pleting the skill point distribution, a sizeable amount of new information and knowledge came flooding. But it was nothing in parison to what I was subjected to in the past, thus I absorbed all of it without any difficulty whatsoever.

  Finished soaking up the small flood of knowledge and experiehe system s ged. However, instead of ging to the status s like how it had done so in the past, it uedly ged to dispy airely new s I hadn't seen before.

  [ Mutations ]

  Mutation Points Left: 1

  | Acidic Blood | Your blood bees acidic to the point that it easily eat through stone aal.

  | Animation | Gain the ability to animate inanimate objects with the ability to move and a their own.

  | Biological Manipution | Acquire the ability to manipute all things biological.

  | Bone Armain boing all across your body that you freely manipute however you wish.

  | Brute | Transform into a brute.

  | Dragons Breath | Gain the ability to release an explosive, fiery breath from your mouth.

  | Earth Manipution | Receive the ability to manipute earth.

  | Fire Manipution | Receive the ability to manipute fire.

  | Fungal Symbiosis | An intelligent fungal y will ie itself with your body and form a symbiotic retionship with you.

  | Ice Manipution | Receive the ability to manipute ice.

  | Mana | Gain a beginner level of mana and some basiformation about it, several simple spells, and knowledge about how spells are structed and what not.

  | Marked Oransform into a marked oh a random set of abilities and have a certain pertage of your body covered in tattoo-like marks. You will have the ability to ize the color of your tattoos and their shapes.

  | Qi | Gain a base of level qi and some basiformation about it and how to cultivate it.

  | Pnt Manipution | Gain the ability to manipute pnts.

  | Pure | Fo your mutation point for another perk point per level up.

  | Random Bloodline | Receive a random bloodline.

  | Random Mutation | Receive a random mutation.

  | Random Perk | Receive a random perk.

  | Transdent | Bee a transdent with a random set of powers.

  | Transmutation | Acquire the ability to transmute matter and its various elements into whatever form and elements you desire.

  | Vampirism | Take oraits of a vampire, both those seen as positive aive.

  | Water Manipution | Receive the ability to manipute water.

  After sing all the options presented, I've narrowed down the ones I'm ied in to Biological Manipution, Mana, Qi, Pnt Manipution, Pure, and Transmutation. They all increase my abilities signifitly in numerous ways, unfortunate as it is, I 't take all of them. Thus I will have to see which of them presents the most bes out of the bunch.

  Biological Manipution would be a great ability to have in my arsenal because of the many things I could do with it. For example, using it on myself to speed up my body's regeion and fix injuries I obtained from w out and bat. I could also probably use it on others and to modify my body in all sorts of ways.

  If I do that, I could use it to turn my Colossal Gi Monster Egg that has yet to hatto an actual dragon with wings and all. It would be pretty sick to own an actual dragon instead of just a flightless one.

  Even though owning a dragon is something I wish to possess, I still have five other mutations to look at before I e to a decision. So moving right along Mana is on the list. Having access to magic could open up a lot of aveo me and will certainly empower me a great deal.

  Despite that, I'm already stretched thin enough for time, so to actually turn this into a powerful asset, I would have to cut ba other areas to turn this into something other than just a y. Which is something I'm just not willing to do at this moment, thus magic will have to be deyed till a ter date. I could also more than likely learn magi those tomes I know about out east, so there's that too.

  With magic crossed off the list, Qi is . From all the xianxia novels I read ba my previous world, I'm certain this mutation would put me leagues above others iure. However, it's in a simir boat as Mana and will more than likely require more time than I currently dedicate to it, so it isn't really an option as well if the novels I read are anything to go by.

  tinuing on from Qi to Pnt Manipution. This mutation is most likely simir to Biological Manipution but more specialized for pnts. And seeing how I'm going to be moving to an even more arid enviro iure, the only real use this mutation will see will be when I'm growing pnts for food, medie, and drugs. That doesn't really sound all that appealing to me, holy. Therefore, this specific mutation joihers I've crossed out so far.

