Again, it was time to move. The fire was dim and the elemental was already anxious to get going. This time; however, he decided to experiment. With his vastly expanded mana pool, he took charge of the fire. Instead of just reaching out with a long arm of flames like he had done with the slime, he chose to instead compress a small portion of it into a ball, much like his own essence had done when he increased his intelligence. Feeling his mana slowly drop just from maintaining the ball of flames, he quickly launched it at the third source.

The ball traveled quickly, covering the distance in a little over three seconds. In those three seconds; however, it drained a full fifteen points of mana in addition to the five points it had taken him to form it. Interestingly enough, he noted that most of the mana loss had occured in the very last second. This fell in line with the observations he made when he tried to control the strange flames on the walls. The further away a flame was, the more difficult it would be for him to control. With that in mind he added improving his control of fire to his mental to-do list.

No longer deep in thought, he looked over towards the third source only to be surprised by a notification.

Congratulations! You have succesfully cast the spell Fireball!

Description: A simple yet effective spell for students of pyromancy. Cast by compressing fire into a ball and launching it towards an enemy. Mana cost and explosive power increase as the amount of fire inside increases. Can be directed while in flight at the cost of further mana.

Skill required: Pyromancy

Creator: Sol

The elemental was interested by the new type of window. It did not seem to grant him any tangible benefit, merely serving as a notification instead. Nonetheless, he supposed it would be useful to know what he was actually casting.

Dismissing the notification he looked over at the source to see the effects of his new spell. What he saw left him in a stunned silence. The source had been... brutalized. Its core had been flattened by the pressure and the entire source had been lifted and pushed away from him.

Normally a simple fireball would not have been so effective. In open areas, the explosion would have been harmful and the lingering flames would certainly hurt, but it would have nowhere near enough power to physically crush objects. Inside the tunnel; however, pressure came into effect. Since the air had nowhere to go, the overpressure caused by the explosion had crumpled the source and tossed it like a ragdoll away from him. Which was problematic considering he still had to get to it.

At least its burning... He thought to himself as he stepped out of the dying fire to make a rush towards his new source.

Again he felt the cold emptiness, but now it was just a slight tinge of annoyance. While he did continue to feel himself be slowly drained, it felt much less impactful to him. He supposed it was much the same effect as he had felt in his last venture with his health. Having such vast amounts of mana meant he didn't feel the effects of losing just three points every second.

Actually glancing at his mana pool; however, showed another potential cause of the decreased fatigue. He wasn't losing three points of mana per second. He was only losing about two and a half. His mana regeneration was finally coming into play!

Up until this point, fiery soul had been the major way for him to regain health and mana as well as experience. Now that he had the Magus path, even the lackluster amount of Wisdom he had was beginning to add up. Half a point per second didn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but it gave him some much needed breathing room. Furthermore, it also meant he could eventually cancel out the negative aspect of his passive altogether. It would just take... fifteen more points of Wisdom.

He sighed in dissapointment as he continued to make his way towards the next fire. That wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

But perhaps...

His excitement grew as he entered the fire, causing his fiery soul to switch backing to feeding him mana. His level five trait for vitality had improved the amount of health each point gave him. Perhaps Wisdom's trait would work much the same! Unfortunately, looking at his stats, he realized that the bonus his path gave him already raised him to five wisdom. He would have to invest his trait point into it...

That; however, was also not an option as he quickly found out when he thought of allocating his trait point.

Available Traits:

Restless: (Unlocked by having two points of Endurance)

Thoughtful: (Unlocked by having two points of Wisdom)

Twitchy: (Unlocked by having two points of Reflex)

Determined: (Unlocked by having two points of Willpower)

Swift: (Unlocked by having two points of Agility)

Flexible (Unlocked by having two points of Dexterity)

Morphling (Unlocked by having the Adaptable trait)

Unallocated trait points: 1

He quickly realized his mistake. He could not unlock a trait without it's predecessor. Some quick calculations made it clear that it was pointless to unlock the level two trait for wisdom. It would grant him two further points in that stat, bringing him up to seven. Then with the magus path he would gain a point per level, bringing him up to 10 points at level nine. A level before he recieved his next trait point.

