Azotreh awoke to a flood of system messages, telling of everything that had happened over the last day. They pushed the blue boxes away, though a gold one remained in their vision. The box simply refused to leave until Azotreh read it.
[The Overlord of Gluttony is impressed with your endeavors. Survive your Tribulation of Power to receive a reward!]
That gave Azotreh pause. Overlord? Tribulation? They reached back through their messages to find any mentions of them.
[For adding another Archetype to your existence, you have triggered a Tribulation of Power. As this is your first Tribulation of Power, it will occur in 3:5:23:41]
There were no results for Overlord.
They had no idea what a Tribulation of Power was, but it certainly didn't sound good. So they rushed out of their little room, the tension built up from days under the care of that awful goblin returned in full force, but they didn't stop.
Azotreh's metaphysical body was capable of rapid and grand changes, including removing cramps and other things. It was simply instinct to have the tension. An instinct they suppressed in order to rush to the obelisk.
Inside, a small fox was sitting on the central table, two tails wagging happily. Errazorrus was focusing on something, and Fuzem was slowly falling out of her chair onto the floor.
"Where's Nicholas?" Azotreh asked, rather panicked.
The fox's ears perked up at the new name, and she looked at Errazorrus for an answer.
Errazorrus grabbed onto his connection to Nicholas for an answer, finding the man standing over the hole, feeding more astral vines to it.
The first time he threw a vine into the pit, it gave Azotreh an ability called Astrum Shaping and a pile of raw Astrum to play with. This time, he was trying to create a second ability. The ability was random, but he was still trying to make one.
Errazorrus tugged on their connection, trying to pull Nicholas back to the obelisk. Nicholas waved him off to keep throwing sticks. Errazorrus kept tugging, but Nicholas was sure of something. He had to finish his latest test.
Errazorrus had no idea why he was throwing the smallest sticks into the pit until Nicholas chose the 'Create Random Ability' option. He grinned as a new ability manifested itself.
[Gained Ability: Astral Bolt]
Nicholas popped his fingers before simply dropping the rest of the material into the pit and choosing to increase their Astral Attunement to 0.02%. Then he entered the obelisk.
"I've figured it out-" He began as he entered, only to see Azotreh shaky. The grin on his lips dropped.
"What's wrong?" he asked as Azotreh looked up at him.
"Nicholas, what's a Tribulation of Power?" The child asked. Nicholas frowned.
"I have no idea, but I'll spitball based on what I do know. In my world, a tribulation is some great trouble or event that causes great harm. Trials to be overcome through extreme effort and willpower. As for how it manifests here, it'll likely either be something that almost kills us or a trial we have to complete."
After his quick idea creation, he looked to both Errazorrus and Fuzem. The slime was falling out of her chair, but Nicholas tugged on their connection, causing the slime to awaken with a jolt. Then he asked his question, "Do either of you know what a Tribulation of Power is?"
Both the dragon and the slime shrugged in response, making it clear they had no idea. He sighed. Without further information, it was impossible to prepare, meaning that other tasks had to come first.
"Well, first are my most recent findings," Nicholas began, "I'm not sure on the scale, but comparing the required amount of astral infection to create Astrum Shaping and Astral Bolt, it's clear that the required amount is increasing each time. I guess it's close to a 1% infection growth. So Astrum Shaping took 1%, and Astral Bolt took 2%. I might be wrong, since I wasn't sure about the required mass for Astral Shaping, but I think I'm right."
The others nodded in agreement before Nicholas continued.
"I was also given another option from Devour, one that ceased to exist because we haven't manifested our dungeon. As such, that's my plan for today. Finding out how, and doing it."
The fox seemed a little disturbed by the idea of a dungeon, but communicated that it was probably fine, considering it was Azotreh's dungeon, and not the Enslaver's.
The pair woke up in the real world, the fox hopping off as Nicholas and Fuzem worked to restore Azotreh's form. From a cerulean puddle, the form of the draconic child reappeared.
Ruby looked up at her new bond with joy. It was good to know that they truly were around her age, even though she confirmed that when Azotreh entered the obelisk, and when she looked at their status.
