Soon enough, my aether affinity ate enough of the other affinities to make enough space, though it reduced all the other elemental affinities to minimum level. Soon enough it seemed they would be completely consumed, bringing aether affinity up to basic, but before then I decided to try out a few things. First up was using medical magic, psionic healing and Ki healing to bring me back up to full health. Once I could stand I began to walk about, finding myself in another hallway. Here the goblins were tuckered away in their rooms, and at the end of the hallway was a barred door blocking us off.

Next on the agenda was to try to convert resources from one pool into resources from the other, granting me MP conversion, PP conversion and KI conversion, each giving me the ability to exchange them at a rate of 10:1. Finally I tried to manipulate the elements using magic, ki and Psionics, giving me an elemental manipulation, a elemental martial art, and an elemental -kinesis for each of the four elements, respectively. That seemed to push my aether affinity over the edge, making it consume the remains of the others.

That actually caused it to collapse all of my elemental control skills to collapse and combine into elementalism. Unfortunately elementalism consumed half of the feat points I had to generate it. I didn’t even know skills could consume feat points to form! In the end, I spent a day to obtain 6 feat points. Admittedly I still gained with the elementalism skill, since I could use any of my pools to activate it, and could even manipulate the elements around me slightly without spending any resources, even though that only amounted to a small breeze or warming the air.

The next day I ended up trying to train several skills at once, such as using all of my sensory abilities and combining those with analysis. I managed to hold it for about a second before the information overload made it imposible to focus by frizzing my head, though it seems like they could also combine if I could actually handle all of that information… on the bright side, each skill leveled up once due to how I found new ways to use them. It even specified on the level up screen why they leveled up since analysis leveled up. Finally I tried using Psionics and magic to reinforce my body the way ki does, of course my body felt more like a puppet than a body, and I didn’t get any real skills… so only 4 feat points today

The next day I decided on a slightly risky skill to learn, trying to convert health to my other pools. It took me several hours to actually gain the blood conversion skill, which I assume was based on blood affinity. The reason it took me so long was probably because I was slightly worried about accidentally draining my health completely, so I only did little pinpricks, which only served to bleed me out without actually achieving anything. That meant I needed to spend time on using my healing abilities, of which ki healing and psionic healing leveled up once. 3 feat points… a pattern?

The next day I tried training said conversion skills, mainly by shifting 10 points of HP to 1 point of MP, 10 points of MP to one point of PP, 10 points of PP to one point of KI, and 10 points of KI to one point of health, and repeat until half health and wait until the next day. 0 feat points…

doing the same thing the next day caused all 4 of them to level up, changing the exchange ratio from 10:1 to 9:1. A part of me wonders what happens at level 10 of these skills if they actually go on a progression like that, from 9:1 to 8:1 to 7:1 etc…

I guess at that point they’re basically all the same pool?

The next day I was going to continue training the conversion skills, since having a health pool 4 times bigger than normal would probably help me with bigger hits like when the Ojáncano got me with his knee.

However, before I was going to begin my training, the door at the end of the hallway began to shake, as if something on the other side was trying to burst it down. Milesio and the other goblins were packing their things, getting ready to go out through one of the windows before the door was broken down. It seriously hasn’t even been… a… week…

I’ve been in this place for a week, and the closest I’ve had to peace and quiet was the 4 days of training… the rest of my time was spent meditating trying to figure out what’s going on, or fighting in this goddamn game. Well, ya know what?

I looked for Milesio to figure out the situation

“Qué está pasando?”

“Los almorávides encontraron nuestros exploradores y los siguieron aquí, parecería que nos encontraron”

Seems like the same thing that happened before. I guess they would have tried to escape back then if I hadn’t killed the enemy commander…

I killed a man, huh… I guess having buckets of adrenaline flowing through your veins, an arrow through your hand, and friends to protect made it easier to do in the moment…

Milesio walked back to the barred door, spear in hand. It looked like he planned to fight, spear in hand.

“A donde vas Milesio?” (Where are you going, Milesio?)

He looked at me with the same tired look as before, but now, a new determination appeared in those emerald eyes.

“Si nadie mantiene la puerta los almorávides nos atacarán antes de que los infantes se puedan evacuar. Tu pareces joven para un humano, así que probablemente no entiendes, pero un padre defiende sus hijos hasta el final”

Well, with a speech like that I couldn’t exactly sit to the sides, now could I? To be honest, baby goblins weren’t the best looking creatures, but the little buggers grow on you, not that I would tell that to Milesios face. I didn’t know the man had a family, but something that unites almost all sentient beings together is the need to protect your family. And to be honest, these little green skinned guys were the closest thing I had…

“Asumo que la madre está con sus hijos?”

