Chapter: Complications in opening a mana gate

A roar cut through the night's quiet, startling Erik as his mana spear hit the edge of his mana gate, the rampant mana rushing through his body and ravaging his foot.

He let out a cry as he started healing himself, his eyes snapping open. Cold fear ran through him, if one failed in opening their mana gate, then it could be sealed forever, or they could suffere a backlash with the power ravaging theri mana channels.

Even the small backlash had nearly crippled his foot.

"Leopard!" Rugrat yelled, grabbing onto the tree next to him and jumping off as he pulled out his pistol, firing at the Leopard.

"Shit," Erik said, trying to keep the flow of mana going to his mana gate if it was stopped then his gate would be sealed.

Erik pulled everything into his storage ring as he jumped for the tree as well.

The Leopard tore through where Rugrat had been, missing, he landed on another tree, Erik and Rugrat snapped off shots, the Leopard's roars having a sense of pain in them, their rounds had hit the creature but its natural defense meant that the bullets, while they'd done damage, weren't enough.

The Leopard jumped off of the tree and sailed towards Erik, he dropped from the tree, trying to keep the mana flowing right as he slammed into the ground, he let out a groan as he landed on his feet, rolling, the mana in his foot missed again, tearing apart his foot as he had to divert mana to heal his foot.

The Leopard didn't spare him another glance as it charged Rugrat who had pulled out his personal rifle.

He was hit in the arm, his rifle spinning as his arm was opened up.

"Fuck!" He tried to get away from the Leopard but its claws were buried deep in his arm.

Erik fired into the Leopard's back, unloading his magazine, Rugrat finally got free, dropping to the ground below as Erik reloaded his pistol.

The Leopard charged Rugrat again. Erik rushed forward, hitting the Leopard in the side, pushing it away from Rugrat.

The Leopard let out a growl as it turned on Erik, its claws ripped into his chest, raking against his ribs as he screamed, putting his pistol against the Leopards chest he pulled the trigger again and again, the Leopard's strength started to quickly leave it as it let out a roar, knowing that it was about to die, it was going to take Erik out with it as its head shot forward to rip out Erik's neck with his jaws.

A silenced rifle went off, hitting the Leopard in the face, its head sunk in partially as the light went out of its eyes, its weight falling on Erik as he was stuck under it.

Rugrat hobbled over, he put his rifle away as a tombstone appeared above the leopard.

Its claws had ripped through Erik's chest, the damage to his body wasn't simple.

Rugrat's arm was in a bad way as well.

Erik couldn't move his hands and there was no space for him to pull out items from his storage ring.

He focused on healing and attacking the mana gate in his foot. The strain and trying to keep himself from falling into mana fatigue, he had to be extremely careful.

Rugrat struggled with the panther before clicking on it's tombstone and looting everything from it, it started to dissipate as Rugrat grunted he could move the lightening load of the panther. He got to work assessing Erik’s wounds and started to pull out the priceless healing powders, using them on Erik's wounds.

"Fix yourself," Erik said.

"I'm using a healing spell already," Rugrat said, Erik looked at Rugrat's arm seeing that it was healing albeit slowly, speaking to the damage it had gone through.

Erik let out a hiss as the powder went to work, a powerful healing energy went through his body, focused on the wounds, quickly the wounds started to close up as the medicinal strength of the powder got into Erik's veins, healing his internal injuries.

He coughed up blood as he focused on opening his mana gate, the strain on his body wasn't small, thankfully his tempered blood made his recovery much faster as Erik focused himself, feeling a jab in his side as painkiller flooded his system, he relaxed, the pain dimmed but it became hard to focus the mind as he attacked the mana gate.

Rugrat quickly pulled out a monster core.

"Absorb this, it should give you the energy you need to open your mana gate, or at least help out," Rugrat said.

Erik took the monster core in his hand as an option appeared in front of him.

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Monster Core

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Do you wish to absorb this Lesser Mortal Grade monster core?

Yes/No

You will gain 5,000 EXP

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Monster cores could be used for a great number of things, at their most basic level one could craft powerful weapons, armor and concoctions with them. They could also be used to recover one's stamina, their mana and heal while increasing a person's experience.

One could use monster cores again and again, but the power wasn't clean. After some time of absorbing the same monster cores, a person would gain a debuff, lowering the amount of experience that they could gain.

