The trap would be simple if dangerous. I had the dwarves find a spot to rest for the night that was only partially covered. They made sure to crowd as close as possible but it was still possible to see a few feet and legs from above. I dropped off the thaumonomic sensor and activated it. The dwarves' movements would not trigger the bell. After the leopard found a spot to rest for the night, I landed hidden from its view and activated [Mingling] once more to fuse my outward appearance for magical senses with the air around me. I took special care to have the aspect link up with the essence all around and flew over to the ravine on the opposite side of the feline.

From there, it was all about waiting. The dwarves took another hour to settle down after dinner while talking about digging. Even with the looming threat, they had no other topic to occupy their fireside discussions. Not that there was an actual fire tonight. There was simply too little space for that.

My hiding spot was magically hidden with [Mingling] and physically by having a bunch of dark-grey shadows float around me. I had them extended to let me reach the leopard quickly once it would go for the attack.

From there, it was waiting. I was a little exhausted from not getting rest for two nights straight and my stomach was starting to complain since I had not eaten either. If this did not work, I would just go for a direct strike. That was risky for the dwarves below, though. They had little by ways of space to move around and dodge a fight or defend themselves.

Movement ripped me out of my musing. The predator had stood up and was carefully sneaking to the edge of the ravine. It was almost quiet enough for me to miss even the steps on the gravelly ground. I got ready, [Sneak] covering the clinking sounds of my metal and crystal feathers. I had not managed to combine the aspects to strengthen my body yet and it looked to be something I needed a few more levels for. Be it in the Skill or my Attributes.

My thoughts almost made me miss the tensing of the leopard's muscles. Vis shot out from its body and it pushed off. The jump lead it almost straight down towards the ledge the dwarves were resting on. As soon as its feet left the ground, I shifted over the ravine and spread my wings to push myself down. I was a little behind the beast but quickly caught up and readied my talons for a lethal strike.

Just before I reached, the thaumonomic sensor went off and the ringing noise made the feline flinch. I tried to correct my course but it was already too late. My talon ripped open the side of its jaw instead of its neck. My shadows shot up, ready to bring me above my target once again as it yowled. As soon as I shifted, I realized I had miscalculated my position and landed on its back. My weight and momentum still propelled us down past the ledge.

Air swirled around the leopard’s paws as I cut open its right side. I managed to spread my wings just in time to avoid a sudden spin of the beast bringing around retaliatory claws. My opponent shot to the side from another gust of wind and was suddenly jumping up towards the ledge again. Rapidly beating my wings, I tried to follow but soon realized I was too slow. When the first leap brought it to the wall, I flapped once more, this time infusing vis of destruction into the strike.

Black feathers shot out and the beast looked back, panic widening its eyes. After a second of the world nearly standing still, explosions of energy took out the leopard’s back legs and a good part of its side. A cry of pain left its throat as it plummeted towards me. I caught the beast’s neck in my talons and ended its suffering. With a splash, we dropped into the river at the bottom.

I spun around to get my bearings as the current took me along. A message popped into my mind but I ignored it for a moment. After finding where the surface was, a tendril of shadows and an [Eldritch Shift] took me out and shortly after, I was back up at the ledge. I had been carried a dozen metres away from the camp but the distance was quickly covered.

The dwarves gave thankful sighs when I finally turned off the thaumonomic sensor. Some of them had been trying to cover their ears while keeping an eye on the fight. It had been too short for all of them to pull out their weapons and those who had were now reluctantly sheathing them.

“Was that it?”, Fredreck asked as I landed.

I checked the notification.

~ding~ You have taken out your chosen target. Experience awarded.

~ding~ [Assassin] reached level 78. 4 Attribute Points awarded.

“Yes. I have the notification right here.”

The dwarves sagged to the ground letting out sighs of relief.

“That was a little much for my heart”, Smia said, “I’m just not built for fights.”

“I was already sleeping…”, Hedreck complained.

I shook my head at their antics.

“So, that’s it? Are we good now?”, Fredreck asked.

“For the time being. I’ll set up the thaumonomic sensor and then we can all get some rest.”

After a few grumbles and some shifting around, everyone was ready to get some sleep. I was still hungry but it could wait until morning. I did not want to spend the energy to transform right now. Instead, I scanned the rest of my notifications. There was some pretty interesting stuff.

~ding~ [Assassin] reached level 75. 1 Attribute Point awarded. Congratulations! For reaching the fourth milestone in your class you gain +1 DEX and +1 PER. Please choose a Skill to strengthen!

