Chapter 291: Before The Evolution
With a somber expression, Dhruv continued to stare at the bonfire. He was truly happy that he had won the battle against the Queen, but still, there was something he knew he had lost.
As he stared at the dancing flame, Dhruv felt a part of himself slowly slipping away. He was losing something precious to him.
He wanted to continue staring at the flame but failed to do so as the words of his guardian reached him, "Master, do you need more cores, or will these be enough?"
"Huh! Ohh! Nah, that should be enough." Replying with a smile, he picked up a core lying beside him and crushed it.
[You have absorbed a tier IV core.]
[You have reached 100% saturation in your core. Do you want to continue evolution?]
[Yes/No]
’No, not yet,’ Dhruv thought, looking at the screen in front of him. There were a few things he wanted to do before continuing the evolution, and first and foremost was upgrading his mutation.
Sigh!
Letting out a sigh, Dhruv thought of opening his status. Within a second, a panel of information appeared in front of him.
......
Name: Dhruv
Species: Master Mage [Asteri]
Level: [40/40] [100%] [Tier: Ⅲ]
Title: First Blood, Progenitor
Magic Affinity: Metal (S), Illusion (D), Fire (S)
Exclusive Attributes: Mark of Asteri
Stats: Strength Lv. 180 (198), Stamina Lv. 130 (143), Agility Lv. 130 (143), Magic Power Lv. 200 (220)
Abilities: Advanced Mud Manipulation Lv. 6, Air Manipulation Lv. 3
Skills: Better Map Maker Lv. 13, Better Cold Resistance Lv. 6
Mutation: Sensitive Sorcerer’s Eyes +5, Better Mana Veins +7, Lesser Obsidian Claws +5, Sturdy Hand +5, Muscular Legs +5, Multipurpose Brain +5, Hardened Bones +5, Healing Heart +5
Cosmic Coins: 970K
Essence Points: 120
Skill Points: 81
<Cosmic Store>
......
Even though Dhruv had advanced quite much in recent times, there wasn’t really much to show on his status. After all, the areas where he had evolved the most were already fused with his being, making the information pretty much inaccessible.
Still, there were a few changes in the past few days. His skills had leveled up. He was close to having a million coins and best of them he had even bought two new skills.
During the second quest, Dhruv bought Water and Earth Manipulation to create Mud Manipulation but did not touch Air. After some thought, he decided to buy Air Manipulation as well, completing his arsenal of all four elements.
Although he had all these four manipulations, he was only really proficient in using fire, and even that was because of entering this dungeon.
But after buying the air manipulation he had thought of upgrading the skill and fusing them all later on.
The second skill Dhruv bought is pretty simple and self-explanatory. After wandering in this realm of hellish cold for a few days, he found that he could buy the skill [Cold resistance].
Being in an area where he needed protection from the cold, it wasn’t really hard to buy this skill. At this level, the skill didn’t really provide him with that much resistance... But it was at least better than nothing.
After buying these two, there were a few skills that had caught his attention, but he decided to put them on hold for now.
All in all, Dhruv was satisfied but his skill, what he wasn’t satisfied with was his mutation.
’Sigh! Even after fusing with just tier 4 meat, I only managed to collect 120 essences in all this time.’ Dhruv couldn’t help but sigh as he looked at his essence points.
He really wanted to upgrade his mutation to match his tier, but there was no way to achieve that before the quest ended... and he didn’t want to wait that long to evolve.
’So, with 120, I could upgrade Sorcerer’s Eyes, Mana Veins, and Brain to tier II. Uhhhmm! So after that, I will be left with 13 essences... which can be used to mutate my heart further’
Dhruv came up with the number after doing some mental calculations. Not wasting any more time in mindlessly thinking, he decided to first upgrade his Mana Veins to tier II.
[Do you want to invest 27 essence points in Better Mana Veins?]
[Yes/No]
Dhruv nodded.
[Better Mana Veins have reached +10.]
[Please select an advancement for the organ.]
As expected, numerous options began to show up in front of him. Some were already the ones he had seen, while others were new.
After looking at the options for a few moments, Dhruv notice some points,
’So, the options didn’t seem to be that branched out this time. There were some fancy advancements at tier I, but at tier II, most of them seemed to be related to the choice I made at tier I.’
It wasn’t that there weren’t some fancy options; they were there. The difference was they were few and far between.
After some thinking, Dhruv understands that it made perfect sense... that the choices he would make at lower tiers would have a significant role in the further advancement of his organ.
And because of this exactly he couldn’t be bewitched by these fancy mutations at these tiers. These tiers should be used to strengthen the base of the organ.
Keeping these points in mind he began scrolling through the options. After a while he stopped, making a list of four mutations along the line.
[Enhanced Mana Vein], [Flexible Mana Vein], [Mana Burst Nodes Vein], and [Fortified Mana Vein] were the options he was very interested in. he was going to choose from any one of them.
Dhruv didn’t even need to read the description of the first one as he knew what to expect. Just from the name he had guessed what it would be.
Yet to be sure he read the description and sure enough he was right, ’Enhanced Mana Vein was pretty much straightforward. It was just a simple but powerful advancement of his Better Mana Vein...’
Being the simplest option he didn’t dwell much there and moved on to others.
