Laz settled in to meditate. He began meditating on the ground and began to focus on his skills. First, he opened his mental map ability. He found that he was a little dot to the Northwest of his previous position on the map. Everything else was blacked out. Now that he knew about his location, he began to focus on his internal mana core.

Time passed and he observed the changes of his mana core. In this time he used his skills multiple times. He drank from the drip when he had to, but other than that he just continued to practice. Over time, he became used to and even at times enjoyed the solitude. He was practicing with his spatial abilities as well during this period. He found that Spatial Storm led to instabilities in space that he found differ greatly. Sometimes some vortexes that prevented movement. There were cracks that absorbed material thrown into them up to a point. Other interesting phenomena abounded. It used half of his mana however.

Other things he discovered was that he found his cave thriving with plant life after what felt like months of manipulating life and death. He also realized that despite the pain aching through his stomach he was calmer than ever. The Ascetic skill was now at Level 9. His Mana Pool was at Level 17 meaning that he had 3564 mana. He had also found that as Ascetic leveled he could hold his breath longer. The longest he'd held it was 2 hours at meditation and what felt like 30 minutes while exercising. Since he was able to exercise without depleting oxygen, Laz had attempted to exercise the crap out of his new body. It resulted in Musculature increasing to Level 4 and Vigor increasing to Level 7. The General Skill that saw the most improvement however was Meditation at Level 9. It now regenerated mana and stamina six times faster.

Onto more of his class skills, He had discovered that unless he was fighting most of his active skills did not level. Some of them did, including The Art Of Survival now at Level 20, Form of Life & Death at Level 15, Spatial Shift at Level 3, and Spatial Storm leveled to 8. Other Skills that leveled were Awareness to Level 10, Life & Death Manipulation to Level 20, Life Absorption to Level 5, Spatial Lock to Level 4, and Spatial Perception to Level 7. This period he spent training was very valuable. It gave him a solid foundation in how to fight. His unique form of martial arts was also developed in this time. He called it the Art of Survival. Not very original, he knew, but it worked. His style had everything to do with mass destruction and nothing to do with the preservation of life. He leaned towards brutally ripping apart the body of an opponent by getting very close and going hit for hit. He had awakened to his true self, a savage space barbarian.

All jokes aside, he had powered up quite a bit. At that moment he found himself in a dome with another man. The man was large like himself, but the man appeared to be a sea elf. They both looked at each other and realized what was going on as a disembodied voice said, "Fight!"

Laz hesitated, unlike his compatriot who instantly shot towards him. The elf socked him right in the jaw sending his head rocking back. Laz spit out a few teeth, growled, and launched an uppercut at the rude elf. As Laz beat the man in, he regenerated his teeth and ripped into the elf. His opponent seemed rather weak. His body held up but the man wasn't able to bear the strength in his punches. He quickly overwhelmed him using Form of Life & Death to send the elf on a fast track to death. The elf died a heaping blackened corpse on the floor. Laz stared wide eyed at what he'd done. Despite his recent mental changes, he wasn't prepared to kill a living thinking being. Animals were fine, but not people.

Interupting his cascading thoughts, he was transported back to his old cave. A voice rang out, "Two months!"

Laz sat down and entered meditation. He needed to calm down. When he had stabilized himself he looked up. On the ground, the magical script now read, "Duel 2/5".

He guessed that he would have another duel in 2 months. Laz went over what he had received from the fight. He had found that he could enable notifications from the book he had read. They would only come post battle.

[You have killed: Saoim- Water Weilder Level 95/ Monk Level 57]

[Survivor has leveled from 72 to 82! 100 Stats available!]

[Voyager has leveled from 1 to 26! 250 Stats available!]

[The Art Of Survival leveled from Tier 1: Level 20 to Tier 2: Level 1!]

[Ruin leveled from Tier 1: Level 17 to Tier 1: Level 18!]

[Survivor's Stand leveled from Tier 1: Level 13 to Tier 1: Level 15!]

[Survivor's Body leveled from Tier 1: Level 14 to Tier 1: Level 15!]

[Form of Life & Death leveled from Tier 1: Level 15 to Tier 1: Level 17!]

[Life Absorption leveled from Tier 1: Level 5 to Tier 1: Level 8!]

[Space Destruction leveled from Tier 1: Level 1 to Tier 1: Level 3!]

[New Skill Unlocked: Space Armament!]

[New Skill Unlocked: Resistant Body!]

Laz looked at everything he had received. He realized that some of his skills would only be raised through battle. Laz had already sunk into the battle ready state that seemed to be required in this world, but only now did it hit him that he also had to be wary of others like himself. This led him to the problem at hand. Right now, he had no choice but to kill or be killed. He had to get powerful. Stronger than those others who would kill him. Laz shook himself and laid back down on the ground ready to assign stats.

