I knew that I should not be surprised every time I returned from death and saw the progress that I had made, but then I realized that my last loop was far from normal, and I, for all intents and purposes, had fought at the level of an Adept.
Every fight I had had before now seemed to be building up to the last loop, where all my accumulations had exploded, and that meant my rewards were also going to be that much more impressive.
The status screen materialised in my vision, and I had to close my eyes for a moment because the cascade of notifications was so dense it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water across my consciousness.
When I opened them again, I forced myself to read slowly.
[Name: Elric Voss]
[Age: 16]
[Title: Demon Slayer (Epic) — Second Earth Gate progression]
[Available Titles: Death-Touched, Acolyte]
[Anima Depth: 58 (Acolyte) — cracked / 91% structural integrity]
[Disciplines:]
Threadwork 47 → 51 (Acolyte)
Surge 50 → 59 (Acolyte)
Arc Lightning 52 → 59 (Acolyte)
Lightning Cascade 1 → 31 (Acolyte) — Rare
[Attunement Skills:]
Staff Resonance 28 → 38 (Acolyte) — Rare
Lightning Resonance 14 → 36 (Acolyte) — Rare
[Auxiliary Skills:]
Concentration 47 → 58 (Acolyte)
Observation 45 → 53 (Acolyte)
Anima Sensitivity 32 → 41 (Acolyte)
Meditation 30 → 37 (Acolyte)
Endurance 64 → 71 (Adept)
Marksman 42 → 49 (Acolyte) — Uncommon
Cooking 16 (Initiate)
Inscription 19 (Initiate)
First Aid 14 → 15 (Initiate)
Cartography 6 (Initiate)
Demonology 39 → 54 (Acolyte) — Rare — Unregistered
[Celestial-tier skills:]
Mortal Shell 47 → 61 (Adept) — Broken-Celestial
Hollow Avatar 1 (Initiate) — Broken-Celestial
[Demon Slayer:] Stored Essence: 598 / 10,000
First Earth Gate: Evolved → Ascendant Earth Gate (Adept — Rare)
Second Earth Gate: in progress Demon Kill Count (lifetime): 1,103
[Ascendant Earth Gate: +5 Anima Depth, +20 Endurance, +3 Mortal Shell — growth tag active]
[Blessings: —]
[Soul Condition: Strained]
Dull rumbles emerged from my body, which made my entire tent vibrate, and I hoped that this commotion would not draw attention to me at this moment.
It was as if seeing my status screen was all the acknowledgement that my body needed to finally accept the absurd changes that I had experienced.
Flashes of the fight entered my head... my robes burning, my body glowing as if my blood was made from lightning, and at the end, when I released so much lightning that it went into the sky and tore the red clouds apart, as my body was surrounded by a storm.
The numbers had not moved this much across a single loop in the entire sequence. Mortal Shell had crossed into the Adept tier. Adept damned tier!
One of my most useful abilities had crossed this massive threshold, and for the moment, I tried to allow this change to sit within me.
I drew in my breath, and the rumbling of my tent ceased. My body was at least ten times more durable than it was before, and if I was not careful with the expression of my powers, I could tear this tent apart with a careless sneeze.
This was not a figure of speech. I could feel lightning straining to be released from my skin, and I only needed a thought to have bolts of lightning dance across my body.
Forcing my mind to focus on my status screen, I saw that Lightning Resonance had jumped two tiers in a single death.
No wonder it seemed as if I was about to spit lightning if I spoke. Countless new channels had been created in my body and expanded.
Lightning Cascade had climbed thirty ranks from rank one in less than five minutes of effective combat. Endurance was deeper into Adept.
Skills in the Adept Tier should not grow so quickly, but I bet most mages could not take their body and soul to the limit that this loop and the ridiculous dangers I was facing were making me reach.
No one had recorded such progress before because you died before making it, and I had died... thirteen fucking times.
I pushed these thoughts aside; it was easier doing this with every death I faced, and I glanced through my auxiliary skills, which had all gained substantial ground. And underneath the rank growth were the harder lines, the parts that not even death could heal.
The cracked Anima Depth and the Strained Soul Condition, but I distracted myself from those at the moment. When I looked at the new Broken-Celestial skill I had just acquired.
I let the screen rest in my peripheral vision and began to think.
The Mortal Shell jump was the easiest to understand. The skill had been three ranks from the Adept threshold at the wake of this loop, and the channel-shredding casts, the demon bites, the broken bones, the severed tendons, and finally the decapitation that had still not stopped my body from fighting had pushed it past the barrier with room to spare.
My body had been held together long enough to throw punches after the brain was gone, and this ridiculous test had been the skill at maximum stress. Fourteen ranks had been earned in the most literal sense, paid for in injury that should have killed any practitioner three ranks below where I now stood.
I could feel the difference. The architecture that had been at forty-seven was no longer architecture. It was something denser, woven through the body at a level below the muscle fibres, anchored in places I had not known the body could be anchored from.
If my body were opened, I think I would see new organs inside me, because Mortal Shell was operating at a level that I could not fully comprehend. What was the origin of Celestial Skills?
My body was now structured by Mortal Shell in a way that ordinary anatomy did not account for. I knew that future combat would feel different, pain would register differently, and even injuries would propagate differently. I would learn what the new body could do by living in it.
Lightning Resonance crossing into the Acolyte tier was the second-largest gain and the one with the cleanest mechanical payoff. Resonance at thirty had been the threshold I had been working toward, because at this rank, I would gain complete immunity to Acolyte-level lightning. Resonance at thirty-six was past it, and that meant something great for me.