Chapter 15: Demons eat rocks

Dirt Golem – Level 13

Emerging from the depths of the tunnel in front of Sarah was another golem, just as large as the first. It towered over her 5”7 frame at what would be close to 7 foot tall, and was built like a linebacker.

So it came as a surprise when her imp completely demolished it.

Under her command to attack, it flew directly forward and shoved its small trident directly into the chest of the golem, easily dodging the swing it made at it. The trident pierced easily into the creature, and while still lodged inside the imp heaved sideways and the golem was thrown against the wall, cracking in multiple places and ruining its attempt at a follow up swipe at the imp. With a couple more quick thrusts, the imp pummelled the golem into pieces in less than 20 seconds, taking absolutely no damage itself. It even let out a little cackle of victory afterwards.

“A level 24 versus a level 13, what did you expect.”

It made sense when he put it like that. Doing the maths, its uncommon class giving it 6 stat points per level compared to the Golem’s likely common class giving 5, plus an 11 level lead, meant that it had around a 79 stat point lead over the golem. It looked like most of those were invested in strength and agility, which meant that the imp would be both stronger and faster than the golem, and so ironically made it look like a child.

But she could make it better.

It took another 30 minutes for her to regenerate enough that she was comfortable to summon another imp, this one coming out with a spear instead of a trident. This also cut around 2/3 of her mana pool, and enchanting both weapons they wielded took maybe another quarter.

Imp – Summon Level 24 (Uncommon)

Demonic trident – Tier 1 (Uncommon)

Imp – Summon Level 23 (Uncommon)

Demonic spear – Tier 1 (Uncommon)

It made her wonder if she could even beat the imps herself. From what she saw, they definitely had a high enough agility to dodge any bolts she might try and throw, and despite holding her own Tier 1 demonic knife she was definitely not keen to get in melee range with them.

With their level advantage, the fat angry red babies in front of her could probably beat her quite easily. But then again, they were a part of her strength, and maybe if all those stat points were in strength, agility, constitution, and endurance then she would be the one winning. Considering that with an epic class she receives 8 stat points to a common class receiving 5, then at Level 17 she would be similar in stats to someone around Level 27. Compared to the uncommon imps, she would be around level 23, so stat wise at a very similar level to the imps despite being 6 levels below.

That put a pep in her step as she started her way down the tunnel. She sent the spear imp forward maybe 10 meters in front, while the trident imp hovered just above her right shoulder in case something came from behind or there was a surprise attack.

They were surprisingly quiet as they hanged in the air, with the only sound being the flap of their mini wings that moved maybe every second. She decided to ignore the physics behind it, as there was no way the wings, each the size of her hand, could hold up their bodies with how fast they were flapping. Whatever works I guess.

But the more she thought about her stats, the less confident she began to feel. Her plan now was to push her 72 wisdom to 100 and see if she was the first there too for the perk, but it made her feel vulnerable to leave stats like vitality so low when her first priority was survival. After all, it doesn’t matter how strong she was if a single hit from something powerful would kill her instantly.

Although another summon would be nice too, and she would need a bigger mana pool for that.

She felt something from the imp ahead, and walking forward a few more steps she realised that the tunnel in front of her had opened up to a huge cavern.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Around the size of a football stadium, the cavern was littered with stalagmites and stalactites both small and the size of buses, and all studded with the glowing crystals that lit up her way in. The dirt had given way to stone, and with its dark texture the room was filled with spaces where anything could be hiding.

So it was surprising to see the golem wandering through the cave around 20 meters ahead with its back to her.

Rock Golem – Level 18

This one definitely looked tougher, and so with the safety of the empty tunnel behind her she sent both imps forward. They shot straight at the back of the golem, and thrusting their weapons they went straight through it. Still skewering the golem, one imp shoved its spear to the right while the other pulled its trident left and the body of the golem was practically ripped apart. The whole fight, if you could even call it that, lasted maybe two seconds before she felt the experience flood into her.

