Looking up at the massive Slime Lord, Helo doesn’t think that his chain will be enough. Letting out a nervous chuckle he uses ‘Detect Weakness’ again. Expecting to see a single large weakness around the slimes central mass, he is surprised when there is more than one weakness.
Looking at the slime it is a massive amalgamation of mana and affinities. The central mass is about eighty meters high, but the Slime Lord has bulbus protrusions sticking out from its body. These protrusions are all shown as a weakness, along with the slimes central mass.
Looking closely from his place along the edge of the room, Helo is surprised to see as the rainbow-like color of the slime changes to have each bulb be its own affinity. From what he can see the slime not only has a central core of pure mana; it also has a bulb of fire, rock, air, water, metal and ice.
Watching the slime wiggle its way toward him Helo regrets his decision to come in here. The massive tier 2 creature towers over him and is displaying a massive increase in power. Running to the left Helo is surprised to see an eighth affinity on the slime. The slime has another bulb that Helo couldn’t see on its back. This one is the color of watered-down blood.
Reaching out with his aura Helo is surprised to feel an actual blood affinity within the monster. He wants to find out how a mana-based creature could get an affinity like that. It just doesn’t make sense to him. But now isn’t the time to ask questions like that.
“Shit.” Helo ducks under a sweeping blow from the monster’s water affinity arm. Rolling on the ground Helo pops up and has to dive again as a wave of flame washes over where he was. Following behind the flame is a mixture of ice and wind that sweeps behind him. He can hear as the stone ground cracks behind him from the dramatic temperature changes.
Getting to his feet and starting to circle the Slime Lord, Helo can feel as his own body reacts to the changes in temperature. He wasn’t in the center of the heat or ice wave, but the shifting temp is making his balance feel a bit off.
Due to this he stumbles and is struck by a wall of metal. This is the arm of the slime with the metal affinity. Hitting the back wall Helo lets out an “Umpf” as all the air is forced from his longs. Hitting the ground hard, his hand goes to his ribs and he can feel a few of them are broken
Struggling to his feet again Helo only dodges the blast of wind because he can hear them whistling through the air. Rolling up with a wince of pain Helo looks up at the massive monster and snarls. Using ‘Bloodline Awakening’ he can feel as the weakness from his low endurance is pushed away. The increase in his physical stats and massive increase in regeneration doesn’t let his body stay negatively affected for long.
Finally having a moment, after he actually dodges the attack. He watches as the monster isn’t sending out blast of the elements. It is swinging its affinity-based arms and building up energy. Then it attacks but just letting the energy fly out. It isn’t pretty, efficient or complicated, but it seems to work.
With this boosting skill activated Helo dodges the next attacks with relative ease. The massive monster is a tier 2 with a powerful variant. But it is still relatively unintelligent and is lacking in most stats. It makes up for its low agility by attacking with multiple arms, it’s low endurance with regeneration, and its low strength with its massive size.
The longer he waits the more time his ribs have to heal. Eventually Helo gets ready to fight back. Creating a blade from his shadow Helo jumps over a swinging limb. A wave of heat brushes past him and singes his clothing. Flipping while in air Helo whips the chain out and cuts off the limb.
Using ‘Detect Weakness’ he watches as the end of the limb goes flying toward the other end of the room. Looking between the two, he almost wants to cheer when his skill finally shows him the enemies’ cores. The portion that split off had the fire attuned core inside of it. That portion actually starts moving on its own.
Happy that he was able to split the Slime Lord, Helo rushes off after the fire slime. As he is running, he has to duck and weave as the Slime Lord sends out attack after attack at him. He would have been struck on multiple occasions if his aura didn’t have its more potent effect against mana. The same potency means that he is easier able to detect mana within his aura. A massive creature made from condensed and gelatinized mana is a blaring buzzing signal within his aura.
Reaching the fire slime, it feels like a tier 2 creature as well, but it seems to be a much weaker variant. In the end he kills it about as simply as he killed the original fire slime outside of the rift.
Turning back Helo looks at the Slime Lord and watches as its massive body shrinks just a little. From the section of its massive round body where the fire core used to be another protrusion appears. This one has a neutral affinity and is slowly growing.
Happy that he found a way to actually harm the creature Helo gets back into the fight. For the next few minutes Helo preforms a dance with the Slime Lord. Its attack patterns are fairly basic and its elemental attacks are overwhelmingly large but rather weak.
