Thalion and Sylas sat on the ground in the chambers Kael had gifted him, wildly discussing the easiest way to change a spell. Thalion argued that you need to feel the flow of mana and change its flow, while Sylas argued that you need to change the skill fragments altogether, so you program the mana from the start and not while it’s flowing.

“But how do you know how to change the skill itself when you don’t know how the mana needs to flow for, say, a flamethrower?” Thalion asked Sylas.

“It’s a bit of a gamble. You need to rearrange the skill fragments in the right way. Instead of condensing, you need to form the symbol for some kind of firestreak,” Sylas explained.

“And how does this symbol look?” Thalion sighed.

“Well, that’s why I said it’s a bit of a gamble. For my skill adaptation, I added more at the end to condense it longer, so I built some kind of spear,” Sylas said with a shrug.

“And how did you see these so-called skill fractals?” Thalion asked, intrigued. Until now he had never heard the term before.

“You don’t see them; they’re basically the blueprint of a building that tells you how to channel the spell. When you push mana into the skill, the skill uses the mana in exactly that way, and you need to track the mana you use to then change it,” Sylas explained as it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Isn’t that exactly what I’m doing?” Thalion said, exasperated.

“Well, kind of. My patron explained it to me, but I might not have fully understood the difference between the two concepts,” Sylas said, scratching the back of his head.

With that cleared up, another round of testing started. They had moved all the furniture out of the way so they had an area of approximately twenty meters where they could test spells without hitting anything.

Thalion summoned fireball after fireball with only small progress. Before the fireball fully formed, he managed to create a very tiny flamethrower, maybe enough to warm his tea—but once the fireball fully gathered, he couldn’t change the spell anymore. It felt like his access to it was blocked. Sylas had similar struggles. He wanted to turn one of his wind spells, which pushed enemies away, into a windblade, but even when the wind condensed more than before, it wasn’t a real improvement. After an hour of trying, they at least had a lot of fun. One would cast the skill they wanted to change while the other commented on it, or they’d simply laugh.

“This time it will work,” Sylas said, his chest puffed up, trying not to laugh while Thalion was nearly rolling off the chair he sat on.

“Behold the power of the windblade!” Sylas announced, casting the spell. A strong windblade cut deeply into the wall on the other end.

Thalion nearly choked on his laughter as he saw the powerful skill unleashed. “Hey, how did you do it?” Thalion asked after a brief silence. Sylas was equally flabbergasted—he clearly didn’t expect the skill to work like that.

“I think we were trying too slowly. You need to change everything at the same time, almost before you cast it,” Sylas said after a short pause.

“Change it before I cast it?” Thalion asked, noting that Sylas really sucked at teaching.

“Yeah, you just need to feel it, have it in your blood,” Sylas exclaimed, as if it wasn’t just a coincidence.

“Great, then I’ll do just that,” Thalion muttered, moving to the center of the room as Sylas bounced around him like a little fairy.

Thalion channeled another fireball and tried to transform it, but this time, he cast it faster. It actually worked—not fully, but much better than before.

“There, did you see it? I told you! Just listen to your instincts and your blood!” Sylas excitedly said.

“Yeah, you did,” Thalion nodded. “Next time, instead of saying I need to feel it or listen to my blood, just tell me to cast the skill faster.”

“Yes, exactly! That’s what I meant,” Sylas happily agreed.

“One more thing—did the description of your skill change?” Thalion asked.

“No, it was the same with the other skill I changed. You just upgrade its rarity, meaning that for an F-grade skill, it grows in power.”

“Interesting, but can you do it again?” Thalion wondered.

“Yes, of course,” Sylas said while casting another windblade into the wall. “Even better, I can do both with the skill.” Soon after, he cast the skill again and changed it into a windball, and a gust of wind rushed through the room.

Thalion continuously cast his skill, even drinking a mana potion to keep the pace up. He felt close to a breakthrough, and then it worked—a strong, constant flame shot out of his hand. He could even empower it by fueling it with more mana. The downside was that the wall had now turned from white to black.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Damn, that’s sick,” Sylas said, giving him a high-five.

After another round of improving their skills further, Sylas left, saying he wanted to check on some things before the gathering. Thalion was almost out of mana from repeatedly casting his fire spell with only brief pauses, so he switched to purifying his blood. He had been thinking a lot about the past few days. He wasn’t the strongest; he even had to run from the red orc. Was his approach wrong? He had invested a lot in his future through scrolls and information but barely had time to use them with the constant fighting. His leveling had slowed down considerably. He only managed to reach Level 36 as a human and Level 37 as an umbral predator, while eagly reached the same level. Thalion put his free points into wisdom as a human and into dexterity as an umbral predator. Sadly, eagly didn’t get free points from leveling up.

His next concern was whether he had messed up by pushing eagly to such a level and gathering skills from other birds instead of discarding eagly. The manta creature had more mana and wisdom to keep thunder skills active for longer but was much slower than eagly and a poor match against the orcs. It should be fine and he really liked the form of the eagle. Flying with it just felt so smooth.

