"I mean that"s a good alibi. I definitely thought the two of you were a thing!" whisper shouted Donis."Yeeeah, cap"n and I have been friends for years. I actually had a crush on her for years, but when she told me I was floored. My pride was almost wounded! This handsome face not being able to attract someone was getting to me hahah," Jimmy laughed.
"Yeah, okay Jimmy," laughed Donis.
Afterwards the two went their separate ways to not alert anyone of their being together. They didn"t want to arouse any suspicion, especially not Strigas.
Donis went back inside the headquarters and went up to his own room in the attic. He knew he had a lot of new skills to look through from the battle with the Sandracon queen, since the mages there didn"t hold back on using them. If they knew of Donis"s ability, they may not have used everything they had seen.
Laying in bed and cuddling up to Etheria, Donis perused his new skills, and there plenty, but most of them were either worse versions of his own spells. This allowed him to narrow it down to the top 5 most useable ones. Not that he lost anything in learning everything, it"s just what"s the point of learning worse skills when he already had a more powerful version.
"Time to reap some hidden rewards from the mission hehehe," he laughed greedily.
[Earth Prison], [Water Spear], [Pressurised Earth Spear], [Lightning Hand], and [Terrain Augment] were the new skills he decided would be the most worth learning. While perusing, he saw that he actually now had enough Intelligence and the required basic abilities to learn the skills he first saw when he fought with Jimmy and Striga. Namely the [Dark lightning] and [Frost Shot].
-[Earth Prison]-
[Intermediate]
[Damage: /]
[Cost: 20-150MP/s]
[Level: 1/30(+10)][0%EXP]
Requirement: Intelligence 20 + Elemental Magic.
A column of solid earth that increases it"s hardness the more mana that is pumped into it. Levels increase the speed at which it constructed. Current construction time: 10s.
-[Water Spear]-
[Intermediate]
[Damage: 80-100]
[Cost: 30MP]
[Level: 0/50(+10)][0% EXP]
Creates a spear of highly pressurised water. The more time it is given, the higher the pressure builds. Levels increase the speed at which it pressurises, increases the damage and penetrating power. Current time required to achieve max pressure: 3s.
-[Pressurised Earth Spear]-
[Intermediate]
[Damage: 50 +20-50]
[Cost: 60MP]
[Level: 0/45(+10)][0% EXP]
Creates a spear of highly pressurised earth. Upon contact the spear explodes into shrapnel, damaging everything around it. Levels increase the damage and explosion power.
-[Lightning Hand]-
[Intermediate]
[Damage: 40-60]
[Cost: 70MP]
[Level: 0/80(+10)][0% EXP]
Imbues electricity to course through the [Users] hands. Depending on the area the [User] touches, it will do more damage. Has a 40% chance to inflict paralysis for 1-2s.
-[Terrain Augment]-
[Intermediate]
[Cost: 100MP/s]
[Level: 0/30(+10)][0% EXP]
Allows the [User] to alter the terrain. Levels decrease the time required to alter the terrain and the mana cost.
-[Dark Lightning]-
[Intermediate]
[Damage: 115]
[Cost: 90MP]
[Level: 0/45(+10)][0%EXP]
Lightning infused with void magic, allowing the lightning to pa.s.s through s.p.a.ce and penetrate deeper. Levels increase the damage and reduces the mana cost.
-[Frost Shot]-
[Intermediate]
[Damage: 75]
[Cost: 70MP]
[Level: 0/60(+10)][0%EXP]
Shoots an arrow made of super cooled water, which condenses water vapour at a target location and flash freezes it.
After delving deep into the blinding euphoria that is learning new skills using the [System], Donis looked over his skillset and felt a new level of confidence. These new additions allowed him to really face up to many new threats. If he had these abilities from the beginning, maybe he would have never lost an arm.
Pushing all of that to the side, Donis went to sleep. It was late at night and he longed for the comfort of his own bed. His sheets brushed against his skin and immediately he felt safer. Tomorrow is going to be a new day, and he"ll embrace the new found look on life with vigour.
The world has shown him again and again that none of it is safe. It"s kill or be killed. He felt like he"s heard the saying before, but he couldn"t quite place where it was from, nor that he cared. Everything about his feelings are starting to feel more and more foreign the more he learns about himself. The memories, the [System], the unnamed being, and even his abilities. None of them fit the world he"s living.
***
The next day.
Donis was out in Tranner, a little section of the swamp where the monsters were around the level of 20 to 25. Donis had specifically requested a higher level area to monitor as he has proven himself resourceful and strong enough to handle almost any threat at his level.
At first Jimmy rejected the notion, but after Striga recounted of their adventure he had no more qualms with Donis going there alone.
He was tasked with monitoring the local monsters, check up any species that have far too great numbers than their projected values, cull those monsters and keep everything in line. When questioned why they do this, Striga said this.
"The local ecosystem, while monstrous in quality, is very beneficial to the town itself. If one species takes over, the locals might be harmed in more than just physical ways, a lot of people rely on them for their livelyhoods."
