[+5/5 Spelldancer I.]

[+2/50 Incinerator I.]

[+1/50 Battle Healing I.]

[Congratulations! For leveling your Intelligence and Agility in tandem for five levels, you have completed the Spelldancer I challenge.]

[You have gained the Spelldancer I (Un) perk!]

I didn't have much time.

Something about the Ruler of the West had my blood running cold. The aura of the thing radiated a thick power that spilled from where its glowing form was rushing down towards me from the cliffside above.

My character sheet, meanwhile, dropped out before me.

[Clarissa Ardent, Level 17]

Health: 140 (8 r/pm)

Mana: 310 (15 r/pm)

Stamina: 50 (8 r/pm)

Core-Points to Distribute: 50

[Stats]

Strength: 13

Endurance: 16

Agility: 39

Charisma: 14

Perception: 13

Intelligence: 39

Willpower: 20

Stat-Points to Distribute: 15

[Skills]

Acrobatics: 100

Blind-Fighting: 1

One-Handed: 51

Fire Manipulation: 112

Grappling: 50

Spell Attack: 2

Spell Control: 12

Spell Efficiency: 2

Unarmed-Fighting: 50

Writing: 50

Skill-Points to Distribute: 50

[Spells Known]

Raging Blade [1st]: Summon a blade of conjured fire. Mana cost dependent on blade potency; intelligence score governs your bonus damage with this weapon instead of Strength.

Fireball [3rd]: Conjure an explosive ball of fire. Mana cost dependent on fireball potency.

[Abilities]

N/A

[Perks]

Elder Blood I [B]: As a member of the caliban race, you gain a bonus to mana regeneration that increases as your mana does.

Trailblazer I [R]: You've led the way as a member of your world. The System will always reward ingenuity. You gain all skills slightly faster to acknowledge your efforts.

Raging Sorcery I [RU]: You can channel strong emotions into your spells, causing them to explode in a violent burst of mana that deals extra damage. Spells that are already concussive/explosive have their range and potency increased.

Spelldancer I [Un]: When you are channeling mana your reaction time and movement speed increase moderately.

[Inventory]

Simple Traveler's Garb

In the few short seconds that I got to see my Character Sheet, I noticed a few things.

First was that leveling Intelligence and Agility together had in fact netted me both the extra mana from having Intelligence as my primary stat and the skill bonus to Acrobatics from having Agility tied as my highest.

Gaining levels so rapidly had also allowed me to grab the Spelldancer perk, which looked useful, even despite being designated as only an uncommon perk; the fact that it was ranked as only level one made me somewhat curious as to how strong it might get if I continued to unlock further tiers of it.

I didn't have time to dwell, however. The Ruler of the West was coming in fast.

Figuring my mana was doing just fine, I dumped my fifty available core-points into health, bringing it up to almost two-hundred points.

As for Agility and Intelligence, I bumped them both up to forty-six and stashed my remaining point into perception.

Having seen just how effective [Fire Manipulation] had become once it'd passed the one-hundred points mark, I brought [One-Handed] up to 101 with the fifty skill points I'd gained.

This left me with [One-Handed], [Fire-Manipulation], and now [Acrobatics] sitting firmly above the threshold of a hundred points each.

[Congratulations! For reaching Level 15, you have unlocked a milestone ability to be chosen based on your decisions up until now. Two paths stretch out before you, sorceress: that of the scholarly wizard or that of the hardened battlemage. Which do you choose?]

What? I didn't have time for this, but still... I couldn't pass up a potential power boost.

And what I needed right now was to be hardened against the battle that was rapidly coming. Not at all having the time to dwell on my decisions, I selected the battlemage option.

[All choices have consequences. New possibilities open before you even as others wither away... at least for now.]

[You have gained the Battlemage [Un] perk.]

[Congratulations! As the first soul from Earth to unlock a milestone ability, you have earned a reward!]

[Battlemage [Un] perk has been removed and replaced with the Warmage [R] perk.]

My eyes quickly scanned through the description of my newly gained ability.

[Warmage [R]: All of your offensive spells cost half as much to cast and deal an extra 50% damage.]

Half cost? Holy shit. Yeah... that was worth the half second it'd taken to get it.

I slammed my Character Sheet shut just as the ruler's energized form slammed into the forest floor. A burst of power radiated off of the beast, sending a wave of air pressure that left me shielding my face out of instinct.

