Reto awoke feeling light. Well, less light and more light-headed. It seems that a roof is not the best place to sleep for more reasons than just comfort, they had started slipping down to the edge and now their head was hanging off the side, looking right at the scene of their crime. It seems that their new skill was working because whilst they still felt guilt, this was mitigated by the complete lack of regret.

{Anti-hero} really is something. I’m worried it was the wrong choice, but right now it doesn’t seem like I can really say much against it. Would I even still be able to live with myself were it not for this?

Reto sluggishly pushed themselves back up, wincing at the feeling of blood rushing back to it’s proper place in her body, and looked to the screens currently blocking their vision.

Though it was far too late to change it now, either of those options would have been extremely helpful. Whilst improvised weaponry may have seen more limited use outside of this situation, it would never be useless, and is especially helpful given that they don’t currently have a real weapon. That sword was tempting, but quickly got dismissed due to the size and the mystical sheen it had, who could say whether it’s cursed, enchanted, or what.

Their hammer, thankfully, appears to have been unable to slip past the edge of the roof and was retrieved easily. The same cannot be said for the window, with the sword embedded in it, and the person on top of them both.

I shouldn’t dwell on what those other options could have been. Rather, it would seem prudent to look at my others. First, a skill upgrade. I could spend it on Anti-hero, but I can’t imagine making it be much better would be helpful. So, instead I should {upgrade Mana Feeding}

[You have chosen to upgrade {Desolate Survivalism} further! Choose wisely.]

{Mana Drinker} – Mana is the life force of everything. Using it, anything can accomplish impossible feats, from fighting a hundred people at once, to lifting entire mountains. However, taking it away can have disastrous effects. Lucky you, then, to be able to do just that. Increase effectiveness of Mana Feeding on living targets

{Riven Spell} – A spell can be disrupted by draining all the Mana from it, but with a little precision, it can be caused to backfire horribly. Automatically alter the effects of {Mana Feeding} to more easily disrupt spells

{Bodily Enhancement} – You have become stronger through the use of Mana, and can continue to do so. Increase the effectiveness of mana when used to enhance the body. Decrease the effectiveness in other regards

Hmm. {Bod-. The third one seems out, I’d rather not have to worry about food if I don’t have to, and that seems as though it would harm spells as well. But, the other two are fairly close to each other really. In the long term, {Mana dr-. The first option seems best, but I don’t want to hurt the people here, or anyone I come across. So that means, {Riven Spell}? What does riven even mean anyway?

[Congratulations! {Mana Feeding} has evolved into {Riven Spell}. Due to the similarity, previous effect have increased slightly.]

As their skill evolved however, they felt a strange sensation, almost in their stomach but seemingly somewhere behind it, from all directions. It felt as though something had gotten smaller, and was now overly full. Now panicked, they checked their status for any insight.

Reto Mason – Mage Adept – Lv.2

Health – 5/5

Will – 21/25

Mana – 40/35

Power

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.05

: Magical – 1.25

Durability

: Physical – 1.00

: Mental – 1.20

: Magical – 1.10

Speed

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.20

: Magical – 1.40

{Desolate Survivalism}

{Mana Feeding}

{Riven Spell}

{Adept Mage}

{Anti-hero}

It looks like my max Mana went down somehow? It must have been when I too {Riven spell}, but how could a skill have a negative effect like that? Plus, if I remember correctly, I have less Magical durability. At the very least now I know which stat governs max mana, or at least part of it. But, what do I do now that I’ve managed to get too much mana? I don’t think that I have anything that uses it, at least so far as I’m aware.

Picking the only available option they had, Reto attempted to pick a anew trait. The hope was that it would be able to help either lose Mana, or gain an increased maximum.

How do I bring the screen for that to the front? The screen for upgrading a trait is in front of it, but I was hoping to save that for last. Choose trait?

At that, the screen closed and then re-opened ahead of the other.

[For your difficult accomplishment, you get to pick between three traits.]

{Army of one} – You have taken on dozens of enemies at once and not just survived but, to some extent, succeeded. Gain increased power, durability, and speed relative to the number of enemies faced

{Duellist} – You beat an opponent that was stronger than you in a fair fight, with no assistance. Gain substantially increased power and speed when facing a single opponent in a fair fight

{Psychic Combatant} – You have fought off psychic control in other people, and resisted compulsions in yourself. You can now turn these defences outwards, as an attack.

Thinking quickly, Reto picked the only trait they thought could increase their magical durability, as much as they weren’t entirely sure whether it would help immediately.

[You have chosen {Army of One}!]

It did nothing to relieve the constant pressure they were feeling, and all they could do was try to get into combat as soon as possible in order to try and increase their durability.

