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Before leaving that cursed hill for good, Grendel gathered the useful items from the remains of his camp and whatever those S-rank bullies brought. Their backpacks multiplied the space available and divided the weight. The famous 'dimensional bag'. There was a lot of stuff in those five backpacks. It seems they carried all their stuff in there. He gave up on trying to sort what little he took out of them and just shoved his loot inside them. The surviving weapons and armor of Gilgamesh's party were also taken.
The Shining Spear was dormant. It spoke not a word to him after that time in the blank space. But it felt like an extension of his hand, of his magic. He descended the hill and going around the burning meadow he went west and north until he reached the foot of the dragonspine mountain range. Dawn was breaking and the giant dark cloud covered the sky as a dark omen of what was coming. Grendel's heart was a reflexion of the sky right now. He walked without a word near the foot of the mountain until he found a cave. A pair of bears and some cubs were readying to hibernate inside. He used his domination power on them and the bears became his pets. He had to raise the skill to level six but this time he had enough Skill Points.
He took the bottom of the cave for himself and ordered the bears to go ahead on their ursine endeavours and guard him. He checked his status and swapped out both capped classes. Again he had to upgrade his dual job skill to place anything useful in that extra job slot. His main job was set as guild master. It was a tier 5 job, couldn't go wrong. As for the secondary job, he chose a very curious job that unlocked after that fight.
This seemed like something he played in a Korean MMO. A job for bored people that was just a notch above the basic job. But the conversion skill seemed like a must-have because setting jobs to inactive lowered his status a great deal. He also maxed the skill he stole from Gilgamesh. Skill Awakening was left at level 9. These three skills devoured 152 SP.
His racial level was capped and he needed to evolve. Checking his evolution choices, he quickly decided.
He recognized these from a manga he liked to read. But this was not your run-of-the-mill troll. What could 'travel between dimensions' mean? Would he be able to cross worlds? Getting an even better regeneration would be amazing too, and inducing fear was good also. It was the highest evolution he had. And he wanted power fast.
In hindsight, he shoud've thought out that choice a little bit. But he was angry and full of malice himself. His vision blacked out and he passed out. He had no idea that his evolution to a tier five race would take twenty-five days. The bears he controlled with his skill kept following his orders and prepared for winter. They cuddled next to Grendel and hibernated.
After the evolution Grendel woke up ravenous. The wicked nature of the new race took over and he devoured his bear minions. His anger and loathing for humans was only amplified by his new racial physiology. But he got eight new skills.
And right after he finished killing and eating the last bear cub, he earned a small amount of Exp.
With these SP and the leftovers, he placed all his new racial skills at level 5. And even with the bonuses from Superhuman Stats and Status Conversion he was still weaker than before he changed jobs and evolved. It was natural that his status would take a dive when he resetted his levels to the new jobs and race. But the potential for growth was astonishing.
One last thing he had to do was to check his points.
It was enough to get one S-rank chest and six A-rank chests. He got Gladiator Emperor (SS), Emperor’s Skill Steal (SS), Absolute Guard (S), Life Vision (A), Blunt Resistance (A), Unholy Resistance (A), Quad Job (SS), King’s Enchanting (S), Absorb Spell (S), Time Dilation (S), Parallel Processing (S), Dimension Sight (A) ,Memory Manipulation (A), Disable Senses (A), Animal Shape (A), Extra Arms (A), Danger Sense (A), Organ Reallocation (A), Density Control (A), Jeweller Lord (A), Regenerating Aura (B), Astral Projection (B), Prince’s Stamina (B), Prince’s Spellpower (B), and Fantastic Weaving (B) for 240,000 points.
In hindsight, he should've done that before spending all his SP.
He slipped into his private Pocket Dimension. It was a barren slab of bland rock floating in the middle of nowhere in the meridian of a sphere, neither bright nor dark, neither hot nor cold. It had breathable air but that was it. Swirling colors like a soap bubble going around the edge of this dimension betrayed the alien nature of the space. He dumped his luggage there and slipped back to reality.
Leaving the cave, Grendel set his sights south-west. He would visit Mirfield again. And this time he would meet their expectations. With great prejudice.
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New Skill:
Grendel's Status:
