*Slip*Thonk*Clunk*
"GOD DAMNIT! WHY IS EVERY STAIRCASE SO SLIPPERY?!!"
Something akin to the mucus from a snail was pasted all over the staircase that led to the second level, easily causing anyone that heedlessly rushed down to fall and slip upon it. Since we had all hurried down to stop Jaden from killing himself, we had unfortunately fallen victim to the substance and had wound up in a pile on top of each other at the bottom of the staircase.
"GET OFF, YOU MORONS! HE’S GETTING AWAY!" I tossed everybody off my back.
Unfortunately, Jaden had already rushed ahead and was now stuck in the middle of a horde of tiny Demons, as he kept swinging his chipped mace from left to right while trying to keep them at bay. Even though it had been rather damaged, the mace still seemed to do the extra damage to Demons, and Jaden was still plowing his way through the Hellbound quite rapidly. Unfortunately, he was also taking quite a lot of minor hits, as he was now leaving a trail of dripping blood on the floor behind him.
There was no way that he would be able to keep this up for too long.
I would be lying if I told you that I never thought about simply leaving the moron-group on their own, and just let nature take its course. I thought about walking away and laughing my ass off as both Jaden and Jin proceeded to win the Darwin Awards in front of me that they seemed to covet so much on OH so many occasions. But sadly, there were two things that prevented me from doing that.
First, I was worried that if Jaden kicked the bucket, the whole current narrative would be written off as a failure and the Ancient Evil would get unleashed by the Mother System, as “Dear Momma” would simply proceed to push the story onto the next “arc” which would probably require the gathering a whole bunch of other “Heroes” in the same place with the purpose of slaying the freshly-loose Evil, and I did not want to see that happen. For the moment though, we were still somewhat within the confines of the “old” plagiarized narrative, and I did not think that the Ancient Evil would get released from below the Monastery for the time being, at least not before Jaden got down there to face it.
And as far as Jin was concerned, even though I had wanted to personally feed him to the demons a couple of times already and I had a grudge against him for all the stupid shit he had done in the past, I still simply couldn't leave him to kill himself, as I still valued human life more than my own mental comfort. As they say, hope dies last, and I was still hoping that he would come around and start acting like a proper Hero, no matter how slim of a chance that might have been.
Truth to be told, even though I was complaining about Jin quite a lot, it was obvious that he had improved his battle awareness by a decent amount and was actively trying to work TOGETHER with us instead of just going solo at it, but that did not mean that he was actually succeeding at the whole endeavour. I most certainly had been forced to dodge-roll away from the path of his flames a bunch of times, as he had pointed them in the wrong direction and had almost set me aflame by mistake quite oftenly.
Because of the general slip-up at the stairs, we had been delayed for long enough that Jaden had dashed out of reach, even though we could still visually see him. His fighting noises had alerted the Dungeon mobs from the left and right of the current hallway, and those had come rushing towards our group instead of going straight for him, forcing us to fight them instead. Basically, we were getting blocked-off by random screaming mobs, and were unable to stop him properly.
Shouting at him seemed to do nothing, as he was stubborn as a mule in the first place. The best I was able to do for the moment was to toss my Regen spell on him, since it was a ranged cast and I could still reach him with it, but he was still taking more damage than my spell was able to heal.
Mired in a sea of small demon bodies and feral blood rabbits, we were all whacking the beasts left and right, but more and more kept on coming. The fact that we were in a long hallway with many doors on the sides and that Jaden just kept on mindlessly going forwards down the corridor did not help either. God damn Rambo-complex aggro puller! I even tried to simply put an arrow through one of his legs to stop him, but every time I had managed to get a shot lined up, a demon would stupidly jump in the way and eat the arrow instead, or Jaden would simply jerk himself off-target in his melee flurry and cause me to miss.
And I immediately realized why this was happening. Mother System was really eager to see us engage in the Boss fight, even though I wanted to avoid it like the plague. Right at the end of the long hallway we could now see a large enclosed cubic room that seemed to be isolated from the rest, and had only one door to access it.
"CRAP! JADEN, DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE OPEN THAT DOOR!"
*Screeek*Rusty door hinge open*
"NOOO!" I screamed in panic. Except that instead of the expected big-ass demon with a cleaver, I spotted something entirely different in the room.
