We had just finished taking down the dungeon delvers, which was just as chaotic as my first attempt against the previous trio. This group was technically less skilled, but at least one of them would have been able to get away from me if I were on my own. Our timing was partially off; I made some calls a little too late, but we were lucky enough to catch them off guard, which still allowed us to succeed. The mage and scout went down pretty quickly; that part went well despite my small error. The main problem was that we underestimated the ranger’s ability and the spearman’s durability. I was surprised to see him take a solid hit from Vulcan, while blinded, and still hang on, even if he was mostly screaming in pain. I had to send Vulcan to finish him off, leaving the ranger for Pim, but that job turned out much more dangerous. Out of nowhere, he just whipped out a magic arrow that could take any one of us down. I was only barely able to warn Vulcan, but he still ended up getting his arm blown off. I didn’t talk to the ranger when I first blinded the group, so I thought it would work again as a distraction, although I couldn’t blind him without also blinding Pim. Luckily, the ranger was panicked enough to fall for it, giving Pim the chance to swoop in low. Even though the ranger’s sheathed knife was in Pim’s blind spot, I could still see it through my mana and warn Pim. After that, everything was cleaned up pretty well, and we ended up in decent shape with increased levels, minus an arm, but it’ll grow back eventually.
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Name: Willow
Race: Monster (Will O’ Wisp [Lvl. 11])
Blessing: Chaos-touched
Skills: Manipulate Mana [Lvl. 5], Glow [Lvl. 8], Mana Projection [Lvl. 1]
HP: 55/55 [+1/s]
MP: 109/109 [+1/s]
Skill Points: 50
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Looks like I’ve gone up two levels from this fight, and my stats have gone up a bit. My skill points have finally reached fifty total points, so I could get a new skill, even if it can’t be an offensive skill. Finally, I’ve also gained a new skill, ‘Mana Projection’. I don’t know what it does exactly yet, but I can test it out right after this. I don’t know what the unlock conditions were, though, so I can’t extrapolate ways to unlock other skills. Is it based on my level, skill levels, and environmental conditions? I don’t know, but I think I actually have a solution for this. Browsing through the list of available skills, I finally came across the skill I was looking for, ‘Identify’. If it works like the name implies and how it’s commonly used in fantasy fiction, I should be able to see basic information about the world, which should go a long way in helping me progress efficiently. If this world is cruel, well, crueler than it already is, the skill might be useless for a while until I level it up. Well, one way to find out. With that, I successfully acquired the skill, adding ‘Identify [Lvl. 1]’ to my skill list.
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Immediately, I’m able to use ‘Identify’ on all of my status screen info, expanding on what I was already able to assume. Analyzing my race, some flavor text popped up, describing wisps as the guides to the afterlife for lost souls, spiritual entities between the domains of life and death. It kinda makes wisps sound kinda cool, but it hurts a bit more if you are one. Identifying my health and mana just resulted in it stating the obvious about a representation of life-force and magic power capacity. Surprisingly, looking at my blessing more closely simply says, “Interacted with the Goddess of Chaos.” I was hoping for some lore like with my race, but I guess I’m not that lucky, or maybe Chaos is just that enigmatic. ‘Manipulate Mana’ and ‘Glow’ followed my assumptions; they let me move around the magical energy inside my being, however, I can imagine, if I have the experience to back it up. ‘Glow’ just lets me apply a luminous effect upon my mana, but not to mana that has detached from my core mana. That is where my new skill, ‘Mana Projection’, comes in. It allows me to apply an effect to mana that has been separated from the mana core. This also allows me to detach larger amounts of mana to greater distances, which I couldn’t do when I was first testing out my skills after reincarnation. That leads me to believe the skill is essential to casting magic and applying magical effects, like I saw the ranger and mages do. For now, the only thing I could apply to my mana projectiles is the glow effect, which might be useful, somehow, probably. I did learn, however, that the skill was unlocked when my ‘Manipulate Mana’ skill reached level five. Presumably, this means I can gain better skills if I use their prerequisite skills enough. Another use I found for ‘Identify’ was to use it on my companions.
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Name: Pim
Race: Lesser Demon (Imp [Lvl. 7])
Blessing: Blessing of Chaos
Skills: Manipulate Mana, Fly, Spear Mastery
HP: 170/170
MP: 80/80
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Name: Vulcan
Race: Golem (Stone Golem [Lvl. 5])
Blessing: Blessing of Chaos
Skills: Manipulate Mana, Regeneration, Physical Up
HP: 378/500
MP: 79/100
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Pim was able to make it to level seven, while Vulcan was at level five, despite being relatively new. My level was the highest, but I have a feeling that my leveling requirements are a lot lower than theirs. I didn’t evolve at level ten, so my next guesses are at either fifteen or twenty, so they still have plenty of time to catch up. They’ll be the ones getting the majority of experience from actually attacking, so I think it’ll even out eventually. As expected, both of their stats were much higher than mine, though Pim was still pretty squishy compared to Vulcan. Even though he lost an arm, Vulcan was slowly recuperating, probably thanks to his regeneration skill. I would look into the skill further, but I can’t seem to use ‘Identify’ on it yet; my skill level is still probably too low. At least I can see a bit about what skills they have and their stat numbers, so that should give me a leg up on any future enemies. Looking at my companions, I begin to celebrate our success.
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“Way to go, guys, we managed to win and get a few levels from it. I got some new skills too, so let’s stay low for a bit so I can make them stronger until the next group.”
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“Sound’s good, kid, I wanna work with Vulcan on our timi-”
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I didn’t get to hear the end of Pim’s sentence. Before I knew what happened, I was suddenly in an entirely new location. Expanding my mana threads as quickly as I could to see this new room, I finally got a grasp on my situation. I’m in a different part of the dungeon, but the cavernous walls are paved smoothly with stairs at one end of the room. At the top of those stairs is a large, imposing being sitting on a throne. A black deer skull, with blazing blue eyes and sharpened horns, peered down at me, head resting against his fist propped up on the armrest of his throne. And then it spoke, in its deep, guttural voice.
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“So you are the wisp upturning the order of my dungeon. Every monster has its place, and you chose to defy that. What do you have to say for yourself, Willow?”
