As the sun slowly rose over the horizon, Eden held out the Necronomicon as faint flickers of black energy coalesced in front of him, and he said, "I cast Dark Pool."
The flickers of black energy gathered in front of Eden, shaping themselves in an intricate circle with dark runes along its edge, before a large section of the ground in front of him turned black, a pool made of shadows manifesting.
It looked like a small sea of shadows, calm at the moment, yet if one looked carefully at it, one would see it was fluctuating. Were anyone to step on it, they would find tendrils latching onto them, dragging them down.
The magical circle disappeared as Eden slapped his thigh happily. He sent a glance at his status, and indeed, his Wisdom had once again improved.
[Name: Ozymandias]
[Title: Monster Hunter II, STD Free]
[Talent: Soul Overlord]
[HP: 100/100]
[MP: 220/220]
[Strength: 8]
[Agility: 9 (11)]
[Physique: 10]
[Intelligence: 19 (22)]
[Wisdom: 19 (21)]
[Skills: Analyze (Support), Demon Claw (1st Circle), Dark Pool (1st Circle), Evil Possession (1st Circle), Strengthened Fireball (2nd Circle)]
[Currency: 8545 Dream Points]
[Dark Pool (1st Circle): Conjure a circular, 5 meters wide circle on the ground that lasts 10 (20) seconds, lowering the movement speed of anyone standing within. Cost: 85 (25) MP.]
As expected, where Intelligence grew when he spent his mana and regenerated it, his Wisdom improved with the mastery of spells.
Eden also understood why spells were split between circles instead of ranks. Presumably, bringing Strengthened Fireball to perfect mastery would make two magical circles appear.
As for how he had managed to manifest it, it was a matter of will and intent. As it turned out, Eden had been going at his spells in the wrong way, or rather, the wrong order.
He had already tried to announce his spells aloud before and had abandoned the idea when it did not result in anything. That was because of visualization.
Then, from there, because of his Talent, Eden had solely focused on mana manipulation, which was supposed to be the last step towards spell mastery.
The key to mastering a spell was intent, as it was what allowed the mana to perform whatever transformation was needed to use the spell. This was done through his visualization before, but it was limited because visualization is first and foremost used to guide mana.
Visualization is supposed to be the mid-way point in mastering a spell, as it was the thing supposed to teach a mage how mana for a certain spell behaved.
Thus, it was a matter of replacing the visualization with pure intent, to will the concepts behind the spell into being. That's where the verbal component came in, as speaking out the name of the spell allowed him to focus his intent.
And so, with that, Eden finally managed to bring his first spell to perfect mastery. This also gave Eden two options to cast his spells: he could fully cast it, speaking out and manifesting a spirit circle for maximum effect, or he could also do it the way he had been doing until now, that is, silently casting it. Doing so would result in diminished effects, but it was silent and did not require any gestures.
Anyway, from there, mastering Demon Claw was not much harder. The reason Dark Pool had taken him until dawn to fully master was that he was in uncharted territory, slowly rediscovering the way he cast magic, but now that he had found it, things went much faster.
It only took him half an hour to bring Demon Claw to its utmost potential.
[Demon Claw (1st Circle): Conjure a large demon's claw to deal 10 (50) necrotic damage. Cost: 80 (25) MP.]
Eden had thus gained his first viable attacking method. 50 necrotic damage was a large enough amount to kill the average man. Of course, as a Free Player, Eden would certainly not deal exactly 50 damage.
However, even though Demon Claw could only attack at ground level, it dealt necrotic damage, not physical damage, meaning that the damage did not so much come from the scratch, but from the energy being transmitted through it.
Of course, from what Eden had seen, aiming still played a role. If he had to guess, vital areas transmitted the necrotic energy more easily than non-vital ones. And that was without taking the Necronomicon's 35% boost into account, which brought the damage to 67,5.
More importantly, it only cost him 25 MP, meaning that with the Necronomicon in hand, Eden could cast Demon Claw 8 times before running out of mana.
Of course, Eden did not stop there and followed up with Strengthened Fireball.
The 2nd Circle spell was noticeably more complex than the 1st Circle ones, but Eden had already mastered the visualizations. What gave Eden some more trouble was the intent itself, as Eden found it hard to manage to make the spell circles manifest.
