They did not get time to rest on the ground after the fight as they didn’t want to attract the attention of any other monsters. They once more got into the carriage, and Gria took them up into the air.
Langa leant back on the seat and closed his eyes as his stamina regenerated. This was the greatest weakness of his attribute. It took way too much stamina, and it wasn't a problem that could be solved by putting more attribute points into strength and vitality to raise his stamina either. Even if he were to raise his stamina to 10 000, the attribute would still take 50% of that, and his velocity would also increase as well, scaling with both his agility and mind stat. Would he have to always carry stamina pills wherever he went? It was kind of annoying. He was at least grateful for his ring that increased his stamina regeneration. That was a good substitute for now.
Di Etta poked him on the shoulder and Langa opened his eyes. Gertina was still giving him a suspicious look, but Di Etta looked absolutely agonised as she handed him her second to last purblan. "Here, this always helps me to feel better," she said, looking as if she was giving him her heart.
Langa did not think that he would be able to eat a fruit given with such reluctance without choking on it. "No thanks, I'm good. You can eat it," he said.
Her eyes widened, and she smiled brightly. "Wow, thank you, Langa, really." Yeah, she was a little weird, but who cared? She'd been the only one to respond positively to his forum post.
"You're a newbie, right? From tutorial batch #4? So, why are you going to Theria's Hollow?" Gertina asked him, turning his attention away from Di Etta.
Langa only nodded, but before he could give a real answer, Di Etta spoke with her mouth full, "Isn't there a good hunting field there for levels 5 to 7? You're what, level 10? It's probably a decent place for you to level up without any danger."
"Theria's Hollow has been taken over by voidents, Di Etta. The void veil covers the entire village as well as the mine. It's suicide to try hunting anywhere near the void veil since it continuously saps your stamina, karma, and mental energy," Gria said, still focused on driving the carriage but managing to look extremely unhappy while doing it.
"What? There are voidents around here? Geez, when did the 1st Floor start to be saturated by those bold arseholes as well? Is it not enough that they are all over the 5th Floor, trying to be the next Anarchist?" Di Etta asked, looking between her two friends.
"Not only are they bold, but those guys are holding an entire village captive, not letting them leave or receive anything from outside, they have to all be red or black players. The villagers can't leave the safe zone to use the teleportation wheel on the outside of the village, and the voidents can't go into the village, so they'll be hunting more players," Gertina added grimly. "This is all because those stupid Guardians are spread too thin, and they don't have the spine to confront the Reapers."
"Come on, there's only so much that they can do. They have to prioritise the higher-risk Floors," Di Etta said, and paused from eating her purblan, staring at Langa. "Did you know that you were going to an area infested with voidents?"
"That's why I'm going there," Langa replied, barely paying attention to them as he studied the map of Theria's Hollow, trying to figure out the best plan of attack. The carriage would drop him in the forest, preferably closer to the farms in the area outside the village, but before the void veil started. He was worried that there might be guards as well, so he would probably have to use one of his orbs to take them by surprise.
"What the hell? Do you think you're Liv'Kungsadu or Vos Kindaro II? Not everyone can do what they did, okay? I know that you only have about twenty-four hours until the deities can start issuing Challenges, and you want to leave as big an impression as possible, but this is just reckless," Di Etta said with a frown, and Langa's head shot up to look at her.
"How do you know Liv'Kungsadu?" he asked sharply. Vos Kindaro II...he was sure that was the person in second place in their tutorial batch, and also Fi Kindao III's older sibling. Langa clenched his fists at the thought of that bastard. How did Di Etta know the two of them anyway? Had she checked their tutorial batch's leaderboard? No, if she had, then she would have known about him.
The carriage swayed slightly as Di Etta stared at him like he was an idiot. "Do you not check the trending videos on the Dent? They are monsters, the both of them, I'm telling you. It hasn't even been a day since your batch was released, but they are already making waves. I mean, we are from batch #3, and besides Anarchist, no one was standing out this much on the second day. But man, the karma that they must be getting from all the views already is insane."