His original plan had been to focus more on skills and technique, killing higher-level enemies to gain more experience and level up faster. In the end, he thought his actions were fine—they had brought him to where he was now, and he liked it. Being stronger would always be better, but focusing on technique and body-tempering had given him high rarity classes and significant advantages. Even if he could have been ten levels higher, he didn’t think it would be worth it if his class hadn’t been of high rarity. His mystic skills made him much stronger and faster than most fighters he’d encountered, many of whom were blessed by gods. Maybe he was doing exactly the right thing.

It was only a few days until the system shops appeared, and he already knew what he wanted to buy: a soul tempering method and some things for eagly that might trigger an evolution. If such a thing was possible, he would take it. Another thing he hoped for was a body-tempering method for eagly to align him more with wind and lightning, and hopefully give him some mana so he could cast his skills for longer.

For now, Thalion fully immersed himself in blood purification. Even though he was faster at noticing blockages in his blood, it still took time. He sat by the fireplace until he received a message from Kael that they would meet in his room in half an hour. Shortly after, he left for Kael’s room to discuss some points before the big gathering.

When Thalion arrived, everyone else had already gathered: Kael, Kai, Sylas (who looked a bit sour now), Kargul, Evelyn, Annie, and Jakob.

“So, what’s the plan for tonight?” Jakob asked.

“There are a lot of things to discuss. I still don’t know what Garrick wants, since he said he was very exhausted from the long battle and needed rest,” Kael said, “so that will reveal itself at the gathering.”

“And what about Michael?” Thalion asked. “Have you thrown him out yet?”

“No, he will also be at the meeting. It would reflect badly on us if we threw him out after losing so many. As long as he doesn’t mess up when I confront him, I won’t throw him out or kill him,” Kael said. “We aren’t facing an existential crisis, so I’ll give him a chance.”

“Hold up,” Kael said before the others could retort. “I think I have a good solution for this mess. I’ll give him tasks to redeem himself, like gathering materials for the craftsmen and alchemists. A lot of work. He’ll fall behind in levels, for sure—or at least his followers will. And if they don’t meet their daily quota, I’ll throw them out for good.”

“That’s actually a good plan,” Thalion thought. The others probably agreed, as most nodded in agreement—except Sylas, who thought it would only bring trouble, and Kargul, who probably didn’t even know who Michael was.

“So, what are your thoughts on Garrick? Can we trust him?” Kael asked the group.

Evelyn answered immediately, before anyone else could. “No, the guy is hiding something. He knows a lot of people living here, besides Lisa. Given time, he might be even more dangerous than Michael. He was also holding back during the whole fight, only engaging at the end to make a show.”

“And they have shapeshifters trying something on me and Kargul,” she added.

“Wait, you mean shapeshifters like Thalion?” Sylas exclaimed in surprise.

“Well, yes, they can take the form of beasts, but they’re much weaker,” Evelyn said. “If anyone comes close to that monster… how many orcs did you even kill today?”

“I don’t know, a lot. Didn’t count the kill notifications,” Thalion shrugged. “Tell me more about those shapeshifters and their forms.”

“They all have a bear form, then it differs. Some are wolves, others are big cats. One even transformed into a beetle the size of a cow,” Evelyn explained.

“Those could be very problematic when they attack hunting parties in beast form. We can’t be sure if it’s them or a wild beast,” Kai mentioned, deep in thought.

“Those forms are pretty fast, so they’d be great for gathering materials,” Thalion said with a smile.

“I don’t have a reason to give them such duties at the moment,” Kael said. “And it would weaken my position against Garrick if he’s really aiming for my job.”

“I can put all the newcomers in restricted areas to start with,” Kael thought aloud. “That way, at least, we can keep an eye on them.”

“You should put Michael and his gang there too,” Sylas nodded.

“That will happen anyway,” Kael said. “I’m not letting someone who most likely killed survivors in this base roam free.”

“What are you doing with the two ring walls the orcs built around us?” Kai asked.

“We’ll integrate them into the base. I’ve spoken with many craftsmen and some mages. They can add runes to the walls. I’ll also have some bridges available when the system shop arrives to connect our walls with the two ring walls that surround us. Once we deal with the orcs in the tower, I can add crystals to the walls and directly upgrade them using the system shop.”

“Speaking of the orcs, what are we doing with them?” Annie asked.

“It depends on what the people at the gathering decide,” Kael answered. “The orcs have already surrendered. I’d give them the opportunity to join us, and if not, they’ll have to leave.”

“Sounds fair, but you should do it at the end, since it will help Michael and Garrick with their plotting,” Kai interjected.

“Sure. So, those are the most important things. After the system shop, our defenses should be good enough to prevent something like this from happening again,” Kael said, frustrated.

“There’s still Steven, Thorwald, and many other small factions,” Kai mentioned.

“Yeah, but their patron forbade them from fighting us, just as mine gave me similar orders. And our protection will be strong enough that they can’t fight us, even if they wanted to,” Kael explained. “For now, we need to get as strong as possible. I’m planning to advance with the whole base in four to five weeks. Then we should have seven or eight weeks until the special events start on the fifth stage.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. It would be a long road ahead, with plenty of killing before they moved to the fourth stage. Thalion wondered how many would turn into murderers when every single person in the base had around 50,000 credits.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep