Chapter 68. What? 'Ugh... My head! What is going on?' I was able to feel my surroundings, 'see' even with my eyes closed and not just from one perspective, but from multiple angles, all at once. My brain was being overloaded with information and that was too much to process at a time. I screamed stop, to stop this overload and make everything normal. The overload reduced, going from max output to minimum but it was still there. My body ached, it was painful even trying to move. I was covered in sweat, and the clothes that I was wearing were stuck to my body due to it. This rank-up wasn't like the last one. That time I felt refreshed, now I was tired. Fighting in this condition would be the last thing I did, only the last floor remained and I did not know if dying here was still possible. I did not want to risk it. [Moving to the next floor in 11 hours and 55 mins] 5 mins had passed. The fusing runes, the universe everything took '5 minutes'. So much had happened in those 5 minutes, it felt unreal. I called out 'status' in my mind to check if I had really ranked up but the status made me more confused instead of clearing my doubts. ----------- [Status] Name: Ray Bloodline: Demon of Blood and War Cultivation: Cultivation of Blood and War Level: 0/81 Classes: Demon Warlord Demon Bloodlord Skills: Arts of the War Demon lvl 1 Trance lvl 1 Demon's War Domain lvl 1 Demon's Blood Domain lvl 1 Flash lvl 1 Blood Regeneration lvl 1 Blood hunt lvl 1 Blood Manipulation lvl 1 ----------- My stats were gone. There were no separate skills that belonged to a class nor were there individual levels. Some of my skills had evolved or fused as I had guessed, but some had disappeared. I looked through the other notifications, which might give me an idea of what exactly happened during these five minutes. [Demon's Perception, Demon's Control, Demon's Sense, Demon's Flexibility have been lost to gain Demon's War Domain] [Clot, Blood Recovery, Blood activation have been lost to gain Blood Regeneration] [Outer blood control and Inner blood control have been lost to gain Blood Manipulation] [Aroma of Blood and Blood Sight have been lost to gain Blood hunt] [Demon's martial arts, Axe Mastery, Dual-wielding, and Sword Mastery have been to gain Arts of the War Demon] [Bloodlust, Carnage, Bloodfield have been lost to gain Demon's Blood Domain] [Sprint has been lost to gain Flash] [Focus has been lost to gain Trance] [Mantra of ??? has proceeded to Cultivation of Blood and War] [Identify, Mana Control, and Cleave have been lost] [Formed a perfect core] ['Demon Fighter' changed to 'Demon Warlord'] ['Blood Mage' changed to 'Demon Bloodlord'] The skills did fuse, well, most of them did. The runes that did not go through any changes were lost. Was it to maintain the number of skills, eight? But if we added both the classes, there were 16. It was all so confusing. And there were some other oddities too. The mantra 'proceeded' to the Cultivation of Blood and War which had a special section called 'Cultivation.' I had formed a perfect core, probably the thing in my heart. There were no general skills anymore, everything was present in one bracket called 'Skills', and concentrating on a particular skill did not elaborate on what it did. There was a level section that had a '0/81' mark present. That made me think that there were 81 levels but I was not sure, it was a unique number. It was very confusing and I was getting worried about the future. Fortunately, I was completing a quest called 'Seeking Knowledge' and the reward was entry into the Tower of Guidance. I took a deep breath and calmly thought about the situation. I earned a seat, meaning I crossed a certain level that the 'Record' had set making it five me a bonus. It also said, 'Fight, prove and, earn that you worthy of that right.' Climbing these four floors had to have earned me something right? I wanted to climb more, challenge that last floor, and defeat the one waiting for me there. My blood was eager to fight. I had nearly 12 hours, if I could learn what my skills did in the time available, I would fight. But if not, I would have to give up.