Book 2, Chapter 10: An Unexpected Trial

Sunlight tore through the air and gushed into the ground, heating sand and stone alike to temperatures appropriate for cooking eggs. Even the air itself distorted from the sweltering heat, looking like oil poured into a glass of water. A common sight in the Sandsea; the land of annoyingly high amounts of heat, sand, rocks, and canyons. Inside a particular canyon however, thing weren’t as quiet. This valley seemed to have a new set of surroundings around it, sand rose up into the air in multiple columns as a battle raged within the ravine. Six undead fought and overwhelmed a pair of giant spiders. One of the spiders jumped to the wall and shot out a web, but a plume of black-green flames quickly destroyed its thick, white silk.

A bone-snake curled against a rock, looking very much like a real serpent due to the complete body it was granted. Its scales made of enamel glinted in the sun, scraping against stone in its ascent upwards. It sprung at the spider, and opened its mouth full of intimidating, lacerated teeth.

The spider leapt and used the snake as a springboard, jumping to the side using its eight legs. It didn’t get far. Another snake, one covered in a coat black-green ice, tore into the spider’s abdomen, sending deep, crimson blood spurting out. It twisted and brought the arachnid down into the sand with a boom and an accompanying column of sand and dust. The two snakes converged on the injured spider.

The other eight-legged monster meanwhile, was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a beetle, two centipedes, and what looked to be the skeleton of a large canine creature. It latched onto the skeletal canine, biting, tearing, and ripping with its legs and mandibles, destroying layer after layer of bone and enamel. The dog-like skeleton rampaged about desperately ramming into nearby boulders. An order was transmitted to its brain, causing it to stop and charge toward a centipede instead.

With a spin, the giant centipede greeted the spider on the skeletal jackal’s back with a powerful whip of its two tails.

A young man watched this all go down, looking on with focus at the two tendrils of mana that connected him to the two spiders. A steady stream of green lights surged into his body and healed his injuries. Alen grimaced as he felt the bone inside his left arm slowly snapping back into place. He edited the program in front of him, making small adjustments to the errors he thought he’d corrected. Setting a certain variable to a higher value would improve his efficiency for example, as it reduced the load of running the other functions.

He saw his mana drain steadily, but the speed had slowed significantly, enough that keeping the life drain spell activated didn’t make him feel like a vacuum was sucking up all his magic.

Alen pulled his hand back, and with a final tug, the tendrils of mana detached from the spiders, taking a large chunk of green lights out with them as he finished adjusting the spell. The lights were pulled back into his body, and the necromancer flinched as the bone abruptly adjusted itself, sending a jolt of pain up his already numbed senses. Keeping himself steady by leaning against a rock, he breathed out a curse.

“Fuck me,” He gasped, looking at his undead fighting against the rapidly weakening spiders. One of the spiders fell to his Alen-brand bone snakes, its head ripped clean off by the skeletal serpent’s sharp teeth. Alen ordered the rest of his undead to group up against the last spider, which was unceremoniously finished off. Mana surged into him.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have passed your seventh mana threshold. You are now at your eighth. This threshold will require an exponentially higher amount of mana to pass.

System Message!

The skill Vitality Drain has been created. Drain the life from your foes using a thread of necrotic magic, utilizing your skills with the magic of death and soul manipulation to heal your pain by inflicting it upon another. Your spell has been configured to have three forms: Projectile, Tendril, and Empowerment.

Alen grinned. Perfect. He’d edited the spell quite a lot over the past couple days, and now it was finally complete. He’d managed to kill well over a dozen monsters in the canyon, and it had taken him a surprisingly long time to get his undead up to six, as most battles forced him to retreat after one or two kills, pushing him to discard his dead summons and the material-abundant corpses of his slaughtered foes. He hurriedly ripped off a few pieces of the carapaces and infused the strands he needed from the spiders into them.

He looked at numerous paths presented to him and ordered his summons to follow him into one, retreating from the site of the battle lest the scent of blood attract more foes.

