1-Star!

Wait...

What am I complaining about?

"That's a full set." I say to myself.

"No way!" Melli smiles and looks up at me, "really?"

Elizabeth takes a step back shaking her head. "Can't believe I've helped you with this..."

"What are you..."

Suddenly a light bursts out of my chest, and a little golden orb stands before me. It seems to inspect me for a moment, nod to itself and then shoot a lightning bolt at me. "Aaaaaaaah!" I shout as a rather intense pain rips through me. I look down and see that I'm unraveling. Like I'm a sweater with a loose thread, everything that is me is just getting pulled apart. Not pleasant either, actually seriously painful and not even in a hot way. I'm getting fucking torn to shreds, and all I can do is scream.

I scream and I scream until my throat comes apart, and then I can only blink eyes in abject horror as I vanish from existence.

Then a moment later, I'm getting brought back into the world. Thread by thread I'm knit anew, starting with my toes, and ending with my handsome hair. It's not as pleasant as the destruction was painful, but I'd take what I could get. The whole thing took maybe a minute. I looked around and saw that my team had given me a good ten foot birth, to get my shit sorted out.

"That look, pleasant." Melli hedge.

"Oh my goddess that was the worst thing I've ever experienced. " I look down at myself and notice that I'm naked... and have a six pack. "Woah." I poke the ab muscles.

"You look more..." Melli started.

"Handsome!" Cyrus happily finished. "All your back acne has cleared up boss."

"Yeah?" I feel hotter, leaner. Even my voice sounds a little sexier I think.

"Wow it's true." Melli giggles. "I heard earing your first star makes you more handsome!"

I look down and then up. "And... the dick?"

Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "It's bigger." She shakes her head. "Your body is perfected by the power of the stars. You eat less, sleep less, age slower, all that good stuff."

"Really." I look Elizabeth up and down. "How ugly were you before you ranked up?"

She gives me a smug smile. "Some of us give the stars high quality material to work with."

"And I'm sure you had a great personality too."

Melli butt in again. "Do you feel stronger? More powerful?"

I shrug. "Not really, I thought I was suppose to become like... super human or something."

Elizabeth groans. "What part of eat less, sleep less, age slower, didn't you understand? You're thinking of the multiplier, you don't get that at your first level. I'm only super strong because of my stars."

"What multiplier?" Cyrus asks

Elizabeth groans again, she hates teaching. "Each star is like a multiplier. At rank 1 you multiply the strength of a normal person times 1, so there's no increase. At rank 2 you multiply it by 2, and so on. At rank 5 you're five times stronger than a normal person, but usually by that point you've got so much else going for you that that's not very impressive. For instance if I was level 5 I'd be vastly stronger than a normal person, because my strength enhancing star would also be level 5. We're talking about..." hey eyes glaze over as if she's imagining it all. "Godlike power."

"So what do I get for my first rank?" I ask, feeling a little impatient. I wanted power now dammit!

"Your stars." Melli says. The stars you've been picking up through the dungeon, you can use them now.

"You can also start cultivating them." Elizabeth says ominously. "Hold out your hand, and say 'Present', with the..."

"Yeah yeah with the intention to present myself, I get it." I hold my hand out. "Present!"

Prophet

Level: 1

Slot 1: Monster Slayer- Type: Enhancement - Effect: The User does increased damage to monster type enemies.

Slot 2: Shadow Blade- Type: Attack - Effect: When activated the shadow of the user’s weapon becomes a deadly weapon of its own. When the user makes an attack a second attack immediately follows.

Slot 3: Vampire Bite- Type: Attack - Effect: The User is able to grow their teeth into deadly weapons, and when used on a bleeding enemy is able to drain the life **** from their very body.

Slot 4: The Witch King- Type: Passive - Effect: Female Magic users under your command Have the strength of their spells increased.

Slot 5: Darkness- Type: Utility - Effect: Calling on the realm of darkness, the user can summon a cloud of magical darkness, which can not be penetrated by light or magic.

"Witch king looks interesting." Melli says, leaning in to read the description. Melli +2cp (2 Corruption.)

"Yeah this might have to be a permanent partnership." I say with a bright smile.

"Anyway." Elizbeth shoved past me to point to the display image. "If you look here you can see that each Slot has a challenge listed with them. These are feats or training you can do with the skill to cultivate it. Once you raise five stars to 2nd Rank, you level up basically."

