“In the middle of the night, my team was suddenly attacked and before I could do anything I was back in front of that guide.” Elizabeth had just finished telling Nathan her experience so far with the tutorial.

“Hey, Nathan I was wondering if we could kill the bugs while inside the barrier for some easy level ups?”

Nathan hadn’t considered this before as the bugs only gave him 0.5 experience points per bug but there were thousands of them and if he manages to kill a good chunk of them leveling up shouldn’t be a problem.

“As long as they don’t die on the barrier it should be doable.”

“Okay, let me send you a party invite!”

| Elizabeth White has sent you a party invite of equal rights. |

| All experience will be shared 50/50 |

| Accept | Decline |

Pressing accept he could now see a small portrait of her in the corner of his vision showing her mana and health as well as her level.

“Wow, you're really level 7! No wonder you are so strong compared to the rest of us…”

“Before we start I need to use up my stat points and skill points after the level up.”

| Name: Nathan Bandon |

| Level: 7 |

| Class: Spiritualist |

| Status: Haunted |

| Strength: 15(5) |

| Vitality: 17(7) |

| Agility: 15(5) |

| Sense: 18(14) |

| Magic power: 20(10) |

| Mana: 12 |

| Attribute points: 2 |

Nathan added his two attribute points into his sense stat raising it to twenty with the bonus from Nicole. He wanted to raise his base sense stat all the way to 25 that’s where the next specialty bonus was at. Now that he was in a party with Elizabeth he had lost the 10% bonus from Lone wolf making him a bit weaker. All that was left now was putting his one skill point into spirit magic.

| Spirit magic | 5/5 |

| As you travel further down the path of a spiritualist so does your ability to utilize spirit magic. |

| Passive: Increases XP gain of spirit related skills by 25%. |

| Increases the power of spirit related skills by 25%. |

As he fully unlocked the spirit magic option something odd he had yet to experience had happened. The next ability in the skill tree hadn’t unlocked.

| Locked | Requires 20 points in spiritualist class tree to unlock next tier |

He had fully maximized all the options in the skill tree he deemed is from the path of cooperation. Leaving only two options he really didn’t want to take as he was worried about their effects on Nicole.

| Spirit embedment | 0/3 |

| The power to infuse a spirit inside an object to empower its abilities. |

| 33% of spirits power can be added to an object |

| Spirit enslavement | 0/5 |

| You can dominate a spirit's will to your rule. |

| A spirit that is 50% weaker then you can be dominated. |

| Current limit: 5 spirits |

Nathan still had time before he had to choose one of those options if he wanted to progress further down the spiritualist skill tree. Still, it was another troubling decision put on his shoulders.

Clearing his mind of all these distracting thoughts that were plaguing it, Nathan exited his system panel.

“I have a good idea of how we could kill a bunch of the bugs outside!”

“What is it?”

“I will make a small hole in the barrier where I’m gonna put this fire mana core in before launching it out with wind mana and exploding it.” Before Nathan could do this he needed to quickly learn fire magic and he had just the tools necessary for as he took out the fire crystal he had gotten for Kyles staff as he began to infuse his mana into it trying to mimic the properties his mana took in his other hand. His unique ability perfected adaptation was in full effect as his mana began to change into a lit flame in his hands.

| Fire magic | Level 1 |

| By using mana you can control and create fire with high enough mastery you can change the properties of the fire. |

| Mana consumption based on the degree of manipulation and environment. |

| Unsuitable base mana: Cost of fire magic increased by 25% |

“Here take this, with it you could learn fire magic as well!” Nathan handed the fire crystal he had no more use for to Elizabeth as he took out the fire mana core from his bag as he proceeded to insert in the bone barrier facing the window.

“Thanks, let me do the wind magic part at least.” Nathan saw no reason to refuse her offer as she was even quite a bit better than him when it came to wind magic.