He wasn't quite sure what would happen. Either he would be able to unlock a path for wisdom, or he wouldn't. It was a simple as that. He was of course upset by the situation, but since he could do nothing to change it, he quickly decided to move on to the next interesting piece of information he had gained: the morphling trait.

Since it was unlocked by having the adaptable trait, he quickly surmised that it would have a similar effect: giving him more stat points to distribute at his will. The adaptable trait was good without a doubt. Over a long enough timescale, it could unlock dozens of traits. The problem came in with the way he had locked himself out of most of his stats.

He could certainly continue to invest in those stats, but without their traits, they would certainly be far less effective. Unlocking the morphling trait now would only allow him to invest his extra points into strength, Vitality and intelligence. It would also get him no closer to repairing the mess he had made of his wisdom.

Not investing into morphling; however, would leave him weaker in the long term. Each level passing would actually end up being a lost opportunity for him.

In the end, there was one more factor that led to him choosing morphling. His evolution. He was already at level six. Soon enough, he would hit level ten. Investing both the point he already had and the point he recieved at level 10 would not be enough to fix his wisdom and the other stats didn't seem valuable enough to invest in yet. He didn't know exactly what would happen at his evolution, but he wanted to hit it as strong as he could possible be.

Congratulations! You have become a Morphling! The hallmark of a true survivor is changing to suit their needs. You continue to grow more capable of adaptation.

Morphling (Trait):

Passive gains: You gain three additional stat points per level.

Stat gains: N/A

Ability gains: N/A

He felt immediately gratified by his decision. The potential growth was massive! The only dissapointment he felt was in not unlocking Morphling earlier. He'd had the option to for the past two levels. The only thing stopping him was, yet again his own hastiness. Three additional stat points would have been greatly appreciated through his ordeals so far.

Sighing to himself, he decided not to be overly harsh on himself. Instead, he resolved to be more careful in the future, starting from that very moment.

Reopening his window of available traits, he was unsurprised to find that there was indeed a new option for him; this time it was unlocked by having the morphling trait.

Available Traits:

Restless: (Unlocked by having two points of Endurance)

Thoughtful: (Unlocked by having two points of Wisdom)

Twitchy: (Unlocked by having two points of Reflex)

Determined: (Unlocked by having two points of Willpower)

Swift: (Unlocked by having two points of Agility)

Flexible (Unlocked by having two points of Dexterity)

Primal Essence (Unlocked by having the Morphling trait)

Unallocated trait points: 0

It's appearance posed a new problem for him: how he would allocate his level 10 Trait point. Ultimately; however, he decided that he would answer that when he had to and not a minute sooner.

Instead he turned to a more pressing matter, one that had been aggravating him since he destroyed the slime. How would he defend himself away from a fire?

In or near a fire, the answer was simple: he just took control of the flames and used to them to strike his threat. Now with knowledge of the fireball spell, he could be even more efficient with his usage of fire. Away from a fire; however, he didn't really know how exactly he would start a fire for him to control. While it hadn't been a problem yet, he was worried about crossing a great distance to the grand source of energy and surviving there without some capacity to defend himself.

His first thought was rather simple: He would take the fire with him. Eager to try it out, He quickly shaved off a portion of the flames and tried to hold them a short distance from the fire. There, he quickly realized just how much mana it would take to sustain the fire. It was completly unsustainable. Even with Fiery Soul active, he was losing around two points each second just keeping the fire alive at a small distance. Even that was just a tiny flame, smaller than he was. It would be completly useless in a fight unless he fed it a drastic amount of mana. An amount he couldn't guarantee he would have available as both fiery soul and the cost required to keep an ember alight both drained him.

Instead he decided to try something different. The first fire, the one that birthed him, had been different from these past two. These burned the sources and burned their mana. The first, on the other hand, was made from mana. The flames didn't consume mana, they somehow... were it. The distinction puzzled him, and led him to take a closer look at mana itself.

The first clear discovery he made was that mana was far more complex then he had given it credit for. Just looking around him, he could see vastly different hues dwelling within the different substances of the world. The mana floating freely through the air was thin and wispy. Constantly moving, it flowed around his fire forming a turbulent cycle with little regularity. In contrast, the energy within the earth seemed to be just as solid as its container. To his limited patience, it seemed as if it would never move from its place beneath him.

