The trollimps on the bridge screeched at him and started attacking, some launching rocks and weak bolts of odd green energy, while others threw the bright-coloured potion water at him, trying to disorient Langa. Dodging with his natural and enhanced reflexes, Langa ran towards the pitiful creatures with his spear raised, deflecting incoming rocks and delivering quick slashes under the Legacy’s guidance. It felt like cutting through paper, with the lightning from Tonare dealing enough burn damage to the trollimps to stop their regeneration, making them easier to kill. Really, this was not a challenge, but rather a stage for him to train his mana infusion on the poor level 7 trollimps. Since it was a solo dungeon, Langa supposed that was why it was so easy.
And the system said that this was a hell difficulty Challenge?
His daggers were not as receptive to his lightning mana as his glaive was, as it was made from a material that conducted electricity. However, the daggers did receive his mana, and he could use them well enough. Therefore, he coated them in Kiribo's Sweat and threw the five daggers in quick succession at the three trollimps that were rushing towards him with their hammers raised.
The three of them were struck by the sizzling daggers, one in the abdomen and two in the neck. Surprisingly, it seemed that the burn damage from the lightning, combined with the Kiribo's Sweat coated on the daggers, was enough to stop the regeneration of the lower-level trollimps, and the two with neck wounds died instantly. Langa stabbed the remaining one once more in the abdomen with Tonare, killing it.
A fourth one jumped down from where it was tending to the saffrons lining the cave wall, with its hoe raised, ready to skewer him, and he dodged to the side, sidestepping it, then turning back around and stabbing it with the lightning-infused glaive in the chest.
"This is boring," the Legacy said, and Langa could have sworn that it was yawning.
"You're not the one struck with like fifty trollimps here. They may be weak, but they are sapping my stamina," Langa said, breathing heavily from all the dodging. It was annoying, not boring, and Langa could feel that The Lackadaisical Herald was also annoyed. Other deities were watching him, of course, but they were not saying anything, probably not wanting to disrupt the Challenge, or offer him help.
Below the bridge, the trollimps tending to the flowers in the chasm started sending bursts of arcane magic up to the bridge. Langa had to be constantly on the move to avoid them. There were a lot of them down there, and they were hurriedly huddling together, screeching as they put their hands together, combining their magic. Langa counted maybe twenty trollimps gathered down inside the chasm, and he was not about to let an easy target like that go.
He threw down one of the defective Exploding Fire Orbs, and it landed in the middle of the trollimp horde. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and the stupid trollimps seemed hesitant about whether to run or approach the weird orb. The lucky seven of them ran away, but the remaining thirteen were caught up in the massive blast of fire that erupted from the orb a moment later.
“That was close!” Langa said with a laugh. He had honestly been worried there for a second with the delayed reaction. He could see why the defective orbs were cheap; with that much delay, these orbs would not work on players or intelligent monsters.
“It would have served you right for being miserly when buying weapons,” the Legacy mocked him.
“Look, I'm not rich! All my life savings are in a bank up on the 36th Floor… oh, and by the way, the Rand does not work in the Tower!” Langa snapped at him. He looked down at the chasm and jumped down to finish off the stragglers. “It's not like I had millions of Rands in my bank account, but I worked my arse off for that money.”
He looked down at the burning trollimps, and it was a shame about the vitality saffrons that got burned, but it wasn't like Langa could carry them all anyway.
From then on, on top of glowing white saffrons, a slaughter of level 7 and 8 trollimps occurred. Their magic couldn't hit Langa because he was too fast, and he had Kiribo’s Sweat to spare. Thankfully, he did not run out of mana since he'd placed some of his free attribute pints in Mind previously.
[You have killed a level 8 Trollimp Gardener.
Rewards will be issued once the quest is complete.
Please wait.]
[You have killed a level 7 Trollimp Gardener.
Rewards will be issued once the quest is complete.
Please wait.]
[You have killed a level 8 Trollimp Gardener...]
[You have killed a level 8 Trollimp Gardener...]
[You have killed a level 7 Trollimp Gardener...]
Langa had no idea how many trollimps he killed in that chasm garden, but he had to do it while dodging falling rocks from the trollimps that were still up on the bridge. Once he was done down there, Langa decided to put his high jump skills to the test. His record had been 2.33 metres back home, but if he could now run as fast as a car, he could certainly jump up what… 7 or 10 metres in the air, right?
Langa took a few steps back and then ran forward for a few metres before jumping high into the air. He landed on his back, on top of the bridge, and lost 40 HP. It wasn’t a big issue for him right now, and he rolled to the side as the trollimps tried to take advantage of his fall to throw more rocks at him. He sat up on his knees, raised Tonare in the air, and started spinning it quickly around him, the speed of the spin giving the glaive enough power to deflect the rocks.
He felt the skill increase to Beginner Level 8.
“Very good, that was quick thinking, since your form was not right for a proper block,” the Legacy said, and Langa smiled as he stood back up. He’d like to hear those Dent trolls mock his spear technique now. When he uploaded the video of his Challenge Quest, they would all shut their mouths.
It was fun to swing Tonare around now that he knew how best to handle it, and he could feel the excitement starting to build inside him at the thought of how much faster he would be able to fight, the more he improved his technique and was able to fight without any wasted movements. The more the skill improved, the more Langa felt The Lackadaisical Herald's presence all around him.
