CHAPTER 287 – PRACTICE MAKES SMALL ADVANCEMENTS
The moment the True Dream settled on him Tom was on full alert. All of his intellect strained to capture clues to shed a light on the nature of the dream as soon as possible.
Data flooded into him.
The feel of the creatures thought patterns. The small bit of him that automatically catalogued species, people and places to place the true dream accurately went haywire.
Everything was new.
The senses he was experiencing, the location and even the brainwaves of the mind he was in was unique. Every thought was a sharp burst of information. There was no continuity from one moment to another, but rather a strobing light where, with every flash a different person or object was highlighted. Blink, blink, blink and after each one the mind would focus on something new. The past, the present, vision, a digestive update, then back to the present. How it randomly jumped from topic to topic was disturbing.
For a second, he swam in the flood of discrete data packets as he attempted to understand what was happening.
Alien. It was so alien that it was almost incomprehensible and he was very glad that this was not the first alien species he had encountered. If it was, he was not sure he would have been able to ride over the tide of inexplicable brain waves that it was generating. Luckily it was not his first rodeo, and he brought order to the stream of information.
The creature. No, not that… he couldn’t think of her in those terms. She was a person, Tom reminded himself. A person, even if touching the mind, made his head hurt, and he half expected that he was bleeding out of his nose and eyes in real life, such was the impact of the thought patterns. Tom forced himself to concentrate, anyway. Each flash of information was treated like it was an individual data file. He didn’t try to absorb it in real time, but took the snapshot and then examined it more at his leisure. The blinks of information that occurred while he focused on the snapshot were lost forever, but that was an acceptable sacrifice in the pursuit of preserving his sanity.
His mind finally found order and resolved what he was sensing. The monster, the sapient, he reminded himself was kind of like a bat. In function, if not direct form, because it didn’t have ears as a separate organ even if it relied primarily on sonar for vision. Instead, it was covered in hair of variety of specific lengths and thicknesses. Those hairs allowed it to sense any vibrations that were occurring and by mapping the distribution of sound waves across its entire body it could triangulate the information perfectly to build a three-dimensional layout of the sound field around it.
The creature was alert and actively exploring its surrounding. Deep within its lung, air began to be pushed from spot to spot and generated a series of sharp clicks. They were like an array of music tuning forks as it produced clicks with precise but different frequencies. What had been to Tom’s surprise a hazy version of the soundscape improved in resolution. He could see a tiny shell that contained a snail behind a rock over twenty metres away. If she had time, that would be tasty, as would the insignificant rat huddling in a burrow a hundred metres from her.
The creature, whatever she was immediately focused away from the snacks and onto the creatures flittering through the air above them. Without hesitation, she began to spin a sling and then unleashed a small rock at a spot high above where the monsters were converging. Clicks tracked the progress of the piece of stone.
Boom!
The explosion high above blanketed her vision, and she was blind. A wave of force struck a moment later, rushing over her, but it was neither a surprise nor a problem. She was used to the aftereffects of her exploding missiles. The instant the blast wave passed she began clicking again and vision was restored.
The sound spread out and her vision returned. Small monsters, a type of bird, tumbled down from the sky. Dozens fell around her and above the number, flying had been reduced to near nothing. A perfect strike, that had unleashed at the moment they were most densely clumped. A single explosion and she had cleared the threat to her tribe’s young for a couple of weeks at least.
The dream ended abruptly.
In his half-awake state, Tom struggled to understand the point of what had been shared. The creature had not been one of the competitors, its vision while comprehensive only stretched out a hundred and fifty metres in every direction and the location that had been revealed had possessed no identifying or relevant features. It had literally been a flat field, with wild grasses and a couple of clumps of trees. Completely unremarkable, so the place was not important to his future. His mind catalogued the emotions going through the creature to see if there was a clue there. It had been calm, almost bored by its actions. There was no fear, anxiety, excitement, or anything that might be appropriate for a closer examination of intent. It had been clearing out the local monsters, which was a task that it had done a thousand times before.
As he drifted back to sleep, he struggled to understand the nature of the dream. Was there something special hidden in the location? Or did the dream intend for him to notice something the native had missed? Maybe the emotions were important even if they had been on the surface incredibly banal? Or was it preparing him for the future? Something he would experience after this trial?
