The sun was starting to go down, painting the sky orange, beautifully reflected in the ocean. I took a few moments to appreciate the lovely view, before pulling up my new skill tree. This new addition to my arsenal had been tossed to the wayside because I was too fixated on the power boost I’d gotten from my new passive skill. I technically had tons of time to take a proper look at it during the pauses between waves when I was defending the node.

I was ashamed to say that I’d developed tunnel vision and almost forgot about it. After that, I challenged the hunter, evolved, got excited over yet another EX skill, and descended to the fifth layer. Now, things had finally calmed down a bit and I had a good opportunity to finally check it out properly.

The first thing I noticed was that it was exactly the same as my poison skill tree, in that it had three paths to go down, after which I could buy a capstone skill. After a quick comparison, I discovered that it had the exact same amount of buyable nodes as well. What did differ, was the pricing. By a lot.

Some quick math revealed that unlocking the entirety of the poison skill tree had set me back sixty-three skill points. If I wanted to complete my new skill tree, I’d have to fork out two-hundred skill points! Well, one hundred and ninety-nine to be exact, but who cares. I currently had forty-one skill points ready to be spent, and I’d originally thought that I’d be able to buy out most of the tree. But now, it was looking like I’d barely be able to scratch the surface.

This whole thing better be worth it…

I started reading through the buyable nodes, finding that I could buy quite a lot of intelligence and wisdom points this time around. The amounts got increasingly higher as I got further into the tree, and if I bought all of the attribute nodes, I’d receive a grand total of one hundred and fifty attribute points. Each. Just the sheer amount of attribute points I could gain from this tree already made it worth it. Truly a skill tree coming from an EX-rated skill. I’d believed the skill to be plenty broken already, but since it came with the addition of this skill tree, it was even more broken. Especially if I considered that all of my points in intelligence and wisdom would get doubled!

I was still reeling from this revelation when I shifted my attention to the buyable spells. The very first spell that I could buy for a measly five skill points, was called “Magical Bolt”. The little text blurb about it described it as the most basic spell in existence, which made me question what this was all about. The mana cost was variable like poison mist, so I suppose if I pumped it full with mana it could still be useful.

The spell immediately after was actually a modification to the magical bolt, similar to how I’d been able to buy a modification to my poison needle. This mod was called “Elemental Bolt” and would allow me to imbue the spell with either fire, water, wind, or earth, drastically changing the damage type it would inflict. This sounded very useful and made the magic bolt seem a lot more appealing.

The last spell, which was the last node of this particular branch, cost eighteen skill points to buy and was called “Counterspell”. It would apparently release a magical pulse that could jam the spells someone else was casting. This sounded like an incredible spell, but it was mentioned that I’d need to know exactly what kind of spell my opponent was casting. I wasn’t sure how I’d ever pull that off, but maybe the rest of the skill tree held the answer.

Most of the skill tree was made up of passive skills, starting with the free ability at the top. This passive taught me yet another language. It would allow me to read and understand the runes that made up the spells I’ve been casting. This alone should make my attempts at figuring magic out a lot easier.

There were two passives that would increase my passive mana recharge rate by twenty-five and fifty percent respectively, which would help out a ton with my newfound high MaxMP levels. There was even a passive that would reduce the MP cost of ALL my spells by twenty percent. Together with the reduction already provided by the magical singularity skill, I’d be casting spells for only a fraction of the cost. Another one would make it so that my spells with a variable cost would be charged a bit more effectively, giving a ten percent boost to the spells.

Aside from these straightforward improvements, there were some that were a bit more ambiguous. There was one that would increase my understanding of the spell runes even further. Another one that would allow me to see the spell matrixes that someone else was casting, explaining how counterspell would become viable. Still, a good mage could cast their spells pretty fast, so countering a spell wouldn’t be an easy task.

Another passive that cost eighteen skill points would impart knowledge on how to create a spell matrix from scratch, making the creation of new spells easier. Then, there was the capstone skill. A passive that would allow ALL spells to be cast with a variable mana cost. A deceptively simple ability, but when I thought of pumping a giant spike full of mana I could see the potential. Even the most simple spell could become a terrifying force of destruction, especially if coupled with the stupid amounts of MP I’d have in the future.

It became pretty clear that this skill tree was there to complement the magical singularity passive, enhancing the already strong passive by leaps and bounds while taking full advantage of the benefits it gave. I was briefly thinking of the EX tier spells I’d seen, and how much mana they cost to cast. With the capstone ability of this tree, I would be able to cast these behemoths anyway, albeit in a much weaker form.

Now that I’d made myself familiar with the tree, it was time to actually buy some stuff. I had forty-one skill points, not nearly enough to buy everything, but I could still buy a few nodes. I bought the three cheapest nodes in the first tier of the tree, which included the magical bolt spell, 5 points in intelligence and wisdom, as well as the deeper understanding of the spell runes. I then bought the elemental modification for the magical bolt for another eight points, as well as the twenty-five percent faster passive mana regeneration.

At this point, I’d spent thirty-one skill points and had to make a decision. Either I buy the last node for eight points, which would provide me with another twenty attribute points, or wait until I’d gotten two more points and buy the fifty percent increase to MP regeneration. I was still only level one after all of the fights I’d been in to get up the mountain. The XP needed to level up seemed to be even higher this time around, but I was still guaranteed to get twenty more points on this layer. Seeing as I didn’t have any big problems right now and would be able to afford both of the nodes soon anyway, I just spent another eight points on the attribute increase before closing the window. I was left with two skill points and was looking forward to collecting more.

By now, the sun had set and the island was softly illuminated by the moon and the stars. All of it was fake, of course. I didn’t feel tired at all and decided that it was finally time to let loose. The island guardian was waiting for me on the other mountain, and I’d leave only destruction in my wake. And, for the first time ever, I spent some DP to buy the once-per-tier 24h double XP bonus from the shop.

Until the bonus ran out, I wouldn’t rest, trying to get as much XP as possible.