This was the last milestone as far as I was aware. At level 100 I would get a Class evolution and be able to shift my focus. Going through my Status page, I found I had [Sneak] at level seven now. [Telepathy] had also made it to level two. My four points went into Intelligence and Wisdom, as always. Now, to strengthen a Skill. I thought about one of my non-Class Skills for a moment and found the system would not let me choose them. Understandable but a little disappointing. An improvement to my shadows, my senses or even my flight Skill would have been very powerful.

Instead, I would have to choose one of the five [Assassin] Skills. My choices were: [Sneak lvl 7], [Shock Attack lvl 5], [Mingling lvl 6], [Eldritch Shift lvl 6] and [Winged Death lvl 4].

Out of these, The obvious choice was [Winged Death]. It was right in front of the Breakpoint and would be very difficult to get through. Captain Dor and Nymph both had recommended I pick that one as well. As I thought that, a prompt popped up.

Do you want to strengthen [Winged Death lvl 4]? Results: Automatic Breakthrough.

I was able to see what it would do to the Skill? Well, that made things much more interesting. I went through the other four to see what I could get.

Do you want to strengthen [Sneak lvl 7]? Results: Automatic Breakthrough.

Do you want to strengthen [Shock Attack lvl 5]? Results: Reaches level 7.

Do you want to strengthen [Mingling lvl 6]? Results: Choice of alteration, level up.

Do you want to strengthen [Eldritch Shift lvl 6]? Results: Choice of alteration, level up.

Well, that was interesting. The pattern was simple at least. A Skill at a Breakthrough level would go up by one. A Skill below would get to the Breakthrough. And a Skill that was not altered gave a choice unless it was at a Breakthrough point. That was my understanding, at least. Thinking about it, [Shock Attack] was immediately discarded. It would reach the Breakthrough eventually by simply using it. The others all gave me something interesting I would have to fight for normally.

An alteration was what happened to [Identify] when I turned it into [Hidden Identify] and was possible to get from a Breakthrough as well as [Shock Attack] showed. I figured [Mingling] was not too interesting for combat but might be useful to have if I moved into human lands. For now, I put it on low priority. [Eldritch Shift] was my bread and butter Skill. I was a little hesitant to have it change in any way and decided to discard it from my options as well. That left the decision to the two Breakthrough Skills.

[Sneak] was something I used a lot and relied on to reach my targets. Getting the Breakthrough might make it even more powerful. I had no real understanding of where to go with the Skill at this point. Maybe an active camouflage would be good? Hmm, that seemed rather… simple. I could probably use [Mingling]’s capability to camouflage my essence and create something similar for visuals. If I wanted to take the Skill that way. Thinking about it, the two did very similar things in a slightly different ways. They let me get close to my target, one by being unseen, the other by being unnoticed. I considered pushing [Mingling] towards active camouflage but it felt more like an illusion Skill. Maybe I could even get the ability to project a dwarven voice from it? That would be interesting.

I was very confident [Sneak] was not the choice at this point. I had many ideas how to improve it once I took the time. On the other hand, for [Winged Death] I could only really think about making my attacks cheaper on vis or more rapid-fire. Maybe I would get some targeting correction? That was a way to take that one. But I was unsure if that would be enough for a Breakthrough. Nymph had mentioned the last milestone Skill would be the most difficult to get there. It simply did so much you needed to improve it by a lot more than some of the other Skills for their second Breakthrough.

I found I had made my decision. I would go for [Winged Death], as I had planned from the start. Hopefully, the upgrade would be worth it.

Do you want to strengthen [Winged Death lvl 4]? Results: Automatic Breakthrough.

‘Yes!’

~ding~ Strengthening [Winged Death lvl 4]. Calculating… Done. Your Skill [Winged Death lvl 4] was improved to [Winged Death lvl 5].

~ding~ [Winged Death] has been forced past the first Breakpoint. The Skill has been improved.

I quickly found it in my status menu and pulled up the description.

[Winged Death]: Your species is truly specialized in the way of the [Assassin]. The only weakness the lack of ranged weaponry. Use your wings to mitigate that and strike at your target with feathers wrought of pure essence.

1st Breakthrough: You may now mix several types of non-adjacent essence to create additional effects. Pull on the world around you to take out your target.

Non-adjacent essence? That meant I could not mix void and air or void and destruction… But… Destruction and eldritch would work. That sounded like a devastating mix. Then, there was the part of ‘Pull on the world around you’. Did that mean I could use any essence nearby to strike with my feathers? I had to try that. After getting some rest.