Reading through the prompts, ——- understood why his cutting was very badly done. Since it had become a level 1 skill, he would have to do a lot of work if he wanted it to work well.

He wasn’t surprised with the fact that the skinning was horribly done as there were still some clumps of meat on it, it was torn in some places, and his claws had poked some holes while he was trying to separate it from the body.

He was confused as to why Mana Manipulation would be a skill of the Gods, but since it seemed that it wouldn’t matter to him, he stopped caring.

According to the prompt it was obvious some mortals could use the skill so even if he wasn’t immune he wouldn’t care that much.

Throwing the messed up patch of scales aside, ——- grabbed the meat he had put aside. As he was starting to get hungry, he began to eat some of the raw meat.

To him, there was no point in cooking the meat. Not only would it take longer, but his body allowed him to eat almost any living matter without consequence.

If he could find the bones of a dragon he could even eat them, but his stomach acids would take decades to gnaw away at them.

After eating his fill, which was the entire corpse except for a leg which he left behind, —— decided it was time to move on.

The first task would be to level himself and his skills up. The stronger ------ got, the easier it would be to face the elites in the world.

Afterwards he could slowly start to kill of empires one by one until he reached a point that he could begin to devour everything around him. He was still far, far away from that level though.

For now, his most important task would be to create new spells with his Void Magic and begin to level that up. The Mana Manipulation skill would also need to be leveled as it would likely allow him to improve every aspect of his magic.

He had a long range magic attack and a short range one so now all he really needed was a defense. As Void Magic could cancel out all other magics, he would simply have to force the mana to bend into a sphere like shape around him without destroying himself in the process.

Closing his eyes, ——- began to feel the mana within him. He imagined a perfect sphere of Void Magic to appear around him, and that it would only absorb magic spells that came into contact with it.

He would also have to create a physical defense spell, but that would require control of Void Magic that he simply didn’t have currently.

As he focused, he felt a sense of congestion start from the center of his chest which soon spread to the rest of his body. Straining to continue the attempt of creating a shield, he felt something pop within him before he spit out blood.

You have received backlash from attempting to create a spell.

The feeling of congestion was gone, and with it 100 of his mana. He knew that making a spell like that would be hard, but not to the point that he would fail so quickly. Seeing his mana at 113, he knew that he had one more try. The backlash had taken 30 HP from him, so there was no need for him to worry about it happening again. All he needed to do now was continue to practice.

Thinking over what had happened, he realized his mistake. When ----- had created Void Claws, he simply wanted the mana to travel through his body into his finger. Now, ----- wanted to mana to leave his body and surround him, but he never told it to do so. Instead the mana that was supposed to be making the shield was just running in circles inside his body.

Knowing what to do now, he began again. This time, the feeling of congestion never came, and slowly in front of his eyes a transparent, black film materialized from his mana. It covered everything within a meter of the center of his chest and slowly glimmered as waves of energy were being fed into it.

You have learned a new skill!

Void-Magic Shield Lv 1

Description: A shield of mana created by Void Magic. Can only stop magical attacks. (This is a sub skill of Void Magic)

Congratulations! Void Magic has leveled up to Lv 2.

Congratulations! Mana Manipulation has leveled up to Lv 2.

As the last prompt appeared, —— felt a small amount of The Divine Energies from the surroundings to seep into his body. As the energy went through his pores into his body, it was quickly neutralized by the Void that made him up and dispersed.

As he already knew that his body was immune to the energies, he simply did not care. What he did care about was the improvement he felt from the skills leveling up.

While it was a very small change, he could feel that the mana within him was more inclined to listen to him and he felt as if he instinctively knew more about the Void than he did before.

This was the power of skills, to give beings an automatic increase in their abilities once they reached a certain threshold.

Now that his skills had increased in level, he wanted to see if he could try to make a shield that deflected physical attacks as well. Sadly, even with the level ups he couldn’t understand how he would do so.

But now wasn’t the time for that. Since he already had a defensive and offensive skill, it was time to start putting them to use. The best way to train combat skills was of course to use them in combat.

Looking at his status quickly, he noticed that he was almost out of mana. Luckily, within his memories existed the knowledge of a skilled called Meditation. It allowed people to better open themselves up into the world and absorb the mana into themselves.

Getting into a similar state of mind as the one in which he had attempted to create new spells, ——- tried to feel for the mana around him. He calmed his breathing and allowed his body to relax fully. This was something not manageable by most species, but as his body was one created with no flaws, he had perfect control over himself.

As he allowed himself to become one with the world, he felt the mana in the surroundings grow closer to him. The mana saw him as part of them, and as the concentration of mana in his body was very low, it began to flow into him.

Along with this current of mana that began to flow into his body, more energies began to flow in. From the lowliest energy to the highest Divine Energy, all of it was slowly being gathered within his body. The mana would quickly be accepted while the other energies seemed to disappear into him, almost as if teleporting into another plane of existence.

