A Warlock's Ascent

As Dave commanded his system to absorb the orb, he started feeling weird energy entering his body through the ball. He could feel that energy passing through his whole, providing him with power.

After it was done, the ball turned into dust particles, and got blown away by the wind, he checked his system and sure enough, he had a new skill now. But it is then he realized that he didn't know how to use that skill. What was he supposed to do, does he has to command his system to travel between the shadows or was there another way to use this skill?

Now confused, he opened his skills tab and checked the description of the skill again, a window appeared before, which gave him all the information that he needed…

Name- Shadow steps

Rank- Rare

Description- An skill that allows the user to travel between any shadows within 20m radii. The only prerequisite to use the skill is that the user should have sufficient mana, as well as the shadows being casted around the user, should be big enough for the user to travel through them.

The information was different from what he got earlier, but still, it didn't tell him how he could travel between the shadows, so he realized that he had to figure it out himself. So he put back the rest of the Skistag in his inventory and started looking for a good secluded place with a lot of shadows.

As the sun was about to set, the shadows that were being casted were very long and bulky, so he didn't have to go very far to find a suitable place for his experiment, and he was able to find a perfect spot just in a few minutes.

He found two trees that were adjacent to each other, both of them were casting a big shadows on the ground, so he decided that he would use them. He came and sat down in the shadow of one of the trees. And nothing happened.

He was expecting something some sort of window popping up out of nowhere, prompting him to travel between shadows, but nothing of that sort happened. He then remembered Ricardo, he remembered what that boy told him about mana and how mages use the mana in their body.

Maybe I am supposed to use my mana to activate the skill.

So he closed his eyes, and tried to feel mana in him, at first he felt like nothing was happening, but still, he persisted, and soon he got results., He started sensing a ball of energy, concentrated below his belly button.

As Ricardo had told him, with mental commands he started controlling that ball of energy, which was a very very difficult process. It was like as if he was told to handle a one-ton ball of steel with just his finger.

He was able to wiggle around that ball but other than that, he could not do anything to that ball. Still, with lots of perseverance and hard work, the ball got loose, and the intensity of wiggling increased, but still was not enough to control his mana freely.

He opened his eyes and realized that he won't be able to use Shadow Step while fighting Hasan, that giant could attack him at any time now, and in this small period of time, he didn't think that he would be able to gain control over his mana to such an extent that he enact that skill.

As he started thinking about what more he could do at the moment, suddenly he had a thought, which made him change all of his plans…

'I know that he wants to kill me… He knows that I have Skistag, so he wants to kill me… But he dont know that I know that he knows I have a Skistag… I can take advantage of this. Yes, I can take advantage of this…'

His plan was simple, although doing a preemptive attack would make sense, there was no way that it could benefit him. After all, if he were to attack him now, it could backfire, he doesn't have proof that Hasan really was trying to kill him.

If he were to successfully kill him, and the word got out, then there could be repercussions because of which his license could be revoked, and worst of all, he could be thrown out or executed by the laws of the city.

So in the end he decided that he would play this game safely, and patiently. He would spend the night in the forest, then as they had agreed, he would meet Hasan tomorrow in front of the guild.

And it is during the mission that he would kill him, it was a risky move, and there are several things that could go wrong with his plan. But he has to take this risk, otherwise, he was just out of options…

After spending that night in the forest, he woke up early and went to the guild, to meet up with Hasan. When he got to the guild, he was surprised to see that there was a huge crowd of people swarming around the guild, it is then he realized that these people are the reason that job postings on the boards vanished when he came yesterday.

He entered the guild only to see it jampacked with people, some were fighting to get hold of one particular job posting, some were discussing them while others were standing in front of the reception.

Looking at the chaotic atmosphere around the guild, he felt out of place. Everyone was doing something and was busy, yet here he was just standing there looking around. It is then he felt a tap on his shoulder, he looked around to see a very familiar face.

"Davy…" the woman spoke with uncertainty. But he recognized her instantly.

"Hillary." he said with a big smile on his face while looking at his benefactor from Cloudhold.