The crystalizer was taking around three days to make a gem, which was really fast all things considered, and was massively helping me as I was able to practise my other new skills while still getting the gems made up to complete my cave. Chris hadn’t been by yet, he did send word via Sula that he wanted to finish another card first as it should level up his skill and help get a better result.
So far I had two new gems from it, and the main part of the cave was starting to look well lit instead of dingey which was nice. I was getting my stuff ready for my dungeon trip having let Sula know I was ready to try again, but that I wasn’t quite ready to commit to making consistent runs just yet.
Each day I had to visit the dungeon while people made their runs, most of the hunters were offered instances that let them develop more towards becoming either guards, crafters, or in one case a farmer. Turns out that one of the hunters class was technically some form of druid class, but a common variant and rather weak at this early stage, but he had managed to get a skill out of his run that allowed him to do more farming focus cultivation of plants so they were starting to clear a bit of land near where the rest of the town was living to get some staple crops growing.
It had given me plenty of time to reflect and realise that my first run wasn’t a good indicator of how I would find the experience overall, and that each time I experienced something painful like that it was good odds that was a growth point for me, so I should be treating it as more a payment for the abilities I have growing rather then something to suffer from with no reasoning behind it.
Otherwise almost everyone needed at least a small bit of healing, which I was getting a tiny bit of improvement to my skills for and occasionally even a drip of experience but all up for a weeks worth I had only managed a hundred experience which showed just how much faster combat would be for a combat class that got the full benefits experience wise.
Setting down my bags as I arrived at the camp next to the dungeon, with the small amount of medical supplies we had started stockpiling here for when I was low on mana, which was never so far, or when I was indisposed and some basic medical attention was needed. All the guards had a general skill for first aid as well that aided in healing with mundane or simple supplies, which could prove helpful if it was needed.
Looking around the camp was slowly improving, someone had built a small wooden roof on four small supports to go over where two bedrolls rolled up ready in case someone needed to rest here, or just to provide dry space for sitting off the ground in case of adverse weather. The firepit was more established as well, with proper stones ringing around it that someone, likely Bren, had merged into a single piece of stone mottled with the different colours and textures of the stones used to make it.
“Right, everyone has finished their runs and there are no more for the day right?” Speaking to James while making sure all of my things were in order, some basic food and water just in case something happened and despite the prompts I didn’t get the same instance or the food was gone, along with a small hunting knife on my belt I got from a few of the hunters as a gift for the morning healing sessions. Otherwise I was keeping to a boiled leather jacket with only one sleeve on the left side, no real chance at restoring the burned away sleeve and I had admitted to myself I enjoyed the look, and some thick leather pants tucked into my boots.
“Correct, you are good to go and no real risk hopefully of anyone needing you. Worst case we are covered for any emergency triage for that hour you're out of here anyway. Go, hopefully enjoy, and come back even stronger or with more fun toys for your cave” Laughing James threw some more wood on the fire before taking a seat under the covered area enjoying the last of the sunlight left in the day.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Pulling up my full stat sheet before going, I was kind of impressed to see the changes since I had come to Horusum. Particularly the new bloodline section was interesting, it seemed just using my mana and regenerating it slowly refined it, but I wasn’t too sure how to improve its speed of development. One key thing I had noticed was a small increase to my health since the refinement had started up, which hopefully was a good sign for the future.
Name: Styx Alforde Class: Apostle of the healing flame Bloodline: Phoenix (7% refined - Yosh linage - Common grade) Core Card: Phoenix's flame Core Class: Wilds hunt Healer Level: 10 ( 3100/10,000) Health: 125/125 (Smoke: 205) Mana: 80/80
Focusing on my skills sub-menu I open the list and enjoy seeing just how many I have managed to grow myself to learn rather then consuming a card to obtain.
- Phoenix immolation (Rank 2): Heals injury at a base cost of 7 mana. Cost increases due to both severity of injury and age of injury. Restores bone at a greatly reduced rate. Able to restore scar tissue, but cannot remove natural imperfections/marks. Only works on physical wounds. -Apostles smoke (Rank 2): Over time excess health regenerated builds up as smoke, after taking harm fifteen seconds later smoke will be consumed to restore the body and mana pool. This acts by rapidly increasing the natural healing process while consuming the smoke instead of bodily resources. - Camping (Rank 1 - 0.78%): Basics of starting fires, setting tents, and finding suitable campsites. - Wilderness cooking (Rank 1): Basic skill for cooking in the wilds. - Scavenging (Rank 1): Helps find useful items while exploring, increases chances of noticing hidden or valuable items. Helps tell if items are detrimental (Toxic, cursed, or otherwise harmful). - Body Enhancement (Lower Body) - Speed boost (Rank 1): This enhancement improves the speed and relative power of the body part, along with response time to allow the caster to keep up with limbs. Gives slight increase to durability relative to amount of speed gained to prevent self injury. - Mend (Rank 2): Consumes mana to repair items. Can only perform minor repairs, and normal repairs at higher cost. Mana cost scales exponentially with missing material. - Ignition (Rank 1): Coat a limb in mana to infuse strikes and grapples with a cleansing flame. This has a base cost of 35 mana, plus additional mana is consumed as the flame replenishes. Flame strength is based on flame refinement level. Mana is refunded when skill is deactivated based on flame returned to the caster. - Passive mana regen (Rank 1): Regenerate your full mana pool over one hour when at rest. When active, restore a quarter of your mana pool per hour.
Closing off that window I stepped forward into the small dungeon cave and was thankfully greeted with a familiar prompt. Sighing with relief, I had been deeply concerned it was for some reason not going to give me the same instance I was prepared for, so I accepted and found myself in a familiar waiting room.