About two weeks later, I finally finished skimming through the entire library, leveling James twice, runic enchantment 3 times, cosmic elementalism twice, and an astrology book raised my sidereal affinity from beginner to average.

Unlike blood affinity, the increase sidereal affinity gave me came in much larger increments. At average level, the other affinities increased my pools by 20%, but sidereal increased it by 50%. This helped quite a bit in my experiments, since I then had a lot more SE to experiment with. Of course, it was somewhat difficult to actually use any of the spells, since most of them worked off non-scientific principles, notably the spells based on giving the target bad luck and spells that dealt with more spiritual things, since I had absolutely no understanding why yelling certain names at a demon would cause it to suffer any damages. Of course, there was a priest among the people I rescued, who was able to get the exorcism skill and unlock the “divine” affinity that gave him a resource called “faith” based on WIL… that is something worth studying…

There were also “spells” that were used to transmute things, notably some “berserker rage” type spells, as well as techniques to make charms and potions, which gave me the alchemy skill. Of course, as with all fantasy stories, there were healing potions as well, which assisted me in recovering SE, and even diverting excess SE into potions for later use. Of course it needed specialized ingredients, but most could be easily fabricated or replaced, like aqua regia being replaceable with diluted hydrofluoric acid.

I tried to make more and more recipes, finding that coffee and alcohol made a very quick MP recovery potion, while adding fish oil made it a PP recovery potion, alcohol with coffee and an energy drink made a KI recovery potion, and sugar along with blended fruit and shredded meat made a health recovery potion…

alcohol with sugar, an energy drink, and a slight electric current created a haste potion that made me really hyperactive… cleaning up was a mess, but by the end alchemy reached level five, and I’ll take any feat points I could get.

The people who settled in the base, led by Lazaro, went out on regular zombie hunting expeditions, always accompanied by a large group of prismatic stars and sidereal trasgu.

We learned quite a bit about leveling that way, discovering mechanics like “experience sharing” where experience went to everyone in the party, even if they just watched, and how the more people there were the less experience each zombie gave. The zombies didn’t seem to appear within the base itself, and it appeared they could only spawn on unclaimed land, which meant that the settlers had to walk a certain distance before actually meeting with any. From this we learned a few interesting things, mostly about new kinds of classes like the engineer, who focused on gadgets and gizmos that he made himself, a necromancer that could control the zombies, and even basic Druid classes that used the power of nature. The later was actually called bohique, and used strange statuettes to cast their spells…

Perhaps most interesting were the production and crafting based classes. Those appeared only when someone focused on crafting based skills, and when they earned enough experience reach level 5, they gained access to classes like blacksmith, tailor, cook, etc… I honestly didn't know crafting could grant get you to level up in the first place, probably should have focused on that more…

These classes gained experience whenever their products were used. Someone eating a chef’s food, attacking with a blacksmiths clothes, wearing a tailors clothes, each increased the level of the respective class. This let a good deal of them stay at the base and make equipment.

Now the base could sustain itself, with the recent plans to see if the Druid class could assist with agriculture by creating a farm. I could actually go and explore the rest of the island, without needing to worry that they’ll be killed off instantly.

I flew into the sky, trying to get a better view of the area. The closest point of interest was to the south, a large stretch of woodlands making up the botanical gardens. Given my increased luck stat, I wanted to see what I could find.

When I touched down, I tried sensing around for monsters. Right now Prognosticator could reach around 100 meters away, giving me more than enough space to react to any attacks. Luckily the only living things I could sense were trees and a giant bee at the edge of my perception. I used Prognosticator on everything I could, repeatedly gathering more and more information to use with what I learned in the library. I even found a few herbs that had magical effects, so I decided to pick them up for later use in alchemy. This place might be a treasure trove of different ingredients.

I felt strangely comfortable in the woods, the irregular ground, the trees, everything felt… friendlier. Then I sensed something decidedly more murdery, in the form of a rotting fungus. It’s color ranged from light pink to dark brown, with the texture of liquified flesh. Tentacles sprouted from the mushroom cap, swaying idly. If I didn’t know any better, I would brush it off as a piece of alien flora. Unfortunately, James informed me otherwise…

“Abyssal Blood mushroom: a form of fungus that originates from demon-dominated worlds. Its purpose is to act as a terraformer, filling the surrounding atmosphere with demonic energy, and making nearby demons, eldritch abominations and undead more powerful. Its immense resistance to elemental damage, as well as its ability to reproduce by budding, make it nearly impossible to remove.

I recommend hosing it down with sidereal blasts”

The thing was built to be nearly immune to fire, electrocution, cold, radiation, acid, while cutting, piercing and bludgeoning damage caused it to release spores and reproduce. Of course, there are few things that can survive all of those things and more at the same time…

The mushroom actually dropped a small orb instead of actual coins. When I used Prognosticator, James told me it was a concentrated monster essence. It was like a coin, but it was a lot more usable, being able to use it for alchemy, enchanting, even being straight up consumable for bonus stats, even though consuming it carries the risk of inheriting several traits from the creature, so in this case…

I shoved it into my bag, better to deal with it back at the base. In the meantime, I began to search around, finding a few more of those mushrooms. The others only dropped a few gold coins, making it look like the monster essence was a rare drop, so thank you dragonslayer feat.

