Stone Gauntlets – Tier 2 (Uncommon)

* +20 Strength

* +20 Endurance

The fact that a perfectly formed pair of gauntlets had dropped from a lizard threw Sarah off for a second, reminding her of how crazy everything had become. She picked up the items and slid her hands inside, and immediately she felt a connection try to form with her.

And her mana dropped. The gauntlets reserved another 20 points of her mana bringing her down to only around 10 points left. Lucifer had mentioned previously that each tier of an item was equivalent to 10 levels of power, and if she were to have a warrior class then the stats alone here would be close to the equivalent of that. This seemed like a ridiculous boost for her, nearly tripling her current strength and endurance off a single item, although if that boost instead went to her primary stats than that would be even more useful.

As it was, her recent level up and the reduced cost of summons meant the twenty mana points it cost could instead be used to summon another minion. Swinging her arms around, the bonus stats felt amazing to her but would it be worth another summon that had around 200 stat points itself?

Probably not.

Maybe if the stats were more useful to her, or if she was a class that didn’t need to reserve her mana pool for her summons. Undoubtedly a warrior or similar classes would load up on many items like this as they wouldn’t have need for their mana, but she would.

And so using the blood of the dead boss she summoned another imp to help her, this one with a level at 32. With the 25% discount, the level 32 imp cost her about 24 points of mana, only slightly more expensive than the gauntlets.

It also left her with only about 7 points of mana remaining in her pool, but she also had 15 unused stat points from her level ups that she could use in case of any surprises.

Status, she thought.

Name: Sarah Rose

Race: Half-Greater Demon

Class: Hellbringer (Epic)

Level: 26 -> 27

Strength: 12

Agility: 13

Wisdom: 123 -> 125 (118 reserved)

Intelligence: 123 -> 125

Vitality: 25

Endurance: 12

Charisma: 18

Unused Stat Points: 10 -> 15

Abilities:

* [Ritual Magic] Rank 2 Level 2 -> Level 3

* [Demonic Mana Manipulation] Rank 1 Level 9 -> Rank 2 Level 1

* [Soul Sense] Rank 1 Level 2 -> Level 8

* [Enchanting] Rank 1 Level 1

* NEW [Mana Barrier] Rank 1 Level 1

Perks:

* [Adaptive] - +1 free stat points per level.

* [Ritualess] - You may substitute reagents for mana in your rituals.

* [Demonic] - Your mana has the demonic attribute.

* [Intelligence Prodigy] - Identic Memory.

* [Wisdom Prodigy] - You learn abilities faster.

* [Solo Diver] - 10% buff while fighting solo.

It wasn’t much spare mana to work with, but enough that she could play a few points playing around with her [Demonic Mana Manipulation] or [Mana Barrier] to train it. [Soul Sense] cost her nothing thankfully, only taxing her concentration.

With three level 32 imps, a level 31, and a level 30 hellhound, she looked down at the tunnel next to the body of the boss leading the way into the next level…

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And she walked away.

Unfortunately, while she was confident she could win any battles against whatever was down there, she was losing the battle to a different foe.

Hunger.

After asking Lucifer, she found out that experience did help to satiate the body, but that would only go so far. Thinking on her actions so far, she couldn’t remember if she had even eaten a meal in the nearly three days of the apocalypse so far.

And so she retraced her steps back up to the previous floor.

“Can you sense that?”

Lucifer interrupted her daydreams about chocolate and immediately kicked her brain into gear. She realised she hadn’t been sweeping the area with her [Soul Sense], and her summons were just walking alongside her causally.

If there was an ambush she would have been completely unprepared. However, after a sweep of her [Soul Sense], she found nothing. Was Lucifer just testing her and giving her a demonstration of how unprepared she was?

Lesson learned… she admitted to the demon. She was new to fighting, and constant vigilance was a good motto for those trying to stay alive.

“No you idiot, use your mana.”

After confirming it wasn’t urgent, she messed around with her mana manipulation by pushing a few points into the air and trying to sense it. And eventually the system let her known she was on the right track.

New Ability Unlocked: [Mana Sense]

No remaining ability slots - Replace an existing ability with [Mana Sense]? All ability levels will be lost.

Her improved learning speed definitely helped, with it taking barely a minute to learn the skill. It was tempting to pick it up but she wanted to at least give enchanting a bit of a go before making any decisions.

Not to mention she already had a sense skill. Her mana manipulation could still mimic [Mana Sense] to a lesser extent as well, so she would try that out first.

She declined the notification, then started trying to get a read on the mana around her. It took a while, and nearly all her concentration, but eventually she started noticing the flow of mana towards the tunnel she just came from. She could feel the flow of mana in the air, and even taste the earth attuned flavour it held. It was while she was ‘tasting’ this earth mana when she noticed something else.

At first she thought it was her own demonic mana either she or her summons released, but this just felt… different somehow. Not her own.

“Other demonic beings have been in here.”

Recently? Did they go down to the second floor?

“It is difficult to tell, but unlikely. Soul sense works very well in sensing enemies, but is very limited otherwise. We never would have been able to sense them if not for the improved senses from gaining a tier, we can assume they were here long before we arrived.”

Why is that?

“Otherworldly beings can only delve down into a dungeon up to the point where the natives have freely gone. They have to defeat the floor boss before others can even enter the floor, and I would assume you're the first one to do so for this dungeon. It is a limitation that your world, the one you call Earth or Gaia, and most other new worlds put in place to keep invaders in check, as it stops those who arrive higher levelled from finding anything to fight.”

Apart from the whole Gaia being an actual thing that can make decisions, it did make sense. Stopping the level 24 arrivals from gaining more levels by rushing down dungeons would mean their only source of experience was the beings on the surface that were far lower levelled than them. Another native must have entered the first floor of the dungeon before her, giving the demons the opportunity to explore at least this first floor, but they obviously were not able to get any further given the demons had turned around.

What stops them from just dragging some natives along so they can go deeper?

“Pay attention brat. I said freely, and it’s enforced quite strictly. The only way around it is to give parties of natives high level items to help boost them, but that is both risky and expensive and usually ends with the natives stealing the artifacts and just leaving through a different entrance.”

There are different entrances?

“Usually a few connecting to each dungeon all leading to different parts of the world, and likely where these demons have come from.”

Following the mana in the air led her to one of the exits in the wall different from the one she initially came through in. The few golems that she did run in to were taken care of easily by her summons, and now she stood in front of the portal to the outside.

Can I send a summon through first?

“Your intelligence is high enough that they can operate independently for a short while, maybe 30 seconds, before you would have to follow them or otherwise lose connection. I’d suggest sending two through, waiting a bit, then joining.”

Sarah took his advice and sent through two imps, directing them to subdue anything they found outside the portal. After about 15 seconds of waiting, she then followed with her other three summons in tow and a mana barrier around her.

It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the light, but as they did she was met with the sight of her two imps with their spears pointed forward at a hooded humanoid figure standing less than 10 meters away.

Their eyes met, and Sarah could see the bright red pupils of the demon in front of her as it took in her and her summons. The skin of its face she could see under the cloak was also a light red, and it only took a moment of staring her down before its face then split into a wide smile, showing her its pointed teeth.

Warrior – Level 33

“Touch your forehead, now.”

She paused for a moment, before following Lucifer’s directions and reaching up to touch her forehead.

And this action seemed to please the demon, for its smile then went even wider before it gave her a deep bow.

“A pleasure to meet you, your majesty.”