Then, there were the sources. It was... strange to say the least. The source beneath him actually held two types of mana. Firstly, there was a vibrant form that seemed to shine out. Flowing like air, it nonetheless had a pattern, an order, to it. The only problem was that this type of mana seemed to be disappearing rapidly. It's pattern was unraveling leaving behind the second type of mana within the source. This mana was empty. That was the best way he could think to describe it at the time. It lacked any pattern like earth, or motion like air. It seemed to merely fill the void left by the decaying first type. It had no... will behind it. It seemed to lack a purpose.

Shuddering slightly, he decided to leave the unnatural energy to its own devices. Instead he finally turned inward to flaming energy that made him up. And what he saw terrified him. His fire mana flowed outward constantly, blazing like a fire and dissipating into the air. Like all fires, he was consuming something to stay alive. That was why Fiery Soul burned through his mana and Health! To live and think he was consuming pure mana to produce his essence, the fire mana that made his pattern. Since this essence constantly leaked outwards, he had to constantly convert more of it from mana or else risk losing his life as he simply dissipated into the air around him.

It was a disturbing revelation to say the least. He couldn't exactly manipulate his own pattern, not without risking accidental suicide, so he had no way to prevent the loss from occuring.

Instead, he had a few other epiphanies about himself. Firstly, he understood why staying within a fire allowed him to regenerate his mana. Previously, he'd thought that he was absorbing energy from the fire, using it to power himself. While that may have been true of the fire he was born in, these latter fires hardly had enough mana to sustain themselves, let alone him. Instead, they saturated the air around him with energy.

As the air was already heated and filled to the brim with energy from the little fire mana contained within the flames, there wasn't much of a pull on his own energy. Thus, instead of having it dissipate outward into the world like fire energy normally would, he was able to continue cycling it throughout him. With this continued cycling, he was able to maintain his current amount of mana, allowing his natural regeneration to fill him up to full.

The second realization he made was about his process of regenerating mana, if it could even be called that. The simple fact was, he was creating mana. Or rather, he was burning some sort of fuel to create mana. That was the only logical explanation. Mana, after all, doesn't merely appear out of nowhere. At least, to his knowledge it doesn't.

Therefore, it only followed that when he was regenerating mana, he was actually absorbing some sort of essence, some sort of energy, and converting it to mana. The problem with his theory? He simply couldn't see it.

Logically, he believed there had to be something there. Nonetheless, no matter how hard he tried to look, or what other senses he tried to use, he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. No disturbances, no suspicious void in his sight, evrything just looked... normal.

Frustrated by his lack of progress in discovering the theorized essence, he resolved to think more on it later and turned back to the problem he had intended to solve all along: how to defend himself away from a fire. Armed with his new knowledge of mana, he came to a quick realization.

There was no need to start a fire. He was a fire.

To all intents and purposes, he could control the fire mana he released just as easily as that from a fire. With sinking esteem for his own intelligence, he quickly stepped out of the fire to test his thought. The world outside a fire felt as cold as always, but as he had started to realize when he made his third venture out, it was affecting him far less. The draining feeling remained, as it probably always would considering he was constantly losing mana to the world around him, but he could begin to tune it out.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he resolved to quickly finish his experiment and move on.

Much to his relief, the fireball formed easily. It was only a matter of channeling the energy from his own body, rather than compressing what was already present in a fire.

There were; however a few noticable differences. Firstly, it cost him far more mana to form a fireball outside of a fire. This was expected, after all he was providing the energy as well as shaping it, nearly doubling the cost. To his surprise; however, the resulting fireball formed quicker and was far easier to control, costing him less mana overall. After all, most of the mana involved in the first fireball he had cast was used up controlling it. Here he drew another conclusion about mana, it was far easier to control his own than it was to try to shape naturally occuring power.

Satisfied with the results of his testing, he turned to reenter the fire only to notice something approaching him. Or rather, make that multiple somethings.

A group of slimes were making their way down the hallway, slowly oozing their way toward the ashy remains of the second source.

