Chapter 9: Double kill.

The first step in dealing with the second grunt was to use as many of the stocked rocks as possible, and do as much damage with each rock as could. Which was easier said than done. He had only been practicing his throws for a month or so, and he still wasn’t all that good at it outside of his stats and Skills.

One problem with his method of damage was the diminishing returns it encountered. There was only so fast a rock could fly before dissolving midair, and most enemies at this point were so tough that the rocks were more like cotton balls to them.

Well, large cotton balls moving at the speed of sound could still kill you. He hadn’t encountered the worst parts of that limitation yet, and he suspected that his Skill helped with that as well. His damage was good enough to kill things twice his level after all. Not complaining, just worrying about the future.

He ran out of rocks long before he could kill the monster. So now he had to figure out another way to damage it. Well, he had to figure out another way to get rocks to throw. And there was one obvious method.

Trent slammed down on Voiding with as much force as he could muster, and quickly stooped to carve out a chunk of the ground. He could get two decent ones out before the grunt caught up to him and he had to run. He threw his prizes back at his foe, scoring a tiny bit of progress towards killing the juggernaut.

Once the monster was at the edge of his Skill again, he once more intensified the effect and picked up more rocks. He could continue doing damage to the monster with this strategy, but it was quite the burden on his willpower. He just had to keep it up until the damn thing died.

Over and over again, he blasted out Voiding before grabbing ammo, using it, and repeating the process. He could barely see the damage he was doing to the demon, and the process was monotonous and draining. So it was no wonder he messed up.

He had intensified Voiding like had become normal by that point. Because it took so much of his focus, he only had the mental capacity to dig up more rocks. And either because he took too long, or his will was too weak, the grunt caught up with him.

Its bulky fist slammed into his side, throwing him away. He was stunned and dropped Voiding. So when the demon got to him again and kicked his prone form, the damage was much greater. The left half of his rib cage was pulverized and he was thrown away even farther this time.

His thoughts whirled around his head, disjointed and panicked. What was he doing? What COULD he do? He saw the demon running towards him again. Time slowed to a crawl. He was dead. He couldn’t run with his injuries, even if he could get up and reignite Voiding. What could he do? All he had was two Skills, one of which had static percentage boost and the other which couldn’t do damage.

What could he do? He had the source of void power inside of him. He had some experience making runes and patterns, even if his practice hadn’t produced much that was workable. He had some the runes for ‘force’ in Power Throw memorized. What could he do? Maybe, he could make an offensive Skill? It was all he could do.

Trent formed rune after rune of ‘force’ out of void power. They were barely connected coherently, simply made so fast that they didn’t have the opportunity to collapse. The mass of jagged runes built up in his mind. As the grunt—a basic, worthless enemy that he couldn’t even beat—barreled closer, the pressure climbed.

It reached him with leg raised for a stomp. Trent outstretched his arm. Reaching towards the unrelenting monster, the malformed ‘Skill’ was released. He felt his skin be torn to shreds, his eyes going blind and his arm… evaporating. his Perception making aware of every sensation till the moment he blacked out.

He awoke with a start, as his body finished regrowing from the surge of dark energy. The religious experience ended, leaving him physically unharmed but far more shaken than usual. What…?

He collected his thoughts. He was lying in a crater filled with blood, the mangled corpse of the demon next to him. The last thing he remembered was fighting the Abyssal grunt and blacking out after… blowing himself up. Well, this could mean that either the godly presence revived him from the dead, or he just barely survived the blast while somehow killing the grunt. Either way was a good sign for the extent to which the religious experience would heal him.

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He noticed that he had notifications waiting for him.

Skill created! Skill Name: DESTROY

Title gained! You may now call yourself a Runeforger! 

*Defeated Abyssal grunt (Lv. 23). Bonus experience is gained for defeating a monster 10 or more levels above you. Bonus experience is gained for defeating a high-tier monster above your level.*

Level up! You have reached level 10. +1 free stat points. +1 Mind and +3 Perception(phys) from Affinity. +1 Vitality, +2 Endurance, and +2 Strength from Sub-affinity. You have a Skill pick available. 