I could get used to this.

The imps looked pretty excited too, both turning to her and the spear imp even giving his weapon a little twirl. They looked hungry for more of these weaker opponents to crush, excited to slaughter their way around the cavern. Her worry now was just that, in the dark setting, she could get ambushed. That was the trade-off for being a summoner, she supposed, having minions do all the work for her while she sat back, but also being a glass cannon that could get killed pretty easily from any ambush.

So she decided to stick to her strength and move around the edges of the cavern. The less angles to get ambushed from the better.

Again, the higher levelled trident imp hovered close by while the spear imp led the way.

Thankfully, she managed to spot the golem as it tried to blend into the wall in front of her. It made her wonder why such big creatures were using ambushes. Typically, in the games she had played before, she would expect monsters like this to be wandering around in full view like the first one she ran in to. Then again, they are big pieces of rock - it made sense that they just sat still like they were. It could be that rather than waiting in ambush, they were simply resting.

That made her feel like a bit of an asshole for ruining their sleep, but then again they are just big piles of rock.

The spear imp took the golems head off in one swipe, bit it still kept coming forward at her. It took a couple more stabs, and some easy dodges, before it had taken enough damage to crumble to the ground.

You have levelled up.

She was happy to see the notification, and threw the 5 free points into wisdom which, alongside the 2 points from the level up, bumped it up to 79. With 7 points a level, it should only take another 3 levels to hit 100 wisdom, and with how easy this was she felt pretty confident.

It helped being overpowered.

She continued her circuit around the walls of the cavern, and after putting down another two golems she found a tunnel making its way up. This was confusing, because she knew she was nowhere near the entrance she took into the dungeon, so were there more exits? She asked Lucifer, but he didn’t respond. He had been strangely absent since the explosion, maybe it took more out of him than she initially thought?

So rather than doing the dumb thing any normal MC would do and venturing into a tunnel into the complete unknown, she ignored it and kept going. Why waste the free xp? She can come back later when she no longer needed more levels.

It took a few hours, but after circling the cavern, and with the help of her minions, she had put down 13 more golems and arrived back at her original entrance. How could she tell? The remains of the first stone golem she killed lay there which made it pretty obvious.

Unfortunately, she was only level 19, and needed to hit level 21 to reach 100 wisdom. But at this point, she felt confident against the golems and decided to leave the edges of the cavern and venture in. Part of it was her confidence gained from the last two hours of taking a stroll while her minions ripped the golems apart easily. Part of it was the urgency she felt to reach 100 wisdom before anyone else. But honestly, a big part of it was the sheer boredom of not being able to do much but play around with some of her demonic mana in an effort to get her [Demonic Mana Manipulation] to level up while the minions did all the work.

And so she went forward.

Passing between the stalagmites, a word she was now able to easily recall and not mix up with stalactites which grew from the ceiling, she kept vigilant to her surroundings. Not the most pivotal use of her perfect memory, but it was her first use so far and put a small smile on her face. She ventured toward where she thought the centre of the stadium sized cave was. She didn’t move quickly, eyeing every rock around her, then taking down two more golems on her way forward, and it didn’t take long for her to find the boss.

[Inspect]

Stone golem – Level 24 (Boss)

Feeling her mana pool, she had less than a third available to her. With two imps, alongside enchanting the spear, trident, and her knife, even with the extra two levels she was not confident she could summon another imp. No clue what the (Boss) tag meant, but she felt that her two minions at the same level should be able to take it on. She looked at the solid stone golem just patiently standing in the centre of the cavern, and at its around 12 feet of height it made her feel quite small. She could help her minions by throwing some bolts at it, but they hardly even damaged the level 13 dirt golems outside, let alone this big guy.

But it was time to take on her first boss, and at Level 19 herself she felt confident she had a good shot with her minions. After a bit of manoeuvring to position herself behind the boss, she tucked herself behind a pillar and sent her minions into battle.