Upon seeing them, the elemental's excitement grew quickly. Slimes were easy pickings for him, it would be all too simple for him to crush them and consume their cores. Nonetheless, he forced himself to be patient. After spending time away from his fire and casting a fireball, he was already down to a mere two-thirds of his mana pool. Spending any more time outside risked him entering a situation where he would be caught out without any mana and ultimately provided no benefit. After all, the last slime had come to him. Why should these be any different? So, he returned to his fire and settled down to take a look at his foes.

There were three slimes this time around. One was clear, much like the first slime he had faced. It was the smallest of the three and likewise seemed to be the least threatening. Putting it out of his mind completly, he turned to the other two, which proved much more interesting.

The largest one was of mixed color with streaks of gray, brown, and black mixed in. Surprisingly, the slime's outer layer had rocks scattered throughout it making it craggy and irregular, unlike the smooth ooziness of the other two. A quick look at its mana explained the differences. Whereas normal slimes were made entirely of pure mana, this slime was formed of mostly earth mana.

The other slime was also formed of elemental mana. This time; however, it was wind mana causing the changes. This third slime was actually almost transparent, unlike the hazy translucence of the ordinary slime. The only way he could actually see it clearly was by looking at its mana. Otherwise, he would only see a slight hazy distortion.

There was no visible coordination between the slimes, in fact, they seemed to almost fight over the remains rabidly. The slow earth slime relentlessly made its way up the source, while the other two darted in to grab particularly mana-rich areas. Soon enough, the source was consumed in its entirity, leaving nothing behind.

Then, the slimes' attention turned to the elemental.

The air touched slime was the first to move, darting ahead of the others. The elemental quickly built up a fireball, drawing upon his own mana even as he stood within a fire. He wasn't particularly worried about this fight, yet he decided to conserve his mana nonetheless.

Almost lazily, he launched the fireball at the slime. The fireball blazed out homing in on the slime as he directed it with his mind until suddenly, it began to lose coherence. A strong gust of wind nudged the blaze to the left, allowing the slime to dodge to the right. Spurred on by the wind, the fireball blasted straight into the wall, detonating harmlessly.

Angered by the failure, he quickly formed a second fireball and threw it out. Again, despite his best efforts to guide it to the slime, a gust of wind drove the fireball out of the creature's path at the last second.

With his anger only growing, the elemental prepared a third fireball, certain that he would not miss again. A mere moment before he threw it; however, he finally realized what was happening. The slime was controlling the wind!

If he could control fire, it was only logical that other beings could control elements they were attuned to. And if these slimes could effectively control their elements, this fight would be far more troublesome than he had anticipated.

It all boiled down to a simple problem, he couldn't land a hit on the wind slime from any reasonable distance. To kill it, he would have to get up close and personal where it simply didn't have the time to deflect his fireballs. Moving out of the fire; however, posed its own risks. Currently he was protected, hidden from the slimes' vision by the blaze surrounding him. If he took one step out, he would lose his invisibilty and be vulnerable to any attacks the air slime could throw his way.

Then there was the earth slime. While the air-touched slime was already making lazy circles around his fire, the earth slime had just now reached the halfway point of the journey. Nonetheless, it could still be extremely dangerous. If it had enough power, the thing could bury him and the fire in dirt, smothering them both. At best, in the case where it had very little control over magic, it could still slow him down outside of the flames by manipulating the ground beneath him.

The only redeeming factor of the situation? The slimes didn't seem to be collaborating, or doing much thinking at all.

The elemental didn't feel confident in his knowledge of the intricacies of magic, yet he was certain that it rapidly became more difficult to control it the further away the effect was meant to occur. This principle had held true across all of his testing so far and he thought it would be reasonable to assume it would hold true for others as well.

Thus, it seemed utterly foolish for the air slime to circle around the fire. After all, it couldn't protect the Earth slime if it moved too far away. Of course, the Earth slime could potentially defend itself, but the elemental felt he could still turn the situation to his advantage. At the very least, it would be better than facing both slimes at the same time.

Hastily putting a plan together, the elemental formed a new fireball. Even though he was within a fire, he chose to use his own energy as this one would need to cover a fairly large distance under his control. He had originally wanted to infuse more power into the sphere, compressing the mana further, but decided against that course once he felt himself begin to lose control.