It was a short term solution to power. If one was to take more powerful monster cores or to have the resources to clear the debuff then they could rapidly increase in power. This was something that the elites of certain sects and families could enjoy.

Some might call this the 'pay to play' method where one used money to increase their levels and abilities directly.

It was, but that was the truth in the ten realms, strength ruled, so what if you abused the system a bit here and there.

The monster core cracked as the cloudy and dirty looking core shattered, threads of energy wrapped around Erik, being absorbed into his body.

Erik felt his experience increasing as the strength in his body surged.

Erik took direct control of the mana in his body that had now stabilized, he drove it towards his mana gate.

His body shook as the final glow from the monster core was absorbed into Erik's body.

The sound of someone hammering against a gate filled Erik's body. Cracks started to form on the mana gate, it was a proud edifice unassailable, but here it was being worn down again and again.

Rugrat watched over Erik, retrieving his weapons as he looked for the spent brass, most of it had been caught by his storage ring, but he couldn’t waste one cartridge.

An hour and a half later, there was a breaking sound as the mana in the area was stirred up, threads of mana were drawn into Erik's mana gates as power flooded through his body.

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Skill: Marksman

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Level: 25 (Apprentice)

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Long-range weapons are familiar in your hands. When aiming, you can zoom in x2.0.

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Upon advancing into the apprentice level of Marksman, you will be rewarded with one randomly selected item related to this skill.

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You have received the Fine Arrows blueprint

+10,000 EXP

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You have successfully opened 3 mana gates.

+1 to Mana Pool

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You have opened another mana gate!

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+1 to Mana Regeneration

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Quest Updated: Opening the Fourteen Gates

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Congratulations! You have opened your fourth mana gate.

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Requirements: Clear all of your fourteen gates (4/14)

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Rewards: +1 to mana regeneration base stat

Undergo mana body rebirth

1,400,000 EXP

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You have reached Level 9

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When you sleep next, you will be able to increase your attributes by: 5 points.

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13,750,/64,000 EXP till you reach level 10

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Erik couldn’t help but smile a bit, it had been a close call, but he had attained level nine, just one step away from becoming level ten, the threshold one needed to pass in order to ascend to the second realm.

His Marksman skill had also upgraded, giving him the benefit of increased magnification when aiming.

The hidden aspects of marksman were also shown as his ability to shoot had increased steadily to the point where he could probably compete with the Old Rugrat in terms of accuracy.

“Morning there, sleeping beauty, you good to go? We need to move,” Rugrat said.

“Yeah,” Erik said, getting up.

Rugrat had changed his clothes and his wounds were healed with the combination of healing powder and his own healing spells.

“I thought that I would run a whole lot less once I got out,” Rugrat complained as they took off into the night.

“Quit your whining, you’re faster than anyone back on Earth,” Erik said.

“I heard that you can get tamed beasts, wouldn’t that be nicer?”

“Rugrat, the last time you had a ‘good’ idea, you made dinner for everyone on base and dosed it with so much hot sauce that even Rossy was left crying,” Erik said.

“Well, I thought you could handle it,” Rugrat complained.

“The bathroom's certainly couldn’t. Do you know how painful one ply is in a blue rocket that’s so warm it’s almost combustible from static when you have to run to the bathroom every ten minutes with forty other guys doing the hokey-pokey don’t let me crap my pants dance?”

“It was a good idea, it just didn’t turn out that well, you guys also force fed me the rest of it!”

“It took us four hours to find you and we had to keep switching out people or else they wouldn’t be able to hold on!”

“Come on, that was pretty funny,” Rugrat said.

Erik let out a tired laugh, knowing that there was no winning against Rugrat while he hid the smile that was forming at the corners of his mouth.

Rugrat let out a muffled curse as he tripped on something and fell down a small ravine.

“Great, I wasn’t looking for my exfoliating mud bath,” Rugrat said, getting out of the mud, flicking his hand to try and get some more of the mud off of him.

“Hopefully the next spell we can learn is night vision,” Rugrat said.

“Or a spell to clean or disinfect,” Erik said, looking around.

“Oh the things I would do for a shower,” Rugrat said with a glow in his eyes.

Erik shivered slightly, not fully wanting to know what extents Rugrat would go to get a shower.