Marcus continued to stare incredulously at the path and felt as if he was being deceitfully abused by some higher presence whose only goal was to make his life difficult. Shaking his head at thinking of something so ridiculous, he once again took stock of his options. Paths were still an enigma at this point, but several assumptions could be made with the limited information he had acquired thus far. Based off the few notifications and their similarity to his Rite, Marcus believed that paths worked almost identically, but were unique in their requirements to unlock. The Crystal Lord path was clearly a product of his recent exposure to the crystalline infection or least that’s what the system was labelling it as. Marcus was beginning to have doubts when it came to the system and the entity that apparently controlled, or at least directed it, The Grand Hegemony – he wouldn’t put it past them to mislabel something they couldn’t control. With that said, it was also strange, or he at least believed it strange, that no other paths related to magic had come up either. He must be doing something fundamentally wrong when it came to casting, or there were simply additional prerequisites.

He would hold on to his stored path points for the time being, and hope the dungeon held more answers before committing to anything. Prior to moving on, he needed a weapon desperately, and preferably one with some reach. The first grisly option was to dig out a long bone from one of the kobolds, but after a moment he dismissed option for two reasons – One, he had no tools to dissect the tough skin, and two, the longest bone one of the creatures had was likely less than a quarter meter in length.

As Marcus was pondering what to do for armament, he made a groundbreaking observation that would single handedly change his life forever. The location where he had previously casted Tendrils of Earth remained twisted and changed, meaning that if he could figure it out, he could mold stone a desired shape... permanently.

Like a kid let loose in a candy store, he began testing, with no small amount of excitement, various methods to mold the stone. An hour later he had only accomplished one thing, totally draining his mana pool repeatedly. Marcus had tried molding the tendrils from his previous spell, every part of the tunnel, loose rocks, and even in desperation the crystals still imbedded within the dead kobolds – nothing had worked. He was doing something incorrect and since magical internet didn’t exist, Marcus couldn’t get confirmation, or help. In his previous attempts he had been converting his raw mana into its earth counterpart, but every time he would infuse it into the stone it was met by a wall of resistance. Calling it stone wasnt entirely accurate, granite would be much more precise name, and following down that same path of logic he began to ponder on what granite itself was comprised of. During college he had taken an elective in geology and vaguely recalled that granite wasn’t a single uniform material.He tried recalling everything he knew, after a moment - thanks new attributes - he remembered much more than he had initially. Granite is a light-colored igneous rock with large grains that were visible at a glance, it is composed mainly of quartz and feldspar with trace amounts of other materials. Another messaged popped into view which Marcus quickly skimmed before dismissing it.

Miscellaneous knowledge skill gained – ©Geology – Level 1| Geology is the science that deals with a planets physical structure and substance, its history, and the processes that act on it. Bonus to identifying natural minerals, modifying them, and using them as catalyst for applicable spells.

It was good to know that skills existed that weren’t combat based, as he been worried it would lead to no small amount of violence as people fought to level skills - in addition he assumed also provided path points; after a quick glance at his sheet he confirmed it. If there wasn’t a limit on the number of skills, he could see a couple of methods to abuse that fact, but that was for another time. After getting the skill, the memories of various mineral makeups became much easier to recall which would be important for the next step.

He had already demonstrated that image and force of will were two vital components for getting a spell or mana to act in the mode that was intended. Up until this point he had been treating the stone as a single uniform substance and that had been where the spell had been failing. Marcus drew on his newly recalled knowledge and remodeled his mana to compensate. Until know he had been stuck using the ‘string’ method, but for this application something more advanced was needed. Pulling out of string of earthen mana was the first step, but the next part was much more difficult – Marcus focused the entirety of newfound willpower on to the strand and began pulling it apart. As the very structure of the strand began to decay causing the mental strain to quickly become overwhelming. Before he could totally form the new shape, which resembled a net, the construct disintegrated, not from lack of focus, but instead the absence of mana. It was now obvious that this new form was much more resource intensive, and Marcus would need to be faster forming it. After several more attempts and waiting for regeneration in between them, he was finally able to form the new construct.

Ignoring the new notifications, he fell into a trance; absolutely focused on creating a new weapon. The net wrapped around a portion of the tunnel wall and Marcus was quick to notice the difference. While it wasn’t easy per se to rearrange the granite, it was now at least possible. It took another hour, and several pools of mana, but he was now left with a 1.5-meter-long pole. While he had been forming this, he had realized that the granite would make an extremely poor edge for the stabby bit on the end, alas he had another option. Before he had been unwilling to dig through the kobold’s bodies, but now he didn’t need to, he only needed the claws. Using the soon to be spear he was able to extract most of the claws and teeth that Marcus would repurpose later. After putting the spares into his backpack, which thankfully had survived the brawl, he took the two largest pieces which were about 6.5 cm long / 2 cm thick and put them to the side. Grabbing the two pieces of razor-sharp crystal, which his back could attest to, he began the long process of attempting to merge the two together. Marcus had gotten the idea to try this while molding the spear shaft, and if he was a betting man this should be a solid gamble.

As the two pieces slowly began to merge it became increasingly difficult to do so, and more worryingly they had also started to glow. The light reached a crescendo as the two halves finally became one and after the radiance dimmed, he was left with an 8 cm long / 3 cm piece of razor-sharp material that still put off a faint bit of light. The final step was by far the easiest and that was to just pair the head with the shaft. In the end Marcus was left with a weapon that was just over 1.7 meters in length and strangely enough had inherited the faint glow that once only been on the tip. Thus far he had been ignoring the numerous notifications that had popped up during this experiment but now that it was done he was impatient and extremely curious to check them out.

(U) Mana Manipulation +10

(U) Elemental Manipulation +10

New ability learned –(U) Stone Shape – Level. 1 | Stone shape is a difficult process that requires much from its user but allows them to shape the very earth into their weapon. Increased levels have nigh unlimited possibilities for advancement.

New ability learned - (U) Mineral Synthesis – Level. 1 | Mineral synthesis is ability to take separate samples of an identical substance and to combine them into a single whole. Increased levels reduce mental strain, mana costs, and opens the possibility of direct refinement.

A pattern seemed to be in store for today because another new tab had been created that he hadn’t seen before, this time it appeared to be for the weapon.

[Crude Mana-Shaped Spear] – A weapon formed was common granite and crystal. Crystal appears to have mana storing capabilities and minorly aids in mana channeling.

+ 50 Mana

+ Minor channel bonus

Weight – 9 kg

The two new spells would be extremely useful if he made it out of this dungeon alive, briefly he had considered stone shaping his way out of the tunnel, but it just wasn’t feasible for one reason – he had no food or water. If he had water and a little food it would have totally been possible to tunnel his way out, it would have just taken a long time. Marcus had already started to feel thirsty and needed to find a source of hydration soon.

Along with that he still had the infection that had to cured, or at least have its progress stopped, and the answers for that were likely somewhere in this pit. Speaking of answers, the spear had inadvertently resolved one question – the crystals weren’t entirely detrimental, hell it appeared as if they were a boon in disguise. Marcus still wasn’t going to choose the Crystal Lord path, but it was starting to look much more feasible and if they continued to act as conduits for mana it would become hard to deny the option.

Taking up his spear, which admittedly was on the heavy side, and his backpack he began walking down deeper into the dungeon, lit only by a soft glow.