understand him as he begins walking in the direction he was headed before, keeping his sword ready.

A few seconds later, Degritone is pounced on from behind, claws digging into his shoulders. He elbows behind him with his left arm, knocking the Grimalkin away before it can chomp his neck, before spinning, regrabbing his sword with his left hand as he does, and slashing horizontally at the Grimalkin's neck height. The sword goes slightly high, and he quickly cancels his sword's inertia and brings its tip down, slashing up right.

The Grimalkin tries to jump into Degritone only to be hit right in the stomach, sending it flying into a tree as the sword catches on its spine. Degritone jumps toward the Grimalkin, stabbing it in the chest just as its body hits the ground, pinning it to the tree. Degritone stomps on its chest, causing a terrible squishing and cracking sound to resound through the immediate area as the Grimalkin's name tag disappears.

"Let's hope I don't have to deal with any of you again. While my health's nearly double what it was before, and my health regen is way more than that..." he trails off, never to finish that thought. He pulls his mana sword out of the tree. "To the little end, preferably without interruption!" He says, his voice getting louder toward the end.

He holds his sword in a position ready to swing from his left shoulder. "Can this hurt me?" he asks, hitting his own shoulder with the sword's edge. He cuts himself and pulls his blade away. "Ow, it can." He walks with the blade slightly further away from his shoulder. "Mana armor would be nice to complete before we get to the boss, if there is one... But, making Mana Sword took 80 about mana. Making much more volume than that would require more than I have.

"Maybe just a helmet or maybe shoulder guards? It'll be made of mana, so I can make it however I want... Meh, maybe if I find another safe spot. Don't want to bother Beltag again." Having made up his mind, he accelerates slightly, walking as fast as he can without it considered running, as to not use stamina.

"I'm not gonna waste stat points increasing mana when I don't plan to use it for much more than what I already am. Maybe down the road. It'd be nice to get my magic up, though, so Mana Sword's bonus on-hit damage increases. I could train mana manip to do that, and I'm not using my mana pool for anything else..." He shrugs, pulling a single point of mana to his chin and out into the world.

Over the next 73 seconds, he morphs the just over half-inch diameter sphere that is the point of mana into various shapes, but mostly just a spiky ball with changing spikes, before a headache slowly fades into existence while his head gets warm until his mana eventually fades away.

"I should check settings," he says under his breath. As he does, a screen with seemingly infinite options appears before him. He immediately dismisses it. "Ok, maybe not. I guess I'll just have to assume it can do something and try." He holds out one hand out, parallel to the ground, about eyebrow height and a foot away from his face. "Put a health bar here with 20% opacity. Keep it relative to my eye movement."

And just as he commands, a red bar that is almost entirely see-through appears where his hand was. "Make it so it has 100% opacity and stops tracking my eye movement while my eyes are closed or I'm focused 40% closer to my face than the closest object." To test this, he crosses his eyes, and indeed, the health bar increases in opacity to solid as he does.

He moves his focus to the bar, and it stays in place. He then focuses back toward the woods ahead of him, and it snaps back in place. "Cool. Now, do the exact same, but for mana and stamina, here," he holds his hand vertically so his finger tips are touching the left end of the health bar, "and here," he does the same, but on the opposite side. A blue, vertical bar appears on his left, and a gray one on his right.

And just to check, he tests if they work like the health bar, and they do. "Great, now, put the values of the pools over the bars in black, Times New Roman, with their height being half the height of the bar, and 100% opacity, and put their maximums in the same font under them." Just as he commands, they appear.

"Perfect. I'll probably change this in the future, but whatever. Oh, right, and when health gets below 50%, make it double in size. When it's below 10%, put a 50% opacity, red arrow in the center of my vision, pointing toward it. Do the same for stamina, but make the arrow gray." He has no way of testing this without making himself vulnerable, but he assumes they work as intended.

With that settled, Degritone replaces his hand on his sword, mentally putting his 2 PP from leveling up Mana Manipulation twice into Greatsword Mastery I. "Oh, right, Curtis. I doubt he will die, his base stats are probably isekai protagonist level, combined with his RPG knowledge and grind dedication, there's no way he won't get out before me." He sends a friend request to Curtis and Beltag, for good measure.

"Oh, can I take notes or something? There wasn't an option for it, but given the customizability of the UI, I can just use that when I need to," he says absentmindedly. A few minutes of walking later, he says, "I wonder what the boss will be. Golem? Doesn't seem like it. What's in woods? Deer, wolves... snakes... spiders..." a decently long pause "squirrels..." He shrugs.

