Chương 51: Chapter 50: Event

[Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.] [Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.] [Tier 1 Beetle slain. Essence gained.] [Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.] [Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.] … [Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.] [Warforged Lvl 6 > Lvl 7] [Mana Cannon Lvl 3 > Lvl 5] [Fire Burst Lvl 15 > Lvl 16] Ben loved his new toy. Hovering high up in the sky, he'd basically spent the last hour or so raining absolute hellfire down on the forest just to test things out.

Fiddling with the wooden staff's input and output, he had eventually found a perfect sweet spot that didn't drain his reserves dry or instantly blow him backward. And honestly, he had essentially become a spammer at this point. Since the staff made the spell insanely efficient to cast, he was just rapid firing [Mana Cannon] at anything that even twitched in the leaves below in his [Mana Sonar], though he made sure it wasn't actually a person.

Blasting through monkeys and those giant beetles left and right, he soaked up the confluence of essence like a greedy sponge. Watching his levels continuously tick up, he noticed his points were steadily increasing at a surprisingly fast rate. Tapping his chin, he wondered if the points depended not just on his skill growth, but on his actual personal development as well, along with his general performance in the rift. If that was the case, that would be freaking amazing.

Getting a bit curious during his slaughter, he had also tried firing [Mana Cannon] barehanded a few times using the new mana routing tricks he learned from the staff that he'd observed through the [Mana Sense] aspect of his [Mana Sonar]. Since it felt like an extension of his own body, it was incredibly easy to try and replicate the way it routed mana through itself. So he took some inspiration from it.

Predictably, the mana had messed his hands up pretty badly, but that just gave him the perfect excuse to test out his new [Healing Mark]. Dumping the stored life mana directly into his arms, he was thrilled to see the construct work exactly as expected and heal him right up. But naturally, dropping magical artillery all over the forest was bound to attract some unwanted attention.

When he noticed a few human figures approaching through his [Mana Sonar] that he'd pushed far out of his range, he decided to quit while he was ahead. He turned around and flew back toward his little hideout. He was making good time, just coasting over the treetops, when a sudden shift rippled through the entire rift. It felt like a shockwave, and he felt it rattle through his body. For an instant, he lost control of his body.

Frantically trying to regain control, he fell from the sky, and when he finally balanced himself, he noticed something strange. The trees trembled and shook as the forest ground did, far beneath him. A cacophony of monkey screams and beastly roars from all over the rift and rose higher and higher as if in panic. Ben, too, felt some panic when so many monsters started shouting all so suddenly. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Pushing out a pulse of [Mana Sonar], he almost had a heart attack when a massive wave of pings rushed straight toward his position. He quickly realized the endless horde of beasts wasn't actually aiming for him at all. They were just frantically running away from something else. Blasting himself much higher into the sky with [Fire Burst], he squinted out to find the source of the chaos.

And way off into the distance, right about where he guessed all four different regions of the rift met, the earth was literally splitting apart. Something massive and dark was slowly jutting out of the ground, tearing the very landscape to shreds as it rose.... what the hell is that? And then, a system notification sounded. Rift parameters updating… Event starting… Staring at the text, Ben blinked in confusion. An event?

Whatever it was, a giant monolith rising in the middle of the rift was practically a massive neon sign. Others were definitely going to head straight for it. Making up his mind, he immediately turned to blast himself toward the monolith to check things out. Actually… Catching himself right before he fired off in that direction, he realized he was practically running on fumes. He'd just spent the last hour playing magical artillery commander, leaving his mana reserves completely tapped out.

So charging headfirst into whatever event was starting over there with an empty tank was probably a one way ticket to getting himself killed. Turning around, he quickly darted back toward his hidden little rock shelter and landed on the ground a bit far away in case someone had been tailing him. Slipping into the shadows he hoped [Lurker] would keep him hidden as he sped to his hideout. He needed to recover his mana and refine all that messy essence he'd been soaking up like a sponge before doing anything stupid.

Dropping down into his little hideout, he pulled his holding bag off his hip. Reaching inside, he pulled out a waterskin of the pond water and greedily chugged a good portion of it down. He sat cross legged on the floor and started circulating with his cycling technique. Guiding the intense rush of mana and essence through his body, he let his skills do the heavy lifting while he actively worked on refining the massive clump of monster essence sitting in his core.

As he got busy with it and time ticked away, a random thought suddenly popped into his head. If I can make a literal bomb socket inside my chest, can I make a construct that just... does this for me someday? Having an internal engine that constantly refined essence and recovered mana on autopilot in the background would be a completely insane thing to have for someone on the mana path… Shaking his head, he pushed the tempting idea aside. Eh, something to chew on later.

Right now, he just needed to focus on getting his tank full so he could go see what the hell was tearing the rift apart. Ben spent his time refining his essence. He easily topped off his mana reserves and consolidated all the messy gains he'd made from his little hunt in some time. He could literally feel himself inching closer and closer to the peak of Tier 1, and it felt pretty damn great. Though it was still quite a bit away.

Focusing back on his chest, he carefully funneled his life mana into the empty [Healing Mark], routing it through [Regeneration]. Filling the bomb socket all the way to the brim, or at least the safe limit he'd discovered, he also spent some time tinkering with the construct just to be safe. He didn't do anything entirely crazy, just smoothing out some rough edges to make the whole thing a lot more reliable under pressure. Though it was still frustratingly limited to just a single charge for now.

And he'd just have to live with that limitation until he actually got better at this whole inscribed construct thing. Blasting straight up into the sky when he was done, Ben rocketed toward the massive monolith in the distance. He didn't care about being stealthy because a literal giant stone tower was screaming for everyone's attention anyway. Hovering high above the forest, he finally got a good look at the so called event. A barrier completely surrounded the massive base of the towering monolith.

And crowding around the outside of that barrier were all the nobles. Of course they were already here and organized into neat little squads. They had the numbers, and had already formed into little factions, and actual teamwork on their side. Ben was just one guy floating in the sky with absolutely zero backup to his name. Yeah, no thanks. I'm not dealing with that ground level bullshit.

Deciding to entirely skip the queue, he cranked up his [Mana Sonar] and blanketed as much of the area around him as possible, and instead of flying down to compete with the others, he blasted toward the peak of the monolith. Or at least, that was the plan. Crossing an invisible threshold high in the air, his [Fire Burst] instantly died out. Wait, what?

He couldn't even catch a glimpse of the top before his flames just entirely vanished from existence, and suddenly, he was just a regular guy hundreds if not thousands of feet in the air.