Soren first repaired and then cast the ‘Create Undead’ spell twice, creating two Skeleton Soldiers. He gave his knife to one of them and then ordered them both to dig out the withered wood while moving to the side to stay away from the wood splinters.

Given the status of the wood after suffering from Soren’s spell, it didn’t take them long to finish their job. Soon, a very rough pit appeared in the tree hole within that outlined area. Soren made the Skeletons stand by the side and then started casting ‘Ice Arrow’. His Mana recovery speed had experienced an increase because of the pendant, so he had already recovered most of the Mana that he had spent before.

Soren kept casting ‘Ice Arrow’ without stop and soon, there were multiple ice arrows floating in front of him. He then hurled them towards the rough hole and let them smash inside. He made some of it explode but also paid attention to not overdo it so as to not destroy the pit. After casting the spell a few more times, the hole was filled with hundreds of ice shards and some intact ice arrows. The temperature inside the tree hole went down sharply as even Soren’s breath became visibly white.

He once again waited for a while to recover his Mana and then started casting his spell. This time, he used ‘Fireball’. His recent increase in the affinity gave him a significant boost when it came to ‘Darkness’ and ‘Ice’ spells but at the same time, it decreased his affinity with the elements that were in conflict with his two attributes. The Mana cost of the ‘Fireball’ spell was already high for him and it became even worse after this change. But it didn’t matter much to him. He rarely used this spell in combat, and outside of combat, he didn’t need to pay attention to his Mana.

Soren cast ‘Fireball’ a few times aiming it towards the pit filled with ice. The ‘Average’ Mana Cost made it so that he would have to stop after a few casts to recover his Mana.

After repeating the process a few more times, he finally finished the plan. Now, there was a hole in front of him which was filled with clean transparent water. It took him some time but he was finally able to create a bathtub filled with water which was just at the right temperature.

Gazing at his creation, Soren removed his clothes and put them on the side. He had the Skeleton Soldiers stay idle for now, in case he needed to use them again. He then took out the bottle filled with ‘Draconic Blood’ and poured it all in the water ‘tub’. The amount of blood was much less than the water so it quickly got dissolved and mixed with the water without provoking any change. Soren thought something would change after he would add the blood, but was slightly disappointed to see that the water remained the same. The water was still crystal clear and had the same temperature as before. It was like he had never poured any blood inside.

Suppressing his disappointment, Soren went inside the ‘tub’ carefully while making sure not to spill the water outside. He quickly submerged in the water up to his neck and then took a deep breath. He held his breath and in one quick movement completely sank to the bottom. He stayed there for a few seconds but still couldn’t feel anything. He even started to doubt the authenticity of the blood and was almost ready to curse out loud.

But suddenly, the water surged and then it started boiling. The temperature of the water remained the same but water still kept boiling. It was like something was forcing out all the oxygen in the water. Bubbles kept forming continuously while the temperature of the water still didn’t change.

This continued for almost a minute. Soren was already an Initiator and had a more powerful physique than an average human being. His physical stats might not give him an edge in combat but it was enough to support him underwater for a few minutes.

……..

Few minutes went by…..The water slowly stopped ‘boiling’ and became calm. Soren was still completely submerged inside the water. He was almost at his limits by now and was going to run out of air very soon. But before he could give up, he felt a stinging pain on his skin. It was like something was piercing his skin with small needles—thousands of small needles. He could easily guess that it was the ‘Draconic Blood’ acting on his body.

The process continued for a few more minutes. The stinging pain slowly subsided as Soren felt a heat spreading throughout his body. It didn’t stay for long and quickly his body temperature returned back to normal.

Given that his stay in the water had already crossed his limit, Soren quickly dragged himself out of the water and climbed out of the ‘tub’ while taking big gulps of air with open mouth. As he had just come out of the water, his action of desperately inhaling the air resulted in him sucking in the dripping water which sent him into a fit of coughing. It took some time before it stopped and he could finally breathe properly. Still a little short of breath, Soren got up from the floor and went to get his spare clothes. He used them to wipe himself and wore his usual clothes back.

While doing that, he could already feel some changes in his body so he opened his status to check the result.

