The system notification came as my saving grace, an assurance that I had not only survived, I had won. 9 entire levels from a single creature seemed almost ridiculous, but considering the difficulty I had experienced trying to put the thing down, it didn't feel undeserved in the slightest.

Now that the creature had died, I could feel its previously taut muscles slacken. The ring of muscle that had nearly crushed me followed suit, allowing me to crawl out. Its flesh had become soft as a result of the corrosion, slowly turning into a goo-like substance with a foul odour. By the time I finally managed to pry myself free, I tumbled to the earth below with a wet squelch. Almost like a parasite that had been forced to escape its deceased host...

Suffice it to say, it wasn't the most glorious victory. But I had done it. Against overwhelming odds, odds that I had underestimated far too much, I had come out victorious. The sole survivor of the clash. An intense rush of satisfaction flowed through me, reminding me of my first few battles after awakening. Helios, those felt like they had happened years ago... While I was used to fighting, such tense battles were few and far between. These days, I was either completely overwhelming my opponents, or manhandled like a toddler by tier 5 classers. A tense, almost even fight like this one had been was a breath of fresh air.

After resting for a while, the bubbling, twisting feeling that had enveloped my wounds was starting to relent. While I felt no pain, healing from wounds that egregious wasn't an enjoyable experience, to say the least. At least this was all temporary. Now that I had some more room to move, I decided that it was time to invest the free stat points that I had gained with my levels. The ninety I had gotten from this single monster, combined with the ten that I had saved up from a while ago, gave me a total of 100 free points to spend wherever I wanted.

Opening up my status screen, I quickly noticed two issues.

Name: Arthur Titles [Dark prodigy] Class: [Hollow essence knight] LVL 78 Strength 1121 Constitution 1121 Dexterity 1121 Intelligence 396 Wisdom 580 Affinity 803 Free stat points 100

Skills:

Passive:

[Overloading combustion core](23%), [Dark flow sight](29%), [Cascading mana-intrusive Swordsmanship](48%),

[Sapphire Mental palace](N/A), [Dark Form](82%), [Crawling road](11%), [Weak mana sense](N/A), [Blackened essence(formative)](50%), [Hollow essence return](16%), [Essence lifespan](50%)

Active:

[Ghost apparition](62%), [Corrosive mark](23%), [Relentless orbs](47%), [Sword laser](36%), [Onyx chain wind](59%), [Aura step](100%), [Hollow manifestation](16%), [Eidetic sacrifice](0%)

Issue number one was that I was left with a dilemma. I had a hundred points. Enough to advance one of my physical stats to the next milestone, in fact. However, up until now I had stuck with dividing my free points equally. That way, all of them would advance before I reached the next tier, or so I had calculated. Would I have enough points to get all three of them to the limit?

Suddenly, I realised that I had miscalculated. In truth, all of my stats would barely reach the milestone, even without any free points. In other words, even if I left them alone from now on, there wouldn't be any issue getting them all to the fourth milestone. With that realisation, I could breathe easy and get at least one of them to the limit until I got enough stat points for the other two.

Considering the danger of the dungeon's native monsters, it wouldn't be a bad idea to go as far as possible to guarantee my survivability. Speaking of survivability, dark form was nearly at tier 6! The skill had certainly seen a lot of use, recently...

Now then, which stat to choose... My strength skill had been merged into my essence, so getting a replacement might be nice. The same was true for my constitution, which was more useful to the whole 'keeping me alive' part. Finally, there was dexterity, which would mean evolving my mana sense. [Weak mana sense] had been a blessing throughout the past few months. The ability to roughly judge your opponent's tier and sense their presence had saved my life more than a few times. However, with how loud the garbador tended to be, was there any point to rush this particular skill?

After some more consideration, I settled on raising my constitution and hoping for a useful new skill. If the next few battles were all going to be battles of attrition, I might as well play to my strengths.

I invested the points until constitution reached 1200, the fourth milestone. Afterward, I divided the rest of the points into strength and dexterity, leaving them at 1131 and 1132, respectively.

