William was still frustrated that he couldn’t have it all as he reached the silver door. He decided to meditate for an hour before entering to recharge his MP slightly, before the fight. Once done, William opened his eyes and looked at his current MP total: 250/410. Not a significant amount, but he decided to clasp his Mana potion in his free hand, ready to boost it in the upcoming fight. William really wanted to test his new skill, and had calculated that he would only have two uses of [Mana Investment] after using [Vortex Slash]. He did have a sneaking suspicion that the next foe would force William to use even more MP than most of his previous fights and with that, he decided that that the best approach would be to open with his new skill, then do a [Mana Investment][Dagger Toss]. This would use up more of the current Mana. He didn’t want to just replenish his MP without making as much use of the current amount he had, as it would feel incredibly wasteful and sub-optimal of a move.
William took a few deep breaths to ready himself for the oncoming trial, and with steeled determination, pushed the door open. Inside, he found another plinth like in the first trial room, and beyond lay a large open square. There appeared to be no designations of an arena such as a chalk border, that the previous room had. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all featureless grey stone. Ahead of him stood a large, four meter tall steel statue, at the opposite end of the square in a large alcove. He had a feeling that it wasn’t going to stay that way. William planned his move, readying himself to unleash [Vortex Slash] when the statue animated. He pressed down on the plinth and as expected, the statue lurched forward slightly, having woken up immediately.
{Ascension_Protocol}
{Dungeon Trial}
{Goal}
Destroy Sword Golem – Level 14
{End}
It was simple at least. William didn’t hesitate to unleash his attack, even using [Mana Investment] to enhance it further. A violent thrum of energy slashed forth from the blade, distorting the air in a swirling shimmer of raw, destructive Mana. It flew true, and struck the golem in its left shoulder. A metallic cutting sound emerged on impact, and William was gobsmacked at the result. The entire shoulder, arm, and adjacent part of the torso fell to the ground, cleanly severed. The Golem halted in it’s movement for a couple seconds, assessing the damage, then turned its gaze on William.
“Intruder detected. Proceeding to purge,” the golem said, a lifeless monotone voice conveying the declaration of purgation it intended.
It started to step towards William, drawing a massive sword from its back. The Blade was harrowing and vicious looking, bearing a slight backward curve, indicating that it excelled in slashing attacks. William was not enthusiastic about seeing the metallic death that the Golem brandished. He then noticed he still had seventy MP, and executed a [Mana Investment][Dagger Toss], embedding the dagger deep into the Golem’s chest. The force and penetration seemed to stagger the Golem an inch backward. Not much, but another second for him to consume the Mana Potion. As he did so, he looked at the twenty remaining MP and realized that it was ten MP more than he calculated. He figured that it was saved from the sheath, charging the sword with ten MP from its function.
He drank the contents and got a slightly bitter, earthy taste. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly glorious either. It did however rejuvenate his Mana however, and he felt some liveliness flow into his magical veins. 410/410MP. He smiled, and prepared for another [Vortex Slash]. He still had around twenty seconds on his cool-down however, and decided to use the time to dash towards the far left of the room, and as he moved, he used a [Mana Investment][Dagger Toss] this time aiming for the knee of the Golem, hoping to hinder it’s motion. The attack, unfortunately, only tore a score out from the edge of its knee joint. The momentum of his foe wasn’t hindered either, and a few moments later, William had to dive out of the way from a downward diagonal slash. The attack was dodged successfully, but the sheer power of the attack, distorted to the air around it, and a mere fraction of a second later, Boom.
William rolled to his feet, and was awe-struck at the damage. Part of the floor and the wall, no longer existed, and instead, a several meter deep and wide gash carved through the room. He went cold, imagining his fate if he was a Nano-second slower. He got to the direct opposite end of the room, distancing himself as much as humanly possible from the Golem. The giant approached William with renewed haste, and William still felt the cool-down was still in effect, though only for a couple more seconds. It was as the hulking mass loomed over him, that the skill was available again.
