A locations construction technique was more than capable of telling a story of its own. In the case of this one, much of the wall was a single piece of uninterrupted stone, free from any readily visible seams or joints. Granite or perhaps marble had been Marcus’s first guess at what it had been made of, but upon closer inspection the material wasn’t something he was familiar with – in fact, it looked synthetic. Material science was well above his paygrade, and creating something of that size spoke volumes of the original creators. As for the gatehouse itself it was made of the same material, and at about half of the height of the walls themselves, it was nonetheless an impressive object. For now, he could only shake his head and step inside; the gates themselves being sealed. Much of the inside of the small room was unadorned – lacking any furniture to speak of. All told the only notable features included a long counter near the entrance, and a closed metal door at the back of the room. Marcus hadn’t given up his search for whatever the kobolds had been digging for, alas, no trace of ore or other debris were present – at least here.

Despite a distinct lack of patrols on the walls he couldn’t discount the inherent danger that laid beyond the next door. Something in his mind was telling him to take care of everything now, otherwise once he moved beyond, he would have lost the chance. Opening his status, Marcus’s eyes bulged for a moment at how much had changed. But really it made sense, the fight he just finished was greater than all those before it combined, and even if it was hard to admit, seeing himself improve was cathartic.

[Level Up +4]

[(U) Mana Manipulation +4]

[(U) Elemental Manipulation +4]

[(U) Stone Shape +6]

[(U) Mineral Synthesis +4]

[® Inorganic Fabrication +3]

[(U) Scorching Ray +7]

[© Geology +1]

New skill learned – © Basic Melee Fighting – Level. 1 | Provides a small bonus to the use and learning of physical combat abilities.

Before diving into his path points, Marcus began to assign free attributes in a manner he had planned – grabbing the low hanging fruit at fifty of a stat. Eleven went into constitution to hit fifty for its bonus, two for strength to get an even twenty and because his backpack was already getting heavy with just the crystal shards; four for luck so those same shards didn’t explode on him, and finally three for agility, because if there were any more elites he couldn’t depend on them being injured to keep up. As expected, three more notifications appeared for hitting fifty in several different stats.

The body strengthens further as not only do your bones become harder to break, but the very blood in your veins carry with it vast vitality. New Health multiplier: 1.2x An expanded mind is but one facet of ascension. Having the space for an ocean of knowledge is useless if one only possesses a bucket to fill it. Wisdom Doubles Mana Regeneration Perceiving isn’t always done with eyes and in-fact doing so limits many possibilities. Perception allows for more efficient usage of both Mana and Stamina abilities/spells e.g. casting speed.

The wisdom bonus was frankly better than any of the others that he had received thus far, and had definitely been a welcomed boom. Before it had taken nearly twenty minutes to refill his entire mana pool, but now it took less than half of that at around seven! Not to mention that in combat if he were to pace himself it was possible to continually pump out magical support, assuming he could buy time to cast that is. Speaking of buying of buying time, Marcus believed with his new perception his spells had become both cheaper, but also mildly faster at being cast – all in all it changed how he would fight on a basic level.

Fate has a sick sense of humor - after everything was said and done, he had exactly fifty-seven unassigned PP, enough to complete the Crystal Lord path if he chose to. Weighing the decision came down to two sets of observations,” So far, I’ve only benefited from the infection - at this point I’m going to call it a transformation simply to make it palatable. In addition, the progress of said ‘transformation’ is fundamentally different when comparing myself to the kobolds. My mom had always said, In for penny, in for pound.” With that, Marcus began to add one PP at a time; he tensed on the fifth point... but nothing happened, releasing a breath he hadn’t known he was holding he pushed on. The same cycle of attribute increases continued as before, and with only a brief moment of hesitation, added the final point.

An icy flood began to rampage his veins, destroying and then rebuilding them in real time. The process wasn’t painful, no, instead the experience was supremely refreshing as if whatever was happening was not only fixing his body but elevating it instead. Relief filled Marcus’s mind when the waves detoured around not only his heart, but more importantly, his brain. Even with the process being pleasant he continued to worry about losing his sense of self, but soon whatever had just happened was complete. Marcus opened his full status to begin quantifying its changes.