Bent down over the body of what had probably been one of the magisterial guards, based on the silk clothing and armour that it still had on, a strange creature was currently peeling an entire strip of flesh from the corpse, creating an entire skin-lace out of the resulting meat-string.
The moment I saw it, I instantly realised that this horrible creature was meant to specifically target the sensitivities of Players who had retained their memories.
A creature most foul, it looked like a rainbow-skinned Thai transvestite demon-prostitute dressed in a super-skimpy Nekomimi Maid outfit, ears and tail included. As it turned around and smiled at us, I could also see a Freddy Mercury moustache above a pair of huge red-luscious lips that looked like a botched plastic surgery job because of how exaggeratingly-big they were, and I could feel a shiver go down my spine!
[https://i.imgur.com/Jbtub8h.gif]
"Ahh! Fresshu meeto! Okaerinasaimase, Goshujinsama! (Welcome back, Master)" *Maid Bow* The Demon performed a curtsy as it saw Jaden gaping at the bodies of his missing magisterial guardsmen that had been impaled or pinned to the walls all over the insides of the room.
I instantly felt a wave of unknown magic take hold of me right as we were finishing the last batch of small demons in the hallway, signaling the start of the Boss encounter that I had dreaded so much.
Timmy: The Smoocher has inflicted [Humanoid Seduction Technique Nr.9001] upon you!
Description:
Affected targets have a 50% chance to forget whatever they were doing and solely focus on the caster.
"Okaerinasai, anata! Gohan wo taberu? Ofuro ni suru? Soretomo, wa. ta. shi? (Welcome home, dear! Would you like dinner? A bath? Or perhaps...me?)"
"YES!" I could see Jaden’s eyes go blank, as he approached the sexy-posing rainbow Demon and grabbed its hand.
"AHH! Ecchi! Hentai!" The Demon pretended to be startled by the grab as it pulled itself free.
[https://i.imgur.com/QnoFZuz.jpg]
Timmy: The Smoocher has inflicted [Landwhale Feminism] upon you!
Description:
All males will take 50% increased damage from all attacks. If you are female, you have a 50% chance to hit your male Team-mates with your own attacks!
"B...Baka!" The demon shied away, before returning and planting a huge kiss on Jaden’s face.
*Smooch*
[https://i.imgur.com/7NMnuXH.gif]
Timmy: WARNING!
Timmy: The Smoocher is currently casting [Lifedrain] on Jaden.
Timmy: Interrupt it NOW!
"FUCK!"
*Boot to the head*
[https://i.imgur.com/d04g84R.gif]
I immediately drop-kicked the Demon, interrupting its suction-action on Jaden’s face.
"Ā! Dakara anata wa kodomo-tachi ga arappoku asobita gatte imasu! Rafuda ne! (Ah! So you kids want to play rough! I like it rough!)" Yelled the creature as it picked itself back up from the floor.
Timmy: WARNING!
Timmy: The Smoocher has inflicted [Political Correctness] upon you!
Description:
The closer you are to Lawful Good alignment, the longer you will become paralysed by indecision. You will hear the screams of countless SJW's in your mind if you perform any more offensive action against the caster, and you will take equal magic damage to the number of protesters if you continue to do so.
ARGH! Indeed, a horrible debuff! If I were to hit it again, it would count as bashing a gay transgender otaku weeb furry cosplayer of color, since the damn thing had EVERY color in its rainbow-skin, and I would get obliterated by the SJW magic blowback!
"Oh my gods! It tried to suck everything out of me!" Jaden gasped as he returned back to reality.
"Be careful! That's not a woman! It’s a TRAP!"
[https://i.imgur.com/6SbMUtN.gif]
"But it has boobs!"
[https://i.imgur.com/vcca34G.gif]
"Hehehe!" *Heart*
[https://i.imgur.com/FzYsavN.gif]
*Blowkiss*
[https://i.imgur.com/GUb4V56.gif]
"MoshiMoshi, watashi wa kawaii desu!"
Timmy: The Smoocher has inflicted [Confused Sexuality] upon you.
Description:
Your mental dickrection is now confus. Chance to hit with all attacks reduced by 50%.
"It also has a Shlong, you dumbass!" I yelled back at Jaden while pointing at the bulge in the Demon’s pantsu.
