After Kent woke and the immediate panic of falling asleep in the middle of the dungeon had subsided, he checked himself over once. There were no injuries that were worth mentioning. The few scrabs he had sustained were almost completely healed and his health almost full. From what he could tell based on initially cursory and later more intense observation there were no new monsters and no new threats.

There weren’t any monsters at all in fact. Even the boss he had killed had vanished almost entirely. Closer inspection of his sleeping place left him with only a few tear-drop-shaped light blue translucent objects that had remained in place of the body, which had disappeared in the time Kent had been asleep. Sleep that had apparently taken a long time given by the fact that all his vitals were completely refilled.

Kent hadn’t really used his new identification skills much, ever since getting them. Sometimes for monster identifications, but even then, he had stopped doing so when he had grown comfortable with judging the turrls by their coloration and size.

Now, confronted with unknown objects – though he had a suspicion – was an ideal scenario to do so again. He had only a rudimentary understanding of what spell cores were, and their purpose. The few that were found by the villagers of Blueleaf were always sold quickly and kids like him never were informed about them, besides their mere existence.

Truth be told, he didn’t know if anyone in the village might know what they did. There were only a few people he could think of who could even have a slight interest in them. So it wasn’t a surprise that when he tried to list everything he knew about them he came up with basically nothing.

The gist of it was that monsters formed cores of energy, which were in a way their essence, over time. Generally, the quality of a core came from the power of a monster and the count of cores found within one came from several other factors and was roughly limited by monster size and age. Usually, it was very tough to extract them from monsters, some people using spells dedicated to harvesting them instead of imitating Kent’s earlier attempts of trying to extract them.

But apparently, you didn’t have such worries in a dungeon since the boss had dissolved like the previous monsters, leaving behind four different spells cores. Well, that or there were a hundred different reasons why the cores laid on the floor instead of being absorbed by the dungeon. Options he didn’t want to consider, with too many variables present it was bound to be a waste of time. So he did the next best thing. Identifying the cores.

Another interesting factor was that all of his shivs and the few ‘knives’ that had been in the monster’s body were gone. In a way it was a shame, the resources and utility of those was decent after all. What he found in their stead was nice though.

Spell Core: Tranquility (Minor) – A minor power source for magics. Slightly amplifies Tranquility-related magic.

Spell Core: Tranquility (Common) – A power source for magics. Has an affinity for Tranquility related magic.

Three of the tears identified as minor spell cores and only the largest one returned the common identifier. The minor spell cores were all about the size of his pinky's nail with an almost oval shape but not quite, with the common one barely matching the size of his thumb’s nail and had a slightly deeper blue coloring.

After spending some time elatedly cradling the cores which had secured his financial liquidity his mood had skyrocketed, only more increased by seeing the remaining notifications he had gained since slaying the boss.

New Notification Log Entries:

You have slain “Somniferous Hybrid Spreader” Level 20! No experience can be gained until level up completed.

You have completed the Quest - Tranquil Pond Completion

Rewards may be merged with pending Rewards of Divergent Invasion for immediate Reward.

Merge Rewards/Keep Individual Rewards

You have gained the title Fortius.

Fortius – You have slain a boss monster of an evolutionary rank higher than your own and at least twice your level on your own. You are awarded with an extra skill point. This title can only be gained once and has no further ranks.

You have completed the Tranquil Pond. Seek the core to open the exit passage.

He had hoped to receive a title for defeating a boss of a greater level than his own, or one for killing an evolved one while unevolved. But it hadn’t really been hard to defeat the boss, so he had almost given up on getting one. In fact, someone with more time on their hand to train and his skills shouldn’t have had any issues with the boss at all. Things surely would be different if the monster would have been an even higher level, but as things stood right now, he didn’t understand why he had received another title.

The decision on how to invest the skill point was almost easy this time around.

Spending more skill points on any of the trees he would get a specialization in was an option, but one he didn’t care for. The Daggers tree’s Death by ten thousand Punctures skill was always on his mind, but even in his encounter with the boss he hadn’t even amounted a hundredth of the maximum required punctures to inflict one of the skills stronger effects.

Metallic Insight was not really promising more strength at this point. Analyze Metal might come in handy at a later point in time but for now it was not interesting, offering no further combat capability or real utility.

Much the same could be said for Metallumancy. While the skills therein would be interesting, they wouldn’t offer an immediate power-up. He had no doubt that Rotate Metal would amount to significant damage at a later point but would also require a high understanding of the skill before it would become useful and he didn’t have the mana to properly train it. Neither did he have weapons that would allow for an easier facilitation of the skill. Harden Metal would be interesting at a later point but did not warrant attention as of right now.

That only left trees he hadn’t spent skill points on yet. Specifically General Combat Magics and Mage’s Augmentation. The first tree in particular was alluring to Kent in all the ways. Utility, damage output, and defense were all represented. But the tree also required mana. More than he could spare at this moment. And Mage’s Augmentation could solve that issue.

Capacity was going to be a later priority, but right now he could see the Magical Wellspring skill as a very accommodating option. It was the obvious choice, and he had been wanting it for a while now. With time it would make every point spend on Willpower twice as much, and should he get a second specialization at whatever point he could evolve his class again, it would go up even further.

Without any further to-do, he chose the skill and smiled.

