"This should be far enough..."

Stopping in the middle of the forest, observing his surroundings only massive trees were to be seen as one would expect from such a forest.

"Lets see where we are now..." Taking a map that he had bought in the span of the last months, Danzel stared at the map for a while before nodding to himself.

"I should be near the roads going at the northeast side of a nearby beast territory... the opposite side where I originally came from.."

Putting away the map inside the storage ring, he summoned the status window with an internal command.

[Status]

Name: Rue Danzel

Race: Draugr

Level: 20

Class: [Undead Guardian Lv. 20]

Sub-Class: [Runesmith of Undeath Lv.10]

Health: 5500/5500

Mana: 1012/1012

Attribute points: 9

Attributes: Strength:140 Agility: 118 Intelligence: 92 Endurance: 99

Talents: [Superior Undead] [Sin of Wrath] [Reinforced Soul] [Superior Unique Concioness] [Rune Vision] [Dead Rune Knowledge] [Undead Carver]

Skills: [Intermendiate Weapon Mastery Lv.1] [Earth Wall Lv.1] [Leap Lv.1] [Silent Steps Lv.1][Undeath Corruption Lv.1] [Dash Lv. 1] [Shield Bash Lv.4] [Gale Mana Blade Lv.3] [Sense Danger Lv.3] [Curse of Exhaustion Lv.1] [Piercing Lv.1] [Mana Arms Lv.1] [Riposte Defense Lv.1] [Armor Preserve Lv.1]

[Remark: A Undead Carver of Superior Strength. One of the strongest natural draugr that there is. Though his tier undead far surpasses this strength. For your current tier of strength, you can be considered a powerhouse.]

[Storage: 202 325 XP]

"Its really a satisfying sight to see the total amount of more than 200 thousand XP. But..."

Surveying all the skills that I got and the amount that are still in the Lv. 1, it made me grumbly out of annoyance.

"Its nowhere enough for all those various skills. With those damn things getting more expensive by each upgrade I will be needing a few more than hundreds of thousands of XP..."

While I was still interested to see what will happend to [Earth Wall] and the other skills after reaching the Lv. 10, that wasnt the priority of now.

"If I remember right I will have to increase five skills in total to Lv. 10 to finish that mission of my..."

Glancing at the prices of the skills was enough to make him curse Internally.

[Armor Preserve Lv.1] Upgrade: 10 000 (+1 000 Increase) XP

[Riposte Defense Lv.1] Upgrade: 5 000 (+500 Increase) XP

[Piercing Lv.1] Upgrade: 1700 (+300 Increase) XP

[Shield Bash Lv.4] Upgrade: 2600 (+300 Increase) XP

[Sense Danger Lv.3] Upgrade: 6500 (+500 Increase) XP

"So expensive! Though I knew how much each of them costed, now that I can calmly look at them, the total amount is still crazy. Do I even got enough XP to max every single skill of the mission?" Danzel said while he calculated the XP needed in a state like a frozen statue.

"Ugh... to thinking after carving hundreds of runes in weapons and armor I will still be 100 000 XP short in the end. I should even had stopped wasting my time with experimenting of runes..." With regret showing in his ethereal eyes. He could only stare pitifully towards the [XP Storage].

He looked at it like a son would do when his father told him to kill his own Shiba Inu dog who was suffering from crimpling cancer.

Though it was indeed sad, keeping him would make things sadder.

"After all those days of work, its still not enough." Danzel sighted

"I guess I will have to do what I have in my hands for now..."

Looking at the floating window in front of him, Danzel fell into deep thoughts,

`Damn, I hate making such choices when I want to pick everything...

`Through the skill [Piercing] was quite helpful against that bald fist and by itself its rather cheap, it wouldnt be a bad choice of what it is worth.

`Then again, I rarely do any piercing attacks which makes investing any XP into that skill somewhat of a waste. In comparison [Shield Bash] is a much better skill which can be used as both offensive and defensive ways.

Danzel slapped himself to the head. "What am I thinking, what I need isnt anything offensive, at least not in the from of those two skills. What I need more is..."

Lowering his gaze at the dark gray armor that Gerak had crafter for him, Danzel knew what he needed to choose.

`Now that I am all alone, If my [Heavy Dark Steel Armor] that Gerak had crafted me gets somehow damaged, there will be no Gerak to fix it. With him only giving me a set, once the armor is done for, I would even lose the best set of armor that I currently have.

"Though I got some other sets in the ring from those army idiots, I truly dont want to say my goodbyes to this set."

