Ethan cursed. Not because of the two monitors blocking his way in this wider stretch of the cave network, but because of the thinner trail of blood he was seeing. He hoped it meant the lord was bleeding out, but it might also be that the wound was closing up. Which meant he really didn’t have a lot of time to waste.

  After quickly dispatching the cave monitors, Ethan continued following the track and came upon a deeper and wider cave that somehow… almost looked like a throne room. Of course, there was no seating. No carpets or no real decoration. It was mainly one element that made Ethan think of a seat of power, and it was the raised dais on which the lord was resting. Its neck was still glistening with fresh blood, raising and falling as it labored for breath while its progeny fussed around it, some resting next to it while others watched the surroundings protectively.

  I guess it didn’t recover that well. Good for me.

  Leaning against the side of the tunnel, Ethan reached into the dimension pouch and found the two gems he picked from Edwin as he took a deep breath. They were worth checking really quickly, just in case they contained anything game-changing. To be fair, he should have done this minutes ago when he left Ember, but right then he was mostly thinking of the lord and how he was going to finish the job.

  Let’s see… a primagem for the first bead. Primagem of Draining. Alright. The second… damn. Another primagem. At least it’s good though.

  A primagem of Hardening could be good for his spellform upgrades. It would work well with either the scales or the claws though in the latter’s case, Ethan had yet to push the talons to their limits. They’d been resisted, sure, but they had never been broken, so really, the scales seemed to be the best recipient for this primagem. In fact, both primagem could do well on the scales. But there was a small challenge there.

  What’s the difference between sapping and draining?

  Ethan considered it for a moment, knowing full well he was procrastinating. Draining probably implied drawing something out. Actively. Maybe even absorbing it. But sapping was just weakening whatever it affected.

  Ethan closed his eyes and exhaled. He was too tired for this. He’d figure it out at another time. For now, there was a lord he needed to kill. And a bunch of overly protective cave monitors.

  Alright. Come on. You can do this.

  He was very tempted to turn away and leave. His limbs were laden. His eyelids felt heavy. But as much as he liked to take things easy sometimes, he had to get out of this tutorial. He wasn’t overly stressing himself about it, but he would still prefer to shorten his stay if it were possible. The sooner they could all head back to their own world the better.

  With a flex of will, Ethan re-summoned the horns and felt their bolstering magic seep into his scales and claws. He took the first step toward the exit of the tunnel, and his scaly soles crunched against some broken crystals.

  All the heads turned toward him. Even the lord’s eyelids fluttered. The creature growled deep in its throat, and the blue gems along its spine glowed with an eerie blue light as it got back up to its feet.

  Damn. I hoped this would be easier, he thought as he sent the first fireball flying at the hissing crowd, and he was happy to see a smoking limb fly and smack against the lord’s face. I guess this makes sense, considering this thing’s tier-2. Not even an open jugular enough to kill it.

  Then the lord opened its jaw and blasted him with another damn explosive crystal.

  ***

  Ethan’s breath rasped as he leaned over the side of the lord’s corpse. The air smelled of blood and burnt flesh, and the only thing he could hear were the sounds of crackling, burning bones from a couple of monitors that had been turned extra-crispy.

  “You… stupid… thing. I…win.”

  Shardpurse: 341 fragments collected.

  He couldn’t even get off his knees. There was no strength in his legs anymore, and even his arms barely responded to his will. They were still too sore from the tail hits he’d tanked.

  With a tremendous amount of effort, Ethan pushed himself away with his elbows and let himself slide down to the ground.

  Don’t sleep. Don’t.

  He didn’t think there was anything near him anyway, but now was not the time. He needed to at least be able to defend himself if anything showed up. And the best thing for that was stats. And fire.

  With a pained flex of will, Ethan ignited his claws and made the fire cover his whole body. Even though he was already looking down the barrel of mana exhaustion, he needed his body to be slightly less broken right now and so, with the recovery well on its way, he pulled up his notifications.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  You have reached Level 60. 1 stat point awarded.

  …

  You have reached Level 64. 1 stat point awarded.

  Ethan chuckled and the laughter ended up turning into a groan of pain. Still, the the smile lingered. All the glass-shrapnel, all the tail smacks and painful bites have led to this. He wanted to assign the points right then, but he held on as his eyes scanned for the second notification he was waiting for, and when he found it, he tapped it.

  Congratulations. Side quest: “Reach level 60” completed.

  20 stat points

  1 tier-2 spell

  1 tier-3 spell

  “Thank you very much,” he mumbled and began assigning the point. He had twenty-five of them, and just like he told himself, he gave some love to Spirit and Mana. After considering it for a few moments, he decided to give them five each, bringing both stats to 26. Six points went to Toughness to make the base-stat into a round 50, and the rest went to Might, bringing it up to 39.

  Might: 75 (39)

  Toughness: 86 (50)

  Spirit: 101 (26)

  Mana: 73 (26)

  Unassigned: 0

  Ethan let out a sigh of relief as the magic sank into his body, refilling him with vigor and energy. He felt he could even stand up right now, but he opted to stay still for a bit more.

  What do we have next?

  This was the exciting part about throwing himself into danger. Ethan couldn’t remember any other occasion where he’d felt this sort of anticipation. The closest would be waking up to a packed christmas tree, but he hadn’t experienced a lot of those.

  Congratulations. Hidden quest: “Triumph over a tier-2 being” completed

  1x custom trait from a list of tailored options

  Ethan nodded at that. That was a pleasant surprise, and he didn’t mind selecting a trait. Especially considering he’d lost the dagger. Then again, it seemed he’d gotten luckier with the monster drops ever since he’d walked into the rift.

  Well… maybe not so much, considering the amount of monitors I killed.

  Turning his attention back to the notifications, he pulled up his new side quest.

  Side quest

  Reach level 70 and upgrade the Prime Arcanum to tier-2

  Reward:

  25 stat points

  1 custom trait

  Body Reforging (II)

  Ethan winced, then paused. “Wait a second… generating Essence isn’t that hard anymore.”

  At first he thought it’d take him a while to upgrade the Prime Arcanum to tier-2, but it might not be that far after all. In fact, he was already sitting on 37 Essence points. Looking through the rest of the side quest, his eyes lingered on the last reward.

  A body reforging?

  Now that he looked back, the lord fight had been an incredibly painful slog. The creature had been tough to a degree Ethan had not seen so far, and he believed he only managed to bring it down because of that one strike he’d gotten in with the Zenith State. It had put up a long fight, more than ten minutes of them exchanging fire until it finally ran out of whatever it was it had been using, at which point he managed to finish it up.

  Ember had said a Zenith State is a requirement for tier-3. Maybe that’s what made it this easy. Well… relatively easy. Still was a pain in the ass.

  Excitement welled in his chest. If the Zenith State was this effective against tier-2 beings, he might be able to deal with the lords a lot faster.

  With his recovery slowly but surely coming along, Ethan dismissed his interface, and with some effort, he reached into the pouch and pulled out a lime-sized orb of rippling, cyan blues and orange. The orb the lord had dropped.

  It’s the largest one I’ve seen so far.

  With a quick inhale, Ethan sat up and rolled the orb in his scaly hands for a second before he flexed his will.

  Assimilate [Primagland (Tier-3)]?

  Ethan frowned. Now, what did that even mean?

  Primagland (Tier-3): By channeling a large amount of mana, you can grow unattuned primagems across your skin. When exposed to an environment saturated with essence, these primagems have a chance to absorb and adopt the ambient attunement.

  Click here to join

  If you want to support me and read ahead, there's 12 advanced chapters.