  On to the one. Pure isn't really a mutation, it just allows me to dispose of the mutation point in exge for another perk point from now on. That really isn't a terrible trade at all, I pick up a hell of a lot of perks with 3 three points every level up. That's the sole be of going with that, so let me look at the st of my picks.

  Transmutation wouldn't be too bad of an option. The ability to vert whatever matter I want into materials I need sounds great to me. The only potential issue I see with it is there has to be some sort of energy drain on me for using such a power. If the drain for using it is too high, it pretty much makes my choice worthless.

  Unless I use it solely for extremely rare materials, I 't get a hold of, which isn't something I ran into too much. It also does the same thing as Currency Maker, except it vert any matter into any element I wish so it would make that per redundant, at least somewhat until I raise my trade skill high enough. Thus I'll scratch this one off the list too.

  So with all the mutations I'm ied in covered, I'm pretty much left with only Biological Manipution and Pure. And of the two, I believe I grow my overall strength and capabilities far more with Pure. Especially now when I have a quest waiting to turn in that's going to me at the very least 245,000 exp. I suppose I have my answer.

  Seleg Pure, I locked it in and as soon as I did; the s ged once again. But instead of returning to the status s, it presented another new s.

  I guess my power up tinues.

  [ Csses ]

  Css Points Left: 1

  | Cleric | Gain apprentiowledge regarding this css and how to sense and absorb divine energy, and gain access to a new skill and attributes. +1 divine power, +1 endurance, +1 strength, and +2 divinity skill for every increase in level.

  | Mage | Acquire beginner mage knowledge and how to sense and absorb mana, and gaitributes and a skill. +2 intelligence, +3 magic power, +2 perception, and +2 to magic skill for every level gained.

  | Martial Artist | Receive beginner knowledge regarding this css and how to sense and cultivate qi. Besides that, gain access to new skills and an attribute. 1+ agility, +1 endurance, +1 intelligence, +1 perception, +1 strength, +3 qi power, +3 martial arts skill, and +2 qi skill upon every increase in level.

  | Random Css | Acquire a random css.

  | Ranger | Gain basiowledge regarding the ranger css and access to new skills and attributes. +2 agility, +1 endurance, +2 perception, and +3 bowmanship every level up.

  | Rogue | Gain beginner knowledge regarding this css and access to new skills and attributes. +3 agility, +3 perception and +3 lethality skill for every level increase.

  | Warriain beginner knowledge regarding this css and access to new skills and attributes. +1 agility, +2 endurance, +1 perception, +2 strength, and +3 bat skill for every level increase.

  I didn't expect to see csses sihat was never a thing in the wastender series. That said, I'm more than happy to see them because I'll be getting one hell of a power up after all this is over. Pig Double-Edged Sword was 100% worth, going all the way back down to level 0.

  Leaving those thoughts behind, I went through each of the csses, sing over the various bes they provided.

  I would be happy with any one of these csses but I'm gonna have to make a decision on a single css to take at some point. Thus, I'm going to have to think long and hard about which of them best fits my wants and will assist me the most in aplishing my goals. So what css am I going to go with... I could tinue down the beefed up jack of all trades warrior route I've been traveling on.

  Of the csses, martial Artist and warrior would be the most suitable for that specific route. Or I further expand upon my jack of all trades trait and take cleriage and of those two I'd rather go with mage, si provides more stats aility from the looks of things. If I was to take mage with my current time, I wouldn't be able to take proper advantage of it until I had a solid foothold in the wastend. That won't be happening for some years, so the main be of this css will lie unused for many years.

  Oher hand, if I select this css, my intelligence will increase at a stupid rate which will allow me to gain exp at expoial rate due to my experiee rising alongside my intelligehat would be the main reason to go with this css and it's a pretty entig reason, if I do say so myself.

