(Max)
"Hey, Max," Boss gives me an amused look. "What are you doing here?"
"Gold said language training not be counting as combat training," me tell him. "He be right, by the way."
"I know," Boss chuckles.
Yeah. Me wanted to do training, so went to Gold yesterday and spent afternoon with him and the other free beastborn bettering my speech. Not as expert as Boss is, but still better than me was before. Well, when not excited. Can't help that, though.
"So me want train," me tell Boss. "With sword. Need get it up for advancement."
"You want to train with me, right?" Boss asks, and Max nod. "Sorry, Max, but Big S has threatened to sit on me if I train during the Crystal-mandated rest."
How be a giant crystal sit on someone?
"He can manifest an avatar," Boss says. "It's a dragon. He can sit on me with that."
"Ooooh!" That makes sense. "So you not able to help me train? Gold busy with work today and Aurum be too weak."
He still needs to get stronger, so that he can fight with us. But we beastborn seem to Level fast, so he might even be able to join us for the battle.
Boss thinks for a few moments, then closes the book he be reading and tucks it under his arm and beckons for me to follow him.
"Good job against Su'Numar yesterday," he says as we walk.
"You saw that?" Me ask.
"Yes," he nods. "Nik, Nathan, and I were watching from a distance. You only need one more Sword Master Level to become a Dark Warrior, right?"
"Yes, Boss!"
"You'll need it, Rage, and Intimidate at Level 6 for Dark Knight," he tells me. "You also need Crimson Guide for Dark Warrior."
"Crimson Guide?" Me ask.
"Yes," Boss nods. "You know it, right?"
"Red glowball."
"Yeah," he nods. "Red glowball."
We reach one of the training rooms in the Dark Temple, and Boss moves to the training command thingy. Me not remember its name properly, so that be what me call it.
"Pull out your sword," he tells me. "And prepare yourself, Max. I'm going to activate several of the training golems, and will give you advice during it. I can't train against you myself, but I can do this much."
"Thanks, Boss!" Me tell him.
Me pull out Max's sword, then move forward. Five training golems form, and Max begins to attack, striking at them and blocking their attacks. Boss calls out to me as me do this, so that he can help me better my skills with a sword. He's also reading that book while he does.
After lots of beatings, Max finally gets another Swords Mastery Skill Level. Boss doesn't turn off the training golems, though, so me have to keep fighting. Their skill level went up! He adjusted it! Boss is a meanie!
A long, long time of training passes before Boss lets me stop, and me just collapse on the ground. Swords Mastery now be Level 5, because Boss be push me hard and me probably already close to Level 4 when started and other stuff not exactly make sense to me. Does it not be take a lot longer than hours to do that? Weapon Skills take lots of time, me thought?
"Normally," Zack says. "But you learn skill with a sword quickly, and the bodies of beastborn adjust to skills quickly. The more you repeat an action, the more it becomes cemented into your body's abilities – far more so than a normal human. It's greater than a human, worse than a demigod. For example-"
Boss holds up a hand, and several Fireballs form, then shoot at Max. Me dodge them, needing to bend quickly. Boss attacked fast!
"You performed that same dodge," Boss tells me. "Ten times during today's training session, just with the training golems' weapons rather than Fireballs. Most people would still be adjusting to that dodge, yet you executed it nearly perfectly."
Me not actually understand that.
"You will," Boss tells me. "Once you think about it in seriousness."
"Okay!"
"Now," he says. "Why don't you head outside and train, Max? It's a beautiful day, even if still a bit chilly. Try to use your Mana as much as possible, so you can keep increasing it. Once you hit 2,000 Mana, there's a Skill you can learn that will help you with Elementalist."
"Okay!"
----------------------------------------
(Zack)
Max leaves, and I close the book, then return to the library and sit down to begin reading again. I'm sure he'll remember Crimson Guide before returning home today, it's all he needs to advance Dark Knight, now.
Leaning back in the chair, I look up at the ceiling, with its patterns of blood, darkness, and fire. No one really notices them, because no one really looks all the way up. Funny, how people often only look on their level or up to where they need to, but never all the way. Not unless it's something like looking at the sky on a lazy day or at a monster flying overhead, but even then, they can miss quite a lot.