“Alright, I have positioned so it would shoot out of the window when I give you the signal push it out with the strongest force you can” Nathan carefully gathered a big chunk of his mana but leaving enough to keep sustaining his bone barrier. His fire mana had started to engulf the fire mana core as it started to blink rapidly, completely overstuffed with energy that was trying to invade inside it compressing even more inside the core as more of Nathans mana kept constantly trying to enter it.

“Now!” Elizabeth gathered her mana into a condensed cluster that launched the fire core with an extreme force outside the bone barrier. The fire core crushed and pushed all the bugs aside as it started to become more and more cracked letting even more fire mana invade the small space inside the core. Just as it had reached outside the window Nathan needed to act as he ignited his fire mana into a blaze that broke the fire core with explosive force as a giant wave of flames engulfed the bugs outside burning them to a crisp.

After a couple of minutes, the system message came up as the last bug that could die from their attack had died.

| Level 0 Secerea armare has been slain. x859|

|+ 0.5 (-50%) Experience |

| Level 1 Secerea armare has been slain. x121 |

|+ 0.5 (-50%) Experience |

| Level 2 Secerea armare has been slain. x26 |

|+ 2 (-50%) Experience |

“I never imagined leveling up could be this easy!” Elizabeth had already leveled up from that one attack. While Nathan was a bit less than halfway towards level 8.

“I got a couple of more fire mana cores still.” Restoring their mana they launched two more fire cores into the swarm gaining enough experience for Nathan to reach level 8 while Elizabeth had gone from level 3 to level 6. While in a party, experience was calculated based on how much experience the highest level member in the party got from the creatures they killed.

Just as they were restoring their mana to use another fire mana core the constant sound of buzzing had started to become quieter by the second before completely becoming silent. Noticing this odd event Nathan peeked outside his barrier to see their room had been completely covered in bugs as they stood still on the walls, ceilings, and floor completely still.

Just then Nathan saw outside the window a bug that was easily ten times the size of the regular ones was silently floating in front of the window looking straight at the bone barrier. It looked similar to the regular ones but it had one drastic difference. Varying sizes of crystals were covering its exoskeleton. They were red, green and brown in color with constant swirling energy inside of them. They kept shifting and merging all around its body constantly. Its exoskeleton was constantly bulging before it spat out a glob of acid straight at the bone barrier.

Reacting fast Nathan slammed his hand against the hole in the bone barrier releasing a burst of air that slammed into the glob of acid splashing all over the room as it melted the bugs in the room. He knew he couldn’t hold back any longer and had to give it his all if he wanted to survive this.

“Nicole, merge with me!” For the first time ever Nicole had entered inside of him as he began to transform. His hair grew out long as his body took on a ghostly form between the states of a spirit and living being. His hands had started to take the shape of the demonic claws Nicole had always used for her attack as he phased through the bone barrier.

His speed had increased immensely as he leaped towards the giant bug swiping with his claws while discharging his soul slash together with it. His claws dug into the exoskeleton leaving clear centimeter long marks while his soul slash had a completely unexpected effect on the bug. Unlike other creatures, they had fought so far this was the queen of secerea armare having the skill hive mind letting its soul be connected with every single insect in the swarm. Using this connection it had transferred all the damage its soul would have taken to the colony instead, killing a good chunk of it. Sensing the dangers this creature posed to the colony every single secerea armare was alerted.

Without any care for their own lives, they began to rush at Nathan trying to tear him apart alive. Only to be burned to a crisp as Nathan discharged a burst of flames all around him. Before the queen could fly into the sky and escape Nathans’s range Nathan proceeded to assault it once again only this time he was aiming at the four wings that let it fly. His perfected adaptation was in full effect letting him move and cast multiple types of magic almost simultaneously as the queen was hit by a burst of flames as well as his physical attack and soul slash.

Even with his constant bursts of flames from his body, the bugs didn’t care as they constantly kept rushing at him taking bites out of his flesh constantly. The only way he could keep up this constant use of magic was by sacrificing his vitality to gain mana as he tried to tear the queen apart with his claws.