How do I leave? Do I have to pick an upgrade? Fine, I have to hurry though.

[For your difficult accomplishment, you get to upgrade one trait.

Due to it being the only option at the time this window opened, you will upgrade {Adept}]

{Adept Mage} – Though you have not yet cast even a single spell, your talent with manipulating mana is still enough for you to become an Adept Mage.

{Adept Tactician} – You were able to formulate a plan of attack that led to the defeat of exactly half of your opponent’s forces. This shows skill enough to become and Adept Tactician.

{Adept Jack} – An Adept Jack can’t start out exceptional in anything, but given time they can go far.

Could the mage upgrade help here? I don’t know whether Adept increased any of my stats before, but logically it would, my skills have and traits seem fairly similar. I think that I’m going to have to take a chance on {Adept Mage} and hope I don’t regret it later.

[Congratulations! {Adept} has evolved into {Adept Mage}! Due to the similarity with your classification, the effects have increased.]

Immediately, as time resumed around them, they felt the pressure lessen substantially. Breathing a sigh of relief, they opened their stats to review what changed.

Reto Mason – Mage Adept – Lv.2

Health – 5/5

Will – 21/25

Mana – 40/45

Power

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.05

: Magical – 1.30

Durability

: Physical – 1.00

: Mental – 1.20

: Magical – 1.15

Speed

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.25

: Magical – 1.50

{Desolate Survivalism}

{Mana Feeding}

{Riven Spell}

{Adept Mage}

{Anti-hero}

{Army of One}

Thank god. I did not want to find out whatever would result from that the hard way, thank you very much. It is quite a shame that I haven’t been getting anything that I can actually use Mana for though, I’ve just got a ton of it laying around.

Looking at the lair, it seemed that there was a person exiting it and heading in this direction. Theoretically, {Riven Spell} should be able to more easily break the connection between the caster and their minions. However, when trying to move their spell, they noticed a substantial decrease in the control they had.

Whilst it’s changing slightly faster, it felt as though there was some lag on all of their inputs. The only thing that could reasonably effect this would be {Riven Spell}, possibly because of the automatic re-structuring it’s been doing.

Focused on the skill as they were, they were caught completely unprepared when the section of the roof they were standing on suddenly cave under their weight.

Fuck!

They fell and crumpled into a small heap on the floor, unfortunately failing to have a soft landing or react in time to reduce the impact. Now paying attention, they realised that this floor was groaning under their weight, and they have some idea of what may be causing it.

Acting quickly, they attempted to redirect Riven Spell upwards to avoid the floor. It circled them once, Reto being unable to properly compensate for the lag, but was able to eventually have the full area focused in a cone pointing upwards.

Reto slowly lifted one foot, but upon hearing the groaning intensify put it back down with as much speed as is safe. Their range increased slightly with the skill upgrade, but it doesn’t seem as though it should be enough to reach the majority of the room, so they slowly moved to their stomach and pulled themselves to the closest window.

After a few minutes, they approached it, but had to slowly move the area on Riven Spell behind and in front of them to reduce the effect on the house. When they open the window to get out, the stairs seem like a risk at the moment, it shouldn’t hit the house at all, allowing them to get out safely.

I guess these structures are being actively strengthened by a spell, but their actual construction is comparatively lacking for mundane buildings. I assume that on anything military and the like they use proper building techniques, but there’s no reason to bother when magic does all the work I suppose. Better for me, anyway.

Still weary of the floor collapsing under them, they stood up slowly and prepared to grab onto the window sill in the event of an emergency. When nothing happened for a full 30 seconds, they opened the window and were just raising their leg to get out when they saw something outside that made them freeze.

Standing over the bloody corpse of dramatics, was a person wearing full, dull grey plate armour. One of the more worrying things about them was the familiar sigil on their chest, a bird with a gem in it’s beak.

Is this person part of that guys contingent? But, he wasn’t wearing armour, so why would this person be allowed to? Either he didn’t have any armour, just standard clothes, or they took it from one of his soldiers and put it onto someone else. Why though? The people I freed earlier were able to fight back for a short period of time, is that related to it? They must need time to properly enslave someone, and as a result are repurposing any equipment they find for more trustworthy minions.

Slowly, the face of the armour turned upwards and met eyes directly with Reto. Their eyes widened at this, and they froze. They were partway through the movement of closing the window when they realised that this person could just report back to the master and give away their location. They quickly attempted to get out of the window, but by then the armoured person was already turning around.

Were it only that Reto wouldn’t have been worried, but the enemy was crouching down into a runners stance. As they leapt in their direction, Reto stretched their arm out in a panic and pushed Riven Spell out as fast as possible, just barely catching their left leg as they started running and causing them to trip over themselves and struggle to get up.

