Chapter 19 Skill Creation
Alex meditated to recover his mana and clear his mind from all the distractions.
After recovering his mana, Alex remembered all the details about slash skill, and then he started feeling his mana running through his veins like blood.
Alex felt his mana quickly because of his experience, and then he tried to control his mana because if he wanted to succeed, he needed to have good enough control of his mana.
Alex tried manifesting a pure ball of mana on his hand, which manifested without any problem.
'That was easy; let's try to condense it.' Alex was not surprised because he had a lot of experience manipulating mana doing this on the first try was easy.
Alex poured more mana into the ball, condensing it, and after some seconds, the mana ball was the size of a cue ball.
'I can condense it more and make it smaller.'
Not feeling any resistance from the mana, Alex tried to condense it more, and after pouring all his mana into the ball and shrinking it, Alex opened his eyes only to witness a small dark black marble ball.
'What?'
'How! do I have so good control over mana?.'
Alex was surprised, not because of how small the mana ball he condensed but because he felt like this was not his limit like he could make the mana ball even smaller and have proper control over it.
'My control over mana is much better than in my previous life is it because it belongs to a dark element?'
Alex spent some time recovering his mana to test his theory on the dark element mana.
After recovering, Alex stood up, brought his sword out, and took a sword stance.
Focusing on the blade, Alex used his death mana to cover the sword with it as much as possible, and then he swung his sword with full force without disrupting the constant flow of mana.
Alex's eyes were closed as he swung the sword, and he could feel that the sword slash power was way higher than an ordinary sword slash skill.
After some seconds, Alex heard the system sound he was waiting for; he opened his eyes to see what the new slash skill stats looked like, which was better than he expected.
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Name: Death Slash
Grade: First Rank
The skill will do up to 500% true damage depending on the mana used.
There is a slight chance of hallucinating the target with nightmares of his death.
Description: A skill evolved using the power of death.
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'I did it on the first try, proving my talent in the dark element.' Alex was happy with the results he got. Now he doesn't need to worry about changing plans and finding any other legacy.
'The death slash skill is good, and ignoring the opponent's defense and doing true damage every time I use it, just makes it even better.'
'I need to use the skill to understand it fully.'
Alex started testing the death slash skill on the dummies', and after 20 minutes of testing, he was again disappointed by his low mana.
The skill was outstanding, but it consumed too much mana. Alex needs to use 800 mana to do 500% damage, and with his pitiful mana he can only use the skill one time before it becomes useless in battle.
Right now, Alex's condition is like the person with all the money in the world, but he can't spend it for some stupid reason.
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Alex did some more tests at manipulating mana, and when his time was over at the training chamber, he left the training area and started thinking about how to solve his problems.
'My problems right now are money, strength, and let's not forget the minuscule amount of mana I have.'
Alex needs strength to get the treasure in the assassin's cave, and to get a lot of money, he needs to sell information, and for that to happen, he needs to gain the assassin's treasure first.
'I must start by gaining strength and solving my mana problem first.'
Alex knew that leveling up and using the stat points to increase mana would take a lot of time, and the other option was buying armor that could solve his mana problem, but he couldn't do both of them because one would waste time and to buy the armor he doesn't have any funds.
After brainstorming for any idea for his problem, Alex found one that could solve his mana problem and gave him some funds to upgrade his armor and sword to the First Rank.
Alex planned to complete a quest that would ultimately reward him with a Low-Rank unique ring that would solve his problem of mana, and he could also earn some gold.
'After I complete the quest, it will solve many of my problems.'
The quest Alex was going to complete was tricky. It was a request from the duke's daughter to find a forging metal that was very rare, and the player needed to complete the quest without any time limit.
The tricky thing about the quest was not the time but the forging metal because her request didn't specify what rank and type of metal she wanted.
Players tried to complete the quest by submitting high-Rank forging metal, but they all got rejected, and because of this unusual behavior, the quest was very popular among players.
All the players who tried to complete the quest were unsuccessful, and the quest was only cleared when a player completed a different quest in the city.
The reward he got was a forging metal that he gave to the duke's daughter, and to his surprise, she accepted it, and that player unintentionally cleared one of the most unusual quests.
Alex was going to clear the sub-quest first to get the forging metal to clear the real quest and get the unique rank ring.
Alex needs to find the man who will give him the quest because the player that cleared it only mentioned that he found the NPC in the outer city remote area with only a few details like the NPC quest is about revenge.
Alex started his journey to the remote area to find the NPC, and even though it was a remote area, there were still many NPCs living there, so finding the person of interest took a lot of work for him.
It took some time, and after getting like 20 quests offered to him that he rejected, Alex found a man with a sad story.
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Alex walked toward the NPC, that looked depressed, sitting outside his house on a bench.
"Sir, can I help you with anything," Alex asked, hoping this person would be the right one because he had already wasted a lot of time searching.
"Kid, you look like an adventurer." The NPC, whose name was Bevel, looked like a middle age man, asked Alex.
"Yes, I am an adventurer, and my name is Alex."
"Alex, I have a request I want you to complete, and I will give my most precious find as a reward if you complete it."
[Bevel Request](B)
[Reward: ???]
[Time; ????]
[Accept: YES / NO]
'This fits the description, but if it is different from the one I am looking for, that will be more trouble for me to handle.'
"Sir Bevel, can you tell me more about your request," Alex asked.
"I want you to kill the beast that took my daughter from me," Bevel said with teary eyes.
"The Ice wolf King killed my daughter, and I, as her father, don't even have the strength to avenge her myself," Bevel said in a high voice.
'This is the one I am looking for finally found it.'
"I will avenge your daughter, sir Bevel." Alex accepted his request, and after asking him more about where he could find the Ice wolf king, he left.
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Quest: [Bevel Revenge](B)
Conditions:
1: Kill the Ice Wolf King.
2: Find something that belongs to Bevel's daughter (Optional).
[Reward: ???]
[Time: ????]
Description: The Ice Wolf King can be found in the Arctic Wolves' dungeon outside the royal capital.
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Alex restocked on supplies like potions and mana bread and left the city for the Arctic Wolves' dungeon.
The dungeon was near the city, and Alex took little time to reach it; after finding it, Alex started his search for the Ice Wolf King.
Alex didn't know how to find the Ice wolf king because he had never been to this dungeon, and after doing some research, he discovered that the wolf king could only be found in the hardest difficulty of the dungeon.
The dungeons in the Ancient world were of many different categories; the most common dungeons have various difficulties players can choose from, and many players can challenge these dungeons at the same time.
Some dungeons have a set difficulty that only one player at a time can challenge, like the Ice Gorilla cave that Alex cleared.
The dungeons also have other variants, like the castle dungeon's hidden chambers and some hidden dungeons that appear at random places for some time.
'I will need a team before I can challenge the Arctic Wolves' dungeon.'