[System Challenges]

I awoke refreshed.

The mental drain of low mana was more dangerous than I had realized. If stamina made my body weaker in exchange for bursts of power, mana's price was my mind. The blood of the dominion still hadn't dried. It polled off my side, as wet and fresh as the moment it had bled from me. No longer mine, it seemed. At least it seemed not to cling, dripping away.

Checking the shadows at the entrance, I could see the Big Guy had stayed. A fleshy sentinel at the gate. Curious.

Refreshed, I knew my priority for the moment. Ignoring my ability points was no longer an option. As paralyzing as it was to spend a currency you couldn't get back I couldn't risk being too weak in a crucial moment. Better to live with bad decisions than to starve from indecision. No choice was choosing death.

I thought back to the acid aphids, the deep regeneration of the big guy. The auras that trapped me out of the safety of my Domain. The world was advancing without me.

[System Display: Abilities]

[Available Ability Points: 59]

[Invest Ability Points into base stats, upgrade skills, or unlock new skills]

[Health: 150/150 Mana 15/15, Stamina 150/150]

[Strength: 25][Defense: 20][Magic: 5][Resistance: 30][Speed: 45]

[Skills List]

[Native Ritual End]

[Native Demon's Stomach - Skill Upgrades Available]

[Vestigial Horror's Maw]

[Beginners Leap]

[Beginners Pain Resistance]

[Intermediate Shadows Silence]

[Beginners Observation - Skill Upgrades Available]

[Beginners Venomous Gouge - Skill Upgrades Available]

[Beginners Tough Carapace]

[Beginners Foresight]

[Skills Unlocks Available]

Now how did it all work? Could I put points into mana? Or did it feed in some incomprehensible way from Magic. How much should I save for abilities. What would upgrades cost?

[Examine - Beginners Observation]

[System Assisted Perception. Attention supplemented by notifications]

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Perception of Motion]

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Perception of Light]

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Perception of Pattern]

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Perception of Knowledge]

What did they mean? Foresight lay silent. The first three seemed obvious. One would make the notifications of motion more sensitive. The other changes in light. Pattern must be for tracking or behavior patterns. The demons tell? Knowledge. That must be when I infer from my surroundings.

[Your Observation has rewards. Beginner Observation has increased in ability.]

System, there must be a middle ground between us. One where you tell me what I want and I forgive you for torturing me.

What I couldn't see was how Perception of Knowledge would not lead to the other three. Often the most useful alerts from the system were insights. They came from piecing together smaller bits of information. Skill or no skill, I still had eyes. Ears.

Did I have ears? I actually hadn't seen anything like ears on myself or the cliff huggers. Regardless, I hear sound. Hell was many things, but silence was both rare and costly.

I still missed Silent Hunt.

[You have upgraded Beginners Observation to Intermediate Perception of Knowledge]

I hoped this skill didn't eat mana.

The demon's stomach had similar skill paths.

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Devourer of Mana]

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Devourer of Restoration]

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Devourer of Organs]

Organs? Would I be able to gain organs immediately from devouring my prey? The potential savings of souls could be immense. My venom had proved a powerful ally. What would it be like to have the aphids acid?

[Your forethought has rewards. Beginners Foresight has increased in ability.]

Oh.

What would it be like, forced to take the shattered skin of wrath. To die in the heat of battle to vulnerability. Imprisoned the narrows of the tunnel. To have my body contort. be distorted like a cancer as hunger drove me to feast.

[Your intuition has rewards. Intermediate Perception of Knowledge has increased in ability.]

What a trap.

[You have upgraded Native Demon's Stomach to Intermediate Devourer of Mana]

If it did what I hoped, I'd be able to sustain Shadows Hunt in a drawn out fight, one bite at a time. If I could afford it, I'll be putting as much as I can into mana related skills. I never want to be between the two worlds again. I can still feel the thin sheen as the world of substance collapsed against my lungs. It pulled me down. Drowning on dry land. I had been at peak stamina then. If I'd been a little weaker...

