CHAPTER 255 – PICKING FLOWERS
Tom stood guard until everyone else had passed into the new zone. His greater elemental had almost twenty seconds left, and he ordered it to stand watch as he jumped backward through the portal behind him. The moment he crossed the threshold his connection to his summons vanished, but that was fine as it had its orders and would ensure Selena’s squad could not follow them.
Not that they would, even without the deterrence of his summons the single lethal trap they had left active would have deterred them. Around him, Thor and others were hastily dropping traps while the rest of them faced outwards. He continued to move away from the door to give space for his golem to follow. It came through appearing both hungry and dangerous. The spider golem moved in a way that was chilling, both jerky and at the same time horribly smooth. It was not terrifying to him, but if he hadn’t hand created it, then it would have been.
Once he was clear of the immediate area, he glanced around with hard eyes, a stone clutched in each hand. He scanned the floor, then the roof above him, searching for any enemies that might be here to greet them. They were kind of indoors with a narrow hole to the sky above him. The room, so to speak was equivalent to a football field in size even if the ground was naturally weathered and far from flat. Everlyn had her bow out ready to fight, Rahmat a throwing spear at the ready and Michael was defending one side of the trap layers with Toni on the other.
He smiled at the professionalism he was witnessing. If they survived this trial, Tom was confident they would be able to complete his quest. When he had seen the levels and organisation of the empires that they were heading toward he had been worried, but after this, everything was going to be different. They were going to have the ranks and skill set to compete.
Unless you meet one of their elites, Tom suppressed that thought. They would deal with those sorts of problems later. For now, all he could do was trust in the answers he had received for all those oracle questions. He had faith that the path he had guided the others on was the best one for humanity.
There were no visible enemies, and he allowed his mental state to shift and he admired the space he found themselves in. The exit door had been located in a cave or probably a deep ravine because he could see a patch of orange tinted sky above him. The most interesting feature of where they found themselves was the stone. It was partially transparent and a light blue colour that almost seemed to glow in the reflected light from around them. It was like they were in an ice cave during sunset with the exception that the air was warm and inviting instead of frigid. There was only a single exit, and he moved to stand at the front of it.
“Not what I expected.” Everlyn said quietly, relaxing her draw from full to three-quarter strength.
With a thought, his golem shifted forward to climb the side wall near the exit. If anything attacked them, it would leap into the fray and become the first layer of their defence. At an unspoken signal, they all began to advance toward that exit to create space between them and the traps they had laid. Those things, if they went off had a range of twenty plus metres.
Behind them there were shouts and the sound of running feet as the installation to defend the exit finished and the four involved all sprinted away from the dangerous area. Tom knew he now had ranged support if anything came through the entrance to the main part of the zone.
There was a ding, and he checked the quest that had come up.
Quest Dagisy Flowers
To open the exits to other zones gather forty Dagisy flowers.
It was a gather quest exactly like what they had predicted. Tom was relieved to read the details. He had been worried that they were going to be thrown a curve ball and presented with something infinitely more complex.
“That’s a lot of flowers,” Keikain said. “Does that change our approach?”
Tom frowned. He had not registered the full extent of the challenge. They had slightly over twelve days to clear five zones in order to save the healers, and the extra workload was problematic.
Everlyn shook her head. “I know we speculated that the quest would be twenty-five, but I have routes that could have got us just under fifty without engaging in risky battles.”
“It’s not about us finishing this zone. It’s about completing it quickly, so we have time to finish the later ones.” Michael said.
“We can only manage what we can.” She shrugged. “If we reach the healers, then great… If we don’t… It isn’t ideal, but we’re doing our clears properly. There will be no rushing.”
Slowly, with Tom in the lead they exited the slightly artificial zone door area. Once they left, they all knew monsters could be anywhere.
The moment they were outside, and there had been no ambush Everlyn touched his shoulder. “I need to take point.” She looked around and then straight up at a large upthrust of rock. It looked like the base had been eroded, so that even with the sun directly above their head it cast a significant shadow due to the overhang. “Our first target is up there.”