That was the second time that Anarchist was mentioned by them. Langa knew he had heard that name before, and he racked his brain trying to recall it before it clicked. Wasn't that the name of the person that Eniche said had destroyed her world?
"I'm just annoyed that the top guilds are already flaunting around all of the top ten players from tutorial batch #4. We didn't get any in our starting towns, just some regular old players, but how the hell did the top three guilds end up with the top five players in their starting cities?" Gria said with such venom that the carriage felt like it would fall from all the shaking.
"Come on, sis. I mean, I don’t like the Menika Shin Guild, but I'll give them this: they've earned all of their victories, and sure, the Guardians prioritise higher-threat voidents over saving innocent people sometimes, but they keep the order in the Tower. My problem is the Hallow Reaper Cult. How the hell did they end up with such a talented player? They are just parading him like a flag, and I bet they have offered him staggering amounts of support, but I truly hope Vos Kindaro II doesn't join them. I don't know what his attribute is, but I am in love," Gertina said dreamily.
Her sister snorted, "You just think he's hot." Gertina did not refute.
Langa could hear them in the background as he once again opened his comcer's interface and scrolled to the Dent, selecting the 'Player Subscriptions' page. On the video side, he found the trending videos. There were currently two trending videos tagged with #tutorialbatch4. He could see Liv on the thumbnail of one of the videos entitled, The Burning Knight. He selected the video, and it seemed like he could watch a small portion of the video before needing to pay a few coins to watch the rest.
The video opened with a wide shot of a large town hidden behind a tall wall that was partially demolished near the gate. The townspeople huddled together in terrified groups beyond the wall. It panned down to Liv, in his scaly snakeskin armour, sword in hand, looking down. His long, blue hair flowed in the wind as he stood there, apparently assessing the situation. After having gathered enough information, he jumped down from the wall to the ground below. Snow covered every surface of the ground, and finally, the video showed what it was that had the townspeople in this state. Down on the ground, various large corrupted monsters were running, fighting against people wearing the Federation Police uniform, as well as a few adventurers in the crowd. The monsters were large, giant humanoid creatures with blue skin and they were level 10 and 11 Ice golems.
Liv landed directly on the front lines, the wide arc of his sword sweeping at the golems in front of him, sending them flying. His sword glowed with an orange aura, burning through the tough, large golems like they were nothing. As he ran around the battlefield, leaving the destruction of multiple golems in his wake without seeming to break a sweat, he stood out among the other adventurers.
He commanded attention, his face full of passion, moving elegantly, and slaying the monsters before they had a chance to fight back. The villagers who had been hiding behind the walls, the adventurers who had come to assist in the fight, and the Federation Police all stopped what they were doing, watching him in awe. This was the first time that Langa had ever seen Liv fight with a sword, he'd always carried it with him but never used it during their entire time together in the tutorial.
Something in Langa's blood boiled at seeing Liv in his element, fighting gracefully, with superior technique, and saving people. He once again confirmed how awesome his friend was, and how much he wanted to reach his level of strength, to fight both with and against him. He'd grown stronger too, and Langa wondered if it was because the seal on his mana core had started breaking once he reached level 10, or if there was some other reason. Either way, Liv killed every golem in front of the town's wall, until only one was left, a large level 12 ice monster.
The video cut off there, and Langa held his breath. That was certainly an amazing first impression. He did not know what message Liv was trying to send or who he was sending it to, but that was indeed a powerful message. It felt like he was telling the entire Tower that he was here, and commanding them all to look at him. Once he had more coins, Langa would pay to watch the rest of the video.
He closed the interface for a bit and was thinking about sending a message to Liv on his comcer. He hesitated before sending it, though. He and Liv were friends, and Liv had promised to meet him on the 1st Floor. It should be fine, right? Gosh, Langa shook his head. It had been so long since he had a real, good friend that he was no longer sure how to communicate with one. In the end, he said, fuck it, and sent the message.