He had 350 points available. Right now the largest multiplier he had was on intelligence so he would get the most out of that. He tried to even out his stats this time. He was still receiving those per level perks and it appeared to apply to both of his classes. So he had a total of 175 free points due to that. They each went in their respective category. So he added 55 to both Strength and Endurance. This brought them to 300. Then he put 50 points in Constitution and 45 in both Dexterity and Willpower. That brought DEX to 100 and WILL to 300. Finally he threw the rest of his points into Intelligence, all 100 of them. This was his final stat panel.

STR 300 INT 267 END 300 WILL 300 CON 300 CHA 30 DEX 100 LCK 55

They were solid stats. Nice and even. He still had to check some parts of his status, the perks.

Perks Available(Choose 10)

Overwhelming(Strength over 50)- Doubles carrying capacity, double chance to maim

Tireless(Endurance over 75)- Allows you to gain stamina in exchange for health when at zero

Nimble(Dexterity over 25)- Grants General Skill: Acrobatics

Swift(Dexterity over 50)- Doubles reflexes and balance.

Skilled(Dexterity over 75)- Grants 50% leveling bonus to fighting styles.

Dexterous(Dexterity over 100)-Grants 1 DEX per class level. 100 perks limited to 4.(+2 World Walker effect)

Smart(Intelligence over 25)- Grants General Skill: Learning

Prodigy(Intelligence over 75)- Grants photographic memory

Hardened(Willpower over 50)- Doubles mana purity

Charming(Charisma over 25)-Grants General Skill: Persuasion

The prompt said to choose 10, so he chose 10. There just so happened to be nothing left. He had chosen all of the perks. He looked through his status if anything else changed. It hadn't, so he finalized his status.

Fire burned trough his brain, his shoulders broadened to enormous sizes, his spine lengthened and he was filled with vitality. The pain didn't phase him much anymore. Instead he was fascinated by the changes he was observing. He felt instinctively that his body was developing to be more efficient and his strength was going to every part of his body equally. Constitution was enlarging his whole body proportionally. The largest change was happening in his brain. It felt as if fire was burning new pathways in his brain. He moved and noticed that he was now moving the movement he thought with only a little delay. He did seem to perceive time slower now that he had high intelligence. He noticed that he seemed to be ambidextrous now as well. He did some basic movements and realized that fine motor control now extended to everything. He could move each toe individually and he was able to touch both palms to the floor. He tried to go straight into a handstand and there were no issues with balance. He removed one hand and he could still balance. He collapsed on his back and enjoyed the increase in strength.

Sometime later, Laz got up and began his routine again. He trained his skills for as long as he was able to and slept. Whoever teleported him had left behind one potato. At least, he assumed it was a potato. It looked much more knobby. After he finished that he continued to train.

He tried to get familiar with his new skills. He couldn't find anything different about his new passive skill besides the description.

[Resistant Body: Tier 1: Level 1- Body resists unknown mana including healing. Effectiveness increases with CON and skill level

Category: Body Enhancement- Quality]

He attempted to find a difference in his body and was unable to. He assumed that this was a skill that could only be leveled through battle like some of his other skills. He checked out the other skill as well.

[Space Armament: Tier 1: Level 1- An unseen armament of distorted space forms around you. Allows control of personal gravitational pull. Enhances strength by 50%[150%]

Category: Space/Body Enhancement- Spell]

This spell was far more interesting. He tried to cast it and felt through his perception as what felt like twisted space gathered around him. He couldn't discern the spaces effects but it felt like it was layering his body in all directions. There were no holes that he could sense making it an impenetrable defense. He tried to mess with his gravitational pull and felt himself grow lighter and lighter until he eventually started floating. He realized that he could change the direction he was meant to be pulled in order to fly. It wasn't the fastest flight, but he still felt great soaring through the small chamber.

He wished he could get out, but he couldn't right now. Laz practiced manipulating gravity for an unknown amount of time. He tried to increase gravity to his limit and change his direction very fast. This made him very confused and very dizzy, but it was worth it.

[Space Armament has leveled from Tier 1: Level 1 to Tier 1: Level 5!]

[Acrobatics has leveled from Tier 1: Level 1 to Tier 1: Level 4!]

The skill Acrobatics seemed to level up because of all the wall jumping and flips he had done while messing around with the skill. The most useful part of the skill was that he was able to increase the gravity on himself. This allowed him to enhance his training. The armament cost 1000 mana to cast but it had an upkeep cost below his regeneration rate. This meant he could cast it indefinitely. It actually looked like the armament only took up around one-fourth of his mana regen. He tested out his other armor just to see and found that this one also had an upkeep cost of around one-fourth. He decided that he would keep them both constantly cast from now on.

Laz began his training for the 2nd time. He assumed that he had another two months in this cave before the 2nd duel. So he trained.

Laz (Lazarus Gallows) Health 5100/5100 5.4 per min Survivor 82 Mana 7209/7209 Voyager 26 Stamina 5100/5100 3340 lbs 7'3" Stats Resistances Title Perks Skills