Ray closed his eyes and breathed in deep. A new variant of Mana. It was exciting. Enthralling. Could he acquire more?
He supposed he ought to hold his horses. He had just attained Origin Mana. Forget getting more, first, he had to get properly acquainted with it. See what all the fuss was about and if he had actually been correct to believe that this was indeed the best choice for him.
Ray opened his eyes. The clouds were still studded with those half-twisters high above. But, as ever, they let in enough light to call it daytime.
He held out his hand. Mana Imbuing. But it wasn’t Mana Imbuing any longer. Origin Resonance now.
The skill took a small portion of the Mana he regained from defeating enemies and used it to replace a bit of his body with Mana, allowing him to do things like grafting draconic heads in place of his actual flesh and blood.
With how many enemies Ray had defeated since first acquiring the skill, he was sure he had passively imbued enough Mana to replace his entire body with it. Not that he could actually feel it. But he already had proof. After all, in the last dungeon, he had effortlessly constructed his draconic heads on his shoulders and back to make them act like jetpacks.
He concentrated on Origin Resonance and imagined his Mana moving his arm. Origin Mana, not True Mana.
His arm seemed to bubble inside as the Mana flowed through it. At the same time, Ray used Lifeblood Soulform to call up his newest Soul Aspect from the Viledrake.
A large tail emerged from Ray’s back. It was just like it had been for the Viledrake, a rocky, craggy appendage that extended out and quickly gathered lava along its length. Molten Mana. Just calling up the tail had made the Mana variant that the Viledrake had used start to smother the area with heat. Thankfully, Ray was safeguarded against it.
But the fact that Molten Mana was here was what he had been seeking. Ray used Abstract Conversion to turn some of his True Mana into the Molten Mana. The burning magical energy settled within him, threatening to burst out. Ray focused the overheated Mana into his arm.
He gasped. In short order, his arm had turned into a limb of pure lava.
“No fucking way,” he breathed, voice hushed like if he spoke too loudly, it would dispel whatever illusion was making him possess a magma arm.
With great care, Ray moved his arm around. Experimented with it. Origin Resonance had worked. Definitely, positively, perfectly. It had imbued his entire arm with his chosen mana variant.
But more importantly, what could Ray do with his new arm? The heat wasn’t bothering him. He actually touched his arms together and found, miraculously, that his non-lava, fully-fleshed arm didn’t burn. It wasn’t harming his new Vestments either, something Ray was quite thankful for.
Wait, did this mean that Ray was basically immune to all kinds of heat? Could he walk through a raging inferno so long as he had a part of him cosplaying a lava lamp?
He really wished he could test that, but non-Ray lava was no longer nearby, sadly.
It took only a little bit of focus to make his arm return to normal. But his testing wasn’t done. Molten Mana was only one variant. Ray had at least one more he wanted to figure out.
He used the skill again. Origin Resonance sent more Origin Mana bubbling through the limb. This time, Ray used Mimic Mana. He had to use Abstract Conversion after calling on his Imitator construct first, of course.
The result was surprising. Then again, Ray didn’t know what he was expecting to happen by imbuing Mimic Mana.
His arm warped. Ray could see through it. It looked like it was turning transparent, but it felt more like it was turning into glass. There was the slightest of distortions of light at the edges. But it wasn’t done. Ray got the sense, thanks to Primordial Gauge, that this transparency was merely the preliminary stage.
With a little more focus, Ray was able to make his arm actually mimic the Viledrake tail. It was so weird to both have a giant tail flowing from his back and also jutting out of his shoulder like an oversized, lava-breathing worm.
Ray dismissed it, though the excitement bubbling in his gut didn’t disappear. He could once again see so much potential for it.
And he had just tested his own arm. What about the rest of his spells?
Ray decided to test the rest later. He wanted to get going. A few minutes of searching showed him the path he was supposed to follow to get down the giant tor. He hurried down it. His descent was pretty quick with the help of his wings, but he didn’t want to rush too much and accidentally throw himself down several thousands of feet.
When Ray reached the bottom of the butte, he came to a stop. He wasn’t alone.
The guard was waiting for him.
“You!” Ray said. “What the hell are you doing here?”
And why hadn’t Primordial Gauge warned him about the guy?
The man was impassive as ever. It apparently meant nothing to him that Ray had just descended down a Tier 13 dungeon.
“I came to speak with you, Raymond Dominick,” the guard said.
Ray couldn’t help but glower. “I don’t remember ever telling you my full name. It’s unfair, you know. You never told me your name.”
“Because it isn’t important. Yours is, however. Now, listen.”
“I’ll listen after I understand how you got here. Don’t you realize how wild it is that I just came down a mountain of a dungeon and you of all people are here to greet me?”
“Ha, please.” Uncharacteristically, the guard smiled dismissively, though it disappeared quickly. “I didn’t come here to greet you. Listen to my message. Will you assist us on Cliff Three to defend our homeland against the invaders?”
Ray licked his lips. Had this guard seriously come all this way just to proposition Ray to help his side against the Sylvans? “Why are you asking me?”