> To:@Liv'Kungsadu
>
> Playing the hero suits you. Congratulations, that was a great way to make a debut, Mr Burning Knight.
He moved on to the next video, the one of Vos Kindaro II. He was admittedly curious about Fi Kindaro's brother. He selected the video titled The Prince of a Thousand Souls.
The girls, meanwhile, were still talking. "You have no taste. Vos Kindaro II is too pretty. Liv'Kungsadu on the other hand, now that's more my type," Gria argued.
"Look, I agree with you, but you know the thing about demigods—they burn brightly, but they also burn out rapidly. I don't want to lose another idol," Gertina whined.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"She's right. Do you guys know how much it hurt me when Kerafonika karma-imploded? That girl was going to be my future wife, you know! From then on, I also swore off all demigods!" Di Etta exclaimed with sorrow in her voice.
"Future wife? Yeah right..." Gria shook her head. "You never even met her."
Langa ignored them and stared at the video playing on his comcer interface.
A beautiful dark elf with long white hair and unblemished features, save for a small scar below his lip, entered a narrow, dark ravine. The point of view of the video was in the third person, and it showed the dark elf walking next to the murky waters with a long black scythe in his hand and wearing a long red robe with indiscernible glyph patterns.
A bunch of small lizard monsters emerged from the swamplands around him, but, unfazed, he only chanted an incantation, and wisps of white energy surrounded him. The energy wisps took the form of small animals, like cats, doves, and hares, among others, and they surrounded his opponents, sucking the life out of each of the lizard monsters. As they did so, the lizard monsters fell down without effort into the swamp, defeated. Every time they defeated one, more and more wisps of energy—no, they were spirits, Langa realised—surrounded the dark elf. It seemed as though spirits from the defeated creatures joined his ranks and became power for Vos Kindaro II.
The spirits followed him everywhere he went in that swamp, destroying level 9 lizard monsters like it was easy. Vos Kindaro II merely continued walking elegantly through the swamp, summoning more spirits to surround him, like a white ethereal energy covering him like a light, illuminating his dark eyes, and creating a beauty that did not belong in the swamp. It made him seem like he was the only light in this dirty, filthy swamp as if everywhere he went, Vos Kindaro II was cleansing the swamp of its filth and purifying it.
Langa could not watch the dark elf battle the boss monster of the dungeon as he needed to pay some copper coins to keep watching. Still, this was enough to give him an idea of the extent of Fi Kindaro III's brother's powers.
"Wow, so you can use death magic like that?" Langa asked in awe. It was very different from how Fi Kindaro used his magic.
The girls stopped arguing about whether Vos Kindaro II would waste his potential by joining the Hallow Reaper Cult or if Liv'Kungsadu would be snatched up by the Menika Shin Guild, and Di Etta turned to Langa. "Of course you can. Death magic is one of the most versatile disciplines of magic. You just need strong mental resistance to wield it. But I think Vos Kindaro may also be using other types of magic."
Langa nodded, mentally crossing death magic off his list of magic to learn. If he were to learn magic from a discipline that demanded high mental resistance, he might as well be offering his mind up for destruction on a silver platter.
"So, you might think that what those guys did is easy, but they are skilled. I've been all the way up to the 5th Floor, and let me tell you, there is nothing more senseless than letting yourself get killed just because you want to impress the deities," Di Etta said, watching him seriously.
He'd only thought of her as a ride, but she seemed concerned. Maybe saving her had left a good impression of him. He looked her over once more and grinned, wondering if he should try his luck. He always did have a thing for older women, and she was pretty slick with her shooters. He was sure that she hadn't been able to show the full extent of her power because of the terrain of the fight. "Are you worried about me?"
She frowned at him, probably sensing his less-than-noble intentions. "A little, I mean, you did go out of your way to save me. It'd be pretty shitty of me to bring you to the place of your death."
