Chapter 79: Level 8, Three New Feats!

Damian had already done the math, so now it was time for the fun part!

He picked up the Essence Surge Pill first.

Unlike the tiny Qi Acceleration Pills he had abused throughout his Novice progression, the Grade Two pill carried enough concentrated medicinal power that even Damian could feel something unusual from it before swallowing.

He tossed it into his mouth anyway.

Gulp!

The pill dissolved rapidly once it entered his stomach.

A warm medicinal force spread throughout his body, but rather than directly producing Experience, the effect settled over him like an invisible amplifier waiting for something useful to happen.

[Essence Surge Pill consumed.]

[Eligible Experience acquisition doubled for twelve hours.]

Damian rubbed his hands together.

"Alright. Feed the machine!"

He picked up the first Condensing Essence Pill and swallowed it.

[+20 EXP.]

[Experience Points: 33/66.]

The second followed.

[+20 EXP.]

[Experience Points: 53/66.]

One more.

[+20 EXP.]

The familiar sensation arrived immediately.

[Experience requirement fulfilled!]

[Overall Level increased!]

[Overall Level 6 → Overall Level 7.]

[Mage Level 6 → Mage Level 7.]

[Experience Points: 7/77.]

[Free Attribute Point acquired.]

[Spell Slot acquired: Level 3 ×1.]

[Current Spell Slots:

Level 1 ×4

Level 2 ×3

Level 3 ×2.]

[Ordinary Feat milestone reached.]

[Feat Category: Class.]

[One Feat Per Level activated.]

Damian released a pleased breath.

Three pills, and that was it.

After all the suffering involved in eating more than a hundred Qi Nourishing Pills to brute-force his way through the Novice ranks, advancing a full level after three pills felt downright civilized.

"Now this is progression!"

More importantly, the seven excess EXP from the third pill had carried forward normally.

Excellent, no waste!

His Condensing Essence adaptation count had also only reached three, leaving him comfortably inside the first ten-pill band.

Before dealing with the Feats, Damian allocated the free Attribute Point.

There was no hesitation this time.

SPI!

His physical Attributes had become ridiculous after the Willowbank Front hunt.

Even INT and WIS could now theoretically appear among the random Attributes extracted through <Demonic Plundering Dao Body>.

Why keep spending rare guaranteed level-up points on things he could farm from enemies?

Spirit was different.

It remained among his hardest Attributes to increase, affected his soul directly, influenced multiple spiritual abilities and, most importantly, was something Damian increasingly suspected would become terrifyingly important as his two power systems climbed higher.

[SPI: 10.4 → 11.4.]

Damian expected something to happen when he increased this, but he simply did not expect what came next.

His previous Attribute increases had always been comparatively understandable.

STR made his muscles stronger.

DEX improved physical control.

AGI made movement feel faster and more natural.

INT sharpened thought.

WIS deepened comprehension and awareness.

But Spirit? For several seconds, Damian could not even determine what had changed.

His body remained exactly where it was, his thoughts were not necessarily faster, his senses were not necessarily sharper either, yet something inside him had become... ’enhanced’.

Damian slowly placed a hand against his chest.

It did not feel like increased health or greater magical power.

It was closer to the sensation that the thing behind his thoughts—the invisible existence that made Damian ’himself’ regardless of which world he stood inside—had suddenly become denser, clearer, and harder to overlook.

If reality itself possessed some unconscious method of deciding how significant a living being was, then Damian felt as though his name had just been printed in slightly darker ink.

"...That’s fucking weird."

He closed his eyes.

How did someone even describe this?

Then an appropriate comparison entered his mind.

’If the universe is a country, Spirit is basically the quality of your passport.’

Damian nodded slowly at his own genius.

It was the same traveler, with the same face and the same destination.

But every additional point of SPI made the ’cosmic immigration officer’ look at the passport, straighten his back slightly and go...

Ah! This gentleman’s documents are important!

"Pfft!"

It was a stupid comparison, but also disturbingly accurate.

No wonder SPI affected souls, faith, spiritual resistance, quality of life and even post-death existence.

It was less about what Damian could do and more about the quality of the person doing it.

Interesting!

Very interesting!

Unfortunately, philosophical nonsense could wait.

He had Feats to pick!

............

The ordinary Level 7 milestone was a Class Feat.

