Chương 66: [Trial Completed] [Skill Acquired]

Vraxious—The Ravenous Grove Vrax's trial had finally completed; he looked at the notification with a mixture of relief and guilt. [Establish a dominion one-half league in size.](1/1) [No creatures unbound from the cycle may exist within your domain.](0/0) [Trial Completed] He had waited with Sunshine and Duchess for a while while they continued fighting the beleaguered troll. Duchess eventually freed the poor thing from the rubble and let it run before she hunted it down over and over.

In the end, it had never stayed dead; Duchess had just broken its mind to the point that even the system agreed it wasn't in charge anymore. Eventually Vrax had taken Sunshine and left, really hoping that Duchess would get bored soon and come back or at least that the troll's regeneration would finally fail. Vrax ambled past a thick curtain of near-transparent leaves he had adapted to grow from the moss on the large broken building like an organic greenhouse window.

The base floor of the building directly behind his shrine to Vurune was turning into a bastardized mix between a classic greenhouse and some kind of evil fleshcrafter's workshop. There were only a few rows of budding plants sprouting from the scattered soil on the ground for now. The back half of the room was an L-shaped table made out of a half dozen smaller tables he had stolen from merchant stalls nearby. There was one rather important sprout sitting dead center in the greenhouse gently humming with life.

His spear roots wound through the bloodied armor of the paladin to sink into the flesh of the nyad. Vrax couldn't believe it when he had tried to take his spear from his pack earlier that week and instead found it had reached out to greedily feast on the dead fae. No wonder no one has been able to get a spriggan sapling to take root in years; most people wouldn't even dream of actually hunting a true fae, much less doing it and then having access to a baby spriggan of all things.

The only thing on the workbench right now was the mysterious angry blob of veins in a jar he got from the troll, and the Sirens call Daisy. Vrax settled into a hammock of his own creation, a writhing mass of everthirst root that gently conformed to his body, holding him aloft perfectly. Vrax winked towards the angry jar and closed his eyes to see what kind of havoc he could cause in his sanctuary with a completed trial and a full lake of essence. It was time for some more upgrades and a new skill.

As Vrax's consciousness delved inward, his view was pulled to a god's-eye view of a wooded glade with a cloaked man once again, as had become the standard for his skill selections. He gazed down upon the indistinct version of what he one day could be, and honestly, he was pretty happy with it; the cloaked man was consistently a badass. This time a group of armored figures filtered through the trees ahead of the cloaked figure, weapons drawn, obviously approaching with violent intent.

He stood in the center of the glade unarmed and unmoving. With a wave of his hand the glade roiled, the life nearby being rent from his surroundings in sickening waves, compressing into two orbs that flickered between a maddening green that hurt to look at and the deepest black that tugged at your soul. Goddamn. I don't even know what that does yet, and it looks fucking awesome! The armored men charged into the glade cautiously circling past the orbs of unknown energy; it didn't matter.

The orbs both flashed to the deepest black for a moment, and Vrax watched energy chain to the nearest man like black lightning, liquefying him within his armor. Then the lightning snapped back to the orbs, and they shifted to the maddening green. An explosion of nettles ripped out like a shockwave towards the next nearest man, ripping him off the ground and growing across him in the blink of an eye, burying him from sight under a field of needle-like thorns as long as a sword.

The scene repeated the orbs shifting between entropic energies and chaotic blasts of life that shared no similarity other than how effective they were. The glade grew still as the armored figures bled out into the grass or fertilized the glade. The glade itself was a tumbled war zone of disparate overgrowths of plants shaped like a crashing wave. That's solidly in the maybe category; it looks like I can lay those like the world's meanest self-sustaining mine.

The glade reset; this time the cloaked man Stood in the midst of a dense, tightly packed stand of thin vegetation—more stalks than anything else. All around the glade the ground was blackened earth covered in ash that skeletal figures with bows prowled. The cloaked man skirted the edge of his cover, peering into the exposed terrain. With a wave of his hand, the stalks behind him slowly wilted until only the tiny patch he stood in remained.

With a wave of his other hand, a corridor of vegetation exploded from the ground, and he ran forwards into it. He continued like this through a barren hellscape, harvesting his cover and growing new patches of life as he moved forward, always remaining hidden from the throngs of undead around him. Damn, a way to store and use rot and life on demand would be great, especially since it's what powers my armor's defenses. I could probably eventually use it to heal too. It's not very offensive, though.

The Glade reset once again; this time it was a dark, twisted forest where all the plants had hungry eyes and twitched uncomfortably towards the cloaked man. A hollow-looking figure with protruding ribs and a caved-in skull stumbled towards the cloaked man. Then more of them clambered around the hungering trees, swarming towards him by the dozen. The cloaked man calmly drew his spear and jogged at the growing horde. He stopped abruptly a stride from the hoard and ran his free hand through the forest soil.