The oversized mana cat roared then into the air as it settled into its own rematerialized weight.

I heard the trees shake, all around us, as if in recognition of the beast's dominion over this place.

I clenched my left hand and then stretched out my now healed right.

The spark of ignition that came along with my activation of [Raging Blade] was already feeling all too familiar.

Strangely, I found myself grasping the blade in an almost completely different way than before. The weapon now felt more at home in my palm than it ever had, and to an extreme degree, even despite me being a rather proficient fencer even before the System had reared its head.

My body fell into an instinctive, defensive stance. Having doubled my [One-Handed] skill, it was almost as if the System had granted me decades of sword training in only a few mere moments.

My physique also felt much lighter now, as if the bonus to [Acrobatics] had done much the same in terms of my gymnastics capabilities.

This was insane. Leveling up was truly amazing.

I spun my flaming sword in my now much more agile, feeling hand. I had to resist getting caught up in a bout of rising overconfidence.

The Ruler of the West finished its roar and lowered its large head. The creature leveled its eyes off to stare into mine.

The monster snarled at me and then bared its massive fangs.

I met its gaze. "Let's go."

The Ruler charged in response to my challenge. It was faster than I could've imagined.

I felt the mana that was being channeled from my [Raging Blade] also spreading out to empower the rest of my body, courtesy of [Spelldancer].

Still, even with this noticeable boost and my increased acrobatic capability, I only just barely managed to dodge the opening strike from the ruler.

The massive claws of the beast were much more developed and menacing than that of the lesser mana cats. That much was all too clear as my head jerked back in a dodge, granting me only a few mere inches of safety from the horrific slicing power of those cutting weapons.

Time slowed in that first moment of near-death between myself and the beast. Our eyes locked and I saw a cold-natured, yet now furious, pair of suns burning behind the feline's gaze.

It hit me then: I'd killed its children, the mana cats, and it didn't care that they'd attacked first.

This was personal for the beast.

My body reacted to the beast's outstretched claws almost on its own. My sword arm roared up and slammed my blade's cutting edge into the sharp blades upon the monster's huge paws.

My blade's fire warped and the sound of cracking flames made physically manifest resounded against the ringing of those steel like claws, as the ruler's arm was sent veering slightly off-balance against the combined strength of my [Raging Blade] and [One-Handed] skill.

My flaming blade reestablished itself into shape as I jumped back from the already spinning about monster.

The creature flickered from existence.

However, with my increased reaction time and body control, on top of already seeing how the mana cats had fought, I was ready for this trick.

When the ruler reappeared behind me, I was already coming down in a violent side-slash towards its exposed neck.

My blade came within inches of inflicting a debilitating blow and then, without warning, the ruler dematerialized once again.

I felt a powerful claw slam into my back as I was sent flying into a nearby tree.

My increased health fell by a quarter as I fell to my knees in front of the towering plant.

I jerked my buzzing head to the side to watch as the Ruler of the West calmly stalked towards me. As it stepped forward its body flickered and two smaller mana cats formed from its body.

I staggered to my feet.

"Alright, asshole, you hit hard," I admitted aloud and raised my left hand, "but let's see how you deal with this."

Above my outstretched palm, a bursting of flame flickered into existence.

Where before [Fireball] had cost me almost half of my mana, now that I had a better grasp on it and with the help of [Warmage], the spell now only took about an eighth of my maximum mana away.

I launched the flaming orb, without hesitation, towards the ruler, even as its summoned pack charged me.

The mana cats from before had each taken a little more than a fireball's worth of damage to slay, I didn't expect an elite and higher level variant of those same creatures to go down easy.

Still, as the empowered orb smashed into the face of the ruler, it did prove to cause the beast to stagger back and be temporarily blinded by the explosion of force and vibrant flame.

While my spell was making contact, one of the ruler's summoned allies had slipped under the ball of fire to come almost within striking distance of me.

I lunged forward to meet its attack. Compared to its leader, however, and with my new levels, sidestepping the beast and dragging my sword along its underbelly proved only moderately difficult.

The creature howled as I pumped extra mana into my [Raging Blade] and I leaned into the cut.

As I withdrew my blade, the cat rolled forward through the air and hit hard onto the ground.

