Dropping the ritual applied to herself, Zalia realised the corrupting aura was still gone entirely. It seemed that the ritual powered and incorporated into the plants themselves was actually more powerful than the temporary ones she made herself. It made sense, the time and effort required to make the more permanent one was considerably higher than the other.
Many ideas popped into her mind as she admired her handiwork. She didn’t see any reason this same thing wouldn’t work for the island in its entirety. She could spend days, weeks or even months setting up sections of the ritual across the entire island and protect it from the aura that way. Considering that though, she didn’t know if the shades or the larger creatures would notice or get upset at that. Probably not such a good idea.
Still, this was something she could theoretically apply to many different areas of her life. When camping in the wild, some quickly set up protective arrays over the campsite would be invaluable. If she ever had a proper home again, a complex set of protective arrays could provide an excellent means of defence.
She could also set up greenhouses with biomes inside that helped grow and were fueled by the plants inside. Maybe, once she reached Bronze rank she could even use the mind element from the trapvine to create some sort of elemental protector that was fueled by an array of plants.
The possibilities were endless and she had trouble containing her excitement. She could set up magically protected areas all across Cormaine now too, no longer necessarily reliant on finding underground spaces to hide in. That was assuming the shades wouldn’t attack her for trying to do that, however.
Imagining what she could do when she had the instinctual knowledge of Bronze rank herbs, she had a yearning to reach it as soon as possible. That would mean doing a lot of work with her Herbalist class though. While her Hunter class wasn’t far off, Herbalist would need a lot of work.
So, for the next two weeks, Zalia did just that. She started off with a few more fights in Hetheir just to get her Hunter class abilities to Bronze.
Congratulations! Kill shot has gained two levels reaching Iron 20.
Congratulations! Kill shot has reached Bronze 1.
Kill shot will gain no further levels until all classes have reached Bronze.
Kill shot
Tin - Enhance an attack, go for the kill. This ability deals a tiny amount of damage. The damage of this ability scales exponentially with the target's missing health.
Iron - Kill shot deals increased damage based on how many separate effects you have active on the creature.
Bronze - Kill shot becomes Enhanced shot. You are able to infuse arrows with an element your herbal magic ability can create or execute a kill shot putting this ability on cooldown for thirty seconds.
Congratulations! Hunter’s mark has reached Iron 20.
Congratulations! Hunter’s mark has reached Bronze 1.
Hunter’s mark will gain no further levels until all classes have reached Bronze.
Hunter’s mark
Tin - Marked by the hunter, there is no escape. This ability marks a creature you can see. Marked creature takes a small amount of extra damage when damaged by you. You know the general direction of the marked enemy. Marking a second creature removes the first mark.
Iron - you may apply hunter's mark to three creatures at once
Bronze - the three creature limit increases to ten and a small amount of damage a marked creature takes is applied to other marked creatures as well.
Congratulations! Fight or Flight has gained two levels reaching Iron 20.
Congratulations! Fight or Flight has reached Bronze 1.
Fight or Flight will gain no further levels until all classes have reached Bronze.
Fight or Flight
Tin - choose one;
* When used your perception increases greatly for five seconds.
* Remove all slowing and restraining effects and prevent further slowing and restraining effects for the next five seconds.
Iron - Option one now grants the ability to sense if you're going to be hit by an attack and where the attack is coming from within the duration.
Option two now grants you increased speed and dexterity.
Bronze - Fight or Flight now grants both options at once rather than having to choose between.
The ability level ups for her Hunter class abilities were… ridiculous. Her ability to take down larger groups of enemies increased dramatically with the Hunter’s mark upgrade. Not only could she apply harmful rituals to ten enemies at once now with Herbal magic’s Bronze rank effect but when one took damage, all the others would take a small amount of that damage too. She figured it didn’t also reflect that extra damage otherwise it would lead into an infinite spiralling damaging effect.
Still, when she marked ten creatures and applied something like the lava curse to them in addition to her starlight arrows, they very quickly died. In fact, she could now kill things quicker in groups of ten than she could by themselves when it came to higher ranks.
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The Kill shot upgrade meant she could infuse an element into each of her shots as long as it was replicable by Herbal magic. She found that Bitterbalm was actually the best option she had at the moment because it seemed to enhance the effect of the debuff the arrows applied, starlit.
Finally, Fight or Flight was now a single option that allowed her to act quite quickly while her perception was sped up as well, meaning her body caught up to the speed she was seeing at. There was no longer that disconnect as her body slowed down to her own perception, the two now in sync.
All in all, it was a set of very good upgrades that allowed her to move through the city a bit less carefully, now able to take down quite a few enemies at once.
The next abilities to upgrade shortly after that were of course her Druid ones.
Congratulations! Nature’s wrath has gained three levels reaching Iron 20.
Congratulations! Nature’s wrath has reached Bronze 1.