[https://i.imgur.com/mJFFquJ.gif]
"Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Ye!
Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Ye!
Watashi wa sekushī de, anata wa sore o shitte imasu!
(I'm sexy and you know it!)"
[https://i.imgur.com/c5I2VVl.gif]
Timmy: The Smoocher has inflicted [Epeen Intimidation] upon you.
Description:
Your Epeen now feels inadequate. Damage with all attacks reduced by 50%.
Swing*Swipe*Miss*Miss*
"Graargh! Stop dodging so much, hellspawn!" Jaden began to wildly swing his mace in the direction of the Demon, only to have it dance between his attacks like they weren’t even there.
*Yoink*Plop*
"Aha! I got its tail!" Jin suddenly yelled in victory as he waved around a conical item that was still attached to a bushy cat-tail.
"That's not a tail you cretin, that's a buttplug!"
[https://i.imgur.com/HOAGNuP.jpg]
"EH? EEEHH?!! EEEEEWWWW, DISGUSTING!" Jin immediately tossed the guilty item aside.
"Giggle! Hehe! Motto asonde! (Let’s play more!)"
Timmy: The Smoocher has inflicted the [Grossed Out] debuff upon you.
Description.
50% chance that any action you will take from now on will also cause you to vomit.
GODS DAMMIT! We were getting destroyed! The Demon was a walking debuff factory! I had to do something fast, but what? If I were to hit it, I would get SJW’d to death!
*Dance!*Dance!*Pirouette!*Shlorp!*
Timmy: The Smoocher has inflicted [Spawn More Overlords] upon you.
Description:
The smoocher has laid his eggs upon you. You are now overburdened, reducing your movement speed by 50 %, and you will begin to suffer from skin pustules that will give birth to juvenile Hellbound imps if not dispelled within 5 mins.
Timmy: Kill it before it can lay any more eggs and debuffs upon you!
"OK, THAT IS FUCKING IT!" I immediately raged.
"Fuck you, you stupid asshole! You can't affect me with any of that shit!" I yanked the Sanctified mace away from Jaden’s hands.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"I have been confused enough about my own sexuality ever since I have arrived on this planet, even without your crappy debuffs! And Demons are asexual beings, so caving your head in won't count as a gay bashing! You are an evil mockery of both straight and rainbow folk alike! Die, motherfucker!"
Timmy: Through a willpower check, you have forcefully dispelled the debuffs affecting you! You have also removed the [Political Correctness] debuff from your team-mates as they have also realized it does not apply to this creature.
*RAAARGH!*THUD!*THROSK!*TWHUMP!*BANG!*SMASH!*
[https://i.imgur.com/MJkhYeU.gif]
Timmy: Your Bludgeon damage has stunned The Smoocher for 10 seconds.
Seeing the Demon reel back in pain at the unexpected damage it had received, I went into bullet-time mode and I browsed through my ring for a bottle of disinfectant-alcohol which I was still carrying with me. I then retrieved the item in my hands and I smashed it right into the face of the Demon.
"JIN! LIGHT IT UP!" I yelled while jumping back.
Immediately Jin’s flame-jets hit the stunned demon, and set the alcohol on fire alongside with the Demon’s flesh and clothes.
[https://i.imgur.com/7mjW7iy.gif]
"AAAAAAYEEEEAAAARGHH!" The creature finally began to howl in agony as the flames began to melt it down. I did not stop at just frying it, and I simply pulled back even more and then started pumping its body full of arrows together with Fungus. Jin simply kept roasting it with his flame jets, and Xibei was using his wand for ranged attacks as well. Even Liliam was tossing rocks at the flaming body of the Demon, as it began to knock itself against the walls of the small torture room in desperation.
It took more than a minute for the damn thing to finally go down since most of my team-mates were missing a lot because of their remaining debuffs, but after it finally succumbed to the flame and the projectile damage, we all received the death notification and the XP gain prompt in our heads together with a bunch of achievements for being the first people to defeat this particular Boss of the Dungeon.
"Oh my Gods, what the hell was that thing? I'm going to have nightmares for years to come! How could such a creature even exist?" Fungus complained while wiping the vomit from his beard.
