John just stood there for several minutes trying to process what just happened. He was pretty sure that something had gone wrong, what it was he didn't know but something definitely did. Either way, it was probably best if he didn't go see what just happened. He dusted off his clothes that had been hit by a wall of dust along with that shockwave and turned in the opposite direction and ran like his life depended on it. If there were any after effects due to that explosion, he was not sticking around to figure them out.

As he ran he ran his mind cast back to what had happened, he had chosen a class knowledge had flooded him, similarly to how Assimilate gave knowledge and memories of those he used it on, it felt like it was his but also not at the same time, it was foreign but he knew it nonetheless. Magical manipulation was an intuitive process, those who had an affinity for an element could connect with it and the element would be malleable to that person's will. The degree to which this manipulation could occur was dependant upon how strong the person's affinity with an element was as well as how familiar they were with manipulating that magic. This became quantified and amplified by the system and skill levels but it was still the case before, like training muscles it would grow with their use. Magic, on the other hand, used spells. These were not intuitive, they had to be learned or created, they were a mixture of a symbol and intent. The symbol belonged to the magical language called runic and would act as a conduit for the mana and the intent, allowing it to be merged, controlled and aimed. Runes were typically engraved onto objects to perform enchantments, however, mages could use mana manipulation to draw them using mana and cast spells, these could vary and they were unique to an individual as the intent of one person would never be perfectly replicated by another. John thought he could probably reproduce the effects of a spell if he absorbed the memories through Assimilate but that was something that needed testing.

John also gained the knowledge of what his affinities were all even and all at 50%. He wasn't sure if this was because he was a monster or if it just happened to be the case but he was leaning toward the former as this didn't seem to be common. He also knew that if he cast a runic spell enough it would eventually become a formal spell which would decrease the time that it took for him to cast the spell as the system would take over some of the complexities of drawing the runes freeform. The runes that John had gained from his class seemed to be random, Burn would as one would assume caused something to set on fire, Gust would emit a gust of wind, Spark would cause a jolt of electricity to travel through the target, Devour was different though, on its own it wouldn't do anything, however, when paired with another rune it would cause an effect dependant on that rune. He wasn't sure exactly what Devour would do but he could test it later.

It was at this point his stamina hit 0 and he fell to his knees huffing and puffing to catch his breath. John could no longer see the mushroom cloud but he didn't know if that was because of how far he'd run or because night had arrived but he suddenly became aware of just how dark it had really gotten, he had been stumbling on rocks and roots more and more as he ran but he had been so caught up in his thoughts he had stupidly not been paying attention to his surroundings, The trees here had much more tightly interwoven canopies that meant that the little star and moonlight wasn't really able to come through. He pulled the flashlight out of his inventory as he clicked it on, the beam of light pierced into the trees, showing an empty and quiet woodland, then the flashlight started to heat up in his hand, the light shut off and it started to smoke. Maybe the high mana concentrations of this world meant that electricity was more difficult to control without magic? That would explain why the gnomes here seemed less technologically advanced, even if they relied on magic most gnomes couldn't cast it so there should be some form of technology going alongside it.

Not willing to waste another flashlight or risk his phone, John decided to try out his new skill, Mana Manipulation. He concentrated on the where his mana came from, a ball that seemed to be just behind and above his navel, and pulled. He felt the energy flow along some kind of pathway and out of the palm of his hand, forming a shifting blue ball which gave off a dim glow. It took significantly more mana than Earth Manipulation to form the ball but it was incredibly easy and rather cheap to maintain it, unlike the earth this was his mana and he had a much deeper connection to it. The glow was only enough to light about 5/6 feet around him to the point where he could see, but it was enough that he could move around at least somewhat safely. HIs mana was regenerating, it was so slow it was practically non-existent but it seemed he would not be drained of mana just from having this light. He started to walk around, picking up sticks and a few decent sized rocks to make a fire pit out of, and eventually settled into a reasonably clear section of the forest. He accidentally discovered that the ball of mana would burn through wood fairly easily but would decrease in size as it did so, so he drew part of it out into a thin line and used it to cut up some branches into appropriately sized logs, he had to supply more mana to it a few times before he had enough for the night but eventually he has built himself a small fire pit.

Rather than trying to rub sticks together, which he had absolutely no idea how to do, John tried to use his runes. He drew the rune for Gust and Burn onto two rocks using Earth Manipulation, picturing one giving off a very light breeze whilst the other would produce a small, candle sized flame. As he fed mana into the Burn rune, immediately a flame, a little larger than intended sprang into existence, he used it to ignite the kindling and then fed mana into the Gust rune, the wind fed and fanned the flames, causing them to spread and grow and in no time he had a campfire going. Sitting back he saw he had a couple of notifications.

Skill Gained NAME: Fire Magic You gain the ability to cast Fire based spells Effects- Fire based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1 Skill Gained NAME: Wind Magic You gain the ability to cast Wind based spells Effects- Wind based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1 Skill Gained NAME: Enchanting You gain the ability to imbue magical properties into objects through runic engraving Effects- Enchantments are 1% less expensive to produce and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1

John just had one last thing to do. He decided to put 5 points into Endurance, he had nearly run out of stamina in his fights and that would be a big problem if it happened again. He also decided to put the remaining 10 points into Wisdom, whilst having large reserves of mana would be useful he didn't want to have to wait for hours to fill it up between fights, being able to recover quickly would keep him alive. With this done he pulled out his leg of cat and started to rest. Being alone wasn't ideal he would need to sleep soon and he didn't want to be killed in his sleep by errant monsters. instead he decided to entomb himself in a large sphere of rock, it used all of his mana to do so but he was pretty sure nothing was going to kill him now, he made sure to leave a grid of smallish holes in the top for the smoke to leave through and a bunch of small holes around the bottom to let air in and then settled back to relax and go to sleep.