By the time he reached the peak, Aki was pretty sure the only damage he’d taken was from walking around basically naked while in armor, having long acquired the used skill points he’d set apart for this path because of just how fucking many birds there were.

He was unsure whether they would have been undead were he to have come here first, but he’d even developed a skill for dealing extra damage to undead, so it wasn’t really a demerit on his book. At this point it was actually more lucrative to spend more time battling than sitting in his cave. He had enough skills and this vision showed that.

The greater problem at the moment was how much the cave he had to enter smelled. With the whole mountain filled with undead he’d thought it couldn’t exactly grow worse, but he was immediately proven wrong after finding his target.

“What a pitiful bird.” Was the only thing he could say as he looked at the gray phoenix. It’s fire kept it alive, but the actual state of its body could not be called anything but pitiful, as despite it being little more than a skeleton shrouded in flames, it also had organs and spectral replacements, the only thing that seemed to still be flesh being the beating heart caged inside a skeletal bird claw and its ribs.

“You know nothing!” It screamed at him.

“Relatively, you’re right. For all that matters though, ultra violence seems to be the answer to both our problems.” He sneered, his opponent seeming confused before she suddenly started sinking into the melting rock below her. “Bleeding core.” He murmured as he got closer, holding his shield forward and strengthening it as he parted the fire sudenly being belched his way.

Pointing his new sword forward, Aki absorbed part of the mana on the continued attack even as he kept dispersing the heat on his enemy body, healing himself of the putrid growths and constant decay that passed through his armor, his eyes already unable to see even as he kept his mana sense tuned through the flames.

Between both of them there was one sad difference however, as the undead birds kept dropping around them, trying to feed their parent their energies only to sustain him as well.

Their battle did not last long, perhaps fifteen minutes, but when the skeletal bird fell forward without any strength and with most of her spine buried in cooling rock, it knew it’d lost.

“Take the artifact human. I cannot fight anymore unless you decide to rekindle my life force to humiliate me or whatever your cruel mind desires.”

“Or I could bind your soul to it and carry it around together with the mutated egg you laid so you can work for me as payment for taking care of it.” He said while rolling his eyes, the orange sparks of soul in the skeletal bird’s shined brighter for a moment, though it wasn’t with kindness and hope either.

“How did you know?” It asked, seeming ready to explode itself in a last ditch effort.

“Because you just told me. My own mother just died because I was too incopetent though, so this was mostly me making up a story similar to mine. I was serious about the deal though.” He explained.

There was silence for a few moments, though the moma bird wasn't too keen on simply handing herself and her child over, her conflicting thoughts didn't change the fact that she could not move.

"...I will accept, but I warn you that I will not be your slave, nor will my child." To that, Aki just nodded.

"Officialise our deal and finalise the trial."

With his words, he was immediately sent back towards his cave residence, a long sentence explaining his result.

[Through effort, you have proven that there is a place for savagery and one for kindness. For what is violence without purpose but an animalistic plea for life, and what is a path threaded by one in his lonesome but a corpse trudging forward till it's demise.

Congratulations! You have completed the Lord of violence path (250/250)! +10 physical and mental stat points. +5% damage. Your skill Blood thirsty marauder (O) Lv 56 has taken in The claw of torment, The weeping blade and the soul of an adult vermilion eagle (Undead-Orange) Lv 50, fusing with your skills Grand blood core (G) Lv 32, Arachnid hunter Lv 36, Undead hunter Lv 19, Curse resistance Lv 33, Starvation resistance Lv 9 and Mental resistance (O) Lv 39, forming Lord of death (B) Lv 1.

Lord of death (B) Lv 1- Greatly increased resistance to biological, mental and curse type of damage. Greatly increased efficiency of all biological, mental and curse magic. Developing skills of the biological, blood and/or curse tipe is easier.

When an entity dies 5 meter or less around you, 1% of their maximum resources are transferred to you, partially modifying themselves towards one resource or the other when your respective pool is full.

Increase in damage against a species the more of their members you kill.

You are the lord of death. Your court is a part of you, receiving part of your experience whenever you receive experience. You may summon your courtiers at a proportional cost of health, mana and stamina.

