[Shadow Manipulation - Intermediate Ability

Cost: 5 mana per second

Description: Through your darkness affinity, control the areas of shadows throughout your surroundings. This only includes natural shadows cast by the sun within a range of 300 meters.]

[Shadow Blade - Intermediate Ability

Cost: 10 mana

Description: Through your darkness affinity, create a blade made of artificial shadow from any position within 5 meters. The blade can be maintained as a weapon or cast a projectile.]

[Hail of Spears - Intermediate Ability

Cost: 50 mana

Description: Through your affinity with frost, spawn a cloud of artificial ice which is sculpted into the form of piercing spears. These spears rain down on all enemies within a 100-meter radius of the chosen cast area, which cannot be more than 500 meters away from the caster.]

Darius nodded with satisfaction. Intermediate spells were powerful indeed, and the sheer creativity one can explore in spells above the Amateur stage was what kept magic alive in Faust, despite the difficulty of learning and/or casting.

Thinking about how he, with the system and his class, could fire off spells of any element without needing to chant or gesture, Darius realized he would be able to maximize the power of all mages. Not to mention that any spell he used would be vastly superior to the traditional versions thanks to Transmutation.

He allowed the two undead to take the lead, while Gunner was right behind them. As for Darius, he leisurely strutted at the back, calm and unperturbed as if he was strolling through his own garden instead of a danger zone.

Without any suspense, they soon encountered another group of undead, this time a large one numbering almost a hundred. There was a mix of different types, from skeletons of all kinds, beast undead, flying-type undead, and flesh-bearing undead.

They were all surrounding a fountain that seemed out of place in this barren land. Not only that, but the water coming from this fountain was greenish in color and stank even as far as Darius and Gunner stood.

Darius narrowed his eyes and Analyzed it.

[Defiled Fountain of Power - Treasure

Durability: ?/?

Description: Water from a source deep within the depths of the Plains of Death, this liquid has the ability to greatly strengthen any undead that drinks it. The increase in power is only significant during the first sip, but decreases with every time it is imbibed.]

Well, that explained why so many undead surrounded the fixture without even paying attention to Darius or Gunner who stood a few meters away. Finding it amusing, the duo walked up to the fountain with Mikey and Joneson who were drooling.

"Boss, this water smells so good! Can I take a sip?" Joneson asked eagerly.

"Seems like it'd be beneficial for us, Boss. What do ya say?" Mikey also inquired with excitement.

Darius nodded. "You can, but we've got to clear up all the undead here first. Mikey, Joneson, start the first volley. Gunner, join in when you're ready."

The group nodded and got battle ready immediately. Mikey and Joneson didn't summon their undead yet, rather opting to use the new abilities they were granted by Darius.

The two liches began chanting while raising their hands up to the sky, the language emerging from their lips innately understood by Darius though he was sure he had never learned it before.

It seemed as if their chanting would take more than a few seconds, making Darius shake his head. He was certain that he was immensely lucky to not need to have to go through this, or he would have never survived those first few days in the wild.

As for Gunner, he patiently waited for the cast to finish, for he understood how dangerous it was to interfere in an AOE that did hot have the 'Friendly Fire' benefits of the system's targeting.

In about a minute, the cast came to an end, the sky darkening as two large clouds emerged. This finally caught the attention of the undead surrounding the fountain that was crazily engorging on its filth.

The spell didn't give them time to regret their ignorance, as hundreds of ice spears with the same size and design as Darius's own steel spear fell upon them.

Immediately, there was a great uproar in the ranks as more than 60 of the undead were immediately killed by the bombardment, the rest only surviving due to luck or their positioning.

Of course, there were those that survived by virtue of their skills, and they turned to glare at the three interlopers with anger. This was naturally a big mistake, as they failed to notice that the sun was almost blocked out by the form of Gunner.

Immediately, the fellow used Earthen Stomp to ruin the ground in the area, though the fountain was completely unharmed - same as the area of 2 meters around it – like it existed in a different plane of reality.

The stomp ended the lives of many more undead and rendered the rest either incapacitated or injured. Here Darius showed his prowess by lazily casting Heal on any undead with a low amount of HP.

In less than 30 seconds, he had killed the rest of the undead that had loitered around here, stunning Mikey, Joneson, and Gunner who were getting ready to enter the zone and battle it out.

Especially Gunner who was used to duking it out brutally with his enemies, beating them down until they shattered to pieces. Having his gig ended before it could even begin felt different for Gunner.

Darius too was slightly impressed by the sheer utility of the upgraded Heal spell. It was so fast in killing enemies that he at most, needed 2 hits to kill most foes between level 25-30.

After all, the base damage of the spell was 23 at 45% of his Intellect. After going through the modifiers, it meant that a single cast now did 414 damage!

Darius waved to Mikey and Joneson to have their fill of the fountain while he checked the spoils of him and Gunner.