Looks like I said something wrong, as milesios shoulders dropped, and his gaze went blank for a moment

“Ella estaba conmigo cuando nos encontramos con el Ojáncano”

Right… the blood splatters…

“Perdón”

So, I immediately fled that situation. I honestly prefer the types of problems you can blast away rather than problems that you can’t solve, even if the former presents significantly greater risk of being stabbed. Besides, I blast them all, and they can’t hurt the goblins.

I will not let those little green buggers grow up orphans.

The doors hinges were already coming off the walls, the wooden bar splintering in the middle. It was already too late to try to keep the door there, so I decided to take a different approach.

I wanted to make spikes facing towards the door out of the walls and floor, but I couldn’t just make stone from nothing. Instead, I tried to increase the space between the molecules of the stone, expanding conical sections in the shape of a field of sharp spikes reaching up to knee level. This should keep them at bay and us out of the reach of their swords. On the other hand, there was enough space for Milesio to step between the spikes and hit them with his spear, while I fired blasts of aether from above.

And then I heard the buzzing…

IT WAS THOSE GOD FORSAKEN DRAGONFLIES AGAIN!!!

Now, it was personal. As the door cracked and shattered, showing that the other side was nothing more than cinders, the fuckers flew over the spikes, rushing at me. Of course, now I could burn them as well.

Using elementalism, I poured my resources into a cone in front of me, causing the air to heat up and blow, using a bit to generate fuel for the fire.

The flies began to burn, the fire seeming to home in on them. Ashes and burnt husks fell onto the field of spikes as the dragonflies flew in like moths to a literal flame.

“He, hehe, HA, HAHA, HAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

I may have gotten a bit excited…

“HOW DO YOU LIKE IT YOU INSECTS!? CHOKE ON MY VENGEANCE!!! CHOKE ON IT!!!”

Ok, I may have self control issues…

Soon enough, the dragonflies stopped coming, replaced by Almoravid raiders standing at the door. I only had a tenth of my non health resources left, so I wouldn’t be able to use magic blasts like I planned to. Instead, I grabbed a spike and reshaped it into a spear, heating it up, increasing its size, sharpening and refining it. Soon enough I held a long stone spear with a broad bladed point. I used it to harass the raiders, letting Milesio finish them off whenever they fell over.

It felt weird… maybe it was the catharsis from murdering all of those flies, maybe because it wasn’t my spear that killed them, but I didn’t really feel anything as I went around pushing the raiders to their deaths at Milesio’s speartip. Even as I watched him drive his spear through someone’s eye and into their skull, I could only think of how many more I had to knock down.

It even felt tedious, just jab, sweep, thrust, repeated over and over again. They couldn’t really reach me since it was impossible for them to bring their own pole weapons into the corridor. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that this is so safe for me, but I don’t believe ending someone’s life should ever invoke a feeling of boredom…

several minutes later they stopped coming in, allowing me and Milesio to finally retreat to the window. Said window was located in one of the goblin rooms, leading towards the roof. The problem was that it was small enough that a goblin had to squeeze through it, let alone a human like me.

“Vete, yo encuentro otra manera de salir”

“Cid, refuerzos almorávides ya están en ruta, será casi imposible escaparse”

“No soy su Cid, y encontrarás que soy un poquito más adaptable de lo que parezco”

Before he could form a rebuttal, I stormed off. The more time I argued with him, the more difficult it would be to escape. Soon enough I was out of the hallway that acted as my home for the last 4 days and running through the labyrinthine passages of the dungeon.

It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of marching raiders. I used elementalism to make myself a little cranny to hide in, and hid my breathing with my ki, and covered the cranny with an illusion and a feeling of emptiness with lightning and void manipulation. Soon enough the boots passed by, and apparently counting the battle is over, I was bombarded with notifications.

Level UP x3!!! spear mastery skill unlocked, level 1 increases your ability with the spear, +5% accuracy and power per level hidden presence unlocked, level 1 use ki to hide signs of your presence like breath and heartbeat elemental manufacture skill unlocked, consumed by elementalism allows you to craft with the elements, creating objects with magic. Qualitative goes up with level, cost goes down with level light manipulation unlocked, consumed by elementalism allows you to control light, creating colorful optical illusions shadow manipulation unlocked, consumed by elementalism allows you to manipulate the void, shifting it ever so slightly so that light sound, and other forms of information are muted elementalism leveled up, level 7 allows you to manipulate the elements. Power rises with strength, intelligence and will, efficiency rises with level. (bonus: all elemental effects will be infused with trace amounts of aether, increasing effect)

interesting, most of them were eaten by elementalism, though at least they still gave me the feat points. Going over the bonus, it appears it’s something that happened due to my aether affinity. I gained 11 feat points, as well as 3 stat points. I put the stat points into intelligence to bring it up to an even 20, and brought up my screen