Reabsorbing some of the power to bring the fireball down to a more manageable size, the elemental waited for the air slime to be on the opposite side of his fire from the Earth slime before bursting into action. His first step was to launch the fireball toward the earth slime at an upward angle.

The trajectory the blast fired was almost like that of a lobbed ball, climbing up to almost brush against the ceiling before diving downward nearly vertically. This of course was not natural. The fireball was under his control the entire duration of its flight, he merely guided it down that path to impact at an angle difficult to block with some sort of raised pillar or wall.

Much to his satisfaction, the plan worked perfectly. The Earth Slime didn't even seem to make an attempt to defend itself as the fireball exploded above it, crushing the slime under a wave of pressure. When the elemental looked back in that direction, all that was left of the slime was a core and some spattered gel. It had been simply too weak for him.

With that plan having worked out perfectly, he turned to face the air slime, only to watch it rapidly ooze away from him in terror. It seemed like the demise of the slow Earth slime put it off of trying to fight him. The elemental was rather dissapointed: he'd wanted that core.

Nonetheless, as he thought it would be rather unlikely for him to be able to catch the fleeing slime, he steeled himself against the cold and set out to collect the core. The fight had been exciting, but rather anticlimactic. The slimes hadn't really been able to hurt him in the fire, and he just pelted them to death with impunity. If only there had been more of a challenge...

That moment, of course, was when three arcane bolts slammed into him.

As the pure mana of the bolts came into contact with his fiery body, it combusted, exploding violently to create a shockwave that hit him like the fist of a vengeful Deity. The shockwave tore into him, ripping his essence appart and carying him backwards like a ragdoll through the air until he slammed into a wall. The impact with the wall did even more damage to him then the blast had, compressing his body until it was nearly flat and almost ripping him apart. Finally; however, the force abated and he slid limply to the ground.

Pain. His world was pain. He couldn't think. He couldn't move. He couldn't feel. All there was was pain.

It tore at him, throughout his entire body. He felt as if he had been ripped apart into a million pieces and hastily reassembled.

Eventually after what felt like an eternity, his conciousness began to return. He had been attacked. He was hurt. Badly. He needed to get back to the fire. The fire was safe. The fire was always safe...

With agonizingly slow movements, he pushed himself up to his knees before falling forward to slam into the ground. He was just too weak to hold himself up. The cold stone; however, was enough to knock his mind back into gear. A hazy, muddled mess of a gear, but functional nonetheless.

First things first, he took a look at his HP. Surprisingly, he still had almost 50 left. Unfortunately, it was dropping by about three points each second in addition to his mana loss from being outside of the fire. At first he was confused, why was it dropping so quickly? He wasn't getting injured anymore!

That was when it hit him. Second wind must have activated. He must have taken a bit more than twice his health as damage, breaking his 88 health in an instant and cutting off almost two-thirds of the 176 hp shield he gained from the ability. It was terrifying to think that he had taken about 200 damage in an instant like that, but he had to move. His HP was already down to 40 and only continued to drop.

Fortunately, his mana was nearly full, and although it was still dropping by a point and a half per second, he had more than plenty to reach the fire nearby. Once he felt ready, he stood himself up and stumbled towards the flames.

It was unerving, to say the least, to watch his health dwindle down to merely one point. Much to his relief, that was where it stopped, leaving him to finish his agonizing walk home in an uneasy peace. The entire way, a single question ran through his mind: what hit him?

The Air slime was long gone, and besides, he'd been hit from the wrong angle for that. The blast had come from his side, not behind him. The Earth slime was, without a doubt, dead leaving only... the third slime. The slime he had forgotten about completly because it looked so similar to the first slime he had easily slain. That was a mistake he had almost not survived to learn from.

Cursing his hastiness in dismissing the slime and his carelessness in ignoring it as he left the safety of his fire to grab the Earth slime's core, he dove forward to land inside the fire. As his health began to steadily increase, he took a deep sigh of relief.

The pain, which had remained throughout his shambling rush back, rapidly abated allowing him to take note of a blue window. Instead of reading it; however, he mentally set it aside: he was still in danger. The slime was still out there, and he had to kill it before it tried to take his life again.