Whenever he gets a chance, he uses the chain to cleave through the slime’s limbs. Each time he does that it has to use a portion of its mass to make another arm. In the end he cuts off another two limbs in only a few minutes. Finishing off the broken off pieces is relatively easy. That was when he realized that the Slime Lord is actually gaining back it’s affinities. The arms that are growing back start out as a neutral affinity, but the affinity that was lost slowly starts to take back over the limb.
In the end it didn’t change much. Helo slowly whittled down the monster and eventually all the arms were lost and the main body was left at a reasonable size. The only limbs that Helo had any true issues with were the earth and metal limb. Their increased density and the slime’s ability to integrate the materials into their body made it so that Helo had to put some extra effort into removing the limbs.
In the end he finally is able to access the slimes body. The only limb he has yet to attack or be attacked by is the blood limb that the monster keeps on the back of its body. It just sits there like a massive clump of vitality.
Dealing the final blow on the slime Helo would usually be happy. He reached level 37 from all the fighting that he has been doing.
Name: Helo
Bloodline: Redacted (10.2%)
Tier 1
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 37
Stats: 458
- Str: 27 (+5%)
- Agl: 76 (+15%)
- Dex:50 (+15%)
- Per: 57 (+30%)
- Vit: 97 (+40%)
- End: 27 (+15%)
- Int: 27 (+5%)
- Will: 97 (+40%)
But he is just staring at the mass of vitality that is attacked to the monsters back. It looks like a massive off-red ball with a dense core in the middle. “Aren’t slimes made from mana?”
Helo just stops for a while and starts looking over the floor. When he entered the chamber, he remembers seeing some kind of ritual surrounding the Slime Lord. Going to the center of the area, he finds what is the remnants of the ritual. The slime destroyed most of it with his body.
He can follow the lines of the ritual as they trace the center of the room. The runes are broken and are difficult to read. But Helo takes a few moments to look over the different runes. He can see the runes for life, growth, mana and blood.
“I understand the need for most of the runes. But why blood?” Helo looks around the area in confusion and stands still in shock. Thown off to the side of the runic circle is a corpse. It is bent over itself like the body was just cast aside. Walking over to the body, Helo does a quick examination. The body has cuts all over and is completely drained of blood.
It takes Helo a few seconds for his shcked mind to understand what he is seeing. “Sacrifices.” He whispers unders his breath. Those cuts are runes.
Storing the body away Helo gets ready to leave. It doesn’t take him long to leave the slime rift. All he has to do is follow the gooey viscous trail that was left the wake of his enterance to the rift.
Getting back outside Helo isn’t sure how to feel. The fact that the enemy are using sacrifices is an apploying thought. But at the same time, he got another uncommon item. This one has resistance against acid. He is also close to level 38; he is now at level 37. Killing his first tier 2 monster solo gave him enough experience to practically skip level 37.
Exiting the rift and entering the forest, the first thing he does is pull out his tablet. Calling Akira, Helo waits for him to pick upm but he gets no answer. Deciding to send a message Helo takes a second to think about what to say.
“They forced a peak-tier 1 Slime to Tier 2. I think it is safe to say that their rituals are not only breaking the rifts, but strengthening to monsters. There is one issue though. I found a body with sacrificial wounds on it. I think they are using people to force the monsters to grow somehow.” Pausing to take a breath Helo isn’t sure what to say. “I don’t know. This is way more complicated than I expected. I’ll be heading into the next rift soon.”
Ending the message Helo stores his tablet and heads toward the next rift. Sneaking into the rift Helo enters a massive maze made from vines and shrubs. He isn’t surprised by that he saw because most of the creatures that were leaving had either a plant-based affinity or were plants themselves.
Completing the rift is easier than all the others so far. The maze is simple for Helo to sneak through. He either bypasses the monsters, or brutally kills any that are in his way. The final monster was the core of the maze. It was a massive trap-like creature and was connected to the walls of the maze. It was called a Thorn Snatcher and it was surprisingly easy for Helo to kill.
He used ‘Forced Still’ before the creature even saw him. With the creature frozen he quickly found its core and killed it. The rest of the rifts went similarly. A few of them had enemies inside. Helo was surprised to find more of the red clothed figures and based on the color of their clothing he assumes that they are the ones doing to sacrifices.
Thankfully Helo is able to finish off the final rift before them main one with only another hour of fighting. Stepping out of the rift he checks his notifications.