Name: Marcus Diamandis Level - 9

Class - None Health: 850/850 Regeneration 8.5/Minute 1.2 x Multiplier

Stamina: 650/650 Regeneration 100/Minute 1.0 x Multiplier

Mana: 960/960 Regeneration 124/Minute 1.2 x Multiplier

Free Attributes: 0 Path Points: 1 Damage Multipliers: 0% Race: Crystal-Forged Human Casting Speed Multipliers: 10% Basic Statistics Total Strength 30 Constitution

70 Agility

15 Perception

61 Intelligence

80 Wisdom 62 Charisma

9

Luck

10

Marcus drew in a sharp breath not only due to the massive spike in…well everything, but because now not only could he see his race, it wasn’t entirely human. Before jumping to any conclusions, he read the final notice available.

The mantle weighs heavily upon your shoulders which has begun to fundamentally change who and what you are. Forevermore, by choosing the path of a Crystal Lord, your veins and arteries will be of living crystal - acting not only as a conduit for blood, but mana as well. Light from above continues press down upon you, but the path ahead continues.

New Passive discovered – ® Crystalline Veins – Level. 1 | The supporting structure of your Circulatory System has undergone massive changes. Your veins and arteries are now made of a tough crystal polymer which facilitates flexible spellcasting from anywhere on the skin.

Marcus learned little from his notifications or his status, but that wasn’t anything new. He felt the same, if not better than ever - outside of his race partially changing that is. On the bright side Marcus WAS still human, if not of the Crystal-Forged variety. What exactly THAT entailed was a mystery, but for now he had a dungeon to escape.

Before, Marcus was required to launch all his spells from his hands, making it difficult if not impossible to wield a weapon simultaneously. His new passive would circumvent that issue, at least after it was mastered; it turned out to be more challenging than expected. Concentrating mana into his hands and transforming it had come easily, but he was finding himself struggling to maintain cohesion using Crystalline Veins. The mana would respond to his call, but once reaching the location would just continue to flow by following the veins. The mana itself just began to recirculate without any loss, but having said that, the skill would remain unusable for now as it would take too much practice, along with testing to use in the dungeon. Even assuming the skill worked immediately, adapting it use for his ‘fighting style’ aka – flailing semi-randomly with a sharp spear – he would likely end up with himself being the injured one.

Either way, it was time to move on. Approaching the door Marcus placed an ear to it and listened. After several moments not a peep was heard from the other side even with enhanced senses. The gunmetal grey door didn’t have a visible locking mechanism, so with a light shove the door slowly swung open revealing… another door. A small hallway stretched six meters ahead, likely the thickness of the walls, ending in a similar entryway than the first. Murder holes lined the hall and weren’t obstructed, alas like the walls, appeared to be unguarded. Not sure if they would remain unmanned or not, he crossed the distance to the next door quickly; which thankfully was partially open. Marcus looked around through the gap, after seeing nothing around the immediate entrance, he widened the opening just enough to squeeze through and into what appeared to be a small courtyard.

Several buildings ringed the space around him, individually the structures were of varying sizes and appeared to be made of the same material as the walls. The style of each construction was consistent regardless of its size; if any parallel could be drawn it would be a mashup of Renaissance Architecture sporting symmetry and geometry with American colonial. The styles were familiar, but the product made something unique – rounded rooftops were in the majority whereas the rest of the structure was blocky, with columns and regularly spaced windows – all in all it just felt alien.

Architecture aside, Marcus began snooping around several of the buildings looking for anything out of place, or an indication of any additional kobolds. He gave up after the second building - finding nothing whatsoever, each room had been empty; just like the gatehouse. Frankly the place felt like a ghost town, and Marcus would have been shocked if anything had lived here in a very, very, long time. All he could do was move on while trying to remain stealthy, avoiding many of the main roads and sticking to small access streets or alleyways. The streets were laid out in a grid like pattern, making it hard to get lost while searching around. From the outside this place had looked small, but now after exploring for a bit, calling it a minor town or village wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. So far Marcus had found nothing of import, just more empty buildings, but now as he was starting to get close to the two gigantic doors at the end of the cavern that changed.

