Randidly grinned at the message Thank god
Already he was making plans for his trip into the Dungeon Different weaknesses Randidly identified in himself and projects he needed to focus on were added to a quickly growing mental list and filed away for later As Randidly continued to stand on his island with a grin on his face he began rapidly ordering the list into descending importance
Then with a blink Randidly looked back at the Path screen in front of him One thing at a time I guess And since I know IÆll be in the Dungeon soon anyway
As Randidly tossed the 650th PP into the Path he completed it
Congratulations Your have completed the Greater Visualization Path There are many Paths forward but it simply isnÆt true that all routes can be traversed by mundane means The further toward the Pinnacle you travel the bleaker the terrain becomes As you walk forward you pass unmarked graves and shards of broken blades littering the ground The Path leads forward yet passing through the broken ground leaves you without sight of your destination
Dirt and bones soaked in blood have slowly oxidized resulting in a vast stretch of grey green wasteland as you travel upward on this vast slope As you gaze at the surroundings it is obvious that this is a playground of disease and death Fissures into the abyss are laying beyond ever lip of ground gleefully waiting to take the lives of the unwary They are so prevalent that you begin to wonder if this vast mountain you have spent so long climbing is hollow
And that makes you wonder what forms the foundation of this path toward the Pinnacle
Gas seeps upward from cracks in the ground visibility becomes increasingly scarce as your legs carry you up the slope If the goal has vanished you at least trust that upward is forward With the creeping mist comes an increased danger from the faults in the ground beneath your feet As your speed slows to avoid danger silence descends to hush all but the sound of your own breath Trailing behind you your shadow laying against the surrounding mist is your only companion in this broken land
Yet as you continue upward along the mountain path the tint of the mist around you changes While at first appearing to be innocuous steam it now thickens and curdles like milk left out to sit under the beating sun The scent of it is heavy and clings to the roof of your mouth as you continue to breathe The sound of air passing through your throat is rough
What follows the curdling of the mist is the darkness Perhaps it is simply your imagination but under the cover of the surrounding shroud a greedy darkness is reaching its cold fingers out to grasp at your flickering life Its long tongue slips up through the gashes in the ground and laps up your sweat
But the darkness is not even the final shift As the mist around you deepens and darkness begins to dance your shadow steadily twists and shudders Its joints silently twitch One sharp broken movement at a time it warps into a monster Each of your breaths cause the twisted creature trailing behind you to shudder with repressed hatred The change weighs on your mind
To reach this place have you become a monster
RandidlyÆs mouth slowly stretched into a grimace as he continued to read the notification he had received for finishing the Path he was already in a bad mood because the Path only gave 2 free Stats every 50 PP but now to receive this sort of dreadful notification
And along with the notification came a series of sweeping images that seemed injected directly into his mind While Randidly read through the words in front of him RandidlyÆs consciousness turned foggy as though he had gone into his Dreamcatcher Then he was somewhere else living the notification as he read it He felt the sandy ridges of bone dirt and dried blood beneath his feet He looked down into the darkness of those fissures and could not see the bottom even with his powerful Grim Intuition
When the mist came he tasted the moisture on the air He saw the strangely corporeal form of his shadow behind him With a mild gaze he watched it shift from a humanoid to a twisted demon of violence In the same moment a wave of insidious mental energy blasted forward to hit RandidlyÆs images It seemed that by completing this Path Randidly had volunteered himself for some sort of mental test
Is it because I chose the Greater Visualization Path Or perhaps because my images are a certain requisite strength Or even because I broke through the physical limit Perhaps it is for the best that I didnÆt try to complete a bunch of Paths at once Randidly hummed to himself suspended in the reading of the notification Sensing another wave of mental attacks he quickly refocused
That strange energy sought to use such a transformation to weaken Randidly but it found no purchase on his will as the waves of energy lashed out The shift in his shadows only caused Randidly to release a bark of laughter Have I become a monster Of course I have To survive I became the Grim Chimera And I will continue changing as I need to in order to survive and accomplish my goal
Yet you cannot stop now Take this gift so that your corpse might trudge just a little further into the grip of the darkness before it collapses and feeds the horror that slumbers here
Certainly this notification is the most sinister that IÆve ever received Rather than the System trying to attack me this just seems like the System has given in to despair
Congratulations You have finished the Greater Visualization Path Willpower +50 and Wisdom +20 Congratulations Your Skill Visualization has evolved into Greater Visualization
Congratulations Your Skill Visualization has evolved into Conviction of the Smiling Horror Skill Level will be maintained Your ability to conjure details has slightly increased Your ability to broaden the number of details in your image has vastly increased
Mission accomplished Randidly rubbed his chin contemplatively
Chapter 1413
The rather morbid notification left Randidly with more worries than he had anticipated but it wasnÆt like he could do much about the strangeness of content right now In the future he would be careful about the mental attacks but for now he didnÆt see any reason to focus a significant amount of his attention on the issue
Although this mental attack was really poorly matched against me Randidly thought grimly Perhaps in the future resisting it wonÆt be so simple
Nor would he refuse the change to Visualization As Randidly looked as his newly created Conviction of the Smiling Horror he couldnÆt help but grin The image for the evolved Class Skill was mostly based on the Grim Chimera but there were also elements of the Stillborn Phoenix in it That sense of bleak obsession
The result was a good one and a timely boost to RandidlyÆs strength In addition it was a small step toward his images working together That alone was cause for celebration
Still only one step forward Still a lot of improving to do Clicking his tongue Randidly opened up his Path menu once more He still had 464 PP so he could push a significant chunk of the way through another Path Perhaps because it was due to the Grim Chimera that he so easily disposed of the mental attack Randidly chose to go with the MonstrosityÆs Growth Path
464 PP was only enough to get a little less than halfway through the Path but every 50 PP did reward Randidly with 1 Vit End and Nether Brawn Still a pretty low yield result but enough that RandidlyÆs stats slowly crept upward His body began to shift toward an even more powerful form
There was also a new notification that Randidly received as he was steadily feeding PP into the Path When his Figure of the Alpha Cosmos Soulskill reached 25000 he received a notification that he would receive his next tithe from the Alpha Cosmos at Level 27500 Randidly felt somewhat sour that such a reward would require him to gather another 2500 PP on his own but he knew that it was just a matter of time with his large number of Skills