You have gone from level 37 to level 38. Due to your class, bloodline and tier you gain, +2 to Will, Vit, and Agl. You gain +1 to dex and per. You gain +2 free stats.
Name: Helo
Bloodline: Redacted (10.3%)
Tier 1
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 38
Stats: 468
- Str: 27 (+5%)
- Agl: 78 (+15%)
- Dex:51 (+15%)
- Per: 58 (+30%)
- Vit: 99 (+40%)
- End: 27 (+15%)
- Int: 27 (+5%)
- Will: 99 (+40%)
Free Points: 2
Taking a second to admire his stat points, Helo adds the final point to both Vit and Will. “Bing”
You have reached your first stat point milestone in both Vit and Will. Due to reaching 100 points in two stats for your first time, while still being in tier 1, you have gained the following title. Due to the nature of your chosen stats your title has been modified.
Yin-Yang Balance (Rare): Your body and mind are in balance, as long as they are the effects of this title will take effect. You regenerate your body and mind energy 10% faster. You can more easily manipulate your body’s natural energy. With your body’s natural balance your Vit and Will can change into one another with a 50% loss of energy. Your Vit and Will gain +10% efficiency.
Name: Helo
Bloodline: Redacted (10.3%)
Tier 1
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 38
Stats: 468
- Str: 27 (+5%)
- Agl: 78 (+15%)
- Dex:51 (+15%)
- Per: 58 (+30%)
- Vit: 100 (+50%)
- End: 27 (+15%)
- Int: 27 (+5%)
- Will: 100 (+50%)
Taking a second to feel and enjoy the changes in his body, Helo can feel as everything around him just seems simpler. When he reached balance in his Bloodline Attunement, Helo thought he was on top of the world. He honestly didn’t think he could feel anybetter. But now with a title augmenting him further, he isn’t sure how to feel.
“Ahhhh this is amazing.” Helo moans out loud. As the title started taking effect Helo found a nice tree to sit under. Now sitting down and staring up into the canopy, he just smiles into the air with a vacant look. “Fuuuuuck. This is good.”
It’s like his entire body, mind, spirit, aura and soul are all in agreement. Not only does his energy respond faster, but his mind reacts to physical stimuli faster and his body reacts to his mental controls faster. Rereading the title Helo just stares into the trees. I am never falling out of balance again. Not only did it strain my body and mind, it also didn’t feel this good.
It takes Helo over ten minutes to finally snap out of his daze. He wasn’t even testing his new abilities; he was just staring into the canopy with a weird smile and a vacant look. He even starts wondering if he just experienced his first sexual release. Before he can go further down that rabbit hole, his tablet sends him a mental nudge.
Pulling the tablet out of his storage, Helo isn’t even looking when he answers. “Helo! Are you okay?” Alli says from the other end of the call. She takes a second to stare at him and she squints her eyes. “Why are you staring into the canopy like a pervert?”
“Ahem!” Helo coughs on his own saliva and finally regain his full wits. “I am fine. I just gained an interesting title. But that isn’t what you called for? Right?”
Giving him a final glare Alli decides to question him later. “We knew you were doing okay because the variety monsters stopped coming. The issue is that now almost all the monsters that are attacking are tier 2. We had to increase the strength of the barrier and we can’t hold them off for much longer.”
Berating himself for stalling, Helo isn’t even sure how long he was out of it. With a grimace he says. “I was just about to enter another tier 2 rift. What kinds of monsters are attacking you still?”
Giving a cute pout and tapping her finger to her lips Alli hums for a second. “There are goblins, bears, birds and some kind of earth and plant like monsters.”
Checking his map Helo nods he head. All of those but the bird rift are ones that they presumably fought before. Helo remembers attacking those rifts with his party over the last few months. “I know where most of them are. I am about to attack to goblin rift.”
With wide eyes Alli shouts. “Be careful! Those are the strongest of the monsters attacking.”
“I know.” Helo says calmly.
Alli gives him a little glare and tilts her head. “Your different. You usually don’t take to people. But you seem to calm.”
With a small smile Helo nods his head. “When I took that pill from Hinata’s father I was able to balance my attunement. But I just reached 100 stat points in my Vit and Will. Because of that I got a new title.”
Alli just looks at him even more confused. She has that same title for her intelligence. It is her only stat at 100 right now. But she got an uncommon title called ‘Mana Abundance’. It increases her Int by +10% and gives her a unique ability called ‘Mana Overload’. The ability lets her cycle external mana to fuel her spells for about ten seconds. “I got that same title. But it didn’t make me act all weird.”
