CHAPTER 67.

Amber immediately was forced to pull back with Quick Dash as the two successive attacks rocked the cave. The ground trembled and Amber couldn’t help but frown, there was absolutely no way they thought she was a monster given they had looked at her squarely in the eye when doing so.

Which left the question:

Who are these people?

Amber didn’t bother to even try using Essence this time around, instead she focused on dealing with the people that were attacking her. She took out the Cursewelder from her storage ring, and then she dodged another attack: it was like a bolt of lightning. Luckily, Amber had long maxed Crimson Fervor and Cursed Supreme Momentum, so it wasn’t a problem to fight.

She looked over from behind a pillar as she saw one of the mages preparing a spell to blast her with, whereas the other person was holding the staff in a horizontal position and chanting to himself.

Amber didn’t think they neither of them had a Legacy Branch but she was still skeptical of the mage that was chanting. He seemed to be waiting for something and Amber didn’t like that one bit. Meanwhile, the other mage fired his spell⁠—

“Destruction.”

The spot where she just been standing on basically exploded and before she could get hit, she used the 3rd Rank of Quick Dash, and appeared behind the mage that had just been casting. Amber immediately stabbed forward and while there was a brief barrier, it was shattered in an instant.

The mage on the other side panicked, “Displace!”

The Cursewelder hit empty air and the mage she had just tried to stab appeared a few meters away, but before the mage could do anything further Amber slashed, using Cursed Cleave, and with a swift strike she used Essence to send another cleave.

The mage that was casting was hit by two different cleaves, the first broke through his clavicle and went into the wall, tearing a part of his body in the process. Then the Essence cleave hit and broke through his staff and tore into his chest. Sending him back against the wall with a burst of blood. The mage that had just been casting the spell slumped on his spot as he clutched his wound.

Meanwhile, the other mage screamed in anger.

“Youuu!” his voice rumbled through the air. “How dare you interfere with the glorious plan of our nation?!”

Amber raised her brow at that, but rushed at the mage with her sword. She used Essence tos end two cleaves his way, which he blocked with a barrier albeit barely. It seemed that Essence was much more effective against magic than Amber ever thought, but she didn’t focus too much on that.

Instead, she focused on fighting and getting information from the mage.

She used Cursed Stomp and it went through his barrier as his eyes widened, then Amber tackled him and threw his staff away before he could do anything. She held him by the throat against the ground and glared at him as he gritted his teeth.

“What is the plan of your nation?” Amber asked with a frown.

He laughed, coughing. “As if I’d tell you the glorious plan to take down Torl!”

They want to take down the city? She found that hard to believe, but with the general situation of unrest in the Great Desert she supposed that it wasn’t that insane. Though, the question of who could possibly want to take down the city was left⁠—

Ofril.

That was the only nation crazy enough to do that: they had already created the plague to use as a weapon, and they also started war with another nation. It wasn’t too far-fetched to assume they wanted to wage war on the only neutral territory either. While she didn’t know how close the nation was to the city of Torl, they were bad news through and through.

“Why are you here⁠—”

And Amber paused feeling the ground at her feet tremble. It was subtle at first, but it quickly grew to a full on rumbling that made her look up. She looked to the different dark cavities in the cave and couldn’t help but have a bad feeling. And seeing her reaction, the mage laughed.

“Scared?! The monsters we’ve gathered will soon kill you!” He maniacally grinned.

“Gathered monsters?” Amber asked.

“That’s right!”

Amber pondered what to do for a moment, but she had already connected the dots to what the nation of Ofril was planning on doing. Gathered monsters, city. Use dungeon monsters to attack the city. Of course, she was sure that there was more to it than that, but she already knew more than enough.

So, she raised her fist and punched the mage. Then after breaking his nose and throwing another one he was knocked unconscious. And that was when the first of many monsters appeared. It had gunmetal scales and resembled a crocodile, yet its speed was swift.