"Ah... My poor innocent little Fungus, I am going to have to tell you about the miraculous and terrifying land of Japan one of these days…"
Only after the flames on the demon had died down, did we get to have a proper look at the entire room. Strewn all over the place were the dead bodies of Jaden’s missing magisterial guards, who had been impaled from the rear on stakes or had been strapped to wooden tables then tortured, as gruesome acts of defilement had been performed upon them. Missing skin and male organs were the least of the damage done, and we had been forced to endure the visual-trauma as we pried them off from the wooden stakes and from the walls.
Jaden was a mix of rage and tears, as these had been his trusty retainers for almost all of his life.
"I swear on the Gods above that I will avenge you, my brothers!" Jaden weeped. "The Ancient Evil will die by my hands!"
"Aren’t you directing your hatred in the wrong direction there, Jaden?" I inserted myself in his line of thought. "It’s not like the Ancient Evil below is responsible for all of this. If anything, it is just as much of a victim as the rest of us. The actual culprits are the Blood Cultists that summoned all of these Demons in the first place."
"Yeah...but those people are dead already, aren’t they? I can’t do anything about them anymore."
"Maybe not about those that died down HERE, but what about whoever SENT them in the first place? THOSE other people are most certainly alive and kicking!"
"Y...You’re right!" I could see some Tetris bricks fall into place inside Jaden’s mind. "It’s the whole fucking Sect that’s to blame for all of this mess! I swear on the Emperor’s Head that I will see them all destroyed! Uprooted and killed down to the last man!"
"Good to hear that." I replied while looking at Fungus who was now massaging his neck after that Emperor’s Head remark. "But for that to happen, we must first solve the big problem below, so you’ll have to forgive me for doing this..."
I instantly maced Jaden in his kneecap, sending him sprawling down on the floor while yelling in pain.
"I know you want to find your family and slay the Ancient Evil, but rushing down there like a moron won’t help anybody. Take a break!"
"YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!"
"Exactly what I said!" I replied while stuffing both a healing and a knockout pill inside Jaden’s pain-opened mouth and forcing him to swallow them.
*GULP…*
"Eurgh..."
*THUD...ZZZ*
Well, at least he’ll be out of our hairs for a while. I thought to myself while looking at the blood-painted sleeping body of Jaden. After that, I immediately contacted Lingfeng uptop, and told him to grab a large number of Guardsmen together with Will-E, then come down here immediately as we had a bunch of bodies that we needed to haul back to the surface. The first level had been mostly cleared, and they all had a map of the maze in their hands, so it shouldn't have been too much of a problem to get down here ASAP.
After acknowledging my call, Lingfeng rushed-off to gather a whole team of Guardsmen, and we were left staring at the crisp body of the former Smoocher. The whole corpse of the demon had simply begun dissolving into ashes like the rest of its kind, but at a much faster rate than the other Hellbound, so I was able to spot a few glittering metallic items that now lay on the floor among the remains, as if the flames had not even touched them at all.
"Urgh... What the heck is that thing? It looks like a dildo!" Liliam said with a hint of disgust in her voice while pointing at the silver tube that I had just picked up from the floor.
Girl, how do you even know about such things? I berated her in my mind. Have you been using and abusing? But it was true that the metal container in my hands sort of looked like a phallic object from a distance. What it DID turn out to be in the end, was actually a scroll-holder with a few papyrus-like Spell-Scrolls stuffed inside of it, as I uncorked the metal lid to take a look inside of the tube.
When I unfurled the scrolls to gaze at the contents though, I found out that I was incapable of understanding anything that was written upon them, even with the help of my translator module. Basically, they all looked like some sort of “Lorem ipsum” placeholder text spam that I usually encountered on website-templates all over the Internet, back on Earth. Wrapping the scrolls back up and returning them to their casing, I knew that these were probably the sort of items that Lingfeng would have to look over, for us to get a proper Identification.
As I was busy fiddling with the scrolls, Fungus also kept digging into the ash pile that had been left over by The Smoocher. With a chain-link clinking noise, he suddenly pulled out from the charred remains something that looked like a set-pair of golden-chain-metal bikini bra-and-panties, as he began to shake them in my direction.
