At a tall cliff over a kilometer southwest of Vesh's secret place, six people stood at the edge, watching the forest.
Two at the forefront were Tier-3 powerhouses, their auras extraordinary.
One was a tall and lean man with long curly red hair, looking in his mid-thirties. Arven Flanken.
The other was a slightly older man with a bulky figure and a rough beard with black hair. Faust Bilgon.
"Something is strange there. You see it?" Faust's eyes flickered.
"The auras are strong. Five Tier-3, but none at peak." Arven played with a ruby-gemmed dagger. "We can handle them."
Faust looked at Arven. "I heard you got accepted into Silverbell Path Tower. You sure you want to take this risk?"
Arven side-glanced at Faust briefly before throwing his dagger in the sky as it split into a hundred copies.
"I can deal with them alone and show you why I was accepted."
Faust burst into laughter. "That sounds good. Then we'll watch the show. You deal with them."
The other four people looked at each other.
They were Tier-2 warriors, so they stayed quiet as their opinion didn't matter in front of those two. They didn't even find the place they were talking about.
Faust flew away with flaming wings and soon arrived in the south region of the secret dome Vesh had built, protected by five Tier-3 plantlife monsters.
Grrr…
A black wooden wolf with three heads and six tails, each one blazing with blue misty flame that spread sharp coldness.
Faust was startled. He was expecting a powerhouse, but it was actually a monster.
'It looks like someone's ability is in tlay. One of the five must be it.' Faust jumped back and dodged fluidly with his flexible flame wings, nullifying some of the projectiles with his dagger projectiles and damaging the monster.
…
"Get inside. Quick."
Vesh quickly sends everyone underground.
Fortunately, basic abilities of his forms were available, and he could use copies of his Mistlord's Knife to carve an underground tunnel with ease.
Veron, Revi, Miru, Misha, and the wolf cubs entered.
"Wait, I have to say something." Misha stopped and called Vesh.
"You can say that later. The enemy is strong and approaching fast." Vesh sensed that the third monster had just killed.
He could create more since the ability of Elk Spirit Slime was available, but without all his attributes, they wouldn't have an exotic arsenal of powers to make them strong, so he would be wasting his Mystic Energy.
'Master, why are you staying behind?' Veron, who was leading people through the tunnel by controlling Mistlord's knives, asked upon sensing that Vesh was staying behind.
'Just go as far as you can in the northeast since it's just wilderness there for longer than the other sides. I want to deal with the enemy first, so I'll return later.'
'I can easily trace your direction due to our pact, no matter how far you are. Just go far and stay safe. If you die, it'll end badly for me too.'
'Got it.'
Vesh arrived on the surface, his eyes tracing the ongoing battle happening between the enemy and his four-armed ice tree monster.
Another one joined in, so the enemy was facing two of his Tier-3 monsters.
But Vesh could see it was far from enough.
'Will I be able to kill him?'
Vesh clenched his fists. 'I have to try. I can always escape fast at least.'
He had a minute at most before the enemy entered here, so Vesh began introspecting his current state.
Attributes were useless, so he got all the stat points gathered so far. The ones he added, and the ones that his forms already possessed. All became formless stat points.
Formless Stat points: 2634.
Just as Vesh converged these stat points, he felt something.
These stat points were in the form of motes within. He could see them for the first time as he watched within his body.
'What if I condensed these points?'
[ You can condense 1000 formless stat points into a 1-star. 1-star = 1000 points. People with a stat surpassing 1000 automatically transform into 1-star points. ]
'But I don't have any available stats to put them on.' Vesh was annoyed. He couldn't put them in Mystic Power because this was a fundamental force, unable to be increased by formless stat points.
[ Comprehend a pseudo-mystic path to unlock attributes of your forms. ]
'But the enemy is coming soon!'
Vesh's upper limit was 200 Mystic Power for Mistlord's Knife as it was a Tier-2 form, making it completely useless without a boost from its attributes.
For Elk Spirit Slime, he had 300 Mystic Power. It was the same as a peak Tier-3, and if he had offensive powers, it could be useful, but this form didn't have such powers.
His own Mystic Power was 300 since he reached Tier-3, but he was crippled Tier-3 due to not having any attributes.
In short, his power limit was 300 Mystic Power, but he had 8000 Mystic Energy to spare due to having three reserves.
Those plantlife monsters were made with 300 Elk Force, so they were as powerful as Tier-3 lifeforms, but if he had made them while having 600 Elk Force, they would not have been destroyed like this.
BOOM!
Suddenly, a vine-braided gorilla blasted through the trees, burning intensely with bright pink-orange flames.
Arven walked through the blasted path, slowly and steadily, as his eyes landed on Vesh.
"Sorry for barging in, but I have a question." Arven's flaming wings flapped as he swiftly crossed the pond and arrived before Vesh, standing three meters across from him.
"Did you kill the people in the camp and save the woman? Where is she?"
Two mistlord's knives appeared in Vesh's hands. "Why ask if you already know the answer?"
Arven smiled. "Then kindly tell me where you sent her, and return what you took, like the Tier-3 resource, Gray Citadel Rose."
"Bark three times and do a circle."
"What?" Arven frowned.
"If you do that, I'll give you what you want and more," Vesh said with a grin. "Like a handful of my crap for you to eat."
Arven's face darkened. "It seems you won't understand unless you see death."
Swoosh!
Ten flaming daggers shot at Vesh.
Five Mistlord's knives appeared and shot back. Each one was destroyed instantly upon contacting the enemy's daggers, but at least he was successful in deflecting them.
Or so he thought.
The daggers made sharp turns and shot back at Vesh.
"Weak." Arven's face was indifferent as he saw Vesh deflecting his daggers by swinging his knives, but upon each contact, he was destroying his knives while his daggers continued to make incessant attacks.
'Fuck, I have to think of something in my current scuffed state.' Vesh frowned. 'But only Elk Spirit Slime has 300 Mystic Power.'
Mistlord's Knife had 200 Mystic Powers, so his knives couldn't survive a single contact with the enemy's daggers.
Suddenly, a light bulb lit up in Vesh's mind, and he vanished.
Spoof!
A burst of mist was suddenly unleashed as Vesh used Mistoltein's Domain, covering the area in thick mist.
"It's useless. And don't even think about escaping. You are under heavy surveillance. Go out and you'll die faster than you escape."
Just as Arven finished speaking, a flaming dagger looking just like his dagger at him with breakneck speed, almost slicing his neck.
'What the fuck?!'
Instantly, tens of his flaming daggers began whirling around him.
'That was my dagger…but how?'
Vesh was grinning…in a new form.
Spirit Slime Transformation: You can transform into any object or person physically. Costs nothing.
He transformed himself into that bastard's dagger, and this dagger was as strong as a peak Tier-3 because Elk Spirit Slime had 300 Mystic Power!
'Kill.' Vesh was focused. As long as he killed this person and absorbed his memories, he would find more about this Mystic path, and upon achieving the pseudo Mystic path, his attributes would be unlocked.