The queen’s exoskeleton kept healing at incredible speed as the gems all around its body began to crack and break as their energy got used up to heal its body form Nathans’s constant attacks. She had been put it an immensely dangerous situation as it used it’s a most powerful attack.

An invisible wave of energy was released from its jaws aimed at Nathan. It was an attack that directly destroyed the soul of her opponents with its massive soul energy as the queen of a hive.

Yet the attack it had put so much faith in had seemingly done nothing to the odd creature that had killed thousands of its kin already. Could it really not have a soul? After its attack hadn’t shown any effect on the strange creature in front of her she was momentarily confused. Together with the weakening of the queen's soul after she had used the attack, it created the perfect opportunity for Nathan.

Nathan's two demonic claws started digging out the eye sockets of the queen in her moment of weakness as his claws tore apart everything it could before reaching her brain while constantly releasing a wave of flames. His two claws diced up the queen's brain ending her life almost instantly no matter how high her regeneration powers were due to the crystals it couldn't restore her brain. But the queen before dying had been able to release one last attack dousing Nathan in acid.

With the death of their queen, the swarm became chaotic attacking everything on sight to satisfy their hunger as they started to cannibalize each other.

With the last of his strength, Nathan used wind magic to remove the acid that had covered his body as he limped back to the bone barrier. His body had been severely wounded as he struggled between life and death only being able to hold on due to being merged with Nicole.

He needed energy to restore his broken body desperately as he started to ravage any food that was inside the bags they had looted, not caring what it was Nathan stuffed it in his mouth in a desperate attempt to give his body energy it needed to fix itself. After he had started it a couple of seconds later the system had notified him of the end of the battle.

| Level 0 Secerea armare has been slain. x5390 |

|+ 0.5 (-50%) Experience |

| Level 1 Secerea armare has been slain. x1234 |

|+ 0.5 (-50%) Experience |

| Level 2 Secerea armare has been slain. x456 |

|+ 1 (-50%) Experience |

| Level 3 Secerea armare has been slain. x232 |

|+3 (-50%) Experience |

| Level 4 Secerea armare has been slain. X80 |

|+5 (-50%) Experience |

| Level 10 Elite Secerea armare queen has been slain. |

|+ 200 (-50%) Experience |

| Level up |

| Level up |

Nathan had almost reached level 11 from all those bugs he killed yet the most shocking transformation had happened to Elizabeth as she didn’t have the -50% to the experience Nathan had leveling up all the way to 11 from level 6 almost doubling her level. Yet even if her level surpassed Nathans she didn’t have the insane amount of levels Nathan's skills had experienced after this battle.

| Mana manipulation | Level 5 |

| You're able to support your spell casting with the natural mana of the environment. |

| Mana consumption up to -25% |

| Mana control +25% |

| Spirit mana | Level 3 |

| Your body's mana has attuned itself with spirit properties. |

| Passive: Mana regeneration increased in rich spirit mana environment. |

| Using magic not related to spirit mana takes more mana. |

| +6 Mana and magic power |

| Wind magic | Level 2 |

| By using mana you can control and create wind around you. With high enough mastery you can change the properties of the wind as well. |

| Mana consumption based on the degree of manipulation and environment. |

| Unsuitable base mana: Cost of wind magic increased by 25% |

| Fire magic | Level 3 |

| By using mana you can control and create fire with high enough mastery you can change the properties of the fire. |

| Mana consumption based on the degree of manipulation and environment. |

| Unsuitable base mana: Cost of fire magic increased by 20% |

| Lesser mana regeneration | Level 3 |

| Passive: Increases bodies natural mana gathering ability by 60% |

| Lesser health regeneration | Level 5 |

| Passive: Increases bodies natural healing properties by 100% |

| Soul slash | Level 4 |

| Send out a slash of spirit mana damaging the soul |

| Damage: 175% |

| Range 20 meters |

| Cost: 2 Mana |