Tom assessed the climb. On earth, only the best of the best free climbers would have attempted it. Here, with magic and high strength climbing it would be far more achievable.
“On top of the ridge. Tom, can you get it.”
He hesitated a moment. While he could easily scale the cliff, he also needed to recharge his mana. “Will there be any threats.”
Everlyn paused. Her eyes searching the stone high above them. “I can’t see any.”
“And the map didn’t have a guardian assigned to defend this flower.” Tom finished for her. “Can Keikain do it? The more mana I get.” he glanced at where Harry was already putting down a ritual. “The quicker I can reach full fighting strength. If my golem accompanies Keikain, it should reduce the risk.”
Everlyn appeared thoughtful. “Let’s see. There are no visible enemies, no bosses on the map, which means at worse he will run into a random rank sixteen monster. He should be able to survive long enough for me and your golem to destroy anything like that. Yeah, he can do it.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Tom glanced at the earth mage.
He got a scowl in response, but there was no hesitation. Keikain approached the blue cliff and started to climb. The technique he used was simple. There was no searching for elusive hand holds instead both his hands and feet dug effortlessly into the rock. Often pushing far enough in that it was like the stone was holding him. Despite this, the cliff face put him on a steep angle so he couldn’t support his body weight fully with his legs. The strain was visible in his clenched jaws and beading sweat as he scrambled upwards.
Keikain was not the most physical of them, but a climb that would have probably rated as an eleven out of ten difficult on earth was made to look easy. The combination of earth magic and Keikain still possessing almost twice an average humans’ strength without the extra weight that occurred on earth changed things. It turned the climb into a four out of ten. He was like a spider going straight up the wall.
While he scrambled up the cliff, Tom stood in the mana circle Harry had created and started regenerating the mana. There was no way he would make everyone wait the forty minutes to recharge his mana crystal twice. The two regenerations were both needed. Once for the earth elemental summon and the second time to get his crystal up to full to maximise his fighting prowess. However, every minute in the ritual got him closer to that state faster.
While waiting, he examined the strange blue stone. It was normal rock in the terms of its tier, but was clearly special. He felt out its nature. While it looked brittle… it wasn’t. When he tested its hardness, he was surprised to discover it did not differ from the default that Living Rock conjured.
“Do you think this rock has any unusual properties?”
“Don’t know,” Michael answered.
“When I examine it,” Tom continued. “It behaves like normal stuff, but with it being blue…”
“Your right,” Everlyn responded while not taking her eyes off the rapidly climbing Keikain. “It’s a magical variety. Resistant to arcane magic at the cost of being vulnerable to heat and lightning. Why are you considering using it for your golem?”
He picked up a fist sized boulder. Electricity sparked around it and unlike the minor singe marks he would have expected his attack to leave, large gouges were ripped into the rock. Vulnerable was putting it lightly.
“I don’t think it’s a good tradeoff for the golem.”
“No, I agree,” he answered her absently as his Spark continued to carve pieces away from the stone. Tom marvelled at what he was observing. Such weakness to an elemental was amazing. “I was only curious.” He told everyone listening to mislead them about the reason for his interest. For some reason he now wanted to hide his new ability.
He tossed the ruined rock away and picked up a fresh piece. The new chunk was the size of a baseball, but with the extra density of stone it weighed more than the kilogram he needed. Earth Manipulation triggered and shaped it into a circlet that grew around his neck. It was surprisingly easy, and he jotted down a future development point to create living armour. Living Rock was good, but damage taken still required to be healed mid battle. Developing disposable armour was an excellent idea.
“What are you doing?” Michael asked.
Tom winked at him. “Training, of course. I’m going to try to keep my awareness in it and have it be responsive to my needs. It should help me develop a domain as it’s all about having rock around me be receptive to my wishes.”