On the way back to his new cubby hole, he managed to resolve three more encounters. Namely, another serpent, a group of motorcycle-sized hyena-like creatures, and a massive dragonfly, which he ran away from at the cost of losing two of his undead.

Alen reached his hiding spot with a few more tears in his already tattered robe, and it honestly perturbed him. He didn’t have any spares, so getting these clothes destroyed meant he either had to wear AutoBone crafter chitin or enamel armor in place of his robe, or stay in the canyon full of bloodthirsty insects in his birthday suit, which was probably only begging for an experience equivalent to the stuff he’d find in some insect fetishist’s hentai collection.

He shuddered at the thought.

A slight breeze flitted past and caused his hole-ridden robes to flutter. He shivered. Alen sat down on the table and grit his teeth. “Screw it,” He said, opening up AutoBone as he plucked a piece of meat from a sealed container made of chitin. He set it down on the table and idly roasted it with a flame, the AutoBone UI popping up in front of him. He tenderly raised his left arm and inspected the fresh scar on his bicep. It didn’t look too bad, at least. Apparently, letting wounds stay too long without healing them properly caused scarring. The marks could of course be removed with a Restoration spell, but he didn’t really know any people focusing on that school of magic. Alen sighed, his affinity for it would definitely be shit, considering the fact that his mana type was necrotic.

He read the spell details for Vitality Drain again. He tried slotting it into a Necrotic Blessing once, and it resulted in that Empowerment category. Blessing his undead with Vitality Drain didn’t heal them, but instead, it healed him.

Alen spotted a finger-sized ant crawling around near his table and resisted the urge to stomp on it. He acted like a little bitch the first time one of these ants came around (they bite), but he eventually just got used to it. His Resistance wasn’t very high, but it was high enough that a nibble from those ants’ mandibles just felt like a light pinch. They were just normal creatures after all—not even at the strength of the first threshold.

He reached into a box placed on top of the table and pulled out a fingernail-sized piece of chitin, before tossing it to the ground near the ant. The chitin immediately bubbled up and created a miniature praying mantis—well, the normal size for a praying mantis. Not like the ones in the canyon that were the size of a fucking truck. He focused on the thread that connected him to the mantis and cast Necrotic Blessing. Immediately, an invisible mist of magic lined the similarly invisible thread. With a mental command transmitted through the thread, the mantis snatched the ant up with its scythe-like arms. It brought it mouth close and started chewing off the ant’s head.

Quickly, green motes of light ran up the thread connecting Alen to the mini-mantis and surged into his body as the ant died.

It was a pretty sad amount, and probably wouldn’t even heal for shit, but the buff’s effect was definitely more effective when cast on his stronger undead. It essentially gave them a lifesteal effect that siphoned health back to him. It was a fairly situational buff, however, he could only have a single Blessing up on one undead at his current state. He wanted to change it, but he’d already tried.

He’d failed. He knew what commands to change, and which lines of code to add, but whenever he did so, the line of code he wrote on the program would fade away. Alen guessed the reason for this was his Control stat. Even though Mana Programming made things easy, in the end, he was still manipulating mana. Until he got stronger, he’d probably stay limited to a single buff per minion. Alen wanted to feel wronged, but he realized that the system was at least balanced.

He wasn’t the most clever mage most likely, so Alen would’ve hated it if some fucker completely broke the system with some absurdly overpowered magic system or spell.

Of course, the better developed magic systems and spells still had a massive advantage against the sloppy ones, but at least no one would be able to fire Annihilation Rays left and right at the first threshold. Alen shook his head and waved his hand, causing the miniature mantis to disintegrate into gray dust, a convenient function he added to Summon Skeletal Minion that let him reduce them to ashes. He still couldn’t make them shrink back down into a shard, but it was progress.