With only three blocks left signs finally began to appear hinting the presence of something - likely kobolds. Scratch and drag marks were the first to appear, followed by an odor, no, calling it an odor was too pleasant, it was the stench of burnt flesh. Marcus began to recall the sight and smell of burning corpses, the chimeras feasting on their skin, ripping and…” Why wasn’t it me… what was different, I shouldn’t be alive!?”

Stuck in a loop of repressed emotions, Marcus couldn’t detect the small group approaching his position, nor their frenzied attack soon after spotting a frozen wide-eyed human cowering against a wall. As the distance between them closed a part of his mind was frantically trying to reestablish control, moments later pure-animalistic instinct hijacked his body to defend itself from the approaching kobolds. The four combatants didn’t even know what killed them before lances of superheated fire flashed heated their brittle bodies to ash. Realization finally dawned on the sane part of his mind soon thereafter where-in he realized what had just occurred.

“I... I need to pull myself together, I nearly lost myself there… I hadn’t even been scared, but the smell... that fucking smell.”

Marcus had heard of survivors’ guilt and PTSD before but not in a million years had he thought it would be him to experience them. His body still shook as hidden parts of himself started to spill out, and hell, if someone else were here to see his condition no one in their right mind could blame him.

Just a DAY ago life had been stable, sure he’d lost his job, but frankly he’d wrapped that event up with everything else as the world experienced Armageddon. But look where that new world had landed him – he’d been walking through dark tunnels, lit only by a spell. Don’t even get him started on spells...it was just hitting now that HE was throwing around deadly magic, and getting better at it at an astonishing rate; the ash laid at his feet was a physical manifestation of that reality.

Pieces of his mind slowly came back under control as cold sweat soaked through the filthy clothes covering his body. The realization that the psionic illusionist before hadn’t been showing random images, it was just amplifying the fears he still now held was horrifying.

Marcus constantly said that making the world a better place to live in was his ultimate goal, but those had just been words; even the promises spoken just before leaving the crash site was same, but now the situation had changed.

His mind had been damaged, broken, but he believed now that rebuilding it stronger was the way forward. He would wield his power as a hammer, the world itself the anvil, and finally reforge himself not only for personal gain, but to wield that newfound strength to provide for his fellow man. The first step to recovery had always been admitting your various faults and moving to act on them. Marcus believed the first step was the hardest, and now that he’d taken it, nothing would break him. The walls had indeed held answers to his problems, just not the ones he had expected. Marcus stepped over the pile of fresh ash with a new sense of purpose, he would rip apart anything foolish enough to confront him – purging this kobold infestation was as good as start as any.

Marcus began to systematically cleanse each block of kobolds, moving closer to the gargantuan doors. The shoe was now firmly on the other foot for these creatures now; at the beginning they had been deadly threats - now the regular kobolds were nothing but cannon fodder. Keeping a body count hadn’t been priority; although a good guess would put it around 100 strong so far. Marcus’s only concern was that no Elites had been congregating with the smaller kobolds, meaning that the two killed already were the only ones, unlikely, or the others stayed in a central location. As an interesting note, he did find out what they were digging for and the answer had been frustrating, it had been nothing. Now, not literally nothing, but nothing specific, instead they’d grab anything moderately metallic or shiny. They’d then pile it up nearby, waiting for someone, or something else to come collect the small pieces.

The final structure left was by far the largest in the small town, which wasn’t saying a whole lot. It stood at three stories tall and occupied about 100 meters squared of space, or about three football fields combined. Scorching Ray at this point could consistently kill three regular kobolds at a time if he had the right angle and its range was pushing 100 meters, alas even with that the numbers he could see were overwhelming. Hundreds of regular kobolds and perhaps a dozen elites milled about around structure in no discernable pattern. Unfortunately using traps wasn’t an option within the town, even the streets were made of the synthetic material. Marcus had tried Stone Shape and Inorganic Fabrication - with both being ineffective at manipulating the material at all; for kicks and giggles he’d also tried using his spear which had little success as well.

