'Argh!' Avan cursed inwardly, just grateful to be able to use at least his Akkalons form as claws to climb down this loose scree slope without breaking all the bones in his body.
The descent into the left-hand gorge was anything but planned, and even with the clawed gloves and shoes he had made for himself, he kept slipping as loose stones came tumbling off the wall. His sphere of influence itself showed him which stones were supposed to hold, but even that was more a lucky guess than proven science.
So Avan hung halfway down the gorge and had covered a little more than ten meters when he wondered if he could just dare to jump down. With protection in the form of his forms, of course, but he was just tired of the slow climb.
'Would it even work?' He thought as he looked down the remaining ten meters. The floor of the gorge was not flat and had many bumps, where you could quickly break something if you landed awkwardly after a jump. Could my balls float me down? They float as it is... Why have I never tried this before? Huh.'
He dared, hanging on the steep wall, to loosen one foot and command the boot encased in his mana to float, as did the other 18 balls above his head.
Immediately he noticed how his foot became lighter, even if it gave slightly when he shifted his weight on it, but it would inevitably cushion his fall or even help him slide down. His mana pool going down felt a jolt as he shifted his weight more onto that one boot, and it directly cost a lot more mana than if the ball would just float out on its own.
'Probably normal to assume that the magic needs more energy when it suddenly has to lift more, like an engine. Logical.' 
Very carefully, and anchored much more firmly to his hands in the stones, he also released the second shoe from the wall and gave the mental command to float. The mana regeneration dropped again a bit more, but with the immense regeneration he had here in the dungeon, it didn't even seem to matter 1%.
He bent his legs slightly, while the stones on his hands cracked threateningly, to see once again how fast he would float down with the two shoes. Much to his satisfaction, the two shoes alone slowed his presumed fall speed by 20%, if he had to express it in numbers. 'That should work... But later I'll fall down headfirst... I should use more of my forms.'
'What about my robe?! There's a total of 5 of my forms in there by now.' Another thought came to his mind, and with his lips curled up in concentration, he tried to feel how the magical fabric of his robe could help him float or at least glide down.
The robe itself would tear if he didn't do it right, Avan knew instinctively. He gave the entire robe the command to reinforce each other as soon as more strain was placed on one part, allowing for a more balanced distribution across the entire fabric. Whether it worked as he imagined it, he did not know yet, but here it was a case of try before you buy.
The command to levitate the magical material suddenly tore a much, much larger hole in his mana regeneration, which Avan noticed immediately with widened eyes as it dropped by almost 40%. 'Holy crap! Was all he thought to that as he felt the fabric strengthen each other and his body weight would cause the fabric to tear in some places, but the threads held together like steel cables, resulting in this huge mana cost. Not only did the mana fabric have to help its body weight float, it also had to spend mana to distribute the weight and strain evenly everywhere.
'I wonder if that also means that a knife thrust, sword stroke, or the like is deflected and the attack is evenly distributed? What if someone hits me with a sledgehammer?!' The extent of this ability flashed through his mind. Shaking his head briefly, he now concentrated on the acute problem of getting to the bottom of the gorge, and put aside the other possibilities of his abilities for the time being.

The robe hugged Avan under the armpits, at the shoulders, at the hips, and everywhere it clung and bound to his body as he felt himself getting lighter and lighter. Not nearly enough to fly, but more than enough to float down like a feather.
Another command to his clawed gloves, and they too became as light as a feather. For a fraction of a second, Avan stood in the air, where he had just clawed his way into the wall, and immediately he was descending gently. Another command to his holding forms even gave him the opportunity to change direction slightly, even if it cost 10% more mana regeneration.
Giving the command to float upward, against gravity, was not a good idea, and so he left that test open for another day, when he could not fall ten meters and save anyone.

His robe flowed around him like water, almost as if he was underwater with all his clothes, and he slowly but steadily floated down. He tried something with the floating around, and could determine the strength and how fast he slid down, when he used less mana to float it went down faster, while when he used more mana it went down as slow as a snail crawling. Standing completely in the air was not possible with his current level, but he still had free stat points that he had saved up in case he wanted to invest them in something specific. Like now.
Moving his mental muscle, he gave the okay to put 100 more of his 270 free stat points into wisdom. Immediately, a backlash went through his soul and his core, his eyes widened thanks to the sudden increase in his perception, and while his mana pool grew only minimally so unpressed, Avan's mana regeneration made another huge leap.
Where his robe had previously taken up 40% of his regeneration, it now shrank down to less than 20%, and in general the quality of his mana felt higher than before. 'I wonder if this regulates the efficiency of how well or poorly my mana is used in my spells?'
Suddenly he stood still in the air, and only his robe continued to flow around him in invisible currents as he stared enthusiastically at his hands and then looked down at himself. He was no longer three meters above the floor of the gorge, floating in place. There was no invisible platform or anything like that on which he was standing, because he could move his feet and arms as he wished, even if it cost a little more mana.
With the postponed test from before back in mind, he pumped more mana than before into his floating forms, stopping only when 90% of his mana regeneration was claimed and he himself had an approaching headache. Instead of hovering in place, he could now float in any direction at normal walking speed, and even go up, though it was hardly worth mentioning and he would be many times faster climbing. 'Nevertheless! This is a whole new way to fight! If I can launch from an elevated position, or even if I fall down somehow, I can cushion my impact and get back up much faster!'
The number of possibilities that ran through his head were enormous. From a robe that could grab, attack, and fly, it was all tied to his mana pool and mana regeneration.
However, he still didn't know if it would be wise to invest all of his last 170 stat points in wisdom now, when he might need more strength or other stats later. Anyway, he knew that he would have to fight some battles if he wanted to free his people. 
A quick glance at his stats, and a soft thud as he hit the ground, and he thought about what he wanted to invest the stats in. Avan was aware that after seeing the two elite vampire guards, he would definitely need every bit of his stats.