The ground around him shuddered as an almost imperceptible ring of dark green and white light formed unevenly in the ground around him. The first skeletal figure to stumble past the rings' borders was unmade with each step; black energy ripped from it into the ground as each footfall caused small patches of verdant grass to sprout. By the time it crumbled to dust next to the cloaked man, it had made a trail of footprints, the verdant life within a stark contrast to the gloom around them.

The glade reset, and the three possible skills began playing on loop once again, showing Vrax his choices. Well damn, I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't quite these. The first seems to be a damn powerful way to harness the cycle and use it almost like a turret spell of sorts, probably very strong, but I'm sure I could make some beasts that serve that function.

The second power had some massive utility, making his own cover on the fly, restoring areas after his stigmata ruined them, and if it let him store that energy, he could potentially endlessly restore the same battlefield as his armor used it as fuel for his defenses. The final option looked like a fascinating and very strong counter to undead beings; hell, it probably worked on anything that Vurune just didn't like, but it was too situational for now. Vrax went ahead and selected the second option.

[New Skill Acquired] [Cistern Of Bloom And Decay] Manipulate the cycle of decay and regrowth around you. Life changed to decay in this way is stored within the cistern; stored life leaks away over time. Targeted decay will be reborn as what it once could have been. [Mana Cost: Moderate] Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Vrax found himself standing in a small patch of tall, thick blades of grass that shimmered through all the spectrums of the rainbow slowly.

All around him was a roiling field of blackened muck madly bubbling as his sanctuary was reborn after his first trial. The lake exploded from the rot; first waves of essence glowing a hungry green washed across the blackened field, and Vrax's awful twisted creatures and plants pulled themselves upward through the essence. The ground continued to writhe as willows shot forth around the edges of his sanctuary.

The towering waterfall rose from the ground into an intimidating monument covered in constantly shifting smelter moss that caused clouds of essence to descend as superheated steam, casting a new unearthly haze over his domain.

"Holy shit." Vrax slowly spun around as a world was born around him; the layout was much the same, but it was so much more. He could barely even see his sanctuary border in the distance, and the sheer number of animals and plants hunting, playing, and existing around him was dizzying. Devourers whizzed by overhead after fleeing falcons.

Duchess shoved her way through dense underbrush to wrap up a tree after a fleeing Nightmare conductor only to be sent crashing as dozens of malevolent hellfire-filled eyes turned their ethereal magic towards her. Vrax looked at the array of sculptures around his lake, one for each of his skills, and his core statue right in front of the waterfall's cave entrance, laid out like the points of a compass.

The biggest change, however, was that his lake had a single finger of land leading like a bridge to a small island in the center of the lake. On that island the spriggan sapling sat alone, its roots wound through the armor, through the slain fae, and deep into the loam beneath.

"Well damn, I didn't expect this much of an expansion! Alright, what should we upgrade first?" Vrax cocked a crooked grin towards his full lake of essence; he knew changes would take more essence now that he was a higher level, but that was still an awful lot of essence. Vrax started with his [Core statue]. He has been using the same cobbled-together identify he made back at level zero; it was time for an upgrade, something that fit his current fighting style and way of gathering power.

Vrax wrapped threads of essence around his hands and gently probed into the identify talent carefully; making talents was a tricky thing, and if they turned out wrong, you had to waste a lot of essence to rip it out and try again. His meteoric progress was in large part due to his constant deadly struggles; if he had only been fighting goblins and slimes, he would probably still be somewhere around level fifteen.

But the only reasons he had survived doing that were his omnipresent paranoia and preparations; information really was a weapon to him. So Vrax decided to elevate his identity. I'm thinking keep it always on; that will cause a small mana drain but shouldn't be a problem, and if I can manage to get it to show how deadly something is for its level, that would be immensely helpful.

I feel like that fucking farmer Jonathan would have had a big skull and crossbones after his class or maybe a "just don't" note from the system. Vrax began threading essence into identify with waves of intent, first changing it so it was always primed with mana, ready to be toggled into his awareness with a thought. Then he focused on the concept of comparison, using the humble but formidable shrike guard as his baseline. Something he considered dangerous and effective but perfectly reasonable for its level.

He fed thread after thread of essence into his statue for far longer than he expected, finally feeling something click on a metaphysical level as the Talent was remade. [Talent Acquired] [Predator's Gaze] Reveal a living being's name, tier, and level if it is an essence infused entity. Entities will have a threat rating relative to their level shown.

[Passive Slight Mana Drain] Vrax looked at the lake behind him; reforging Identify had cost far more essence than he thought it would, taking nearly a quarter of the lake. and that right there is why so few people have advanced [Identify] Style talents. Most folks don't think spending a few whole levels of essence on it is worth it. They are wrong, but you know, their loss is my gain. Vrax turned his attention to his core statue again; it was time for some more core improvements.