Oh, yeah, so much for trying his luck. There was nothing there, she just thought he was too weak to survive against the voidents. For a moment, he thought about telling her that he was in his tutorial batch’s top ten, but decided against it. He had no idea how his strength measured against players of his own level who had been in the Tower for a long while. Instead, he had something else to ask.
“I’ll be okay. Instead, you guys are going to Lilinga Gorge, right? I heard that there's a field to farm the Regeneration Skill near those areas,” he said. He had not heard that at all, he just wanted to confirm whether what Rekona had told him was true or not. “Is that true?”
Di Etta scratched her head, “I’m not really familiar with the valleys around Risa’s Plateau. Gertina?”
Gertina turned from her sister to the two of them. “Regeneration skill?” she asked and then checked something on her comcer. “It's nowhere near the gorge, though. The dungeon is called Psike's Grotto, that's where that Blood Mage, what's his name… Laredo or something… claimed to have gotten his Regeneration skill. But that entire field and all the dungeons over there are controlled by the Retessa Guild.”
Gria made a disgusted face, “I can't stand them, self-righteous pieces of shit who think that they are the gods' gift to the Tower just because they serve a saint god,” she said. “The funny thing is that their saint god hasn't Blessed any of them with the Regeneration Skill, and I don’t think they’ve even killed a single trollimp.”
So it seemed like Rekona was right, and in order to go after the Regeneration skill, Langa needed both the Blessing of a god of life and to kill a certain number of trollimps. The biggest issue was getting the Retessa Guild to let him into their territory.
"But I heard that Laredo was only able to clear it because it was part of his Legacy quest," Gertina added with a shrug. "So take this with a grain of salt."
Speaking of Legacy quests, Langa realised that he had not checked his since he got to the 1st Floor. He remembered that it would be possible for him to complete the Legacy quests now that he was past level 10. There was still a little time until the carriage reached Theria's Hollow, and as such, he checked his Legacy quest.
LEGACY QUEST #1
Quest Rank: Unique
You have chosen to inherit the Legacy of a temperamental thunderbird. In order to unlock the skills on the Thunderbird's Mutable Lightning Glaive as well as the opportunity to obtain a special stat, you must complete his Legacy. Quest Objectives:
Raise the skill: Legacy of the Tonare Thunderbird Spearmanship (S) to Intermediate level before you reach level 11.
Time Limit: Level 10 only Quest Limitations:
Only available for players with the skill Legacy of the Tonare Thunderbird Spearmanship (S).
Cautions: N/A Quest Rewards:
-Class Change: Unique Class
Quest Failure Penalty:
-No new Legacy Quests unlocked until Tier (2)
-No new skills unlocked for Thunderbird's Mutable Lightning Glaive until Tier (3)
So he just needed to raise the skill level? Langa remembered that he had four skill points that he'd gotten as rewards from his achievements in the tutorial, so he tried to use those to raise the skill level.
[Error! Skill Points cannot be used on Legacy skills.]
Well that sucked. How in hell was he supposed to raise the level of a passive skill? Flash Step improved the more he used it, so he assumed that he would need to fight with his spear as much as possible to raise this one. But that skill was currently at Beginner Level 3, so he wondered if it would be possible to raise it by seven whole levels before he levelled up. He supposed he could always get a Grandmaster to teach him, but he did not know any Grandmasters with this skill... He did not know any Grandmasters at all.
"Hey, we're close. Theria's Hollow is right below us. Where do you want us to drop you?" Gria asked, lowering the carriage with her magic, and pulling Langa out of his thoughts.
"As close as possible to the void veil," he answered.
"Are you really going into a void territory? You must be crazy!" Di Etta said, shaking her head. "Here, take this, maybe it will save your life." She pulled out a small flask with a swirling white potion and handed it to him.
"Are you serious? Why are you giving him one of Lenna's failed experiments?" Gertina asked.
What did that even mean? Langa took the potion from Di Etta, and held it in his hands, then he scanned it.