Resistance and efficiency increased with level. Distance greatly increased with level. Absorbed resources increase with level up until 100%, where then the increase becomes a slight increase towards bettering the resource modification rate up until 100%. Slight increase to damage per skill level. Plus one courtier seat per fifty skill levels

Current courtiers:

-Salear, The fire of life (Lv 50)

Due to being the first in your universe to create a new Blue grade skill, you have unlocked the Greatest genius path (0/????).

Due to being the first in your planet to create a new Blue grade skill, you have unlocked the Planetary hope path (0/1000)]

“Well fuck me sideways, i like this skill a lot.” He grinned. Really, there was only one problem. If he tried to summon his only courtier, who luckily had gained some kind of personal pocket dimension to share with her egg inside of his soul space, then he would drop dead three fourths of the way into it. Then again, summoning his own level fifty was rather badass, something that he could certainly put the effort to realise.

[Congratulations! You have completed the Mana ghoul path (250/250)! +10 Intelligence and Willpower. Mana and mana regeneration multiplied by 1.1x.

Congratulations! You have completed the Arcane I path (250/250)! +10 mental stat points. You have learned the skill Arcane affinity (Y) Lv 1.

Arcane affinity (Y) Lv 1- Slight increase to your affinity to magic, slightly reducing mana costs, cooldowns and charge time of all spells. Effect increases minimally per skill level.]

While he ended up putting the ten extra points into willpower, he was now plenty closer thanks to the reduction and the multiplier. Close enough that he could pay the rest of the summoning cost with the mana pool from which his feet had not left this whole time he’d been on that trial vision.

As he started pouring his resources, mainly mana, into the skill, he noticed it was not nearly as fast as he’d first thought, he’d have been able to use the pool to finish the summoning even without completing the paths. After a bit more than two thousand of his resources, Aki noted that his shadow had enlarged greatly, now suddenly aflame with gray embers that did not actually hurt him before the two and a half meters tall skeletal bird jumped out of it before catching fire in those same flames, gaining what seemed to be a coat of an actual living bird.

Whatever the skill did, it had apparently put Lea in her best health.

"Hello dear. Did you have a pleasant trip? I apologize for any inconvenience since this is the first time I've done something like that.” He said, half turning to face his courtier. Despite how devastated his armor had gotten during their confrontation, there wasn’t any sign of him having been half melted despite his best magical efforts.

“Why did you call me human?” She asked in a rather neutral tone, more tired than anything. As if seeing that there wasn’t going to be a battle, the bird then let go of her complete cloak of flames in favor of only some embers around her form.

“Thought you would like to get out a bit.” He shrugged, quickly refiling his mana and summoning her egg as well, which was far cheaper, and as the gray chicken sized egg appeared it was rapidly taken to be positioned next to the mother bird’s cranium. “But also, just because you work with me doesn’t mean you like me, so I have to change that part. I will be resting for a bit and then we can go clear this dungeon together, get to know how we fight and talk a bit about ourselves.” He smiled at her, but there wasn’t much of a reaction even in her soul flames, so he couldn’t really tell what she thought of that besides the fact that she didn’t complain.

…..

Salear, the fire of life. That was who she once was. Now she was just a copied shell of a long dead undead. The system had given her the rest of her story as she found herself in that pocket dimension, now a human's summoned creature.

Most of that didn't matter much though. She'd turned herself into an abomination to stay with her child, this much was fine since the egg was barely tattered to her now. The moment it hatched it'd no longer be a summoned creature. And it would hatch, she'd make sure of it.

Now this human… he's one weird ass fucker, to be able to influence someone as old as her so much. Sure, that pointed to him not being completely sane, but she had not stood ground on which to make fun of that for a while now.

Maybe he didn't fully understand what was happening, but it wasn't like she could tell him either. Maybe some normal stuff about the system, but nothing on her situation or the like.

Then again unless she was in a newly integrated world there would be little she could teach to someone who didn't work with life skills.

They would have time. For now she would look through her status page and look into completing a few paths with her newly minted skills.

Being level fifty again sucked, but from what she understood of the skill summoning her a part of her summoner's experience would go to her even though she could gain her own, so perhaps it wouldn't be so bad as the first time?

That would depend on her summoner's level and how high he could punch really, but if he could disable her current self it shouldn't be a problem to fight something…

Wait, what the fuck do you mean he is level 0?! You can't even enter a dungeon at level 0, nevermind get a skill strong enough to summon a monster of her caliber!

What in all hells was happening here?!