Chapter 436 : Summarize

As soon as I opened the case and touched the book, it suddenly appeared in my hands, and we were all thrown out into the tundra. The giant snow globe itself remained, except that the picturesque scenery on the inside was now entirely obscured. I instinctively touched it, wondering if it was still open, but received no response.

I guess when it clears up, it will be ready again. Or maybe it will only clear up when I bring enough new blood to the test?

I wasn't sure, but we had more important things to worry about than diving down another rabbit hole of speculation. We needed to return home before Vee started eating the snow to put something in her stomach. We said farewell to the personas as I returned their slime and cores to [Core Storage] for an instant trip home.

"I'll order a meal prepared before you get back!" Sylbera said before she went into the storage.

"Bless her heart," Vee said, sighing happily. "Shall we get out of here?"

"I'll handle the teleportation since we want to mix it up a bit before heading to the island."

"That works for me…" Vee agreed, appearing on my shoulder in a shrunken state and slumping.

I stored away my prize a little reluctantly, then pulled up [Landmarks] to see its list of coordinates. It felt good to be outside the compressed space, with all my tools available and no hindrances.

Well… Not all of them.

There was a notable absence, and I was already missing my [Personal Rift]. I wasn't sure how long it would take to reform, but I hoped it was sooner rather than later. We teleported around to a few locations, all of which were a drop in the bucket for my Mana supply, before returning to Glimmerock, and from there, I hastily flew off into the distance.

Once I deemed it far enough away, I finally teleported us back to Tanglebay. When we arrived, we were basically assaulted by Sylbera rushing up to us with some hastily made plates of food, as if this were a medical emergency.

I guess it kinda is.

As Vee ate and ate, slowly filling the void left by ravenous hunger, I looked over what else I'd gained from our climactic final battle. It looked like there was a lot I had neglected to look at, and I was almost dreading going through it all until I saw something interesting right at the bottom.

<Would you like a summary of your recent advancements?>

Um...Yes?

<Class: Riftmancer LV 24 -> 27>

<Skill Points: 19 -> 22>

<Race: Chimeric Cluster Slime (Prismatic) LV 21 -> 25>

<Trait Points: 12 -> 16>

I gained four race levels? I think I need to borrow a Vee-ism for this—holy crap! I should go adventuring with the full persona team more often!

I'd also gained three class levels, but that was more believable considering my current experience distribution. The race levels, however, were effectively all donated by my personas, as they couldn't exactly not contribute to my growth.

Still, it felt like there was some kind of shenanigans going on as this was more than I'd gotten for killing that demon. Was it thanks to [Companion Growth] and Vee choosing to give us the experience now that she was ready to evolve? I honestly had no idea, and rather than dwell on it, I moved on to the next page of the summary.

<Traits:

[Slime Mastery LV 14 -> 15]

[Sub-Core Alpha LV 7 -> 8]

[Sub-Core Beta LV 7 -> 8]

…

[Sub-Core Omega LV 6 -> 8]

[Soul Mastery LV 9 -> MAX]

[Enhanced Vitality LV 6 -> 7]

[Magic Resistance (Greater) LV 2 -> 3]

[Curse Resistance LV 4 -> 6]

[Spatial Resistance LV 5 -> 6]

[Soul Sense LV 9 -> MAX]>

My [Sub-Cores] all reached level eight… I wonder if that explosion had anything to do with it? No, I can't take all the credit; they worked their butts off commanding minions and everything else. Honestly, they deserved to reach it much sooner, if not for my spontaneous purchase of additional cores delaying it.

However, the rest of my traits were nothing to scoff at either. [Slime Mastery] was always a welcomed upgrade, and it made sense with all the work my personas and I had done throughout our conquest of the castle. In fact, part of me had suspected that more traits had received levels than this as we pooled all our trait contributions together.

