It was only now that Sylver realized how much he had gotten used to the system helping him out. He waited a whole minute before asking a shade to go up towards the surface, to see if the monster was still alive or not, since Sylver hadn’t gotten a system notification.

According to the shades, it was very fuzzy on the surface.

And as Sylver materialized on top of a small wooden stump, or rather the charred remains of one, he had to agree. As he had rightfully suspected, the [Mystic Hunter] was immune to magic, but if the blood splattered everywhere was to be believed, it wasn’t immune to explosions.

Sylver jumped down from his stump and floated over to the crater, where the mud cylinder he had filled up with bombs had been. To his surprise, he didn’t find a weakened level 249 reptile, losing consciousness, and just barely hanging on.

Instead, he found…

A couple of scales.

4 scales to be precise, and what seemed to be a single claw, attached to a torn-off finger.

Other than that…

“So now there’s a wounded, and likely pissed off, mage hunting monster wandering around,” Sylver said out loud as if voicing the thought would make it less ridiculous.

The shades came back with, as seemed to be the new norm, bad news. They couldn’t find a trail, a supposedly crippled reptile left behind, meaning it either had the ability to fly, or it was pretty good at being stealthy.

“Are you going to track it?” Ria asked, as Sylver touched some of the blood floating in the water, even though he already knew there wasn’t any point.

“It’s anti-magic, inside and out, the spell won’t work…” Sylver explained, as he wiped his finger with a summoned piece of cloth, and threw it towards the filling up with water crater.

Sylver looked up for a moment to orient himself and then started walking deeper into the swamp.

“Where are you going?” Ria asked, after a couple of seconds.

“That way. We entered from the south, so I’m going northeast,” Sylver explained, and his completely oblivious tone made Ria keep quiet for a minute or so.

“What about that lizard?” Ria asked.

“You mean the lizard that for some reason is covered in armor magic can’t pierce, along with claws that can fuck up anything magical? That lizard?” Sylver asked.

“Yes.”

“Since I don’t know where it went, and I can’t track it, I’m going to try and forget about it. If it shows up again, I’m going to do my best to hide. I don’t know about you, but I prefer fighting things that aren’t immune to my main method of attack,” Sylver explained, as he searched for a distraction, and thankfully found a couple.

Total Level: 141
[Koschei-10]
[Necromancer-100]
[Swamp Lord-31]

CON: 200
DEX: 110
STR: 110
INT: 289
WIS: 240
AP: 10

Health: 1,722/2,000
Stamina: 970/1,000
MP: 8,755/11,560

Health Regen: 23.33/M
Stamina Regen: 20.00/M
MP Regen: 6242.40/M

Even without saying anything, Sylver could feel a reaction from Ria. He also felt a tickling at the back of his skull and had to not think about the fact that Ria had reacted to him opening his status.

There wasn’t much debate as to where Sylver should put his 10 attribute points. He put all 10 into intelligence, and even the thought of a magic hunting lizard with a vendetta against him couldn’t put a dent in the joy Sylver felt at almost getting to 300.

CON: 200
DEX: 110
STR: 110
INT: 299
WIS: 240
AP: 0

Health: 1,723/2,000
Stamina: 974/1,000
MP: 8,921/11,960

Health Regen: 23.33/M
Stamina Regen: 20.00/M
MP Regen: 6458.40/M

Sylver felt his mana core swell up a little, and then felt, but didn’t think about, the order in which his mana channels were altered. Curiously, the closest thing he could feel to a pattern was that it was every mana channel that was altered, and it was as far away as possible from the previously altered mana channel.

Sylver didn’t voice or think about this detail, but he did his very best to solidify the memory of this moment.

With that done, he moved on to the next thing.

There were 11 perks offered by [Swamp Lord] for increasing the class up to level 30, but out of those 11, there was only 1 Sylver was interested in. Even if his relationship with these particular things wasn’t pleasant, it was too good to overlook because of such a stupid reason. 