He was down to half of his mana, but he managed to quickly form a fireball. Looking out of the fire, he saw it. the slime that had hurt him so badly. It seemed far smaller than it had been when it moved alongside the other two slimes, almost as if its spell had cost it a large part of itself. Unfortunately for it, the slime hadn't decided to make good on its escape, instead choosing to move towards the leftover core from the Earth slime.

That further enraged the elemental. It attacked him from the shadows and tried to make away with his hard won loot? He knew with certainty that it would be the last mistake the creature ever made.

He poured power into the fireball, launching it toward the slime faster than the creature could ever hope to dodge. This slime; however, didn't have to dodge. Quickly forming a spike of arcane energy on its surface, it launched a bolt of energy that met the fireball midair. Where the bolt hit the ball, it exploded, dissipating the fireball's energy.

The elemental was furious, quickly forming and launching a second fireball. The slime; however, was not interested in fighting it out. Slowed by its reduction in size, it slid away from the Earth core, moving deeper into the tunnel. As the second fireball came for it, it again ejected a bolt of energy that dissipated the powerful blast. This final bolt seemed to be all the slime had left as it practically shrank to a small sphere of gel surrounding its core.

The elemental was frustrated, but incapable of doing anything to stop it. Instead, he watched it slowly slide out of sight before he made his move for the core. This time, he was extremely cautious, watching the shadows for any hint of motion. All that caution was for nothing as the slime never showed itself. Instead, he simply grabbed the core and slowly pulled it back to the fire, all while continuing to keep his eye on the hallway.

In the end, he would have been fine if he hadn't been watchful the second time. Nonetheless, he wouldnt make the same mistake twice. He had almost died due solely to his own carelessness. He disliked the slime, but in the end, he put himself in that situation. It was his own fault and he had to learn from that mistake, or he might not make it out next time. Now; however, he had been the victor and it was finally time for his spoils.

First up was the notification he had set aside before attacking the slime.

Edge Dancer II

You have danced with Death,

yet she has let you slip her grasp...

Unlocked By: Surviving damage greater than or equal to two times your Health

Passive Gains:

Stat Gains:

Ability Gains: Second Wind II

Second Wind II (passive): Replaces Second Wind. Upon taking fatal damage, gain a shield equal to twice your Health. The shield dissipates once you regenerate to full health or it is damaged for all of its Health.

Cooldown: 36 Hours (available in 47 hours 55 minutes)

In the end, this was, strictly speaking, an improvement on Second Wind in most every way. The shield's health would be the same, but the shield would actually be able to last until he regenerated the health himself. Furthermore, the cooldown was sharply decreased. Although it wouldn't be available for another two days, he could only hope it would continue to improve like this, although he winced at the thought of having to go through the same pain to improve it again.

While impressive, it was ultimately a minor change. It could save his life, but it would only help at most every day and a half. The core, on the other hand, would be far more interesting.

Congratulations! You have found a Rank F Monster Core (Earth Slime Core)

Consuming this core will grant you a portion of the creature's experience, 1 point of Vitality, and 1 stat point to allocate.

Consumption of the core will take you approximately: 2 minutes

The elemental quickly began to consume the core, greedily devouring its power for himself. This time the memories came in far clearer. The Earth slime hadn't been particularly intelligent, at least when not compared to the Elemental or the arcane slime, as he'd decided to call it, but it was worlds apart from the original slime he had absorbed.

Apparently, there were multpile chambers with life in them. Moving downward, toward where the slimes had come from, would lead him to larger chambers with more fuel, but also more dangerous enemies. The slimes themselves had only seen that part of the dungeon, as he now learned this place was called.

The strangest thing about the memories; however, was that the slime almost seemed to have been controlled for most of its existence. Watching its memories, he could very clearly feel its desire to dig into the mana-rich walls and ground of the dungeon, yet some will overrode it completly. Instead, it had been forced to patrol hallways devouring the scraps left behind by larger creatures.

That behavior had only stopped when the arcane slime, as he'd decided to call the third slime, entered the equation. It seemed to take control of the Earth slime and the Air slime as well, using them to protect itself as it moved up through the hallways.

The Elemental wondered why. Working together, the slimes had managed to take down a few of the weaker beasts in the lower chambers. There didn't seem to be much of a reason to go upwards once they could defend themselves. Shrugging, he felt himself reach the end of the memories.

