Short summary of the last chapter:
Spoiler :
Kretchof found a way to stabilize the food chain within the dungeon. Voice practiced getting to the point where he could meditate while flying, but failed. He did make the new Group Skill: Task Master, after fusing several skills, including one he found in that chapter, together.
Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment!
When I saw Susan, she was in a new hut, happily tending to her experiments. She was pouring some sort of black liquid on the plants near her hut. The plants seemed to like it at least.
I gently glided down, and landed behind her house. After un-equipping my ring, I went around to see her. I embraced her in a tight hug after calling her name.
“Voice! I thought I wasn’t going to see you for a while yet. How did you get here so fast?” She asked, genuinely curious.
I decided it wouldn’t hurt to tell her, so I explained bit. “Well I have a ring that enables me to glide short distances.” I gave her a brief rundown after she asked me to explain further. Basically that I got the ring after winning a bet.
“Anyway, like I said earlier, I have a gem that might interest you.” I pulled out the gem, and showed it to her. The purple fist sized gem forced a gasp out of her when she saw it.
I continued. “I don’t know what it’s worth, but I know you’ll give me a fair price. So you can have it, and I’ll take however much you think it’s worth.” Showing complete trust was the best way I could think of to get a great price.
I didn’t actually know the price of the object, but I knew that my skill told me it was worth about 50 gold. That meant it was really worth 35 to 100 gold. Players should assume to get about half of the actual price, which was a basic of games.
I would probably get a better price just from knowing Susan, and maybe if I put complete trust in her I would get an even higher one. She paused for a moment, “I have to send a message to someone really quickly,” she said.
A minute later she came to. “Alright! The jeweler said he would be willing to pay 60 gold for it, but only because you saved him and his family by defeating Davros. He said I had to say that last part.”
I gladly accepted, and the jewel promptly disappeared. In her hand appeared a bag. My inspect said it held exactly 60 pieces of gold coins in it. I accepted the bag, and thanked her.
I stayed to make some stew for us, but left right after eating a small portion for myself. The amount of food I needed was essentially zero. By using ten mana per second, I produced enough, whatever it was, from my magical metal stomach, that I didn’t need to actually eat more than one very small meal a week.
After I left I started gliding back to the gryphon’s cave. Golem had gotten me enough metal mana over the course of the last few weeks that I made an excessively large pair of feather cutters. I had them for a ‘just in case’ type of situation.
I was getting close to deciphering the plague spell, but it was so boring that I couldn’t actually concentrate on it. The more I tried to force myself, the worse it got.
When I returned, I saw the body of a large monstrous snake, an unconscious boy, and two dying gryphons. The snake had the upper body of a human woman. “I brought you the snake and the human. Please, do the ritual. I need to rest a bit. Don’t worry, I’ll be fully awake for the spell you do.”
I nodded gravely. “Alright, but there is one more thing you should know. The spell I will be casting might change your hatchling. By change I mean in both body and personality. It will still be Nightmare-Wing, but you might feel he has changed.”
The mother gryphon was too drowsy to reply. Why? It might have to do with the fact that it just fought a seemingly difficult battle with a giant snake woman. It also might have had something to do with the fact that I started using the opposite version of the awakening buff on the mother and baby gryphon.
The mother, drained of energy after the life or death struggle couldn’t beat the feeling of relaxation and drowsiness together. The baby gryphon mainly just slept all of the time anyway.
I used the giant clippers to chop off a small portion of feathers from the mother gryphon, and made a tiny cut on her arm. After collecting a small vial of blood, I allowed it to be healed. Then I began to inspect the mother gryphon’s body.
I wanted to dissect it, but I had bigger plans. I had a higher chance of curing the younger gryphon, than killing it at least. So my chances of gaining a powerful ally was high. I had a good chance of getting much higher rewards than just dissecting one monster.
Alright, Ancestor. Let’s get to this.
“I am examining them now.”
I still wanted the extra damage bonus though. I had Ancestor take control of inspect, and start examining the bodies of both gryphons. I might not get any intel for inspect, but I’d still get something.
Once focusing on the gryphons Ancestor showed me the small red lines that occasionally wound around their bodies. By gently cutting them I got a large percentage of the dissection up.
Well I got 20% before the mother gryphon began to seem like she was going to stir. I decided that was enough for that moment of time.
