Picking at scabs, Do'myrith had called it, and I had to admit that I found the accusation hard to deny. I walked along the empty streets of the fox-kin settlement, the houses cold and silent. The defensive wall was in place, along with the outer barrier, but it was protecting nothing but a ghost town. Perceive mana showed no reactions; the structures were empty shells, lacking even furniture. Not that I was in much of a mood to loot, even if there was anything. Would the survivors be happy to have this reminder of what they used to have sprout up on the floor? It was doubtful. It would have been better if my offering hadn't been accepted at all.

I hopped to the top of the wall with one flap of my wings, and could see that the destroyed copses of crystal trees had also regrown. There was movement that suggested more than beetles had respawned, but perceive presence wasn't picking up on anything dangerous. Hopefully, the remaining fox-kin weren't about to be eaten by another dragon.

Perhaps they'd move back in, or perhaps they wouldn't. The full wall would be difficult to defend with the numbers they had, but at least they had the option.

My status showed no changes. I hadn't grown my level cap, nor gained another class slot. I had no gains to show for my use of such a high quantity of mana crystals, other than creating what was essentially a museum to the people I'd killed.

With one last melancholic look over the scenery, I returned to the temple, where Do'myrith was still kneeling in front of the statue.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I was hoping I could bring them back. I couldn't."

She said nothing, and didn't even look at me.

"I'll be leaving soon, to return to the surface. I intend to leave the holy sword here, so this world continues to exist, and fight the invading demon lord myself using the powers I've gained here."

I continued to be ignored.

"If you want to evacuate this place and follow me to the surface, you're welcome to. I can take however many people I want. I might even be able to find the originals you were copied from."

That got a reaction, but it was another angry one. She still didn't say anything, or even look at me, but my proficient empath skills still interpreted the twitching of her ears and tail in no uncertain terms. I suppose recreating their town and then asking if they wanted to abandon it was in rather bad taste.

"Right... I'm going to stop picking now. I won't come back again, I promise."

She sighed, deigning to speak at last. "I will pass on your words and your apology. I wish you luck in saving the surface world."

"Thank you."

I didn't teleport straight back to the abyss, but rather down to floor six. Not that I wanted anything from that floor in particular, but simply because it was deserted. I wanted the privacy. Even the black dragon wouldn't be able to watch me here, with the barrier of a shrine, at the frayed edges of the world, where the fabric was simply too unstable for him to access from his separated lair.

I used the privacy to scream until my throat was raw, and then to cry until my eyes ran dry.

It was funny. After all I'd been through in this world... Repeated deaths, most of them rather gruesome, and in the beginning, incredibly painful. I'd been at the mercy of countless monsters, that had used me for everything from entertainment, drawing pleasure from my screams, to breeding, stuffing me full of their eggs. There had been multiple attempts at rape. I'd had my mind fucked with. Tortured and enslaved, however briefly. The arch-mage had tried to violate my soul. And yet, despite all that, the thing that tore me up the most was a victory. A victory that I wished with all my heart I hadn't won.

I spent the next few weeks fighting. The constant combat took my mind off things. Skills levelled and evolved. I gained new resistances, and tried out a few different types of weapons, some useful and others not. The death in which I attempted to launch a stone from a sling at my opponent, but accidentally slammed it into my own face, was particularly embarrassing.

Buying equipment turned out to be useless; it simply didn't last long enough to be worthwhile. I managed to keep my accessories safe, with them teleporting back with me on respawn even if fingers or limbs were cut off, but armour was destroyed and weapons broke. Making use of them for any useful length of time required the stable equipment skill that I'd passed over, but it was too late, and I didn't want to give up one of my current five, anyway. Why did I need to be limited to five skills per class?

Even when I was first summoned, I'd been suspicious of the shiny knights' armour. Now I was certain. There was no way it had ever seen combat.