Status: Lightly Wounded

Rank 0: Layer 8 [CP - 95%]

Name: Soren Farrow

Species: Human

Attribute: Darkness & Ice

Health: 92%

Stamina: 88%

Mana: 15%

Strength: 2.76

Agility: 3.30 (+2.10)

Vitality: 6.01

Intelligence: 7.05 (+0.40)

Spirit: 6.90 (+3.40)

Resistance: 3.20

Spells:

Spell Vessels: 1/5

Innate Spells:

Innate Skills:

Create Undead: Low Tier [1/3] – Level 10/15. Mana Cost – Average. [Rank 0]

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Dark Bolt – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Ice Arrow – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Dead Rising – Level 3/10. Mana Cost – Low. [Rank 0]

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Acid Needles – Level 1/10. Mana Cost – Very High. [Rank 1]

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Shadow Chain – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Cold Touch – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Spark – Level 10/10. Mana cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Fireball – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Average. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Mana Manipulation – Level 3/15.

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Equipment: Spirit-Pendant; Agility-Ring.

Items: 85 Beast Cores; Common Clothes; Survival Kit; Sidearm Gun [GX 100]; Cultivation Book—‘Steel Skin’; Transparent Spell Vessel; Common Staff.

Mana Crystals: 15,260 [Low-Grade].

The ‘Draconic Blood’ had increased each of his physical stats by around 1.20. The numbers in the brackets shown on his status screen were the enhancements he was getting from the items. His ‘Spirit-Pendant’ increased his ‘Spirit’ by 2.50; his ‘Agility-Ring’ increased his ‘Agility’ by 2.10; his ‘Common Staff’ increased his ‘Intelligence’ and ‘Spirit’ by 0.40 and 0.90 respectively.

Soren was quite happy to see the effect of the blood. But he also knew that the only reason the blood could increase his stats by so much was that he was quite weak, to begin with, and this was the first time he was using it. He knew if he would use it next time, the increase would not be this drastic. Even so, the increase in his stats made him really happy. His physical stats had always been trailing behind for his cultivation level and he had no way to fix that before. Of course, he didn’t want to give up his magical stats for his physical stats as that would have been very stupid of him; he was, in the end, a Spell Caster and not a Warrior.

This increase had solved this problem for him. He still didn’t have very high physical stats but it was still much better than before. Now, he didn’t have to worry about it for quite some time. He could just continue to develop his magical stats the same as before and let his physical stats increase slowly with his cultivation level.

………….

What he had to do next was to breakthrough to Layer-9. His CP had already reached 95% so it was not going to take much time for him to make a breakthrough.

Shaking off the water from his wet hair, Soren sat down in the tree hole and prepared to make a breakthrough to Layer-9 in one go. He started his ‘Devour’ skill and as it happened always, white mist surged and rushed towards the book, starting the process.

……..

……..

Soren’s CP slowly started rising as he kept absorbing the Mana from his surroundings.

CP-96%

……..

CP-97%

….

CP-98%

….

CP-99%

….

Finally, the time for his breakthrough had arrived.

Give ‘Intelligence’ the first priority this time…Others will remain the same.

“Understood, Master”

He gave Isaac the instructions for the stat upgrades and he himself prepared for the breakthrough. He had already gone through the process multiple times now, so there was no issue there. It took him some time but he made a clean breakthrough to Layer-9 without any problem. The surging Mana around him slowly calmed down as he stopped using ‘Devour’. He slowly opened his eyes and faintly felt the difference in power. He hadn’t made a big breakthrough like going from Rank 0 to Rank 1 so the power difference was not much, but it was still there and he could feel it.

He opened his status once again to check what had changed.

Status: Lightly Wounded

Rank 0: Layer 9 [CP - 0%]

Name: Soren Farrow

Species: Human

Attribute: Darkness & Ice

Health: 94%

Stamina: 80%

Mana: 45%

Strength: 3.26

Agility: 4.00 (+2.10)

Vitality: 6.91

Intelligence: 8.35 (+0.40)

Spirit: 8.02 (+3.40)

Resistance: 3.75

Spells:

Spell Vessels: 1/5

Innate Spells:

Innate Skills:

Create Undead: Low Tier [3/3] – Level 10/15. Mana Cost – Average. [Rank 0]

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Dark Bolt – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Ice Arrow – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Dead Rising – Level 3/10. Mana Cost – Low. [Rank 0]

------------

Acid Needles – Level 1/10. Mana Cost – Very High. [Rank 1]

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Shadow Chain – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Cold Touch – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Spark – Level 10/10. Mana cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Fireball – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Average. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Mana Manipulation – Level 3/15.

