Felix crept through the cave and finally managed to spot some kind of creature. Luckily, it appeared to be sleeping.
[E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 51)
The creature was hard to make out as it was dark in the cave and it appeared to be almost entirely black. Felix decided to get a few free shots off before he cast Light so he could get some free damage. He walked around to find himself a good vantage point on a rock formation a decent distance away and fired off his first volley.
Three Fire Bolts shot out from around Felix, all three of them thrice sized, at the lumbering black form he had identified as a Gralgore. As soon as he had released the spells, he started casting Light so he was less blind. As the Fire Bolts flew, just before they struck home, they illuminated its form.
The Gralgore was covered in black fur with two sets of sharp horns, two on its head and two extending out from it's jaw. It's body looked like either a giant furry lizard or a short legged bull with long fur. Overall it was about twice the size of a large bull in overall mass.
The Fire Bolt's struck it in the side startling it. The Gralgore quickly rose to it's feet and turned towards Felix then immediately charged with no warning. It struck the rock formation Felix was crouched on top of and caused it to break in half and fall over.
How the hell is it that strong? That rock formation was as thick as I am tall, fucking hell.
Felix found himself falling to the ground, away from the Gralgore which seemed to be recovering from it's charge. Felix quickly cast Feather Fall on himself causing the rest of the rock formation to fall to the ground. Slowly floating to the ground, Felix had a clear line of sight to the Gralgore. Feather Fall was draining slowly his mana and the Fire Bolts had cost a ridiculous amount when he upsized them so he was starting to risk running out of mana. Currently he was sitting at about 65%.
Felix shot another Fire Bolt, the same size as the last ones, into the Gralgore's head, as he fell. The Fire Bolt struck the Gralgore as it was backing up, which seemed to really anger it. It looked around then charged forwards. Instead of going straight as Felix expected, this time it turned to the right and started to run away.
Son of a bitch.
Felix cast jump with far more mana than he should have and rocketed himself forwards, towards the fleeing Gralgore, at an angle. He cast another three Fire Bolts at triple size and fired them at the creature. Aiming at a moving target was difficult, aiming at a moving target while rocketing through the air was almost impossible so, Felix missed every shot. He waited till he was close to the ground to cast Feather Fall again as he now had less than 10% of his mana left.
Seriously? It ran away? That is annoying as shit. Maybe this is a level 50 thing. The Scorpions never had a chance to run, maybe they would have if I didn't kill them so quickly. Now I have to start thinking about executing things, ugh. Oh man I really hope the world bosses are exempt from this. I do not want to run around the desert chasing a giant worm.
Felix found himself a much bigger rock formation to sit on and drained some Mana Batteries while meditating. As soon as his mana was full, which was only a few minutes with batteries, Felix began hunting for the Gralgore.
He walked in the direction it had run and channeled a Light spell above his head. He weaved through the rock formations ready at any moment for the Gralgore to pop out and charge him.
I am 100% certain that charge will pancake my ass whether or not I use Mana Shield. I am kind of worried I'm going to find it cowering in a corner or something, not sure I have the stomach to kill something when it's like that.
Felix walked around some rocks and spotted the Gralgore. It was casually walking around as if it hadn't almost been killed just a few minutes ago. Felix lobbed three Fire Bolts at it, luckily it was barely moving and it looked almost like it was grazing. Felix's Fire Bolts were only twice sized this time as he was worried about running out of mana again, even if it would do less damage up front, it would be more mana efficient.
The three Fire Bolts struck it in the side and it, just as before, jumped up and immediately charged in Felix's direction.
The hell, how did you not die? Why would you run away if you had that much health left? Wait a second…
[E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 50)
This is a completely different one. Sack of shit.
Felix had positioned himself on top of a much thicker rock formation this time, so thick it was essentially part of the cave structure itself. The new Gralgore struck the wall and caused it to reverberate under Felix's feet. The reverberations threw Felix off balance and knocked two of the Fire Bolts he had fired off target. Luckily, the third had just barely hit the Gralgore on it's hind leg.
Felix caught himself and quickly cast two double size Fire Bolt turrets. At the same time, he cast a series of individual Fire Bolts and was ready at any moment to switch them out for something defensive if need be. He managed to hit about three shots from each turret when the Gralgore started to stumble away.
Not this time.
Felix fired off as many Fire Bolts as he could in it's direction, not wanting to risk another one of them getting away.
Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 50)
Thank System. I was worried maybe they started running when they still had half of their health left. Still have that first one that got away.
Felix continued scouring the cave and specifically avoided where the felt the staff was. He didn't want one of these things charging him from behind when he went to retrieve it. Felix managed to find two more Gralgore, one which he thought was the one that got away as it was also level 51, but it was not. The other was level 52 and Felix baited it into charging into a wall then prepared himself to pepper it with Fire Bolts. As he was about to hit it he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a Gralgore charging at him from behind.
He felt pretty safe being a couple meters off the ground on a very thick formations until the Gralgore leapt into the air. Felix panicked and dove to the side while instinctively redirecting his Fire Bolts at it. He managed to hit it with a single shot.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 51)
Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster
Oh you sneaky son of a bitch.
The corpse of the Gralgore was hanging off the wall where Felix once stood, it's horns nailed in halfway deep. Felix quickly turned back to the level 52 Gralgore he had been fighting, who luckily hadn't tried to run away yet. Felix cast as many Fire Bolts as he could at the biggest size he could manage to execute it.
Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 52)
Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster
Felix sat down and meditated with batteries to restore his mana. He was so close to the staff at this point, he could feel himself fighting it for mana. It was pulling on the mana in his batteries as well as the ambient mana and Felix fought it on both fronts. It wasn't too difficult, he suspected because of the distance, but it was still noticeable.
It's like training weights. I should enchant something like that. I probably can't give it divine level mana pull, but I can place it much closer to me, and I can place multiple of them.
When he was done, Felix quickly checked his stat sheet. He hadn't done it in a while because it wasn't super relevant, he could feel himself getting stronger and that was what mattered. It was still nice to see the numbers going up though.
Ooh, I know I shouldn't, but I'm gonna put 84 free points into intelligence to get it to 400. The nice round number is just too satisfying to pass up.
Name: Felix Kade FREE 4 Level: 32 STR 49 Class: [E - Common] Caster (Lvl 47) DEX 204 Race: [E - Common] Human AGI 96 Profession: [E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 17) PER 190 Health: 823/855 VIT 57 Mana: 4000/4000 INT 400 Energy: 538/855 END 57
Looks like I gained some stats from working out. I guess energy cycling and buffing all the time upped them a little too cause all of my stats are up by a few more points than they should be. Oh well, not gonna complain about that.
Felix got up and thought about putting the Gralgore bodies in his inventory but decided against it. They didn't look like they had many useful materials and he suspected their meat would be really tough.
Felix followed the rush of mana deeper into the cave until he finally found it. He crested over a larger rock formation and saw an almost glowing ball of orange-yellow light. Attached to the ball was a long metal rod. The staff lay on the ground in the middle of a large clear area in the cave, the first cleared area Felix had seen. Circling around the staff, as if guarding it, was another Gralgore.
[E - Rare] Alpha Gralgore (Lvl 59)
Oh lovely.
Felix didn't have much to work with if he wanted to bait it's charge into something like he had with the others, considering the entire area around it was cleared out. From where Felix was standing, his accuracy would be mediocre at best but he definitely wasn't going to get on the same level as the Alpha Gralgore and let it charge him.
He decided he would just go for it. Felix cast two double sized Fire Bolt turrets and at the time, repeatedly cast one regular Fire Bolt, also double sized. He showered Fire Bolts of different sizes down on the Alpha Gralgore who, as soon as it noticed the first one flying, jumped between Felix and the staff to protect it. Felix figured he was only hitting the Gralgore with about a quarter of the Fire Bolts he fired, but most of them were head shots. Although he wasn't sure if head shots were doing any extra damage against a creature that used it's head to attack.
After taking a barrage of small Fire Bolts, the Alpha Gralgore decided to change tactics. It turned around, grabbed the staff in it's mouth and started running in circles.
Really? This is just annoying. How am I supposed to hit this thing now? Maybe I can probably hit it with Mana Bolt cause that spell is so fast, but it does a lot less damage.
Felix started tracking the Gralgore as it dodged and weaved then cast a triple sized Mana Bolt where he thought it would be. He missed on his first attempt but managed to hit it thrice consecutively right afterwards. He missed his fifth shot but managed to hit his sixth, and last, Mana Bolt before the Alpha Gralgore panicked and started running.
Apparently, this was a dead end in the cave because the Gralgore started running, with the staff still in it's mouth, in Felix's direction, but not at Felix. Felix fired off three double sized Fire Bolts as it ran but only managed to hit it with one of them, leaving him with just 40 mana left in his pool.
Felix repeatedly cast half sized Fire Bolts and fired them in the general direction of the Gralgore. They only cost a couple mana points each and they were overall more efficient on total damage output.
Ding You have slain an [E - Rare] Alpha Gralgore (Lvl 59)
Ding You have gained 4 levels in [E - Common] Caster
Holy shit I almost completely ran out of mana there, single digits left. Also it's crazy to me how much of a difference higher level enemies make in terms of gaining experience. I barely gained a level when those first ones were 5 levels up on me, this one was 12 up and I gained 4. I guess it makes sense considering how much harder they are to kill, especially for someone like Broxus' party, man they would all be dead.
Felix pulled out a mana battery and drained it as he stepped down from the rock formation he was standing on and walked over to the Alpha Gralgore's corpse. He picked up the slobbery staff and wiped it off on the Gralfgore's fur. The metal rod was round and silvery with tiny art engraved all over it depicting a god being worshipped and punishing people. The sphere at the end was glowing so brightly Felix couldn't look directly at it this close up.
He was curious to feel what was happening internally with the mana but unfortunately it seemed like it really was something he couldn't quite figure out. Either it was the System manually consuming mana and creating the effect or it was some other kind of spell or enchantment he didn't know about yet.
[E - Divine] The Frozen God's Mercy
A staff imbued with the everlasting mercy, towards those of the Shivering Expanse, of the one known as The Frozen God.
The climate in a very large area around the staff will always be moderate and pleasant with no rain or clouds whatsoever in the sky above.
WARNING: This item will self destruct outside of the Shivering Expanse.
That makes sense. Still a cool item, and the first divine item I've seen. How's that work, is divine better than legendary, arcane and mythic?
Felix continued to drain mana batteries, which was much more difficult with the staff in his other hand. It was doable, but much slower. Felix had to actively focus and fight the pull from the staff at all times. Once his mana pool was full, Felix began fighting the staff for the ambient mana around it. He couldn't prevent it from pulling in mana altogether, but as he practiced, he could hold larger and larger quantities back from the staff. He figured the pull of mana from an item was likely far less than that of a sentient being, which was the only reason this was possible at all. . . . . .