Marcus had almost run out of ideas before snapping his fingers and with gleaming eyes filled with mirth said simply, “Magical.Explosives.”

During his hunt for the regular kobolds he’d been stripping them of crystal growths when possible. He’d managed to horde a staggering amount of the substance before periodically storing it in a building closer to the walls. Marcus made his way back to the stockpile with a little too much excitement and began to use Mineral Synthesis to form larger and larger spheres of crystal. The idea originated from when the Elite Kobold had been absolutely obliterated by its own armor when Marcus overcharged it. It took several hours - more time than he’d have liked - to finish combining his stash into usable weapons.

Marcus put the plan into immediate action after recovering briefly; as an aside he was more than a little stressed out by the backpack of bombs on his back…

Today was like many before it and the kobold was more than a little bored, it didn’t really do much outside of exist to look for shiny things, and to protect the nest of course. A shiny rock-like ball hit the ground near him causing many of his nearby brood-mates to scurry over and stare at the gorgeous thing. That group of kobolds would at die happy, as they didn’t see the lance of fire mana strike the stone before it combusted into a nova of energy.

“YEEEESSSS it worked; it was a solid 50/50 the first time as a fluke!” Marcus said aloud.

He hadn’t been able to test his creations because they made an ungodly racket going off. Sure, the first one hadn’t caused a horde, but what about the second? Third? Apparently even the system was confused as it hadn’t even labelled the crystals as armaments, surely, he wasn’t the first person to weaponize something like this. Now wasn’t the time to discuss the likelihood of magical explosives, as he took off, leading the mass of pissed off kobolds on a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Marcus had made two varieties of the make-shift bombs, one was the ball which he had just thrown, and the other was like a landmine with a flat bottom that sat on the ground. Speaking of mines, another chunk of enemies began to pass over one, prompting a quick Scorching Ray setting off another deadly explosive, wiping out a dozen kobolds in one go. The game continued with the number of enemies quickly being ground down into something manageable. By the time Marcus ran out of landmines to kite the near-brainless kobolds into only a handful of the regular kobolds remained while half of the elites had fallen, leaving only six. Of those six, half again were moderately injured while three were in pristine health – still more than a handful if he was being honest with himself.

The backpack held several of the ball type crystals, but the elites weren’t completely stupid, and the surviving ones had adapted to how dangerous they were. Picking a random building he ran inside and charged up the first flight of stairs he discovered. Turning around at the top of the steps he placed Tendrils of Earth at the bottom, tossing in several crystal ‘grenades’ for good measure. The spell took an elite, followed by the remaining regular kobolds by surprise, binding them in place briefly, but long enough for Marcus to set off the trap – wiping out the clump. Unfortunately, the dead elite had been one of the injured ones, likely sent in by the rest as a type of lure.

So far nothing he had done managed to even scratch the buildings here, meaning that the stairs remained in one piece. Five Elites crowded the stairs, rushing up to slaughter him in melee range. Marcus brandished his spear and wished that Crystal Veins had been easier to use because five of these brutes may be too many to deal with, even after his improvements.

The spear spun in a low arc coming in from under the kobolds chin aiming for a decisive blow, Marcus’s attacks were assuredly much faster, but not quite enough. Instead of a killing blow it glanced off the crystal armor of the dodging elite, turning the blow less than lethal, nevertheless the spear managed to clip the kobolds’ eye, partially blinding it. Contrary to the weaker kobolds who attacked until death, the injured elite fell back to prod at Marcus from a distance instead, letting a fresh comrade take its place up front. Everything had happened in a moment, but the glancing blow had allowed him to redirect the force into the next attack. Bludgeoning attacks are deadly vs. armored opponents, especially weapons heavy weapons made of stone.

