The blinding golden light finally faded out, leaving the small infirmary looking like a normal clinic again, and right along with it lifted the suffocating pressure.
The elderly priest let out a long sigh while his shoulders slumped slightly. He stood by the bed for a moment, watching the red-haired man’s chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, before turning around to face me.
"He will be fine now..." the priest said, offering a genuine smile. "He just needs a bit of rest. You can unbind him now."
With a short nod and a mental command, the hardened black roots encasing the man instantly disintegrated into black dust so fine it looked like vanishing mist into the air.
"It is powerful magic you command, child," the priest noted.
"Yours ain’t no party trick either," I replied, stretching my stiff neck until it popped. "I have a pretty decent sense for mana. And whatever you just used wasn’t exactly that."
"Not magic. But my belief and faith in the Goddess," the priest said with a warm smile. "It is called a miracle after all."
"Fair enough," I nodded, getting up from the small wooden stool.
I honestly wanted to ask him a dozen different questions about what it exactly was and how that actually worked.
But I figured asking for a tutorial on basic religion in a world where literal miracles happened every day would probably raise at least some little red flags.
Besides, I still needed to get back down into that dungeon.
[I’ll ask Peko later...] I decided before turning toward the double doors. [He’s alive, I’m alive, and uninfected. And that’s all that matters here...]
"I’ll leave him in your hands then, Father," I said, stepping back out into the bright morning sunlight and beginning the short walk back toward the dungeon entrance.
As I passed by the groups of lingering adventurers, I noticed that anyone I made eye contact with offered a quiet, respectful nod, which I replied with a short nod of my own.
Even the heavily armored knight standing guard by the Dungeon’s opening didn’t tell me to halt this time.
He just looked down at me and gave a firm tilt of his helmet as he said, "Good work, kid."
"Thanks," I replied simply, walking past the checkpoint and back into the moss-lit dungeon.
And the moment the natural sunlight faded behind me, a massive, greedy grin stretched across my face. I could actually feel the anticipation buzzing in my chest.
[Alright, System...] I thought, practically rubbing my mental hands together. [Let’s talk EXP. Give me the grand total for that meat grinder.]
-Ding!
{Host has slain 346 Tier-1, Mid-Stage Goblins. Applying Anti-Farming Protocol.
200 EXP received for the first 100 kills.
100 EXP for the next 100 kills.
50 EXP for the next 100 kills.
25 EXP for the final 46 kills.
Total EXP Received: 36,150.}
My grin instantly shattered. I stopped dead in the middle of the tunnel with my jaw dropping in absolute betrayal.
"What the hell?" I blurted out to the empty cavern.
-Ding!
{The Anti-Farming Protocol is explicitly designed to discourage unhealthy EXP farming practices.
Continuously slaughtering lower-tier entities provides severely diminishing actual, substantive growth.}
I let out a heavy, exhausted sigh while dragging a hand down my face.
"Man, you really know how to blue-ball a guy, don’t you?" I threw my head back and groaned, "Just pull out my status. It has been a while since I checked it anyway."
-Ding!
[Protocol: Chronos]
Name: Nico
Race: Human
Circuits: 9
Affinity: Infinity, Time, Ice, Nature, Metal
Level:
EXP: 6,549 / 57,665
Status: Normal
Stat Points: 1
Stats:
STR: 1
AGI: 1
END: 1
DEX: 1
MP: 55 / 55
MP Regen: ∞
LCK: ERROR
Magic:
Ice Pebble (Common) [2 MP] (Optimal at 2 Circuits)
Ice Reinforcement (Common) [5 MP minimum] (Optimal at 6 Circuits)
Nature Manifestation (Unquantifiable) [Varied] (Varied)
Dominium Radicis (Epic) [2MP minimum] (Optimal at 3 Circuits)
Metal Manifestation (Unquantifiable) [Varied] (Varied)
Skills:
Precognition (Legendary) [2 MP/sec] (Optimal at 2 Circuits)
Temporal Step - Aevum Trace (Rare) [60 MP] (Optimal at 5 Circuits)
Eyes Of Relevance (Epic) [50MP] (Optimal at 5 Circuits)
Gear: Grade 9 Adamantite Khukri (Rare), The Boomstick (Divine Armament)
Credits: 187
Tabs: [Shop] [Inventory] [Map] [Crafting] [Familiars]
"Finally!" I grinned as a genuine wave of satisfaction washed over me at the sight of my first level-up since escaping Pantheon. "I guess even your Anti-farming asspulll couldn’t stop me."
I could practically feel the System giving me a heavy, invisible side-eye, which I of course completely ignored.
-Ding!
{Might I suggest investing this point into Strength? You possess sufficient MP to manage current threats, whereas your physical parameters remain dangerously frail.}
"Hell nah," I scoffed before instantly dumping that single stat point directly into my magic.
And the next moment, that familiar, rushing warmth bloomed inside my stomach as my capacity permanently expanded, finally bringing my total mana pool up to a solid 60 MP at long last.
[I have infinite mana regeneration] I reminded the clinical voice in my head, adjusting the shotgun strap on my shoulder. [Why would I ever punch a monster when I can just buy the mana capacity to spawn another Gatling gun?]
-Ding!
{But what if you get punched by a monster?}
"I have Precognition, enhanced physical and mental capacity through Ice reinforcement, a ten-meter Domain radar, my wiggly roots, and now literal short-range teleportation," I listed off. "Point is, System... if I still get hit, then I probably deserve it."
-Ding!
{That is a fair point.}
"I know," I chuckled before dropping my hand back to my side, and taking a good look around the dim, moss-lit tunnel, making absolutely sure there was no one else around before activating my latest magic.
My permanent capacity had just hit exactly sixty mana. I finally had enough juice to test the spell I had been carrying around since Pantheon, but could never actually afford to cast.
[Temporal Step - Aevum Trace.]
The very next second, the entire world slowed to a crawl.