Rahmat nodded. “That’s actually a good idea. However, that small chunk won’t do too much. You should go for full chest armour.”
“No,” Tom interrupted quickly. “This is enough. I’m not going to risk being distracted in battle, plus too much weight will slow my dodging down.”
With the stone secured on his neck, he started to absorb it. The tier zero substance was not his first choice, but it was the best of what he had available. The simple fact was that the stone had too many downsides to be a long-term option. However, there were other considerations. For the first month, he was going to be limited by how long it took to absorb new samples. There was no point wasting time and while the current zone might lack monsters that utilised arcane magic, who knows what they would find deeper into the trial.
Once he filled the open slots with higher tier versions, he would abandon this one without hesitation… Or not. He would see how things played out and make that decision in the future. It was possible that lots of hyper specific resistances were the best use of the limited number of slots available. Potentially even over higher tiered generalised stone types. This would be the case if most of his opponents were specialised in one or two magic skills. The ability to precisely counter the strengths of which ever monster he was fighting would be a game changer.
If it developed how he suspected it would, then his ability to fight up ranks would be improved. His dodge ability already let him fight physical based monsters that on attributes were stronger than him. Living Rock was going to extend that advantage to magical ones. His ability to act as the damage sponge for his team might grow to new heights. It continued to excite him.
It wouldn’t always work, Tom understood that. Against monsters, with only a single magic type, a wide selection of substitutes filling his available slots would make him near invulnerable. Unfortunately, there were creatures out there with multiple types of magic attacks. Against them, he would lack the outrageous advantages. Unless, of course, there was a mythical super high tier rock that perfectly countered multiple magic types, and he somehow managed to collect them.
Eventually, hard choices would be required, but for now he would absorb everything he could find.
A short time later, Keikain scaled back down the cliff. The trip down looked almost as painful as the one up, but in a short period he reached the ground. “One flower harvested. Thirty-nine to go.”
“Great. Let’s get going.” Everlyn said immediately. “Providing Tom’s okay with that?”
“I’m good. My mana will continue to regenerate while moving it’s just slower. Even if we leave now in ten minutes, I’ll be able to summon the elemental to boost the golems fighting capability.”
“What’s the golem’s name?” Michael asked.
Tom looked at the spider. It still creeped him out even if it was less threatening when it was not moving. “Nope, bad luck to name them. When I do that, they get destroyed straight away.”
Everlyn took off to do advanced scouting. Rahmat positioned himself at the vanguard. Thor and his golem each defended a flank, and Tom shifted to cover the rear. Arranged in their preferred travelling configuration, they set off.
The landscape was weird. It was like they were in the cave system, but most of the time they could see the orange sky. They were traversing a series of deep cracks, scars in the earth, and if they didn’t have access to the map from the previous zone, it would have been intimidating.
Everlyn led them on the route that was mostly devoid of stronger monsters. There were still regular attacks from rank sixteen creatures, rock crabs, goats, a millipede that hid invisibly in the many cracks that lined the walls of the tunnels that they were walking down. The blue rock transitioned to red, then to dark orange. Tom grabbed samples as they went through.
“Tom, do you have enough mana for a meteorite yet?” Everlyn asked over the party chat. She was ahead of them, ensuring they weren’t running into anything too dangerous.
“Yes.”
“Everyone but Tom hold. Tom, I’m about fifty metres up. Come over?” He followed her instructions and when he went around the first bend, he saw her. She waved him over and then put a finger to his lips.
Trying to be quiet, he kept closer.
“The target is two hundred and fifty meters on a slight downward slope. Summon your meteorites, then step around and fire. Carpet bomb them and don’t hold anything back.”
He hesitated a moment.
“They won’t sense your magic, but the moment you enter their sight line they’ll see you or if I wasn’t dampening sound, they would hear and then attack.”
He cast the Harnessed Meteorite spell. As always, they orbited him, throbbing with power.
“Hurry, I can’t suppress the sound for much longer.”