[Failed Potion #34567
Alchemist: Lenna Zille Do
Effects: Undefined
Warning: Consume at your own risk!]
"What?" Langa was puzzled, this was the first time that he'd seen an item with undefined effects, except maybe for his Void Star. But even that had question marks in the description, which meant that the missing parts were there, he just wasn't authorised to see them. This was something else entirely though, and he had no interest in consuming it.
"It's a failed paralysis potion made by one of our guild’s alchemists. It does put you in a state of paralysis, but the side effects can be very severe, from explosive diarrhoea to setting your hair on fire. You can use it on any red mortals or monsters to subdue them, even just a drop is enough to knock them out. The trick is that you have to get them to drink it," Di Etta explained. “You can't use it on a weapon. Take it as thanks for saving me.”
"Thank you," Langa said, touched. He knew that she only gave it to him out of pity, but she must be a good person to help out a stranger like this. Sure, he had saved her, but Gria could also have easily saved her as well. He held out his wrist. "Let's exchange mana signatures. I'll return the favour in the future."
Di Etta looked at him like he was crazy, and sighed. "Sure," she said, and they exchanged the signatures as Gria brought the carriage to a stop about 5 metres above the ground.
"According to my map, the village is supposed to be near here. We aren't able to see it because of the void veil covering the entire area. That's as far as I can go before we all start being affected by the void veil," she said.
He stood up. "Thanks for the ride," he said opening the carriage door to the wide forested valley.
"Stay safe!" Di Etta called out.
As Langa jumped down, he heard Gria say, "Poor guy. Well, hopefully, he has one more respawn. Nothing teaches caution better than having only one life."
That was not something that he cared about at all. After all, when had Langa ever lived his life worrying about his own death?
*
He landed painfully on his knees on the soft grass. He had a small gash on his left knee as he sat up. "Ouch," he muttered, looking around.
He was in a thick forest, with a path ahead of him. It looked like there was nothing but a forest in front of him, but he knew that according to the map, he was not far from the village. He knew that there was a void veil, but he could not see it, he could only feel the air shimmering somewhere in front of him. The shimmering seemed to go on and on, forever around the forest. Langa guessed that the void veil surrounded the entire village and surrounding areas. Langa lightly treaded forward slowly, there was no way for him to disappear completely into the background, just because he could not see them, did not mean that there were no people nearby, everything could be hidden by the void veil. Making sure that the comcer was recording, he kept hiding in the forest as he walked forward.
Once the shimmering air of the void veil was in front of him, he put on his Guardian's Deiform Ring that Jandri had given him, and, tentatively, extended his hand towards the shimmering air, making sure that he was hidden from any people up ahead.
[Common Rank void veil detected! To shatter the void veil, please destroy the Void Pearl that created the veil.]
The description from the ring had said that it would protect him from the effects of unauthorised Void magic, so he walked into the void veil, heart hammering in his chest as his mind remembered how suffocating and how much agony he had endured the last time that he'd been trapped in the Void. A chill passed through his body and he shivered slightly, making sure to remain alert and on guard.
[You have entered a Common Rank pseudo-void territory (Void Pearl).
You are not under the protection of any Void Gems
-5STA per second until STA is at 10% of your maximum
-0.25 karma per second until all available karma is drained.
+Chaotic Mind Debuff applied to all player characters inside the pseudo-void territory]
[You are under the protection of the Guardian's Deiform Ring.
At your level, this divine artefact is only effective against Void Pearls.
You shall receive no negative effects from the pseudo-void territory]
Langa heaved a quick sigh of relief, grateful that the ring worked. But, no wonder no one wanted to come to areas with voidents. Without the ring, all those debuffs were practically crippling. Even if someone could fight through the stamina loss, no one in the Tower would risk losing even one karma, for some coins that they would get from the voidents' bounty. On the other hand, it made sense why even a low-rank voident like this had a bounty as high as 15 silver.
It was now or never, so he braced himself for the upcoming battle.