It was not simply a matter of willing it hard enough, but of properly applying it mentally. Thankfully, this was not something that used mana, as mana would only be used when the spell was cast, which meant success.
And fortunately, after a couple of hours, Eden managed to do it.
At first, he had tried to stack the spell circles on top of one another, but when that did not work, he decided to merge them instead.
The final product was a pair of concentric circles, with a set of magical runes beneath each circle. Eden had no idea what these runes meant, but a large fireball was fired nonetheless. It flew barely a meter above the sea, evaporating a thin layer on top, before exploding thirty meters away.
A large amount of steam was created as the explosion was greater than any before.
[Strengthened Fireball (2nd Circle): Condense a ball of fire and send it flying, making it explode at will. Explodes on impact, deals 60 (95) fire damage to every target within a two-meter radius. Cost: 180 (50) MP.]
Strengthened Fireball drained a far greater amount of mana than 1st Circle spells did, but its damage now almost matched that of Dark Bolt, and that for nearly half the price. With the Necronomicon equipped, Eden was now able to use it twice in a row, which represented a large increase in power.
Eden was also glad to find that the damage to MP ratio had drastically improved with the mastery of the spell, turning the spell truly viable. Of course, even without that, it would have remained a powerful weapon, as in any battle, the ratio between defence and attack should also be taken into account when dealing damage.
It was invisible to Eden, but everyone had a defence value. It mainly stemmed from Physique and whatever equipment they had on. Whenever he tried to deal damage, his attack would clash against that defence.
If the defence value vastly overpowered one's attack, then that attack would deal next to no damage. On the other hand, if the attack vastly outstripped their defence, then it would deal additional damage.
So, even if the cost-to-damage ratio worsened with the level of spells, higher-level spells would still have been useful.
Of course, even though that ratio had improved, lower-level spells were not useless either. Eden intended to keep using Demon Claw with most NPCs in this world, as they mostly had average attributes.
Considering how often they were on ships, it also limited Eden's ability to use Strengthened Fireball, as it would easily burn up ships and sink them, which was best to avoid if he was also on them.
Looking out at the sea, Eden examined the horizon for any trace of a ship, and upon finding none, he turned to the three pirates and Drakon. They were all awake now and were gawking at the rising steam from his fireball.
He was starting to get tired, but he did not trust them enough to sleep next to them. Especially not Drakon.
He could try to find a hidden spot on the island to sleep, but not only was that not 100% safe, but if a ship passed by, they would not know where he was and possibly leave without him. That would be a problem, as while he understood he would not be able to stick with Drakon indefinitely, he still needed to get off the island.
… he was starting to miss Guardian. Had the giant undead still been alive, Eden could have slept without worrying about an attack.
Unfortunately, Eden neither had enough MP to summon him, nor did he have someone he could turn into an Evil Servant.
Steeling himself, Eden looked down at the Necronomicon, and after a moment, put it back in his Inventory and moved away from the group. They looked curious, but as they saw him taking out the Skull and the miasma that followed, they said nothing before a fireball was fired into the sky.
Having mastered the spells he wanted to, Eden had three possible avenues to train in: read Morgan's notes, train his Wisdom by studying the Necronomicon further and making new spells, or simply spam fireballs to train his Intelligence.
Of the three, Morgan's notes were lowest in the priority lost. Although any intellectual activity would somewhat train Intelligence and Wisdom, it was to a very minor degree, and again, Eden doubted he could make any relevant progress in it.
Spamming fireballs was only so much better, too, as Eden had already mastered the spell, and so this action would only serve the purpose of training his Intelligence, and possibly draw ships to them.
In comparison, studying the Necronomicon was a much better option. Not only would it be just as effective in raising his Wisdom, which was also on the verge of a breakthrough, but he would also get to learn more spells, which would be beneficial in both the short and long term. Moreover, it was much harder to do at night than in the day.
However, Eden still went with the Intelligence option for several reasons. First, he was tired and thus not in an optimal state for research. He had mastered Strengthened Fireball, and it was just a master of repeating it, then recovering his mana.
Secondly, a ship would
presumably come to pick them up during the day, and once on the ship, it would be impossible for Eden to train his Intelligence as he could not take out the Skull without affecting everyone on board, so by then he would get the time to train his Wisdom. That, or any other place, for that matter.
