Chapter 15 - Mr.Killer
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Reve's Random Lectures: Skill Levels
-> It is a function of the Nixy Practice that measures the user's mastery over a certain skill.
-> When the user's mastery has reached its highest potential, the window displays the level of the skill at Lv.Max, which is normally just after Lv.10 for most skills
-> Skills at Lv.Max has the potential to evolve, which is just the user learning an advanced form of the skill.
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The sounds of the birds chirping echoed throughout the forest, bringing forth a sense of peace to all that listened to him.
To Reve, the sound was a beautiful melody that influenced his productive state.
His sharp eyes darted around and finally stopped at his hidden prey.
He had sensed the presence of a creature lurking behind him but he played along.
Now, he turned around and revealed a look of ignorance, as if he couldn't sight the shining skin of fur shining in the green bush.
After making sure his prey was right where he wanted, he opened his mouth and a blue ray of light escaped.
Following just behind it was a mystical circle with strange patterns that seemed to belong to the flying light.
The moment the colour of the circle intensified, the light shot off and left no room for Reve's prey to dodge.
The prey received the full brunt of the attack and fell loudly to the floor. It wiggled a few times before it finally surrendered itself to death. Its cause of death; a small bump on its head that was dilated with the blood.
"Heh, I'm bumped. I spent a day just trying to learn this skill. Yet, it still can't pierce the skin of my preys," sighed Reve.
He was truly tired.
His mind wandered back to one of the most emphasized words he saw when reading the mana introduction book, "Magic, the phenomenon that changed the direction of Arcadia."
Like the book mentioned, Magic was Magic and Mana control was Mana control.
In essence, they were the same things but one was an advanced method of the other.
Mana control was just manipulating mana.
However, Magic was the control of mana through fixating on magic circles which appears after the refined mana is exported outward.
It is said to be the representation of the control of the mana. Hence, the more one perfected their magic circle, the more the skill progressed.
Of course, other factors like knowledge and aptitude were involved for a skill to level up.
As he descended into thoughts, a Nixy window popped up.
[NOTICE: The skill window has been updated. The title window has been updated. A new slab has been added to the main window. New skill gained: [Basic Mana Shot].]
[Skill: Basic Mana Shot(Lv.1)
->The fundamental skill of all magic users. It involves the aggressive firing of mana through the use of magic.]
[ Name: Reve
Race: White Arcadian Cat(Neophyte)
Level(exp): 12 (7/10)
Path: Magic
Titles: Kin of Amethyst, Deviant, First Kind, Slime Killer, Magic User
AP: 36
[Attributes]:
[Skills]: ]
Looking through the Nixy window, Reve understood how deep of an impact learning [Mana Shot] was.
It had kick-started his journey on the path of endless mysteries known as magic, which was recognized by Nixy, the world administrator.
Now, he had gained more confidence to traverse the dangerous lands and acquire female cat empresses.
As long as he sang a song for them, they would gasp in his brilliance.
With this goal in his mind, Reve finally took a step out of his territory and into the unknown parts of the island.
The first thing he noticed was the heavy stench of blood in the air that couldn't be blocked by the fresh air provided by nature.
It dominated this part of the forest so well that it had spawned a transparent red blood mist that prevented Reve from having a clear sight.
Well, it didn't exactly prevent him. As a member of a cat race, his eyes were sharp enough to see through the blood mist.
However, the strange occurrence still unnerved him.
His furs couldn't help but straighten, "Corpses. Bags of bodies littered around in the worst way possible. Clearly, someone forgot to take his chill pill."
Next to him were gory remains of beings that were once alive. Some of them still retained their flesh, while some of them appeared to have withered down to mere bones.
Even the slight nudge from Reve's paws turned a few to ashes, scattered forever like coastal sands.
Reve had seen something like this way back when he tried to scout this region. He had automatically tagged it as a small skirmish between man and beast but this….this was way worse than what he had previously seen.
Reve quickly started gathering information, "Years ago, there was a pattern. It was only human corpses that I saw. Yet, now different carcasses of magical creatures had been added to the collection. They don't seem to be killed by humans. I can vividly see bite and claw marks. Moreover, these marks appear to be constant…..ahhh, this is getting tiresome."
Just a minute ago, he was composing the song he would sing to his cat harem.
Now, here he was, scavenging facts out of rotten corpses like he was some sort of great explorer uncovering the biggest fallacy of the century.
"Apparently, whatever happened here happened in two rounds. The first one was the one I caught glimpses of years ago. The evidence being the corpses that have started decaying. The second round was even more brutal and encompassing. Nothing was spared from the vicinity. Clearly, whoever did this wasn't a fan of discrimination. Its identity is still not clear. Thus, I shall name it Mr.Killer."
Reve bobbed his head as he marvelled at his wise choice of names.
He sounded like Great Detective Sherlock Holmes, except that that dude story happens in the future.
Anyway, Mr.Killer couldn't have had a motive for the killing, no pun intended.
His slaughter was too wild and unbridled to have an intention.
However, to get more information, he had to follow the trail of dead bodies and hope it doesn't lead him to Mr..Killer.