As Silva and I walked away from the foursome, I could hear them for a little while. For a few seconds, they were completely flabbergasted, stunned to the point that they were completely silent. If not for the voices that I could hear after those first dozen or so seconds, I would have thought they might have simply gone into the building, exploring what we had just vacated. But no, as soon as they managed to collect their jaws from the ground, they started speaking in hushed voices, trying to come to grips with encountering me. Luckily, they couldn’t see the wide grin on my face, simply because my back was turned to them, when they were wondering what sort of monster, or deity, I was, trying to reconcile the discrepancy between my petite physique, female sex and the fact that, quite obviously, I had killed a lot more Shattered than all four of them together.
The change might have been worth it just for this sensation, to be able to stand proudly, without being underestimated for your physique, sex or any other arbitrary characteristic one might think of. Or rather, that the primary characteristic people would be judged by was their level, giving rise to a whole new host of problems but for now, I was riding the crest of the wave, likely standing above all others. At least above those four. For once, I was the biggest, baddest bitch in town and it felt glorious.
And to keep that lofty perch, I needed to keep going. After leaving the foursome behind, Silva and I headed towards Mrs Wu’s gym. Normally, it would take me a good thirty minutes by bus, but now, I would have to roughly walk four hours, depending on how many Shattered crossed our way. That meant we had about eight hours of time for other things, a little more if we did those other things while moving in that direction.
Sadly, it seemed that the previous night’s level boost had left me rather overlevelled for the common Shattered. Sure, they gave a bit of EXP but far too little to make actively hunting them worthwhile. There were simply too few of them to use large-scale attacks and individually, they weren’t worth it. Unless I decided to do something similar to the fishing on the rooftop last night, I would have to think of other ways to keep my levelling pace going.
Things like flooding another part of the sewers with my deadly mist, that was something I was planning to do, but I wasn’t sure where the best position for that was. To just send mist down a random drain felt just that, random. It might kill hundreds of rats and other pests, it might be a complete waste of time.
But given that last night’s misting had mostly killed critters I had never heard about, it might be worth it nonetheless. Maybe not in the same, hour-long ritual but a shorter one, simply conjuring mist for twenty, thirty minutes, letting it spread before turning up the devouring force for another ten minutes, that should destroy any low-levelled enemies and net me some EXP. The damage dealt by my mist was relatively low, but a few minutes should be enough regardless.
With that idea in mind, I decided to clear yet another smaller area before trying it out. A pair of Shattered was brought low by breaking their legs, before they were turned into Blood Magic bait, the Astral Power in their blood turned into Ice to give me a bit of cover when I worked my magic. Their demise drew another three Shattered from nearby houses and their lives, too, were used to fuel my continued growth in power.
Their essence was imbued into the same magical formation I had used the night before, only now, I realised that I could do a whole lot more. With my second thought stream, I could have one part of my mind completely focused on the Astral River, floating in a comfortable, meditative state, even as the other half of my mind was frantically pumping Astral Power into the runic formation before me. That change alone almost doubled how much Power I could funnel into the magic, my physical stamina quickly becoming the bottleneck for how much and how long I could actually channel my power.
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For my first experiment, I decided to conjure for twenty minutes and the amount of Mist I could produce in that time was almost as much as I had conjured in an hour the night before. When I felt that it was enough, that my influence had spread far and wide, I mentally switched gears, even deciding to activate Overflow to speed things along. The mist instantly took on an ominous, grey tinge, with streaks of visibly pulsing red running through it and I felt my Astral Power drain at an alarming rate.
I put almost three-quarters of my maximum power into a minute of frantic channelling, the total amount quite a bit lower than what I could have done with a slow, consistent channel but I wasn’t overly interested in that. My goal was to catch as many enemies as possible before they could run out of the mist. Sure, the mist had a confusion component, but that might not be good enough for every enemy I caught in it, some might have escaped the previous night. This night, escaping would be a lot harder.
Finally, I felt the tension leave my body, there were no more living creatures trapped within my cold mist. The change wasn’t as obvious as it had been in Road to Purgatory, there might be something more to the whole differentiation between being in combat and not being in combat but I hadn’t looked into it, not yet. I could recognise the difference most of the time, but nothing more for now.
Looking into the log, I was, again, able to scroll past a lot of kill notifications and again, the levels were mostly pitiful to the point that I didn’t gain any EXP for most of them. Not even enough to give me a full level, I merely got about half a level out of it, while I felt a small change in Silva next to me, making me think that she had hit fifteen.
“Well, that was a bit of a bust, girl,” I told her, petting her fur in disappointment. Sure, killing hundreds of potential monsters was great but what I was doing was more akin to pest control than anything that would get me levels. Stronger enemies were needed if there currently was such a thing. Maybe more rooftop fishing was indicated, even if the Mist-conjuring was currently quite good when it came to providing skill ranks. This time, I had gained one in each of the masteries and in Astral Meditation, getting Ice to fourteen, Darkness to thirteen and Blood and Meditation to ten.
Which would give me my next rune, once I meditated on things. I wasn’t sure which way to go there, I could either try to get something more in-tune with life-force, something like Vitality, that would allow me to strengthen the devouring I was using with my Mist, thus increasing the damage. Or I could go for something along the lines of the Sacrifice-rune I had stumbled across in Mundus, allowing me to easier interface between a runic circle and my Blood Magic. It had less overall viability but, in turn, when I could apply it, the concept was incredibly strong. Or maybe something that would help with my healing, even if I had rarely used it thus far. Once I needed it, having as powerful healing as possible could save lives, namely Silva’s or mine.
But I had quite a bit of time to consider, for now, I simply left the cover I had conjured and stood, intent on continuing on my path. This would be the last drain I flooded with mist for the night, but I would look for a good apartment building to use for Blood Magic fishing, that would continue to give EXP. The enemies in the sewers were, at least for now, simply too low-level to allow me further growth, I needed my enemies to be at least around level seven or eight, and if they were in the double-digits, it would be best.
A snort escaped me when I realised just how ridiculous my thoughts were getting. Wishing for stronger enemies, as if this was a game. Shaking my head, I put my mind back into the survival-mode of the first night when every Shattered had been a potential threat. Destroying them as soon as I noticed them, keeping to the shadows and concealing myself. I couldn’t let myself get arrogant with my power, that way was an early grave.
Even my arrogance with the other survivors earlier had been idiotic in hindsight A foolish risk, one that I shouldn’t take again. I should have simply slipped away, shouldn’t have risked standing out in the open with nothing but a flimsy bit of Darkness to conceal myself. I could assume that I was the strongest person in the area but reality might make an ass out of me.