A wide selection appeared, but Damian already knew what he wanted.

<Spell Sniper>.

[Feat Name: Spell Sniper

Feat Category: Class

Effect 1: Learn one eligible offensive Cantrip. Its damage is permanently doubled.

Effect 2: The ’Critical Hit’ threshold for all Spells is reduced by half.

Effect 3: The effective range of all spells is increased by a factor of two.]

Damian smiled.

Simple, useful, and unlike several highly specialized Mage Feats he could take later, <Spell Sniper> improved basically everything he did offensively.

The second effect alone was overpowered, meaning his Firebolts might start doing to normal people what it did to Nightmare Corpse Sect fellows if it triggered the ’crit’.

The first offered a choice between six cantrips.

[Eligible Cantrips:

<Bone Chill>

<Eldritch Blast>

<Firebolt>

<Frost Ray>

<Shocking Grasp>

<Thorn Whip>.]

Damian already possessed two, and <Firebolt> and <Frost Ray> were now Adept to boot, so choosing either would obviously be stupid.

<Shocking Grasp> was interesting for close combat, especially now that Damian was moving toward swordsmanship.

<Thorn Whip> offered control.

<Eldritch Blast>...

Damian stared at that one for several seconds.

Every tabletop nerd instinct inside him screamed that Eldritch Blast was probably worth taking on principle alone.

However...

His finger moved elsewhere.

<Bone Chill>.

This would be his first Necromancy spell.

[Cantrip selected: Bone Chill.]

[Spell Sniper acquired.]

Knowledge entered his mind as the unfamiliar magical structure settled neatly beside his other cantrips.

Damian examined it with interest.

Death-aligned magic, huh?

He had gone in the opposite direction from what most people probably expected.

After discovering how brutally Fire magic interacted with the Nightmare Corpse Sect’s Corpse Qi, the obvious response might have been to keep stacking fire until every demonic cultivator in Shengyuan developed a hereditary fear of campfires.

But Damian was not only preparing for the Nightmare Corpse Sect.

While the Evergreen Sect and Azure Water Sect were both allies, that was only currently.

Damian’s expression became slightly colder.

He liked Mu Qingyao and his four Evergreen Sect brats, while the Azure Water Sect had treated him reasonably well after their initial friction.

That did not mean he was going to become blind.

Organizations, leaders, and interests changed.

People betrayed each other over resources every day even without supernatural treasures involved.

Damian possessed goods capable of shifting entire sect economies, methods that could overturn cultivation progression and secrets that would make powerful people extremely interested in dissecting him.

If Fire possessed an unusually vicious interaction with Corpse Qi...

Then a Necromancy spell interacting with the highly vital energies cultivated by orthodox sect disciples could potentially produce the opposite matchup.

Maybe. Maybe not.

He would eventually test it safely.

But having the option mattered.

Damian sneered faintly. "Always prepare for your friends becoming tomorrow’s assholes."

That did not mean he expected betrayal.

It meant he refused to make himself helpless if betrayal ever came.

There was a difference.

Now came the <One Feat Per Level> selection, and the options were once again ridiculous.

From racial powers and rare supernatural Feats meant for creatures far above Damian’s current level to several boons whose requirements would normally make ordinary people laugh him out of the room.

And Damian chose...

<Athlete>.

Yep.

Athlete.

On paper, it looked almost insultingly mundane compared to some of the cosmic nonsense surrounding it.

[Feat Name: Athlete

Feat Category: General

Effect: Reduces the physical-resource expenditure of all physical actions by 50%.]

That one sentence was truly overpowered.

Physical actions? All of them?

Bro, that meant walking, running, jumping, climbing, swimming, fighting, using weapon techniques, practicing Martial Skills and even having sex.

Yes, it counted!

Damian was not going to pretend otherwise.

More importantly, the reduction applied to the physical burden behind techniques such as <Seven-Turn Sword>.

The Martial Art used refined movement and technique, but his body still had to execute those movements.

Its Secret Art, <Seven-Turn Sword: Reversing Current>, placed an even heavier burden upon the body when changing momentum violently.

Cut that resource expenditure in half permanently?

Yes please!

"What use is having seventeen different divine racial Feats if I gas out after ten minutes?"

Simple upgrades were sometimes the strongest ones.

