First Battle
The eyeless snake lunged at james but just before it snapped its jaws upon him he clumsily threw himself to the side.
Quickly getting to his feet james covered his glove in his shadows making the claws as dense as he could but his concentration was thrown off when the snake swung its head around to attempt to grab him once again.
'Come on come on come on' james was silently urging himself to work faster as he jumped away.
When the claws were finally done he waited for the snake to attack once again where he would step to the side to strike its extended body.
The snake began to circle around him and just as he expected it to go for another strike he felt something cold and hard wrap around his ankle yanking him onto his back.
The serpent had wrapped its tail around his ankle and was now moving in to strike its prone prey.
In a panic james took a swipe at the tail hoping to cut it off and escape but to his shock the metal claw tips only skated across the scales leaving little scratches.
Realizing how much danger he had put himself in james decided to take the risk and keep clawing so that at least the shadows power could help him.
Each scratch of his claws left another set of black lines that slowly grew larger every second but the growth was minuscule.
After getting three slashes in james felt it, needle sharp fangs sinking into his shoulder. The effect of his skill protected him from the full force of the snake but the three inch long fangs still sunk halfway in.
The serpent began to coil itself around him making his panic grow, as he kept slashing even if it made the pain in his shoulder much worse as he pulled against the snakes fangs.
Each slash left another mark until finally james had a moment of clarity and he jammed his claws into the open mouth biting down on his shoulder.
He forced the claws into the top of the snakes mouth so that the shadows would spread in a lethal area.
The snake continued to constrict on his body unwilling to lose the fight against such weak prey until it suddenly felt extreme pain in various parts of its body as the shadows began to eat away at its flesh which forced it to constrict harder.
James felt his body being squeezed so hard his bones were on the verge of breaking when finally after nearly a full minute of being smothered to death james felt the grip on his body slacken, the jaws no longer felt like they were no longer trapping him but the fangs were still present to his confusion.
Through pain blurred vision and tears james saw that his desperate strike at the jaw had worked but it worked a bit to well as the entire upper half of the jaw was disintegrating leaving the fanged maw stuck piercing his shoulder.
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Congratulations! You have slain a lv5 Cave Snake.
You have gained experience.
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James lay there on the ground in shock. 'All that effort and pain to kill a level 5?'
He lay there trying to recover from the battle as he decided that saving his additional stat points were no longer worth it and he put them into his status.
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You have used 18 stat points.
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Name: James M'kesh
Age: 16
Race: Human (Aspect of Dark)
Awakened Level: 10
Awakened Rank: 0
Strength: 19-> 20 (+4)
Agility: 24-> 30 (+7)
Endurance: 10-> 21 (+4)
Energy: 20 (+2)
Health: 2/10-> 2/21(1.5/min)
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Skills-
Lord of Darkness: This skill allows the user to manipulate darkness with their body, as the user grows stronger the range of this darkness can extend from the body will increase.
(passive) One With the Dark: The dark will no longer hinder the user;
Perfect Night Vision lv. 1 (within 50ft of the user no darkness will hinder sight)
Dark Strength lv. 1 (after being hidden from all light for ten minutes the user will gain a 10% bonus to strength, agility and endurance)
(passive) Fueled by the Void: The darkness will feed its master, While 'Dark Strength' is active energy regeneration is increased based on the level of dark strength.
(passive) Loved by the Void: The darkness's love for its master is at the peak, while 'Dark Strength' is active the user is unaging, will not require food, drink or sleep.
Void Skin: While this skill is active you will take half damage from physical blows and reduced damage from energy attacks. While this skill is active, light affinity attacks and spells will be twice as effective against you.
When in the darkness this skill will use no energy otherwise the skill will consume 10 energy per second.
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Seeing that his recovery had gone up by half a point he got at least some confort as even though he nearly died he knows his limit a bit better and in thirteen minutes he would be fully recovered.
As the minutes ticked by james watched the snake get slowly consumed by the shadows.
When the shadows fully consumed the snake leaving behind only a strange object covered in the shadows he suddenly recieved a notification from the system.
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Your shadow has consumed the body of a silver grade beast and has grown in power.
You have gained access to the progression of your shadow.
Shadow
Grade: White
Energy: 3/100%
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Seeing this new development shocked james, 'if my shadow abilities had a grade wouldn't it mean i could increase it?' The only detail that worried him was the part showing an energy bar. If his shadow ability had that much of a limit then he would have to more careful with his ability.
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Your shadow has consumed a silver grade crystal and has grown in power.
Energy: 8/100%
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His shadow's energy had increased but it was still in the single digits.
James suddenly remembered that his shadow had been able to consume the stone wall of the cave without much trouble but he never tested it long enough to get this notification about energy to appear.
'The wall of the cave never took my energy enough to cause it so.... could materials that dont need much effort to consume actually give back more energy than it consumes?'
To test this theory james took his shadow covered claws and slashed a tree leaving deep marks that began to slowly disintegrate.
Watching the energy bar like a hawk after nearly twenty minutes the bar finally increased by a single percentage point.
'Gods above that will take to long maybe if i claw more trees it will speed up the process?'
As james left the area where he fought the snake he would slash trees he passed.
'It took about twenty minutes to get a single percent, thats one thousand and two hundred seconds so....' James continued slashing the trees until he realized that he was getting energy at a rapid pace.
James stopped walking and turned around to back track his path wondering why his energy suddenly spiked to a single percentage point every minute and then rapidly climbed to ever 10 seconds.
When he turned away from the status screen he finally realized what was going on. His shadows were consuming everything indiscriminately making the entire area appear to be bathed in black fire.
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Congratulations! You have slain a lv9 Cave Snake.
Congratulations! You have slain a lv4 Cave Snake.
Congratulations!...
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"System please disable kill notifications...." James stood there shocked as the previously silent forest was now full of the roars of pain from various beasts that had been marked by his shadow.
After some time standing there james heard trees breaking and crashing from the distance, something large was coming and he made the decision to return to cave and hope he had time.
Much running later james was sitting in the cave watching the status screen as he didnt want to imagine what he had done to the forest simply to regenerate his energy faster.
While trying to think of what he should do next james picked up a slight noise outside of the cave.
Hiding behind an outcropping of the wall james prepared to either escape with his life or fight the invaders of his camp.
From the cave entrance emerged.... a person.