Azotreh, with Nicholas behind the wheel, looked at a smooth wall. It was created when Fuzem expanded the cave with her slime, leaving a perfectly smooth surface behind.
"Manifest dungeon." They said.
[Dungeon Nexus Manifestation operation initiated.]
[Choose location]
A light green outline appeared attached to the wall of the cave. It was spherical, not revealing the form of the core. When Nicholas mentally moved it into the air, the outline turned red. When he tried to place it on a hunch, he was proven correct.
[Location incompatible with Dungeon Nexus.]
He then moved it back to the wall and willed for it to manifest there instead.
[Are you sure you would like to manifest Dungeon Nexus here?]
Confirmation messages? First time they'd seen that. But they selected yes.
[Dungeon Nexus beginning manifestation. Completion estimate: 4:23:59:59]
Azotreh suddenly felt a headache appear as their mana was sucked dry. It was a slight pulsing headache, irritating and causing them to lose focus, but not debilitating.
Azotreh watched as small amounts of crimson-blue flesh began to grow from the air and stone wall. No crystal, no teeth, just raw flesh that began to beat very slightly.
Ruby hid behind Azotreh as the flesh began to manifest itself. Considering their mana, it was kind of obvious where the energy to create the flesh came from. Even so, it was rather creepy and off-putting to watch flesh simply manifest itself from the air. So Azotreh stopped watching; instead, they left with Ruby hot on their heels.
Azotreh didn't feel hunger, or didn't think they did anyway. They hadn't eaten in four days and were still not hungry. But while they didn't feel it, Ruby certainly did. She looked rather sickly before, but now it was even more obvious.
So Azotreh began the hunt. They had a new ability to test, and a familiar to feed.
A horned rabbit was pulling some root vegetable from the ground. It looked like a potato, but was a little purple. Maybe some screwed up sweet potato? They didn't know.
Azotreh watched the rabbit for a moment as Errazorrus paused the nexus manifestation. Then they waited. The rabbit was struggling, and after a few seconds, they had enough mana to use the ability.
A collection of runic symbols appeared in their soul as Nicholas watched it. He didn't know what they meant, but didn't need to. They spun as he recited the words for Astral Bolt. The activation words for an ability were simply its name, but that could often give away stealthy people. Considering Azotreh had acquired the Sneak skill after moving as close to silently through the forest as they could, they were clearly stealthy.
But if Nicholas recited the words within their soul, no sound was expressed, leaving Azotreh utterly silent as the purple energy built up around their finger. The ability activated a split second after beginning, and the runes surrounding its statue lit up.
A concentrated blast of purple and gold light slammed into the horned rabbit. It leapt into the air as the bolt deflected off its fur and into the brush. It turned angry eyes on Azotreh as they began to cast again. The rabbit hopped towards them with murder in its eyes as a second bolt hit its flank.
The second bolt was a little more effective, causing the small animal to begin bleeding. But it didn't halt its approach. Azotreh only got a third shot in before the rabbit leapt forward and pierced Azotreh with its horn.
It was painful, and immediately blew a third of Azotreh's health, but they survived. The horned rabbit bounced back, and a fourth bolt hit it in the stomach. It made a horrific sound before tumbling to the ground.
It turned its back to run, but Fuzem took the opportunity and pushed Azotreh's hand to extend into slime. It slithered forward and grabbed the rabbit by the back leg. It kicked itself free, dealing another ninth of Azotreh's prana in a single hit. But that wasn't enough to stop the slime on the hunt.
Fuzem pushed another two tentacles free. One was smashed as it tried the same thing, but the second grabbed the rabbit by the stomach. As neither set of legs could reach the tendril, it lifted the rabbit into the air.
From there, the hunt was simple, just filling the rabbit with holes. Astral Bolt was used over and over to evicerate the little thing.
After that, Azotreh looted the corpse, draining it of its magic. Then they stored the corpse in their inventory, which had leveled twice due to the sheer quantity of stuff in it.
[Ability: Astral Bolt has reached level five! The depth of your– ERR]
Nicholas sighed before mentally telling the skill system to change all notifications related to their resources into the generic versions.
[Ability: Astral Bolt has reached level five! The depth of Intelligence has increased by 1. The depth of Mana Regeneration has increased by 0.1.]