Without hesitation, William used [Mana Investment][Vortex Slash] and a vicious horizontal slash severed both legs at the joints. William was elated with the result until he noticed that the Golem started to fall towards him. He frantically threw himself through the opening between the Golem’s legs and gracelessly sprawled out on the floor behind the now tumbling giant. The Golem hit the ground with earth-shattering force and the impact caused William to be propelled back several feet, bouncing across the floor, each bounce knocking more and more air out from his lungs until he was on his back near the other end of the room.
He coughed and took a deep breath trying to regain his composure. He was relieved to see that the Golem could only pull itself forward with the one remaining arm using its sword as a lever. William relaxed slightly, knowing the room was large enough for him to kite the Golem around if necessary. Instead however, he waited until his cool-down was refreshed once more then did the same attack, aimed at the neckline of the Golem. Moments later, the Golem was unmoving and the victory prompt appeared once more, making a smile plaster William’s face:
{Ascension_Protocol}
{Dungeon Trial}
{Goal}
Destroy Sword Golem – Level 14 [[Completed]]
{Rewards}
A single pick of Dungeon Treasure Selection
{Bonus Rewards}
A single pick of Dungeon Treasure Selection
[Notice – Rewards are replacements for EXP]
{End}
William turned to look at the four pedestals that had appeared in the center of the room, the same way that the previous trial had done. He paused and looked at the golem again before continuing. He considered the fight for a moment, and from the level of the Golem, he wondered if it was meant to be that easy. He had felt more difficulty in the supposedly easier trial beforehand. He then assessed the damage he had done, and the cuts were slightly scary to him. He had caused them. A sneaking suspicion crept up William that if he had chose something other than [Vortex Slash], then the fight would have been significantly harder.
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This made him feel more impassioned to get stronger. He would reach the apex of strength eventually. With that determination, he approached the rewards and headed straight for the sword at the far end of the pedestals first. It was a smaller version of the sword that the Golem had used. He felt some excitement well up in him as he assessed the item:
{Ascension_Protocol}
{Dungeon Reward}
Weapon – Longsword of Severance
{Description}
A magical blade, crafted with magical means and imbued with the force to sever anything in the sword’s path. Sword has 2 activations before needing recharge. [cost of full recharge: 500MP]
[Notice – Runic Enchantment present to naturally absorb Ley-line Mana, providing recharge functionality.]
{Activation}
Emit a significantly sharp Mana slash, enhancing cutting power, magnifying total damage output of an attack through this weapon by 300%
Acquire?
{Y/N}
{End}
William stood there, mouth agape in shock at what he was reading. Three hundred percent. From what the activation stated, it implied that the multiplication effect could potentially stack with other buffs, allowing for truly destructive attacks. He wondered if he could abuse it with ranged [Vortex Slash] attacks too. If he could, then the bandits would be in for a severe headache in the coming weeks. Even more interesting however, was the mention of a Rune. If he could learn it, then it would be an asset for future enchanting once he learned a Rune to give an item a Mana pool as there was no point using the Rune that was used on the sword without the desired item having its own independent Mana pool available to make use of it. He also was starting to see a trend between truly Magical Items, and items that have been enchanted only.
The creation process of the item, would define if the item became truly magical. Mundane items with added enchantments seemed to be almost like a crude replica of such powerful items. He also had a feeling that the upper echelons of Enchanters would use their runes to enhance already magical items, as opposed to forcing small benefits form mundane equipment. He drew an earthly comparison with luxury watches and their fifty dollar copies that could be found at beach side vendors while abroad on holiday.
Now that he was truly starting to learn the depth of his secondary class, and aspects of magical item creation, he was learning how far he still had to go. William got excited thinking towards the future on that. He was likely going to pick the sword, as he was also curious at the combo of the sheath, and the sword. The designs were significantly different. The sheath was rather plain, but the sword was engraved with beautiful patterns on the hilt, guard, and pommel, and had an almost shimmering Damascus steel blade.