[Dark Agil Allitoris. Lvl. 130]

It charged at her but Amber swung her arm and with Essence and Cursed Cleave at the same time, she sliced through its snout and into its cranium, drawing a pained and guttural screech. The monster was quickly put out of the battle as it flailed, then she turned to the surroundings where she saw more and more monsters emerging. They were all of different shapes and sizes, some resembled bears, others wolves, there were some that even looked like lizards.

But to Amber it was all the same: a source to practice using her Essence.

So, with a wide smile she got to work.

Amber used Essence to replicate cleave, but soon enough it became insufficient. Certain monsters were too agile, too thick for her to do anything. Amber spun and swung with her sword, sending a circular slash in all directions, but it didn’t do anything more than just delay the monsters.

And that was when she was forced to use the ability of the Flamecursed Sword⁠—

“Flamethrower.”

A crimson whirlwind tore through the cave, incinerating the weaker monsters and igniting the stronger ones ablaze. The surroundings instantly became charred as ashes flew, and as soon as the attack stopped, Amber reached to the dispersing fires with her hand, and with Essence she pulled.

The crimson flame became attached to her hand, and Amber smiled as she had yet another realization about Essence. At first it was a hunch, but this pretty much confirmed. Essence was free, she could do whatever she wanted to so long as she understood what she was trying to recreate.

And now, she knew what she wanted to do.

Amber grinned and then dodged a monster before blowing. Just like when she had tried an aerosol spray and a match-stick when she was a kid⁠— it burst forward.

The monster that pounced on her was instantly torched by the Essence-created crimson flames, it wailed in agony but Amber could tell that it was once again slightly weaker⁠— an incomplete thing. But it was damn fun, she turned around and torched three more monsters, which this time⁠—

Caused an unexpected event. The monsters screeched in anger and began to attack all the other monsters around them, much to Amber surprise. And soon enough, a chain reaction occurred of beasts tearing each other apart. They worked indiscriminately rather than target her like they were before.

And that’s when she heard a scream.

Amber paused seeing the mage she had just knocked out be thrown into the air by one of the many alligators, and then he was bit by the torso as he screamed in anger. However, his anger was directed at her.

“It’s all your fault! Once the other squads learn of what happened here, they will come after you!”

She smiled at that, “I’ll be waiting.”

And the mage was chomped, then torn apart by the alligators. Part of his organs and flesh flew through the air as more gathered trying to use him as food. A disgusting sight that quickly turned into an annoying distraction rather than anything else.

Amber ducked below the pounce of a wolf, and for a moment she was lost on what to do with Essence, and she realized⁠—

What couldn’t she do?

She smiled as she tried to replicate Val’leri’s ability but quickly found that⁠— she didn’t know what type of energy she was trying to gather to begin with, so all she was doing was some flashy magic that had no kind of effect whatsoever. It was akin to just particle effects that did absolutely nothing but look pretty.

Amber frowned at that as she dodged a monster then she cleaved⁠— she beheaded it with a single swing.

She understood that the limit was far from being reached, but this was the first time she encountered the problem of not having enough knowledge to do what she wanted to do. And that was frustrating. But she had seen enough magic to try other things⁠— lighting.

Her hand touched onto the leather of her armor, feeling the static discharge. Then, she drew from it but Amber quickly found that she was particularly unfamiliar with how electricity worked so she found it hard to replicate it. Aside from a few sparks she couldn’t do more, but thankfully it was enough for this.

A bear rushed at her and she grabbed it by the throat and discharged Essence into it, causing it to convulse for a moment before she crushed its throat with pure and raw strength.

To her, Essence felt limitless, and that was the gift of it all, with the only limit to her being her knowledge.

And Amber was planning on learning everything that she could.

* * *

“Blast,” she whispered.

And a flash thundered, hitting the last monster and killing it in an instant.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Smoke came out from its burnt and bruised body, and all Amber could do was sigh. She looked around only to see death everywhere. There was no place unmarked by foreign blood, and she had been at the center of it all, but it wasn’t for naught. No, she had learned quite a lot, namely⁠— she could use lightning now.