It's a nice pattern to look at, good for thinking about. I'm itching to train today, and helping Max with his own helped scratch the itch a bit. I'm capable of permanently learning a new move the first time I use it, but beastborn don't really take that much longer. Ten to twenty uses of a move is enough for them. Even Max, with his scattered brain and childlike mentality because of the abuse he went through, learns rapidly.
Will it all be enough, though? I had another vision last night, and we know when the battle is going to take place. The Druids who left to try to kill some of the armies are going to return in a week, they have to for final preparations.
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We have two weeks. Two weeks until the battle comes, two weeks until the valley turns into a warzone. Two weeks until people die beyond the recovery of what Nathan and I can restore. Even Resurrection has its limits, after all.
Once this mandated rest is over and my team's new equipment is finished, I'm taking the team back to Talorn. It's not the mines, but it should be sufficient. We'll spend a few days in the mines, in an area past where they should be. Forced growth for greater stats over other things.
Zack, Big Flame's voice enters my head.
"Go away," I grumble, upset that they won't let me train. Big S really did threaten to pull me into his temple and sit on me until my rest period was over. "I don't want to talk with you."
Nik is coming, he tells me. Prepare for a trip.
"I'm not going anywhere," I look back down, at the book I'd been reading. I open it back up. "I'm studying."
Runic magic.
I might not know who the brothers of the vision are, but that doesn't mean I can't do stuff on my own. Prophecies cannot be subverted, but visions can. The brothers won't be the ones to end this war, no matter what. I will be. I will make sure of it. I will kill Alexander myself, I will give the Crystals happiness.
I will protect reality and everyone else.
And runic magic will help me. Though I'm not allowed to train, I'm still allowed to prepare, and an idea came to me. Runic magics can be just as powerful as a Skill, even if they cost more. They might even be more powerful than a related Skill. I can make a fireball that has five times as much magical power as my Fireball Skill. All I need to do is adjust the runes, take the extra time, put in a little extra mana, and viola!
So a thought came to me yesterday, a little after seeing Luca and them with Su'Numar.
What if I did that against the Dragon? I probably wouldn't be able to kill it, but it might be enough to chase it away. Then I'd focus on trapping the Flame Slime King. With runic magics, it might just be possible. Thinking about what Braden wants to learn for his final Tier of Elementalist made me think of it.
Water Prison. I already know the basics behind it, even if I haven't used it. Now I need to translate that into runes. Depending on the runes used, I might be able to create a water prison ten to twenty times as powerful as a maxed-out Water Prison.
As with Nathan's incineration in Kaelmar, after the slaughter by the Dark Knight Avatar of the Shadow of Life, it will take me time to use. Time, and a lot of mana. As long as I have enough Mana Potions, all should be well. I don't have Nathan's monstrous pool, and this is something on a far, far greater level than that runic spell.
Even if I'm exhausted after the Dragon, all I'll need to do is drink mana potions over and over as I create the prison, then cast it down. The other King Monsters might be able to brute-force their way through it, but until the runes fade, the Flame Slime King would be trapped. Any attempt at leaving would hurt it.
That would allow people who aren't exhausted from chasing off a Dragon time to fight it. Time to whittle away at it, bit by bit, until it finally dies.
Zack, Big Flame says. Did you miss the part where I said 'trip'? Nik is taking you somewhere. To fight.
"Fight?" I ask. "I thought I'm on a mandated rest? Plus, I'm studying."
"That won't work," Nik says, and I look at him. He's holding papers. "Big Flame told me about your plan, after he realized what you were looking into. Not the part about the dragon, but the part about the Flame Slime King."
"You don't know-"
"It's been tried before," he drops the papers in front of me. "Against the Earth Slime King. Air magics are extra-effective against it, so research was put into learning how to create an Air Prison with runes rather than using the Skill."
I look at the papers he gave me. The full details of the runes necessary for the runic spell of an air prison. It goes beyond just what I've found so far, with runes I've never seen involved. I knew they already knew that each type of slime had its own King Monster, but I never thought they'd actually tried to fight one before, especially as Nik had told me no one's ever succeed in killing a King Monster.
