Two times. Two times I had been caught unaware by one of the denizens of the mountain and my progress was stolen. The first time was the worst, the second just a nuisance. I had faced a few variant creatures, almost all of them some kind of rock creature. What little vegetation I did find was no less aggressive than the stone it bore through.
That was where the first fall came in. A plant monster, which I had mistakenly assumed to be just a previously unknown-to-me type of vine, grabbed me as I passed. Before I even knew to struggle, the whole vine had separated from the wall and taken me for a tumble. My head collided with an incredibly obstinate rock, and the next thing I knew I was much further down the mountain and being choked to death.
A quick Infusion and I was able to tear the plant away but I was yet again forced to climb back the way I had come, cursing my carelessness. I tried to avoid thinking of the luck it must have taken for me to only have a splitting headache and some already dried blood on my head. Right as I began to climb again, it was the mountain’s turn to piss me off.
A shudder, strong as an earthquake, shook the whole world around me. The massive, miles tall mountain began to thrum with power. As though it had been dormant before, the entire range was now awake and angry. A more conscious version of the ambient Dao all around me took hold. The battle I had been fighting to keep my control over the air around me became magnitudes harder, and thus, my second fall. I tumbled another fifteen feet, catching my knee on a shard of stone and howling at the pain.
I stopped trying to take deep breaths and calm myself. For the dozenth time since I began attempting to scale this overgrown hill from hell, I cursed at a setback. “Fine, fuck it.” I had pushed as far as I could go with the skills I currently had. It was no longer possible to climb with the air manipulation, everything was locked down by a Dao which had to be at least on the level of an Avatar. It felt all encompassing, due to the mountain acting as a resonating device.
I removed a small, spherical crystal from my inventory. The load on my spirit noticeably lightened as I took in its appearance. The Guidance Stone of Breaching had been burning a hole in my inventory for quite a while now. Something akin to intuition had caused me to wait in absorbing the information within, something which now said “use it.”
Before now, I had been fairly removed from the Dao of Tempests. Relying on the power which started my path wasn’t a mistake, and the Dragon would always be the foundation of my strength, but I knew now how strangled my growth was becoming. Despite the setbacks in ascending the mountain, I was having fun. A small part of me felt guilty at that, but I was sure that Naea at least was enjoying herself, even if most of humanity probably wasn’t.
It was no accident that this was where I centred myself. I had called my guild The Ascent for a reason, and that reasoning was laid bare here. If there was a meaning to life in this new world, to not just surviving but thriving within the System, it was to climb. To challenge oneself and push through every barrier that fell before you. That was how to do more than live. That was how one climbed.
I activated the small crystal and felt it crumble into dust in my grasp. Blasting wind spun around me, though I wasn’t thrown around at all. I was the eye of this storm, and any influence the heavy Dao in the area had was banished. I felt as free as a tornado and my mana drank in the new methods that the Guidance Stone taught me, written directly into the flow of magic within my core.
Skill Unlocked - Blast (Tempest/Breaching)
What happens to the target of a lightning bolt? The same that happens to everything else.
Did the System just…
I shook my head, ignoring the wording of the prompt for the feeling it pushed through my mana. The succinct name for the skill was matched by its utility. Curious and excited, I scrambled up to the nearest safe place to test and levelled my palm out into the open sky. Not worried about seeming silly, I took the opportunity to match the System’s silliness.
“Kaaaaa…” I brought my hands together in front of myself, wrists bent perpendicular. “Meeee…” I drew my cupped hands together, using the space between my fingers as a cage for the energy. Burning electric sparks by the thousand danced between my palms. Without the Guidance Stone, I couldn’t have contained this amount of power in one attack. One Blast.
“Haaaa…” I twisted my hands, moulding the energy into a sphere of pure destruction. My breath came in sharp gasps as exhilaration gathered alongside the blue mana in my hand. Damn, it’s really just missing the sound effects. “Meeeee…” My voice rose and I continued to pour as much mana into the skill as it would let me. The balloon in my hand expanded and I struggled to even lift my hands. With an almighty shout, I threw the energy forward.
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“HAAAAA!” I shouted a battle cry against the universe above and, hoping wildly that I was aiming right at the Storm Dragon itself, wherever it was, I launched the beam. An incredibly impressive display was my reward as the attack scored a rend in the sky itself. A nearby cloud, and one not-so-nearby were ripped apart and lightning bolts fell to the earth as they blasted apart.
“God. Damn.” I looked at my hands with wonder. For my next break, I simply stared into the clear expanse of sky I had created, mostly shaking my head. My own power was terrifying to me. I reconfirmed my decision to immediately destroy the murderer in Newtown. With a month of time, they could have been at a similar level of power. I was only a low tiered Grade One. With my achievements, I probably reached the echelons of Grade Two. I highly doubted that’s where the scale stopped. Whether the world was ready or not, people with strength like mine were going to become normal, if not common.