"This is a place from another world, my knowledge probably doesn't apply. But, evolution tends to be at least somewhat convergent, given the same scenarios, so..." he shrugs again, looking at his slowly regenerating mana. "I just hope it can't talk back. Or, at the very, very least, knows it's the dungeon boss. I'd hate to kill something sapient that didn't do anything wrong in my eyes and doesn't know why I need to kill it."

"Maybe I can make friends with it and still count it as a clear? Maybe make it my summon slash familiar or whatever it'd be called somehow. If it's aggressive, though, or non-sapient, death it is. Let's assume some things," he says. "Let's say it's something big. It'll probably be able to deal a third of my current health in a single hit. I only have a single life, and if the previous point is true, I'll want to either burst it before it does me, or to get more PP to put in Novice for some stat points.

"Let's also assume it's some normal-ish life form, and as such, can take damage from my sword. I deal about 13 damage. Given my health, I'd say it'll probably have around 200. That's a little under 20 hits I'd have to make before it makes three on me. A movement or defensive ability would be really nice. Preferably changing my regen from per hour to per minute, but there's no way that exists. At least not in a way I can easily obtain.

"Maybe I could make a skill. Or, discover one in the same way I did with Mana Bolt. Now I kinda hope I see another AG, since I know I can beat those. I can see if there's some sort of dodge, block, or parry skill. There's obviously not a pain or physical damage resistance skill, at least not that I can get from fighting these things. If there is a dodge skill, I'm surprised I've not already gotten it, but maybe it requires dodging in a specific way or something."

He shrugs and looks around, realizing that, while he's been monologuing, he's walked into fog. He stops. "There isn't a boss," he says. "Or, if there is, I have no time to prepare anymore." He sticks his sword in the ground directly in front of him and spins around, looking in every directing, finding every direction covered in fog.

"Ok, so..." he sighs and closes his eyes as he lets his brain go on autopilot for multiple seconds, placing his hands back on his sword. About 30 seconds later, he opens his eyes. "Alright, so, options. I'm out of food. Should have restocked, oh well. Walk in a single direction, intentionally large spiral, or... Map."

He opens his map and finds it to be a jumble of random colors. He nods. "I expected less flash, but result. So, spiral." He walks, dragging his sword in the ground, creating a cut as he goes. He walks in a spiral, slowly extending outward, always keeping his inner foot just outside the spiral cut into the ground. When he comes across a tree or other obstruction, he always travels on its inside of it, unless his spiral touches it.

After doing so for nearly two hours, he spots a blue dot in the distance. "Ghost, spectral enemy? Physical immune, mental damage?" He asks himself in his broken way of talking to himself when perceived to be short on time. He holds his sword tightly as he approaches, not daring to leave his spiral behind. "Need spectral attack. Soul. Soul grasp. CC always good."

He quickly starts imagining a small bead of yellow inside his chest, followed by a yellow hand reaching into his chest and grabbing that bead, keeping it still. He focuses as much as he can on the image as he walks forward, keeping his eyes on the blue glow as it gets closer and closer, making sure never to disrupt his spiral pattern. "CC and run," he says to himself. "Or CC and create soul spike."

He continues forward, his grip on his sword tightening, as to not lose it if the enemy ahead attempted to relieve him of it. He sees another, similar light appear a few feet away from the first and the fog get more intense. His face loses all emotion as he focuses everything he's got on his survival, primarily making soul grasp and keeping to his spiral, ready to run further into the spiral if need be.

As he continues to walk, the fog starts to diminish, and he can see that the blue lights weren't ghosts or anything similar, but blue flames on 10-foot tall pillars. As he gets even closer, he can hear talking, though muffled, as if coming through a very, very thick blanket. He continues to approach and eventually hears that the talking is closer to chanting, or reciting, though it's still muddled.

A few seconds later, the fog is entirely gone and he can see five pillars in total, a third one lighting up, as four people stand around a circular pit, a piece of paper in their hands, as they presumably recite what is written on the paper, though he can't understand the words. A fifth person is very slowly walking toward another of the pillars, a torch of blue light in their hand. Each of them has their name in garbled characters, but they are all visibly level 5.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He carefully approaches the pit from behind the torch bearer, the four in the center paying much more attention to what's in the pit and on the paper than around them. Inside, he sees a little girl laying down, blood seeping from her fingers and slowly creeping around to make some sort of pattern on the ground. Upon seeing this, he immediately grabs the nearest chanter and pulls him close to his face. Her name tag reads Victoria lv2.

"Answer me now or I kill every single one of you. Are you helping that girl or are you sacrificing her," Degritone says, the anger in his voice almost a solid.