While Amber understood that once her Essence took a form, that would be the strongest way to use it, she hoped that she could at least continue to use it like this. She hoped that while she could use it to its full potential, she could still mess around with it in other ways even if it wasn’t at complete efficiency.

She wanted that freedom.

She didn’t know how magic for mages worked, or if it was as straightforward as getting skills as for Warriors; she had no way to know aside from asking. So to her, this was her first taste of magic, but it was true magic, and she loved it.

Of course, she wasn’t planning on replacing her class or anything⁠— she loved her class too.

But if she could adjust both fighting styles to work in harmony…

A smile slipped onto her face.

“I really am looking forward to it.”

And just as she was about to depart, she noticed an energy leaving the monsters she had killed herself with Essence. For a moment she was bewildered, and then she remembered Val’leri’s words.

“... a power that comes from life itself, from our surroundings, from ourselves, and from the enemies we fell.”

She had felled these enemies⁠— slayed them. Which meant…

What she was seeing was Essence.

For a moment Amber hesitated, she didn’t know what exactly to do other than the fact that she had a feeling. Yes, a feeling. A tugging thing in her mind that was telling her to absorb it, but at the same time she didn’t exactly know why she was being told so. The Cube of Stars was supplying a steady amount of it all the time after all.

She could feel Essence gathering at her core, and while some leaked it still seemed to be concentrating and slowly becoming something more. Evidently her core or the shell of it would progress to whatever came next soon enough. So, why? Why was she so drawn towards the Essence on the ground⁠— sure it would perhaps speed the process, but…

I guess there is only one way to find out.

Amber approached one of the corpses and brushed her hand against the floating particles, and in a single moment all of the Essence spread around the room immediately shot towards her. And before she even had time to process it, it reached into her body and rushed right into her core.

For a moment she was disappointed before she realized that it wasn’t going right into her core, but rather forming a new sphere inside of the membrane or whatever it was called.

And as she stared at the now empty Essence surroundings, Amber realized that she had just made a new discovery.

She looked down at herself and felt the warmth within her, something that made her smile. She still had a lot of things to discover but this was progress⁠— and then she saw the walls illuminate with lines.

Amber blinked as she saw parts of the walls shift and move around, all while shining in a familiar blue light that indicated it was related to Essence. Soon enough, the movement ended, and Amber found that nothing much had changed other than the layout of the rocks had changed slightly.

She stared at the phenomenon for a few seconds, and finally, Amber drew her own conclusion.

“Given this place belongs to a Primordial Spirit, I guess it makes sense that it will react to Essence.”

With that, she nodded to herself.

“Though…” Amber looked at her new surroundings that still consisted of death. “There are also the people trying to gather monsters…”

Considering she had no clue of the dungeon structure, going back to the surface would be a long and arduous journey. And considering the layout had shifted, she didn’t want to imagine if the path upwards changed. There was also the fact that she had no way to communicate with the outside.

Essentially, she was stuck deep in the Grand Dungeon for the time being, which made Amber feel a bit bad since she couldn’t say anything about it to Cecile. She had essentially abandoned the merchant.

Amber stared at the surroundings once more, and after shaking her head. She focused. There were mages gathering monsters. And while, she unfortunately, didn’t have scout skills to track them or anything she was still planning to keep an eye out for them⁠.

So, with a newfound resolution and already existing determination, Amber continued on exploring the dungeon.

* * *

Amber was resting after practicing Essence when she felt the ground shake. She had seen the phenomenon of the shifting occur another time upon picking the Essence left behind by a felled enemy, but this was most definitely not that⁠—

The crystals around the floor flickered, as if their power-source was failing.

Amber frowned at that and then she paused seeing a mist slowly spreading through the cave, at first it didn’t seem to do anything, but soon enough it gave her a bad feeling.