[Perk: Corpse Blossom]
Alive Aloe – During bloom will increase a creature’s [Constitution].
Lightning Lilac – During bloom will increase a creature’s [Dexterity].
Grand Gladiolus – During bloom will increase a creature’s [Strength].
Clever Clematis – During bloom will increase a creature’s [Intelligence].
Shrewd Snapdragon – During bloom will increase a creature’s [Wisdom].
*Limited to 1 seed per corpse.
*Effectiveness dependent on proximity.

Like a child being gifted a brand new toy, Sylver reached into his [Bound Bones] storage and pulled out the first corpse he could find. He had no idea who the corpse belonged to, other than that it wasn’t one of his clones.

A small seed that looked like a dark grey raisin appeared in between Sylver’s thumb and forefinger. He held the corpse in one hand and held the seed in the other, and without even having to think about it, the seed in his hand changed shape and color, depending on Sylver’s intent.

He decided to start with the [Clever Clematis], and very gently, Sylver poked the seed into the wound on the corpse’s neck. Sylver’s [Chloromancy] worked in tandem with his [Dead Dominion] as he felt the tiny seed spread its roots up into the corpse’s head, and down throughout its body, and watched as a single bright green stem forced its way out of the gaping wound.

Sylver stared at the green stem, and in tandem with the first purple flower budding on the top, Sylver felt his mana capacity and regeneration gradually increase. Instinctively he knew he could command the flower to grow faster, provide a bigger boost, but for a shorter period of time. Or he could command it to grow slowly, for a smaller boost, but for a longer period of time.

Sylver released the corpse with the bright purple flower growing out of its torn open neck and kept it floating near him using [Dead Dominion]. After some playing around Sylver figured out the effective range was barely 5 meters when he made the plant grow quickly and seemed to be near the edge of 50 meters when the plant was made to grow slowly.

Surprisingly enough, it did work on the shades, but the more shades Sylver shared the flower with, the less they received individually. The intelligence boost the flower provided was finite, and Sylver got the feeling it would be the same for any other attribute.

Next, he grew an [Alive Aloe] inside the stab wound in the back of a woman’s spine. Sylver could tell right away the flower didn’t like this placement, but it worked regardless of that. 

He would later discover that the flowers responsible for an intelligence and wisdom boost, preferred being grown in the head. The constitution boosting flower preferred being grown near the heart, and the strength and dexterity flowers preferred being grown near the chest, and abdomen, respectively.

From experimenting with the corpses he had on hand, Sylver got a maximum boost of 20 to 30 percent, for a little under a minute, and was able to have a steady boost of around 5 percent, for roughly 15 minutes.

As they bloomed, the corpses the seeds were in would dry up, and when the flower started to wilt, the corpse became as dehydrated as jerky and about as brittle. Sylver would dissect one of these at a later date, but from a cursory observation, couldn’t see anything wrong that he couldn’t fix, given enough time.

He also found out that once planted, the seeds didn’t do anything until Sylver gave them an order to grow. He could even hold them off from blooming, but once the flowers opened up, Sylver could only slow them down, but couldn’t stop them completely. Cutting the flower off caused the process to stop completely, but doing so killed the flower.

Sylver could then plant the same seed, or he could plant a different seed, but it would have to grow new roots, and there was less moisture left for it to use.

When Sylver explained how the flowers worked, even Ria seemed to get motivated to find something powerful to kill and experiment with. However, just from the tone she used, Sylver could tell she wasn’t interested in the killing itself, but rather that she felt something interesting when he used this perk, and wanted to see him use it more.

***

“You forgot to accept the skill rank up,” Spring said in a disappointed tone of voice.

He had waited an entire half hour and ended up losing the bet he had made with Ria, back when Sylver first got the notification.

Sylver’s choice was limited to 2 effects. 

The first would increase his resistance to darkness-based magic, which was useless to Sylver, especially since he was a full dark, and the other would make him a little lighter. And while it sounded useless, the less strain Sylver put on his leg muscles, the better. 