Once again, the specific details faded from his memory almost like a dream leaving him with only the broad strokes. He was in something called a dungeon. Some will, most likely the dungeon itself, was controlling the creatures within this it. The arcane slime was an abberation. He'd have to watch out for it at a later point, but now, he had a point to place. Or rather, seven points.

Congratulations! You have completly absorbed an F rank core! You recieve a portion of the Experience the creature had gained as well as 1 point in Vitality and 1 unallocated stat point.

Congratulations! You have Reached Level 7! You have gained one stat point! Due to your adaptable trait, you gain an additional stat point! Due to your Morphling trait, you gain three additional stat points!

You still have unallocated stat points from absorbing cores. If you do not direct their placement, they will be placed into random stats upon your next evolution.

You still have an unallocated point from a previous level. If you do not direct its placement, it will be placed into a random stat upon your next evolution.

Name: Magus ???

Race: Fire Elemental (Newborn)

Level 7/10

Strength: 3

Vitality: 9

Endurance:3

Agility: 2

Dexterity: 2

Reflex: 3

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 6

Willpower:3

HP: 88/88

Mana: 150/150

Stamina: N/A

Trait: Sentient, Clever, Hardy, Stalwart, Adaptable, Morphling, Forceful

Unallocated Trait points: 0

Skills: Pyromancy (Initiate)

Attributes: Fiery soul, Edge Dancer II

Effects: Fiery Soul

Unallocated stat points: 7

Ability: Second Wind II

7 points. He'd left one point unallocated after choosing his path as a magus, but to gain five points in a single level... He couldn't wait to see what the primal essence trait would unlock for him.

The placement of his first point was all too simple. Going straight into vitality, it brought up a brand new set of paths to choose from.

Congratulations! By investing ten points in Vitality you have unlocked two paths to choose from. By investing ten points in Vitality and having the Magus path selected, you have unlocked a third option. Choose wisely, as selecting one path will forever remove the other two.

Juggernaut: "Nothing Stops Me!"

Many creatures try to move around obstacles. Juggernauts; however, know a better way. They push forward, and let the obstacles move aside, if they are strong enough that is.

Passive Gains: + 5 Health per point of vitality, +0.01 health regeneration per second per point of vitality + 5 Stamina per point of Endurance, +0.05 Stamina regenerated per second per point of stamina, +2 points of Vitality each level, +1 point of Endurance each level.

Stat Gains: + 3 Vitality, + 2 Endurance

Ability Gains: N/A

Passive Losses: Decreases the effects of Agility and Reflex by 25%

Stat Losses: N/A

Ability Losses: N/A

Survivor: "That? Tis nothing more than a flesh wound!"

Many creatures try to avoid injury, living their whole life in fear of recieving a fatal wound. Survivors; however, know a better way. They grow until even the mightiest of blows can not stagger them, if they are hardy enough that is.

Passive Gains: +9 Health per Point of Vitality, +0.09 health regen per second per Point of Vitality, +0.09% of Lifespan increased per point of Vitality, +3 points of Vitality each level

Stat Gains: +5 Vitality

Ability Gains: N/A

Passive Losses: -5 Stamina per point of Endurance, - 0.025 Stamina regen per point of Endurance, - 0.5% resistance per point of Endurance

Stat Losses: N/A

Ability Losses: N/A

Blood Magus: "Lay open your veins..."

Power is worth any sacrifice. Feed yourself into the fire, grow it into a glorious blaze.

Passive gains: All mana gains are now applied to health instead. All mana regeneration is now added to health regeneration instead. +2 Vitality per level, +1 Intelligence per level

Stat gains: +3 Vitality, +2 Intelligence

Ability gains: Blood Debt

Blood Debt (passive): You gain the ability to utilize health instead of mana. The rate of exchange is 1 health to 0.75 mana. Warning! This can be Lethal!

Passive Losses: N/A

Stat Losses N/A

Ability Losses: N/A

That was... interesting. Having now seen two options for paths, he was beginning to see a pattern appear. Firstly, the first path again seemed to be split between two stats like his magus path. The problem with this Juggernaut path; however, is that Endurance was nearly completely useless to him. The only benefit he would gain from it would be the resistance to damage. Even with that, the magus path was harming his prospects in ever actually building up a reasonable amount of resistance. After all, the losses from the magus path were identical with the Endurance gains this path offered. Thus, he'd only really gain a part of its benefit making it quite a poor option.