Alen sighed and looked back at the AutoBone UI. “Right, clothes,” He muttered, putting a piece of chitin beside him with a little clack. The things were made of keratin, and so was hair, which meant they could probably be used to make clothes. Alen slowly edited a piece of chitin in the app, thinning it out and making it soft and flowy as if it was a lock of fused hair. It eventually took shape, getting longer both vertically and horizontally. Two parts extended sideward, and a collar was created. Then, a hood formed, along with a set of strings that bound the keratin robe together.

Two hours passed.

The meat on the table had been cooked long ago, and it had cooled already, taking away a lot of the original flavor, but he still decided to just throw it in his mouth. Alen yawned and stretched his body. He picked up a few pieces of chitin.

“Nudeness, nudeness, go away. Don’t make me partake, in hentai insect play,” He mused, tossing them down towards the table. Midair, they rapidly expanded and thinned out, forming a dark, nearly black, inky-green robe that harmlessly flapped down onto the table’s surface, along with some pants and a new set of underwear. Another piece clattered onto the table and rapidly formed into a pair of boots that resembled black plate. Alen laughed and practically tore off his clothing, putting on the clothes he’d put together.

The cloth was soft and silky to the touch, and on his shoulders, chest, back, and legs were somewhat thick, but light plates of chitin he’d added for extra protection. Of course, the entire robe was also reinforced by his mana, so it offered a higher amount of defense than his old set.

Alen smiled giddily and looked down on himself. Awesome, he pulled on the fabric and grinned wider. Now that his thoughts about Keratin were confirmed, Alen wondered if he could make his insect undead fly. While the regeneration patterns of the wings were included inside the purple strands, Alen wasn’t sure the insects could carry him in flight, or if the insects could even fly by themselves, as he’d edited them quite a lot. The undead were more deadly in fights because of it, but their mass increased by a lot as a result. The original versions of the wings might not be able to lift the creature anymore. Alen would have to spend time editing the wings, but seeing the monsters that constantly flew over the canyon, it wasn’t worth the time investment seeing as how he would get swarmed the moment he had his undead fly up away the canyon’s natural cover.

He guessed that fixing the wing problem would probably require a magnifying tool in his AutoBone app, but that would come later, seeing as how gaining the ability to fly would do more harm than good in his current situation. Alen shrugged. At least he had a method to get out of the canyon when he was strong enough to fight back the insects constantly flying over the rock valley.

Mana gathered in his fingertips as Alen took out the new pieces of bone and chitin he’d gathered. He had seven in total, a whole day’s worth of hunting monsters around his level. Alen infused mana into it to prepare the shards for summoning, draining most of his mana after he filled three. He set the rest down and opened his status, checking his new stats.

Status:

Name: Alen

Race: Human

Type: Necrotic

Health: 93%

Stamina: 61%

Mana: 23%

Strength: 16

Dexterity: 18

Agility: 16

Constitution: 19

Vitality: 14

Resistance: 16

Intelligence: 32 (++)

Wisdom: 41 (+++)

Control: 36 (+)

Skills:

Mana Programming, Dominate Undead, Blightbolt, Necrotic Blessing, Numb Senses, Summon Skeletal Minion, Rotfire Blast, Deathchill Touch, Bone Spear, Skeletal Rupture, Vitality Drain

System Applications:

AutoBone

He grinned at his stats. His growth inside the canyon was rapid, and now that he’d reached the eighth threshold, the tenth and beyond wouldn’t be too far ahead. He’d make an attempt to leave the canyon at level ten, but if he still fucked up and somehow managed to survive, he’d wait ‘til the twelfth threshold. After that, he’d search for Lynn and Roland before heading out to find the rest of his friends. Speaking of his friends…

Twenty-three percent. His mana was still pretty low, so Alen decided to let it fill up by itself while he checked on his hopefully still-alive companions.

Egg Chat Room

Alen: Yo. Anyone on?

Sam: I don’t think Sam’s on tho.

Adam: me neither tbh

Alen: Anyone who isn’t a faggot on?

Anne: Did someone say… faggot!?!?

Alen: No. Anyways, what’s up guys? My fap-arm was injured, so I was dead for a few days.