[Soul Sense] had now joined [Soul Sight] at the level cap, which was understandable considering how much I used its [Spatial Sense] component. By comparison, [Soul Vision] looked extremely neglected, as it had pretty much fallen to the wayside alongside all the extraordinary other methods I had at my disposal.

Why use direct vision when I can see the world through spatial coordinates? Or tremors in the ground? Or see the very flow of Mana, Lifeforce, and Essence?

If I were stuck with ordinary eyes like a human, I would probably value [Soul Vision] a lot more, but it was definitely looking like the ugly duckling of the trio. Of course, I'd still try to get it to the level cap, as maybe I could spend a legend point to combine all three together, or something similar?

And then there's you… What do I do with you?

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[Soul Mastery] had reached the level cap and was a prime target to be injected with ten trait points to be uncapped. Honestly, the only reason I didn't immediately jump at the opportunity was that I felt like [Chimeric Mimicry] had to also be close to reaching its max. With me and all of my personas constantly borrowing traits and making our slime minions, it seemed inevitable, and I expected it to reach the threshold during the next labyrinth, if not sooner.

I guess I'll sleep on that decision for now…

Vitality and my resistances all going up was a pleasant surprise, and I could only imagine the former was due to the detonation, as I didn't recall any of my cores being struck directly. As for the resistances, the obvious outlier was [Curse Resistance], which I assumed was from me trying to resist the overwhelming hunger.

But why did [Spatial Resistance] go up? Was my body trying to fight against the forced shrinking?

I had no idea, as I had previously thought it was only to stop being teleported against my will. The level I had gained might have been from the dungeon moving us around, like when it reset, or when it kicked us out, but that might've been a stretch.

Let's move on.

<Skills:

[Split Personality LV 6 -> 7]

[Dissection LV 8 -> 9]

[Companion Growth LV 12 -> 13]

[Attack Mastery (Greater) LV 4 -> 5]

[Affliction Mastery LV 8 -> 9]

[Exploit Weakness LV 7 -> 8]

[Elemental Praxis LV 6 -> 7]

[Death Magic LV 3 -> 4]

[Personal Rift LV 5 -> 6]

[Identity Fabrication LV 11 -> 12]>

A decent number of skills had gone up, which wasn't bad, considering I didn't share progress on these with my personas, or at least that was what I assumed. Of course, my personas could borrow inferior skills from me without purchasing them. Still, I had no idea whether that actually contributed to my growth, or, if it did, whether it was noticeable.

[Split Personality] and [Companion Growth] both getting a level was a given, and I was pleasantly surprised to see [Dissection] in the mix. I'd tried my best to harvest what I could, but in the final stages, there hadn't been much for us to gain.

I'm sure Yuzz will love all the yeti fur we've got. She can outfit everyone with winter coats.

I then looked at the obviously sunny island we were on and silently chuckled to myself.

Not that we really need winter coats… But it's the thought that counts, right?

Seeing a few of my attack-related skills going up was a delight, and I imagined that [Exploit Weakness] must have been from all the fire and light we were using against the wendigos. Then there were my magic-related skills, which I had already known about [Death Magic] and [Personal Rift], but I was very surprised by [Elemental Praxis].

Do my personas actually contribute to my skill growth? I know I was throwing around some fire, or at least some of my minions were, but I hadn't even noticed [Elemental Praxis] going up…

The direct magic skills going up were always noticeable, even when I was keeping all my notifications muted, as the sudden influx of magical knowledge was hard to ignore. However, with [Elemental Praxis] giving me ten spells at once, maybe it had made an exception to the rule to avoid me being overloaded in a critical state?

There's also the possibility that I didn't notice it since I had already technically unlocked some of the spells. I already had all the basic ones, and then Sylvester discovered [Permafrost] for us early… Well, whatever, I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

[Identity Fabrication] gaining a level was weird, though, and I could only imagine it might have been from the labyrinth's master observing us, especially when I brought out all the personas and minions. With that much direct observation, it was no wonder the skill received a level-up so soon.

