The fight lasted longer than Bones expected. The vitality of the queen was proportionate to her enormous body. After the thirty minutes of constant barrage of attacks, she finally succumbed to injuries. Bones could swear, he saw her final moments in slow motion.

After he got close enough, confirming the kill, a slew of notifications welcomed him. The first he read were all the skill level ups he had gotten prior to the fight with the queen. Bone lance receiving the most experience and leveling up to level 3, bone armor to level 4, bone manipulation to level 18, mana blast to level 7 and basic weapon mastery was at level 6. His meditation also finally leveled up, but was still far from advancing. His class was at level 19 before the boss fight and he hoped the boss fight would push him to level 20.. As he was further reading the notification, he felt the exhaustion come over him. Ah? I must have pushed myself a bit too much. Nothing a little bit of meditation wouldn’t fix right up. He sat down in meditation and dozed off.

When he came to, the blue screen was flashing in front of him. With a groan he dismissed the screen. “What happened? Did I really just doze off?” Pinching the bridge of his nose by reflex, he looked around and saw he was still in the same place, next to the queen’s body. He felt like he just had a beating, his head was...pounding? Is it the core? He opened up his screen and read the flashing notification.

Warning: Core overload!

Activating Eternal Rest state to reduce the core overload back to normal state.

He focused on Eternal Rest and read it was a state he would enter when overloading his core. The core in this state would operate with minimal efficiency until its state returned to normal. Books didn't mention anything like this happening. He was glad it happened after and not during the fight. He continued reading the notification and once he read his class had leveled up, his mood brightened up. It was a minor threshold but an important one. He would be officially considered a bronze rank now. He was considering whether he should continue placing his free point in wisdom, but first, he had learned a new skill.

Skill: Bone Spikes - Summon bone spikes from the ground at target location, dealing physical damage in a radius with increased chance to bleed and cripple targets.

Cost: 10 mana per spike

Max limit: 6 spikes (+1 spike per 5 levels)

Radius: 2 meters (+1 meter per 5 levels)

“Another attack skill?” From what description tells me the skill was focused on multiple targets. Then he frowned, looking at the mana cost. He already had enough skills to rotate and the cost of the new skill...he’s going to have to wait and see how the skill worked in practice. For now? Bones raised his hand and three meters away, six bone spikes protruded from the ground. Spikes were thick and around half a meter in length. “Shit, this looks badass.” Happy with his new skill, he checked the last of the notifications he received.

One was an achievement called Manaholic and...words fail to describe what went through Bones head at that moment. He sighed, read the description about overdrinking mana and negative effects of mana burn. With achievement came a perk and he was surprised how beneficial it seemed.

Perk: Manaholic

While others are wary of the negative effects of drinking one mana potion too much, you have taken it up a notch and indulge yourself in that burning sensation

Increased mana regeneration under the effect of mana burn.

I guess it’s fine. It’s not a problem since there’s uh, a benefit from it all?!

Moving onto the last notification.

Mana Core stored in inventory

Chitin Chest Armor - a light chest piece of armor known for its sturdiness providing protection against physical damage and acid resistance.

Stored?

Holding his hand over his head, Bones was groaning. Not in pain, but his own stupidity. It didn’t cross his mind to check inside his inventory. All the silk and poison salve he looted from the spiders outside, he stored himself. He didn’t think it would be possible to store items automatically. He opened his inventory and found a lot of chitin carapace stored along with some acid salve and fourteen spears. Why would I need fourteen...and then he remembered. He did want to pick up the spear at some point, he just didn’t have the time. Once he did pick it up, he used it immediately. He also noticed something else in the corner of the inventory. He took the item out and identified it as a mana stone. A beautifully oval stone with blue paterns that radiated raw mana, often used in different professions and cultivation due to the purity of mana within. Bones took out a mana potion and took a swig, grinning. I’m rich!

He donned a new armor, marveling at the black mat color of a chitin. The armor had both self-repair and self-fit enchantments on it. Courtesy of the system? Or the enchanted armor dropped first and the crafters copied the enchantments? He didn't know and he didn’t really care. Trying out different combinations, he decided to keep the armor under his enchanted shirt. With bone armor active and an armor under his shirt, he almost looked normal! He needed, no, he wanted a cape! Maybe new boots too. He added them to his shopping list to buy.

Now then, he took out another item from his inventory. A core the size of his fist rested in the palm of his hand. He read about them. Mana core was a core containing huge amounts of raw mana. Thinking of it as a mana stone times thousand with the ability to recharge overtime. The reusability is the reason they were expensive and often used to power up machines and technology around the cities. It could also be used as an ingredient in golem creation, which sparked Bones interest. He did want minions eventually as he wasn’t a group-up-kind of a guy.