Sam: Adam and I are taking a break from exploring this underground dungeon man.

Adam: ^^^

Anne: Eh, I’ve just been dying off with my lute.

Alen: Whoawhoawhoa, what’s this about a dungeon? What? Those are a thing?

Sam: Yeah dude. We got a commission to clear it out. Apparently, undead led by this Archlich ravaged the continent a few hundred years ago, and this dungeon used to be an underground settlement or something.

Adam: the undead are weaker now apparently, so sam and i are going to just fuck up whatever zombies are still here

Bernard: oh yeah, me and Anne are planning on traveling to Jamal’s country so we can mess with him while he’s on guard duty or something.

Alen: See, I’d join you, but I’m currently in a perpetual state of ‘possibly about to get ass-raped by some giant insects’, which admittedly, is somewhat arousing. I just love me some horny beetles.

Anne: Same my dude. I love stick bugs to be honest, they’re like, walking vaginas.

Adam: wtf anne no, that’s like, the complete opposite of a vagina

Sam: Your face is a vagina!!!

Bernard: it’s actually you’re

Alen laughed and talked to them a bit more. He asked Sam for a few tips regarding magic, and they both managed to learn a few new things thanks to the different books they’d read. Alen had been using information from the first two volumes of mana theory so far to conceptualize his spells, and he was glad to learn a few new things from Sam who had more access to books than he did.

Speaking of neat trivia, the phrase ‘mages walk their own paths’ wasn’t literal, apparently. Sam told him that there were some standardized magic systems people could easily learn, and that the phrase was more like a scholar telling his fellow magic enthusiast to keep learning, innovating, and advancing the field of magic. It was some pretty cool stuff to know. Alen was always someone who loved lore, but he didn’t have much time to read up on the world’s history considering his busy schedule. He silently swore to himself that he’d make it up to his inner nerd in the next major city and waved away the two blue screens in front of him.

His main priority right now was to get stronger. Relaxing could come later, when he managed to get out of this stupid fucking place.

Walking over to a corner of the cubby hole, he lied down. Since he hadn’t had the time to make a bed in AutoBone, he was still sleeping on the floor, but it wasn’t all that bad. If anything, it was kind of relaxing to feel the cold stone on his back. His eyes moved to stare outside of his hiding spot. It admittedly wasn’t a very good one, and Alen planned on clearing the earth or nature type mana next in order to conceal his cave better. Plus, after he’d cleared the elements for fire and water, Rotfire Blast and Deathchill Touch had both gotten stronger, so he was curious to see what he could make with necrotic and earth mana next.

Maybe a blighted grounds spell for debuffing enemies? Or could he make necrotic poison using nature mana? He grinned and closed his eyes, excitedly going to sleep in order to prepare for the next day.

Alen gasped as he woke up with a start. He looked around and saw that his surroundings were dark. Not a simple darkness someone would find in the middle of the night, but a black void. Completely empty. Below him was a smooth floor that shone as if it was reflecting light, even though there was none to be found inside the abyss. It was smooth as glass. Alen breathed in and felt… a feeling of peace—a powerful sense of harmony with his surroundings.

He recognized this place.

He’d only entered it once; when he’d used Dominate Undead on the Ghoulbear back in the Undead Forest. Back then, he was able to command the mana all around him like it was putty in his hands, letting him display powers he didn’t think he was capable of. Alen frowned. He remembered going to sleep, but he didn’t remember using anything like Dominate Undead before doing so, so that begged the question:

Why was he here?

Alen looked up and noticed a difference within the space. Above were what seemed to be two balls of light. The two didn’t seem to glow, or maybe, the darkness surrounding Alen was just so oppressive that the two light above couldn’t radiate light beyond themselves. They glowed it two different colors, blue and red. As he looked up at them, Alen felt something, and somehow, he knew that those balls represented his affinities toward water and fire—the elements that he had cleared of necrotic mana.

