A quick rest

After the very brief skirmish, I took a moment to reflect on how it went down. My claws and teeth were formidable weapons, as it turned out. I may have been able to fully restrain the man using only my tentacles had I not been overconfident and used only two of my five long barbed grapplers. So I made a mental note to use more tentacles.

The horse pulling the cart freaked out basically from the moment I appeared, but its reins were tied to the belt of one of the men, so it couldn't flee. The horse was female; I could tell from her scent. My breeder perk would make it very hard for any female to ever escape my notice. What's more, I knew I could successfully impregnate her. Part of me wanted to. For a brief moment I considered what manner of children it could produce for me, but I discarded the idea and killed her instead.

For no reason other than to keep people unaware of me, and maybe just for fun, I wanted anyone who discovered the scene to believe it was the work of a wild animal. In truth, I felt half feral as I tore chunks of the beast with my jaws and claws. It yielded some amount of experience, as it turned out, but it felt like very little. Probably not really worth it.

Stealth: 00:49:41

Before moving on from the wagon, I smashed half the contents against the earth and slashed open a few of the sacks. The wagon contained mostly grain and a few poor-quality farming tools. This area really was piss poor. Still, I knew it would be perfect for my plans.

Not wanting to burn too much of my stealth time, I separated from the massacre site to find a place to hide. My fog of shadows shrouded me as I moved through the woods and eventually climbed into a tree to sit comfortably where I'd be invisible. It was time to look into this whole leveling thing.

Focusing deeply on myself, I could observe all of my stats at once. It was a tedious process, but useful. There were so many areas that could be expanded or added to. The goddesses hadn't lied when they said I was only the beginning of what I could become. A rough draft.

Virtually any aspect of my being could be strengthened, enhanced, empowered, or grown. The options were limitless, but the choices were not.

I had gained a lot of something called Class XP, and much less Monster XP. There was enough to grow a class, so I did.

-Assassin Level 2-
Health 30/30
Mana 38/50

Ooh. That felt good; I liked that a lot. My maximum health grew slightly, and I gained a passive bonus to my physical attack while hidden from my target.

What's more, I felt three distinct points of power manifest in my Core. Real, tangible things of power within me. Not just imaginary numbers. This was different. I could begin to create myself with this.

Some quick experimentation proved that my class level upgrade points were limited to things that had anything to do with class or humanity. Fair enough. I thought hard about all the things I could do, but decided to keep things simple.

I didn't want to die to a moment of carelessness, so I pushed one of the points of light into the part of my core that represented my Health. The resulting surge of vitality felt really good. I felt a rush if energy and life that made me want to take on the whole world.

Health 38/38

Oh, that was good to know: More of an increase than what the passive level up had given me.

2 points left, and so many skills, attributes, and powers to choose from. I wasn't limited to Assassin-specific skills, either, I discovered. Priest upgrades were on the table. As long it was Class-related.

Reviewing my Priest skills reminded me that mana was a thing. My little healing spell had cost a fair chunk of mine, and I decided to pump that as well. Spells were going to be an important part of my skill-set, after all.

Mana 56/65

Stealth 00:30:07

Wow, spending a point on mana yielded a huge increase. I hadn't been tracking my mana before leveling up, but I made a note that mana would grow much faster than health. My rest had even recovered me a few points of mana, which I found useful.

One point left. This felt like it was taking forever. Sticking to basics would be useful always, but I wanted something I could leverage into an edge in combat.

But what?