  Looking at the other options here, ranger would increase my agility and perception quite a lot. Having said that, I have no real need for bowmanship when I'm a heavy gunner ssh heavy sword user, so this css isn't as appealing as let's say rogue, which provides more substantial stats pared ter. Even with that being the case, I still think the mage, martial artist, and warrior are better overall, at least for me, thus I'll pass owo csses.

  The st option I've yet to cover here is the random css. This wouldn't be a bad pick per se if I had a metric fuck ton of luck to rely on, but I don't. And since I don't, I'd rather not leave my choice up to ce, thus this is a non option. With that knocked off, I'm left with mage, martial artist, and warrior to pick from.

  Now do I want to level faster with the mage css, increase my stats overall stats with martial artist, or raise my current bat signifitly... There isn't ht answer here, but I'd rather have the massive intelligencrease provided by mage. Magic is a huge plus, even though it will most likely see limited use until a det number of years ter.

  heless, adding magiy ever-expanding arsenal will certainly increase my versatility, to what extent I have no idea. At the very least, it will supply me with valuable knowledge regarding the mystical things that exist in this world and maybe those of others.

  Log in the mage css, I had a rge amount of informatiarding basic magic, mainly sisting of the many elements, types, and schools it was made up of. In addition to all of that informatioing stuffed into my brain, there was also a ton of knowledge about magic circles, runes, symbols, and many other such things. There was also a good bit of information on ranks for both spells and mages themselves.

  They had a whole system involving their ranks and from what I saw; it shared a number of simirities to cultivation stages and realms that I read about in my old world. As I was in the midst of dev all this information, I turned my sights to the basic teique that came along with the css's gargantuan amount of information.

  Hmm, this nameless foundation teique doesn't seem all that plicated. Let me try this out.

  Following all the steps of the teique, I remained seated as I was and shut my eyes while trying to focus my senses on a point right behind the bottom portion of my sternum. A few minutes went by before I pulled my sed from the task of digesting all the information I had absorbed. With the bination of my two thought processes w in sync, I began to sense a minute amount of energy within the area I had been fog on a mier.

  Seeming to be on the right track, I didn't let up and tinued, as I was direg my entire focus to the task. The miicked on by and before I k; I started to feel the mana that had been inside me all this time without my knowledge.

  [Ding!]

  [You've Bee A 1st Level Mage Initiate!][+100 Mana, +100 Max Mana Capacity, +1 Magic Power, and +10 Magic]

  Sensing my mana core was easy enough. Let's see if I 't succeed in the following step.

  Fetting about my level up for the meantime, I moved onto the step and tried my hand at sensing the mana of many elements that supposedly existed in the air and the surrounding enviro. I was unaware of how long I spent sitting there doing so but I eventually began to sense ahe mana around.

  As I kept it up, I slowly but surely attaihe ability to distinguish between the elements that the mana particles made up of. Sing my surroundings with my newly acquired skill, I found an abundant amount of ral mana particles which had the appearance of clear motes ahe most on out of all the mana particles.

  The seost ana particles were the five elements that were made up of fire, water, nature, earth, and wind. Of those five, earth was the most plentiful of the bunch because I was underground and wind the least so because again I was underground.

  There was a det bit of the advanced elements too metal and darkness being the ones I could sehe most. But there were some light, ice, lightning, blood, life, ah particles, too. Especially blood ah particles in the dire of the mines and life particles in the dire of the uy ter. Aside from those, I was able to sense a rare few space, void, ana particles too, but very few and far between.

  Alright, now that I'm able to sehe mana and all of its variations, I proceed to the step of gathering the mana particles in my mana core. However, before I move to that step, I think I'll o go over this teique and modify it si's tellio only gather ral mana particles. And from the knowledge that has been supplied to me via the css, I would have to vert that type of mana at an incredibly ineffit rate anytime I want to use magic of another element.

  That sounds pretty shit to me, so why not see if I 't try my hand at experimenting and modifying the teique so I absorb and utilize all elements with 100% efficy. Being a powerful mage isn't my current priority, so I might as well prepare as best a foundation as I to ehat I don't have to usurp it ter on to start anew.