Helo chuckles a little. “Ha no the title changed because two of my stats reached one-hundred at the same time. Due to them being the fuel for mental and physical energy the title changed again.”
Alli just pouts after hearing that. In her head she thinks. Why does he get all the cool shit. Outwardly she gives a forced smile. “You have work to do. Bye. Don’t die.” The she hangs up.
Looking at his tablet with some confusion Helo just shakes he head. “I don’t know what I did.” Putting his tablet away again, Helo sets of toward the final rift in the area. When he is about one-hundred meters out he stops and focuses on his senses. With his new found balance Helo has an easier time cycling through all of his different sense and he even can use his ‘Life-Sight’ without needing to drain vitality.
This makes Helo pause, he has yet to truly test out his new abilities. Most of them are passive and he can already feel how they are affecting him. Well, they are passive as long as he has a balanced Vit and Will.
But one of the abilities is actually an active one. This ability is similar to his ‘Nature’s Alpha’ title. It isn’t a skill that he can just activate. It is another facet of his own potential that the title is helping him do. With his new control Helo pulls out a vortex of mental energy. Focusing on the energy he tries to change its nature.
Chancing the semi-dark attuned mental energy into semi-life attuned physical energy is more difficult than he expected. It again reminds him of his other title. That title let him hide his aura within nature. He does this by using the natural energies in nature to mask his own aura. But it is a skill that takes a lot of effort to train. Every time he gets stronger, he has to take some time to get used to his aura again. Then he has to practice concealing it again.
It isn’t a difficult process but it goes to show that Helo isn’t using a skill that he can just activate. He is learning a new ability with some system granted help. So, focusing on the vortex of mental energy Helo attempts to shift it into a different type. After five minutes with very little happening, other than frustration, Helo takes a step back to think.
Pulling back from his intense focus on the vortex, Helo watches his entire energy system. It takes a few moments before he decides to try something different. When he took to pill from Akira, his bloodline pulled the energy into his core and there it changed from neutral energy into his own energy.
Pulling some mental energy into his center Helo attempts to change it now. At this point three things happen. The first thing happened so quickly that Helo wasn’t sure if he saw it right. When he started messing with both energies within his core they started reacting to one another. This is normal and is something Helo as seen before when he uses his fighting techniques. But this time instead of reacting like awkward exes, the two energies seemed to merge where they met. It was only for a brief moment, but Helo is sure that he saw it. There is just a tiny flash of silver and bright grey.
The second thing is that his attempt worked. In his core, where all his energies meet, he was able to push his mental energy into his physical channels. From there it started to lose its own attunement and then gain the physical and life attunement. Happy with his success, Helo almost missed the third thing.
The third thing is that Helo obviously still isn’t feeling totally normal yet. He stopped at the edge of the rift’s area and started messing with a new skill. He forgot that when he has excess vitality in his body, he loses his dark affinity abilities. In that moment of joy at seeing a new energy type and getting his own energy to change he forgot that his Bloodline Shroud dropped.
Snapping out of his meditation Helo can hear the chanting of goblins in the forest. Looking around with his glowing golden eyes Helo groans. “Ohhhh I forgot what I was doing.” Standing in front of him and to the left a goblin scout is chanting to alert the others.
All around him in the dark forest he can hear as other goblins start to pick up the chant as well. One after the other voices can be heard from the woods all around him. It is at this moment that Helo realizes that this rift has a lot more going on.
With golden eyes he leaps toward the goblin that spotted him. His jump causes a massive wave of earth to shoot backward as he sails forward. The goblin stares at him with wide eyes. Landing feet first on the goblin’s chest, Helo rides the monster to the ground. Landing with a ‘Crack’, Helo doesn’t even finish off the creature. He leaves it there coughing and gurgling on its own blood.
He isn’t sure why but he gets a small hint of pleasure at playing with his food. Food… What… I kind of thought finding balance would help with my instincts. Helo realizes now that his new title isn’t really helping with his instincts, it is making him more in tune with them.
As his eyes fade to red Helo disappears with a swirl of black. Racing through the trees, Helo takes a long route, going back and then around the enemies that chanting. Slipping into the trees he moves forward carefully. He isn’t invisible, but his presence is almost impossible for any tier 2 to detect.
As he moves closer to the rift, he can see quite a few goblins run past him and toward the location that he was spotted. Eventrually reaching the rift itself Helo has to stop about twenty-meters from the rift. The trees all around it have been cut down, and a crude wall has been created in a ten-meter circle around the area.