With the way things had transpired so far, Eden no longer needed to worry about exposing himself as a wizard, so studying the Necronomicon before others was not as much of an issue.
So, Eden sat down with the Skull between his legs and held the Necronomicon in his hand as he started casting fireballs into the sky.
As he did, Eden wondered how long it would take him to break through to 20 Intelligence, and whether it or the proverbial ship would come first.
As it turned out, hard work won out in the end.
Eden shot his second fireball into the sky, exploding some distance into the sky. Any residual heat from the continuous explosions of flames had been negated by the necrotic energy, which was inherently chilly.
Closing his eyes, Eden led the first strands of mana and necrotic energy his body absorbed to his heart, and into his ember. The ember grew brighter and bigger as a result, but having performed the operation hundreds, if not thousands, of times already, Eden could immediately tell something was amiss.
A part of the mana he had sent into it had been absorbed. It was a fraction of a strand, and Eden would have missed it if not for his Talent, but he felt that the mana ejected from it was slightly less than what had entered, which had never happened, as far as Eden could tell.
Moreover, as he continued feeding it, it kept absorbing a small part of each strand, and for once, even as Eden's pores reached their maximum size, he kept feeding the ember. He could feel that his ember was going through a magical transformation, and the more he fed it, the more pronounced the effects became.
Eden rapidly came across a problem, however, as his body started getting full of mana. Usually, he would just end it there, as he guessed reaching over-saturation was no good. Chances were he would end up ruining his internal body, or even explode himself.
However, Eden could feel that his ember still had room for growth. He guessed that he was in the process of evolving from Tier 0 to Tier 1, and while he would still evolve even if he stopped here, he would be missing out on something.
The obvious solution would be to spend some of his mana, but he was already concentrating on his Talent to feed his ember, meaning he could not use a spell without breaking the feeding loop, which would bring him back to square one.
Still, Eden was not going to so easily settle for a lesser evolution, so he carefully tried to split the effects of his talent, to direct several strands in different directions.
It came to him more easily than he thought, but he soon came across another problem: he could not eject the mana out of his body.
As powerful as Eden's Talent was, it only worked internally, and thus, while he could push his mana to his pores, he could not force it out. At least, not with the current suction rate.
Since he could not do it with his Talent, he would have to do it by himself.
His hold over the strands of mana feeding his ember flickered as Eden willed for his mana to move out of his body, prompting him to quickly stop as he realized this was not the way to go. He did not have much time to think, though, so he went for his next idea.
Simply pushing the mana out of his body would take so Eden decided to be gentler about it, and take advantage of the already present movement.
Although the mana within his body was moving at all times, without the help of his Talent, Eden only had a faint sense of his mana and its movements. It was enough to move large chunks of mana for spells, but this required more finesse.
Fortunately, Eden was standing in the middle of a necrotic miasma, and although it was getting purged by his ember, Eden could still vividly feel it on its way in.
Even though he was using his Talent to focus on feeding his ember, its protection did not disappear, and the small tingling of the necrotic energy clashing against his Talent allowed Eden to get a much more precise feel of the mana surrounding it.
So, Eden attempted to divert the necrotic energy heading towards his heart, gently guiding it around his body, pushing it against his pores. His hold over the strands in his heart trembled once more, and the suction force from his pores fought to keep all the energy in, but Eden kept at it.
And much to Eden's joy, small amounts of mana started getting ejected out of his body.
Beads of sweat trickled down the side of Eden's deeply frowning face as he fought against the powerful headache settling into his cranium, as he forced himself to perform two things at once, all the while being tired already.
The ember kept growing, sparks igniting around it, and with it, Eden felt his control over his mana, reserves, and regeneration all improve. Guiding the mana out of his body became easier, until Eden suddenly felt like a small bomb had gone off inside him.
The ember, glowing brighter than it ever had, suddenly split off into a multitude of embers, all quickly reaching the side of the original one as the sparks grew along them, until one of them caught.
All the mana Eden had imbued into the embers was instantly devoured, along with a good part of the mana Eden had been directing out. A blinding light was emitted from it, but Eden's metaphysical eye was not disturbed in the slightest as he watched a flame form.
{Congratulations on reaching Tier I, Ozy!}