He drifted into a deeper sleep, wondering what it all meant and how it was relevant because part of it was, he was certain of that. Every True Dream had a purpose. He just had to decode what this one’s was.
A few hours later, he was woken for dinner. He ate, explained his dream and then collapsed back to sleep again, pondering if another one was going to occur that would reveal more information to help him interpret the first dream.
There were no more dreams and the next day was similar to the one before. Their pace unfortunately was glacial. The elementals were not monsters that matched well against their skill set. While Everlyn was able to shape their engagement to ensure they were never in danger, the simple fact was with their mix of spells and skills they could only kill the elementals so fast.
They broke for lunch. Everlyn frowned as she ate. “This is agonising. Five days before we can get out. That’s the best case, and I can’t see a way to speed it up.” She looked around hopefully.
No one volunteered an idea which could help. They were already using efficient magic to fight and were rarely over killing the elementals, so there were no easy wins there. With their magical resistance, a physical approach, theoretically, was the preferable method against the creatures. After all, destroying earth and metal elementals with magic was a fool’s errand… but with their rank gap between them and the monsters that wasn’t going to happen.
“Come on guys,” Everlyn said. “One of you must have an idea.”
“We could get Thor to boost himself.” Clare suggested.
There were frowns all around at the suggestion.
“Just him,” the healer pressed. “With his hammer he’s the best placed to do blunt force damage and destroy these things. If we get him to rank twenty six, the dynamics of the battle will totally change. I think we could double our per hour kill rate.”
“No,” Everlyn said firmly. “I don’t see the need to break strategy.”
“I can’t do it anyway,” Thor admitted. “I don’t have the experience to level up enough to make a difference to the timelines.”
“How about the chosen, then?” Clare asked.
The elder moved as it always did when it wanted to be part of the conversation. “Soul Damaged Healer, we can definitely help speed things up on the margin, but my understanding doing so would be detrimental to you.”
“It will be,” Everlyn said flatly. “Five days is annoying, but we need the experience for future layers where the average rank has jumped. If we rely on the chosen now, we will suffer for it later.”
The elder moved again. “Perceptive one. That agrees with our analysis as well.”
She snorted. “Sure, that’s the reason you’re not being proactive. It’s got nothing to do with the fact you consider them to be semi-sapient.”
“Perceptive one, that is part of the consideration as well and I thank you for respecting our boundaries.”
“We just need to optimise across everything.” Keikain suggested. “Longer days, eliminating downtime between fights.”
There were groans all around at that suggestion.
“Set things up for Harnessed Meteorite and in closer engagements Michael’s axe throw.”
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Everlyn looked at Keikain in surprise. “Harnessed Meteorite? Why that? We tested it and the elementals sensed it. They either got out of the way or disrupted it. Chaos bolt and disintegration spells were far more effective.”
“And my axe throw is hardly a difference maker,” Micheal objected grumpily. “They reform straight after.”
“It all helps,” Keikain pressed. “And I was talking about using Harnessed Meteorite’s defensive capabilities. It delivers blunt force damage doesn’t it?”
“And throw axe doesn’t,” Michael pressed. “And if I use it against elementals, my axes are destroyed almost immediately.”
“Then we buy replacements from the general loot pool.” Keikain waved his hand dismissively. “It’ll be worth it to speed things up. We can also skip the hot lunch. Tom can be carried by the chosen while he sleeps.”
“We’re already ran ragged.” Michael complained.
“We are what?” Keikain laughed. “How does this compare to the tutorial? We can go harder and you all know it. We need to stop treating this like it’s a vacation.”
“Right,” Everlyn agreed. “Lunch time is over.”
With mock groans, everyone picked themselves up off the ground. It had been less than five minutes and Keikain, with a flare of magic covered the camp fire with dirt to snuff it out. The flames hadn’t even had a chance to get hot enough to cook on. It was going to be cold rations for the rest of the zone.
They took off at a run and found their next lot of victims. Remaining true to the plan Everlyn drew eight instead of her standard five. They couldn’t defeat that many remotely, and soon Tom was in a melee battle with the four that reached them. Michael’s axe cut one in half and Harnessed Meteorite, in its defensive capacity hammered tendrils that were trying to lash out and kill him. As predicted by Keikain, it was an effective weapon against the stone monstrosities.