Prognosticator told me that the mushrooms were all forming a circle around the botanical garden. Quickly flying to the center, I found the remains of an old townhouse that formed the central administrative building. I say remains because it was torn in half by the mother of all mushrooms bursting from under it. As I approached it became darker and darker, the air around me seeming to emit gloom. It didn't have the same fleshy color as the other mushrooms, instead having a flaky outer covering with blood red tentacles bursting out the top. It was surrounded by several other creatures, including what appeared to be bald reptilian dogs, and what appears to be a roman centurion, with a mohawk made of dark hellfire, which appeared like blood red fire, commanding several demonic legionnaires, and several bee’s with small red tentacles sticking from their heads. Looks like the blood abyss fungus has the same ability as cordyceps, with how it made the bees into zombies.

The demonic legionnaires interested me the most. They looked like your standard devilish humanoids, beefy as an orc, two arms ending in hands with claws that looked like really big knives, horns jutting out where their eyes should be, bone plates acting as armor…

And they kept coming out from under the mushroom…

Activating illusory stealth and hidden presence, I tried to get a bit closer. From under the mushroom, a similar miasma to the one of the hell knight oozed out, with the occasional flash of hellfire, notable for being a much deeper shade of red, like deoxygenated blood. My sidereal affinity was screaming that it was a portal, and whatever was beyond it was giving me an evil vibe. Not gloomy, not creepy, but evil. It wasn't the kind of vibe you get from a weird looking bug or a dark room in a haunted house, It was the kind you get from looking a serial killer in the eye, the kind you get from someone torturing another person for fun. It wasn't fear, fear comes from not understanding something. Whatever was beyond that portal made itself very clear to understand, how it wanted to rip and tear, to spread and dominate, how it wanted to kill you and your family just for the fact that you are alive and therefore killable.

I wanted to get closer, but the closer to the mushroom I got, the less cover I had. It was as if any plants that were near to the mushroom began to wither away, the life drained away from them by the gloom…

Welp, this will have to do…

I began to try and shape the sidereal blast. I was able to make it solid before, now I just needed to nullify the launching force, wrapping the blast over my hand, and stretching it out in front of my fists into twin blades.

“Sidereal blast has evolved into Sidereal arsenal”

Next I activated ki boost, autokinesis, cosmic flight, illusory stealth and hidden presence at the same time. I felt my sidereal essence spreading through my body, taking the place of ki, psionic power, and mana, as my ki begins to bend space around me and psionic power begins to tap into the elements, as magic flows through my veins, giving me the power of its torrent…

“Ki boost, cosmic flight and autokinesis level up x5, fuse into cosmic power skill.

Illusory stealth and hidden presence level up x5, fuse into dark matter cloak skill.

Cosmic elementalism leveled up x5”

I felt as the elements around me began to cluster and assist me, even as all evidence of my existence was suppressed. I was ready to commence my plan.

I shot in and impaled a random demonic legionnaire at the edge of the field, instantly dragging him back and expanding the blades on my hands to finish him off, leveling up sidereal arsenal, cosmic power, and dark matter cloak. I did it again, this time grabbing two of the reptile dog things prognosticator told me were chupacabras. I grabbed them by extending the sidereal blades on my hands like tentacles, leveling all of those skills again.

I tried it again, this time drilling straight through a gluttony demon while nobody was looking, with nobody any wiser about it. Huh, the skills leveled up again…

More and more demonic legionnaires began arriving. I began to fortify the surrounding area in between my attacks. They began to send out groups of legionnaires as scouts, and I made sure only half of the groups made it back, leveling my skills twice.

The centurion saw that his scouts were not returning. He of course decided to act more cautiously by sending a small platoon of demons at once, ordering each to create balls of hellfire and burn the forest as they went.

I was about to move in and quickly try to kill all of them before they could get to far, when one of the trees punched the nearest legionnaire. It began to kick and stomp at the demons, even as they bathed it in hellfire. I decided to help the ent, as prognosticator told me it was called, using poincare restoration on it to heal it as it bashed away the demons. Poincare restoration also leveled up in the process, so it was a win win.

I recovered my SE with the blood from the demons, so as I healed the ent, the ent smashed demons, and I drunk up the resulting demon smoothie. Since I had so much SE at my disposal I began to spam out prismatic stars. The demons were having more and more trouble as time passed, so eventually the centurion hosed down the tree man to ashes using hellfire. Imagine how surprised he was when not only did the ent seem to resurrect, but yet another ent appeared and began bashing demons about.

By the time a third ent appeared, I was slowly approaching the mushroom. It was strangely still, as if it was focusing on keeping the portal under it working, sending more and more legionaries. I prepared to fire a massive blast into the portal, like I did with the hell knight. The ents have smashed around the centurion, his legionaries, the gluttony demons, the chupacabras and even the infected bees. I absorbed more and more blood, preparing to fire it into the breach.

Unfortunately, my dark matter cloak failed the moment before I fired it, the sheer amount of energy causing the skill to fail. This allowed the mushroom a split second reaction, hitting me into the portal and immediately trying to restabilize it.

The other side of the portal seemed to be a bonfire, burning in a giant cage fungus. Demonic legions stood at the ready, marching into the fire in columns. This must be why it was trying to focus on the portal so much, several times more demons were going in than going out, with the remainder probably being stuck in between until the mushroom could get them out. I found myself surrounded by the demonic legion, each holding a ball of hellfire to lob at me.

Fortunately, I still had my blast charged up…

Of course, a simple explosion wouldn’t be able to wipe them all away, and my previous weapon wouldn’t be capable of handling them all, so I decided to use the sheer amount of energy I was holding to my advantage.

My new favorite weapon is the mech.