Stygian Mage

“Innate Spell Learned. Dead Rising – Level 1/10. Mana Cost – Average”

Soren had thought of this idea after he summoned his first undead and controlled it. He knew that the spell was divided into the summoning part and controlling part.

Only using the summoning part was useless as it would only create an idle and worthless undead. So, he thought of using the controlling part of the spell on its own and finally, he developed this Innate Spell.

He also realized some of the restrictions of the spell as he created it:

—He could only use it on dead bodies, which was obvious and it didn’t matter how much old the corpse was.

—If the corpse had formed some kind of consciousness, he had to overpower it with his Soul Strength to take control of it.

—The ability of the controlled undead was dependent on his Soul Strength and mana.

— The ability of the controlled undead wouldn’t cross their original level by much, so it was not possible to make a corpse of a rat fight a dragon, no matter how strong Soren’s mana and Soul was.

Confirming everything, he closed the message and moved on with the others.

………

They moved through the cave with their guard up while maintaining the same formation they had before.

Soren was moving in the center with the gun in his hand. He had already experienced the swift attacks of a Kleboon before and was almost killed by it. He knew the beasts they were going to encounter now were much stronger and such, he didn’t want to die a careless death.

They all were anxious as they moved through the cave carefully.

Suddenly, Ellie gave the sign to stop. They had reached another opening but this time it was much smaller. They slowly moved forward with silent steps and got ready to fight.

“Let’s go, the same formation as before.” Kyle issued his orders.

Soren held his gun in the right hand and his staff in the left hand. He held them so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

It was not because he was scared. Although he was still a little bit anxious, he had gained some confidence from the fight before.

Right now, he had a different feeling in his heart. He didn’t know how but his anxiousness was slowly changing into excitement since the last fight.

Maybe it was because he had just developed an Innate Spell that he was trying to create for a while. Maybe it was because he was killing the same kind of beasts that had brought him to the edge of death. He didn’t know the reason but he knew he needed to calm down.

He was not a Warrior who would just rush into a fight and start hacking at his enemies. He was a Spell Caster. He needed to use his brain to make decisions on which spell to use, when to use it and how to use it.

He wasn’t looking down on Warriors though. He knew that the path selection alone couldn’t make anyone stronger or weaker. Neither of the paths was stronger or weaker. They were just choices that one made.

But he also knew that both paths had their own fighting style. The Warriors had their way, he had his own. For his fighting style, he needed to remain calm, so that he would be able to make quick and rational decisions on his feet.

He glanced towards his right forearm. Although it was covered by the clothes, the scar from the wound, that he had gotten in his first fight after coming to this world, was still there. He didn’t know the reason for it but looking at the scar somehow calmed him down.

……….

They all got ready at Kyle’s command and took their formation. Ward rushed in first, then Ellie, Phil, Soren and finally Kyle entered the opening.

They all moved into the opening but what they saw made them speechless. Ward was the first one to stop, Ellie, after him and then the rest followed.

The room looked like the place where female Kleboons could give birth and wounded beasts could recover. But now, the whole room was empty except for a large Kleboon which was wounded heavily and some of the newborns with their bedridden mothers.

They didn’t know how to describe what they were feeling right now. They had already prepared themselves for a tough fight but what they got was…..

Soren was the first to recover and then quickly scanned the beast which was as large as an adult human.

“Rank 0: Layer 9.”

He furrowed his brows upon this revelation. He noticed that the large Kleboon was heavily injured and was almost at its last breath.

Kyle also recovered soon and then noticed the beast’s grave injury. He then quickly gave the orders to attack.

Soren was already ready to go, so he quickly aimed and shot towards the injured beast soon after Kyle gave out the command. Soren wanted to kill this beast in a hurry as he didn’t want to suffer from its last desperate attack.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

He was also paying attention to his surroundings as he kept shooting the beasts.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

He emptied the whole magazine on the beast. The gun was not powerful enough to hurt the beast but it sure annoyed it and made a distraction.

The beasts wailed in anger as it was shot in multiple places on its body. The bullets only pierced its skin a little bit before stopping.

The others also got to work. Kyle took the chance and shot the distracted beast with his arrows while the others took care of the rest of the beasts. Soren backed off after shooting and let Kyle handle the big one.

He quickly reloaded another magazine and went after other helpless little Kleboons.

BANG! BANG!

………..

It didn’t take long before all the beasts died.

Although they had no idea how the big beast got injured or where the other strong beasts were, they still enjoyed an easy victory.

They searched the whole cave for any survivors but didn’t find any. After the search, they finally took a breath of relief. Having finished with the first part of the mission, they prepared to move back to the outpost.

They had done their jobs and now the cleaning team had to do theirs. The cleaning party would gather all the cores they missed and make a temporary base here.

Soren and the others moved through the cave without any problem and finally got out. Kyle took out his communicator and sent the message to the cleanup party.

It used mana packets to send messages to the device that matched with the mana signature mentioned in the packet.

After informing them, they moved towards the outpost.

It was almost morning right now, so they had spent a full day in that cave. Even though they took rests in between fights, they were still tired.

“I want to take a bath first,” Ellie complained to no one as they walked.

“I want to eat some real food first.” Ward joined in.

“I am going to sleep,” Phil said tiredly.

