Spirit Devouring Method Level 2

After figuring out the Soul-Devouring Rune's true function, Wei En had the Little Ashis continue meditating.

"Apu."

"Baba."

As the two heads continued to gulp down the energy, Wei En clearly felt the changes occurring within his own meditation for the first time.

So the Little Ashis' swallowing was devouring specific elements.

After these elements entered the origin, their properties would be devoured and transformed.

At the same time, through the interconnected nature of his own origin, the transformed power would flow into his body and form mental power.

As for the elements devoured each time—they were the chaos, despair, death, darkness, and so on that the Little Ashis spoke of.

"It truly lives up to the name of specter. Not a single one is a positive element."

Wei En sighed and no longer paid attention to the meditation process.

As long as it could improve his strength, did it matter what element he devoured?

Thinking this, he opened the panel and checked it, hoping to find the cause of that intense pain from before.

[You successfully endured the origin corrosion of an unknown existence. Your origin characteristic mutated once again. Evaluation: Chaos, despair, death, darkness... Jie jie. Special reward: Origin +2, Mental Level +1, Tenacity Level +1, Survival Points +5.]

[You successfully branded the Soul-Devouring Rune and learned the Spirit Devouring spell. Level 1. You can devour and absorb the origin power of other living beings. Evaluation: Congratulations, you finally look somewhat like a wizard. Special reward: Mental Level +1, Survival Points +2.]

[Note 1: The speed at which you devour and absorb origin is related to the quality-force of the origin being devoured and absorbed, as well as the level of the Spirit Devouring spell.]

[Note 2: When devouring an origin with excessively high quality-force, there is a risk of distortion.]

His origin characteristic had mutated again...

Could those murmured whispers from before have been origin corrosion?

And the reason he felt such intense pain was because his origin characteristic had mutated again?

Wei En lowered his head to look at himself, then checked in the mirror. After confirming that his body had not changed, he let out a breath of relief. Thank goodness. As long as I don't mutate into something like Captain Ariana, I can accept it...

Then Wei En looked at the skills column. A new spell had appeared there—Spirit Devouring.

When he received that prompt, the relevant knowledge about this spell had surfaced in his mind.

First of all, this was not a spell suited for combat situations. The target to be devoured had to be on the verge of death, or had not been dead for long.

Only then could he devour and absorb safely.

At the same time, he had to be careful not to devour origin power with too high a quality-force level, or it would trigger distortion.

"I finally learned a spell."

He would test its effects.

Wei En swept his gaze around, but did not find a suitable target. He could only painfully sacrifice a quill... three pence each. Very expensive.

"Spirit Devouring!"

Wei En pointed one hand at the quill in the corner, pouring out mental power to activate the Soul-Devouring Rune.

At that moment, the Little Ashis, who were meditating, abruptly looked toward the quill and said in unison with solemn expressions, "Adagua!" (Spirit Devouring spell!)

At the same time, the Soul-Devouring Rune located between their brows flashed with a black gleam, shining onto the quill.

Immediately after, he saw... the two heads abruptly pounce out, bite down on the quill together, and chew it in great mouthfuls, devouring it completely.

This was fucking Spirit Devouring?

Wasn't this just the exact image of vicious dogs lunging for food?

A question mark slowly appeared over Wei En's forehead. "???..."

He looked at the Little Ashis, who had gone back to meditating after casting Spirit Devouring, and could not help spitting out a few syllables: Ayinishibadongxi!

Only after quite a while did Wei En resign himself to reality.

No matter what, this was the first spell he had learned, and it was also the core spell of the Specter School's secret spell system.

Even if that image was far too painful to look at... he could only hold his nose and accept it.

Add to that the panel's prompt showing that Spirit Devouring needed 5 Survival Points at level 1, and it was enough to prove this spell's power was not bad.

So next, without much further thought, he decided to use Survival Points to raise Spirit Devouring's level.

Spirit Devouring Level 1 (1/5), Spirit Devouring Level 1 (2/5)...

