Chapter 58: Repaying Favors
John followed Nara through.
They were within a valley jungle, mountains towering around in a circular bowl. Their position was at the edge, where the terrain began to sharply rise behind them in jagged, stony terrain. Based on the circular formation, there should be a center to the space, an observation further supported by a large tower that peeked over tall jungle trees. Not only was there a characteristic center tower, but also three towers spaced equidistantly around the center tower, forming an equidistant triangle.
As usual, an awakening stone dropped from the sky which Nara held out her hands to catch.
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Item: [Awakening Stone of Balance] (unranked, uncommon)
Classification: Awakening Stone, Consumable
An awakening stone that unlocks the power of balance.
Requirements: unawakened essence ability
Effect: awakens an essence ability
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“What did you get?” She asked John, who was observing his own prize.
“Awakening Stone of the Guardian. Says its legendary.”
“Oh, nice get.”
“Have you been saving yours?”
“I have. Sen said to use them if we feel like we need it.”
They followed their plan, heading towards the center of the jungle ruins, although it was slow progress. The terrain was difficult—a ruined city overgrown overtaken by a jungle. Tall buildings collapsed onto their side, spilling chunks of marble like cottage cheese. The noise of the jungle was incessant, as thick in the air as was the heavy humidity.
A jungle mosquito flew onto her neck, slipping a quick and final snack before it was slapped to death by an angry Nara.
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-You have resisted [Anti-Coagulant (lesser)].
-You have resisted [Hemavern Disease (lesser)].
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“Friggin’ hell,” Nara muttered angrily, “Mosquitos.”
The jungle was teeming with monsters, which Nara navigated around with her wide aura sense and map ability, but they could not avoid all of them. She couldn’t ironically avoid the lesser monsters and the normal animals—innumerable bugs that suicided by shoving themselves up her nose and into her mouth. They were flickers on her map; she had no choice but to turn off their detection entirely, or all she’d see is static.
A pack of sabretooth gorillas blocked their path, their territory extending in either direction for a large swatch of jungle land. A larger alpha gorilla commanded oddly small gorillas, like scaled down models of an actual gorilla. Gorillas were normally docile, but these were not, driven mad by their inevitable degradation. Small groups peeled away, attacking any other monsters that approached.
Nara might be able to get past them, but John would not.
“How do we handle this?” John said over voice chat, “We should probably go around them.”
“I think that’s the best idea.”
They decided to head through one of the collapsed buildings. It lifted up over the gorilla’s territory, passing over the overgrown jungle streets as it rested against another still upright building.
They snuck around the pack towards the tower with held breaths, except neither breathed at this point. They crouched silently as a follower gorilla passed close, but thankfully most monsters did not have very good senses. At iron rank, monsters had next to no ability to utilize their auras, an advantage essence users held over iron rank monsters.
One the gorilla passed; they crept forward with careful steps. They crept up the tower, picking through broken down rooms with damaged books, scattered papers, and shattered pottery.
“Oh no,” Nara said, her voice drawing John to a dead stop. “We have to run.”
“What is it?”
“Bronze rank monster. Time to scoot!”
Within the leaning building, a massive yellow eye with characteristic vertical pupils’ met John’s. It was a massive snake, fitting within the broken building like a subway inside a subway tunnel. It’s forked tongue flickered outwards, tasting the air.
It’s mouth widened, more than wide enough to fit a whole person inside.
John had never been more thankful for his parkour training. He leapt through broken walls, scrambling past overturned furniture. Nara was considerably more elegant in her movement, but she kept to John, not surpassing his speed.
“John, I’m going to run distraction on the gorillas, or we’re going to be surrounded on both sides.”
“You’ll be okay by yourself?”
“I think you’re the one in the most danger, not me. I’ll see you in a bit, John. Stay alive.”
She disappeared in a flash.
Nara’s goal was chaos, not stealth.
She dropped from the air onto a gorilla, stabling her blade through the back of it’s head, finishing one instantaneously by smashing up grey matter.
“I’ll need that extra power right now.”
She used the stone of balance and the stone of judgement, saving her legendary stone.
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-You have used [Awakening Stone of Balance].
-You have awakened Balance Essence Ability, [Boon Conversion]. You have awakened 4 of 5 Balance Essence Abilities.
Ability: [Boon Conversion]
Special Ability
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Consume boons on self to enhance the damage of your next attack or damaging ability with resonating- or disruptive-force damage. Damage boost increases with the number of boons consumed.
-You have used [Awakening Stone of Judgement].
-You have awakened Harmonic Essence Ability, [World’s End]. You have awakened 4 of 5 Harmonic Essence Abilities.
Ability: [World’s End]
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Special Attack (execute)
Base Cost: Moderate mana and moderate stamina.
