7
I had four of my clones stay in the magic building, two to explore the rest of the library and two head out to map the city. I continue reading until Zka wakes up, then we head out to get some food. After eating I have Zka lead the way to various markets where I mainly focus on appraising everything I see. I do find some interesting things that I barter for with some of my loot, I also let Zka browse my loot and after she found some useful things I give her some of my loose shards so she can best equip herself. I pick up three grimoires because if I feed them to mine it will improve and possibly evolve to become more effective. I also pick up a knife that had been sold by a guy who lost its pair in the goblin maze along with half their party, luckily I have already equipped its mate. Finally I acquire a mask shaped like a skull from the eyebrows to the upper teeth, it provides increased experience gain rate to my followers. I figure that last will prove especially useful.
We made it through about half the shops that day when I noticed Zka becoming tired, I told her her she needn't trouble herself on my account and that I was fine to explore on my own for a while, I would meet her at the library in the morning. Once I am alone I continue to browse various shops until it was almost time to meet Zka. I had by this point acquired a collection of accessories for any potential followers, it only cost me about half of my loot. When I met up with her I gave her a set and I will save the rest for the future. I was surprised when Zka presented me with a grimoire she had brought with her, it was obviously ancient and appeared quite comprehensive. When I asked her why she didn't use it herself she explained that it wasn't compatible with the one she owned.
I don't know if that's true or not but I happily except and promptly feed it to my own grimoire. It will take three days to fully digest but once it does I will see a doubling of all of its effects and an evolution to multi-casting from double casting, it will also grant spell fusion.
Multi-casting allows me to cast up to four of any spell I know simultaneously and with a twenty five % reduction in manna cost, fifty % if they are the same level and type. I like it a lot, it was going to be very nice. Spell fusion will allow me to combine multiple spells into one. I like it too, but I love the combined effect of both.
The next few clone lives go by quickly and prove quiet profitable, I had amassed copies of all the books in the library and read most of the magic related ones. The reading is thanks to the skill speed reading, and the copies are thanks to the skills shadow scan and shadow copy both of which are passive abilities that result from the skill aura glutton of knowledge.
Now that preparations were made and I know where to find the various civilizations I wanted to travel to as many as I can. Of course we will also experience grind away at everything that decides to attack us. It should be fun. It should be noted that Zka'thlaroea is a prodigy, gifted in both magic and psyonic arts while also being a skilled melee combatant, because of this I decide to give her the spear I got from the first dead mindflayer I came across. Between my auras and her own skills she barely needed any additional support, and with the follower exp bonus she was leveling up almost as fast as I
had.
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Unbeknownst to Dundee a multi-species conference was occurring via magic mirrors and he, or rather his actions are the topic. The representatives of the various species are discussing the disappearance of all the creatures he had eliminated and the spawn shards they once owned when the mindflayer representative proposed a theory crediting Dundee with full responsibility. For evidence he sites information overheard from the talks between Dundee and Zka'thlaroea, as well as a description of his visit to the village. The participants were all shocked at some point but the most shocking thing for them was the turtle bomb incident. Incredulous voices raised in denial until a magic recording was played bringing an awed silence that left many in a fearfully anxious state. After some few minutes a voice once more arose, “We need to know more about this person, so how should we handle this?” A different voice continued, “He annihilated the goblin maze in nine days, in the forty days that followed he completely eradicated every living thing in an area substantially larger than many of our territories, and he effortlessly killed an elder doom tortoise with a single spell.” A third voice said, “These feats are unprecedented, and virtually impossible. Even if we formed a party we would be hard pressed to manage any of them let alone all, and he did it all solo as if they were the easiest thing in world.” The mindflayer declared, “I recommend a course of extreme non-violence, it worked for our city.”
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After a round of tentative agreement the conference ended.
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Several days have passed and many things have died, but I am happy. Zka has leveled up quite a lot and my stats have even improved by a fair few points. Zka has gained mastery of the spear and along with some new skills and spells she can now effortlessly cast spells while in the midst of melee combat, while I acquired the skills master of support and creeping shadows. The first allows me to passively reduce the enemies life so Zka can then instantly kill them while the latter causes my territory to slowly expand on its own expanding the map as well, a skill that proves most useful when it discovers some hidden libraries beneath the mindflayer city and a few other places I had already passed through.
Twenty five days before the arrival of Blasphemy Zka asks me what my plan is and I tell her that I just want to learn more about the powers behind this world and find a away to consolidate spawn shards and fragments back into the spheres they once were. She then said, “I don't know much about the powers behind the world except that they are called the Seeders and that they allegedly built this planet and seeded all the life on it, however all you have to do in order to repair a spawn sphere is to bind a shard or fragment then bring it into around arms length of matching unbound shards. Doing so causes them to fuse together, unfortunately it is likely impossible because you would have to find and kill so many other shard holders and even then the odds of finding matching shards is quite low. To find all the pieces of any given sphere the odds are astronomical.”
When I tell her that I already have six complete sets her jaw drops and she is so stunned she forgets to breath until her body forces her to gasp for air to fill her lungs. She then exclaims, “No one in the recorded history of the world has ever gathered a complete set of shards.” She pauses dramatically before continuing. “If more than ten shards are brought together they begin to release a sort of signal, like a beacon drawing the attention of everyone on the planet who holds a fragment. Every time this has happened in the past wars have broken out resulting in the death of the one who fused so many shards and upon the death of the fragment holder the fragment fractures and scatters randomly around the world leaving only a portion to be claimed by the winner. Last time this happened was about eighty years ago and it ended up in a free for all death match between all the greatest powers that could arrive before the fragment fractured. Some of them are powerful enough that they could win against an ancient doom tortoise, the one you saved my village from was a young elder, an ancient would be larger and much more powerful.”
Well that is a lot of important information and I promptly thank her for sharing it before asking her to show me how to bond a shard. I choose two of the largest fragments from two of my sets and hand her one of them, and once we have each bonded them we begin to fuse pieces one by one slowly over the course of hours to find out if we can avoid triggering the beacons. We determine that so long as the shards are fused one at a time the beacon will not trigger, however the presence emitted by the fragments increased with each addition in proportion to the fragments overall size. Most people would find this bothersome because it lead to an increase in the frequency and quantity of attacks against us but we just laughed as we slaughtered each and every enemy that came against us. This situation does however lead to some interesting discoveries, the greatest by far is that when I produce clones if I have the fragment on me the clones will form with identical fragments but if the fragment is separated from the clone it vanishes. Less interesting but more importantly if the fragment is in my storage it is undetectable, curious I craft a pocket dimension for Zka, it isn't as grand as my shadow storage but it also conceals the fragments presence. We still however continue to take them out and add more shards every time there is a break in the massacre.
Shortly thereafter we begin to encounter parties made up of all the varied sentient species. Most cause no harm, only observing us from a distance, some would introduce themselves and travel with us for a while before leaving, and some would attack us as soon as they see us. The last would die violently and with no opportunity to escape without exception.
When the day of Blasphemy's arrival came and only a dozen hours were left on the count down a thunderous roar sounded from several miles away only to be answered by at least a dozen others and several horn blasts and drum rolls. All from different directions, but all from similar distances. We are surrounded by what sounds like around twenty extremely large and powerful monsters and several armies. The roars and fanfares would sound off periodically drawing ever closer.