You have selected a new class!

You have reached level 1 in [Arcane Neophyte]

You have acquired a skill!

[Meditate: F-rank]

You can absorb ambient mana directly into your core.

Yup. I did it. But frankly, now that I read the notifications, I couldn’t say that I regretted my choice. If anything, I felt stupid for ever entertaining not going down a path of magic.

Seriously, what kind of idiot found himself in a new world where magic was possible and decided against it? I would have deserved to die if I had made any other choice.

That being said, it was time to whether my decision had borne any fruit.

The description was quite barebones, as they all seemed to be, but thankfully, an intuitive understanding helped guide me further. I sat on the ground and closed my eyes.

As I focused, my attention drifted to my core. My mind moved inside the tiny speck of blue, and I saw the world from the perspective of my center. And what I saw did not impress me in the slighest.

The ambient mana was moving towards me, but it was so agonizingly slow that I would probably have to sit there for hours to refill my core. But something caught my attention from the corner of my unusual perspective.

I could also sense the mana that was aimlessly wandering my body. Most of it had evaporated by then. Out of curiosity, I focused on the mana and—

Immediately, the strings of mana in my body latched onto the floating mist and sucked, siphoning it with frightening efficiency.

Skill [Meditate: F-rank] has upgraded to [Meditate: D-rank]

Level up!

You have reached level 2 in [Arcane Neophyte]

Skill [Mana Manipulation: FFF-rank] has upgraded to [Mana Manipulation: FF-rank]

Huh!?

What the hell just happened? That had been a very small amount of mana, and my core, even as tiny as it was, was barely refilled. Instantly, I opened my eyes and put both hands to the ground as I used [Energy Absorption] to suck up more mana into my body. The soil froze over in mere seconds, and before long, there was a hazy mist floating through my form yet again.

Once more, I focused and—

Skill [Meditate: D-rank] has upgraded to [Meditate: C-rank]

Skill [Mana Core: FFF-rank] has upgraded to [Mana Core: FF-rank]

I couldn’t believe it. Yet again, in a single instant, all the mana in my body was sucked up and absorbed by my core. But, more importantly—

“My mana core upgraded?” I was caught off-guard by this turn of events. “Did I finish the class?” I pulled up the information on my class.

Class: [Arcane Neophyte]

Current Level: 2

Level 3: Upgrade skill: [Mana Manipulation: FF-rank] to [Mana Manipulation: F-rank]

Level 4: Unlock Skill: [Magic Missle]

Level 5: Unlock Skill: [Magic Barrier]

Class Completion Reward: Upgrade Skill: [Mana Core: FF-rank] to [Mana Core: F-rank]

Now this was interesting. It seemed that I could upgrade my skills without relying on my class, which also affected the class completion reward. The reward went up by a rank after I manually upgraded my core.

My thoughts churned. If this was the case, I had to abuse it to my advantage.

I placed my hands on the ground again and activated [Energy Absorption]. I was surprised to discover that the speed at which I could siphon the heat had increased. The capacity of energy I could store in my body had also gone up with my core’s upgrade.

As soon as I was full, I meditated. And as soon as I finished meditating, I continued absorbing more energy.

Skill [Meditate: C-rank] upgrades to [Meditate: B-rank]!

Skill [Mana Core: FF-rank] upgrades to [Mana Core: F-rank]!

Skill [Meditate: B-rank] upgrades to [Meditate: A-rank]!

Skill [Mana Core: F-rank] upgrades to [Mana Core: D-rank]!

Skill [Mana Core: D-rank] upgrades to [Mana Core: C-rank]!

I had no way to reliably track time, but by my estimation, it took me around twenty minutes to acquire the last upgrade. Afterward, I kept pushing, likely going for over an hour, but to no avail.

I seemed to have reached the limit of this method. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t push it further. Still, the core in my body now felt… big. What used to be a tiny blue speck was now roughly the size of an eyeball.

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It wasn’t actually physically there in my body. All of it—my soul, inventory, and my core, were located in my center—a singularity that expanded when I directed my focus toward it.

Still… even though I couldn’t push it further, I was still incredibly excited as I checked the class completion reward.

Class Completion Reward: [None]

“Oh, fuck off!” I yelled. It seemed that, while pushing the reward was possible, it had its limits. Fair enough, I guess. But that didn’t mean that I was happy with the result.

Still… although this had been a bit of a disappointment… I still had another thing to try out.

I filled my body to the brim, loading it with roughly two C-rank cores worth of mana. Then, raised my hand and cast [Summon Elemental].

Instantly, my arm started shaking. The mana was concentrating at my fingertips, but the process was slow, and I had to actively keep it there as it tried to escape. Before long, the concentration of energy started burning. And not much longer, the tips of my fingers were melting off.

“Argh!” I yelped as I released the spell with only around half a core worth of energy.

You have acquired a new skill!

[Magic Resistance: FFF-rank]

Level up!

You have reached level 3 in [Arcane Neophyte]

Skill [Mana Manipulation: FF-rank] upgrades to [Mana Manipulation: F-rank]

The mass of energy I had gathered vanished with a burst of yellow light, and before me, a creature appeared—a bird of pure fire, roughly the size of a hawk. It floated eerily, flapping its wings only once every few seconds as its body seemed to naturally remain afloat.