------------

Equipment: Common Staff; Spirit-Pendant; Agility-Ring.

Items: 85 Beast Cores; Common Clothes; Survival Kit; Sidearm Gun [GX 100]; Cultivation Book—‘Steel Skin’; Transparent Spell Vessel.

Mana Crystals: 15,260 [Low-Grade].

He was quite ecstatic with the increase in his stats, especially his stats related to spell casting. He wanted to test his powers right away but controlled himself as he still had one more thing to do before moving out.

He opened his backpack and took out a wooden box. Inside was sitting a transparent Spell Vessel on a soft silk-like cloth. He had already decided to use this Spell Vessel before going to meet the ‘Wandering Wolves’. He had nothing to lose by using it as even if it turned out to be a completely useless spell, he could just destroy the Vessel or let it be and deal with it in the future.

So, repeating the same process again, Soren cut his finger using the knife and dripped a drop of blood on the Spell Vessel. But this time, something different happened, which Soren had already expected given the difference in the Spell Vessel’s external structure. As he dropped his blood on the Spell Vessel, the runes on it started shining with a very light red color. It looked like the light was passing through his blood and had become pale red in color as a result.

Suddenly, Soren felt like the Spell Vessel was giving him a choice. Instinctively, he knew what choice it was. The Spell Vessel was asking him his choice for an Element.

Soren was quite stunned when he came to this conclusion. He knew that he was still inexperienced and was only a frog in a well but he had never thought that there could be a Spell Vessel which could allow its user to choose the Element. This type of Spell Vessels meant that regardless of which spell it contained, the Element it would use could be chosen according to the user’s need. That meant Soren could make it a ‘Darkness’ or ‘Ice’ spell without changing the basic spell itself.

………

Soren didn’t rush to choose the Element. He was obviously going to choose one of the Elements from his attributes but first, he had to decide which one. Affinity wise—it didn’t matter, as both the elements loved him the same. But it was hard for him to make a decision as he didn’t have any idea what the spell was or how his Elements would affect it.

Even after mulling on it for a few minutes, Soren couldn’t decide which Element to use on this Spell Vessel. He didn’t have enough knowledge on this stuff so there was no way for him to make an educated decision here. Finally, he just decided to do a toss for it. He didn’t have a coin with him so he chose his knife. He held it from the blade side and threw it upwards.

He was planning to choose ‘Darkness’ if the fallen knife pointed towards him, and ‘Ice’ if it pointed in the other direction. But his luck seemed to be quite weird….as the knife dropped down and stabbed the wood; staying upright.

Sigh!

A helpless sigh came out of Soren’s mouth as he removed the knife from the wood and tossed it again. This time, the knife dropped down properly and the blade pointed towards him before bouncing back again from the recoil; finally, stopping and pointing in a random direction. Regardless of that, Soren already had his result.

The knife had decided the Element for him so he was just going to follow that. He picked ‘Darkness’ and decided to add that to the Spell Vessel. He didn’t waste any more time and started adding the Element in the Spell Vessel. It was pretty easy to do so as he simply had to filter out the ‘Darkness’ Element from the Mana and then add it to the Spell Vessel. Dark mist surrounded his hand as it made its way inside the Spell Vessel.

It didn’t take long before the process was finished and the Spell Vessel started its next action. As usual, it turned into blood mist and rushed towards the Stygian Grimoire, permeating inside.

Finally, the whole process was finished. Soren was quite excited to see what spell it would be and if his decision….or more like his knife’s decision was right or not.

He waited for a while and soon got the message.

“Spell Learned: Dark Gravity [3/3]. Mana Cost – Extremely High.”

“Dark Gravity: Creates an area with a very high gravitational force, combined with the element of ‘Darkness’ which does withering and decaying damage to the ones trapped inside. Gravity Domain (Neutral Spell) + Dark Tendrils = Dark Gravity. The size of the Area of Effect depends on the user’s ‘Intelligence’ stat and the user can freely choose the epicenter inside the spell range.”