With how little effort farming slimes took after learning about the core leveling up became a breeze.
After reaching lv 3 Ezekiel had noticed that it took a significantly larger number of kills to level up than it had before.
Even if the requirements doubled it did not explain the significant reduction in his leveling speed.
Ezekiel assumed that outside of the barrier was an entire ecosystem of creatures that were actually a threat unlike slimes.
After passing through the barrier to see what lay beyond he was almost immediately charged by a wolf which made him return to the barrier.
He also noticed that when he was back inside of it the wolf followed his every move like it was stalking him.
This made him return to killing slimes as a lv5 wolf was a bit beyond his ability he felt.
After a few more hours of farming slimes he actually saw a notification that was different from his usual skill level increase.
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Spell Level Maximum Reached.
Spell: Mana Orb (N) can now be improved
Spell options-
Mana bullet (A)
A projectile made from neutral mana, improved speed and armor penetration.
Mana blast (A)
A projectile made from neutral mana, reduced speed but improved impact and added aoe damage.
Mana Stream (A)
A stream of neutral mana, casting lasts for one second and has a range of three meters.
~~~~~~~~~~
Now this was more interesting.
He had heard about how spells would improve from the teacher npcs but this was more than he expected.
He thought about his options for some time before ignoring the mana stream option entirely and looking at the other two.
'Mana blast just sounds like a grenade which is good but the speed worries me... id be fighting wolves next and that thing was fast.'
After thoroughly weighing the odds he chose mana bullet.
Testing the new spell it actually seemed to completely bypass the natural defense that the higher level slimes had... not that it mattered since all of his spells one shot the core anyway.
Ezekiel kept his casting up further and further while refilling his mana between casts and eventually he managed to reach lv4.
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Belial
Mage lv4. (Novice)
Infernal
Affinity: 10% fire, 10% shadow
Strength: 5
Vitality: 5
Agility: 9
The wolf yelped and backed away as its mouth bled but it had gotten a good strike in.
His health was reduced by at least a third making him take a few steps away.
If this wolf was able to harm him that badly with just a claw to the side then he was afraid of what would happen when it successfully bit down on him.
He cast magic bullet again and began to grow worried about his mana, normally it didnt take much to kill a wolf after landing a crit and blinding them but now he was incredibly low on mana.
He raised a hand and chanted the spell pointing at the creatures flank which made it quickly move to the side.... only to have its front limb struck by a bullet cast from his other hand.
An intelligent creature could catch on to the basic strategies like stealth but they could also be fooled with trickery.
Ezekiel noticed something odd though.
Where the mana bullet struck the wolf a ghostly blue flame appeared which made the wolf react aggressively, every half second a damage number would appear that was a fraction of the spells impact damage.
-8
-8
-8
-8...
This was the elemental affect!
Mana burn, the elemental damage over time of neutral mana.
The wolf upon feeling the mana burn became enraged and attempted to attack Ezekiel again, but now with only rage fueling those attacks it was no more than an animal.
A deadly and very fast animal but very predictable.
Soon enough it was dead and this kill brought him to lv5.
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Belial
Mage lv5. (Novice)
Infernal
Affinity: 10% fire, 10% shadow
Strength: 5
Vitality: 5
Agility: 9
Wisdom: 17 -> 21
Intelligence: 19 -> 25
Bloodline: child of the void.
Titles: n/a
Skills: Mana Control lv9 (N), Mana Sense lv9 (N), Mana Core lv8 (A), Spell Mastery (E)
Spells: Mana bullet lv4 (A)
Player Has Reached Lv5
Racial Affinity Activated.
Spell Obtained: Fire Orb lv1 (N)
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