Reto impacted the ground feet first and, though it hurt, they were able to use the momentum to get close enough to fully immerse this person in Riven Spell, causing the control to immediately shatter and slip off them. This left the person staring listlessly ahead, still partway through the motion of getting up.

They started at each other, until Reto waved a hand in front of the others eyes, only to get no reaction.

Is this what he meant then? It seems a but more extreme than just ‘unable to make decisions’. I wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t even blink without being told to.

With some amount of trepidation, they walked around the frozen former-prisoner, moving faster until they were away from both the person and the body they were investigating. Each step seemed to echo down the roads with a dull thud, somehow feeling so much emptier now, more silent. There are more people here than before, but they serve only to make Reto feel even more isolated. Nonetheless, they continued, not having any choice.

There weren’t any people around at all, not even patrolling the area. It would make some sense for most to be elsewhere, but Reto would have thought that there would be guards, or jobs to be done elsewhere. Perhaps there actually is a festival of some kind?

It was because of this that they were able to stand unopposed, as they approached the lair, nearing a set of oaken doors, the most extravagant individual part of the entire building. The structure was essentially a large stone cub, with thin windows to attack through and minimal decoration. It seems almost like a castle, from medieval Europe, though the incredibly large bricks that it was made up of made it quite a bit more different.

They circled it once, but the only obvious entrance is the set of doors they first noticed, meaning that’s likely where the majority of the defences would be.

I don’t like this. There has to be some other way to get in right? I could see how the construction holds up without magic support, but I don’t want to take it down entirely because there would definitely be people in there. The more I think about it the less likely anything other than just barging in through the front door working is.

Of course they still tried breaking a hold through the back wall, but it seems that the walls are quite sturdy, and there are no weak points unless they try to take out the whole building.

Alright. Front door it is, then.

Rather than being cautious, they attempted to open the doors as quickly as possible, hoping to catch any guards by surprise. Unfortunately, it seems they are much heavier than they first appeared, and were barely opened enough to get through.

Is this weight of door standard in this world? If Mana does make people stronger as one of my skill descriptions mentioned, then it could make sense, depending on the level of enhancement, but children still need to be able to open doors, as do anyone that isn’t incredibly strong.

The weight of the doors turned out to be a blessing in disguise however, because whilst there were no guards, there was someone walking just past the doorway and, were it to have been opened faster, Reto could have been caught.

The inside of the building looks about the same as could be expected really. The walls are grey, there’s no furniture visible from the entryway, and the lighting is minimal. There’s a short hallway with nothing at the end, and one doorway on either side of it, the left being where the guard just walked through.

Because of this, Reto made the decision to go through the right door, leading into a kitchen. In any other place this might have seemed weird, certainly anything of a similar size, but it does seem to have been prioritising function over form primarily.

I guess this must be where the thralls get food. Looks like they just come in, get something to eat, then either immediately go back outside and get back to whatever they’re supposed to be doing or head further into the building. Based on that, it may be symmetrical so they can go through either entrance, and the stairs up would be on the opposite end of the floor. There isn’t much reason they can’t be somewhere else, of course, but that’s were I’d have put it.

There were another two doorways coming out of the kitchen, but one seemed to have a strange glow lining the edge of it, and inside there were shelves lined with food. Unsure of the effects of the glow, and unwilling to test it, they decided to go through the other door. Through this one, there was a long empty hallway with loopholes, essentially just small windows to shoot arrows through. Beside each of them was a bow and a quiver of arrows.

Odd. I didn’t notice these from the outside. Was it an illusion then? Presumably it isn’t a physical effect, else there would be no need to have such small gaps to fire from.

At the end of the hallway was a single doorway. There was a row of small spikes at the bottom, and at the right position it’s possible to see a lever on the opposite wall in the next room, which also had the staircase in it. Rather than risk stepping over it slowly, they opted to jump across and hope that it doesn’t have an automatic trigger.

There was a tense moment whilst they hung in the air, unsure whether they would make it in spite of there not being anyone at the lever. Time seemed to slow however as they saw a person walking through the opposite doorway, the same one that they saw earlier. The person looked to Reto with surprise, and lurched towards an empty sconce in the corner, pulling it towards them.

Before Reto could hit the ground, the gate slammed shut.

Reto Mason – Mage Adept – Lv.2

Health – 5/5

Will – 21/25

Mana – 40/45

Power

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.05

: Magical – 1.30

Durability

: Physical – 1.00

: Mental – 1.20

: Magical – 1.15

Speed

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.25

: Magical – 1.50

{Desolate Survivalism}

{Mana Feeding}

{Riven Spell}

{Adept Mage}

{Anti-hero}

{Army of One}