Ok, let's get this over with. “Status.”

Name:Niko Bolas

Class:Grand Summoner (Tier 2)

Level: 1016

Class Level: 1

Stat points:905

Bloodline Awakening 5.6% (+100 to all stats)

Health: 2,230

Mana Pool: 1/11,425

Soul Density: 81,056

Soul Mass: 11,425

Status:

Strength- 215 Constitution- 223 Dexterity- 118 Agility- 211 Soul Density- 81,056 Soul Mass- 11,425 (+905)

Summoning abilities:

Goblins Imps Juvenile War Troll

Active Abilities:

Elemental manipulation Soul Weapon Equals Pact Summon Strengthening Summon Meister

Passive Abilities:

Chaos Dragon Monarch Bloodline Unlimited Potential My might is yours Elemental absorption Elemental perception Iron Skin Health Regeneration (10%)

After distributing his points he sighed and focused on his ring. Instantly a panel popped up with everything that the trolls dropped, which was mostly junk but he could still give it to the former captives. Picking out a few lighter armor pieces, a staff, a cloak, and a robe he headed for the exit. Unfortunately whatever blood splatter there was didn’t get taken with the bodies.

Ding

Congratulations you are the 9th person of you species to surpass level 1,000. Speak to any adventurer’s guild representative to learn about advancement and level funding.

Holy shit there’s even guilds. Wait well that was pretty easy since there’s dungeons and all. Now the question is how the fuck do i find an adventurers guild and how the fuck are there nine others that got here faster than me? Sigh. Endless questions and no one to answer them. Shoving all that to the back of his head he slowly made his way out of the cave. Seeing what looked like a teenager waiting for him just outside he had a slightly blank and vacant expression and didn’t speak. With a gesture he started walking didn’t turn back. Soon he saw the rest of the captives nursing their wounds a few terminals away from the dungeon, several had pipes or makeshift weapons at the ready.

Most were looking at what he assumed was their status screens or the tutorial because all his analyze told him was that all of them were only a lvl 1 human, without even a description. Quickly picking out the two who seemed to be the leaders he made his way over to them. “-no supplies at all. If we leave we’re dead no matter what without weapons, and we just don’t have enough-” the shorter man of the two quickly shut up when he got close. “I’ll be damned if it isn’t the crazy ass who rescued our dumbasses. I can’t thank you enough sir.”

“Don’t mention it. I brought you guys all weapons but the rest you’ll have to scrounge for before you guys all leave. Being in a group so big will only paint a target on you for the monsters from what i’ve seen. As it is I’ll be leaving in the morning.” Seeing the slightly panicked and anxious expressions he continued. “I was only passing by when I found you. I was in one of the plane wrecks outside when it all started. I don’t do well in large groups either and that’s only detrimental in this new survival of the fittest world, so to clean my conscious i’m helping you this far.”

After seeing them slowly nod he pointed to a corner vacant of people dumped all the extra weapons and armor before going up a set of nearby stairs to the second deck and curling up in a seat. First he did like he’d read about and crossed his legs to meditate. Feeling for the mana in the air he found it surprisingly easy to manipulate to his will but soon it started to thin out and he couldn’t realy strain his senses far enough to be realy effective. Pondering on he tried for a few hours without success but finally remembered about how he had talked with couple guys on his ship before he left about the worst things to run into on the sea.

One of them had said tornadoes and one said whirlpools, after a lengthy argument it was eventually agreed that whirlpools won because they could draw things in for miles and if you got to close it was sure doom. Trying almost the same thing he made his will start to spin like a whirlpool and almost instantly he could feel the mana all around start flowing towards him and rush into his system. Compared to before it was like a dam had broken like a flood and rushed into his system.

Within minutes he could feel his mana pool was about the same as his soul mass and stopped drawing it in as he felt what he could hold overflowing and just leaking out again. Deciding to practice a bit he remembered about some of the better stories he’d read that the MC could use his mana to continually reinforce his body. Commonly this was always referred to as cultivation and the energies used were completely different but wasn’t trying to go all the way with it.

If he could apply some of those techniques to enhance his body then he might stand a chance if he ran into another situation like today. Ok lets start from the basics. The skin is the first to go usually in a fight so we’ll start with that. Taking a tiny strand from the ball of mana inside himself he spread as thin as possible and had it soak into his skin. Seeing the process go so well he steadily increased the amount until it felt like his skin was literally crawling with worms. He kept this pace steady for a few more hours before cutting it off just before he keeled over and collapsed with exhaustion.

As he woke with a splitting headache he realized his goblins had taken turns keeping watch while he slept. With a soft smile he let go of their summoning spell and they faded out like they were never there to begin with. Quickly getting up and putting on his cloak he jumped out a nearby gate headed past the air fields. He was tempted for the city but he new it would most likely be even worse than the airport, not to mention there was a lot of bodies missing for how many were usually at an airport at any given time.

He had no idea where the rest were but he definitely new he didn’t want to find out. After a few hours he was getting bored so he tried to think of the principles behind magic. From what he understood it was him forcing the world to create phenomena through his will but understanding the principles behind it greatly boosted its effectiveness and cut down its cost. It was still 90% instinctive for him but he hoped to strike a balance in the future. He was nearly dead center in the middle of the airfield by this point and suddenly his hair stood on end.