"Check this out! It even dropped a Unique-looking piece of gear. I think it might even be some sort of a Legendary item by the looks of it!" Fungus proudly waved before me the absolutely skimpy pieces of underwear together with their wavy serpentine-like designs that had been carved upon their exterior. The troublesome accessories would have caused anyone attempting to wear them to resemble some sort of an improvised Slave Leia look-alike for sure, so I mentally discarded them immediately.
"Hrrr! Wipe that smirk off your face Fungus, I am soo not wearing that, no matter how good the stats may be."
[Appraisal]
The Smoocher's Cleavage
Item Slot: Chest/Groin
Item Type: Bikini Plate-Mail Armor.
Item Material: Dwemmer Goldsteel
Item Quality: Legendary Unique
Item Defense: 25-35 Piercing, 25-45 Slashing, 25-25 Blunt
Item Durability: 3998/4000 (A.R.)
Item Modifiers:
Durability Auto-Repair: 1%/Hour - Unrecoverable Breaking-Point at 65%.
Size Auto-Adjustment
+10 Constitution
10% extra to any existing Dodge values.
Grants the following passive skills while being equipped:
[Aura of Thorns]: Return a certain percent of any damage you receive as magic damage to the attacker based on character level.
Current damage return value: n/a - Not Equipped
[Full-Body Defensive Aura]: Your Defensive statistics are spread equally all across your body, causing even the zones that have exposed skin to have the same Defensive stats as the armored regions.
Description:
Retrieved from the depths of a Dungeon by looting the body of a nightmarish Trigger Demon, this item has unusually strong statistics for such a small piece of gear. Even though it has the Defensive stats of a Plate-Mail, it can still be worn as underwear below any other actual pieces of Armor, drastically increasing the defenses available to the user because of the built-in Aura.
FUCK! That’s an incredibly useful Aura! Maybe I should wear it after all? Or...should I just force Fungus to wear it instead? I mean, he IS the Emperor, and could use the added defense…
Heheheheh *Evil Laughter*...Bikini Slave Leia Fungus Gorilla ftw…
Yanking me back from my plans of Fung-Bikination, Lingfeng suddenly arrived and also slipped on the grease-like substance that was all over the staircase, causing him to whirl all of his hands and feet around like a cartoon character in his attempt to regain balance, then slam into a nearby wall. The following Guardsmen did not fare any better either, as they all wound up in a pile at the bottom of the stairs as well.
"Slippery, aint it?" I quipped back at the bald Windmage.
"Quite...this is a bad sign though...It means that there’s a Hell Slug somewhere down here in the Dungeon...It’s the name of the beast that those tracks have originated from. The Slug is a rather annoying Demon to have to deal with, as it is very fast and slippery as hell. You should keep an eye out for it and consider it a Boss-fight if you ever run into the creature."
"Noted, I will do so in the future! But for now, we need to get these back to the top." I pointed to the remains of the magisterial guardsmen.
"Ugh...such a tragedy...what did this?"
"A Trigger Demon."
"Never heard of that one before...care to elaborate?" Lingfeng pulled his little scribe’s notebook out.
I immediately proceeded to tell him everything about the Demon we had just vanquished, and its terrible debuffing abilities.
"Wow...that...was a horrible encounter indeed! But...don’t you find it weird that such a Demon, one who would mainly target your specific otherworlder sensitivities, has shown up down here though?"
"Exactly my thoughts, “Brother Zhang”! I also think this Demon had been planted down here because of me in particular, but that paints a rather gruesome picture, doesn’t it? Exactly how many days ahead time-wise is the Mother System able to predict what we will be able to do? I don’t think the creature was simply spawned out of thin air just now either, otherwise it wouldn’t have been able to intercept and kill Jaden’s magisterial guards, so it’s obvious that it has been down here for quite a while now."
"Well, if everything that you told me about the Mother System is true, then we could be looking at plans that span even thousands of years ahead. Just think about the Dwem Kingdom's fall as a good example."
"Right! That’s messed up, aint it?"
"Definitely, but you are still an unpredictable variable in all of Her equations, so we might still be able to get some things done our way. I don’t think that EVERYTHING can be truly pre-programed, the World is too big for that."
"I pray to the Omniverse that you’re right about that. But enough about that stuff. Here...can you tell me what these are? My [Appraisal] doesn’t work on them, it just says “Papyrus Spell Scroll” and nothing more." I asked the Windmage while passing the metal dildo-tube to him.