And looks like the last page of the summary is my new spells. Let's see…

<Spells:

Fire: [Pyrokinesis]

Water: [Whirlpool]

Air: [Vacuum Blade]

Earth: [Entomb]

Ice: [Permafrost]

Lightning: [Thunderstorm]

Magma: [Mantle Breach]

Steam: [Whiteout]

Nature: [Germinal Splice]

Dust: [Sand Maw]

Death: [Grave Resonance]>

I was still one level short of regaining my previous maximum of [Basic Elemental Magic], but there were a lot of new additions from [Intermediate Elemental Magic]. I didn't want to spend too much time on them now, but I did casually glance through them to get a gist of what they were capable of.

[Thunderstorm] created a localized weather phenomenon, greatly enhancing the area of effect capabilities of [Lightning Magic]. It seemed there might be more applications, like using the storm to fuel your other lightning spells, which was interesting, but I moved on.

[Mantle Breach] was a little insane, as it let you sense pockets of magma beneath the surface and directly draw them to the surface. Magic was usually pretty much instantaneous, and while this was not the case with this particular spell, the potential and permanent ramifications told another story.

[Whiteout], on the other hand, was not like the previous two, as its effect was instant. It caused all moisture, even in the air, to explode into superheated steam, creating a blinding fog and scalding anyone caught in the affected area.

When I saw [Germinal Splice], I could already imagine a very happy slime-elf and spider, as it let us finally do what we'd seen during the formal duels at the elven ball. With this spell, you could graft plants together and even try to splice seeds to influence their traits. Unlike [Blightgraft], this spell focused on permanent and fusions between the plants, or even just trying to modify a new plant strain with certain resistances.

[Sand Maw] was the last spell, and honestly, it sounded very impressive. Not only did I like the name, but its effect seemed just as good. To sum it up, you could target an area, and it would try to convert all the rock and soil into sand, which would then gather and form an effective "sand tsunami" to devour your target. What I liked about this spell, though, was that it was clearly a two-staged spell, and I very much wanted to see how it strung the various steps together into one unified spell to compare with my own attempts.

I might be able to improve my [Blink] spell…

While I was happy to potentially improve upon my current and future spells, I was bitter that out of everything that had gone up, [Dimension Magic] was not one of them. I was supposed to be a damn [Riftmancer] and yet at the moment I had nothing to show for it.

Well, if improving my [Blink] spell doesn't grant me a level, maybe reading those notes on compressed space will.

I had lots of plans for the upcoming days, and I would have plenty of time to do so since I was going to be stuck in place for the time being. I turned to my spidery companion, who had just finished her umpteenth plate of food and was now snacking on a variety of fruits.

"So, when's the big day?"

"Oh, I'm definitely planning on doing it today," Vee replied excitedly. "I'd do it right now, but I want to store enough food in my stomach before, just in case I need the extra nutrients."

To me, that sounded like an excuse just to stuff her gullet with as much fruit as she could, but I wasn't going to point that out. After suffering at the corrupting hunger of the Hollow Monarch, she deserved to pig out.

"Okay, then I'd better give you my messages to pass on to Mother and Gramps for me."

"Sure thing, give me the list, and I'll do my best to let her know. I'm guessing your [Dungeon Master] status is still pending?"

I pulled out the CUBE and poked it, but I got the same annoying message.

"Still pending…" I grumbled.

"I'll do my best to let Mother know. Although I don't know how much sway she has over your Gramps."

"At this point, I'm getting desperate. I feel like I might need to start issuing threats or something."

"Yeah… Please don't do that. Unless you want to get smited like that guy in the snow globe?"

I quickly shook my head, as just recalling that scene was enough to give me the shivers.

"Rather than threats… Just tell Mother it will make me more passionate about exploring magic."

"Haha, sure thing. I'll even throw you a bone and tell her that I'll try to get more involved."

"Thanks, Vee. Now eat up, you've got a lot of evolving to do."