I was fascinated. I couldn’t stop myself from approaching the creature and gently caressing its feathers. The fire did not hurt me in the slightest, but I could still feel its searing warmth. It felt comforting.

The connection between my core and the bird felt quite clear in my mind. Every second, a tiny dash of energy escaped the elemental, weakening its flames ever so slightly. There was nothing I could do to prolong its existence. I felt that the bird would evaporate and vanish after a few minutes at most.

I tried focusing on telling it to do something. It didn’t work. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it; commanding the summoned elemental was built directly into the function of the skill, but… I was really bad at it.

It seemed to be a function of my [Mana Manipulation], which was at F-rank.

This didn’t mean that the summon was useless, however. I knew the bird would defend me if something were to attack me. After much straining, I managed to get the bird to fly a bit higher into the air.

Level up!

You have reached level 4 in [Arcane Neophyte]

You have acquired a new skill!

[Magic Missle]

Conjure a projectile of pure mana.

Huh. I hadn’t upgraded the [Mana Manipulation] skill, so I was surprised to see that I had leveled up. How did these levels even work? Was it perhaps related to using the acquired skills to achieve some form of feat? In either case, I was moving through the levels quite rapidly.

I kept trying to get the bird to move, but it evaporated before I could make any progress, and the skill collapsed.

It was a bit of a bummer, but I had another toy to play with.

With a bit of focus, I used [Magic Missle]. I was starting to understand why some skills had a rank while others didn’t. Much like with [Summon Elemental], I felt no actual limit to what this skill could achieve. Its power was determined entirely by the wielder's abilities and no small amount of influence by the ranks of related skills.

In my case, that meant conjuring a big lumpy ball of magical energy that flew at an odd angle. I was forced to release it since I could no longer keep it in the air, but I had poured in enough mana to burn the skin off my palm, blowing a melon-sized hole into a nearby tree.

Level up!

You have reached level 5 in [Arcane Neophyte]

You have acquired a new skill!

[Magic Barrier]

Conjure a barrier of pure mana.

I raised my hand and used my newly acquired skill. It was pretty similar to [Magic Missle]. The form it took depended entirely on my intent and ability to control the skill. The main difference between [Magic Missle] and [Magic Barrier] was that the latter was entirely immovable. I conjured a dinner plate-sized disk of blue, slightly transparent mana. It looked almost like tinted glass, and it undulated somewhat like water.

That being done, I had no damn idea what to do with it. As far as I could tell, leveling required using the granted skill for its intended purpose. In this case, it was supposed to shield me from something. But what?

I looked around. The forest was thin; I could see relatively far in all directions. I saw nothing that could act as a threat.

Shrugging, I walked over to a nearby rock. It was roughly the size of my head, and I picked it up, throwing it into the air. It flew up around 20 meters, and as it came down, I poured all the mana I could into a [Magic Barrier] to defend myself. The stone struck the shimmering mana construct, shattering it into bits.

Level up!

Class [Arcane Neophyte] completed!

New classes available!

Well, that was easy enough.

Despite having had no idea what to expect, I was still quite surprised by what I saw when I checked the menu.

Classes available: [Brawler] [Survivalist] [Rookie Tinkerer] [Mage Apprentice] [Summoner Neophyte] [Fire Elementalist Neophyte]

I had received an upgraded version of the class I had just sped through and two entirely new ones. And I could still select the three others I hadn’t chosen initially.

I found myself quite apprehensive about choosing another class. None of my guesses about how it worked had been correct, and playing with it any further could result in unwanted consequences.

I was no longer defenseless—I had a way to attack and a way to defend myself. I also discovered that it was possible to acquire and upgrade skills without using classes.

Thus, I decided to stop blindly experimenting for the time being. I had to find civilization, assuming that it existed, that was, and learn more about this world before acting too rashly.

But I had one more thing to test out.

Focusing, I used [Summon Elemental], swapping my target to [Death Affinity] this time.

With a small swirl of black mist, the skill summoned a tiny, pitch-black skeleton with clawed hands. It was hunched and decrepit, looking almost like it was designed to run on all fours.

I tired summoning another elemental but quickly discovered that my soul couldn’t handle the burden of two summons at once. Could the [Summoner Neophyte] provide me with methods to improve this? In either case, I was forced to release the small creature before swapping my attention to [Hellfire] next.

And the result was… well… at least it wasn’t fly-sized. Instead, I summoned a hornet-sized wisp of aggressive, ugly flame that danced through the air. Surprisingly, it lasted a few minutes, as long as its fire and death brethren. And I could tell those flames were not to be messed with.

As for the [Rot Affinity], it summoned a small ball of what looked like diseased sludge. The glass around it rapidly withered and fell apart, showing it was quite a bit more dangerous than its appearance hinted.

And finally, I moved my attention to the [Witherflame Affinity]. But I simply couldn’t summon anything. This hardly came as a surprise.

“Oh, well.”

It was finally time to begin my search for civilization.