The ruler, having quickly shaken off my spell, was now charging me, along with its other uninjured ally.

I summoned another fireball and threw it at the powerful, pride leader.

The large feline flickered from existence, but that was only marginally annoying, seeing as its summon was still within the blast radius of my fireball. With a yelp of pain, the smaller cat was sent skirting across the ground as the flesh of its exposed side was horrifically melted through.

The ruler once more appeared right in front of me. Too close for me to get my sword at it in time.

I quickly summoned another fireball, but the cat was intelligent enough to see through my bluff. With the angle that my arm was at, I wasn't going to be able to launch the orb at the ruler before its claws hit me and broke my concentration on the spell--not unless it jumped back in fear of the spell itself, which it didn't appear willing to do.

Not wanting to waste the casting, I was instead forced to fling the flaming orb at the cat I'd cut into with my blade just as the ruler once more cut into me with its claws.

The searing agony of having the massive cat's claws digging through my exposed stomach was enough to make me want to scream in shock, but all that came out was a shriek of rage as I drove my blade deep into my attacker's shoulder.

I jumped back from the creature and activated [Raging Sorcery].

My sword exploded in the ruler's hide as I launched another fireball at the only remaining mana cat. The already charred creature tried to dodge, but was quickly consumed by the fire.

Its sibling, meanwhile, already lay still from the fireball that I had unsuccessfully tried to use to threaten the ruler.

With my mana rapidly depleting, I managed to throw two more fireballs at the ruler, and even managed to launch out a third, before the notification I'd been expecting thankfully popped into view.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 18.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 19.]

Each of the slain mana cats were now only worth a level each to me. It didn't matter though, I wasn't after the skill points at the moment.

I winced through the agony as I pushed my ripped open stomach back together, as the healing of leveling up once more kicked in to mend it shut.

My health and mana once more ticked back up to full as the ruler charged forward through the horrid blaze of the three fireballs I'd lobbed at it.

Some of the creature's previously gorgeous and powerful fur and skin was now torn away, even exposing glistening bones in some places.

Meanwhile, I, who had no doubt been once more knocking on death's door only a moment ago, would be back up to full health in only a few more seconds thanks to my being able to exploit my lower level and the side benefits that came with increasing it.

I'd done my very best to burn through my mana and do as much damage as I could to the ruler, while also leaving just enough resources left over to slay its summons, as quickly as I could.

Now, with my quickly created plan coming to fruition, all of my previous spells had practically been cast for free and my new levels were already providing me with even more mana.

I raised my left hand and flung a fireball at the approaching ruler, who quickly flickered out of reality.

Fuck, I'd gotten cocky.

I spun quickly around and managed to fall into a defensive stance just in time for the ruler to reappear behind me.

I didn't attack this time. The ruler had already proven it could pull its flicker trick more than once. I couldn't afford to commit first and then be caught unable to react; I needed this beast to do that instead.

As if seeing that it wouldn't get another easy hit on me, the elite creature barreled up to grab for my throat.

I thrust my sword forward and... to my ever growing frustration, the cat disappeared again.

Once more, I felt the weight of a massive feline crash into my back.

Pinned on the ground, I just barely managed to rotate in time to bring my hand up to the ruler's face as it punctured my throat.

A fireball erupted from my hand, blasting the feline backwards and tearing its fangs from my flesh. As the scorching spell bathed its face in a cone of flame, the ruler once more flickered from reality.

I stumbled up to my feet.

[Warning! You are bleeding severely. You will lose 10hp/sec.]

Great... with that debuff, I'd lose the majority of my health in just over a minute.

The cat reappeared, looking much worse for wear, a dozen feet away from me.

I squinted in a growing dizziness at my enemy.

I raised one hand to my wounded throat, as another was bathed in the flames of a growing, upcasted fireball.

As if sensing my disability, the ruler roared in fury and began to charge once more towards me.

My eyes flared red and I summoned a bout of careful flame to heat up and burn against the palm that I had rested against my bleeding throat.

Usually, it seemed like my flames were incapable of actually burning me. However, as I willed the summoned mana to cauterize my punctured artery, the pain of burning flesh came quickly.

I winced under the agony of having my skin burned shut and lobbed my charged fireball at the cause of my predicament.

[Warning! You have stemmed your bleeding, but internal damage remains. You will now lose 5hp/sec.]

