Chapter 215 - MQ, 400

Timothy snuck out of the hole that he had crawled in, and he came out of his hiding spot with a plan in mind. He was going to remain in hiding, yes, but the most important part of his plan was to snipe the Hunched Humans in front of him, one at a time! He couldn’t face all of them alone, so it was best to be sneaky about this, he had to be cautious.

The idea to kill them all, wasn't exactly new, but it was still contemporary. It stemmed from the fact that he had to make this place safe for his friends to enter, because they're yet to see the full benefits of these ruins, and he didn't want to deprive them of these benefits, it would be unfair! Once he killed the tens of dark mages that were working in the area around him, he could then bring his friends here, safely!

“Haha! You lonely bastard!” He celebrated, after he killed a dark mage who had separated himself from their group.

Timothy was using the Bone Multiplier ability to get the job done, as it was the most effective power if he wanted to be sneaky, it was a very quiet way of attacking. He was strong enough to explode human skeletons using this ability, and he did exactly so! He exploded the Hunched Humans, one at a time, and this method was very effective!

After he killed the tenth one, he noticed that his enemies had sunken into great panic! They were running around, trying to figure out who was killing them, but they didn't have any luck. Timothy was laid flat over an old, ruined house, and he didn't move a muscle! He just stalked his enemies, and with a full mana pool, he didn’t worry about all the mana it took for him to explode their skeletons! He snipped them.

Timothy dominated them, and at some point, he killed them all. There were about seventy mages here and there, assuming that more of them weren't hiding elsewhere, and he slaughtered whoever he spotted! Even if some dark mages remained here, undetected, it wouldn’t matter to him, because he felt certain that he had ruined whatever operation they had performed in these ruins.

Sure he couldn’t figure out how to destroy those three pyramids, but he started to come to terms with the fact that it was not his task to destroy them! He killed tens of dark mages, and didn't leave as much as a skeleton that some other dark mage could reanimate, so the contribution he made was overall plentiful! The ruins were a bit safer now, so he could bring the team here without putting their lives at risk.

[You killed seventy more Hunched Humans, congratulations on your massacre.] The system remarked, sarcastically. [Although massacres are frowned upon, they're still quite rewarding, as you’ll discover, because you won 140,000 system points as a reward! In total, you've accumulated 189,000 points.]

“Snazzy… but I'll lose half of those thanks to the necromantic powers you're offering.” He said, as he swam down from the house. His enemies were dead, so he swam freely. “I don't know if I want to buy them now, as the purchases seem unnecessary now. It kills me to know that all of my powers are bracketed at the worst level possible! Mellow for Christ's sake? I might as well cut myself the trouble and jump in a Sea Orc's mouth!”

Sensing his distress, the system then chimed in. [Don't be dramatic - Brackets are meant to be broken, or pushed. Visit the Library of Rempegana, as you might find something there regarding the removal of the second bracket. Surely a library dedicated to a god, has a lot of content regarding mana quality!]

“Can't you just remove the bracket for me? I'll give you all of my points if I have to!” He offered.

[Mana brackets are biological, and are also encouraged by the divines! The latter absolutely prevents me from removing the bracket off of you, Timothy, so I'm afraid I can't help. I could offer you a flash upgrade later on once you remove the bracket off of your mana pool, assuming that you want to pay thousands of points for a single flash upgrade.] She beeped.

“Fantastic,” He remarked, with a tired voice.

Afterwards he walked across the ruins, and bathed in the blood of his enemies. The corpses he exploded, sure let out a lot of blood, so he was covered by it as soon as he swam over there, and checked on the essences of the dark abilities that his enemies left behind. Despite the recent bad news that left a large dent on his motivation, he was still eager to experiment with various powers!

Paired with the recent flash upgrades, and the brain of a mammalian to aid him, his MQ had sky rocketed to four-hundred points! He was now considered a genius in all things mana, and he was hoping to put such arcane understanding into use!

After he collected twenty five more dark powers, or a fraction of their essence at least, he felt readier than ever to experiment! So he decided to hide again, to avoid any unnecessary attention by any beast that might be drawn by the blood in the waters.

“If my mana is bracketed, I might as well create a couple of abilities that the third realm had never seen before! If the gods are messing with me again, I will not let them win...” He muttered.

Timothy then analyzed each power, one by one, and studied their best features before dispelling some of them. There was no point in keeping these powers for himself, because they were mere fractions of their original selves, and therefore useless in any practical way, shape, or form.

Holding the essence of each power in his palm, he just studied the mana channels within the essence of each power, and then tossed some of the powers out of his body. After having memorized their most prominent features, he didn’t need those dispelled powers anymore.

Timothy managed to study a bunch of powers that were based on necromancy, and they were very similar to one another, with most powers having a preference over what species they could reanimate. A bunch of these necromantic powers specialized on one species, but were horrible at reanimating other species, which gave him a hint of how weak the average dark mage was in comparison to himself!

Timothy didn't differentiate his powers all that much, but rather, he could reanimate everything thanks to the mixture of powers that he used, creatively, post and prior to reanimations. Creativity, and a large MQ was his greatest advantage, and he thanked the system for it!

Anyway, after browsing through the necromantic powers, and not having yet decided what to do with them, he then browsed the rest of the power essences that he stole, and discovered something interesting. Apparently, some of these necromancers have had the ability to summon actual demons!

Although Timothy was a bit spooked by the idea of having to work with a demon, he was still itching to try it out at least once! He wanted to figure out what he could summon!