Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Ruler of the West

[+5/5 Spelldancer I.]

[+2/50 Incinerator I.]

[+1/50 Battle Healing I.]

[Congratulations! For leveling your Intelligence and Agility in tandem for five levels, you have completed the Spelldancer I challenge.]

[You have gained the Spelldancer I (Un) perk!]

I didn't have much time.

Something about the Ruler of the West had my blood running cold. The aura of the thing radiated a thick power that spilled from where its glowing form was rushing down towards me from the cliffside above.

My character sheet, meanwhile, dropped out before me.

[Clarissa Ardent, Level 17]

Health: 140 (8 r/pm)

Mana: 310 (15 r/pm)

Stamina: 50 (8 r/pm)

Core-Points to Distribute: 50

[Stats]

Strength: 13

Endurance: 16

Agility: 39

Charisma: 14

Perception: 13

Intelligence: 39

Willpower: 20

Stat-Points to Distribute: 15

[Skills]

Acrobatics: 100

Blind-Fighting: 1

One-Handed: 51

Fire Manipulation: 112

Grappling: 50

Spell Attack: 2

Spell Control: 12

Spell Efficiency: 2

Unarmed-Fighting: 50

Writing: 50

Skill-Points to Distribute: 50

[Spells Known]

Raging Blade [1st]: Summon a blade of conjured fire. Mana cost dependent on blade potency; intelligence score governs your bonus damage with this weapon instead of Strength.

Fireball [3rd]: Conjure an explosive ball of fire. Mana cost dependent on fireball potency.

[Abilities]

N/A

[Perks]

Elder Blood I [B]: As a member of the caliban race, you gain a bonus to mana regeneration that increases as your mana does.

Trailblazer I [R]: You've led the way as a member of your world. The System will always reward ingenuity. You gain all skills slightly faster to acknowledge your efforts.

Raging Sorcery I [RU]: You can channel strong emotions into your spells, causing them to explode in a violent burst of mana that deals extra damage. Spells that are already concussive/explosive have their range and potency increased.

Spelldancer I [Un]: When you are channeling mana your reaction time and movement speed increase moderately.

[Inventory]

Simple Traveler's Garb

In the few short seconds that I got to see my Character Sheet, I noticed a few things.

First was that leveling Intelligence and Agility together had in fact netted me both the extra mana from having Intelligence as my primary stat and the skill bonus to Acrobatics from having Agility tied as my highest.

Gaining levels so rapidly had also allowed me to grab the Spelldancer perk, which looked useful, even despite being designated as only an uncommon perk; the fact that it was ranked as only level one made me somewhat curious as to how strong it might get if I continued to unlock further tiers of it.

I didn't have time to dwell, however. The Ruler of the West was coming in fast.

Figuring my mana was doing just fine, I dumped my fifty available core-points into health, bringing it up to almost two-hundred points.

As for Agility and Intelligence, I bumped them both up to forty-six and stashed my remaining point into perception.

Having seen just how effective [Fire Manipulation] had become once it'd passed the one-hundred points mark, I brought [One-Handed] up to 101 with the fifty skill points I'd gained.

This left me with [One-Handed], [Fire-Manipulation], and now [Acrobatics] sitting firmly above the threshold of a hundred points each.

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[Congratulations! For reaching Level 15, you have unlocked a milestone ability to be chosen based on your decisions up until now. Two paths stretch out before you, sorceress: that of the scholarly wizard or that of the hardened battlemage. Which do you choose?]

What? I didn't have time for this, but still... I couldn't pass up a potential power boost.

And what I needed right now was to be hardened against the battle that was rapidly coming. Not at all having the time to dwell on my decisions, I selected the battlemage option.

[All choices have consequences. New possibilities open before you even as others wither away... at least for now.]

[You have gained the Battlemage [Un] perk.]

[Congratulations! As the first soul from Earth to unlock a milestone ability, you have earned a reward!]

[Battlemage [Un] perk has been removed and replaced with the Warmage [R] perk.]

My eyes quickly scanned through the description of my newly gained ability.

[Warmage [R]: All of your offensive spells cost half as much to cast and deal an extra 50% damage.]

Half cost? Holy shit. Yeah... that was worth the half second it'd taken to get it.

I slammed my Character Sheet shut just as the ruler's energized form slammed into the forest floor. A burst of power radiated off of the beast, sending a wave of air pressure that left me shielding my face out of instinct.