With me being already pretty comfy in the mass of cold dark steel that by this weight alone could crush a normal person to death.

I refused to wear another inferior armor ever again!

"Hmm, if I were to consider about defense then [Armor Preserve] should be the best answer for this task. After all, by just the use of mana I can make my armor tougher and quite possibly create a chance to counter-attack. Though [Riposte Defense] also sounds great and all, that in turn will force me to use the dark crystal shield more which would in end effect damage the shield..."

Making already his mind, he pressed the upgrade button.

[Armor Preserve level has increased from Lv.1 to Lv.2]

...

[Armor Preserve level has increased from Lv.9 to Lv.10]

[The skill Armor Preserve has reached this maximum level]

[Armor Preserve Lv.10 turns into Armor Mana Plating Lv.1]

A flow of information was slowly being pushed inside of Danzels mind, making him grab his head out of pain.

"Agh...my head!" Danzel stumbles and almost falls to the ground for only to catch his footing at the last moment.

"Dammit, it has gotten even worse than the other skills. Ugh... my head." After calming himself from the sudden pain, the headache that he was having slowly faded away with only the newly acquired information remaining inside his mind.

[Armor Mana Plating]: By though the use of mana, you can put durable layers of mana on top of your armor which are capable to block and store receiving damage. If the attack receive doesnt exceed the mana layers durability, it will shoot out the energy outwards.

"At least the pain was worth the reward... Instead of just making my armor now tougher, it also puts up a shield around me! Truly amazing!"

Though he had to pay a low amount of 135 000 XP, the skill itself was not inferior to [Gale Mana Blade].

"With one headache gone, another awaits, Sadly I barely miss the amount of required XP to increase [Riposte Defense] to Lv.10 . With already chosen to avoid [Shield Bash] and [Piercing], I guess I should get myself [Sense Danger] and be done with it. It had already proven this worth by the fight with the assassins and being able to evade things easier also goes by the current plan of keeping my armor undamaged."

[Sense Danger level has increased from Lv.3 to Lv.4]

...

[Sense Danger level has increased from Lv.9 to Lv.10]

[The skill Sense Danger has reached this maximum level]

[Sense Danger Lv.10 turns into Greater Sense Danger Lv.1]

As Danzel was preparing himself for the headache to come.

It never appeared.

Instead, a weird feeling came at his mind, as if his mind itself removed some invisible cloth that kept it from breathing right.

"Mhm...this is much better." Danzel said while nodding to himself satisfying.

[Greater Sense Danger]: In moments that fatal attack are upon you, you will receive a mental warning of the attack. If the user isnt in battle, he is capable of feeling the enmity of others placing on you. This effect is being influenced by the users' strength, enemeys strength, skill level, environment and only works if the other intent is of physically harming the user.

"Hoh, a new effect was added on top of the previous one?"

`Status With a mental command, the updated status appeared floating in front of him.

[Status]

Name: Rue Danzel

Level: 20

Race: Draugr

Class: [Undead Guardian Lv. 20]

Sub-Class: [Runesmith of Undeath Lv.10]

Health: 5500/5500

Mana: 1012/1012

Attribute points: 9

Attributes: Strength:140 Agility: 118 Intelligence: 92 Endurance: 99

Talents: [Superior Undead] [Sin of Wrath] [Reinforced Soul] [Superior Unique Concioness] [Rune Vision] [Dead Rune Knowledge] [Undead Carver]

Skills: [Intermendiate Weapon Mastery Lv.1] [Earth Wall Lv.1] [Leap Lv.1] [Silent Steps Lv.1][Undeath Corruption Lv.1] [Dash Lv. 1] [Shield Bash Lv.4] [Gale Mana Blade Lv.3] [Greater Sense Danger Lv.1] [Curse of Exhaustion Lv.1] [Piercing Lv.1] [Mana Arms Lv.1] [Riposte Defense Lv.1] [Armor Mana Plating Lv.1]

[Remark: A true anomaly among even the Superior Undead, with knowledge of runes and skills, far surpassing that of a Draugr, one would never expect that his powerful Draugr warrior would spend months sitting at home.]

[Storage: 12 825 XP]

`Two gone, three more to go Danzel nodded to himself as he was observing this own status window.

But suddenly, he felt something weird.

"Hmm?" Closing this status window, he turned around and look at his surroundings.

`What is that feeling? Putting his hand on Veren's Hilt, he stared at his surroundings as if he was warry of something.

`Something is wrong,I feel like I am being watched from all sides?

*Crack