After that I began my preparations for the last little fun I was going to have with the mother gryphon. I created a large empty stone container. It only took half an hour to make it strong enough. After that I began to dissect the giant Lamia. Ancestor helped to expatiate that endeavor.
With Ancestor’s help I gained several times more dissection percentage than I did with the human merchant that time in Rand. The bucket was for the important parts of the Lamia. One large portion was for the organs, there was also about a quarter of it made into a compartment for the blood.
After I dissected the snake I took its heart. Just in case Gaia or one of the gryphons were watching I had to do something ritual like.
As I crushed the heart I infused it with as much mana as it could hold. I imagined the heart absorbing darkness mana, and converting it into light mana. I imagined it absorbing light mana and turning it into darkness mana.
The same with every mana type. Whichever type of mana it touched, was converted into the opposite type. It was an ingenious way to actually break the enchantment.
Unfortunately it didn’t work out the way I hoped it would. It began relentlessly absorbing all mana types around it, including mine. It then shot out the opposite mana type in every direction. I sighed as I encased it in dark fire mana to destroy it.
That didn’t even work as it only made it produce holy water. It was absorbing about 100 mana a second from me. There was no way I could let this thing get known. It was a mage’s worst nightmare.
Luckily I thought up a way to dispose of the mistake. I created a massive hole in the ground.
I threw the thing down the hole, which I ended with a giant empty chamber. I felt small amounts of wind escaping the hole. I sealed the entire hole, except the chamber, up.
Even if it turned the stone into air, it would turn the air into stone again a moment later. That way it should be undetectable. The cycles would continue forever, and hopefully cancel each other out.
Kretchof’s POV
I had the tunnelers digging towards Master’s cave. The Gryphons he was tending to would make excellent additions to his dungeon. I made sure to give exact instructions to dig only as high as a few hundred meters below Master. That way he wouldn’t be burdened with having a dungeon right beside him at all times.
After digging for a while they had to stop. They had made it as close as I allowed, so couldn’t dig any higher. Something strange happened two days after they stopped digging. Master made a huge hole in the ground, and dropped a magical artifact down it.
It was just like Master to know that I had my minions dig his dungeon below him, even without me telling him. I aspired to be even a fraction as clever as he was. Taking it as a sign that the artifact was to be placed in the dungeon, I had my undead bring it to me.
They were instantly purified after holding onto the thing. I watched through their eyes as the mana sustaining their bodies turned from dark to light. Their souls were released from my grasp, and ascended. Master gave me a tricky prize to work with.
I sent a few more summoned undead to take it, but they all fell to the same fate. Eventually I had to send the necromancer girl to get it. In exchange I was going to let her make an offering to Davros. As soon as she touched it, she was blasted with several rays of light.
The light mana seemed to draw from the fact that she had such a high concentration of darkness mana in her body. Poor girl couldn’t cast much besides necromancer spells with that high amount. The lights pierced her, and she had to absorb the life-force of several monstrous rodents just to keep from dying.
When she finally did manage to get it all the way to the throne room, she had lost a total of 5468% of her health. The artifact was truly powerful. Once she did I encased it stone, only to have the stone turn to wind. It then changed the wind around it into earth. It repeated the process for a while before I understood what it did.
It somehow converted the material world into the opposite element. The only way to stop something as quick as that, was to encase it in so much stone that it couldn’t turn it all to wind before changing it back. I had the dwarves carve a room to put it into. It was part of the boss room, so wouldn’t change with the labyrinth.
The stone was thick enough, and dense enough, that the magical heart didn’t change the entire room before changing it back. I realized before that the heart had a certain area of effect. The denser the material changed, the more of the opposite material it would make. The wind it made was so thick and powerful that it actually pushed the heart up until it chnged back into stone.
That Master would give something as powerful as this to one as unworthy as me, proved the compassion he had for his unworthy subordinates. I could only think with awe on Master’s generosity. The only way to store this thing would be to put it into a
Voice’s POV
With that failure I only had one real plan that would give me any chance of actual success. I used my Forced Evolution ability on the baby gryphon.
Alright you little shit head. It’s time to get serious. Last time I did this I made a blood slime. This time I’m going to try experimenting a little.
I wanted information on the ability, but since no others probably had this ability, the only way to get info on it was to use it. I had already lost about two uses of it, but now I would make sure to use it at least once a week.
I focused on the ability as if I were enchanting something. The goal in mind played as much of a part as the precise amount of mana put into an enchantment. Of course if either were off the enchantment would go awry.
