Spell Improvement
With how little effort farming slimes took after learning about the core leveling up became a breeze.
After reaching lv 3 Ezekiel had noticed that it took a significantly larger number of kills to level up than it had before.
Even if the requirements doubled it did not explain the significant reduction in his leveling speed.
Ezekiel assumed that outside of the barrier was an entire ecosystem of creatures that were actually a threat unlike slimes.
After passing through the barrier to see what lay beyond he was almost immediately charged by a wolf which made him return to the barrier.
He also noticed that when he was back inside of it the wolf followed his every move like it was stalking him.
This made him return to killing slimes as a lv5 wolf was a bit beyond his ability he felt.
After a few more hours of farming slimes he actually saw a notification that was different from his usual skill level increase.
~~~~~~~~~~
Spell Level Maximum Reached.
Spell: Mana Orb (N) can now be improved
Spell options-
Mana bullet (A)
A projectile made from neutral mana, improved speed and armor penetration.
Mana blast (A)
A projectile made from neutral mana, reduced speed but improved impact and added aoe damage.
Mana Stream (A)
A stream of neutral mana, casting lasts for one second and has a range of three meters.
~~~~~~~~~~
Now this was more interesting.
He had heard about how spells would improve from the teacher npcs but this was more than he expected.
He thought about his options for some time before ignoring the mana stream option entirely and looking at the other two.
'Mana blast just sounds like a grenade which is good but the speed worries me... id be fighting wolves next and that thing was fast.'
After thoroughly weighing the odds he chose mana bullet.
Testing the new spell it actually seemed to completely bypass the natural defense that the higher level slimes had... not that it mattered since all of his spells one shot the core anyway.
Ezekiel kept his casting up further and further while refilling his mana between casts and eventually he managed to reach lv4.
~~~~~~~~~~
Belial
Mage lv4. (Novice)
Infernal
Affinity: 10% fire, 10% shadow
Strength: 5
Vitality: 5
Agility: 9
Wisdom: 13 -> 17
Intelligence: 13 -> 19
Bloodline: child of the void.
Titles: n/a
Skills: Mana Control lv8 (N), Mana Sense lv7 (N), Mana Core lv5 (A), Spell Mastery (E)
Spells: Mana bullet lv1 (A)
~~~~~~~~~~
With this new success he now felt confident to go take on the wolves.
~
Looking out at the wolf that stalked him through the barrier Ezekiel took a deep breath before pushed out and cast his mana bullet at it.
The wolf lunged as soon as he exited the barrier but when it saw the spell it attempted to turn away, in the process it got hit in the flank.
-16
These wolves had higher defenses than the slimes and even with the natural armor penetrating aspect of the mana bullet it still had the damage reduced by nearly a sixth of the damage.
His spells were fast and his agility helped him to dodge the attacks of the wolf but his aim was not perfect making it harder to land a solid hit.
Eventually he whittled the wolf down to zero and watched it crumple like a doll with its strings cut.
The wolf was only lv4 which did give him a good amount of experience but at the same time he was after higher levels.
He sought out a stronger wolf and made sure to keep his distance while aiming a spell as best as he could.
From a long range he practically had to bring his face level with his arm as if aiming a sniper rifle before he finally cast the spell.
The spell was not as fast as he hoped but it was fast enough to strike the wolf by surprise.
The mana bullet struck the wolf in the face which indeed dealt a significant amount of damage as it hit a critical point.
Critical!
-32
This strike was severe as it made the wolf shriek and flee but having an eye socket blown to pieces would severely harm anythings abiltiy to coordinate.
It collapsed as it could not handle the pain of this nor the disorientation of losing an eye which allowed Ezekiel to put it out of its misery.
Now that he had learned this was possible he began to work towards lv5... like he was a stealth archer.
~
After using his long range sniping to take out a few wolves he was very close to lv5 but he was ready to push past it.
After searching around again he managed to find a lv 6 wolf lounging around.
He crouched down and prepared to cast his mana bullet again.
What he did not notice was the twitching nose of the wolf or the slight shift of its head as it scanned for what it smelled.
The spell was cast.... and the wolf dodged it easily.
Ezekiel stood up to back away while casting but this was not a perfect play as the wolf was quickly catching up.
He hit the wolf a few times with his spells but they did not wound the creature enough to make it stop as it lunged forward to bite him.
He tried to dodge away while casting another bullet into the creature's open maw.
-28
The wolf yelped and backed away as its mouth bled but it had gotten a good strike in.
His health was reduced by at least a third making him take a few steps away.
If this wolf was able to harm him that badly with just a claw to the side then he was afraid of what would happen when it successfully bit down on him.
He cast magic bullet again and began to grow worried about his mana, normally it didnt take much to kill a wolf after landing a crit and blinding them but now he was incredibly low on mana.
He raised a hand and chanted the spell pointing at the creatures flank which made it quickly move to the side.... only to have its front limb struck by a bullet cast from his other hand.
An intelligent creature could catch on to the basic strategies like stealth but they could also be fooled with trickery.
Ezekiel noticed something odd though.
Where the mana bullet struck the wolf a ghostly blue flame appeared which made the wolf react aggressively, every half second a damage number would appear that was a fraction of the spells impact damage.
-8
-8
-8
-8...
This was the elemental affect!
Mana burn, the elemental damage over time of neutral mana.
The wolf upon feeling the mana burn became enraged and attempted to attack Ezekiel again, but now with only rage fueling those attacks it was no more than an animal.
A deadly and very fast animal but very predictable.
Soon enough it was dead and this kill brought him to lv5.
~~~~~~~~~~
Belial
Mage lv5. (Novice)
Infernal
Affinity: 10% fire, 10% shadow
Strength: 5
Vitality: 5
Agility: 9
Wisdom: 17 -> 21
Intelligence: 19 -> 25
Bloodline: child of the void.
Titles: n/a
Skills: Mana Control lv9 (N), Mana Sense lv9 (N), Mana Core lv8 (A), Spell Mastery (E)
Spells: Mana bullet lv4 (A)
Player Has Reached Lv5
Racial Affinity Activated.
Spell Obtained: Fire Orb lv1 (N)
~~~~~~~~~~