“Because you are a natural enemy of Sylvans. You would be a great asset in our war against them.”
“So you want me to fight for you?”
“You will be appropriately remunerated for your service.”
Ray’s glower didn’t abate. This asshole actually had actually come here on a recruiting mission. “Sorry, pal, I make it a habit of not working for anyone.”
“Have you not already been doing so?”
This guy… Ray was hoping he could stop scowling but the guard really wasn’t making it easy.
“Will you not at least do me the honour of hearing out what I have to say?” the guard asked. “Allow me to finish the full offer before you make a decision on whether to reject or accept it.”
“There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.” Ray sighed. “But fine, go ahead. Get it out of your system.”
The guard blinked, probaby at the choice of words in an unfamiliar phrasing. He went on regardless. “If you choose to assist us in this matter, if you choose to help us against this grave peril that threatens our kingdom and the livelihood of all our fair citizens, then we will grant you sure, safe, and direct passage to the Third Floor.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“What do you mean by sure, safe, and direct passage? Do you even know how I’m supposed to get to the Third Floor?”
“We will allow you free roam of all of the Second Floor. All the way up to the ends of Cliff One. Surely, the way to your Third Floor will be evident someplace you have access to, so long as you are able to go everywhere.”
A desperate idea. Remove all artificial barricades erected by the Everstead kingdom in return for assisting the kingdom against its enemies. Certainly not a bad deal.
If the participants ended up surviving.
“It’s interesting,” Ray said. “But I decline.”
Strangely, the guard didn’t seem that disappointed. Though, he hardly ever showed any emotion, so that wasn’t actually surprising.
“I see.” The man began walking away. “Then I wish you fair fortune on your travels, for however long the Everstead kingdom stands.”
Now that was intriguing. It sounded he didn’t believe his homeland would last long against the might of the Sylvans.
That couldn’t be right. Ray had fought against the Sylvans, knew their collective strength pretty well, just as the guard had stated earlier. He had also fought against the guards and army of the Everstead kingdom. Side by side, he would definitely put the Everstead as a notch above their enemies.
Sure, the Sylvans might individually be stronger as warriors, simply due to their fighting proficiency. But they couldn’t be more powerful than an entire kingdom’s fighting force. And the Everstead citizen’s were generally at a higher level.
Then what in the world was this guard suggesting?
Intrigued as Ray was, he didn’t take the bait. Now wasn’t the time to extend the conversation. He had places to be, monsters to kill, growth to assure, and hopefully, a trio of Holdstar to find.
Once he was certain the guard was gone on his raptor, Ray set off.
----------------------------------------
A part of him wanted to return to the city and find out himself where Ram, Bam, and Lam were. But that would take up too much time. He would end up spending too long searching, because he was pretty certain Cory was either too busy or unwilling or just didn’t know where the alien accountant was supposed to be.
So instead, Ray sent off another message to Ram before focusing on his actual needs. Finding more monsters to gain more Essence.
He hadn’t been told if there was another dungeon on Cliff Two, so that was perhaps out of the question. Instead, he went to the areas the clerk girl had indicated where certain monstrous populations existed.
First up was the large lake to the south of the city. The location wasn’t that far from the spire that Ray used to rise up to Cliff Two.
“Woah,” he muttered.
That lake was pretty big. Long enough that Ray couldn’t see the opposite shore easily. He would have considered this to be a home for more Glidescales or Scarserpents, but that wasn’t the case. While the monsters likely did exist somewhere in the lake’s depths, what Ray was supposed to face here were more Elementals. Water Elementals.
There had been reports from locals that several people had been killed, either drowned when trying to swim, sail, or even just fish while on the lake’s banks, or plain abducted.
That last one was what had worried the locals worried. They could avoid the lake if it was dangerous, even if it was far from ideal. However, the danger took on a whole another dimension if the lake came to them.
Which was why Ray was here.
Technically, he wasn’t here to solve the locals’ problem for them. It was more that this was where there was a known monster-related problem, which happened to indicate a location where Ray could gain some nice Essence.
Or maybe he ought to just stop overthinking if he was working for someone or not and just get on with the monster-hunting business.
“What?” Ray asked, staring at the lake’s placid surface. “Am I too pretty for you to abduct me, huh? I’m standing right here.” He prodded a toe onto the surface, setting off a series of ripples. Still nothing from Primordial Gauge. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”
Since the monsters weren’t obliging, Ray took matters into his own hands. He cast Lifeblood Soulform to recreate the Viledrake tail. The rocky, black-red appendage extended over Ray’s head to hover over the lake, its reflection twisting around on the watery mirror. Then he made it burst aflame—a-lava?
Blobs of magma erupted from the length of the tail, smoking and dropping onto the lake. Great steaming gouts of water rose in little explosive geysers wherever the lava contacted the lake. In only a few seconds, the entire place was soon covered with a dense layer of overheated steam.
It afforded Ray an opportunity to get an interesting test out of the way. With Origin Resonance, he once again turned his arm into a limb made of pure lava.