Avan Leaf
Level: 188
Free Stat Points: 170
Element: Celestial
Class: [Silver] Dungeonarchitect (Human)
Subclass: [Silver] Healer of Akkalon

 
Stats
Strength: 75
Dexterity: 230
Vitality: 135
Intelligence: 230
Wisdom: 320
Spirit: 267

 
?̴̡̝̖͙͍̫̮̭͕̬̠̖̺̙͓̖͉͊̌̀͑ͅ ̸̢̜̦̪̳̗̻̙̭̠̜͚̘̽̓͋̇̈́̅͊̎̒̽̽̀́͘ͅ?̴̧̬͓͔͖͖͇͂̍͊̄͒ ̵̧̢̛͇̦͈͒̊͛̋͒?̴̛̬͙̜͙̦̳̭̫̭̭̫͔̣̗͈̗̭̄͛̿͊͆̾͐̀̉̂̆̆̚͜

[Origin of Runes]

Primary Resources
Health: 725
Stamina: 725
Ambient Mana: 8600
Souls: 498/1000

As he looked at his stats, Avan's gaze also briefly wandered over his skills and briefly lingered on the passives, some of which he had somewhat neglected. 'Pain Expert, Tracking, Steady and also my Celestial Affinity I should urgently level up... whereby the latter goes hand in hand with the consumption of Golden Maples, which I would like to save for now, until I can also produce magic things with my dungeon and duplicate them'.
His mana pool had increased by much more than his wisdom should allow at 5 per one stat point, but he knew it wasn't normal mana but rather ambient mana, which only increased the more his sphere of influence grew. 
So he stood at the bottom of the canyon, thoughtfully shifting his weight from one leg to the other as he pondered how to distribute the stats.
'75 in strength, 15 in vitality, and the remaining 80 in intelligence? That would bring strength and vitality to an even 150 points, and my intelligence for more damage. Should be balanced enough...' Nodding slowly, satisfied with his thought processes, he invested the points just so. 'That brings my life pool up to 800. Ridiculous compared to the gigantic mana pool, but what can you do.' He chuckled briefly, but very pleased with the overall result.
Finished with this topic, he waited, standing still, as his muscles enlarged and swelled and writhed a bit creepily like living fat worms, until the muscle strands abruptly contracted and condensed. A quick flex of his muscles revealed hard mountains under his skin, with a few veins popping out here and there, but unlike a bodybuilder's body, he had enough dexterity to still look lean but very toned.
The 80 points in intelligence, on the other hand, were less noticeable, and Avan merely imagined he had a better feel for handling and understanding his magic than before. For example, he knew how to minimally improve efficiency when it came to the extreme mana cost of levitating his robe. Where before it was a simple command to strengthen the fabric throughout and make everything float, he knew he would have to look at the fabric more closely to strengthen the areas of highest stress while the others needed less mana, which would result in less mana consumption overall.
Relieved to be as prepared as possible, he finally took a closer look at his surroundings. The floor of the gorge was littered with cracks and bumps, and if Avan hadn't invested so much in Dexterity, he would definitely have had trouble with a normal body not falling over every second step. 

'But what is that?' It shot him through the head, when he saw further back in a few meters distance shapeless things spread all over the ground, which were in the dark but only the outlines. A few steps in the direction in which he had to go anyway, made him suddenly become more careful, because these things he had discovered were disemboweled corpses in various degrees of decomposition. 'Not that I'm surprised to find bloodless corpses in an environment populated by vampires.'

There were corpses of all sizes, including children, he realized, and Avan clenched his fists as he watched various horror scenarios play out in his head. What they all had in common, as far as he could see in his sphere of influence when he got close enough and sat down on one knee, were the various stabbings at equal distances from each other, which came from the fangs of the vampires.
While the smaller bodies showed mainly punctures on the throats and necks, some of the withered women's bodies and even some of the men's corpses had such punctures on several parts of the naked bodies, including dangerously close to the bottom of the hips and the inner parts of the thighs. 
'Disgusting bastards, tsk.' Avan clicked his tongue in disgust, but didn't have much emotion in him besides disgust for these creatures as he looked so closely at the corpses. 'They're already dead... So what am I supposed to freak out about. Any help is already too late for these poor people.'

