Hardcore OP-ness

Chapter 26: The First Affinity

Michael muttered "Shit, I hate having to make these kinds of decisions... Well, I can have a maximum of seven, so it isn't too bad. Even if she doesn't tell me all the specifics of every Element, I can pretty much guess what they're like, based on pretty much any RPG I've ever played. It makes sense that Space and Time aren't included, since all magic has spatial and temporal aspects: Sarah can teleport for fuck's sake."

After she read the semi-transparent message box that had appeared before the naked man, Elina yelled "What?! You actually get choose your affinity?!" The fact that he was complaining about it, made the situation even stranger.

He snickered and casually asked "Hey, what's the rarest Element? I'm gonna end up getting everything but Darkness and Chaos, so aside from those two, which is the hardest to find?"

She shouted "Did you miss the whole speech about how you should stick with only a single Element?!" Once she managed to calm down a bit, she 'calmly' said "Fine, whatever, just don't complain to me later. The problem with what you're trying to do, is that there are a decent amount of dual and triple affinity magical-beasts. They aren't usually that picky about it, and just try to evolve as fast as possible. When there's more than one Element present in a mana-core, it's up to your Luck to decide what you get from it. Arcane would probably be the hardest to find."

Michael smiled at her as he made his decision, and was suddenly enveloped by a blinding radiance. When it stopped, there was a notification: "Arcane Affinity Level 1: Increases mana and health regeneration dramatically, inside of dungeons."

He snickered for a few seconds and then told her "Yeah, that's the one I picked. It seems pretty intense too... hehe~, definitely the best choice for a hardcore raider like myself."

It was at that point when he finally reached down and grabbed the squirming Bloodworm-Goblin. Even though she could breathe through her skin, that particular skill was only at level-one, so she was actually starting to drown.

She still had lungs after-all, and they were completely filled with water, so he decided to pull her over to the shore and... remove it. Surprisingly, Sarah was still conscious, even after suffering for so long, Michael told her "Calm down kid, stop squirming around. This is definitely not an excuse to touch your nonexistent breasts, so cut it out. Heh~, telekinesis is so overpowered..."

With one hand on each side of her chest, he channeled his mana through her skin, muscle and bones, before shoving it into all of the fluids that were drowning her. Then he turned his head away from her, and slowly pushed it all out of her lungs, up her trachea, and out of her mouth.

He gagged a little, then grumbled "Eww, so gross, ugh, good thing I have soap, or I would be really fucking pissed right now."

After coughing a few times, Sarah screamed "Bastard, how the hell is this worth two stat-points!?" Her health was down to 13/30, but it wasn't continuing to drop, because of her relatively high Vitality.

Michael sighed, and told her "Well, it's about the same as leveling-up... but yeah, it's pretty fucking horrible. You'll probably have a stroke or heart-attack after surviving this part, and die anyway." before picking up the 'paralyzed' girl, and carrying her into the water again.

He noticed that her body had become significantly heavier after taking that mana-core, and figured that it involved her muscles and bones becoming denser, since her physical size didn't actually change. After dropping the worm-girl in the shallow water, he continued towards where Elina was floating and said "I thought cats hated water... Ah, was that racist?"

While gazing up at the starry sky, through the jungle canopy, the Priestess sighed and muttered "We're closer to Humans than actual cats..." Her drenched white-robe was almost completely transparent, so he couldn't help ogling.