“Nothing to do but stay ahead of them.” With my mana recovered and my mind settled, I began to rise once more. As though in response to my return to the mountain, or maybe my challenge to the skies in this case, a shriek of epic proportions rattled both my grip and my teeth. The world-shaking screech made me jump in fright. Given my previous slips, I was prepared for pretty much anything. Even then, the descriptor wasn’t for nothing and my handheld shivered free of the mountain. It created a headache due to the willpower needed but I just about managed to create a single platform of solid air to jump off and reattach myself to the mountain.
Up to now, the peaks had been eerily quiet, except for during the battles with the rock monsters that kept assaulting me. Only when I heard the scream of what could only be a huge bird did I realise how strange that was. If there were an apex predator stalking about, though… “Definitely a claimant.” A tiny flicker of doubt disappeared. It would have been really annoying to do all this clambering and falling to find that my quarry wasn’t even here.
Finally, I found myself within spitting distance of the very top of the mountain. I half-expected to see a massive roost at the top, but no such luck. A jagged spire rose up, sheer and imposing. The tower of rock was wide, but not as large as the arena I found myself climbing into. In a final attempt by the mountain to be as obnoxious as possible, the wide flat table of rock housed multiple level fifty and higher enemies.
Monster - Graniteborn Kalar - Level 51
Monster - Shaleborn Drainer - Level 53
Monster - Gravel Ent - Level 52
Instead of despair, I broke into a wide smile. It had been way too long since I felt that mystical feeling of growth that came with a level up. I just happened to be right on the cusp, a fact that had been bothering me until now. The scaling amount of energy needed to level up meant despite the numerous battles against foes of higher level than myself, I hadn’t managed to level once since leaving the Dungeon. Or, I guessed the first Dungeon, after Badaila.
It was time to change that.
The Leadborn Kalar was a gorilla-sized version of the Shaleborn variant. Four thick arms, two sturdy legs and a wide barrel chest, it plunged its arms into the rock around it as I approached. The Shaleborn creatures were the “dextrous” versions found on the mountain, shifting their form and falling into the ground with impossible ease. Leadborn creatures were tanky juggernauts.
The Shaleborn Drainer had the most humanoid of the three forms on show, with porous gaps in its shape. Wind whistled through it as it sprinted at me, the rock itself shoving it forward. Its arms were elongated poles that I had no interest in meeting the business end of. Approaching with the force of a train, I avoided its wild charge easily enough.
However, my attention was taken mostly by the Granite Ent. At first, I thought it was just a strange rock formation, until the massive thing stood. Two tree trunk wide legs rose into a mass of rock and stone which shuffled loudly. The top half looked like the branches of an oak, and from the way the bulbous limbs slithered was ominous. In two huge strides, it cleared the distance between us and tried to kick me off the mountain.
“No way, pal,” I danced around the wrecking ball of a foot. As it slammed the pillar of rock back down, it threw its top half over me. Dozens of sharp spikes began to attack me. The clump of malleable rock jabbed me with spears, attempting to destroy my eyes and throat mostly. It was a vicious attack that I was unprepared for.
I wasn’t idle through this, however. I roared in outrage and created as many Mana Bolts as I could within the Granite Ent’s upper body. All of them fired off like sniper bullets, tearing chunks from the impassive mass and giving me the room to jump away. I managed to get the Alternating Armament up in time to block the Shaleborn Drainer’s attack. The flowing metal lost its shape due to the impact and I tried to create some room.
Two massive boulders were barely dodged as I jumped like a needle between them, activating Tempest Form for an instant. Without a true physical shape, I was able to slip between the well-aimed attack. The Kalar dunked its arms up the elbows in the rock again, before its projectiles had even missed, and prepared two more. If they managed to hit me with one of those boulders, I was done.
So, first, I needed to deal with the crowd control.
Blood trickled over my right eyebrow and settled my choice. The Ent was first. Intrigued to see how the attack worked in a combat situation, I began to charge up a Blast. The showy, over-the-top attack I had done previously was not viable in most battles and especially not this one. Dodging two more salvos of thrown rock, as well as the Shaleborn Drainer, the Ent couldn’t keep up. I created the smallest breathing room and I fired off the energy.
Without my feet planted, the recoil of the Blast caused me to spin in the air. The shot smashed approximately where the Ent’s knee would be and sheared straight through, unbalancing it and causing the twenty-foot tall elemental to fall. I didn’t doubt it could repair itself, but I hoped that it would take a while. “Your turn,” I muttered. With a swipe, the armament in my hand became a hammer which in turn collided with the Shaleborn Drainer.
As my arm jarred upon the impact, I thought back to the weapon I had given to Harry. The warhammer fit him, but damn what I wouldn’t give for a magical item which literally destroyed inanimate objects. “Then again,” I laughed to myself, “you’re definitely animate.” Instead of wishing I had access to tools which I didn’t, I would use what I had even better. I would use these enemies, as the ones before, as training.
I would climb, one defeated foe at a time, until I could touch the peak.