Synexus had now been in his trial for an entire year, and he couldn’t help but laugh. He had spent more time in the dungeon with Gene than he had with all his friends on the outside as if they were the dungeon and this was his real life.

  In this year, he had made great strides in terms of progress and understanding his past as a Zaxillian. Memories came less frequently, but in exchange they were getting longer. Locked memories had scaled back on number and instead were much more difficult to beat as if they were adjusting themselves to Synexus’ fighting style. Even still, he was able to keep unlocking memories and most were showing how fear had overtaken his people before the war even started. It was horrifying to see how much chaos was running through this great city in the days leading up to the war and how it affected regular people. Hopefully, he would never have to witness that in his own life, but somehow, he knew he would.

  As for his personal memories, they had stopped almost completely. His mind itched with a slight tug that would take him far out of the city and Gene hadn’t wanted them to go yet. Something important was out there and they would get to it, but first he needed to get his skills to where they wanted them to be.

  Memories of Zunzutoxsian continued to present themselves and Synexus finally got his first look at what it was like to Mana Weave a new skill onto your soul. To his frustration, it was much more difficult and intensive than creating an enchantment. Of course, he was still working on his mana senses although he did have a breakthrough in that regard.

  He had been pushing hard on all his skills over the past year. Body Transmutation was the first to get to the milestone of level 20. Following it a few weeks after was Genome Library, Genome Refinement, and Extreme Growth. The complexity of all the new entries he had been logging while in the trial had helped level up his skills much faster. His favorite place to make these strides was in his father’s research office because he felt it was similar to his job in a way, and it helped him feel closer to his past.

  Nearly a month of grinding after that, he had gotten Matter Database and Accelerated Repair to level 20. Of course, at level 10, Accelerated Repair had evolved to Extreme Repair which now allowed him to repair much bigger damages quicker and more efficiently. He could already tell that it would be a useful utility skill and was excited to try it on the outside.

  Ever since then he had been working on Material Manipulation which had evolved to Matter Modification which let him edit materials on an even finer scale. So far it had been an extremely impressive skill and allowed him to start even more complex changes.

  Currently, he was sitting at level 19 in the skill and had been for the past few months. Modifying matter was much more difficult than he thought, but it was incredibly useful. So far, he had made quite a few new creations. Some were silly like silver diamond, while others were quite useful like changing the battery stone to store pure mana instead of lightning mana, so that it would become a mana battery for himself where he could refill his mana pool by touching it.

  His most recent project that he just couldn’t seem to get was taking aspects from the battery stone, and the wire fiber to combine them into a wire that held power on its own. His vision was to have the ropes on his ship be able to store power within them, so they could power various machines that he would likely attempt to build.

  Gene had told him that he could take things out of the dungeon, and they would exist in the real world, so he had started taking every bit of new technology he could find and storing it in his thief plant. His goal would be to examine them more closely when he had time and try to recreate them on the outside to help his party. A lot of this technology was way more advanced than anything he could find on Motholo so far.

  The problem with combining the two materials was that the wire fiber was more designed to transfer information and not electrical power. Lightning mana would often burn the wires if it sat too long inside and that was the first problem Synexus had solved. He had altered the material makeup to be more attuned to the battery stone makeup without losing the flexibility of the fiber. The process was challenging, but in the end he had gotten it which led to a new problem.

  For some reason when he made this change, the wire fiber started to soak in any mana instead of specifically lightning mana and it was hungry. One fiber could almost drain his entire mana pool. When he consulted Gene, the owl theorized that the change had only partially succeeded and the battery stone-like material inside the wire fiber wasn’t conductive to only lightning mana because of it. Synexus decided that made sense and attempted to fix his mistake.

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  He sat down to meditate on the change to find himself nearly connected to the inside of the wire fiber. Laid out before him was the material makeup. This tiny fiber had many things that made it up and was quite astonishing to see up close. Keeping focused he found his previous edit and immediately saw where he had messed up. When he pushed his skill into the material the first time, he had used his own mana which is pure mana, when he needed to use lightning mana. This wasn’t a problem when he was trying to change a battery stone into a mana battery because using his own mana had the desired effect of making the stone hungry for pure mana.

  Grabbing a new wire fiber, he brought it towards a charged battery stone to have access to lightning mana. His change was made again, but this time he used the stone as a filter between him and the fiber which gave him the change he desired. It was also the tipping point to finally get to level 20.

  Battery Fiber (unique): A fiber hungry for lightning mana. This fiber can absorb and store lightning mana indefinitely. Pull the mana from the reserves to power anything that touches it.

  Matter Modification has levelled up!

  You have levelled up!

  Level 20 has been reached

  New skill selection available

  Mana Sense has been granted!

  A lot of surprises were in the notifications. He didn’t know he would get a skill selection at level 20 but was hoping for one. Then he had been granted a Mana Sense skill which was now level 1 on his status screen. Thinking back, he did realize something when he was working on that change. As he was using the stone as a filter, he could see flecks of color flowing through it and into the wire. He assumed it was just a side effect of using something as a mana filter, but now he realized it was because he was focusing on the mana so intensely that he was able to see his own skill draw in various types of mana before running it through the stone and into the fiber. This was the breakthrough he needed! But first, he wanted to look at some new skills!

  Skills Available

  Material Clone (rare): Gather surrounding material to create a temporary clone of an enemy. Material needed depends on the size of the enemy. The strength of the clone compared to the enemy depends on the material used.

  This was a direct mirror of the plant clone skill he had been offered on his first skill selection except this version was better because it could be as strong as the original if he used high quality material. A combat skill was needed, but he did know he would be weaving one himself in this trial. This choice was a maybe for sure!

  Material Companion (rare): Grant sentience to a material of your choice to create a lifelong companion. The strength depends on the material chosen.

  Again, this is obviously a mirror of the plant companion skill but could be much more powerful if he chose to grant sentience to one of the impossible diamonds he had found in this trial.

  DNA Dominion (legendary): Create a spherical dominion for a short time that temporarily alters the DNA of any living being inside the dominion to a template from your Genome Library. Duration and distance depend upon the level of this skill.

  Warning: This skill will level up extremely slowly.

  Wow! This would be a great boon to his combat, but it says any living being within his dominion which means it would affect his party members as well. He wasn’t sure if that would be beneficial in the outside world.

  Material Dominion (legendary): Create a spherical dominion for a short time that temporarily alters the material of all non-living material inside the dominion. Duration and distance depend upon the level of this skill.

  Warning: This skill will level up extremely slowly.

  Of course, he got the option for the mirror skill as well. This one could be more useful outside of combat and inside of combat it’s possible this could be a boon for his party members, by turning their equipment like armor and weapons into harder materials for a short time. The warning on both these skills scared him a bit, but it made sense. If the skill is only active for a few seconds, which is probably all he can manage at his current level then it would level up slowly.

  Enemy Transmutation (rare): Through your touch, change a small portion of an enemy to reflect the properties of an entry of any collection skill. Duration and size of the transmutation depend upon the level of this skill.

  Now this may not be as shiny as the other two with its rare rarity into of legendary, but it has the promise of more utility. It can access both the library and database while not having any chance to affect the other party members. The Body Transmutation skill had proved itself invaluable, and this will surely be even more useful. Both dominions sound powerful, but he was sure he would get a combined version in the future if he waited. Without a second thought he chose Enemy Transmutation and went to find Gene.