Around those two balls of light, Alen could barely see the flicker of more colors. There were hundreds—no, thousands more, but they were covered in a thick coating of black-green mana, seemingly suppressing their radiance.

They glittered like multicolored stars in the sky. Alen felt a warmth well up along with the sense of harmony. He was the monarch of this world, the ruler and the sole commander of everything within. He felt at home in the truest sense, as if he had just returned to his room back at his house, and everything was kept untouched, in the same place, with the same look as before, with his family there to greet him. His expression darkened, and the space seemed to darken with it. Alen forcefully pushed the thought out of his head and looked around further. He snapped his fingers and conjured a ball of Rotflame.

The red light above flickered and a stream of it surged toward his palm. Another light—one Alen hadn’t noticed before due to how dark it was—glowed with a black-green radiance as it similarly sent a stream towards his hand. Alen noticed that it was bigger than the other two; both the stream, and the ball of light.

In front of him, the flame formed, bathing the area around him in a deep, emerald-green radiance. At the core of the flame was darkness, but the outer layer of green managed to give off a nice light.

Alen looked around once again.

Nothing? He furrowed his brows. The darkness continued to expand towards the horizon without end. The necromancer pursed his lips and was about to just start messing around with spells when a low growl from behind him sent shivers down his spine. He turned around and saw a face with dark eyes and rotting, yellow teeth. It clawed towards him, but Alen’s increased stats weren’t for nothing. He leaned back, the sharp nails flashing past his face, before his hand snaked out and grasped the enemy’s rotten wrist.

Deathchill Touch.

The skin bloated explosively, before bursting into a shower of blood and necrotic mana. Deathchill ate away at the flesh and turned the bones to mulch, causing the wrist to fall off the attacker. It howled in rage, and Alen managed to get a good look at it.

It was a zombie. Not a powerful one, either. Alen even recognized it. It was the first zombie he had ever killed, and the foe that had caused him to hole up and fear the outside. Alen glowered and waved his hand as it lunged at him, causing an explosion of Rotflame to completely eradicate the undead from existence. The sticky, sweltering stench of rot blasted into his face. Alen hated zombies, and he hated the fact that the smell didn’t bother him as much as it used to. He wordlessly watched the black ash fade into the void.

Two more groans alerted him. He looked to the left and saw two more zombies shambling towards him. They were the two that he’d killed after mustering the courage to leave his cubby hole. Alen felt the scar in his left palm burn. Gritting his teeth, he raised his arm again, destroying the two undead as easily as flipping over a hand with another plume of Rotflame.

Immediately afterwards, the sound of clacking bones resounded out. A dozen skeletons came rushing towards him. Alen clasped his fist, and the dark ground below ruptured, encasing the skeletons in twisted, black tendrils of mana. He pointed his finger at them and cast a spell:

Dominate Undead.

A minute later, the tendrils of mana receded, releasing a dozen skeletons that moved to encircle Alen protectively.

More sounds came from his surroundings. More undead. Twenty this time.

His mana surged, and the skeletons charged. Alen killed off all the zombies, and continued to encase all the skeletons. He converted them to his side. A single one of the skeletons felt like they wouldn’t even cost a percent of his mana back in the real world to take over, much less in this space where it seemed like that amount was magnified to a stupid amount. He converted them all, except one. He kept it trapped in a coffin of his magic. He looked around and saw that the next ‘wave’ of enemies hadn’t arrived yet. His guess was correct after all, then. The necromancer nodded to himself and opened AutoBone, preparing to increase the effectiveness of his skeletons.

After he finished, he shoved the purple strand into the skeletons. It melded into the one already inside of them, and quickly, the bones bubbled to form a multitude of equipment. The skeletons that numbered over twenty grew thick, mana-enforced bone armor. Their entire left arms were converted into large kite shields with razor-sharp edges, while similarly sharp longswords were melded to the bones of their right hands. Finally, Alen focused on them, and strengthened the ‘muscles’ of mana that let the skeletons move, increasing their physical capabilities dramatically to match a warrior at the seventh threshold.

