Chapter 34: Back on the Grind I
Atlas sat next to the river, holding a lotus position and circulating his mana carefully. He widened the pathways in his hand and leaked mana out, manipulating the mana subtly until he was holding a clear sword that was tinged slightly blue, or in other words, a mana sword. His mana was dropping by 1 point per second so he couldn’t hold it forever, but he could still hold it for quite a while.
Atlas focused on the sword, engraving the sword's form in his mind, before slowly altering it, sharpening the edge, smoothing out the hilt and reinforcing the sword with even more mana. A half hour later, he held the finished product.
The sword had morphed from a rather crude basic sword, to a glimmering wonder of mana. The mana cost of the sword had risen to 50 mana per second, so his regeneration could no longer negate the majority of the mana cost, but it was okay, as the quality of the weapon had risen far higher than Atlas had originally hoped.
Atlas then glanced at the notifications that had been waiting for him while he worked.
You have leveled up your skill Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S) to level 2!
…
You have leveled up your skill Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S) to level 8!
Atlas was expecting nothing less so he just nodded his head, he had gotten slightly more levels than estimated, but only by one or two. Atlas unsummoned his mana sword and stood up. Atlas wanted to see how his upgraded mana affected his skills, so he waltzed on over to the clearing where he had been almost killed just a day previously. What a joy it was to live.
He started first with the skill that would show the most change with his mana, Elemental Affinity, Atlas felt sheepish about this skill, because whenever he got into the thick of things, he more often than not forgot he even had this skill, so its level had stagnated.
He stretched out his hand, conjuring fire and blasting it forward. Atlas marveled at the smoothness and efficiency of the effort, and as the fireball scorched a path in front of him Atlas started to create different elements and test what he could do with them. A couple minutes later he collapsed to the ground, mana all gone. He groaned, and raised himself up, rubbing dirt out of his eyes.
Elemental Affinity had drastically risen in firepower and control, but it was a mana hog, stealing every last drop of his mana in just a few minutes of use. Those few minutes had still been helpful though, and the notifications showed him exactly how beneficial.
You have leveled up your skill Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S) to level 9!
You have leveled up your skill Elemental Affinity (SSS) to level 3!
He had surprisingly got another level in mana manipulation, but it made sense, seeing as he had been controlling his mana to transform it into elements, which used mana manipulation.
As Atlas waited for his mana to regenerate he began to cycle through all of his skills, activating all of them and using them to see if he could get any levels in them before the timer ran out.
You have leveled up your skill Misty Step (SS) to level 3!
You have leveled up your skill Demonic Claw (S) to level 6!
You have leveled up your skill Lightning Beam (B) to level 10!
Would you like to rank or tier up skill: Lightning Beam (B)?
Atlas selected tier up, seeing as it was a lower ranked skill, he could tier it up multiple times until it was legendary, at which point it would finally be useful.
Tiering up…
Lightning Beam (B) -> Zap Cannon (B)
Atlas started focusing his entire mana pool into the skill before releasing it in a giant blast. The world turned white and when he blinked the spots out of his eyes, he found a giant crater.
You have leveled up your skill Zap Cannon (B) to level 10!
Would you like to rank or tier up skill: Zap Cannon (B)?
Atlas blinked in shock, how had it jumped 10 levels from one cast? Was it because of the sheer amount of mana he had pumped into the skill? He once again selected tier up and got a very welcome notification.
Tiering up…
Zap Cannon (B) -> Sun Ray (B)
LUCKY BONUS!
Sun Ray (B) -> Lights Decent (B)
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Atlas smiled to himself, lucky bonuses were always more than welcome, especially when they gave him such a good bonus, it had basically saved him time of leveling up the skill further. Atlas opened up the skill description to see what it did.
Lights Descent (B): Summon forth a pillar of light to smite your enemies, damage, size and brightness of the pillar depend on the amount of mana used to activate this skill.
Atlas activated it, summoning a giant pillar from the sky with all of his mana that created light so bright that it was as though the sun had descended from the sky. It was an apt description, considering the skills name.
You have leveled up your skill Lights Descent (B) to level 4!
