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Iceborn Bloodline
11 - Gnoll Guards

11 - Gnoll Guards

A loud smash, a thunk there. A raven haired woman was getting beaten by a large bipedal dog beat her again and again. She smacked into one tree, and another. It softened it's blows as time went on. At one point the woman seemed to be done with her awful situation and managed to brake her movement from one of the slams.

Many bleeding wounds and bruises were spread around on her body. Keeping her sword level, she charged at him, this time she would finally use the fruits of her labor. She parried his next attack perfectly, using a footwork stance and redirected his force, a quick twist, and [Slash]'s damage was converted from a slash to a stab, a horizontal kind of stab.

This went on for a while, where every moment the woman swung at the dog she drew blood, when the beast tried to attack her, she would convert some of that momentum in order to get more hits, more blood from it. All of this turned the poor little dog into a target training dummy. A whimper escaped it's lips at one point, frustration apparent.

When it seemed to be charging up, she just lunged and poked out it's eye with the tip of her sword, she used slash to cut into it's neck causing blood to funnel out in a steady stream. Her stamina was getting low, and her health wasn't happy either. The beast charged it's attack and swung it's staff in a circle. Parry, and slash were used in conjunction, her footwork took her close to the belly of the beast and before it could react it was slashed on it's gut.

The gnoll looked down at her and kept swinging. Was it planning something else?

Then she heard it, a rustle, leaves brushing against something. Looking up she saw the surrounding trees falling down on her. She tried to maneuver out of them, but whenever she got too far she'd get a close run in with the high speed staff the gnoll used. A second of inattention caused the entire front of her shirt to be torn open from a tree, scraping away at her flesh.

Was this a suicide attack? Deciding that it was time to stop fucking around she weaved in between the blows and channeled her moon affinity in her blade and used [Slash] repeatedly, whenever she could. It came out to around only 3 seconds between each attack, but they all seemed to make a difference with moon affinity added on. For some reason she couldn't channel the wolf affinity, not even a little bit combined with the tiny sword affinity she had.

The moon affinity had both aspects of sharpness and magic to give it some power, striking forward she cut into it's flesh, moonlight seemed to embed itself in the wound. For the first time the dog seemed to be anxious and the spinning sped up, at first it was around 3 spins a second, now it's closer to 9. The trees completely ignored the existence of the gnoll and his stick and only went after Lunetta.

The fifth slash with the moon affinity she finally saw the difference.The wounds created by the moon affinity would create a network and connect with each other forcefully, meaning if she hit one side then the other, they would essentially penetrate parts of the beast in order to connect, and the longer they connected the denser they got.

At this point it started swinging slower again, and it realized this, it stopped it's attack and charged at her again. This time however, she ran. Being quite low health had essentially already made her very cautious, if it stormed her and hit her even once she'd be in the grave. Sitting at a low 5% health she was anxious at this stage.

The beast finally caught up, and with a swing of it's stick, a parry later and a slash, it lost another eye. She quickly followed up with a thrust and skewered it's brain. It had gone into a rage state and didn't fight with as many instincts anymore, so getting around it's defenses was a lot easier. She went to sit under a tree and began meditating.

After 5 hours or so of meditation she was finally back in a serviceable state, besides her tattered clothing. She really needed to get better clothes. That thought spurred something on, she saw something appear in her messages, opening it up she read.

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Quest(Personal): Attain higher leveled clothing or higher rarity clothing suitable for your level.

This quest was spurred on by your need for better clothing, and reflects the path to power. Rewards: Some Experience, 6x Colorants(for Armor).

Note that all the colorants come as a set and should be applied as is, mixing them up may end up making you look unfashionable.

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That interested her immediately. Finally she could become somewhat fashionable, mainly for social status since at this stage she looks more like a peasant than some epic moonlight warrior. At least it would come with instructions, considering a magical rule set or something in that line. She had leveled up again.

[You have slain Gnoll Guard of Power Level 12] Additional experience is rewarded for killing enemies at a higher level than you.

She had gotten a new level

Her new sheet:

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

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Lunetta:

Class Level: 7

Race Level: 3

Health: 391

Mana: 330

Stamina: 310

Class Warrior

Profession: ??

Subprofession 1: ??

Subprofession 2: ??

Rank[G]

Human[G]

Bloodline: Fenrir[DS] - (Matriarchal Stable)

An unawakened power lies deep within you. +5% Strength, + 10% Intelligence

Patron: Seyvlia

Affinities: Greater Affinity of the Moon, Greater Primal Affinity of the Wolf, Lesser Affinity of Water,

Lesser Affinity of Storm, Lesser Affinity of Rain, Tiny Affinity of the Sword

Weapon: Sword[G] A basic combat sword.