Crystal shattered as the blunt shaft contacted the head of the kobold. With his newfound strength, Marcus torqued his body applying additional force to the blow, pulping the kobolds brain to mush. As the second enemy fell, the rest had finally arrived on the second-floor landing, leaving little room to maneuver. Feinting, Marcus reached into his back pocket and lobbed a crystal at the elites, causing them to panic briefly. He wouldn’t have enough time to set it off, but it was adequate to make an attack. Lining up the railing behind his target, Marcus used his spear as an anchor to heavily kick the elite in the chest, sending it over the ledge to crash into the bottom floor. Sickening snaps sounded out seconds later, signaling the end of another – leaving three creatures remaining.

Retreating from landing into the floor proper, led into a large domed room with several columns supporting the roof. Marcus ran towards one of the columns hastily casting a spell; once the lead kobold entered the room, he released the ray removing the semi-blind kobolds left arm which began to immediately blood profusely. Knowing that he only needed to buy time before that enemy bled out, Marcus choose to ignore it to focus on his last targets. One additional kobold burst into the room, immediately beelining towards him. Without the support of its allies, heavily injured ones aside, it was much easier to deal with these elites. Marcus circled around the creature before dashing forward, ducking under a heavy blow, he slammed the haft of the spear in the spine of the kobold. More of crystal shattered and likely the spine itself did as well, because the kobold dropped to the ground where it was immediately ended by a thrust to the head. During this the one-armed elite had made ineffectual attacks, but now fell to ground to never rise – death by blood loss. As the last enemy entered the room, Marcus felt that something about this kobold was off, it had entered the room much too slowly as if waiting the others to soften him up first. This kobold stood yet another head taller than even the elites, thick black streaks covered its body, even being impressed onto its crystalline armor. Speaking of armor, Marcus couldn’t see a single bare piece of the monster meaning that the infection had completely consumed it. As he was observing the kobold it was also observing him, and when it spoke, he nearly shat himself.

“Why do you fightsss uss? I can sssmell the Ssavior coming off your body!” it hissed at him.

“What do you mean by the Savior? And what do you mean no fight you all?! As soon as I was trapped in this godforsaken dungeon your kin have done nothing but try to kill me!” Marcus yelled in frustration. He didn’t understand how this thing could even talk anymore. Was it even still a kobold or was it something else?

In response the thing just chuckled for a moment, quite a strange thing to hear when much of its body, including the mouth was shrouded in tumorous crystals. The sound itself was like rocks being ground together before being fed into a woodchipper.

“The Ssavior isss just The Ssavior… how do you not know? It ssshouldn’t be possssible for you to not understand! No, ssomething iss wrong with your sscent, its too controlled. How! Why issn’t the Ssaviors’ mark on your sskin?”

Frankly, Marcus was just buying time for his stamina to regenerate because after inspecting this monster he would need everything he had. Before responding he took another glance at it.

Gilti, the Crystalline Host – Level. 16 | A former Kobold Chieftain by rank, but was misled by an entity to enter an unknown dungeon with much of his tribe following suit. An unknown event occurred causing an infection to rapidly spread to all kobold males. The infection slowly converts kobolds into thrall type husks; higher castes can resist the effects to an extent, but all serve a central entity. Gilti himself has retained much of his intelligence and fighting capability, alas his mind has been twisted by magic. He will be an extremely deadly foe, proceed with caution.

“Are you talking about all of the crystal nonsense? If you are sure, its pumping through my veins every moment, but unlike you I haven’t been made into someone’s slave.”

“Ssslave? I am no SSSLAVE I am a loyal SServant of my massster! Unlike you I will not twissst hisss giftss! Enough, you bring sshame to hiss blesssings and for that musst die!”

With his last statement Gilti stepped forward and didn’t draw weapons, instead two scythes of midnight black crystal lowered from his forearms. Each of the blades radiated an aura similar to the illusionist, and Marcus could feel the protection around his brain pulse to rebuff the mana. Unlike before the defense wasn’t perfect, and mental strain began to mount. Marcus needed to somehow end his quickly as a protracted battle wasn’t to his advantage.