He started by willing a writhing, serpent-like wave of essence behind himself and began suffusing his mana pathways once more, this time also focusing on his body's ability to draw in more mana, picturing himself almost as a vortex that mana flowed into and then out of. Vrax briefly lost control of the serpentine essence, his will being too unspecific in its guidance. By the time he cut off the flow, he had spent more essence than he intended to. Mana Capacity: 2. 0 Mana Regeneration: 1.

4 Total Mana: 204/204 Well, shit. I wasn't going to upgrade it that much, but it's fine; I guess I'll just have to wait a few more levels before I make any big changes to my Smite. But I've still got enough essence for one more change. I've been worried about doing this because it can change the way you perceive things, but with how fucking fast some of my foes have been, I think I need it. Vrax gathered the rest of his lake behind himself and focused on his core.

He pictured himself dashing from side to side, avoiding spells being thrown at him almost as if he knew they were coming. The slightest twang of a bowstring letting him know to duck, the twitch of anger on a man's face before he swung a fist in the tavern. The essence trailed off as the lake ran dry, and Vrax heaved a sigh of relief; it was done. Reflexes: 1. 4 Vrax pulled up his full class status to review where he stood after completing his trial and spending a full sanctuary's worth of essence.

[Vraxious Tier-1] (lvl 29) (Unique) [Paladin Of The Cycle] You will safeguard the cycle of life and death. Wield the powers of growth, of change, and of decay to set the world free from those who would hold it stagnant. Stand tall with weapon held high and strike down those who would fetter you. You will adapt the life of the world around you to serve your will; life leads to change, change leads to death, death leads to rot, rot leads to life, and thus the cycle continues.

[Skills] [Decomposing Smite](lvl2) Infuse your blows with entropy, corroding your foes and using their essence to heal your wounds. You may shape the path of the entropic energy with your will. [Mana Cost Variable] [Cistern Of Bloom And Decay] Manipulate the cycle of decay and regrowth around you. Life changed to decay in this way is stored within the cistern, stored life leaks away over time. Targeted decay will be reborn as what it once could have been.

[Mana Cost Moderate] [Adapt Life] (lvl 10) Change living beings to better suit your needs. Entities changed with this skill will be less hostile towards the paladin, and towards those who wear an adapted mark of the cycle upon themselves. You may view and adapt the [Talents] and [Skills] of adapted entitys. Faster changes or changes farther from the base functions of an entity will use exponentially more mana. The more powerful an entity, the more mana required.

All adapted entities can be called back to you the willingness of them to return hinges on distance and if they are occupied. [Mana Cost Massively Variable] [Increased Efficiency] [Duration Permanent] [Apex Guardian] [1/2 Guardians Chosen] You may designate an adapted Creature as your Apex Guardian, This will strengthen the bond you share with it as well as vastly decreasing the mana costs required to adapt it.

[Stigmata Wrath Of The Grove](lvl 15) Woe befall those that would cause harm to those under the sacred canopy of our protection. Life is a struggle. Life is pain. Life is hunger. Life is fear. Let those who threaten our beloved feel naught but the wrath of the grove until they are returned to the cycle. [Stigmata Garden, twelve slots available] Entities in the stigmata garden will make copies of themselves.

The life drain of the stigmata garden will now affect a larger area and affect essence-bound entities that oppose Vurune's chosen. Your garden now contains a menagerie of predation allowing adapted creatures to be added, only the strong will survive. Your Stigmata will drain the life from your surroundings to shield itself. When clad in your stigmata armor nothing shy of the mightiest of divining magics will reveal anything other than you are [The Paladin Of The Forsaken Lands](Chosen Of Vurune).

[Talents] [Forest Strider] The forest around you will subtly aid your movement based on intent, be that speed or stealth. [Passive] [The Herald Of The Hunt] Shrines to Vurune in places where the cycle reigns supreme allow the Champion of Vurune to stake a Kings Claim. Maintain supremacy to maintain your claim. Claw and Fang Sword and Staff will answer those who question the resurgence of the god of life, the god of death, and the ever-changing progress he brings.

Craft places of savagery and growth that revel in the challenges of the constant struggle between life and death, my champion. [Passive] [Predator's Gaze] Reveal a living being's name, tier and level if it is an essence infused entity. Entities will have a threat rating relative to their level shown. [Passive Slight Mana Drain] [Hunter's Ear] Your hearing is as sharp the predators of the deep wood, more easily discern slight sounds. [Passive] Improved Attributes Mental Defenses: 1. 6 Reflexes: 1.

4 Physical Strength: 1. 4 Mana Capacity: 2. 0 Mana Regeneration: 1. 4 Physical Defense: 1. 2 Total Mana: 204/204