That was supposed to grant him heat resistance, right? When he touched his face or his Vestments, neither burned, though the grass at his feet charred to ash and acrid smoke at a single brush of his fingers. So clearly, his arm was impossibly hot. Not that it hadn’t been before. But literally, this time.
But the more important matter was that Ray hadn’t fully gotten heat resistance as he had expected.
The steam felt warm. Too warm. Ray was sweating, despite the sudden surge in local humidity that had turned the air into mostly water, and his skin was definitely red and boiling where it was exposed. He was starting to feel like a cooked lobster.
So Molten Mana couldn’t make him immune to all sources of heat. That was a shame. Although, there were still a few more tests he’d have to perform. Later.
Right now, the water was bubbling, and it wasn’t just because he had dumped a ton of magma into the lake.
The Water Elementals were finally arising.
They were no different from the Earth and Stone Elementals he had seen before, at least in their makeup. Monstrous beings constructed of pure water, towering above Ray. He could see the rest of the world through their transparent but distorting bodies.
With warbling, gurgling cries, they rushed him. Ray tensed a little. But he grinned too. Time to fight.
He drew back as they approached. It would be better if he got out of the steam and could see properly without being boiled alive. He was pretty sure a lot of his more physical spells weren’t going to work on these watery creatures. As was proven the next second when he swiped the Viledrake tail through one of the Elementals.
It broke the monster into two. But as soon as his tail—lava-less because Ray wanted to test only the effect of physical force first—passed through, the monster reassembled itself. All the broken water coagulated back into the original body in a mere second.
It was Ray’s turn to be faced with an assault. The Water Elementals were fast, rushing over the ground to drown him within them.
He was quick enough to get away from them, of course. But then they fired ranged blasts of their water. Blasts that were alive. Ray blocked one shot of liquid with the Viledrake tail, but after splattering apart at the impact, the dispersed water concentrated back into one blob and immediately began trying to get past his tail to get to him.
Huh. That was actually a pretty neat ability. A spell that almost had a life of its own.
He wondered if they had a consciousness-imbuing ability much like he did. Maybe he should have checked these Water Elementals with Primordial Gauge.
Ray didn’t want to spend time exchanging pointless blows with the monsters, however. He cast Mottling Spiritguard and fired the orbs at the Elementals rushing him. The chaos power within the orb wasn’t going to work on the water. That was fine.
He just used Abstract Conversion and Origin Resonance to convert it into a blob of magma with the Molten Mana generated by the Viledrake tail construct.
The reaction was exactly what Ray had hoped for. The Spiritguard orb glowed as it turned molten orange. As soon as it connected with its target, both the orb and the Water Elemental exploded with a detonation of steam.
This time, the monster didn’t resurrect itself. How could it, after Ray had basically vaporized most of its body?
There was no time for him to come to appreciate how effective that had been. Even when the explosion had sent burning, superheated chunks of hardening lava-rock into the nearby monsters, making them partially vaporize too.
No, Ray had to target the other monsters with the rest of his Spiritguard orbs. Well, the rest of his Molten Mana orbs, more accurately.
He supposed he could have reignited the Viledrake tail—which he had to resummon since the timer had gone out—with Molten Mana too. Then he could have swiped it through the monsters and taken them out all at once.
But his Molten-Mana-imbued Spiritguard orbs were doing a great job on their own. The monsters were exploding, sending chunks of rock, lava, and water, all heated high enough to poke holes through Ray, flying everywhere. But that was why he had the tail and a few of the orbs in reserve, to protect himself against them detonation’s fallout.
Soon enough, all the monsters were dead, leaving Ray standing on a burning, steam-logged shore.
[Enemy Defeated—Water Elemental]
Tier 10 Monster: Water Elemental [Level 25] x12
Essence: +30,000
Knowledge: +36
True Mana Restored: +3,000
[Level Up!]
Reward
* +5 Intellect, +5 Spirit, +2 Vitality +2 Agility, +10 allocatable free stats.
* 1 New Accessory: Jade Earring of the Originator
Essence to Level 34: 16,440/83,200
Knowledge to next Threshold: 1,407/1,500
Ray checked to make sure there were no more Water Elementals emerging from the steaming surface of the lake before allowing himself to bask in another level up. He added six of the free points to Intellect to take it to a clean 200, while adding the rest to his Spirit since that was the next Stat Tier break he wanted to hit.
Except, he received no notification about breaking another Stat Tier. Hold on. Was the next Tier break at 250 instead of 200? That would explain why he wasn’t receiving a sign from the System. Annoying, but whatever. Just a few more levels anyway.
The accessory was a lot more interesting, though. It really was an earring. Thankfully, not one he’d have to pierce his ear to plug in. It had a small clasp that would allow him to dangle it from his ear. The jewellery itself was simply the white clasp with a small, star-shaped iridescent crystal hanging from its bottom on a chain. Neat.
Earring of the Originator. Now wasn’t that an intriguing name, considering he had Origin Mana. Time to check what Primordial Gauge had to say about it.