Fuck. He was already excited at the prospect of two new Skills. This damn system was encouraging his recklessness. But what else was he supposed to do? The enormity of the odds against him forced him out of those thoughts any time he tried to convince himself to be more cautious. He basically needed to take risks to have a chance to get out of here. That didn’t mean he shouldn’t be cautious though.

First, he put his point in agility and checked out his status.

Name: Trent

Species: Human

Titles: Rune Manipulator, Prodigy, Runeforger

Lv: 10

Affinity: Abyss

Sub-affinity: Opposition

Stats: 

Physical: 

Vitality: 12

Endurance: 21

Strength: 21

Agility: 12

Mind: 12

Perception: 30

Magical: 

Capacity: 0

Regen: 0

Power: 0

Control: 0

Connection: 0

Perception: 0

Free points: 0

Skills: Voiding, Power Throw, DESTROY

Skill pick available!

He pulled up the descriptions of his new Title and Skill.

Title Name: Runeforger. 

You have created an original Skill from nothing but your knowledge and power. This Title displays your feat to whoever Identifies you. Advanced version of the Titles Runescriber, Rune Researcher, and Rune Creator.

Skill Name: DESTROY

Condenses void power into destructive force. Requires ####### to use. Channels and builds up force inside the body of the user and releases it through an attack. The force heavily damages the body of the user. This is a Forbidden Skill.

Well that’s a bit worrying. Trent had no clue what ‘Forbidden’ might mean, but it probably wasn’t good. Although could he even use it again? He probably wouldn’t have the Skill in his status if that was the case though. He checked on the visualization of his Skills.

The sight inside made him wince. There wasn’t any damage inside of him—even if that was possible, the dark energy would have healed it—but the result of his frantic experiment was a mass of rigid void floating in the corner, like it was shunned by his other Skills.

Investigation didn’t turn up any changes from the creation—it was still just a barely coherent mass of the same rune groups—but now it was somehow stable. It shouldn’t be, all of the horrible errors and tangles were still there. But it was somehow frozen. He stared at it a bit longer, but when nothing else turned up he decided to see what it was really all about.

He injected a tiny amount of void energy into the cloud. It sort of melted around it, becoming active and spinning slowly in chaos. Even then, the whole thing somehow remained completely intact. He waited for it to settle down. But it didn’t. There was a tiny pressure that felt like it needed release, but the Skill wasn’t calming down or doing any damage.

Thinking about it logically, it actually made sense. This wasn’t an environment with entropy. It was his own mind. Seeing that it wasn’t going to fade, he directed the energy out the tip of his finger.

The burst of black energy was a lot more powerful and forceful than he thought. His finger ended up bruised and bleeding all over. Now that he thought about it… He felt like he remembered his arm regrowing during the religious experience. That was a lot of power in his hands, especially if he could withstand the pain long enough to regrow the limb.

The test conclusively showed that his new Skill was both relatively stable, reliable, and powerful. But there was something even better waiting for him. Now he had a new Skill to gain!

You have reached a level milestone and gained access to your choice of a skill. You may also gain the Identify Skill in addition to your choice.

Skills (pick one): 

Power Strike 

Power Shot

Mana Bolt

Taunt

Endure

Sprint

Farsight

Spectral Bane

Flurry Throw

Prodigy’s Boost

Rune Manipulation

Marathon

Bombardment

Skill Sight

Anti-Skill

Copy Skill

Please note that any Skills not chosen will be available in the next Skill pick in addition to all new Skills. 

Well that makes it pretty clear what Titles do. In addition to all of the Skills he had the option of before, there were also 8 new ones. With the one he choose last time, that made 16 choices in total. Not that some of them were at all likely. And hey, that’s how you get Identify. He certainly wouldn’t have used a Skill pick on it.

Now, which to pick?