”Me too” Soren replied. He was also tired and most of all, he wanted to take care of the mana he had absorbed using the basic cultivation technique.

Kyle stayed silent but from his face, anyone could tell he was also tired.

……….

They finally reached the outpost and saw the cleanup party getting ready to head out. They all dispersed and went to do their own thing.

Soren also went to his room and settled down.

He cleaned himself up, changed into some comfortable clothes and sat down on the bed with the cold wall supporting his back and head. He started using ‘Devour’ and focused it on the mana absorbed by the cultivation technique.

His other teammates were also cultivating together when they were resting before so he couldn’t get that much mana but it was still quite a bit.

CP – 29%

He continued absorbing the mana that Isaac had stored in his navel area. They were going to rest for one day before moving on to the next part of the mission so he didn’t have anything else to do right now.

CP – 33%

The stored mana finally came to an end as his CP reached 38%. He stopped ‘Devour’ for now and decided to focus on some other things.

He repaired all his Spell Vessels first. Then, he focused on studying the spells.

He chose ‘Shadow Chain’ first because of its high utility. The limit on the uses of Spell Vessels was a big headache for him as he had to keep an eye out on the amount of time he had used the spell while fighting.

He spent the next half day studying about the spell and any related stuff he had in Isaac’s digital library.

When he was slightly bored, he started studying about his other spell – ‘Acid Splash’.

He went out to have some food during the rest time and again started his routine after coming back to his room. He also included cultivation in his routine with a few breaks in between.

After continuing for a long time, he finally received the messages he was hoping to see, at night.

“Spell Mastery increased. Shadow Chain – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Vessel Assimilated. Innate Spell Learned. Shadow Chain – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Evolution possible”

“Spell Mastery increased. Acid Splash – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Vessel Assimilated. Innate Spell Learned. Acid Splash – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Evolution possible”

He had wanted a Rank 1 spell since the first time he reached full spell mastery. At that time, he had rejected the evolution but now, he was ready to do so.

He first decided to evolve the ‘Acid Splash’ spell.

Isaac, modifying the spell is possible right?

“Yes Master, but up to a limit.”

After getting the confirmation, Soren started thinking of different ways he could modify the spell.

The two default evolution paths were: increasing the quality and increasing the quantity. But the base of the spell would remain the same. He might develop some other spells according to their default evolution path in the future, but he wanted to modify this one.

He jogged his memories for ideas on how to develop this spell. He wanted to increase its power together with efficiency. He didn’t want a ‘one-time cannon’.

He produced different ideas and made Isaac simulate the spell according to them. He even tried combining the concept from his other spells with this.

Time passed as he kept trying different ideas yet, he wasn’t satisfied with anyone.

Finally, he went to the basics. He had an affinity towards the ‘Darkness’ and ‘Ice‘ elements, so combining any other element was out of the question as it would just decrease the efficiency. The ‘Acid Splash’ was already a spell in the ‘Darkness’ category so the only element left that he could use was ‘Ice’

And so, the final result was frozen acid.

But a frozen ball of acid was as useless as throwing a stone at your enemy. He had to make it lethal and deadly. So, he started modifying the design of the frozen acid ball.

He went through multiple options like making it into an arrow; turn it into a spear; turning it into a bomb etc. But he had to give up on all of them because of their low efficiency.

He started to have a headache from thinking up ideas, one after another. Suddenly, he had an epiphany upon thinking about the pain he was having right now.

He quickly formed a base spell and made Isaac simulate it.

………..

The result was better than he had expected. He once again confirmed everything and made Isaac simulate it a few more times to better understand it. Finally, he started the evolution process with the spell type he had in mind.

“Initiating Spell Evolution: Acid Splash”

“Forming the base spell”

“Applying the modifications: Modifications Applicable”

…………..

…………..

…………..

“Spell Evolution Complete: New spell registered.”

…………..

“Acid Needles: Liquid acid froze in the form of needles. Stabs the enemy at a high speed and melts upon piercing their body, releasing the liquid acid in their body which corrodes the target from inside and does sustained poison damage. Mana Cost – Extremely High.”

He had thought of this idea as he was feeling a piercing pain in his head. The irony here was that the idea didn’t come from some grand epiphany but from thinking too many ideas.

Modifying the spell had increased its mana cost but this was the most efficient spell he could think of. He could not use this spell multiple times for now but, it was the best trump card that he has had as of yet. This was his first Rank 1 spell which he had evolved and modified himself.

He had two more spells that were ready for the evolution but he didn’t do so.

Rank 1 spells took a lot of mana to cast and he wasn’t strong enough to sustain the supply now. He needed Rank 0 spells more than Rank 1 spells right now. He had already formed some ideas about those spells though.

After that, he cultivated for a while, studied about his other spells and practiced his ‘Mana Manipulation’ skill. He hadn’t practiced this in quite a while. Although it was not completely obvious, this skill of his had helped him a lot.

When he was tired of that, he went back to his research about spells and cultivation. He also cleaned his equipment, especially his gun. He also loaded bullets in his magazines for the next day. Finished with everything, he finally opened his status to check on the new things.

By the time he was finished with all that it was already late at night, so he decided to sleep. He lay down on the bed with his left hand under his head. Recent memories flashed in his mind, one by one, as he went through them and slowly drifted off to dreamland.