"Sounds easy." I smile.

"Better read the challenges." She smirks.

Okay fine.

Monster Slayer - Slay 10 Monsters (0/10)

Okay I could do that. Do goblins count? I guess I could kill Cyrus and see.

Shadow Blade - Kill 10 Enemies with this effect (0/10)

Easy, I'll just kill the monsters with this and kill two birds with one stone.

Vampire Bite - Use this effect on 10 different enemies during combat. (0/10)

This is fucking easy mode! I bite then I stab, no problem.

The Witch King - Coven - Form a party of three female spellcasters (1/3)

Hmmm, okay that one was kind of weird... and cool. I'd have to keep that in mind. Looks like Elizabeth wasn't keep any magical secrets from me. Damn Spellcasters were actually quite rare. Still this was basically something that I wanted to do anyway. I'll take it as a win.

Darkness - Steeped in Darkness - Spend 100 Hours within this effect (0/6,000 mins)

Huh... that was quite a lot of hours.

How long does a use of Darkness last?

...

One minute!??!?!

"I have to use this stupid ability 6,000 times to level it up?" I shout indignantly

"I'm a little concerned that the killing didn't phase you." Melli laughs nervously.

"Well it's only monsters." I say, as if I wouldn't stab a bitch if I had to.

"Okay." I nod. "I can see how some of these would be hard to level up. But I can trade them out for easier ones when I find them right?"

"Sure." Elizabeth nods, "but then you have to cultivate those stars too. Your best bet is to do what I did."

"Said no one ever." I chuckled, nudging Cyrus.

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. "To do what I did. Find a collection of stars that suit you before you start leveling."

"Makes sense." I nod. "No offense to the Raven Lady but these things are trash for me. Not an alchemy skill amongst them."

Melli give me a confused look. "You know you can gain alchemy stars, but just working at the craft right?"

I shake my head. "No I've been an alchemist my whole life, and I've never..."

Elizabeth burst out laughing. "You've never done anything to warrant a star!"

"Shut up!" I blush.

"Makes sense!" She chuckles. "All you know how to do is make fuck potions!"

"Fuck potions?" Melli asks, I sense her hackles rise.

Uh oh. "Enough Elizabeth." I say, making sure she knows it's a command. "So what do you have to do to..." I try to move on, but Melli speaks up.

"When we lost the battle... I was overcome with this feeling of lust." She looks up at me, her brow furrowed in concern, no... anger. "Did you spike my potion?"

"No no no." I say holding my hands up. "I mean yes, but not on purpose." I avoid looking at her, playing at a deeply ashamed fuck up. "I think I just... didn't clean the cauldron?"

"What?" She snaps, nostrils flailing.

"You can't spike potions, it throws off their magical uses." This was actually the truth. People talk about alchemists spiking potions all the time, but it's not actually possible. Potions are so complicated and sensitive on their own, you think we can add a whole other potion inside of that as well? When people talk about this kind of thing it's usually just poison. In which case YEAH, they just put poison in the potion. It was never going to be a healing potion because there was poison in it. That is of course ignoring the fact that_ I _can spike potions. That's what make the Cauldron of Corruption so special. "You gained mana from the potion right?"

"Yeah, but I was too horny to use it." She blushes at the admission. "It cost my friends their life, it cost us the whole dungeon."

"I know." I bow my head. "and I'm sorry. "I didn't even think there was a problem, that there would be a problem until you guys didn't come back."

Melli crosses her arms and snorts. "So that's why you came for us, you felt guilty."

Got her! I bow my head and faux-shame.

Melli shakes her head in disgust. "Pathetic, a person like you ranks up when Kal and Car don't. Whatever." She brushes past me and heads to the last chamber. The bug chamber. "We finish this dungeon then we go our separate ways."

"Smooth." Elizabeth chuckles under her breath, then smacks me on the arm.

"You'll pay for that." I glare at her.

"Yes master." She snarks and tugs on her collar with a hand, the middle finger of it expertly extended. "Whatever you say."

Cyrus puts his hand on my hip, which I guess is like him putting his hand on my shoulder. "I think you're a great alchemist boss." He smiles up at me.

"Shut up Cyrus."

He sighs and shakes his head. "Terrible person though."