He could only imagine the power of the sheath expelling a full release of Mana, combined with the sword’s own skill, and even potentially stacked further with [Vortex Slash] and [Mana Investment]. He got chills thinking of that kind of theory. He would test that in a couple days once all his charges were full on his gear and pools. He almost picked the sword instantly, but barely managed to restrain himself. He should see the other items first. With begrudging patience, he turned away from the blade and approached the next pedestal. He looked down at what appeared to be another sword-forms Tome:
{Ascension_Protocol}
{Dungeon Reward}
Technique Tome – Arcane Sword-forms I-VI
{Description}
A Magical Tome, invested with the complete collection of sword-forms used by an ancient sect of the Arcane Sword arts. Channeling Mana into the Tome will allow the user to view displays of the Katas associated with the sword-forms it contains.
Acquire?
{Y/N}
{End}
It was rather interesting. This one unlike the first, went up to six total sword-forms. It was then he had a sneaking suspicion that the dungeon rewards were almost a judge of character. If someone cleared the first trial and took the Tome from that, then they would have had a redundant reward. Fortunately, the flavor text of the item stated that it was the complete collection this time around, and that made it a serious candidate for second pick. He didn’t linger on it longer as there wasn’t much else to say. He approached the third pedestal holding an open box, containing three SP potions, three MP potions, and Three HP potions. The description just listed three rows of each potion description which just stated that they restored a thousand points of their corresponding resource. It was a little tempting, but with meditation and rest, they were irrelevant other than immediate gratification or emergency. He would much rather have better skills, techniques, or equipment in an emergency however, and disregarded the option. There was a small concern that they were intended to help with the final trial, but he was gaining some confidence now and felt capable of succeeding without them.
William looked at the final item thoughtfully, and then read the description:
{Ascension_Protocol}
{Dungeon Reward}
Job Scroll – Blacksmith
{Description}
A Magical Scroll designed to bestow the Blacksmith Job upon the user. Item is a one time use and is destroyed upon use. User will gain the Blacksmith Job and three accompanying Job skills as standard, with one additional skill associated with the creators of the dungeon that this item is located within.
Acquire?
{Y/N}
{End}
He could potentially get his first Job there and then. It was tempting, and he pictured an older, more experienced him, crafting magical weapons and enchanting them. It was a nice thought to ponder, but after more consideration, he decided against it. He just didn’t have the patience for such a Job. The amount of time it would take was not something he fancied, as he would rather do adventuring or levelling with that time. He could hopefully find a job that allowed for an adventurer style of life at a later point.
Shortly after, he had selected the Tome and the sword. The book was thicker than the first one he had seen, and rather heavy for a book. He put it into his pack, then picked up the sword. It felt somewhat balanced, but towards the end, he could feel a very slight increase in weight, implying that the sword was not intended to be a stabbing tool and more of a slashing and chopping tool. It felt nice to wield and looked beautiful when the blue flame sconces on the walls shimmered off of it. William exited the room finally, and decided to spend time meditating to full, now he had no potion for MP restoration, he wanted to go into the fight with full MP as his pool currently showed: 30/410MP. He winced at it and was not intending on making the final fight tougher by removing his Mana usage. He was less worried by SP now as it was huge, and his skills mostly only scraped the surface. He could feel that he was shifting towards more heavy MP usage in combat, and felt a small fraction closer to becoming similar to his favourite character that he played as in the MOBA that had consumed much of his life pre-GAEA.
Just over seven hours later, his MP was full once more, and the sheath would now have seventy MP charged. Not too bad if he said so himself, as it would definitely contribute to his opener against whatever foe was thrown at him.
With renewed vigor to clear the dungeon and gain the best rewards, he walked towards the final trial. Both in confidence and determination.