Perhaps things would be different if I was going to be involved in a single fight, but I wasn't. I needed endurance; armour that would still be intact after fighting my way through an entire army. Still, some of the accessories were useful. A ring that provided a bigger boost to physical stats than the one I'd taken from the arch-mage. A second ring that provided some minor regeneration. A bracelet that provided some elemental resistances. A necklace that offered protection from mind magic.

Thankfully, nothing restricted me from wearing two necklaces at once, so I combined the mind magic protection with my shield. If there was a limit on magic items, I couldn't reach it with what I had.

I'd emptied the alchemist's store, too. Healing potions, mana potions and antidotes restocked. The experience and skill potions didn't, which was a pity. I could have come out with level fifty everything. Maybe even higher, if skills went above the fifth tier.

The only fly in the ointment was that I hadn't come up with any way of increasing my speed. The improved ring helped a little, as had my combat skill evolutions, but I still didn't fancy my chances against the biggest demon. Given that draconic might had gained an endurance boost between levels four and five, it was possible it would turn into some sort of complete physical booster if I enhanced it, but that was a long shot, and besides, it wouldn't improve my perception or mental reactions.

I'd run out of species to befriend. I'd explored the entire dungeon, and everything that was left was either instinct driven or aggressive. Aside from the fox-kin, obviously. And the demons. After several attempts at befriending, I'd decided they simply weren't real enough to count. I suppose the hydra was a possibility, now that I had heat absorption, but that would be more likely to grant me extra heads than anything useful. I wouldn't be able to grow enough to earn another class, either.

I had one idea left, and hence I stood before the daemonium semideus, unarmed and unarmoured, putting my full concentration simply into watching it.

The gong sounded.

Bend mana advanced to level 7

I died.

Corrosion immunity had long since advanced to incorrodible, which was a bit of a disappointment after the weird ways I'd imagined a corrosion absorption skill might work, but it still prevented me instantly melting in response to the demon's green goop. It did nothing to save me from having my heart stabbed out, though.

My physical damage resistances had all reached level forty, but as best as I could tell, no additional evolution was available. I did my best to clock up achievements, even going back to fight some old monsters again. Letting one of the eldritch starfish of floor one eat me had certainly been an experience I didn't want to repeat. The inside of their mouths was far larger than their outside dimensions should allow, but most of the extra space seemed to be filled with teeth and tongue, which weren't even anchored into anything. They all just floated there, fixed in position.

I shuddered slightly at the memories of the thing licking me all over, then hundreds of needle-like teeth slamming into me as it closed up like an iron maiden. Admittedly, most of the teeth had snapped, and the shrieks from the thing implied that it greatly regretted its attempt at devouring me, but that didn't make the experience any less unpleasant.

Despite the rapid death in the arena, when I woke up back at the shrine, I was smiling. It had worked. Using bend mana to reinforce my eyes and brain had given me the perception to follow the demon. I saw every step it made, the way it had drawn back one of its tails and snapped it forward. I just couldn't respond to it. I was too slow to start with, but drawing mana from my muscles and nerves to improve my vision had made it even worse.

I needed to evolve that skill. Could I get a full body boost? And then if I took draconic power, could I push it into overdrive? That was currently my best plan. And so I fought every type of demon, using my bend mana skill in every way I could. Trying to keep up with the speed of a daemonium volucer. To dismantle the spells of a daemonium praecantator as it chanted. Perhaps if I had a focus skill lowering the bar for achievements, stealing a fox-kin slave collar or attacking the barrier they put around the shrine might have counted, but this one needed to be done manually. Mostly. I still had the potions, and it wasn't as if I had a wide range of magic skills.

Bend mana evolved to shape mana, and then again to manipulate mana.

Evolution conditions met: Shape mana ranks up to manipulate mana
Mana flows through the flesh and bones of all living things, strengthening and protecting them. A rare few have the ability to direct that mana, providing strength to where it is needed, to take in more from external sources, or to release it. You have heavily boosted individual parts of your body, and opposed the mana of a daemonium praecantator. Combined with the effects of a potion of magic mastery, you have been able to obtain this evolution from shaping to manipulation. This skill permits you fine-grained control over mana within a small radius of yourself.