The guy looks dazed for a second before he realizes that he's been taken out of what he was doing and looks at Degritone's sword. He pulls his hand up over his shoulder, but Degritone knocks it down before shaking the guy. "I did not say you could scan me. I'll give you five seconds to start answering me."

He's answered by a mana bolt to his side. "That answers my question, thank you," he says, throwing the guy he had toward the source of the bolt, slashing up his front as he does so. He sprints over to the closest guy he didn't throw a person at and slashes up left at him. The guy backs up, but loses his left hand and gets a decent gash in his chest in the process. He brings his other hand to his missing one, and Degritone takes the opportunity to step forward and slash vertically downward, cutting his head in half down to the top of the nose before his sword gets stuck.

He lowers the end of his sword, taking the man's limp body with it, and he stomps the man's head off his sword. "NO ONE HARMS A LOLI AND DOESN'T DIE," he yells, running around the pit toward the last undisturbed person, who manages to get a mana bolt off directed at Degritone's face.

Degritone tilts his head to the left, dodging the bolt, and cuts down right, directly into the man's shoulder. The man screams out in pain, and Degritone is assaulted by two wisps of blue flame that explode to encompass his entire body once they touch him. His health bar grows in size. He ignores it and shoulder bashes the man, sending him to the ground, before cutting off his head. A gray arrow points toward his stamina.

He turns to the other two near the pit, extending his hand toward them and creating a fist before pulling it toward him. They get sent flying toward Degritone, and he cuts their heads off mid-flight before turning to the torch bearer, ignoring the now powerful headache. By this point, the torch bearer has lit another of the pillars and is making his way to the fifth, roughly a third of the way around the area, and seems to be in some sort of trance.

He sprints over to him, reaching him at the same time he does the pillar. He shoulder bashes him to prevent him from lighting the pillar, knocking him over. Before he even comes to a stop, Degritone goes over to him, stabbing through his chest to stop him from moving, before pulling his sword back and cutting the man's head off. He notices that, despite the beheading, the man still has his jumbled up name over his head.

Degritone scans the man, finding that they're human. He shrugs and stabs the head, causing the name to finally disappear. He notices everyone but the man he bisected the head of is still technically alive, as well, so he meticulously kills them one by one after scanning them. He looks at his health bar.

13.18...

70

He runs over to the pit and jumps in while tossing his sword onto the ground beside the pit before picking up the girl in a princess-style hold. He lays her on the edge before climbing out and sitting down beside her with his legs still over the edge of the pit, setting her head in his lap. He looks above her head and notices she's still alive. Just in case, he scans her, and sees she's human. He checks the ends of her fingers, and they aren't bleeding anymore and have no visible damage.

He sighs and closes his eyes. "I'll need to find us food, snuff out those flames so I can walk around without getting lost. I wish I had healing magic to help her heal. I have no idea how mana would do that." He pauses and blinks. "Wait, what was the pulling thing I did with them?" He opens his skills.

Stomp lv3

Running lv6

Improvised Weapon Mastery lv13

Search lv5

Scan lv4

Visualization lv16

??? lv0

Punch lv4

Kick lv1

Jump lv9

Mana Bolt lv6

Dig lv4

Mana Manipulation lv8

Mana Sword lv8

Greatsword Mastery lv31

Strength of the Hoarder lvX

Soul Grasp lv2

He pulls out the new skill's popup with an interested look on his face.

Causes immense pressure on the soul of its target. Can be used to move a creature or keep them in place, given they can't overcome the force generated.

Fighting against Soul Grasp causes immense pain, but does no damage.

Costs 20 mana to cast

Costs 2 mana per second

Strength*(Magic+SLevel)/2 = 63 pounds of force

"Interesting. I actually made a skill. Well, discovered early, I guess, like with Mana Bolt and Sword. Possibly. We'll see. But, I did get some visualization experience for it. An entire level, in fact. So, I probably did create this. Is the experience so low compared to the uncompleted one because it's a weaker skill, because it was already a skill, because it's a less powerful image, or some other factor?"

He shrugs. "I'll just ask Beltag once I'm out of here. Paths. Oh, hey, new path. I created it. But that still doesn't really answer if I created created it, or just got it by using Visualization instead of the intended method."

Imagineer 0/100

Unlocked by creating a skill through the use of the Visualization skill.

Rewards:

???

Completion: ???

"Interesting that it has PP rewards at all, it seems like just a reward path, but," he shrugs and ignores it for now, placing his 5 PP into Greatsword Mastery I. Soon after, he feels a stir in his lap.