Without noticing, time began to quickly pass. The sun traveled through the sky as purples and reds began to appear in the evening sky. Finally, as the last blues left the sky, ——- opened his eyes.

You have learned a new skill!

Meditation Lv 1

Description: The ability to absorb all energies and mana from your surroundings. (As you possess the skill Mana Manipulation, this skill will accelerate the corruption of your mind caused by the use of Mana Manipulation.)

Congratulations! Meditation has leveled up to Lv 5.

Congratulations! Mana Manipulation has leveled up to Lv 3.

Gasping for breath, —— looked around at where he was. He had fallen into a trance-like state during his meditation as his instincts as a Voidling were to continue to absorb everything around him until nothing existed anymore.

Although his Meditation skill could only absorb the energies in the air and not matter itself, when ------ had entered the trance-like state he believed that it would be possible to absorb everything around him. Looking at his status, -----’s mana was back to 250.

As dusk began to approach, ------ could tell that a few hours had passed in his trance. There would be no other way for the Meditation skill to level up 5 times if it wasn’t for him getting lost within it.

If there was any good to him having skipped a couple hours of the day, it would be that most of the dangerous creatures came out during the night in the desert. As most were cold-blooded, it was well in their best interests to stay as far from the sun as they could.

He had already begun to see some small figures shifting around in the sand. Some chased one another, some drank at the pond near him.

Looking towards his pile of relds, he noticed that most of them were either gone or had small bite marks left on then. As it had been a couple hours since he had eaten anything, he quickly went over and began to eat the remaining fruits. The fruits were juicy and sweet with a slightly bitter aftertaste that made you want to eat more. Them being a delicacy to the Selens definitely made sense.

Finished with eating the remaining fruits, ——— began to sneak his way towards the pond. There were a couple small creatures around but they all scurried off when he came close, a testament to how bad his stealth skill currently was.

He did actually manage to kill two more skeevers though. One was shot with another Void Blast and the other was sleeping underneath the sand when —— stepped on it. With a quick slash of his Void Claws it had been decapitated.

As not to waste the corpses, he picked the two up to practice skinning later. With nothing left in the way the Voidling soon arrived at the shore. Kneeling down, he pooled the water in his hands and began to drink.

It was surprisingly free of sand and looking down ——- could see his own face reflecting back towards him. Eyes that seemed to pierce through one’s soul sat on an otherwise featureless and bald head. Hair was just something that would get in the way and as such a perfect being like himself had no need for it.

Looking back up, the first moon could be seen rising over the horizon. It was a sickly yellow, and was spotted with craters. Along with it came roars from beasts that hsd finally come to drink and eat.

In front of ——- in the water a shadow slowly began to appear and grow larger. 1 meter, 3 meters, 5 meters. As the creature began to surface, the Voidling quickly identified it.

Name: Oasis Lacertae

Level: 6

Description: A large, oasis dwelling lizard. They have long tails adorned with spikes which they use to attack their prey. They are slow due to their large size, but their feet are nimble and can allow them to turn at astonishing speeds which fuels their tail attacks.

As the Oasis Lacertae fully left the water, the Voidling got a look at it full size. It was 7 meters long from head to the end of its tail and had 4 thick, stout limbs. It’s tail was 4 meters long and was covered in triangular spikes that came out 5 centimeters. Some of the spikes were bent or missing, likely due to prior fights it had been in.

It had two large, yellow eyes which stared back at ——‘s own. Its mouth was large and filled with three rows of sharp teeth.

As the creature opened its mouth to roar, he quickly shot a Void Blast at it. Whether due to his quick casting of the spell or the slight movement made by the Lacertae, his attack had missed it’s open mouth but had managed to catch its left forelimb.

It quickly collapsed under its own weight and began to scramble back into the water to attempt to swim away, a now sizeable hole in one of its legs. Before it could do so, —— quickly ran forwards and jumped onto the creatures back.

Just as it was about to attempt to roll him off, a Void Claw quickly found its way to the Lacertae’s brain. Its body trembled a bit before locking up.

You have killed an Oasis Lacertae Lv 6.

You have gained 113 experience.

With the experience from this and the previous 3 skeevers, he now had 137 experience. The requirement to get to level 2 was 525, so —— still had a long way to go.

Though he had planned to continue to hunt over the night and attempt to reach level 2, now that there was a perfect corpse ready for skinning in his face, the Voidling changed decided to change his plan for the night.

Grabbing the mouth of the Lacertae, he began to slowly drag it back onto the sand and away from the water. Most of the fighting was taking place near or on the water, so the further away the skinning happened, the less likely it was that there would be an interruption.

On the way, —— picked up the two skeever corpses to take with him. They would serve as some more practice to see if skinning would be leveled up to level two. Though the clothes he made out of the skin Lacertae would be very shoddily made, at least the extra protection from the scales would help. Though his Void Claws had managed to quickly pierce the scales, they were actually quite thick and would hamper any other creatures attempt to harm him.