He earned a lot in the last few days. He couldn’t be sure, but he estimated around three days had passed since he entered the dungeon. He spotted a portal appearing once he killed the queen. It was oval in shape and mostly blue in color with constant shifting of colors inside it. He could feel the mana radiating from within. There was a tinge of something he was familiar with. Space and time? He guessed the colors he was seeing were different mana affinities. Portal would lead to somewhere, either exit or a different, maybe next part of the dungeon. With only one way to find out, he walked to the portal and reached out with his hand. A prompt appeared before him asking if he wanted to continue or leave the dungeon. He definitely wanted to leave but wouldn’t want to repeat the dungeon next time. He remembered the books mentioned that most dungeons had an option to continue the dungeon after the cooldown period of the dungeon had passed. Even if that wasn't the case, he accepted to leave the dungeon and prepared for whoever was waiting for him outside.

He appeared next to the wall with faint markings, the same place he entered the dungeon from. He was, however, alone. Looking around he saw he really was alone. Horus was scheming something for sure! He looked to the entrance of the cave-in and saw it was still daytime. If not here then outside? Bones went over to the darker corner of the cave and sat in meditation. He would leave at the cover of the night.

Leveling mana sense to level 20 should give me an option to upgrade the skill to a new skill Mana Perception. Bone manipulation has synergy with every other Bonemancer skill but I doubt they could be morphed together. If they could, would I lose bone manipulation?

I should level up meditation more. At level 20 I would be able to upgrade the skill and be able to use it while moving at the cost of reduced effectiveness. It would still be a huge boost to my mana regeneration.

Bones meditated for roughly three hours and when he saw it was truly dark, he got up and climbed the walls to the outside. He didn't get up but stayed in a crawling position. He couldn't sense anyone but didn't want to risk it and started crawling towards the nearest entrance to the forest. His crawling, however, didn't stay unnoticed. One of the scouts he was heading towards, noticed the movement in the grass even in the darkness of the night. He made a bird calling sound as a signal, not too loud but loud enough to be heard over the clearing. Bones heard it too. Shit, they WERE here after all! Throwing caution to the wind, he made a run for it. Scouts, following fast behind him.

It was a sunrise when one of the scouts reached Horus and delivered the report.

“Boss! He appeared!” Horus' head snapped at a scout. “Where is he now?”

“Other scouts are following him!”

“Good, his level?”

“We couldn't identify him.”

… as expected. “Find the others and engage. Don't kill him!”

“Yes boss!”

With that, the scout left, leaving Horus to his own musings. *sigh*” What a pain this turned out to be.”

Eh, for humans, they were pretty persistent. Bones was still running through the woods, two scouts out of the original five, after him. He killed the two while in pursuit and they didn't appreciate it much! They threw everything at him, trying to stop him from running away, but nothing worked. They were slightly faster than Bones but nothing a little boost to speed couldn't resolve. They were growing tired, he could tell. Their speed dropped to his, without a boost. It was time to see what bone spikes could do.

Bones slightly slowed down, just enough for the scouts to catch up. One of them threw something and hit him with it. Bones jerked forward, losing his balance. "Finally, get that fucker!" Shouted one of the scouts. Another hit to his shoulder spun him around. Bones saw the two scouts were within the range of his skill and extended his hand, pointing in their direction. Scout saw it and cussed, but it was too late. Six bone spikes grew from the ground and before they could react, impaled both of them. One scout stopped immediately, two spikes impaling him through the leg and keeping him pinned in place. The second scout went through the same but the motion of his movement broke the spikes and he slid forward, stopping in front of his target. Both scouts were screaming and the one pinned in place was reaching for the potion. Bones let him, his focus was in front of him at the scout that was holding down his leg with a broken spike sticking out of it. “So, want to tell me wh...hey! HEY!”

His words weren't reaching the scout. The man was in too much of a pain to pay attention. Bones ended his life and went over to the other scout that stopped screaming but wasn't able to move. “Didn't think this through huh?” Scout didn't answer, but his silence and the way he looked away was a dead giveaway. “Well, no need to be ashamed. No one would be able to think straight in your situation. Well, I would. I would definitely rid myself of spikes first, then drink the potion.” Amusing undertone wasn't missed by the scout and that day, Bones extended his knowledge of profanities.

Soon the spikes were dismissed and a scout was kneeling in front of him. There wasn't much information to extract from the scout but he talked anyway. Bones shut him up and the scout started bawling his eyes out and asking for forgiveness. There was an air of indifference around Bones as he looked the pleading man in the eyes and said “if you want forgiveness, join a religion.“

Bones ended the man's life and started running in the direction of the town or at least in the direction he thought the town was.