Atlas glanced at the timer. He had a little more than 8 hours left. It was time to see how far he could push his skills in that time.
***
You have leveled up your skill Avatar of Death (Z) to level 3!
You have leveled up your skill Elemental Affinity (SSS) to level 4!
You have leveled up your skill Misty Step (SS) to level 5!
You have leveled up your skill Demonic Claw (S) to level 10!
Would you like to rank or tier up skill: Demonic Claw (S)
Tiering up…
Demonic Claw (S) -> Demonic Energy (S)
You have leveled up your skill Demonic Energy (S) to level 7!
You have leveled up your skill Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S) to level 10!
Would you like to rank or tier up skill: Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S)?
Tiering up…
Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S) -> Advanced Mana Manipulation (S)
You have leveled up your skill Advanced Mana Manipulation (S) to level 10!
Would you like to rank or tier up skill: Advanced Mana Manipulation?
Tiering up…
Advanced Mana Manipulation (S) -> Supreme Mana Manipulation (S)
LUCKY BONUS!
Supreme Mana Manipulation (S) -> Weak Mana Monarchy (S)
You have leveled Weak Mana Monarchy (S) to level 2!
You have leveled up your skill Lights Decent (B) to level 10!
Would you like to rank or tier up skill: Lights Decent (B)
Tiering up…
Max tier of current rank…
Ranking up instead…
Lights Decent (B) -> Holy Light Descent (A)
LUCKY BONUS!
Holy Light Descent (A) -> Consuming Light (S)
You have leveled up Consuming Light (S) to level 4!
Atlas wiped his forehead, grinning maniacally. He was feeling very accomplished right about now, especially after looking over all of his new skills, with all of the changes conveniently italicized.
Demonic Energy (S): You coat your body in a demonic energy, creating weapons out of the energy, but being limited to natural weapons (Claws, Fangs, Tail, Hooves, Etc.) This energy steals magic from your victim, but this skill also passively requires magic to work.
Weak Mana Monarchy (S): You are a ruler of mana, and it responds to your call. You can control mana far more efficiently, and mana activally gathers around you, enhancing your regeneration, wanting to be closer to royalty. This effect is dependent on your Intelligence and Wisdom. (Intelligence = Efficiency of mana, Wisdom = Mana Regeneration)
Consuming Light (S): Summon forth a pillar of consuming light to smite your enemies, damage, size and brightness of the pillar depend on the amount of mana used to activate this skill, power scales exponentially. If you kill an enemy with this skill, you gain one experience in a random skill per each point in your enemy's highest stat.
All three of them were amazing, but Consuming Light was the best, it would help him develop his skills even faster, and it had a lot of synergy with Consume, and it might be smart to combine them in the future, when Consuming Light was at the same rank.
Weak Mana Monarchy was also a very interesting skill, the higher his stats, the better the skill would be. It was already a great skill, and it would only get better. The “Weak” in its name probably just meant that each rank would be a direct upgrade, which meant it would probably end at Strong Mana Monarchy or something similar.
Demonic Energy was the least beneficial upgrade for him, but at least it was close to being upgraded again. If Atlas was going to guess the next tier up would make it so that he could make any weapon, or a skill that was similar, such as making only swords or something.
Atlas checked the timer. Just under an hour left, there wasn’t much he could do now, it was time to see if all that time training up his skills had been enough to close the gap between him and whatever the 8th wave would bring. He was hoping the jump wouldn’t be as drastic as it had been last time, but he believed that it would.
He didn’t know why the difficulty had randomly spiked, but it was becoming dangerous for him now, he had out paced all of the “normal” trials and had found himself standing on the peak, but with the increase of difficulty, he was back on the bottom rung, fighting tooth and nail to live even just a little longer. The trials were still possible, just harder.
Atlas breathed deeply, sitting down and leaning against the wall. He had grabbed a longsword from the Armory, not wanting to be caught unprepared like he had with the golems.
The timer ticked slowly downwards as Atlas waited. He might have been able to get a couple more skill increases within the allotted hour left, but he would rather face off against the next wave at full strength.
The time ticked onward.
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Wave start.