[Spirit Devouring Level 1 (5/5). Raise level?]

[Raise.]

[Congratulations. Your skill: Spirit Devouring has been raised to Level 2. Effect: Slightly increases the quality-force level of origins that can be devoured, and slightly increases the speed of devouring and absorption.]

Wei En looked at the skill column on the panel—Spirit Devouring Level 2 (0/50).

Each upgrade required ten times the Survival Points?

That many?

Surely other spell-type skills would not be like this too, right?

Wain looked at his remaining survival points and could not help sighing. "There are too many things I need to improve. I don't have nearly enough survival points."

He had originally wanted to keep raising the level of his Spirit Devouring Method spell, but now it seemed he could only leave that for later.

As for his other skill, Basic Marksmanship... Wain added a point to it without even thinking.

Fifty survival points, he did not have.

But one survival point? Who was that supposed to look down on?

Besides, as one of the few offensive methods he currently had, improving his marksmanship would also increase his ability to stay alive.

Basic Marksmanship (1/1), [Basic Marksmanship (1/1). Improve?]

[Improve.]

[Congratulations, your skill: Basic Marksmanship has been raised to Proficient. Effect: When using firearms, accuracy is increased.]

[Note: Proficient-level marksmanship is equivalent to having undergone 10,000 shooting training sessions.]

As his marksmanship level rose, scenes of training with firearms surfaced in Wain's mind.

Whether it was rifles, pistols, or sniper rifles, he felt as if he had trained with them ten thousand times and become thoroughly skilled.

Not bad. At the very least, it could ensure that when he used a flintlock, every shot would hit.

Wain looked at the survival points needed for Proficient Marksmanship. 0/10 was not much... Continue!

Proficient Marksmanship (10/10), [Proficient Marksmanship (10/10). Improve?]

[Improve.]

[Congratulations, your skill: Proficient Marksmanship has been raised to Mastery. Effect: When using firearms, accuracy is increased.]

[Note: Mastery-level marksmanship is equivalent to having undergone 100,000 shooting training sessions.]

This time, even more knowledge about using firearms surged into his mind.

Even with Wain's current mental level, it took nearly an hour before he fully absorbed all of that knowledge.

It contained not only shooting experience with firearms, but even the structures of those firearms and the parameters of their parts, all of which he now knew clearly.

Wain thought with mixed amusement and helplessness, Is this preparing me to improve flintlocks?

He could not really be blamed for looking down on marksmanship... Compared to a wizard's abilities, the upper limit of firearms' attack power was too low.

However, it was fine to use them as a temporary stopgap. Once his wizard level rose later, it would not be too late to discard firearms then.

Mastery Marksmanship (0/100)... This needed a lot more survival points.

Wain looked at the 34 survival points he had left and calculated for a moment. It should still be enough to improve some of his potionology knowledge.

Even if it only improved his ability to make one kind of potion, he was willing.

After all, potionology was tied to his grand plan to make money.

And from what he had observed and learned over the past two days, the consumption speed of potions in the Secret Investigation Bureau alone would be enough for him to make a fortune.

Of course, the premise was that his potionology knowledge was sufficient to create the potions the Secret Investigation Bureau required.

After making these calculations, Wain took out the nearly dust-covered Introduction to Potions—Basic Theory of Potionology and began studying...

Name: Wain Loft

Bloodline: Salute Lineage

Class: Wizard Apprentice (Intermediate)

Tenacity Level: 24

Mental Level: 32.66

Origin: 6 (7) (1 point of Origin sealed)

Talent: None

Partner Contract: Increased wound-healing speed, increased bodily recovery speed. (Calamity Species)

Skills: Ghost Meditation Method Level 2 (0/100), Gonzalez Language Proficient (0/100), Basic Marksmanship (0/1), Spirit Devouring Method Level 1 (0/5)

Runology Knowledge Tree: Introduction to Runology (1/10 runes), Soul-Devouring Rune max level (cannot be improved)

Survival Points: 50