It didn’t take long For Revan to outrun the attacking golems, thankfully. Despite their powerful and fast attacks, their bodies were slow and clunky, so they had trouble keeping up with us.

Once we finally left their sight and the lasers stopped, I received a system notification.

Ding! Combat finished. [Hollow Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 15!

The golem had been good for another two levels, surprisingly. Despite the admittedly lengthy process, destroying the golem’s eye had been simple and easy. I could smell the levelling strategy from a mile away. The green lasers had been dangerous to be sure, but with the right preparation I could easily reach a higher level in this area. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to stick around.

I had to get in and out of the castle before the week was up, or I would be neck-deep in shit.

Now wasn’t the time to think about that stuff, though. I had some extra notifications that I had been forgetting about, so I ordered Revan to look for a safe spot. I no longer felt sleepy, thankfully, and it didn’t look like sunrise was far off, so setting up camp again was unnecessary.

As Revan continued south, we passed by a few more golems until, eventually, their eyes dimmed and they became motionless once again. This moment coincided with the sunrise on the horizon, which was only slightly dimmed by the normally thick fog that covered the between lands and the dry forest especially.

Now that the danger had passed, I felt secure enough to take care of some system notifications, including one that I had been putting off since destroying that necromantic essence.

For starters, I took a look at my status screen.

Name:

Arthur

Titles

[Dark prodigy]

Class:

[Hollow essence knight] LVL 15

Strength

464

Constitution

460

Dexterity

460

Intelligence

160

Wisdom

323

Affinity

609

Free stat points

20

Skills:

Passive:

[Overloading combustion core](1%), [Dark flow sight](5%), [Cascading mana-intrusive Swordsmanship](18%),

[Mental palace](N/A), [Dark Form](54%), [Crawling road](1%), [Weak mana sense](N/A), [Blackened essence(formative)](0%), [Hollow essence return](1%), [Essence lifespan](0%)

Active:

[Ghost apparation](24%), [Corrosive mark](4%), [Relentless orbs](6%), [Sword laser](3%), [Onyx chain wind](5%), [Aura step](51%), [Hollow manifestation](3%)

First of all, I took note of the fact that my skills had gradually started growing, even my newer ones. It would be a while yet before any of them tiered up, but we were on the right track.

A much more notable change that had come with reaching tier 3, however, was the sudden explosive stat growth. My physical stats had increased from the low 300s to the mid 400s, a staggering jump. This change could be attributed to [Hollow essence knight]’s fantastic stat growth, but my promise to invest in my physical stats with all of my free points was equally important. Already, I had taken the time to split 120 points equally over all three physical stats, following up on my earlier decision.

The result of this investment was, of course, a sudden increase in actual raw power. My body hadn’t changed much on the outside, but I could notice my strength growing every single day. I had missed this intoxicating feeling, and never was it quite so prominent as it was at the start of a new class tier.

Without a second thought, I raised both strength and constitution by 10 points, using up the free points I had just procured in the process.

The stat growth meant another thing, however. Thanks to my latest level-ups, my wisdom stat had finally reached the next milestone, which meant that [Mental palace was ready to evolve at any moment.

Lately, I hadn’t had the time to use the skill much, with all of the danger lurking nearby, but it couldn’t be denied that [Mental palace] was an essential part of my build, a ticket straight to sanity town for any young man on the cusp of losing himself to his affinity.

Now that my affinity was starting to rise again, I couldn’t think of a better time to evolve the skill, so I decided to do exactly that.

[Mental palace](N/A)

Tier 2 skill.

Your mind becomes your palace. Retreat into your mind to experience time at your own will, healing mental wounds in the process.

Tier 3 upgrades

[Ruby mental palace]

Retreating into your mental palace will slowly heal your body over time, even allowing you to regrow limbs.

[Topaz mental palace]

Mental stats are increase inside of your mental palace, increasing your learning speed. Illusory copies of held books can now be created inside of your mental palace.

[Sapphire mental palace]

You will gain some measure of direct control over the changes within your mental palace.

I sighed. Unfortunately, no skill evolutions offered some form of mental protection, which was what I had been looking for.

Instead, I was offered two lacklustre options and one vague one.

The first, [Ruby mental palace], might have been a fantastic healing skill for others, but was completely useless to me. Dark form was both more efficient and just faster as well. I could understand that other classer might salivate at the thought of such a skill, though. Healing was expensive, and recovering entire limbs downright unaffordable for the average tier 2 classer. A tier 3 might eventually save up enough to pay for the treatment, though, but still.

The second option was more useful, but still not quite worth it for me. Essentially, it would make the time diluted space inside the mental palace the perfect learning environment for scholars and spell casters. I had expected a similar skill tree when I first decided on mental palace, so I couldn't be too disappointed. It was unfortunate, but battle-oriented classers wouldn't typically go down this path. Perhaps that was why the system gave me such limited options.

The third and final option was an interesting, albeit vague one. From its description, I could infer that I would have some kind of control over which plants grew in my mental space, control over how my shack looked and so forth. The question was... how would these changes translate into the real world? If I planted an extra tree, would I all of a sudden become resistant to my affinity? The opposite?

It was a risky option, but with it also came opportunity, which is why I picked it without second thought. The other two options didn't fit me very well, anyway.

Once the skill had evolved, I decided to get back onto Revan and ordered him to take me to the abyss watcher's fort, where I could finally complete the dry man's request. We were still a few days away, so we had to hurry. I kind of wanted to test out my new mental palace skill, but thought better of it, considering where I was and what I had set out to do. Plenty of time to test the skill once I got back to Roa, I felt.

Moments later, Revan was bounding from boulder to boulder, darting across the obsidian landscape and heading towards our goal as the crow flies.

-scene transition-

Revan's efforts paid off when, a few days later, a pitch black fort located on the side of a mountain hooved into view. Apart from its color, the fort looked nothing like I had expected it to. Its once titanic walls were old and weathered, collapsing, even. Already, there were quite few parts that had collapsed completely, leaving nothing but a massive mound of rubble in its wake.

Despite these destroyed walls, something told me that I wouldn't be able to waltz in there. There were probably a few tier 5's left in the area, that would be on the lookout for any ne'er do wells such as yours truly.

Truthfully, getting in wouldn't be difficult. With ghost apparition, I could directly transport myself to the topmost tower near one of the fort's edges and get the package. Getting out seemed like a bigger issue, however. For all I knew, some kind of alarm or barrier had been set up, and tier 5's might have the tower I was headed to under surveillance.

Thankfully, the tallest tower near the edge wasn't the only piece of architecture that stood out among the odd collection of buildings. There seemed to be a massive feasting hall and a dozen other towers smattered across the compound, which hopefully left me with a window to get in and out unannounced.

Having taken this all into account, there was nothing else for it. It was time to commence the grand plan called 'contingencies within contingencies'. Even if I could complete the mission quietly, there was no reason to bet on such an outcome. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.