Donis was left speechless as she sounded so professional, but then she immediately told him that was the official answer that she was supposed to give when asked. The RI keep a tight watch on the image of the [Monster Specialists].
Donis was tasked with mostly keeping an eye on the Tranners. They"re the most dominant species of flying monsters in the area with high reproduction cycles. If left unchecked for 2 months their numbers can skyrocket.
Donis found a large group of them after wading through the murky waters, clearing the overgrowing vines and climbing atop the canopies of the trees. The area was much like the majority of the swamps, maybe a little more crowded in trees. It seems like the Tranners really like staying up high and keeping their advantages from the lower dwelling monsters.
The tops of the trees were pushed down and flattened out to make room for the ever growing populations of the Tranners. Donis whipped out the [Monster Logger] and proceeded to take note of their numbers and compared their looks to what the device told him. He didn"t need to clarify which monsters he was looking at, as his on [Inspect] was the best tool he could have.
[Tranner]
[Level: 24]
[Danger Rating: Uncommon]
[Mana State: Breath]
[Health: 870]
[Mana: 290]
[Strength: 25]
[Agility: 36]
[Perception: 40]
[Intelligence: 3]
[t.i.tles: Pack Hunter, Aerial Command]
Winged creatures with eagle-like features. Long hard beak, with a bird face, long feathers of a blue colour that cascaded into red tipped wings. The body was lithe and the feet below were coloured with a tinge of gold, tipped with long talons that gave off a dangerous quality. The feathered tail was elongated and had a slight curl at the end.
To Donis they seemed quite pretty. They definitely looked dangerous for the average adventurer of this level, and they"re probably more dangerous than Donis gave them credit, but after fighting off Sandracons nothing quite lived up to the image they gave off anymore.
Donis checked the [Monster Logger] once again and looked at the projected numbers, the numbers they should be at, and compared them to what he saw now. The projected numbers seemed to be correct. The Tranners were at an increase of 30% of their required size. He"d need to cull about 50 of them to try and keep the numbers in check.
This gave him plenty of time to try out his new spells, try to test his theory about [Immolate I] and [Dragonfury I]. He realised if they were a higher level than him, he"d be able to increase the damage of [Immolate I], but he only tried that when they were a far higher level, so he needed to test what the required level difference was.
He also wanted to continue levelling Etheria. He wanted her to be useful, and the previous journey he took didn"t allow her to even come out to play in case she died. He didn"t know if the skill allowed her to come back to life, but he definitely didn"t want to test it out.
He made his rounds around the Tranner area first, checking up on the local fauna too. He needed to keep an eye on the carnivorous plants too. Sometimes they would get out of control, but it was far rarer since they had even less sentience than the monsters. Everything seemed to be in order, so he was free to continue his populace control, and his experiments.
"Am I getting too used to this world?" he thought to himself.
Donis"s mind was slowly changing. It was becoming easier again to think about killing the monsters and feel little to no guilt about the whole ordeal. They were becoming less like living beings, and more like a means to an end. They were there for him to understand his own abilities, and to fulfil his mission rotas.
Unfortunately, Donis wasn"t allowed to dwell on these ideas for too long. He knew the longer he stood still, or unprotected, the quicker he"ll become a target to a less than nice monster.
After using [The Will of Dragons] and creating some mini objectives to farm more [SP], Donis got to work. He first changed the Charged Mana he had to just regular mana. This allowed him to basically double his mana pool. He needed it to be just regular so he could use it to power the [Terrain Augment] spell he had learned.
He wanted to try it out and see how the whole thing worked. [Terrain Augment] worked interestingly. Donis was able to mentally select a 10m area in front of him and change it however he felt like. It was an instinctual feeling rather than a numerical value he saw. The changes were interesting too. He could feel how he could change everything from the humidity of the area to the hardness of the ground below his feet.
Though it was super interesting, the most fascinating thing was how it all changed. The skill used the environment to create the changes. If Donis wanted to remove the water, the soil would soak up the water. If he wanted to harden the ground, the soil would redirect the water further underground. If he wanted to change anything else that the spell couldn"t directly change, it would quickly spike the mana cost to offset the lack of resources.
After using it for a solid 3s he saw that the spell used more than the 300 mana it supposedly advertised, about 400 was used in reality. Yet the results were fantastic. The previously murky water in front of him became a perfectly flat pillar of hard ground with no vegetation.
In combination with short uses of [Earth Prison], Donis was able to create a makeshift shelter out of hard ground that protected him from the gazes of the monsters around, and potentially from any terrain changes. A smile spread on his face as he felt like his a.r.s.enal of tools for preparation were increasing dramatically the longer he was out here on this year long job specialization.
He was only here for 3 months now, but the skills he has gained here nearly outdo what he"s learned at the Academy. Even though it"s been hard on him, he knew he made the right choice in going for [Monster Specialist], nothing he could have done in the comfort of an office would come even close to exposing him to so many new variances in life and spells.
"I guess I"ve prepared enough, Etheria it"s time for you to level up alongside me. I"m gonna need your help in whatever we do next!" he thought to himself inside the hut he"d made out of the hard ground.
Etheria chirped back happily. She was happy to become useful and finally fight again.