Nature’s wrath will gain no further levels until all classes reach Bronze.
Nature's wrath
Tin - You invoke the wrath of nature. Nearby enemies are bound by vines, sinking sand or other area related hazards. Enemies are also subjected to a damage over time effect relevant to biome that lasts until the restraint has ended. The damage over time effect deals moderate damage per second.
Iron - When used, Nature's wrath now summons two short lived allies of nature. The allies are one rank lower than this ability. The allies are of a type based on the surrounding environment.
Bronze - Upon using Nature's Wrath, you gain temporary control over the natural elements within the area. You can manipulate the environment to your advantage, causing vines to entangle enemies, rocks to rise as barriers, or water to surge forth and sweep foes away.
Congratulations! Protection of the wild’s has gained eight levels reaching Iron 20.
Congratulations! Protection of the wild’s has reached Bronze 1.
Protection of the wild’s will gain no further levels until all classes reach Bronze.
Active 2 - Protection of the wilds - spell - area - counter execute
Tin - You call upon the protection of the wilds. You and nearby allies are protected by a biome specific shield and are subjected to a moderate heal over time effect. The heal over time heals exponentially more based on how low the target's health is and remains until the shield is broken.
Iron - Protection of the Wilds now has a more ethereal and moving visage. You and Allies within a shield created by this ability may still see and move as normal. Additionally, you may enhance this ability with a single effect replicable by the Iron rank ability of Herbal magic.
Bronze - Upon activating Protection of the Wilds, you and your allies within the shields are not only healed over time, but the healing effect becomes more potent as the shield absorbs damage. The shield's resilience increases with the amount of healing it provides, creating a symbiotic relationship between protection and restoration.
Congratulations! Druid class has gained eight levels reaching Iron 20.
Congratulations! Druid class has reached Bronze 1.
Druid class will gain no further levels until all classes reach Bronze.
In line with each other ability rank up, her Druid class ones were the most potent. The Bronze rank upgrade of Nature’s wrath gave her what could only be described as a temporary control over the elements on a scale much larger than her passives allowed. She was used to doing minor things with her passives like taking a while to dig a cut out into the tops of the pillars or playing around with ice with Boreal.
This ability took it to another level though. She was able to pull walls out of the ground or whip the wind into a temporary storm. She could form large stone hands that crushed the undead or held them fast as she killed them in another manner. Unfortunately, despite the wisdom and intellect attributes increasing to Bronze with the abilities she could no longer use both at the same time without running out of mana. She could feel it instinctively, if she tried she would pass out immediately.
Previously, it used a significant chunk to do so but she could manage quite well despite it, most of her other abilities being quite low in how much mana they used. Now she would have to be careful.
The new effect of Protection of the wilds actually made it useful to use at higher health as well. As the shield took damage it would heal a greater amount and as that amount increased so too did how much damage the shield could take. It actually became somewhat of an effect that could be used for a long term effect rather than an emergency button.
All those level ups happened within the first week, each ability that reached Bronze meaning the others would level faster as the experience from killing the undead was split between fewer abilities.
Unfortunately, because her Herbalist class didn’t have much use in combat outside of Herbal magic, its progress was much slower. At the end of the first week there were a few levels in some of the abilities but it was the second week she spent most of her time gathering herbs and tracking creatures that brought out the biggest results.
She had travelled to another island and found quite a stealthy creature that lived there, living off a plant she had discovered. Somehow both the creature and the plant were resilient enough to survive the corrupting aura. What led her to realise how both the creature and plant had survived the aura was the element she discovered the plant yielded.
Adastem - Bronze - Use in rituals to add an element of adaptability.
She, of course, harvested as much of it as she could get her hands on to take back to the other island. She even got Boreal to hold some on the way back.
Congratulations! Hunter’s sight has gained four levels reaching Iron 17.
Congratulations! Hunter class has gained four levels reaching Iron 17.
Congratulations! Flora identification has gained five levels reaching Iron 14.
Congratulations! Preparation has gained six levels reaching Iron 16.
Congratulations! Stasis has gained five levels reaching Iron 15.
Congratulations! Harvester has gained seven levels reaching Iron 17.
Congratulations! Herbalist has gained five levels reaching Iron 14.
In addition, as bad as she did feel for killing the odd one, the strange ever changing creatures she did find on the island tasted significantly better. Boreal agreed.
They took on a roughly canine shape yet when fighting them, Zalia often had to change tactics as they adapted to her style. Whether it was forming a carapaced shield to block her arrows despite their armour ignoring properties, becoming more lithe to match her speed or growing in density to match a full on charge, they were a hard task to take down even at the average Iron and Bronze ranks.
She did see a Silver ranked one but decided to avoid engaging with that entirely.
It wouldn’t be long until her last abilities and classes ticked over to Bronze and she could begin the even longer journey to Silver and so as she arrived back at the cave she started planning what to do next.