Magical Wellspring (1/10)

Increases the rate of mana generation to 110% (rank)

Missing out on the experience a level twenty boss could have supplied hurt, but he had decided on risking it, trying to get a title and his gamble had paid off. But this way he had hopefully paid some of his experience debt or had accumulated even more depending on how skills affected the calculation. As things stood, he would probably be able to level soon again. Not like the 5% hurdle was going to be an issue now or in the future. Honestly, he was surprised that the hurdle was that high, with how people had to defeat hundred and thousands of monsters at later levels it was quite generous in fact.

The third last message about quest rewards was by far the most interesting. The merging of rewards was unheard of and if any it was going to do what he suspected it would be a great boon.

The tranquil pond completion offered an item upgrade, and the Invasion quest it had been variable – which was very vague and could potentially suck. It was a consideration well worth it.

Oh, why not? What even is variable? Given that I got the quest as a traitless by the old system I doubt it is going to be something nice. Maybe it will just spawn a level 100 monster in front of my face.

That didn’t mean that he was completely happy about the situation. Why was he suddenly allowed to claim his second first quest reward in the dungeon surely had other implications as well. Implications he didn’t even try to interpret.

Should I even risk accepting a variable reward?

No, probably not. Let’s do this.

Merge Rewards

Oh shoot, I wanted to remove the not-good equipment first. But the system had other ideas, not allowing him to discard anything before the next message popped up.

Upgradable items in possession (Choose one):

Cloak of the Suffocating Night’s Embrace (Epic)

He breathed a sigh of relief, at least he was able to choose. That had been his main concern, this way he didn’t have anything to worry about. Well, he did, just not his old worries, instead new ones. Like why he could only choose his cloak and not one of his knives.

Kent wasn’t strictly disappointed, just confused; he had wanted to upgrade the cloak. The second choice would have been the stolen dagger, but it wasn’t even available. There was no indication as to why nothing else in his possession was listed.

Wait. It’s a dungeon-made item. Does that mean quests can only affect dungeon items? That’s good to know if true.

It also showed that he had taken a big risk in fusing the rewards, he could have straight up missed out on a reward. But maybe this wouldn’t be too bad. He still had hope.

He identified the cloak again, just to make sure he remembered all the old characteristics.

Cloak of the Suffocating Night’s Embrace (Epic) – Bloodbound – A high durability fabric. Enchanted to embrace the wearer fully in the Night’s Embrace until their mana is completely embraced. Extended exposure to the effect can cause the enchantment to become permanent. The wearer is slightly obfuscated while the hood is worn.

With that out of the way he initiated the system upgrade.

The cloak changed, it almost withdrew from existence, darkening the environment around it, before it just vanished for a moment. The sudden action made Kent feel queasy for a moment. Emotions rose.

Kent’s heart clenched as he worried whether he had permanently lost his strongest tool of the bunch. The one item that had helped him out of half a dozen binds by now.

Then it slowly coalesced back into existence and Kent’s heartbeat calmed down.

Cloak of the Suffocating Night’s Embrace (Epic) – Soulbound – A high durability materialized concept. Enchanted to embrace the wearer fully in the Night’s Embrace until either their mana is completely gone, or the wearer disables the enchantment. Lengthy exposure can cause the enchantment to become permanent. The wearer is obfuscated, and stealth skills are amplified while the hood is worn.

The wearer can freely adjust the shading of the cloak, as well as summon and dismiss it to their soul.

When dismissed to the soul the cloak regenerates through excess health and mana regeneration.

Uncle is gonna be mad when he finds out I ruined his cloak. Well, ruined the chance of anyone else ever getting it. For some reason that made him smile. It was truly his now, based on the connection he felt with the item. Soulbound is nice though, so I won’t have to worry about losing it.

He felt a bit of irritation with having chosen the wellspring skill now. A stealth skill would be interesting now. If the hood boosted it, he could potentially sneak into a city… No, that’s a bad idea and is just going to get me arrested. There would be countless other new options with a stealth skill now, but what was done was done.

Now if I knew what the difference between fabric and ‘materialized concept’ is… and whether it matters. Sounds surprisingly fantastical. I wonder how that changes stuff. Looks normal right now. Maybe a bit darker and woooow... There aren’t any threads there at all.

Taking a moment to further inspect the new physical properties he noticed a few things. Even though he could almost touch his two fingers together there didn’t seem to be any heat transfer, or any tactile senses being passed through the fabric, he also couldn’t blow air through the cloak.

Further inspection told him that one of those assumptions hadn’t been entirely correct. He could still feel the imprints his fingers left on the cloak, but it was different from touch as how he was used to it. He could see impacts and contact on the cloak now. It was different from anything he had ever experienced and a lot weaker than normal sight, but it was as though he had a mental map of the cloak in his mind that showed impacts profiles.

The fabric was odd. It almost felt like soft metal, and flexible on top. It also felt pleasantly cool to the touch. Contrary to the name the cloak didn’t feel suffocating or oppressive anymore. The cloak’s touch felt affectionate now. After some introspection he determined that to be wrong. It was a possessive grasp.

Then there was the soulbound aspect and he thought it was great. Being able to quickly equip an item sounded awesome, and that it could get repaired passively was even better. The last thing was probably the most important factor of the entire upgrade for now. It would allow him to properly gauge the strength of the cloak without permanently damaging it.

Before it had been able to withstand turrls – not a high bar admittedly, but nice regardless. If it would only help against anything else now, he was going to be elated.

But in the end, Kent hadn’t expected such a positive change and was happy that it hadn’t been detrimental. That whatever maximum amount of time he could spent within the enchantment seemed to be greater now, was the second most welcome surprise. The first of course being that he would now be able to leave the cloak's embrace on will, which would help even more.

He couldn’t wait to try it out soon.