He nodded at the new notification. It was good to know which statistics certain abilities improved. Intelligence determined the raw power of any spell or spell-based ability. He was also happy to learn that Mana Regeneration increased.
[Skill: Sneak has reached Apprentice 2! The depth of Potens: Stealth, Evasion has increased by 1.]
First skill to reach its second level. They'd left the astrum behind when the nexus began to manifest. No reason to remain there. It granted a larger boost than the standard 0.2 of most abilities, while not being as difficult to advance. At least, not yet.
[Killed Horned Rabbit]
[Base EXP: 10]
[Rank Disparity Bonus: +0%]
[Grade Disparity Bonus: 10]
[Gained: 20 EXP]
[Due to killing the entity with the ability: Astral Bolt, Astral Bolt has gained 10XP]
[Gained title: Rabbit Slayer I]
Nicholas was confused about the difference between EXP and XP, but Azotreh waved him off by just saying it's a terminology thing. That it doesn't really matter.
In the time it took Azotreh to kill one rabbit, Ruby had killed two squirrels. Her Squirrel Slayer II title granted a 10% damage bonus to all squirrel-type enemies. What was classified as squirrel-type was confusing, considering most squirrels didn't have eyes like cut amethyst or six legs. Ruby only said that they were squirrels, so they were affected.
Azotreh could only sigh as Ruby began to dig into the carcasses. They used some slime to harvest the eyes, at least. It was a careful process, but Fuzem managed to fit enough slime in to melt the optic nerve and a small amount of the skull. The eyes were still damaged, but not to the point of being destroyed.
[Gained Skill: Slimy Harvesting (Apprentice-1)]
"There's no way that skill already existed, right? Azotreh said there weren't slimes before." Nicholas asked. Errazorrus just shrugged.
"The system is all-powerful here; who knows what it can't do?"
"Remove the limits on abilities…" Nicholas sighed before returning to the kill.
"Why even have harvesting skills if looting powers exist?"
"Because looting powers target specific parts. Basic Looting has only given us a rabbit skin, the rabbit's horn, and ten Tin Rank Arbesti Coins. It didn't give us their eyes, right?"
"What are arbesti coins anyway?" Nicholas asked as he pulled one from the air. The four had found that due to the semi-real space of the obelisk, they could remove items from their inventory within. Though not outside.
The coin was nonagonal, with an imprint on one side of a sphere held within what appeared to be ribs. On the other, it had an image of four dots surrounding a central eye. The entire coin was the color of tin, but with some blue and red sparks floating within.
The ribs side had text in a circle near the outside reading, "From the power of the Beast Core, to the coin in your hand."
The eye side read, "Generated by Azotreh, do not copy."
Azotreh was actually the one to respond to Nicholas's question, "It looks like an alchemic coin, though alchemic coins only have six sides. Mom used to say that there were other kinds, but most people use the alchemic coins."
"Why? I got ten coins from killing a rabbit. Why isn't everyone rich?"
"Because alchemic coins come from monsters. It's the job of anyone with any power to kill monsters, so they're in wider circulation. They also naturally appear from Mana Storms. As for why Arbesti Coins aren't in circulation, it's likely this."
Azotreh pulled another coin from the air, then pushed their will at the little object.
[Would you like to transform 1 tin rank arbesti coin into 1 tin rank alchemic coin?]
Azotreh put the coin back after the notification appeared.
"So why don't people convert alchemic coins to other ones? Aren't there collectors here?" Nicholas was quick to ask. He was something of a collector himself in his past life. Or fancied himself one. All he really did was take the most interesting penny he could from anywhere he could find one.
"Because you can't convert them back. Alchemic coins are pure magic, holding no remnant of the monster in question. They can appear in different alignments when dropped from elite or greater monsters, but they don't carry traces of the archetype. The red and blue spots in that coin aren't in an alchemic coin. That, and their description says that they decrease Astral Purity by 1 in return for momentary increased power and complete resource regeneration."
Astral Purity determined how much of the soul belonged to the person within. So lowering it too much was bad. It even caused Nicholas to flinch.
"Gotcha. No eating coins."