[Skill: Vigorous Conditioning (IV) [A]]
Skill level can be increased by receiving damage.
I – Increase resistance against [Positive Energy] by 25%.
II – Increase resistance against [Physical Damage] by 40%.
III – Increase Stamina Regeneration by 50%.
IV – Reduce body weight by 20%.

For a moment Sylver was worried he was going to float up into the sky, but the moment passed before he had even managed to finish the thought. It felt like being under the effect of an extremely well-balanced anti-gravity spell, except it was somehow smoother than anything Sylver had ever managed to achieve.

Normally with such a spell, there was at least some uncomfortable feeling of weightlessness, like something was lifting you by the shoulder, neck, head, foot, but the system made it feel so natural, Sylver was used to his new weight within 2 steps.

Sylver was smiling, as he continued walking on the murky swamp water, and his friendly smile evolved into a slight grin, as he felt something slowly finally surrounding him. He used [Fog Form] to fly high into the air, and sat down on a branch.

Below him, the perfectly calm and undisturbed water began to bubble, and a couple of seconds later, an oily and dark brown head emerged. It looked like a human head covered in mud, but if a person were to look closer, they would see that it wasn’t hair sticking out through the mud, but very fine tentacles, the source of which was a-

[Gourd Gizzard – Mud Slinger – 82]
[HP: 6,770 – 100%]
[MP: 0 – 0%]
[Stamina: 5,319 – 91%]
[Corpse – Petty]
[Soul – N/A]

According to the friendly barkeep, these things looked like a small gourd, with hair sticking out of the top. Once they’re broken open, there is an organ that looks similar to a chicken’s gizzard. The barkeep didn’t say what it was used for, but according to Sylver’s list, the Red Bears were offering a gram of green jade for every set of 5.

Sylver looked down and saw that there were now 2 more human-shaped mud figures standing behind the level 82 one. They were level 81 and level 76. Behind them, 3 more appeared, and 5 more appeared behind them, and 7 appeared behind them, every time Sylver blinked more and more appeared.

After some more blinking, he heard a sound behind him and saw a person-shaped creature climbing up the tree trunk. Directly below it, there were between 100 to 200 [Gourd Gizzard]s of various shapes, sizes, and levels. Sylver was surrounded from both sides.

[Gourd Gizzard]s were extremely dangerous, not due to their individual prowess, but because they hunted in very large groups.

“There are so many of you,” Sylver said, as the one climbing up the tree began climbing faster. 

He could see the hair tips sticking out of its hands, like a glove with needles coming out of the palm area.

Sylver didn’t bother turning around as a ball of dried mud flew right at his head, about the size and spikiness, of a chestnut, as a tendril of [Necrotic Mutilation] extended out of his robe, and smacked it back down.

“A whole army,” Sylver said, as the creature that was climbing up the tree was now close enough that Sylver could see the hair in its mouth positioned like shiny needle teeth.

“But,” Sylver said, as he slapped his hand on the tree branch he was sitting on, and a sharp branch grew out of the tree trunk the mud creature was attached to. It passed through the creature’s mud and exited with the pierced gourd-shaped core screaming, with a high pitched wail, as its various fine hairs attempted to reach for the mud sliding down the tree trunk.

Spring appeared on that very same branch, and with his bare hand, grabbed a fistful of struggling hair, and deftly sliced it off. 

He then, while the whole “army” down below watched, proceeded to crack the gourd open down the middle like a coconut, and scooped out a small slimy bright red organ that genuinely looked identical to a chicken’s gizzard.

“Mine’s bigger,” Sylver said, as the ground that had been inhabited exclusively by mud creatures suddenly found themselves outnumbered by creatures that were as black as shadows, with faint cracks of gold.

“Be careful to leave the gourds intact!” Sylver shouted, and thankfully Spring heard him loud and clear to pass his order along because he doubted any of the shades below could hear a thing. 

Considering the mixture of battle cries and terrified and confused screeching.

While he waited for the sounds of battle to attract more monsters on his list, Sylver floated the corpse of the [Gourd Gizzard] over to himself and dissected it to pass the time.