That would have to be enough of an improvement then.

Despite all odds, the ruler was on its last legs, I could sense it.

The cat flickered from reality once more and reappeared right in front of me. My fireball exploded harmlessly behind where it had been previously.

I opened my hand to summon another blade.

A half-second later, my conjured weapon was deflecting a slowing claw strike from the oversized mana cat.

The cat came at me again and again, as if it too was growing more desperate.

Another claw strike came, which was deflected as I back stepped. Then another and another, as I did the same thing over and over again.

Seeing an opening, I poured mana into my sword.

My raging blade erupted into a roaring bloodlust as I brought it furiously through the guard of the ruler. For the second time, I felt my weapon cut deep into the flesh of the monster as the blade entered the elite creature's neck.

Unfortunately, however, I felt the ruler dissolve around my weapon as it once more flickered.

The cat appeared on unsteady legs a half-dozen feet away.

I stumbled back onto weakening feet of my own as I recovered from my interrupted attack.

Seizing the moment, despite my growing weariness as my internal damage took its toll, I conjured a final fireball and hurled it at the ruler.

The creature roared, but appeared unable to dodge the blast.

It appeared the monster would be forced to eat the full force of my fireball at range without it attempting to flicker away.

However, at the last moment another figure shifted out from the elite's own.

Watching my health tick down dangerously, I'd put a good bit of my remaining mana into the fireball in a bid to finish the ruler off and gain another level to heal.

When the spell instead impacted into the summoned mana cat, the ruler was indeed spared the blunt of the blast, but its sacrificed comrade was all but fried from the outside in.

I half-laughed in disbelief as the next notification came.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 20.]

Only a single level had come from the slaying of the summon, but it was enough.

My health stopped dropping and began to increase. New mana surged into my bones.

Realizing that it had just doomed itself in a last ditch effort to not be incinerated, the ruler took a step back from me.

I raised my sword arm and sent my blade flying towards the creature with a flick of the wrist. I never would have tried the attack in this way before, but with my increased skill and agility it seemed a simple thing.

My blade flew through the air, catching the cat just as it was starting to glow, as if the beast had summoned up the energy for one last teleport.

[Throw Sword added to ability list.]

My weapon pierced and then violently exploded in the neck of the ruler, just as it managed to dissipate into the air.

However, as the cat reappeared only a step or two away, back towards what I assumed was its den, its body promptly fell over dead.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 21.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 22.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 23.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 24.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 25.]

The familiar notifications came one after another, only to be followed by not so familiar ones.

[Congratulations! You have defeated the Ruler of the West! Four, even stronger rulers remain.]

[Defeat the remaining rulers to acquire the power to overthrow Cowagin, the Lord of the Hunt.]

Stronger rulers? Oh god, this was going to be fun, I thought sarcastically.

But, just as I was thinking that, I felt the earth shake as the body of the Ruler of the West began to glow. A pillar of light erupted from the creature and then another pillar barreled down directly overtop me.

[Congratulations! You have defeated a low-tier world guardian. You may either attempt to integrate its power into your own or forgo this for a different, lesser reward.]

[Warning! You are only thirty-percent compatible with the Western Ruler's mana signature; failure to integrate the inherent nature of another being into your own may result in permanent and lasting damage to yourself.]

[Do you wish to proceed: y/n?]

The pillar of light bathed me in power. I could feel the wild and dense energy of the Western Ruler within the pillar and raging all around me, trying to overtake my very being by mere nature of proximity.

I paused. I'd gotten lucky up until this point in a lot of ways, but I'd also almost died in every single battle.

If these other rulers were even stronger... I definitely needed more power if I wanted to get home. If earth was undergoing anything like this world was, my remaining family and friends were going to need me.

I selected yes.

As if the System immediately dropped whatever barrier it had been using to protect me, I all at once felt the power of the massive feline flow into me.

Its energy poured into my own. I felt the cool, flowing and agile power of the ruler edging in on all sides around my own weaker, embering inner fire.

The feeling of having the foreign power entering into my own body was smothering and oppressive and yet, the more I fought against the mana, the more it eluded me--just as the cat itself had.

I felt the first strike of pain as the ruler's mana overtook my left arm. I felt the fire of my own soul being beat back, surrounded and then smothered by the sheer hunter-like will of the ruler's spiritual essence.