The mist was eating away at the corpses of the monsters at her feet, and evidently it was a type of curse based on the fact that her body was absorbing it. Then she heard dying screeches, ones that represented nothing but agony.

The air was filled with danger but Amber felt the need to investigate, so she followed that feeling to see wherever it took her. But, she prepared herself to run for her life if need be.

Is this related to the nation of Ofril? Amber wondered with a frown. But can these people affect the dungeon that much?

Regardless of what it was, she didn’t have a good feeling about it.

It took less than a minute for her to reach the destination, hearing the wet sounds of flesh being torn and eaten. Upon rounding the corner, Amber saw a massive four legged monster with ghastly limbs eating what seemed to be a human. Its body itself was black like the night sky, and it emanated glitter reminiscent of the stars.

[Cursed Artkil. Lvl. 155]

Amber immediately drew back.

Most definitely unrelated…

She immediately headed in the opposite direction of the mist. The monster didn’t seem to sense her, otherwise she was sure she would’ve been charged at immediately. And Amber was glad that she didn’t fight it; if levels were anything to go by it would be an incredibly bloodied battle. One she didn’t want to take right now due to learning Essence.

There’s also the fact that it has Cursed in its name, just like the Cursed Goblin King who was immune to them⁠.

There were so many reasons to why fighting it now was a bad idea. So, Amber took a completely different route, one that was as far away from the monster was possible.

* * *

“Gatz, do you think you’ll be done any time soon?” asked a warrior.

“Quiet, Riley! You mess with my concentration,” the mage snapped.

Amber had been following the group of two for well over an hour now, mostly just to get a feel of how they operated. And it mostly seemed they would find monsters, injure them badly, then use magic on them to subjugate them. Some type of mind control⁠— or something, Amber didn’t know about anything in regards to magic so she had no way of knowing. She also overheard more detailed information that reaffirmed what she already knew⁠ about their plans.

Apparently, there were mages doing the same thing in lower floors with stronger monsters, which was quite the scary thought.

Of course, she had done more than just follow these two people, in fact, she had spent well over a day inside of the dungeon now. Thankfully, she hadn’t run into the monster again. Most of her time was spent killing the monsters she found and more than anything, polishing her Essence usage. At this point in time, Amber was leaning towards having long range attacks given⁠—

She basically didn’t have any.

So that was what she had polished, she had polished her makeshift cleave, and after a full day of doing it she managed to make it surpass the original skill. Which was something that greatly excited Amber. And now, after mentally preparing herself to execute for quite some time, she finally felt confident enough to do so.

She focused on her fingertips and sent her Essence to each one, almost imagining a claw⁠— no, that’s what it was, a claw. But it didn’t stop there. Amber slowly began to heat up her hand, and just before it ignited. The whole process took close to twenty seconds of preparation in spite of her attempts to optimize it, and finally⁠— she dashed forward and swung.

“Cleave.”

Four iridescent and flaming slashes zipped through the air and hit the mage, sending him flying with a burst of blood and an echoing shriek of pain. His blood splattered in all directions and Amber couldn’t help but smile. In comparison, the accompanying warrior seemed far from happy.

“What did you just do?!” he cried as he unleashed his sword.

Amber ignored him and instead, finished off the mage with a close-range Essence cleave, something she could do instantly. Then, she turned, seeing the warrior rushing at her.

“Unbreakable!”

At that, his whole body shone and he rushed at Amber, she tried to use Essence but it was brushed off by the warrior. It made nothing but a shallow cut on his flesh. Amber blinked at that, considered it was much worse than what she ever expected, and he arrived swinging his sword. Of course, she blocked but her arms trembled and the warrior gritted his teeth.

“You dare ruin this plan?!”

Amber of course, wasn’t worried having taken care of the mage already. So, she fought. She used her superior agility to quickly overwhelm the warrior, and thanks to the added bonus of Cursewelder to make her slashes twice as heavy, the man quickly struggled to keep up. But that wasn’t the only reason he was struggling, there was also a new skill that was partly responsible for that. Her new Legacy Branch skill.