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Effect (Iron): Imbue your next attack with the power of dimensional rending annihilation, dealing rending damage. Additionally deals a small amount of transcendent damage. As an execute effect, damage scales exponentially with the enemy’s level of injury.
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Nara’s Hamonic Essence characterized itself with abilities that resulted in escalation or benefitted from escalation. World’s End wasn’t the upfront damage special attack she wanted, but it would do more damage than a normal attack. It was something.
Boon Conversion was more immediately useful, although she had to sacrifice her boons for instantaneous power.
That was fine. Instantaneous power was something Nara desperately needed. There were times to hold onto her boons to snowball her power, but now wasn’t the time.
With Overture stacking the four boons she had, she sacrificed many instances to enhance Nirvana with resonating-force take the head of another gorilla. Nirvana cut through flesh and bone like butter. Resonating-force damage was highly effective against physical protection, while disruptive-force damage excelled against magical protection. As beings of physical flesh, resonating-force was her best choice against the gorillas, and it was especially effective against hard materials like bone, which benefitted more the enhancements of rank than flesh did.
“That was too many instances.”
It’d be a learning process on how many instances she needed to sacrifice for how much damage. She slashed another gorilla, blood pouring from an open wound, drenching its fur.
“That was a little better.”
Now the target of the gorillas’ screeching warnings, she sprinted into the thick jungle.
*****
John wasn’t fast, but thankfully the massive jungle snake following behind him wasn’t inherently a fast monster. It was still abnormally fast for its species, a characteristic provided by its rank; the broken furniture and partial walls slowed it down more than it slowed John down.
John stumble-ran out the collapsed building, taking stock for a moment before dashing towards the center, as they previously agreed. Most of the gorillas had been led away, a few dead bodies pooling blood into soft jungle soil.
Beorn manifested from John with a thought, and John leapt on top. Thanks to Beorn’s high attributes and animal form, he was naturally faster than John. The frenzied ride was uncomfortable, but John would be more uncomfortable slowly digesting in the stomach of a snake. He was happy to bear with it to avoid the latter.
With a boom, the massive snake burst out of the building-tunnel, sending stone careening into the forest like the shrapnel of a petrified grenade. Thin trees snapped and collapsed, and the building tunnel began to come down on top of them both, weakened by the chase.
“Bloody hell!” John yelled. Beorn dashed between falling stone, safely making it past the collapsing building in a blockbuster action sequence. Both were coated in stone and ceramic dust, but they pressed onwards. The sharp gaze of the serpent raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He could feel Beorn tense beneath him, but he did not falter.
“You’re a reliable lad Beorn. We might outrun the snake yet. Funny that, outrunning a snake.”
But once the jungle snake touched flat ground, it also gained speed. He could feel those yellow eyes boring onto his back, as if it produced corrosive venom with sight alone. A low hiss seeped from its closed mouth. A sound far too loud for a normal snake that sent primal shivers down John’s spine.
“From within wells unending vigor,” John chanted, casting Vigor Wellspring.
Beorn activated Eternal Rage, growing larger, but also faster and stronger. John clutched down on his back, eyes narrowed as they whipped through lush leaves and vines, drawing welts of red against his skin.
Who would hold out longer? John, or the snake?
John could only pray he did not attract any additional monsters with this clamor.
Beorn was tiring, but he pushed as much as he could, his reserves of health and stamina slowly draining away.
The snake was still on his heels, gleaming eyes growing ever closer.
Beorn de-manifested with a soft whimpering growl, and John rolled on the ground, getting up in a mad sprint in a demonstration of fluid motion he was amazed he even pulled off. The snake reared back and lunged forward, shooting towards John with an open mouth.
He shielded himself, and the snake was smacked back with Burst Shield.
It spat venom, which John deflected with Absorbing Shield. But now John was out of shields for the next 20 seconds. He equipped Solar Judgement from his inventory, facing down the snake with the only weapon aside from Beorn that he had.
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Item: [Solar Judgement] (iron rank [growth], legendary)
Classification: Weapon, gun, fire, holy
Description: A magic weapon modeled after a Winchester Model 12 pump action shotgun. The sun bestows both life and fire.
Effect: Generates 7-rounds of sunfire flak every 5 minutes for a moderate mana cost. Otherwise, can shoot normal flak dealing physical damage for a low mana consumption per shot.
Effect: Sunfire flak deals massive disruptive-force and fire damage in a wide-range conical area. Damage is considered holy damage.
Effect (Iron): Shotgun blasts knock back nearby projectiles and enemies.
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It made another lunging attack, John barely managed to roll out of the way. He blasted a few shots of sunfire flak into the snake’s eye, damaging the delicate organ. The flack was effective against the vulnerable eye, but the thick green scales of the jungle snake suffered far less damage. His attack was but a burn a flat iron on the massive python.