He was able to get off a pair of Scorching Rays before Gilti crossed the distance, each of the bolts of energy made contact on the same location near the ribs. Outside of mild discoloration the attacks appeared to have no effect on the thick crystal armor that encased the former Chieftain. Marcus would need to continue to land repeated blows to even cause cracks, and a spear certainly wasn’t ideal.

Giltis’ flurry of blows was both precise and powerful. The extra weight from the infection didn’t seem to slow him down in the slightest, and combined with the armor it provided, Marcus begin to sweat. For the first minute, he was forced to defend against the kobold without an opportunity to get in a single blow. Over this entire dungeon experience Marcus had gotten significantly better at noticing the patterns his opponents would use during their attacks. It didn’t take much longer for him to notice that Giltis’ ‘unstoppable’ rush was repeating the same route movements. Not long after that Marcus began to slowly find openings to make his own attacks.

Even with the openings in Giltis’ defense most of Marcus’s attacks were pitifully infective. Ducking the scythes with a roll, he popped up from the lowered position and drove the spear into the same spot as the rays at the beginning. His first bit of hope surged when a large crack appeared, but he paid for that moment of hope when the kobolds' weapons sliced across his chest. Marcus yelped in pain and nearly tripped over his backpack that had been cutoff by the attack, spilling its contents over the floor.

His arms remained operational thankfully, and after cursing himself for the mistake continued pounding at the crack. Chunks of crystal began to fall from the spot after Marcus landed several more blows, and he could finally see the Giltis’ natural scales, which quickly thereafter turned into an open wound.

It would take much too long for the blood loss to have any effect, and the angle was too awkward to get the spear deep enough for a mortal blow. Marcus had a plan and it was to use the spears ability to channel that up until now he had no reason to use. He began to slowly guide Gilti back towards his fallen backpack and its spilled contents. Several exchanges later, Marcus was able to scoop up one of crystal grenades, causing Gilti to just scoff at him.

The spear rocketed through the air barely intercepting yet another lethal blow. Stepping into the block he shouldered Gilti, briefly causing the boss to stumble off balance. In that moment Marcus once again rushed inside the range of the scythes, not to attack but to instead jam his hand holding the crystal grenade into the open wound. If he had been willing to loss a hand or perhaps more the fight would have ended right there, but Marcus had no clue if his healing spell could fix lossed limbs and he wasn’t betting on it.

Gilti was confused why he was still alive and thought that Marcus had made a mistake. The creature began to laugh, infuriating Marcus to no end – or least that’s how he tried to sell it. His spear once again became a blur as the fight recommenced. The creature believed the battle won, as the mental pressure had almost worn through Marcus’s defenses and once those failed it was over. Parrying another attack caused his spear to audibly crack, triggering real panic to flash over his face; Marcus riposted the scythes and swung his damaged weapon bashing Gilti across the head stunning him.

Not missing the chance, he stabbed into the wound not only shoving the ‘grenade’ deeper but Marcus began to flood his spear with every ounce of mana he could muster. The spear began to glow eerily and emitted a whining sound that filled the room, which quickly became an ear-splitting pitch. Marcus rolled backwards and sprang to get behind one of the columns near the walls. Briefly making it behind cover, he waited… and waited – nothing was happening. For a second he worried, before a deep wumph was heard – several seconds later Marcus stepped out from behind his column.

Gilti was just standing there stock still, eyes wide with panic; Marcus thought he was still alive briefly, but the corpse slowly tilted over slamming into the floor. As the former boss collapsed one special notification filled his eyes and after reading it, he slowly crumbled to the floor in an unconscious heap.

Congratulations for clearing the Crystal Stronghold, an advanced dungeon. All combatants have been eliminated and rewards are now available. A path of blood was formed in the wake of your slaughter, not a single soul given a moment respite or quarter. Remember, the path to exaltation is paved by the deaths of the unworthy. You may remain in the dungeon to collect any available spoils, but to claim System rewards you must visit the closest System terminal.