Chapter 322: Breakthroughs (Patreon)

Chapter 322: Breakthroughs

The fighting still ended up lasting longer than Derek would have liked. This wasn’t because of the strength of the enemies, but more because of the elusiveness of the insect creatures and the snakes. As it turned out, the insects, even though they were fire based monsters, were very good at staying alive underground.

So, because Victor had trapped countless of them under the earth, he had to slowly sense their movements and crush them one by one once all the surface monsters were taken care of. As for the Astral Vipers, those were just complete pains in the ass. Even after all other beasts were taken care of, the Astral Vipers subsisted. At the end, the entire group was all fighting the vipers—chasing down any stragglers and putting an end to them. Even Lyra’s mind blasts didn’t work when they were in what Derek came to call their ‘astral’ form.

That took even more time on top of the hours they had already spent fighting. Then, to top it all off, Shae had decided to take the final Astral Viper as a companion, which took another chunk of time. He wasn’t sure yet if he wanted to bond with it, but he seemed to like the beast.

Finally, once all the monsters were dead and gone, which they were able to know for sure because of the monster counter in the trial notification window, they had to wait until a trial timer counted down. Which turned out to be what was left of the day.

During that time, Derek tabbed through all the notifications he’d received during the battle. All of the kill experience was considered shared experience. This was mostly because of the buffs that had been cast on him and Silvi, but some of the kills he obtained were split more than just two ways. He could tell that because of the large differences in the amounts of experience he received for kills.

Finally, he swiped away the kill and level notifications and viewed his new and improved stat sheet.

Derek ignored his stats for now and focused on his skill levels. He had received a single level in Greater Meditation, a level in Identify, two levels in Multi-Strike, one level in Polearm Speciality, a level in Rejuvenation, a level in Telepathy, and a level in Void Steps.

Out of all of that, Derek was most pleased about receiving a level in his Polearm Speciality skill. It wasn’t an easy skill to level up, after all. Plus, each level he got in the skill, the closer he was to unlocking a new upgrade for Harbinger. He figured the next upgrade would come at level 5.

As for everything else, it all made sense. He used Greater Meditation while he was acting as a meatshield against the Astral Vipers, he used Multi-Strike every time it was off cooldown, he constantly used Void Steps, and he had even healed himself a few times with Rejuvenation throughout the battle, even though he didn’t really need it. On top of that, Identify had leveled after using the skill on all the different types of monsters, and he talked with people via Telepathy while he was tied up with the Astral Vipers.

Finally, after going through all of his skill levels—which he found to be pretty good for a single battle—he looked at his stats. He had earned a whopping 17 levels during the battle, and he had a decision to make—not a tough one because he knew exactly where he was putting his now 700 stat points, but whether he should do it now or wait until later. He checked the time remaining on the mission, and seeing that there were still over six hours, he decided on not wasting the time.

Derek stood from where he was sitting and walked over to Silvi. He had to stop her before she started making snake ramen because she would be affected by his stat increase, too. ‘Put all that away, we’re going to go get our wisdom up,’ he sent to her, causing her to look up and give him what he could only consider was a scowl.

‘But I was just starting,’ she whined.

‘Yeah, that’s why I’m here now, so you won’t start yet. You can cook as much as you want while we wait for the dungeon timer to count down. Plus, with the wisdom increase, it should make everything easier, just like you wanted,’ Derek replied.

‘Fine…’ Silvi put away the giant pot and all the ingredients she was preparing and hopped onto Derek’s shoulder.

After that, Derek turned and looked at the rest of the party. “Silvi and I need to go test some things. You all behave while we’re gone. Walter, you’re in charge.” Walter was the best choice for the short amount of time he was going to be gone. Avery was the strongest, but Derek could see a fight club forming if he left him in charge. Tyron could have been a good choice, but he was more focused on extracting materials from beasts for now.

“Wait! You think…” Victor started, but after receiving a glare from Derek, he stopped.

