Tristan tightened his grip on the padded club. The six guards held long poles and stood on either side of the marked area. They would not be much help as while there were six, only space for two was available. It had been quite a while since Tristan faced Luke. Back then he had been baseline tier one, however now he was nearly tier three.
“Go,” Luke said while brandishing his two batons.
Tristan did not want to waste the guard's stamina, as while they were only stabbing, they would tire out before Luke would. He gripped the padded staff in both hands and chopped down with all his strength. This would normally have been stupid, as Luke could have simply jabbed him in the solar plexus. However, Luke had to wait until the first blow was struck.
Tristan used his larger bulk, and the chance to wind up. This would arguably be the most powerful strike he had ever delivered, assuming one did not include gravity assisted strikes. Tristan had gotten used to slower opponents over the last few months, even Henry who was ridiculously fast had been restrained by traps and confined spaces. There was no shame in a metal kern being slower than an air kern two tiers higher, Tristan was just unwilling to admit that.
Luke swayed to the side, letting the padded club pass by. It even deflected the two spears coming from that side. Luke deflected the two on the other side, while the baton that Tristan had kindly freed from blocking duty snaked toward his heart.
“Come on, you can do better,” Luke smirked.
Tristan could and Tristan did. He reinforced the area around his heart and tackled Luke. His friend’s eyes widened as he felt his wooden rod hit something far harder than it should have. Then Tristan’s arm smashed into his jaw. A foot behind Luke’s leading leg and a pivot later, both of them were on the ground. His friend’s lighter weight made the takedown easy, Tristan tried to capitalize on the situation by pinning Luke down.
Instantly Tristan realized his mistake, weight only mattered if you were stronger. For all his improvement, Luke was still at least twice as strong as he was. Luke grabbed the arm next to his head and the collar of Tristan’s shirt. Normally the cloth would have just torn, but it was a gambeson, and the sturdy cloth armor remained whole. Leveraging his grip, Luke rolled and pinned Tristan down. Tristan tried to reinforce the joint so he could pry himself away, but Luke was both stronger and had better leverage.
“Ha, I still,” A staff whacked Luke on the head, “Ow, I suppose I deserved that.”
The guards took a step back, a little afraid of retaliation. When Luke did nothing, except help Tristan back to his feet, they relaxed. Luke, for his part only rubbed his head a little. No real damage could be done, as Luke was four times more durable than any of the guards. Tristan was not sure they could even truly harm him with blunt weapons.
Luke poked Tristan in the chest, “What was with that armor?”
“Oh, you know how Siren can make his blood harder,” At Luke’s nod and widened eyes, “I can do the same, but metal flavored instead of stone flavored.”
“Do you realize how busted that is? I can break through Siren’s blood, but metal doesn’t have to be brittle,” His surprise turned to excitement, “Awesome, we need to stress test this.”
Tristan took a step back from the excited man, “Please, no.”
Luke pouted, but was interrupted by another person approaching, “No, we don’t have time for anything like that.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Siren was walking over, trailed by three other warriors. Tristan did not recognize them, but they were all bruised and tired. Side effects of training with their captain. None seemed disappointed, the mentality of many warriors shifted when Siren hit tier four. Before he was a strict and demanding taskmaster who did not care about his people’s feelings. Now he was a paragon of humanity, leading them down the path he himself walked. Nothing but perception had really changed, but the human mind was weird.
“It's good to see you again,” Tristan said. Even after his last growth spurt, he still had to look up at the warrior.
Siren nodded, “How far have you progressed?”
Tristan stood a little straighter, “I am at the edge of tier three and have access to my own force.”
Luke jerked in surprise, “Really, which one? I did not see any sign of it.”
That explained why he did not mention anything before Hadrid brought it up. Tristan answered shortly, “I got alloy, with decay and consumption as the mixed forces.”
Luke whistled, “We will make a demon lord of you yet.”
Siren nodded, he did not seem to particularly care about the force, the tier was a completely different thing, “If your metal sense has improved, I would like you to take a second look at the dig sight.”
Tristan shrugged, “I really haven’t had a chance to practice, but my guess is my new range is about eighty feet. With how big the deposit is, I might even be able to determine a general shape.”
“Good,” Siren beckoned for him to follow.
He fell into step beside the older man. The six guards followed at a distance, intimidated by Siren. For his part, Siren ignored them. They were not his responsibility, they did not work under Conni and they did not serve under him. They entered the mine entrance, and an odd feeling of nostalgia hit Tristan as he inspected the map on the wall. It had not grown much since he left, the digging had slowed quite a bit now that they lacked directions.
Siren stepped into the side room. He was only in the board room for a few moments before returning with a pad of paper and a pen. After pulling a glow stone out of his pocket, Siren started heading down the tunnels.
He handed Tristan the pad and pen, “Draw out the building’s shape to the best of your abilities.”
Art was not one of Tristan’s skills. He had not really done any since before the sifting. However how hard could it be to draw a house, even if it was a big one? They were all just large cubes after all.
The hallway they stopped in was completely different. It had been widened substantially, now it was more of a cavern than a tunnel. Equipment had been set up. Several machines with metal bladders on the back and a tube on the front sat on carts. They reminded Tristan of the tube that the warrior with the air kern had. He had used air to throw a fast projectile at him. Tristan had lost a tooth to a handheld version of them, he shuddered at what this cart mounted weapon could do.
Barricades were set up against the wall and several crates were lined up. Spikes with wax protecting their tips filled one crate while another was filled with wires and nets. These were the tools that Siren intended to use on the elementals. If Tristan was picturing it right, they would lure the elemental into a spike pit, throw the net to tangle it, and finally annihilate the elemental with the pressure tubes. Even low tiers could implement it, the only reason they needed Tristan was because they could not move the trap once it was installed, at least not fast enough to make a difference.
Tristan stepped into the center of the cavern. He had stood on exactly this spot with Luke and Olfred several months ago. Just like then he extended his metal sense down. The building was massive, much larger than he had expected. Back when he first felt it, he thought it had been far below. That was wrong, the elemental was far away, but the building was actually pretty close.
The deposit was jagged, but it was several stories tall and several pieces were separated. If he had to compare it to anything, it would be a five or six story tower, with the floors narrowing as they ascended. The floor closest to the surface probably had a similar footprint to the base camp. At the bottom was the largest floor and in there was the elemental. Currently, it seemed to be dormant, or at the very least stationary.
That elemental was like a bonfire to Tristan’s senses. He could feel metal essence and this thing had more metal essence than the structure it was currently at the bottom of. No wonder Tristan was unable to get any concrete information about its presence, even now it was making it difficult to feel how big the lower floors were. It contained more essence than Hadrid had, though only by around half.
“Good news,” Tristan said while he sketched out the general shape he saw, “The elemental has only around a tier more essence than the alchemist.”
Luke seemed disappointed, “Only tier six then?”
Siren sighed in relief. They could handle a tier six, it would be hard, but a tier six enemy was only twice as strong as Siren. Luke had already killed the dark elemental lord, which had the power of three tier threes stacked, putting it around tier six. Previously they had even killed a tier seven elemental in the mine, so a tier six metal was within Siren’s capabilities.
“That’s not all,” Tristan handed over the drawing pad, “the levels of this structure are separated by sediment, we can take this deposit one floor at a time.”
Even if there were a hundred elementals down there, they would be separated between five different floors. They could handle them in smaller pieces.