Survivor on the other hand would give him a simply massive pool of health. With the five points of vitality, he'd end up with nearly 300 H.P.! Added on to that would be the massive gain in Health regeneration, bumping him up to 1.5 points per second. Furthermore, all this would massively increase the utility of his second wind. After all, a 600 health shield was far better than a 200 health shield. The cost was again in Endurance, which was rather amusing to him. If he did end up choosing this path, endurance would be, quite literally, useless to him: each point would give no benefits whatsoever. The greatest problem he could see with this path; however, is that it provided no offensive benefits. Instead, it was purely specialized in defense, leaving him to find other ways to attack or even protect himself.

And finally, there was Blood Mage. The sheer power this path would grant him was incredible. His effective "mana" pool would nearly double, and it would continue to increase drastically as he gained levels. The problem; however, lay in the dangers associated with this path. Firstly, he wouldn't truly have that much mana. He needed to stay alive while casting, so he couldn't realistically use more than half of his health pool at a time. Furthermore, as a battle progressed and he sustained injuries, he would lose more and more of his effective mana pool. Eventually, if he was injured enough, he wouldn't be able to defend himself at all. Ultimately, he would be able to shatter most anybody with one overwhelming burst of power, but that would leave him completly defenseless.

As he saw it, the cost simply wasn't worth the benefits without some other benefit to help protect him. He had to consider what exactly he had and what he required. To survive in this world, he needed to have durability, sustainability, mobility, and damage. The Magus Path covered damage and a part of sustainability, considering that it did give him some mana regeneration in addition to the pure increase to mana. That left him needing durability and mobility, with further sustainability as a lower priority.

Simplifying his choice down to those categories made it quite simple. Survivor covered durability and sustainability quite handily while blood magus sacrificed what limited assets he had in those categories for the sake of pure damage. Thus, he quickly made his decision, choosing the path of the survivor.

Upon making his choice, he felt a wave of power surge into him. He watched, astonished, as the channels of energy that made up his pattern dilated and shifted outward to form highways of energy. Small tributaries branched off of each of them, uniting the individual strains into one unified flow of life. His physical form burst outward, nearly doubling in size to reflect the shift in his pattern. Now, he was about as tall as a man's knee, forcing him to crouch down somewhat awkwardly to stay within the dying blaze.

He felt... alive!

There was simply no other way to describe it. The sheer amount of life brought him to a high unlike any he had ever experienced. That being said, he had no time to revel in the Euphoria. His fire was dimming and he had six more points to place before he left.

Here, he had a difficult choice to make. Theoretically, he could now stand out of a fire indefinetly: he had 1.5 points of health regeneration and 0.6 points of mana regeneration per second. Thus, since he only lost two mana each second, he could theoretically stand out as long as he liked, regenerating 0.1 health per second. The problem with that; however, was that he would be left with no mana, and would still lose about a point a second if he walked. If he put his points into wisdom, he could boost his mana regeneration up to a point where it alone could outpace the amount he lost to the outside world. That; however, was entirely dependent on whether he got a path or not. Since the system had blocked him from gaining the level five trait, he couldn't be certain that reaching 10 Wisdom would actually grant him any benefit.

The other option was to simply invest his points into Strength. Two points would grant him the level 5 trait and then two more would unlock another path. Strength had proven somewhat useful in the past, letting him carry the slime cores around, and it might also be useful in a situation where he ran out of mana. It wasn't his Ideal by any means, but it was better than wasting his points...

Sighing inwardly, he invested four points into strength and watched as a slew of notifications obscured his vision.

Congratulations! You have become Stout! By investing 5 points into Strength you have become far denser and more resistant to physical force.

Stout (trait):

Passive Gains: Your density is doubled. Your passive Strength gains per point have also increased to maintain the same proportion of Strength to mass. +5% resistance to physical damage

Stat Gains:

+3 Strength

+1 Agility, Dexterity

By Investing 10 points into strength and having two paths already selected, you have unlocked a combined path! This will unify your paths into one route, tailored to your race and location.

Creating path...