Alright, let’s think this through first. Heather changed into a blood slime since she was a blood bunny and had a slime incubating in her. This guy is a gryphon, with a plague inside. SO. He might change into something like a pestilence bringer.
That’s no joke. If I had that on my head, both Mar and Gaia would hate me. Might get a lot of points with Davros though. One for two? Not worth it.
Alright then. What if I tried concentrating on the massive amount of healing the thing’s been getting recently. Hmmm. That might make it weaker though. OK no to the healing. Too risky.
I need to make something powerful. That way I can get info to make an eventual army of evolved monsters.
I decided to focus on a combination of the healing properties, and the recovery of the plague. I activated my ability.
Nightmare-Wing is a High-Class Gryphon. The Evolution Tree for High-Class Gryphons has been unlocked!
Nightmare-Wing has a powerful disease! The disease has been incorporated into Nightmare-Wing’s evolution.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
The gryphon’s feathers started to glow. It seemed to be drawing in light mana. The wings, and all of the feathers took on a silver hue. The fur on the hind quarters turned into a deep golden color.
Congratulations! Nightmare-Wing has evolved into a Royal-Class Hyper Healer Gryphon!
Royal-Class Gryphons have a unique Racial Ability to command all other avian, or felines in a designated area. Gryphons have the Racial Trait: Majestic Bird of Prey. A Gryphon can instill fear and respect in even those it hunts, while also being undetected by most of its prey.
Royal-Class Hyper Healer Gryphons have a unique Racial Ability to instantly heal itself, and any feline or avian in its command. A single call from the Royal-Class Hyper Healer Gryphon will restore 10% maximum health, and 25% maximum stamina to all of its subordinates.
You have caused an ability to evolve. Forced Evolution has been forced to evolve. Forced Evolution will no longer be random if there is an intent, and a possible evolution plotted for it to take.
Forced Evolution
You can force evolution in any being that can evolve. You will be unable to choose the evolution. The evolution can be chosen based on the current path that monster or animal is taking.
If the being to be evolved does not meet the requirements, the evolutionary abilities will be restricted.
This ability has no cost, but has a one week (in game) Cooldown.
For curing an ailing baby monsteroid, you have gained 10 compassion.
Well that went better than expected. I honestly thought I’d have to run after doing this.
I felt the massive amount of energy flowing from the newly formed gryphon. Its body looked much the same, except for the change in color.
After upgrading the gryphon, I left for my journey. I didn’t have to use the clippers on either of them, that was a plus. Regardless of how much of a pain this whole situation was I still wanted to keep anything that could aide me. Including having two gryphons owe me.
I jumped out of the cave. I enjoyed the feeling of the wind rushing past my face. Just before hitting the tree line I equipped the ring and sent a burst of wind at myself. I was thrown several hundred feet into the air.
I used my mana sparingly, to fly over the forest watching for other encampments of players. With SparrowHawk’s and Eli’s help I found the locations of a large amount of the groups that were left, maybe all of them that were left.
SparrowHawk and I scouted from the sky, and Eli scouted from underground. The vibrations in the earth worked for Eli similar to echolocation.
After scouting out the area I picked a fairly open, and more importantly empty, space. The trees around it were just dense enough to hide most of the area. It even came with a natural spring. Great for rinsing off the stress of babysitting a gryphon for so long.
The thought of taking the gryphon with me had occurred, but I had a bad experience with pets, and couldn’t tame it with the tamer class. The only solution would be to make the thing want to come with me, but that kind of manipulation was tricky.
One could easily change their tune after witnessing something they don’t approve of. Watching what I do at all times was already hard enough. I didn’t want to burden myself with even more responsibility.
So I decided to leave the thing alone for now. I might get it later though. Either way I had an interesting idea. The stronger groups seemed to not take my bait for some reason. I only gained a few points over the time I cared for Nightmare-Wing.
I had to lure out the stronger teams somehow. My thoughts turned instantly towards ShortDwarf. He was by far the strongest player. The thing he craved more than anything? EXP and items.
I started work on a new, much easier, enchantment. I took several nearby stones, and began to infuse them with wind mana. They would produce an exact wave of wind mana every few minutes.
The problem with this type of enchantment was that it permanently took out a chunk of my mana, until I released the enchantment. So I couldn’t cast anything if I made too many.
Still I did what I had to do. I spent about an hour analyzing the wind mana fluctuations created by what I wanted to say.