Slashing -Level 1 Requirement

Armor:

Shirt(Clothing)-Level 0 Requirement

Underwear(Clothing)-Level 0 Requirement

Pants(Clothing)-Level 0 Requirement

Strength: 31 (5%)

Agility: 31

Intelligence: 33 (10%)

Vitality: 30

Endurance: 33

Points Free: 0

Talents: Weapon Mastery[2/3]

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She planned on just throwing everything into Strength, and Endurance. With heavier and sharper blades she'd be able to cut through anything, though maybe that wouldn't be the best idea. She liked showing off her curves quite a bit and plate armor sounded counterintuitive to that, and it just sounds uncomfortable

She had so far distributed points as follows:

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Point Distribution:

Strength: 1

Agility: 2

Intelligence: 8

Vitality: 0

Endurance: 0

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Ah yes, the eight points she just shoved into intelligence hoping it would make her smarter. The naivety was quite great back then, though it was kind of accurate to a certain extent, intelligence was mostly a multiplier to your own inherent intelligence. Meaning that if your natural intelligence is shit, then intelligence can't really boost it much.

This thought made her feel a bit inferior, but she consoled herself due to her large amounts of affinities, and her practice at making pretty mana patterns on metallic weapons of war. Thinking of the quest, she decided to look around a bit for somewhere she can challenge herself, not that the massive gnoll guards weren't challenging, she needed something a bit more.

The only reason she suspects that she won, was because of her weapon mastery, without it, she would've been pummeled into a pulp. If only she had a legendary class she could frivolously spend her points into whatever she deemed worth it, but alas a foundation was good. The lower you start the greater your end potential, meaning if she decided to pick up a legendary class after this, it wouldn't affect her potential.

If she had started with it, she would've likely been stuck somewhere in E grade, unable to get more experience. It was a chance given to lower-grade citizens to allow them to have an impact in the world at least at a low level. She did get something for her efforts to use the especially draining moon affinity in combat. It had sapped her mana quite well, and she needed to stop a few seconds every now and then to regenerate her mana.

Due to you adding the power of the Moon in mortal combat, you have evolved [Slash] into [Moonlit Slash]

Boring name, but it did do as the tag suggested. It was also quite a bit more stable than the shitty variant she used. Now she tried something else, adding more moonlight power to the slash. It seemed to just suck it up. A moment later she slapped herself in the face.

Moonlit Slash[Rare](low Stamina, Normal Mana): Slash with the power of the moon empowering you.

Normal Strength Scaling, the Strength scaling is increased with more Moon Affinity Mana channeled into the attack.

Quite simple, Intelligence and Strength would carry her far. Placing half her Mana into it felt like a bit of a waste, the skill seemed more efficient the less she used, and the more slashes she would use. Especially on the mana front.

Skill Check:

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Lunetta:

Eyes of the Warrior[Common] - Know when you are watched by an enemy warrior.

Hilt Strike[Common](low Stamina) - Punish the mistakes of enemies. Retaliatory attack.

15% Strength Scaling for the hit.

Moonlit Slash[Rare](low Stamina, Normal Mana) - Melee attack with bladed weapon, using the power of the moon.

40% Strength Scaling, the Strength scaling is increased with more Moon Affinity Mana channeled into the attack.

Stealth Level 1:

Climbing Level 1:

DEP:

Slash[Common](Low Stamina) - Melee attack with bladed weapon, quite precise but is a bit slow.

10% Strength Scaling

Reinforced Strike[Uncommon](Low Stamina and Low Health) - Melee attack with a weapon. The signature skill of a warrior.

30% Strength Scaling

Strike[Common](Low Stamina) - Melee attack with a weapon. The signature skill of a warrior.

10% Strength Scaling

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She didn't know what DEP meant, but she thought it was something to do with her being able to use them, even though they were sub optimal at best. Though she had a few situations where she could use them.

After stumbling a bit around, moving deeper into the forest, she finally found what she had been looking for. A cave, or a dungeon rather. Moving to the entrance she read some words that injected themselves into her vision.

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GREAT DUNGEON OF THE DECEIVER

REQUIREMENTS: Level ??

REQUIREMENTS MET

Description: The great Deceiver is a great God worshiped by all the worlds in the multiverse, at least to some extent. ALL HERETICS WILL DIE. (Exceptions do readily apply. )

The legacy of the great Deceiver rests within, come into faith, or die. (Exceptions do apply. Please universe stop-)

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Didn't sound ominous at all. A quick thought to her friend let her know that it is indeed possible to have multiple patrons, but the situation is excessively rare. For one, they would have to share your "shared" history. Essentially everything you do is split up into a one to one share with your god, you still get the same results for your labor, the god just gets it as well.

If you have multiple patrons, they have to share that bit. Seyvlia apparently didn't really care for it, she got enough out of the Moon affinity history. Essentially Lunetta was being used to further a specific branch of Moon affinity that she needs, the rest of the history didn't really matter. Gods could choose which to share and such, only the generic shit was where things got complicated.

Not wanting to feel cold wind on her nipples anymore, she stepped inside the dungeon. Unbeknownst to her a squirrel had been watching her, calculating it's next move.