Alen felt his mana reserves take a hit. He frowned. It seemed like his capacity in this place wasn’t infinite after all. He felt it regenerating, but it was far too slow to matter. Alen decided he’d limit buffing his future undead to the fifth or sixth threshold in the future. If this was going where he thought this was heading, Alen would need all the mana he could get.

He quickly released the skeleton he’d trapped and converted it as well, giving it the same treatment as the other twenty-four. In total, twenty-five undead surrounded him like a wall—looking like an elite force.

Without any delays, the next wave of enemies started. Even more undead. Alen annihilated all of them with his magic, and the skeletons at his command. He then converted the skeletons in the horde, setting them to the fifth threshold after giving them armor and weapons. Alen pondered making bows, but he didn’t have any keratin available to make the strings and feathered ends of the arrows. His legion of over fifty skeletons now had spear users among them, placed behind the sword and board defenders to over offense. Alen had noticed something, however.

His undead had been buffed to the seventh and fifth thresholds, but some of them weren’t as strong as their thresholds usually suggested. Alen guessed why: technique.

The skeletons were most likely the corpses of previous people the city sent into the forest. They probably died, and were then unceremoniously turned into undead. Alen wouldn’t be surprised if a few volunteer militia were among them, which explained the relative lack of finesse the skeletons showed when wielding their weapons. Of course, some didn’t disappoint, but they weren’t in the majority. That meant that not only would Alen have to choose which undead he converted, he also couldn’t just raise any normal skeleton to his level and expect them to be strong enough to fight on par with his enemies. Skill was a bigger part of combat than levels were, and he was feeling it now.

Alen’s thoughts were interrupted by a guttural roar. In front of him, a Ghoulbear had formed.

He felt afraid at first, but when the bear charged, it felt… slow. Nowhere near as fast as it once felt. He nodded to himself and suppressed his fear. He was stronger now, and this bear was for him to dominate. Alen cast his spell and the bear slowly grinded to a halt, its subservience transferred over to the emerald-eyed necromancer before it. He sighed. It was so easy he felt uncomfortable at how weak he once was. He really did get lucky back then, huh?

The next wave came. Over a hundred undead. Zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and Maneater Bats. Alen swept through them with his undead, converting the ones he wanted to convert.

More and more foes came. Hunchback Lizards, Rockfist Apes, Razorfang Wolves… they came in droves, and Alen killed them all, his emerald eyes glowing brighter and brighter as the feeling of harmony between him and the space grew with every kill. Blood sprayed in all directions and painted the black ground in a deep crimson, but every enemy slaughtered mattered less to Alen. After all, he’d killed hundreds at this point.

The difficulty slowly increased.

Soon, he wasn’t just fighting the same number of foes he’d killed. He faced six identical copies of the first beetle he had killed in the Sandsea, resulting in a small number of casualties in his undead army.

More enemies surged in. Alen killed, and killed, and killed, until finally, the first people he had killed came up. He didn’t recognize their faces. They were probably the ones he killed from a distance—the death’s caused by the numerous Rotfire Bolts and Bone Spears he had thrown at Alexandrius’s ships.

Alen closed his eyes and cast Necrotic Blessing. His undead immediately became even stronger, overwhelming the group of lizards, humans, and elves that he’d previously killed. When he opened his eyes, Alen saw their butchered remains and felt sick. They’d killed a few of his undead, and Alen could’ve prevented that had he casted a spell himself, but he was hesitant to kill them with his own hands.

More people appeared, mixed in with the insect monsters of the Sandsea. These people were identical with the one Alen’s undead had just killed. They charged at him and Alen grit his teeth. His undead opened up a path, and Alen cast Rotfire Blast. The column of black-green flames erupted like a breaking dam, completely overwhelming a large majority of the attackers and turning them to ash. He looked at their charred bones and fading ashes with gritted teeth and bloodshot eyes.

The next wave came, and Alen killed.

