Evan had made rapid progress on nearly every front, except one, his abilities.
He’d raised them to E-rank, then set them aside for the time being, since gaining more ESS had been the priority. On top of that, with the life energy trick, his mana cores got drained in the process, making it impossible to sacrifice them for rank advancement.
That said, this hadn’t stopped him from setting some aside, especially since the life energy trick only worked when he himself killed the creature, not when his clones did, which meant mana cores kept coming in regardless.
He had not paid much attention to them until now.
After Branleaf, the journey to the capital, and then the incident that brought him here, too many things had happened one after another.
But now things were different.
He’d already set aside a large quantity of D, C, and B-rank mana cores, with D-rank making up the bulk of it, while B-rank was the absolute minority. That made sense, he hadn’t had many chances to kill higher-rank enemies before ending up here.
But it didn’t matter much, because for what he was about to do, what he had was more than enough.
[Ding! You have sacrificed 100 E-rank (Advanced-Stage) cores.]
[Ding! You have sacrificed 10 D-rank (Advanced-Stage) cores.]
[Skill advancement in progress: [Death Mark]...]
[Congratulations! The skill has successfully advanced to D-rank.]
Seeing the advancement notifications, Evan didn’t waste time thinking about anything else and immediately gave a mental command, more mana cores sacrificed to the system as their numbers dwindled from his dimensional space.
[Ding! You have sacrificed 100 D-rank (Advanced-Stage) cores.]
[Ding! You have sacrificed 10 C-rank (Advanced-Stage) cores.]
[Skill advancement in progress: [Death Mark]...]
[Congratulations! The skill has successfully advanced to C-rank.]
Evan noticed that even after meeting the advancement requirements, the ratio stayed exactly the same, something that reassured him, since it meant he could attempt yet another advancement with the number of cores he had left.
[Ding! You have sacrificed 100 C-rank (Advanced-Stage) cores.]
[Ding! You have sacrificed 10 B-rank (Advanced-Stage) cores.]
[Skill advancement in progress: [Death Mark]...]
[Congratulations! The skill has successfully advanced to B-rank.]
Seeing the large number of C-rank cores and the few precious B-rank cores he had stored disappear left a painful emptiness in his heart.
’Haa, seems like even at my current level I’m still this poor. Bruce, you bastard, this advancement better be worth it,’ he thought.
He had 11 advanced-stage B-rank cores, an extremely small number compared to the roughly 136 C-rank ones he had, but he knew that for his current level, that number was actually already quite high.
Back then, he’d done nothing with the cores and simply kept them stored away, knowing that at some point he’d need to start raising this skill.
With the amount he currently possessed, the best he could do was probably raise all of them to D-rank, with one or maybe two reaching C-rank, and if he was lucky, maybe even one at B-rank.
This had been one of the several cards he’d kept ready to play in case of need, and this situation was exactly one of those cases.
He had no intention of holding back, using everything he had to bring this avatar down.
The moment he activated his ability, now at B-rank, the avatar felt its very soul tremble for an instant, and when it tried to examine what had just happened, it seemed visibly shaken.
’This... a parasitic-type ability?’ Even though it didn’t recognize the attack, the effects were obvious enough, since it immediately began feeling its own energy being siphoned away.
[Death Mark has been applied to target.]
[Target Vitality: 99.8%]
---
[Death Mark]
Rank: B
Description: Allows the user to place a Death Mark on a target within range. The mark continuously drains the target’s vitality and transfers it to the user, restoring their energy.
The mark remains on the target until it is removed, forcibly destroyed, or the target dies.
Multiple Death Marks can be placed on the same target. When combined, their effects stack multiplicatively, greatly increasing the vitality drain depending on the number of active marks. However, the more Death Marks attached to a single target, the greater the backlash the user will suffer if they are forcibly destroyed.
Warning: A Death Mark regenerates every 24 hours. If the target is significantly stronger than the user, the mark may last only briefly or fail to take effect.
[Marks Available: 4/5]
---
With every rank increase, Evan gained not only a stronger drain effect, but also a greater range and a growing number of available Marks with each new rank.
He’d gone from F-rank, where he had just 1, all the way to B-rank, gaining 4 more marks, for a total of 5.
He used one now, and immediately felt his opponent’s strength draining away, flowing into him, but he didn’t stop there.
He’d already noticed that the avatar had started attacking the mark with void energy, trying to erase it, but it wasn’t managing to eliminate it, or at least, not immediately. That was because the mark was a Death-element ability, and, as Bruce had once said, void energy fell under the domain of death.
Evan wasn’t entirely sure what that meant exactly, or why that was the case, but it didn’t matter much. What mattered to him now was figuring out how long he could keep it latched onto the plant.
[Integrity: 98%]
97%...96%...95%...
’Hmm, at this rate, if I just leave it, it’ll destroy the mark in a few minutes,’ Evan thought, gauging how long it would take before the avatar freed itself if he let it be.
But Evan had no intention of letting it have its way.
The reason Evan had chosen to upgrade Death Mark over his other abilities was not only because it could weaken his opponent while restoring his own energy.
But because it possessed another unique trait.
Multiple Death Marks could be applied to the same target, and when combined, their effects would multiply, greatly increasing the speed at which the target’s vitality was drained.
"Let’s see if you can destroy all of these," Evan said, and immediately used the remaining four.
[Death Mark has been applied to target.]
[Ding! Two marks detected on the same individual. Effect (x2)]
[Target Vitality: 96.8%]
[Death Mark has been applied to target.]
[Ding! Three marks detected on the same individual. Effect (x3)]
[Target Vitality: 94.7%]
...
[Ding! Five marks detected on the same individual. Effect (x5)]
[Target Vitality: 89.6%]
The avatar, which had already been struggling just to start corroding the strange ability that had struck it, suddenly found itself hit by four more, in completely different points, far apart from one another.
And all of them carried the same effect.
No.
It was even worse.
The draining speed seemed to be accelerating several times over.
"What?!"