[Your vision has rewards. Beginners Foresight has increased in ability.]

The last and most important of the upgrades had me perplexed.

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Venomous Piercing Spring]

[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Venomous Slashing Blade]

[[Upgrade Path Available - Intermediate Venomous Grinding Bash]

It seemed to change the nature of the stinger. Which would be the most useful? Would a blade give me more reach? It may lock the stinger out. It could become vulnerable and clumsy. Grinding bash was right out. The purpose of the stinger was to deliver the venom, nothing more. The maw could deal with the rest. How then would the skill change the organ when I selected Piercing spring? The stinger could expand and retreat. It had a wicked, sharp tip. It could improve what I already had.

[You have upgraded Beginners Venomous Gouge to Intermediate Piercing Spring]

The stinger recoiled back into my arm. I could feel it itching and stretching, hollow cracking sounds. I tried to release it but it pain warned me that it hadn't finished its change. With the sound of my own chitin grinding against itself, I moved on to my true goal. The unlock-able abilities.

The system was massive. Icons connected to each other, fat eggs in the nest of a mad spider. Little islands of color dotted my unlocked skills. Black faded away the one lost in my evolution. Each little egg had an ability cost and a brief description. Beautiful fine white fibers connected each constellation to its required skills. Small alerts marked where organs modified or would mutate.

It was completely unusable.

The ability system map overwhelmed me. There were too many options and too many branches. How could I make the best decisions when I couldn't tell what my decisions are? Where should I begin?

[Beginners Foresight has suggested Language Skill: Adamic Language 25 ability points]

[Beginners Foresight has suggested Communication Skill: Spoken Word 15 ability points]

[Beginners Foresight has suggested Ritual Skill: Rite of Memories 15 ability points]

None of these were combat skills. Following the prompts of the system I found each one's node on the tree. They were like the tree's heart. Each one gated a massive amount of future skill potential. The entire ritual tree was behind the Rite of memories. Spoken word tied them all together, a cat's cradle.

They would take almost all my ability points. Could I afford to leave so few for magic? The devour skill would have to do the heavy lifting.

[New Skill Unlocked: Beginners Adamic Language]

[New Skill Unlocked: Beginners Spoken Word]

[New Skill Unlocked: Beginners Rite of Memories]

The room filled with whispers for a moment, then the silence returned. Was it going to take time for the skills to set, like the Pierce skill had? The uncomfortable motion in my arms had stopped.

I pressed my palm against the wall so I could see the full effect,

A solid black stinger shot forward like a bullet into the stone, almost a full hand longer than the original. its curve looked like a natural extension of my arm. It pulled out clean, the stone seeping its payload of venom.

I hadn't felt any resistance from the hard surface. White dust from the impact marked the crater. Piercing indeed. The dragon boars scales would have a hard time resisting this.

I was content to move back into the system, pumping my remaining points into magic. The mana bar trickled up, and I felt relieved. Every point was another minute or two of complete safety in an emergency. Better if we found demons that could make good prey - it was another minute I could stay out on the hunt.

The crack fractured.

The once narrow entrance became a pile of rubble and debris. Big Guy looked at me and hissed. His shoulder was sewing itself shut. Did he jump hard enough to tear flesh off the ceiling? I couldn't imagine this fierce creature being afraid of anything.

I hissed back. Had I done this? The cracks radiated from the hole the pierce had made in the surface.

Trying to use my new skills I pointed at the ground. "Ac..Cident" I said, words still a struggle. There was something not human enough about the shape of my throat to make it comfortable.

A single word explanation seemed like more than enough for Big Guy. He looked down at the rubble, then past me at the domain, now opened to him. It looked like he thought a moment before he began clearing stone. His size made it quick but turning in the tunnel was an effort.

After a few minutes we were facing each other on the boundary again.

Should I invite him in?

[You are able to form a Demonic Coven. Would you like to merge Domains with Cliff, Lesser Giant Shrieking Cliff Hugger]

His name was Cliff?