"We were able to create an air prison," he tells me as I examine the notes. "Worth 100,000 Intellect. That was more than twenty times what anyone had at the time, and is still more than ten times what Normar has – and he has more than anyone in the Boundary."
"It was ineffective?"
"It simply sat there and attacked us through it," he says. "In order for us to be able to attack it, we had to have gaps in the prison spell. They all do. The moment the prison formed, the Earth Slime King stopped moving and just attacked us through it. We did no damage to it.
"One of the big issues with Slime King Monsters," he says. "Is their ooze. While we can destroy it, just like with regular slime monsters, it's not very damaging to the slime itself, and they recover quickly. We must damage its core unless we're doing massive attacks that take out a huge chunk of ooze. And Slime King Monsters can use a Skill to rapidly regenerate their ooze – thus negating any damage inflicted upon them through it. The only thing we can really do to damage them is attack any of their cores, but we've never really succeeded in that before. With their high Willpowers, it's tough just to get an attack near those."
Alexander has always used the same two King Monsters because no one's ever managed to kill one before. But with the realization we can handle ones like them, he's moved another one towards us. One that's of a style we probably can't handle. It would take a hella powerful attack just to chance actually hurting it, and that would tie up our most powerful mages… if they even managed to hurt it in the first place.
It must have taken him a lot to convince it to join the battle, but that one change is the most troubling of them all. Even if I manage to deter the Dragon, it seems that we'd still be stuck. The Flame Slime King will get in our way. And with its powerful fires, it can simply burn through us. It would take a lot of Barriers overlapping to deal with it. From a lot of powerful mages.
So we need to formulate a plan to stop it from even getting near Maelnor during the battle itself. If we can stall it or trap it or-
"Zack," Nik interrupts my thoughts. "Come on. Prepare yourself, we're heading out for a trip for a kill."
"But the-"
"Big Flame authorized it," he says. "He says that you're as rested as you'll be right now. He also knows your plans, and after our meeting earlier-"
"What meeting?" I ask. "Aren't I supposed to be-"
"It was to discuss you," he tells me. "We're taking you to the Valley of Power."
The Valley of Power? I've never heard of it.
"It's a place," he tells me. "Full of monsters more powerful than others. Special Monsters. Other than you, every Adventurer over Level 175 has trained there at least once. I visit it for a month every summer. For me, that is up to five Levels, due to recovery and such. It's harsh training, it's dangerous training, and it's powerful training. In the time up to the battle, you won't be getting much training in. So I am taking you to the Valley of Power until you leave for Talorn."
"But my team-" I interrupt him.
"Will be fine," he interrupts me. "I promise, Zack. We never thought to take you to the Valley of Power because of how rapidly you grow. Because of how soon the battle is going to be, you plan on giving up all future training to ensure your team gets stronger, and you know you won't be training as much once you begin exploring. For two days, maybe three, we will be there. I'll be training as well."
"What kind of monsters are in it?" I ask. "Things like the Ice Lord?"
"And various other Special Monsters," he nods. "As I said – strong things, including Bounty Beast versions of them. These two or three days should be enough to make up for the time you'll lose focusing on your team."
With the same 'effect'. That is, rapid growth with little practical experience. But I'm a demigod who already has plenty of skills. A Son of Existence.
"Alright," I close the tome, then hand him the papers back. "What do I need?"
After a few minutes of preparation, Nik and I head out, and when we leave the Dark Temple to use the sigil to warp to the Valley of Power, we find Max standing on it.
"Eep!" He exclaims. "You not see me!"
He disappears, and Nik and I look at each other.
"Either he just went to the mines," I say. "Or he went to Talorn."
"Probably," Nik snorts. "He'll be fine."
"I know," I sigh.
Seeing them yesterday reminded me that my team is powerful in their own ways. Even Luca is a formidable foe, now that he has actual attacks. They don't need me to watch them at every moment, as much as I want to. Yesterday's event only reinforces to me why I want to, but… it also serves as a reminder of why I shouldn't. They need to learn from their mistakes and stuff.
As Nik and I step onto the sigil, I can't help but wonder why everyone is out here if the Valley of Power is a better place to train for stronger Adventurers.