They defeated that group and jogged away to fight another. Everlyn varied the number that she engaged in each encounter. Sometimes it was six, other times as high as eleven. Eventually she settled on nine as the sweet spot and Keikain was right the change in tactics improved their pace slightly.
They slept once more in the open and then kept going.
“This is bullshit.” Michael threw his hands up in the air as they prepared for another cold lunch. “There’s better spells. Disintegration feels like an overkill.”
“It’s been doing what it’s supposed to do,” Everlyn reprimanded him. “The mini-bosses we’ve fought have gone down with hardly any fight.”
“Look up Shatter Rock and Fracture metal.” Michael insisted. “We use them to counter them directly. I reckon we can finish the rest of the zone in two instead of three days.”
“That’s not our strategy.” Everlyn said quietly. “We’re exclusively using spells with range outcomes to prepare for the future. Getting a history of hundred thousand slightly below average random casts of the disintegration spell is more valuable than a day.”
“But this is exhausting, and those spells will speed things up. We can have a hot lunch.”
Curiously, Tom checked the spells that Michael was referring to.
Shatter Rock – Tier 3 – Cost: 38,000
Create vibrations in discrete stones that weigh up to ten kilograms that cause them to splinter and break. Cost 1 mana to target up to three rocks depending on size.
The metal equivalent was similar though slightly more expensive. Tom imagined a typical elemental. If you targeted the larger rocks that made it up, then it would only cost three or four mana to destroy the majority of the monster’s mass. What was left would be significantly weakened and trivial to defeat with Harnessed Meteorite or Thor’s hammer.
“I’m with Everlyn,” Keikain told Michael. “You know why we’re using disintegration. It’s a flexible spell which will be deadly against most things we fight. It will be particularly lethal in those oh shit moments we’re going to face when we are surprised by a monster far stronger than we expect. We all know it doesn’t make sense to level something as niche as Shatter Rock when that expertise can go to a useful potentially life saving spell instead.”
“Michael knows all that.” Everlyn said. “He’s just frustrated. We went through available options last night and if we had to finish this zone in two days, we’d buy the two spells he suggested. But we don’t so we stick to the strategy and don’t panic. These monsters have excellent magic resistance properties, and the disintegration spell is the best strategic option to defeat them.”
“I know. It’s just.” Michael flicked his hands, and a spell flew out at a nearby tree. Mid-flight, it got a life of its own as the internal harmonies expanded its power. It tripled in size before it slammed into its target. The entire trunk, branches, and most of the leaves vanished in the resulting crackle of spreading energy. “Typical. Now when I don’t need it to it grows into something useful… if it did a quarter of that every time.” The healer shook his head in disgust.
Everyone laughed. “Lunch is over, we need to keep pushing,” Everlyn stated, and with her leading at a run they kept going. The whole time when the group was not in battle someone was throwing pebbles at him. Usually from his blind spot, not that with Earth Sense and his other sensing skills that their attempt at tricking him made a difference.
Another two nights passed and Tom’s skill at deflecting the projectiles jumped and he felt an epiphany was just around the corner even if it hadn’t occurred yet.
“We’ll make it.” Everlyn said confidently. “We’ll wrap this up in five days, as planned. Tonight we’ll sleep in one of the pseudo safe rooms.” She glanced over at the Elder. “This trip would have been more pleasant if you guys had aided us occasionally.”
The elder moved quickly to hover in front of her. “Perceptive one. I’m sorry our lore tells us that elementals of this power have become semi-sapient. We can’t actively kill them.”
“I know. It’s just frustrating. You could have helped with some of the weaker ones.”
“Perceptive one, if you weren’t tracking to finish before the layer collapsed we would have, but thankfully there was no need.”
“I know, we all know. I’m being a bitch. It’s just this has been particularly unsatisfying for all of us. I shouldn’t be so ungrateful. You guys have helped. I expect more than you were comfortable with as well. Your shields and other actions were very timely those six times when we were swarmed and were being overwhelmed.”
The elder drifted away looking uncomfortable.
They kept running, then fighting, and Tom dutifully kept trying to manipulate everything that ran into him.
Trumpets went off.
He stopped.
“Tom, what is it?” Everlyn demanded her magic bow in her hand as she searched for an enemy.
“No danger.” He shook his head. “I think it’s an evolution.”
Keikain made a disgusted expression.
“What?” Toni asked with genuine excitement. “Which one? Is it powerful?”