"Hmm...this is AMAZING! I have not seen one of these in ages! I wonder why the hell were they down here in the first place?"
"Liffy...you’re drifting away from the subject...WHAT ARE THEY?"
"Aheughm...right...sorry! These are a pair of Town Portal scrolls. One for setting up the destination, and another for recalling. Once used, the recall scroll opens up a space-gate that leads directly to the pre-established destination from wherever the caster is located, and can shorten any travel time immensely. It’s almost like a Teleportation Formation, but in a different form, written on consumables. Sadly, the Art for creating these items has been lost for hundreds of years now, and the few that still remain are veritable treasures for the wealthy people, as they can allow for a quick escape in case of trouble."
Oh wow, Mom Sys. TP scrolls too? Well, you’re not going to hear me complain about a shortcut to town!
"Why the hell do they all look the same though?"
"Ah, well, they look like that only to the untrained eye. Because the spells are written directly onto the vellum as spell-circuits, the Scribes that used to create these items needed a way to protect their own work, otherwise anyone would have been able to copy their spells, so they layered the “real” circuit that was l written in actual “spell-ink” among many other random strokes of garbage-text that were written in “regular ink”, albeit one of the exact same color and make as the “spell-ink”, thus hiding the “true” content within."
"So...we can’t make any more of these?"
"Not unless you find some way to extract the “true” runes from the page, no."
"What if we DO find a way, can you make more? You’re a Scribe, aren’t you?"
"Well...yes, in theory I would be able to manufacture more of these, but I would require some special vellum capable of holding spells and some special spell-ink that is highly-charged in Qi concentration."
"Do we have any of those? Or can we produce them?"
"Maybe? Some of the pages we received from the Heavenly Library most certainly fit the bill for the support vellum, but the spell-ink is another story altogether. It’s a mixture of ground-up spirit stones and...Hmmm...ok...why did I not think of this before…" Lingfeng interrupted himself.
"What?"
"The spell-ink is usually the pain in the ass to get just right, because it requires high-purity spirit stones as a base material, making it stupidly expensive if we were to talk from a normal Cultivator’s point of view, but YOU can make 100% pure stones on a whim, so we can get 100% purely-charged ink from your stones as a result, boosting the magic on any scrolls to some incredible levels. ACK! I need to try this out as soon as we get back to the surface! This could revolutionize the whole Scroll Industry!"
"Ok then, let’s go. Guys, would you be so kind as to grab Lord Jaden and carry him to the surface please? He’s currently...indisposed..." I beckoned the Guardsmen that had come together with Lingfeng, as Will-E was storing the bodies of the dead magisterial guards in his “warehouse” for easier transport. Sadly, the little Demons had robbed all of the corpses of their Plate Armors and magic accessories and had left them almost naked, so I knew that we would be getting some Plated Demons somewhere down the line on the lower levels, if we kept going deeper into the Dungeon.
Once we got uptop, I returned Jaden to the inn with the help of the others, and gave the Huntress back her clothes and bow, as she kept fuming about my indiscretion and her own forced omittance from the Dungeon Delve, as she had just woken up.
After that, I went to the town center, and I decided to use the “Mark Target” scroll on a podium that people tended to avoid, because it had pillory stocks affixed to it, where sometimes the unruly members of the village would get punished via tomato to the face.
Upon inspection with even my Qi-vision, I could not tell apart the “real” strokes from the “fake ink” ones on the scrolls, but I still had an extra ace up my sleeve. There was no way such an indiscernible status would be able remain upon the actual activation of the spell circuit, therefore I went “deeper” and activated my thermal Qi vision, to see how the energy within the circuit actually flowed when the scroll got activated.
I had a pen and paper in hand, and I had already activated my bullet-time enhanced perception mode before I even used the Mark scroll to set the destination. Sure enough, the moment the scroll activated, I immediately saw how the golden energy began to move through the brush strokes, painting the real ones in a strong light, and ignoring the rest.
In truth, I didn't even have to pencil it out on the paper anymore, as the whole thing immediately got added to my “unforgettable” mental library of “things that I have read” the moment it activated, forever solidifying the circuit-path inside of my mind.