The oversized mana cat roared then into the air as it settled into its own rematerialized weight.

I heard the trees shake, all around us, as if in recognition of the beast's dominion over this place.

I clenched my left hand and then stretched out my now healed right.

The spark of ignition that came along with my activation of [Raging Blade] was already feeling all too familiar.

Strangely, I found myself grasping the blade in an almost completely different way than before. The weapon now felt more at home in my palm than it ever had, and to an extreme degree, even despite me being a rather proficient fencer even before the System had reared its head.

My body fell into an instinctive, defensive stance. Having doubled my [One-Handed] skill, it was almost as if the System had granted me decades of sword training in only a few mere moments.

My physique also felt much lighter now, as if the bonus to [Acrobatics] had done much the same in terms of my gymnastics capabilities.

This was insane. Leveling up was truly amazing.

I spun my flaming sword in my now much more agile, feeling hand. I had to resist getting caught up in a bout of rising overconfidence.

The Ruler of the West finished its roar and lowered its large head. The creature leveled its eyes off to stare into mine.

The monster snarled at me and then bared its massive fangs.

I met its gaze. "Let's go."

The Ruler charged in response to my challenge. It was faster than I could've imagined.

I felt the mana that was being channeled from my [Raging Blade] also spreading out to empower the rest of my body, courtesy of [Spelldancer].

Still, even with this noticeable boost and my increased acrobatic capability, I only just barely managed to dodge the opening strike from the ruler.

The massive claws of the beast were much more developed and menacing than that of the lesser mana cats. That much was all too clear as my head jerked back in a dodge, granting me only a few mere inches of safety from the horrific slicing power of those cutting weapons.

Time slowed in that first moment of near-death between myself and the beast. Our eyes locked and I saw a cold-natured, yet now furious, pair of suns burning behind the feline's gaze.

It hit me then: I'd killed its children, the mana cats, and it didn't care that they'd attacked first.

This was personal for the beast.

My body reacted to the beast's outstretched claws almost on its own. My sword arm roared up and slammed my blade's cutting edge into the sharp blades upon the monster's huge paws.

My blade's fire warped and the sound of cracking flames made physically manifest resounded against the ringing of those steel like claws, as the ruler's arm was sent veering slightly off-balance against the combined strength of my [Raging Blade] and [One-Handed] skill.

My flaming blade reestablished itself into shape as I jumped back from the already spinning about monster.

The creature flickered from existence.

However, with my increased reaction time and body control, on top of already seeing how the mana cats had fought, I was ready for this trick.

When the ruler reappeared behind me, I was already coming down in a violent side-slash towards its exposed neck.

My blade came within inches of inflicting a debilitating blow and then, without warning, the ruler dematerialized once again.

I felt a powerful claw slam into my back as I was sent flying into a nearby tree.

My increased health fell by a quarter as I fell to my knees in front of the towering plant.

I jerked my buzzing head to the side to watch as the Ruler of the West calmly stalked towards me. As it stepped forward its body flickered and two smaller mana cats formed from its body.

I staggered to my feet.

"Alright, asshole, you hit hard," I admitted aloud and raised my left hand, "but let's see how you deal with this."

Above my outstretched palm, a bursting of flame flickered into existence.

Where before [Fireball] had cost me almost half of my mana, now that I had a better grasp on it and with the help of [Warmage], the spell now only took about an eighth of my maximum mana away.

I launched the flaming orb, without hesitation, towards the ruler, even as its summoned pack charged me.

The mana cats from before had each taken a little more than a fireball's worth of damage to slay, I didn't expect an elite and higher level variant of those same creatures to go down easy.

Still, as the empowered orb smashed into the face of the ruler, it did prove to cause the beast to stagger back and be temporarily blinded by the explosion of force and vibrant flame.

While my spell was making contact, one of the ruler's summoned allies had slipped under the ball of fire to come almost within striking distance of me.

I lunged forward to meet its attack. Compared to its leader, however, and with my new levels, sidestepping the beast and dragging my sword along its underbelly proved only moderately difficult.

The creature howled as I pumped extra mana into my [Raging Blade] and I leaned into the cut.

As I withdrew my blade, the cat rolled forward through the air and hit hard onto the ground.

The ruler, having quickly shaken off my spell, was now charging me, along with its other uninjured ally.

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