“Yes, I do think,” Derek said, then he vanished, followed by Silvi. He was using Active Void Shift to its fullest and pushing it as far as his Void Sense could take him. After ten shifts, he figured he was far enough away from the group to experience whatever the wisdom breakthrough would do to him. A few seconds later, Silvi appeared beside him.

‘No fair!’ she sent to him. ‘You can go further with my skill. It’s no fair!’

“I may have a greater distance because of my Void Sense, but you are much more agile and quicker when using it because of your level with it. I still have to consciously pick out where I want to go. You seem to be able to do that instinctively,” Derek said, not bothering to use their bond to speak. He much preferred to talk out loud.

‘Hmph,’ he heard Silvi harrumph inside his head.

“Okay,” Derek ignored her and said. “We have 700 free stat points to spend. We’re going to use 469 of them to increase our wisdom to 1500. Where do you want to put the rest? I say we spread the rest out evenly between strength and dexterity. What do you think?”

‘Of course,’ Silvi sent. ‘Need to keep dexterity and strength the same. I don’t want to be fat.’

She was talking about the effect it would have if they were to lopsidedly invest into strength over dexterity. As for her getting fat, even though she was a Gluttonous Void Bunny, she hadn’t gained any weight, even though she was constantly cooking and eating. In fact, he didn’t know what possible side effects her race would have, so that was something he wanted to watch carefully.

“Well, that’s sounds good to me. Are you ready?” he asked and when Silvi agreed, he put the points into wisdom.

Just like all the times before, there was a delay, then the pain came. Though, this time, the pain wasn’t as bade as it had been previous times. It was actually about the same as when he took that poison potion back when he was testing potions for Roman.

Basically, he felt a snap in his brain, then was flooded with enhanced senses and a massive headache. Everything was bright and loud, his head pounded, he felt like he was having a stroke. And at his level and ability, having a stroke was nothing at all to him.

As he waited it out, he felt the speed at which the mana flowed through him increase, increasing the pain in his head, but also removing the sluggishness from the mana. After a couple minutes of everything, the pain began to fade and everything turned back to normal—well, enhanced, but normal.

Everything seemed so much more clear. His thoughts flowed faster, and his senses were sharper. It felt like he had a better perception of the things around him. But the mana and the speed at which he could channel it was the true gain. He would no longer have to take attacks from enemies in order to charge Harbinger—at least he wouldn’t for near as long as before.

He would have to test it out soon. Also, after this huge increase, his mana pool had finally caught up to his health pool and stamina pool. He would need to use Greater Meditation even less in the future. Derek looked at Silvi, and she looked back. She looked confused. He could understand what she was thinking.

First, intelligence hadn’t been terrible to go through, but he could write that off as his endurance and vitality making the density of the mana expanding in his body not hurt as bad. But wisdom was all magic. There wasn’t any physical pain involved—even though it sure felt physical. So endurance shouldn’t have affected that. Derek shrugged. “Maybe it’s our upgraded races,” he said.

He was about to speak again, but he was hit by a notification that he couldn’t control.

And just like that, the system notification had disappeared just as fast as it had appeared. Its disappearance left Derek sitting, staring into space in stunned silence. What the hell was that? It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten errors in his messages.

It first happened when the system was rewarding him for completing the whale trial. Now, it had happened again, but this time had given him more of a clue. What kind of system interference is it? Is it system interference from Earth’s system or is it from that weird other system? Obviously, I was receiving something for advancing four stats all the way to 1500, but something stopped it.

Derek frowned and continued sitting there, thinking. He wasn’t angry, just disappointed with the ‘Great’ System once again. Yet again it tried to reward him, but left him wanting. Fortunately, this time didn’t hit as hard as the other times because he hadn’t even known he was working toward anything—though he had thought there might have been an Achievement or something for getting four stats to 1500. At least now he knew that there was something, just not what.

He shrugged his disappointment away and divided his remaining stat points between strength and dexterity. Once again, he decided to put the things he had no control over to the back of his mind. He was sure that one day, he’d figure everything out, but unfortunately, that day wouldn’t be today.