It didn't say I'd earned the upgrade, which I felt was a little harsh, but it was enough. I could use the skill to draw mana from my mana pool, and even, to some extent, from my surroundings, and use it to flood my body. Muscles, nerves and supporting tissues alike. The importance of reinforcing my bones and tendons was underscored when I visited floor six to experiment with the higher ambient mana, and had an... accident.

"Wow, that was a major screw-up," opined my second mind, spying on me through my own eyes. "Do you have any joints you didn't just dislocate? And I'm pretty sure your leg is broken."

Trying to slit my throat with a dislocated elbow and shoulder and level forty cutting damage immunity turned out to be a failure. Suicide was getting harder and harder. Since my suffocation resistance had accidentally evolved to nullification, it took longer to suffocate myself than it did for trigger respawn to kick in, too. Couldn't my broken leg have pierced an artery so I could bleed out?

In the end, I found a remarkably simple way to commit suicide.

Manipulate mana advanced to level 21

Evolution conditions met: Mana toxicity resistance ranks up to mana toxicity nullification
Most living creatures require water to live, but that doesn't mean they can't drown. The same applies to mana, and even the most powerful arch-mage will still burn if trapped in a dense ocean of magic. What sort of twisted location you managed to find that possessed a mana density sufficient to break down your body by its mere presence is a secret known only to you, as is why, when there, you deliberately took that mana and forced all of it into your fragile, burning body, but it was enough to earn this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill will greatly reduce the damage of a mana overload.

Practising on floor six was enough to get both manipulate mana and mana toxicity resistance up to thirty, but it was unlikely there would be so much free mana around in the air when I fought the demon lord, which left me with two more tasks before I returned to shouty-guy and admitted I'd lost the sword.

"Yo," called the other me, using her actual voice box for the first time in a while.

"Hi," I replied.

"Hello," said Do'myrith, sounding depressed about the general idea of greetings.

What?

"Why are you here?"

"Because of your offer. A warrior who lost his wife wanted to leave in the hope of finding the, as you called it, original. Then another suggested that the orphaned children should be allowed to go with him, because they'd have a much better life in a proper town. A mother who had lost her children said that if the orphans were going, she would too, to look after them. It was a chain reaction. In the end, we decided that either everyone would go, or no-one would, and put it to a vote. The leavers won."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise. Just make sure you fulfil their expectations. They're trusting you."

Bah. Why did I make that offer? Well, what's done is done. I'd stick to it; I owed them that much.

"Putting that aside, go ahead and click the button. I want to see Katie the rainbow dragon."

"What?" asked Do'myrith, but neither of me replied.

Draconic scales, might and power were my three skill selections. I wasn't sure what I'd enhance yet. Even improved silk was an option; I hadn't really had any use out of my silk in straight combat, but if I could make webs of the quality of the spider queen, they would be awesome for ambushes. Fortunately, I could leave the choice for later.

Pins and needles assaulted my entire body, inside and out. My skin rippled as something grew and moved beneath it, then tore, thousands of shimmering iridescent shards emerging from the rips. They tilted and slotted neatly into place, the lustre dulled only slightly by the substantial amount of blood that covered them.

Four out of my five skills came from dragons, but to be fair, the dragons were the strongest beasties here by far, so it was natural they had the strongest skills.

"What?" asked Do'myrith again.

"I need a wash..." I said.

"What?" asked Do'myrith, who seemed to be stuck on a loop.

"Why are you so surprised? I mean, I've grown wings, zombie eyes, spider bits, chitinous skin... You must have noticed I'm horribly mutated by now."

"But..." said Do'myrith, in a fit of originality.

"No more though," I said. "That's all my skill slots used up and the level cap reached. I can enhance one tamer skill, but other than that, I've reached my limit. I'll have a few more battles against the daemonium semideus, but then I'm going back. If you want to join me, it'll be about a day."