Disappearing back into the tree-line Helo activates his ‘Life Sight’ and his ‘Mental-Sight’. He could use his new spiritual sight, but it would have been overkill. It also would have been more difficult. The bonus is that ‘Spiritual Sight’ is harder to hide from. Hiding your life energy or your mental energy is relatively simple for enchanters. But it is also something that he isn’t as skilled with.
Looking up into the trees Helo can see a few locations where goblin scouts are hiding. They are glowing a golden within the weaker glow of the trees. Overlaping their golden glow, there is a hazy purple cloud with a rainbow of colors within. The extra colors are hard to detect but Helo is able to get a feel for a few of them.
From what he can tell, all of the goblin scouts are very bored and tired. Climbing up into the trees Helo gets within aura range and feels for the goblin’s level. He can see the goblins head bobbing as it falls in and out of sleep. Based on what his aura can feel the goblin is at the peak of tier 1. This is a good thing, but it also means that any goblins that are stronger will be in tier 2.
So, this really is a true tier 2 rift now. From the tree next to the goblin Helo starts to get closer using the branches. At the same time, he summons a ‘Dark Blade’. Helo is only fifteen feet away when the goblin finally notices him. It can see as a nearby branch behaves weirdly.
Looking over the goblin’s eyes go wide and it is about to shout. Sending the blade forward using his ‘Dark Grasp’ Helo splits the goblins head in two. As the goblin is starting to fall off the branch Helo closes in and catches the body.
Vanishing the body into his storage Helo takes a second to looks within his necklace. Grabbing the fang, he can see all different kinds of loot drops and crafting materials. There is also a brightly glowling phoenix feather that he found months ago. Then there are piles of monster cores, and finally clumps of bodies all over the place.
I need to work on clearing my storage out. Helo thinks with a shake of his head. Slowly making his way through the tree-line, Helo kills each goblin scout that he comes up to. There is only one scout that he avioids, this one has a much more powerful aura and it’s lifeforce glows differently. Not only is it glowing brighter, but it feels more real. Helo assumes that it is the metaphysical weight that he was told about a while ago.
That goblin can use its presnace to affect reality more than others can. Helo isn’t sure what to do about the final scout. The goblins that went to search for him still haven’t returned. But there are still many goblins within the walled off section of the rift.
With a shrug Helo decides that he wil have a much easier time hiding from the worriers and shamans, than he would have if he fought them with a powerful archer behind him.
Slipping back further into the tree-line Helo gets to a postion where to tier 2 scout is between him and the rift. As he is getting level with the goblin Helo freezes. He can see as the brightest ball of life energy starts to move. He can directly see th goblin, but he can guess its position based on the radiation it is leaking.
Helo gets worried that he was spotted. He would be annoyed, but not surprised if a tier 2 scouts was able to spot him. Watching the energy between the trees Helo can feel as his head starts to hurt. It is a soft pain from behind his eyes, but it is slowly growing worse.
Watching for a few more seconds, Helo sees the goblin head around the wall. Turning off his affinity-based vision Helo tilts his head. Why is it going that way?
It only takes him a second to realize that he made a pretty big mistake. The scout was going to check on the others. If it finds the other scouts gone it will sound an alarm. Not wanting to turn back on his ‘Life and Mental Sight’ Helo moves as fast as he can through the trees while maintaining his stealth. He is putting a lot of focus on his aura as he searchs for where the goblin is.
It is only past a few more trees when Helo feels the goblin. With his aura he can feel as it dips its fingers into the blood of its comrades. With this Helo realizes he is on a time limit. His aura can detect up to twenty-meters away, so he still has some distance to cover.
By the time he can see the goblin, it already has a sounding horn to its lips. Sending out the ‘Dark Blade’ with both his aura and ‘Dark Grasp’ Helo hopes that he makes it in time. With a wave of pressure and a “WOOSH” as the blade splits the air the goblin lets out its breath.
“WHHHOOORAA…ga…” The goblin is able to let out an alarm before the blade pierces through its neck and the powerful sound turns into a choking noise. With a final look toward Helo the goblin smirks as the life fades from its eyes.
All around him Helo can hear as goblins start to chant again. This time he is right next to the wall and he can feel as multiple tier 2 auras start to flare. They might not have conscious control over their auras. But even a tier 1 is able to have some effect on reality and others with their inflated stats.