............

Damian did not waste time celebrating.

Four more Condensing Essence Pills waited.

The fourth pill overall entered his mouth.

[+20 EXP.]

[Experience Points: 27/77.]

Fifth.

[+20 EXP.]

[Experience Points: 47/77.]

Sixth.

[+20 EXP.]

[Experience Points: 67/77.]

Seventh.

[+20 EXP.]

Another barrier broke.

[Experience requirement fulfilled!]

[Overall Level increased!]

[Overall Level 7 → Overall Level 8.]

[Mage Level 7 → Mage Level 8.]

[Experience Points: 10/88.]

[Free Attribute Point acquired.]

[Spell Slots acquired:

Level 1 ×1

Level 2 ×1

Level 4 ×1.]

[Current Spell Slots:

Level 1 ×5

Level 2 ×4

Level 3 ×2

Level 4 ×1.]

[One Feat Per Level activated.]

Damian’s mouth slowly opened.

"Level Four Spell Slot..."

Now that was exciting.

Level 3 magic already included things like <Fireball> and <Counterspell>, but Level 4?

That represented an entirely different tier of magical power waiting for him!

Unfortunately, he did not currently possess any Level 4 Spell Manuals.

Well, not yet anyway.

However, that problem was extremely solvable.

He turned to the Attribute increase first.

[SPI: 11.4 → 12.4.]

The strange sensation returned, and this time Damian recognized it immediately.

That invisible weight behind his existence strengthened once more.

His soul felt denser and more established, like reality had upgraded his cosmic passport from ordinary business class to something that made immigration officers stop asking annoying questions.

Damian rubbed his chest. "So I’ve been promoted again in the society called the universe."

Good to know.

His Level 8 progression came with no ordinary Valorian Feat milestone.

For anyone else, gaining a level without a Feat would merely be normal.

For Damian though, such a notion was akin to disgusting poverty!

Thankfully, <One Feat Per Level> existed to save him from such suffering.

He opened the selection, and this time, the choice was another straightforward investment.

<Martial Adept>.

[Feat Name: Martial Adept

Feat Category: Class

Effect: Increases the damage of all compatible physical Skills based upon the average of STR, DEX and AGI.

Physical Skill Damage Bonus = (STR + DEX + AGI) ÷ 3.]

Damian immediately did the calculation.

STR: 12.4.

DEX: 16.6.

AGI: 13.1.

Total: 42.1.

Divide by three...

14.03%.

[Current Physical Skill Damage Bonus: +14.03%.]

Damian whistled.

That was already good.

More importantly, it scaled automatically.

Every physical Attribute he gained through <Demonic Plundering Dao Body> would now indirectly strengthen all of his compatible physical Skills.

Including <Seven-Turn Sword>, <Seven-Turn Sword: Reversing Current> and every Martial Art Damian learned afterward.

And if his Attributes eventually reached thirty? Fifty? Maybe even a hundred?

The Feat would simply keep climbing with him.

That was exactly the sort of scaling that Damian appreciated.

He flexed his fingers.

<Athlete> cut the physical cost of executing those techniques by half.

<Martial Adept> increased their damage according to his physical Attributes.

<Perfect Combat Instinct> optimized how he applied them under pressure.

<Myriad Arts Master> reduced the effort and Skill Point cost required to learn and advance them.

And <Demonic Plundering Dao Body> gave him a way to continuously improve the Attributes feeding the entire structure.

Damian slowly leaned back against the sofa.

"...Oh."

He had accidentally built another synergy engine again.

At this rate, his Character Sheet was becoming less like a build and more like a corporate merger where every department somehow generated profits for every other department.

Wonderful!

Damian looked toward the remaining Condensing Essence Pills.

His adaptation count sat at seven and the Essence Surge Pill still had plenty of time remaining.

He was now Level 8 with 10/88 EXP, his Spirit had reached 12.4, his spell-slot reserves had expanded substantially, he possessed his first Level 4 Spell Slot, and three new Feats had joined his increasingly unreasonable build.

Level 9 waited ahead.

And unlike Level 8...

Level 9 came with another ordinary Feat milestone on top of <One Feat Per Level>.

Damian picked up the next Condensing Essence Pill and smiled.

"Alright."

Time to see what Level 9 had for him!