Another lunge, another shot. The flak flinched the head of the python backwards, buying him a little time, but John could only play this game for so long. He’d run out of bullets.
When John was on his final two shots, a human with a heavy shield charged from the forest, bashing the snake in the face with incredible momentum. John couldn’t believe how someone could move so quickly with such a heavy shield and armor, but even at iron rank, magic abilities allowed for impossible feats. Next, lightning crackled from the forest, traveling down the length of the python in crackling and searing tendrils.
“Thank you, stranger!” John yelled towards the life-saving lightning, “But, who are you?”
“Hangsu Chun, guardian for hire!”
“I don’t hire you,” a voice said with thinly veiled annoyance.
“I’m on your team for a nice contract. Same thing, yeah?”
“I am Raja Jagar,” a figure stepped out of the jungle, “Tell Nara the Jagar…no, I repay my favors.”
*****
The Jagar territory was towards the south, nestled between the territories of Fenhu, of the West, and Nisei, of the East, and the closest territory to Sanshi.
The were an old noble family; all but one of the six were of the original six families that removed the tyrant Kastar from power, and unified to form the Shian Union, with Sanshi as neutral ground.
One of the six had already fallen into decay, a slow ruin from nobility to common. Their authority and territory were lost to the Lugu, who replaced them. Now, House Jagar was on the same slow path of decay and ruin, other local families clamoring for their position. The people of the Jagar territory grew unhappy. They whispered for the Jagar to cede their territory to the Fenhu or Nisei if they could not handle it, though it was never spoken to their faces. The other local families sought to replace them, as the Lugu had once done. Each and every member of the Jagar claimed they could lead the family back to prosperity if they took control, but all were idols of fool’s gold, fake and wasteful.
The Jagar family had been able to coast on their riches and power for many years. This had sustained them for centuries. But as their family members grew, lives lengthened through the boon of essences, their expenses grew.
New family members promised they would become successful adventurers, and they clamored for the family’s riches—expensive essences, expensive awakening stones, and expensive equipment was provided to all of them. But they had been coddled by their history, wealth, and prestige. Voices once loud in claiming their birthright for rare essences grew quiet when it was time to prove themselves. They slunk away, draining the family’s resources for monster cores and luxuries, coring themselves up to the peak of silver rank as the most useless silver rankers, worth far less than the resources they consumed. The worst ones were expelled before their crimes could return to poison the family, but they could not cull the cancer faster than it grew, if the one culling was already cancerous.
The three families of Fenhu, Arlang, and Nisei had avoided this pitfall, through various methods. The Arlang was strict with their relatives, cutting off those who sought to take but not contribute. The Fenhu invested their vast wealth into various enterprises, often marrying the intelligent, those with great potential, the specialized, and the inventive into their family. The Nisei turned to specialty, cultivating talents in narrow fields and establishing connections with governments and societies.
The Jagar family failed to do this, held back by their lofty and weighty pride, dragging at them by the heels like a chain for which they had no key. Raja grew up with adults like that, flaunting their nobility, their wealth, and their boughten and baseless power.
Raja was the rising star of his family; he would rise about the rabble, lighting up the sky like a fearsome storm. He had grown up sheltered, fed sweet poison by his relatives, who sought to manipulate the one who they saw had the modicum of talent and nerve they didn’t possess. He had thought that the other families were no better than his own, and that the Jagar was still as noble and impressive as ages past. When he arrived in Sanshi, the painful truth slowly purged the sweet poison he had been fed.
He no longer thought so. Whether or not he failed did not matter; his family’s ruin was inevitable. It was only through his success that anything would change, and even his singular success may change nothing—he could not bear the entire weight of the Jagar, not unless he became a famed gold ranker or ascended to the lofty heights of the unreachable diamond. Knowing this, the consequences of failure felt less. Not entirely gone, but not entirely important. His family’s slow ruin was not a result of his actions, but of decades of indolence and incompetence.
Even if they were ruined, he would not be. A silver rank adventurer was rich and powerful, and he would not need his family then. If they lost their position, he would be like the rest of the adventurers, a freedom he found had growing appeal.
The impetus for his change was two events: his encounter with Nara Edea, and his conversation with Mona Fenhu.
He was aware later, than most of what Nara had spoken was shallow, only intended to move him from a position of danger. He also realized that Mona never had any intention of letting him die, despite his own petty rivalry and animosity with the other families. She was first and foremost his instructor; one who put her position and responsibilities before the name of her family.
Her responsibility was to teach him how to live as an adventurer, with an emphasis on live.
His obsession with Sen’s actions had led to one unexpected boon: he know all the people on Sen’s team, even when he no longer intended to interfere with its formation.
So he knew Nara Edea and by extension John Aurelius had been recruited into Sen’s team.
“I am Raja Jagar. Tell Nara the Jagar…no, I repay my favors.”