Before he could think further about the situation and various mental images, he suddenly jumped back hastily as a dark gray shadow appeared at the spot where he had just been kneeling. His reaction time had been enough to avoid the creature, even if it had been close and he had been distracted. Cursing inwardly at this stupidity, he identified the creature that had turned to him in unnatural movements, as more of these things appeared from further back in the gorge and came to a stop, foaming at the mouth, next to the other creature.

[Ghoul - 181 - Frenzy]

[Ghoul - 195 - Descendant of Xavier]

The first ghoul in front of him the seemingly the leader, not only by level, but also by status and condition of body, when Avan looked closer. While the other ghouls grew and grew, all foaming at the mouth, making the status of the frenzy more than clear. 'Descendant of Xavier, huh? Like my cape... and not in frenzy, so more intelligent than the others. I'll have to be real careful with that one.'
Before he could think further, or formulate a plan, the foremost ghoul raised his head into his neck, and screeched once loudly, while something resembling saliva flew out of his mouth and splattered down to Avan's feet. Like a dam that had been broken or a leash that had been let loose, the other frenzied ghouls sprinted off.
'Fuck!' 
The number of ghouls still did not stop, and by now there were far more than twenty, and the trend was upward.
Avan jumped backwards, using his cloak and mana to get as much distance as possible in that one jump, while thinking feverishly. Instinctively, he converted his 18 spheres floating above him into the golden-silver glowing variants and sent them forward in spear and sawblade forms at the horde of ghouls. Much to his dismay, his forms did much less damage than anticipated, and most of them even briefly lodged in the bodies of the creatures, which continued to run furiously toward him. Only four of the ghouls toppled over as his forms separated their heads from their shoulders at lucky angles or penetrated deep into their brains. All the other creatures stopped only briefly on impact, but then continued to run mindlessly toward their target; Avan.
Avan himself changed his tactics instantly, frozen in place, and concentrated all his brain power on annihilating the opponents in front of him instead of trying to climb up the wall behind him like a fool.
Ten of his forms became paper-thin and fused together to form a magical barrier that covered the entire three meter width at the beginning of the canyon from left to right, while the other eight forms became thinner and thinner until beads of sweat ran and dripped down Avan's forehead from sheer mental exertion.
Celestial mana infused paper-thin wires emerged where swords and spears had floated before, and with another strained grunt from the spell caster, they began to spin and became so fast that soon 8 of these wires were hissing as they spun deadly in place.

While the ghouls had just kept running headlong, slashing and clawing at the barrier of celestial mana, the mana wires behind them reached maximum speed and with more drops of sweat came the mental command to saw into the creatures' necks and throats, killing each of the ghouls in front of the barrier within Avan's sphere of influence. 
The ghouls didn't know what was happening, and even as many of the ghouls simply slapped the ground, their heads severed, dead, the other creatures behind them stepped over the bodies and picked up where the one in front had left off. The barrier flickered and sucked more mana out of Avan's mana pool by the second, and his mana regeneration barely kept up with the mana flowing into the barrier and the 8 mana wires swirling through the air in front of it, cutting off heads.
'Damn small sphere of influence!' he mentally vomited, once again aware in the middle of the fight of how lucky he was to be able to do anything with his otherwise huge sphere of influence, and now so limited.
Minutes passed as the ghouls gradually thinned out, leaving only a sweaty Avan standing at the end, disregarding the intelligent ghoul who seemed to be looking angry and had wisely held back. The creature's gaze wandered over the corpses at that moment, seeming to notice that Avan's attacks had a certain range. With a glint in its eye, and a final ominous glance at Avan, the ghoul spun around and disappeared into the darkness of the canyon with a mixture of jumping and running.
'Great... Vulnerability revealed, intelligent creature escaped, and I can certainly look forward to ambushes from this bastard down here now...' He sighed, and dropped his hands at his sides, which he had raised forward during the fight. Avan didn't really need gestures to command his forms, but it had somehow felt right to mentally maintain the barrier with his outstretched palms. 
He plopped backwards onto the floor, and just managed to suppress a pained yelp as his left butt cheek hit a slightly sharp stone. 

*Chime*
You have killed a level 167 ghoul.
Experience granted.

*Chime*
You killed a level 178 ghoul.
Experience granted.

...

*Chime*
You killed a level 181 ghoul.
Experience granted.

*Chime*
You slaughtered a horde of well over 50 ghouls in just a few minutes!
You have been granted the title "Bane of the Undead"!

Title: [Bane of the Undead]
Any damage you deal to the undead is increased by 50%.
This title is not upgradeable.

*Chime*
Congratulations! You have reached level 190!
You have been granted 10 free stat points for leveling up.