When my power would charge forward, the ruler's would draw back from and then surround and ambush my own mana.

I had previously thought my mana had traveled along my nervous system, but, feeling it more than ever before, I now saw that my body housed a network of dedicated mana circuits.

Circuits that were, one by one, being cut off and systematically and painfully snuffed out by the foreign mana.

I began to realize that I might've made a horrible decision.

No matter how hard I fought the internal war, I was losing out to the sheer elusive ruthlessness of the cat's power.

Just like when I'd tried to fight it head on, the cat's mana would appear and disappear where I least expected it to and then it would use its superior strength to strike hard and fast. Only now I couldn't rely on leveling up to outlast the creature.

I just couldn't take the thing, or its essence, in a straight up fight.

That was why I had wanted its power in the first place, damn it!

Wait... I wanted to claim its power... not snuff it out. And yet I'd gotten so caught up in the unexpected discomfort of the mana's invasion that I'd instantly just tried to fight it head on.

Despite the pain, I slowly forced myself to relax.

The cat's mana had already disabled the mystical circuits in pretty much every part of my body, besides those in my heart and mind.

If it got to my core... no, I couldn't think like that. I needed it to get to my core, only not in the destructive manner in which it was now approaching it.

As the cat's power slammed against the greatest concentration of my own, that which sat directly above my heart, I changed my course of action and allowed the ruler's mana to flow over and into mine.

I swarmed the cat's power with my own, but I wasn't fighting it anymore

For a moment, a feeling of wrongness filled me as the cat's power neared my heart. My own mana core fought against the intrusion of the outside influence and yet I used all of my will to force it to let go of its remaining resistance.

The cat's mana flowed into my heart fully then. However, as my own remaining mana hadn't been snuffed out by fighting with the ruler's, the two powers instead began to mix and combine.

The blue-white, pure mana of the cat mixed with my raging, red flames. The powers swirled.

At first the mixture of mana was unstable, and I felt in that moment a tipping point of probability. Would the two mana types combine into a viable product or violently react to each other in the last seconds of merging?

I poured everything I had into the careful controlling of my inner fire.

Where my flames threatened to burn up all of the cat's mana, I allowed them to ebb.

Where the cat's mana threatened to snuff out my flames, I channeled the extra energy into burning off the ruler's excess power.

Slowly, but steadily, the blue mana began to burn not away, but completely into my fire. It became both the fuel for my flames and a permanent part of them.

The fire of my flames, meanwhile, tinged a white-blue as they consumed the ruler's power.

The flames within me felt infinitely more complex and powerful as they spread throughout my body and integrated the rest of the cat's remaining power as a part of my being.

The pillar of light broke apart and I fell to my knees as my nearly destroyed mana circuits were all reactivated by my spreading mana.

[Congratulations! You have achieved full integration of the Western Ruler's essence. Its strength is now your own; may you use it to free this and other worlds.]

[You have gained the Pure Flames [RU] perk.]

[Mana Flicker [3rd] added to spell list.]

[+5 to Fire Manipulation, Spell Control, Spell Efficiency, Spell Attack, and One-Handed.]

[+6/20 Spelldancer II.]

[+4/50 Incinerator I.]

[+2/50 Battle Healing I.]

My chest heaved in exertion. It seemed leveling up couldn't solve every uncomfortable feeling. Every cell in my body felt stretched out and altogether different; it was as if my very being had been alerted somewhat, made more free and feral as if I had, in some small way, become more like the spirit I'd absorbed.

The notifications kept coming as I reflected on the changes I felt.

[Congratulations! As the first soul from earth to slay a world-guardian, you have earned a reward.]

[Summon Mana Cat [3rd] added to spell list.]

With every breath, the feeling of soreness retreated somewhat. Still, I needed sleep, I needed food, and I needed water.

I didn't have any more fighting in me today.

I glanced up to the den of the Western Ruler; somehow, perhaps because of my absorbing of the creature that had called this territory home, I knew that I would find no unpleasant surprises with the cave.

My eyes lowered to scan the various loot orbs covering the canyon. The Western Ruler had no orb, so I assumed I'd already gotten everything that I was going to from it; the various mana cats, however, all had an orb of their own.

I'd collect my loot.

Then I'd sleep.