[Crimson Destruction ⁠— level 1.]

You’ve sensed, learned, and used your own blood to cause the demise of others. It is time you use their own to do so. To destroy them from the inside.

This skill makes it 1.5 times as easy to break the blood vessels of the target, and making it 2 times as easy at max level.

This skill takes twice the time in comparison to normal skills to level.]

Just like Crimson Sense, it was a passive skill, but it was one she enjoyed⁠— she kicked the sides of the knight and he ended up throwing a mouthful of blood from all the accumulated hits. It was a skill that allowed her to damage her opponents even if she couldn’t cut into them⁠, which was something that Amber greatly enjoyed.

In the end, the knight didn’t last another minute.

And once she was done, Amber took in how she had progressed so far.

[Cursed Supreme Momentum has leveled up from 3rd Rank level 8 to 3rd Rank level 9.]

[Cursed Supreme Berserker’s Body has leveled up from 3rd Rank level 8 to 3rd Rank level 9.]

[Curse Manipulation has leveled up from 3rd Rank level 7 to 3rd Rank level 8.]

[Crimson Fervor has leveled up from level 9 to 10.]

[Crimson Fuel has leveled up from level 9 to 10.]

[Crimson Venom has leveled up from level 7 to 9.]

[Crimson Sense has leveled up from level 3 to 5.]

[Crimson Destruction has leveled up from level 1 to 3.]

[Sharp Instincts has leveled up from 3rd Rank level 7 to 3rd Rank level 8.]

[Quick Recovery has leveled up from 2nd Rank level 2 to 2nd Rank level 3.]

[You have reached level 135. 5 stat points awarded.]

+5 Vitality +5 Strength +5 Dexterity.]

After, she let out a deep breath and collected the Essence from the mage she had killed, but upon doing that the walls shifted again. She didn’t care too much, but she paused as she saw a cave entrance open up in one of the walls. Now, that was something that hadn’t happened before.

Amber stared for a few moments, there was water dripping from the ceiling, and it seemed deadly quiet. She had a feeling that nobody had been in there for a very long time. For a moment she hesitated, but she decided to explore it⁠ considering it was a secret passage of sorts.

At first, it was uneventful and borderline boring, it was a long winding tunnel that slowly went deeper, and deeper. It was wet and moist, it had glowing moss and soon enough, the water on the ground began to go well into her ankles.

But eventually, Amber reached the end of the tunnel and entered a dark room, the water was now at her knees and hanging on the ceiling there was a blue crystal formation dimly illuminating the surroundings, which seemed to be filled with Essence⁠— to her perception anyway.

Amber frowned, and then, she heard the rattling of chains. Her eyes landed at the end of the room, and she saw a man with white hair and⁠— pointy ears. They were long and refined, but he looked malnourished.

And he was… passed out.

Amber slowly approached him with caution, but even as she drew closer he didn’t seem to wake up. Even when she stood in front of his frail and sickly body.

[Mage. Lvl. 110]

He wasn’t high level either.

Amber turned to the chains and she could see Essence emanating from them. She didn’t know why an elf was here, it wasn’t even a High Elf from Ill’hine so imprisoning them in such a way was just⁠—

Is this another one of Sid’fril’s grudges?

Amber touched the chains, and a moment later drained the Essence from them and gathered it towards her forming core, and as soon as she did⁠— they crumbled into dust and she moved to catch the elf before he was plunged into water⁠—

And the man groaned.

“You shouldn’t be here, otherwise he will come and seal you too,” he warned and then seemingly blinked. “You have freed me, and you…”

Amber raised her brow and the elf continued.

“You’ve just started learning Essence, haven’t you?”

She blinked. “How do you even know that⁠—”

And he interrupted her.

“If you get me out of this dungeon, I can teach you.”