I then instantly used the second scroll about 10 meters away, since Timmy warned me that the portal scroll was too dangerous to use anywhere closer, and then I retained the method for the recall spell in my mind as well.
Looking at the actual Town Portal, it looked like a blue-glowing oval crack in reality that had sprung up from the ground, as the whole “frame” of the thing had been instantly built up by those black-tentacles of the Mother System, and it showed the “other side” of the destination as being a single step away if a person were to go through it.
I was intrigued beyond measure about how the thing actually worked, since circling back and looking from the back-side of the portal simply showed the other side of the destination as well, which meant that a person could get to the target by running through either from the front or from the back of the portal as well, and would still reach their intended exit without a problem.
I kept tossing rocks from one side to the other, but they simply arrived at the destination just as expected. Looking from the SIDES of the portal, only the blue-glow could be vaguely seen, and the rocks tossed inside looked like vanishing in mid air, while in truth they were just appearing on the other side at the destination.
The portal lasted for about five minutes before it fizzled out, and it did not seem that it had been affected by how much “weight” had passed through it at all, as I had tossed quite a significant amount of stuff through the gap to test out my hypothesis, a lot more kilos than even a whole party of people in full-plate armor would have weighed.
It was strange indeed. The moment any item was hitting the event horizon of the portal, it was passing through as if it was normal space, arriving on the other side intact and still retaining all of its attributes like velocity and inertia.
As the last test before the portal fizzled out, I had stuck a long wooden pole through the portal, and waited to see what would happen if the shaft was still stuck “inbetween” the portals when it closed. Would it get sheared off in half? Or something else.
The answer was “something else”, as the shorter wooden pole section got forcibly shoved out of the portal with impunity, right before the connection collapsed and the portal ended. Ok, so no cutting monsters in half using portals. Damn.
After my experiments were done, I then drew the “real” portal circuit for Lingfeng, who was absolutely acting like a kid right before receiving his Christmas presents by now. After he had also perfectly memorised the spell, we then destroyed the “blueprints”, and we went to my Alchemy shack to cook up some of the “unsaturated” spell-ink that had yet to be filled with any magic powder. It was a plant-based ink and quite cheap to make, and I already had all of the “base” ingredients. After a few quick rounds of Alchemical refinement, I had a bunch of inkwells filled with “Perfect” quality spell-inks of different colors, ready for immediate use by our local eager Spell-Scribe.
We then very carefully powdered some 100% charged Grand spirit stones to prevent them from simply blowing up, and then we mixed the outcome into the spell-ink, creating a rather powerful spell-recording substance that would have been able to create even Apocalypse Scrolls, if we ever got our hands on the spell and had the Qi available for such a grand magic, Lingfeng informed me.
After grabbing some of those spell-vellums from Will-E’s inventory, Lingfeng immediately manufactured a new set of TP scrolls, which we then tested out at some different locations with increased success, as the portals now lasted a whole lot longer, probably because of the Perfectly-Charged Spell-Ink that had been used in their creation, stretching up as far as 15 minutes before fizzling out.
Now, the only thing that I needed to do to the Town Portal spell was to find and edit the “power management” section of its spell code, and replace the enforced usage of the “vellum Qi” with my own internal Qi as a power source, to permanently learn how to cast the spell without any external consumables. Still, I knew that it would take some time to get it right, so the TP scrolls were still very useful for the moment, especially since we could distribute them to the Guardsmen.
It was a good thing that I now knew of a way to “cheat” any Scribes and learn spell-circuits directly from their Scrolls, but it would be a very dangerous method to use on every random scroll that I found, since to learn the spell I also needed to cast it first, which could be a very dangerous business for random unidentified scrolls, since I literally risked blowing myself to smithereens in the process, as not all of existing Spell Scrolls in the world were of the positive kind.
Fortunately, the circuit for the Town Portal spell did not seem to be that complex, and I was certain that I would be able to easily replace the section which told the TP spell to use vellum Qi with an alternate input that would tell the spell to use my own Qi as a fuel source instead, if I kept poking at it for a few days and brought more spell references from the Heavenly Library.
Just as I was rejoicing at my newfound TP spell and was getting out of the Alchemy shack after storing some ingredients, I felt something scrape really hard against my dantian’s walls, inflicting a pain so profound upon me that I instantly collapsed and passed out without even knowing what hit me.