[Ding! Basic Spark has reached Level 10.]
[Skill Evolution Available: Fireball.]
Sebastian didn't stop.
[Ding! Fireball has reached Level 20.]
[Skill Evolution Available: Pyroblast.]
He kept pouring points. The numbers blurred. The interface began to tremble.
100 points...
500 points...
1,000 points.
The text on the screen shifted from white, to blue, to purple, and finally to a menacing, pulsating gold.
[Ding! You have surpassed the mortal limit for Tier 0 Magic.]
[Constructing Law of Fire...]
[Evolution Complete.]
[New Skill: Solar Flare (Forbidden Tier)]
══════════════════════════════════════
[Solar Flare] (Level 1)
Type: Active / Forbidden
Cost: 100 Mana
Description: Condenses the essence of a star into a single point of devastation.
Effect: Deals 5,000% Magic Damage in a 50-meter radius. Applies [Incineration] status: burning targets take 500 damage per second for 10 seconds.
Cooldown: 60 seconds.
══════════════════════════════════════
Sebastian stared at the description. "5,000 percent..."
A normal Level 1 Fireball did 150% damage. This was catastrophic.
However, there was a problem.
[Mana: 50 / 50]
His Drifter class had abysmal base mana. The spell cost 100. He couldn't cast it.
"Right," Sebastian muttered. "I need a bigger tank."
He shifted his gaze to his Passive Skills tab. The Drifter could learn passives from the Mage tree too.
He found [Mana Well].
Cost: 5 SP.
He dumped points into it.
[Ding! Mana Well reached Level 100 (Max).]
[Passive Evolved: Void Ocean.]
Effect: Increases Max Mana by 5,000. Increases Mana Regeneration by 100 per second.
His mana bar shot up.
[Mana: 5,050 / 5,050]
"That's better."
Sebastian closed the interface. He felt a hum of energy under his skin. It wasn't just data; the sync rate with his body was low, but he could feel the heat in his veins.
He walked out of the alley and headed for the village gate.
"Where you going, noob?" the guard at the gate laughed. "The chickens are that way. Outside is the Wailing Woods. The Demon Wolves there are Level 5. They'll eat you in one bite."
Sebastian ignored him and walked past the safe zone barrier.
The transition was instant. The bright, cheerful sunlight of the village was replaced by the gloomy, oppressive canopy of the Wailing Woods. Mist curled around the gnarled roots of dead trees.
Grrr...
From the shadows, eyes glowed. Yellow, hungry eyes.
A pack of Demon Wolves.
[Monster: Demon Wolf]
[Level: 5]
[HP: 400]
There were ten of them. In the current game stage, a party of five Level 3 players would struggle to kill just one. Facing ten was a death sentence.
The alpha wolf stepped forward, drool dripping from its jaws. It sensed the weak aura of the Level 1 human in rags. It lunged, its claws tearing up the earth.
"Meat!" a player who had followed Sebastian to watch him die shouted from the safety of the gate. "He's dead meat!"
Sebastian didn't draw his rusty knife. He didn't run.
He simply raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
"Solar Flare."
Click.
For a microsecond, the world went silent.
Then, the air above the wolf pack screamed.
A sphere of blinding, white-hot plasma materialized instantly. It wasn't a ball of fire; it was a miniature sun. The darkness of the woods was obliterated by a light so intense that the players watching from the village gate had to shield their eyes.
BOOM!
The explosion wasn't just an expansion of fire; it was a pressure wave of pure thermal annihilation.
The Demon Wolves didn't yelp. They didn't have time to register pain. In the span of 0.1 seconds, their fur ignited, their flesh vaporized, and their bones turned to ash.
The shockwave tore through the forest, snapping century-old trees like toothpicks. The ground turned into molten glass.
[Ding! You have killed Demon Wolf (Lv 5). EXP +50.]
[Ding! You have killed Demon Wolf (Lv 5). EXP +50.]
[Ding! You have killed Demon Wolf (Lv 5). EXP +50.]
...
[Ding! Overkill Bonus! EXP doubled.]
[Ding! Congratulations! You have reached Level 2.]
[Ding! You have reached Level 3.]
[Ding! You have reached Level 4.]
The light faded.
Where the pack of wolves had stood, there was now a smoking, glowing crater twenty meters wide. The heat radiating from it distorted the air.
Sebastian stood at the edge of the crater, the wind from the explosion blowing his ragged tunic back. He checked his mana. It had already regenerated to full thanks to Void Ocean.
"Physics engine is struggling," Sebastian noted, seeing the edges of the crater flickering slightly as the server tried to render the destruction caused by a Forbidden Spell in a tutorial zone.
He looked back at the village gate.
The guard's jaw was unhinged. The players who had been mocking him were frozen, their faces pale, staring at the mushroom cloud of mana dissipating into the sky.
Sebastian turned his back on them and walked deeper into the woods, stepping over the molten glass.
"Too slow," he muttered, checking his EXP bar. "I need to find a dungeon."