He shut his eyes and entered the system room. Text hung in the air in front of him.
The spell Throw rock has had a minor advancement and may now be used for heavily metallic ores in addition to all types of stone.
This fully preserves the previous functionality and has been automatically accepted.
Unseen by anyone but the GODs inside the system room with its metallic walls Tom smiled in relief. It was one of the two outcomes he had been hoping to achieve in his zone. While understanding how the elementals disregarded physics had been his recent focus, this evolution long term might be more important.
The difference between a domain that only affected earth versus one that also affected metals derived from it was huge. If his eventual domain could deflect metal weapons that would be a significant advantage when they were forced to fight sapients. It was a small step in that direction, but it was a start.
He returned to the real word.
“And,” Toni demanded. “What did you get?” she clapped her hands excitedly.
“A minor upgrade to throw rock. It works on metallic ore.”
Rahmat smiled at that news. “So Everlyn and I can use metallic ore as well.”
Tom nodded.
While maintaining eye contact, Rahmat reached down and picked up a chunk of stone that looked more like solid metal rather than ore. He moved a step backwards to get the angles right. “Puff out your chest, please.”
Tom complied.
Rahmat threw it.
His alarms went off and time slowed as dodge activated. Tom didn’t move instead he hardened a hand sized spot of his chest. The glittery stone struck and bounced off and then Throw Rock activated. It hurtled at Everlyn at four times the speed that Rahmat had thrown it at.
Everlyn swayed to the side, but it was unnecessary. The rock from the moment it had left his chest was always going high.
“Perfect,” Tom whispered to himself. The pebble had been half metal and Throw Rock had treated it like pure stone. “Throw more of that type at me, please.” A small part of Tom wondered if he could get a secondary upgrade before they left the zone. If throw rock extended to metal, did that mean he could upgrade to throwing daggers or ninja stars and acquire all the skills that would go along with those types of weapons.
They continued their journey. Night set and they kept hunting for over an hour in the cloying darkness. The chosen had to descend in force and use more than just shields on three separate occasions when Everlyn failed to spot larger groups of elementals, but with their aid the group survived. Fighting in the dark was risky and there was no way they would have attempted it without the safety net that the chosen represented.
Michael’s axe shot from his hand, grew to be twenty times its normal size and obliterated the monster he was battling. It fell into two parts. The smaller was completely devoid of magic, but the larger grouping still had magic linking all the different rocks. Harnessed meteorite at Tom’s direction crashed into that larger section of the elemental. Like billiard balls, a number of stones from the pile shot away as they were struck by his larger meteorites.
The remaining magical linkages in the stones vanished and the elemental perished.
“Finally, that’s the quest completed.” Everlyn said in relief.
The elder moved in front of him. “Blessed of Sanatories, may I have the honour of flying you to the safe zone.”
Tom nodded in agreement, and they all piled on top of the chosen.
As they flew, Tom waited his turn and then checked the quest completion notification.
Congratulation for completing your quest
Your contribution is 8%
Experience awarded 270,000
There was a lot to be disappointed about with those numbers. The overall experience awarded was lower than expected especially since it had taken over five days. Then there was his personal allocation. He had been expecting around twelve percent or a little over one ninth of the distribution because the chosen had done nothing. Instead, his contribution was deemed to be far less than that. It was disappointing and probably a result of tanking so much and not being able to deliver a large amount of damage.
He opened his eyes as the chosen landed on the floor in the safe room.
Michael who was also being carried by the Elder was studying him. “Tom, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I only got allocated eight percent.”
The healer winced. “That’s low.”
“Did the chosen receive a significant cut of the contribution?”
The healer shook his head. “No, we all got what we expected. Between ten and twelve percent. You obviously didn’t get much credit for acting in the tanking role.”
“But having someone able to tank monsters is vital.”
“Not if the chosen are our backup.” Michael pointed out. “Theoretically, with them helping we don’t need a tank.”
“But this is bullshit. I did the role. Even if I had back up, I should get credit.”
“It sucks,” Michael agreed. “I’m sure you’ll have a chance to excel in future zones. It’s not like you haven’t got more than your share previously. But to be honest I’m not sure given your skills that a water base zone is going to be it.”
“Oh yeah,” Tom groaned. “I had managed to trick myself into forgetting about that. God, I hope we don’t have to swim.”