After making sure I had it perfect, I mass-enchanted the stones Eli and I had gathered. The other fairies were doing what they always do when we move locations.
I gave several stones to both Eli, Moro, and SparrowHawk. They were responsible for making sure the different groups got the stones.
The stones let out a wave of wind mana while I was preparing them. “Voice0fReason has entered into an impossibly difficult dungeon. Follow if you dare.”
Over and over the enchantment would activate. Technically they could continue forever since I made the enchantment, but I was only going to have them go for about a day.
I had made 20 of the stones. Each one took 100 mana. Not bad for message stones. I could have probably made it so they only play in front of certain mana signatures I found in people too. The possibilities were very high.
After the stones were made, I began to experiment on the idea I had struck upon. I adulated the wind mana, making the frequency higher or lower depending on the speed of the wind mana wave I made.
This is a pretty good idea. I can change my voice WAY more easily with this. Forget changing sexes or barely changing my race, I could be a totally different race!
I excitedly made my voice extremely low pitched, and rumbling. “Hellloooo.” I sound like a freaking gaint! I was understandably excited to get this new ability.
By making a small wind filter in front of my mouth it worked almost identically to a voice modulator.
For practicing with your wind mana manipulation you have gained the ‘Voice Change’ Spell.
Voice* Change
You can change the voice of anything within a ten meter range.
You can change the voice of the target by as much as the wind mana will allow.
This spell costs 25 mana per second.
*Verbal voice, not player Voice.
I had fun toying with the spell. I made my voice sound like Kretchof’s, and even Sol’s. Although I felt angered and annoyed when I sounded like Sol. I ended up canceling the spell after that.
I sent an order to Kretchof to connect a tunnel to me. Somehow he managed to do it overnight. Now THAT’S efficiency. When I woke up to be informed of that fact, that was the first thought to cross my mind.
I created a small cave entrance type thing around the tunnel. It was at the perfect angle to walk down. It seemed as thought it went straight forward. Oddly it went in the direction of the gryphon’s cave. Not that it mattered much.
The tunnel connected to the underground labyrinth, so I would just have to go inside, and wait for up to a week for escape to be basically impossible for the people that entered.
After that I activated the secondary enchantment on the stones, telling those that had been listening the exact location of the cave system entrance. If an unexplored, possibly high level, dungeon didn’t get the blood of the powerful ones boiling, then they didn’t matter anyway.
I dived into the dungeon, knowing that Kretchof would be able to at least put up a token defense as I prepared myself.
*Attention*
An update has occurred to the dungeon.
Changes in dungeons will be nullified after all players and non-dungeon-living NPCs leave the dungeon.
Labyrinth Dungeons will revert changes when they change form.
Any tunnels that are being dug at the time of the change will remain until completed or abandoned.
With that I opened the map of the dungeon, and went on my way to Kretchof’s boss chamber.
Spoiler :
Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassMana EnchanterLevel 45Health: 100Mana: 2980[4172]Stamina: 350Current Title: SurgeonHealth Regen: 1/sMana Regen: 25(20)/sStamina Regen: 5.1/sStrength52Agility50Wisdom250Intelligence298Endurance51Dexterity50Luck0Vitality50Charisma35Compassion105Leadership66Logic22Piety89Unused Stat Points0Fame1535
Skills WindowSpeed Reading Novice Level 9 Exp 00.00%
Auto Read Novice Level 20 Exp 50.00%Group Skill: Key to Self-Sustained Alchemy Apprentice Level 40 Exp 00.00%
Group Skill: Long Distance Inspection Expert Level 75 Exp 00.00%
Group Skill: Automatic Nursing Novice Level 20 Exp 00.00%
Group Skill: Con Artist Novice Level 21 Exp 5.01%
Group Skill: Magical Mastery Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%
Group Skill: Skill Mastery Adept Level 50 Exp 21.23%
Group Skill: Tactical Survival Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%
Group Skill: Tactical Combat Training Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%
Group Skill: Breakdown Novice Level 12 Exp 46.64%
Group Skill: Harvesting Mastery Novice Level 5 Exp 60.43%
Group Skill: Crafting Mastery Novice Level 5 Exp 00%
Group Skill: Body Enhancement Adept
Group Skill: Task Master Novice Level 12 Exp 13.45%
Affinities WindowLight70%Water75%Wind25%Nature75%Metal50%Earth45%Fire25%Darkness100%