Never one to doubt his instincts he dropped into a defensive stance immediately strained his senses to see exactly what had set off his danger sense. He just couldn’t tell what it was but he knew something was there. Half instinct and half sixth sense he used his hands to reinforce a knee block as he spun. To fast to even see something crashed into him so hard he flew over thirty meters and it shattered his knee. Gritting his teeth against the wave of pain he managed to land on his good leg and dug his hands into ground to halt his skid.

Looking back to where he was standing he couldn’t say who was more surprised, him or the elf standing there with a fist outstretched. It was obvious that was her attack and he could see why it hurt so bad, her body looked like it was carved entirely of sinewy muscle that just screamed explosive power. From what he knew elves were supposed to be elegant and graceful to the point even their guys looked to a one like pretty boys, yet this amazon clearly broke that stereotype into quite a few pieces.

He didn’t get long to stare though before he threw himself left and just barely avoided a flashed that pierced where his heart just was. Without a second to spare he burned almost half his mana and casted ice spear like with the shaman yesterday but instead of just his strength he used what little he could understand about fire to create an explosion to propel the spear beyond the sound barrier, which fortunately created a huge cloud of smoke.

He quickly took off as the bones in his leg snapped back into place. Putting everything into the last ditch effort to get away he ran faster than he ever had in his life before, but his fears were confirmed as another elf with a spear appeared seemingly out of thin air a hundred yards in front of him. Coming to a stop he sighed got ready for a fight he knew he’d lose. He reinforced his body as best he could and waited. “What the hell ye fools doin, ya dolts.” He almost gasped as what he could only call a dwarf now appeared out a hole in the ground that definitely wasn’t there a few seconds ago.

“Testing a hunch and we were right. He’s the one that caused such a stir in the mana last night. Looks to be from the local race that was just assimilated and although its crude he’s already got the mana level of someone at the master realm. And yet not only that but he could feel Elsa before she made her move then dodged my spear from his blind spot. As if that’s not enough my skill is telling me his class is a soul based summoner variant, which means he hasn’t even used his main skills yet and still took a punch from Elsa which is completely healed right now.”

The more he talked the more it sounded like a kid trying to defend his actions in front of his parent. Without a doubt it was strange as he finally calmed down he saw that at least these two followed the general stereotype that he new. The dwarf was built like a four foot tall brick shit house and the elf could only be described as gorgeous. With a twist and duck he avoided the wild punch from behind by a hair's breadth and land a bone breaking counter into her stomach. His arm crumpled like tinfoil and at this point they were nose to nose and all he got out was a quick “Dammit.” before darkness took him.

He had used every last ounce of his mana in that final blow and it had a similar effect to exhausting his soul mass, which was being knocked unconsciousness. He was confused when he eventually woke up, not because his hands and feet were tied but because he woke up at all. Pretending to play dead he quickly spread out his senses but couldn’t find his captors. With a groggy groan he sat up and wasn’t surprised when he saw them all sitting around a campfire moving and talking like normal but it was like he could only use his eyes.

He couldn’t smell, hear, taste, or feel anything. Finally seeing him awake an orc he didn’t recognize from before walked and grabbed him before dragging him over to the fire pit. The amazon snapped her fingers and suddenly he could use his other senses again, but holy shit was he sore. He felt like he just got processed through a meat grinder then roller over by a car. Refusing to show any discomfort he waited for one of them to talk. After a few moments they all started grinning at each other before the dwarf from before smirked then coughed in his fist before talking.

“I know we got off on a piss poor foot thanks to the battle happy lunatics I call companions, but before you hold a grudge let’s talk rationally for a minute alright. Name’s Grom and i’m the party leader for our little band of misfits. The Uruk is named Resha, the spear elf is Nina the muscle bound freak is Darla-” “Hey” “-and the assassin looking ice queen is our resident mage Corona.” He gestured over at the other woman he didn’t recognize that hadn’t moved or spoken since his waking up.

The orc looked like a model except green skin and canines coming out of her lip, although for some reason he still found them attractive. The ice queen looked like she was a CEO of some huge company that slept her way to the top, except with eyes that didn’t give two fucks about anything and a disconnected expression. From there names only the dwarf was a guy while the others were all girls... interesting. Without saying a word he quickly and carefully examined them for any sign of hostility. Finding none he said “Ok let’s start with the most obvious questions then work our way down. What do you want from me?”

With a slightly surprised expression the dwarf replied “Because we have a good hunch that you took down are pray. A friend of mine told me that there was a mana reading for a brand new tier 2 dungeon in the area but right as we accepted the scouting mission the signal disappeared. So now we’re here to find who or what cleared out the dungeon but then as we were making camp last night all the mana in the region suddenly started getting drawn away right towards where we were heading. Imagine our surprise when a tier two nobody from the local race crossed our line of sight. So from their they decided to test you and see if you were who you seemed. Thus here we stand.”

“While that does answer a few of my unasked questions it still fails to answer my original.” With steadily growing suspicions his eyes narrowed and the dwarf made a show of stroking his beard but his quick questioning glance at the Ice queen confirmed his suspicions. “Well that's because we wanted know who you are and what the dungeon gave you.” “I’m sure you do, next question. Do you know at least along the general lines what has happened and will be happening to this world in the future?” Suddenly he now had everyone’s full attention, by which he gathered that particular question was quit far from normal.