Ding! 1200 constitution reached! Awarded the [Adaptive physiology] skill.

[Adaptive physiology]

Tier 4 skill.

Your body becomes adaptable, making it possible to repurpose certain organs and body parts to fulfil roles they wouldn't otherwise be able to.

Adaptability lessens when the adapting body part is damaged.

Increase constitution to the next milestone to increase skill tier.

I squinted, considering the implications of the skill. Organs fulfilling roles they wouldn't otherwise be able to? Could I use my lungs as a heart, if I needed to? How would that...

I lurched forward, heaving as it suddenly became more difficult to breathe. My pulse quickened and lost its rhythm, making my head thump as if a wild boar had been locked inside.

'Use my lungs to breathe, use my lungs to breathe!' I mentally recited. The feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived, saving me just before I was starting to panic. Was that stupid skill controlled by my thoughts?! Who thought that was a good idea!

I sighed, making a mental note to practice the skill in a safe environment later on. As of right now, I had a more pressing problem. Namely, my skills.

You see, [Aura step], one of my self-made skills, was ready to evolve to the next tier. As one of only two movement skills, getting a good tier evolution for it was imperative. I crossed my fingers as I opened up the related system notification...

[Aura step](0%)

Tier 3 skill.

Create footholds using an 'Aura' skill. Depending on the 'Aura' used, the skill has a different effect.

Aura: [Overload Aura]

Effect: Footholds explode after each step, allowing for burst movement. The intensity of the explosion can be controlled by the skill holder.

Skill is dependent on any single 'Aura' skill.

Use this skill repeatedly to increase skill progression.

Tier 4 upgrades

[Aura dash]

Dash in any direction using an 'Aura' skill. Depending on the 'Aura' used, the skill has a different effect.

Aura: [Overload Aura]

Effect: [Aura dash] has no cooldown, as long as the user is in an overloaded state.

Replaces [Aura step]

[Aura mine]

Gain the ability to create mines. Depending on the 'Aura' used, the skill has a different effect.

Aura: [Overload Aura]

Effect: The skill holder can leave mines behind wherever they land, which will explode on command. The explosion's intensity has a much higher upper ceiling that the footholds.

Note: Maintains the tier 2 skill effect.

[Aura jump]

A direct upgrade of [Aura step].

Increase the power of the base skill and gain a new effect depending on the 'Aura' used.

Aura: [Overload Aura]

New Effect: Gain variable immunity to the skill's explosions.

As always, I took a few minutes to read my three options, before considering each of them.

The first thing that came to mind was related to [Aura jump]. It promised an increased effect to my current skill alongside 'variable immunity', whatever that entailed. Picking the skill felt like risk, because if the variable immunity only affected my explosions, it didn't seem that useful As it stood, I just had [Dark form] heal the explosion's damage as I went along, therefore immunity was pointless.

On the other hand, the increased power would be damn useful on its own, improving my manoeuvrability by a large margin. Perhaps that made it worth it to take a chance?

[Aura dash] came with a smaller, but still present risk. That risk lay in the possible verticality-issue that the skill left unsaid.

Verbatim, the skill would allow me to dash in any 'direction'. Did 'up' count as one? Surely the system would measure its words better if it didn't... That all being said, the lack of any cooldown would almost make the skill resemble unaided flight. At the moment, I kind of had to catapult myself up jump by jump, which made my airborne movement incredibly predictable and, therefore, dangerous. If the skill functioned as promised, [Aura dash] could be incredibly useful. However, the skill's description left many details unanswered. How far did the dash go? How fast was it? How long did it take before it activated? All in all, a risk.

Finally, there was [Aura mine]. The most predictable of the three skills I had been offered, [Aura mine] would let me keep the current skill's effect as is, but add an offensive option on top. While simple and straightforward, I did wonder if pushing my movement skill into the 'offense' category was a good idea. I had made the skill to give me good mobility, which was hugely important at this stage. Leaving my movement options as they were felt a bit... stupid, for lack of a better word.

I wasn't sure whether to play it safe, or take a chance...