He killed, and then he killed more. So much, that he started to feel numb to it. Life was precious, and so easily taken. They had tried to take his, so he took theirs. Was there no other way?

The thought was stopped by a familiar elven bandit that managed to slip through his undead. The dagger flashed and cut a deep wound into his shoulder. Pain surged up Alen’s mind, and Numb Senses was activated almost by reflex. The necromancer growled, and the hand pointed to the ground splayed to release a large projectile of black-green fog. It exploded and surged into the elf’s body, causing the man to scream in pain as green motes of light surged into Alen’s body and healed his wounds.

While the man was distracted, Alen pulled back his fist and covered it in a deep Deathchill. He punched at the man’s face and sent him two steps back, his face bloating before exploding in rot.

Alen pointed his hand and destroyed the man with a plume of black-green flames.

More waves came, and Alen fought the same elf repeatedly, the undead under his command rapidly being whittled away by the opponents that came with the elven bandit. At one time, Alen even had to face two copies of the same caramel-skinned elf. Eventually, even the seemingly infinite mana at his control began to run out.

An explosion of Rotflame rocked the area and killed more foes, and Alen was left panting cuts and blood all over his body. Some his, and most, another’s. His undead had all died, and a single bandit was left standing, his sword broken and wounds all over his body as he stood over a dead skeleton.

He recognized the man.

It was the bandit that had fought him in a melee, nearly killing him multiple times and resulting in the first murder that he had ever committed with his own hands. The man rushed at him.

Alen rushed back. The man twisted, and he was kicked in the stomach. He fell to the ground and rolled, a foot stomping on the place his head used to be. Alen kicked up, but his foot met air. The man had retreated, and he was panting as blood dripped from his open wounds. Alen stood up on shaky legs and faced him, raising his fists.

The man ran at him. He punched, but he was slower than before, a testament to the wounds all over his body. Alen blocked and punched back, Deathchill covering his fist. The man blocked with his forearm and howled as it bloated and rotted away. Alen felt a throbbing in his head. His mana was running out, and he didn’t even have enough for another Rotfire Blast. The man kicked his side and he staggered. Alen forced himself to move forward and rammed his shoulder against the man’s chest. They fell to the ground.

A knee slammed against Alen’s stomach and he gasped out a sound of pain. He slammed his elbow into the man’s face. He heard a pop. The jaw had been dislocated. Regardless, his foe mounted his and rained blows into his face. Alen tasted blood in his mouth. His hands moved and grabbed at the man’s fists, his weakened state allowing Alen to compete with him in strength.

The man watched as a malevolent frost covered Alen’s face. The necromancer slammed his forehead against the man’s face. The flesh bloated from a frostbitten necrosis. The man lost his vision as the rot crept into his skull. He stood up and staggered back, before falling to the ground, dead.

A notification popped up in front of Alen’s beaten face.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have passed a trial sent by the God of Death, Thagathos. He has taken an interest in your magic and your potential, rewarding you a chance for growth at the risk of death. Your three priority stats have increased by six, five, and four respectively. Affinity with Necrotic and related mana types increased. Thagathos is now paying slight attention to your actions.

There are currently 117,819 people who are alive and have undertaken a trial under this god within this world. Surprise this god more, and he may reward you even further. Good luck, necromancer.

Alen laughed hoarsely and waved it away. He didn’t know what to feel at what he’d just gotten. He shook his head, no use thinking about gods when he was in the situation he was in. He wanted to get stronger, and he was given more stats. That was the important bit. Alen took a step forward to see if he could leave the empty space when a voice rang out from behind him. Alen looked back and recognized the man.

It was the bandit he had just killed.

The man looked at him strangely with his hands in his pockets. There was a calm and clarity in his sunken blue eyes that wasn’t present before. He wore leather over loose garments that hung over his skinny frame. His gaunt face had a stubble, and it was evident that the man was even handsome in a rugged kind of way. The man gazed at the shocked Alen with a resigned smile on his face.

“You have the time for a quick chat?”