He could not explain it, but the way that Langa felt the presence of other deities felt more distant from how he felt The Lackadaisical Herald now. Was it because his connection to lightning and life was so much higher in this dungeon? Or was it because the Legacy of The Tonare Thunderbird Spearmanship was connected to The Lackadaisical Herald, and the stronger Langa's connection to the legacy the stronger his connection to the deity? Maybe it was a bit of both. Either way, he did not mind it.
He was tired and needed to rest. The time in the dungeon did not seem to change, but Langa was sure that it had to be around late at night by now. He needed to finish this and get some rest. He allowed more of the remaining trollimps to move closer to one another on the bridge and then put more practice into infusing his mana, the electricity moving through his nerves and mixing with his own excitement. The trollimps gathered together towards the end of the bridge, making one final stand. A pathetic attempt, sure, but the little monsters were bold, he could give them that.
Langa ran at them, and his spear pulsed with lightning mana, sending streaks of electricity through the trollimp workers, incapacitating them with each successful hit. Their regeneration could not keep up with his attacks. With a grand, sweeping movement of his glaive, Langa cleared the bridge of most of the trollimp workers, leaving the structure trembling.
As Langa advanced along the bridge, the last trollimp remaining alive sneered at him, holding a large bag. With all its power, it threw the bag at him, and Langa knocked it out of the way with Tonare. The bag ripped, and a massive amount of the white powder that they had been feeding to the flowers—maybe 10kg of it—filled the air. It felt like ice on his skin and corrosive like acid, as it burned Langa's skin and made it hard for him to breathe.
“Yhoo! Nkosi yami!” Langa coughed and ran at the trollimp, impaling it with Tonare. The white powder was starting to fill the air, and he had to get out of there. He continued to move forward, running up the bridge to get away from the poisoned air. If he stayed here any longer, he would start losing his health.
“Aren't you forgetting something?” the Legacy asked.
“What? Oh shit!” Langa cried out in frustration. He had forgotten to get the healing sacs that he needed for his quest. Now he had to go back along all the bodies and pull out the healing sacs from their hearts while enduring the icy acid poison in the air.
In the end, Langa used his headband as a mask to prevent himself from inhaling the toxic powder in the air. The powder had spread throughout the chasm, and some of the flowers were dying. The dying flowers also released a toxic mist that filled the air with poison. He pulled out the healing sacs with lightning speed and collected as many of the vitality saffrons as he could without slowing himself down, He even managed to find a closed pouch of the white powder that he placed in his backpack as well. Once he was done, he had collected 53 healing sacs, which he placed in his inventory.
He ran to the end of the bridge, and there was a wooden door there that opened when he pushed it. He walked out slowly, just in case it was a trap, but there was nothing but darkness on the other side. He made sure to close the door so that there would be no leakage of the poisonous powder. He scanned the pouch of white powder.
[Corrupted Trollimp Dung Fertiliser
Item Rank: Uncommon
Effects: Powdered trollimp dung is a potent fertiliser for poisonous herbs.
Not for mortal consumption.]
Ew. Langa put it away, and examined the new dungeon level.
The new place that he had entered was pitch black, and he felt around for the wall. There were no flowers on this wall, and he was too exhausted to try and let his eyes adjust to the darkness, so he took out one of his flowers from the bag, using it as a light alongside the dim shimmer of the Legacy's body. He had also forgotten to buy a torch or whatever was equivalent in the Tower. How could he forget to buy a torch?
The Legacy gave him a pointed look. "No torch, no anti-poison potions, no supplementary healing potions, not enough weapons... has the standard of players fallen so hard that The Lackadaisical One has to make do with you?"
Langa had had it with the snark, "Hey, this is my first time in a dungeon, okay? You're supposed to be teaching me; you should have told me that I needed all those things," he snapped. "And, like I said before, I am fucking poor!" Well, it was his second dungeon if he counted the mini-dungeon in the tutorial, but still, the point remained. He was hissing furiously at the Legacy while keeping his voice low.
The Legacy walked ahead of him. "I can only teach you about matters pertaining to the Legacy of Tonare," it said. Well, that was funny considering how much the damn Legacy insulted him all the time and had taught him mana infusion.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
As he walked in the darkness, an unexpected system announcement startled him.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: Attention All Players and Non-Players within all the Deiwos Towers]
[A Legendary Achievement has been made! For the first time across all 1773 Deiwos Towers, a player has been Chosen by a Neutriarch God.
Player Liv'Kungsadu has been Chosen by the Neutriarch of Fire as his Avatar!
Player Liv’Kungsadu's legendary achievement has not only brought immense glory to the Deiwos Clan but he has elevated their reputation!
To honour him, Player Liv’Kungsadu’s name will be written in The Deiwos Clan Hall of Fame. Congratulations to Player Liv’Kungsadu for this extraordinary honour!]
Langa stopped walking.
A legendary achievement? Liv had already completed his Sponsorship Challenge, and had a deity? He had even made a legendary achievement that was a first, not just in this Deiwos Tower, but in every Deiwos Tower?
"What the hell is a Neutriarch God?" Langa asked, his chest tightening.
He ignored the Legacy's exasperated look. "They are gods who embody the 13 mana disciplines. They were the main founders of magic and mana control systems when they were mortal, and are widely regarded as the strongest gods after The Great Quartenity. That player is ridiculous. How did he gain the attention of a Neutriarch from a Tower of such a young clan?"
They sounded powerful, but they were still ranked below The Quartenity. "I don't get it. Isn't Merreddyd, the Guardian Knight, bound to The Unrivalled? Shouldn't she have gotten a legendary achievement, since The Quartenity are the strongest deities?" he asked.
"It's not the same," the Legacy told him. "The Great Quartenity are active in all Towers all over the multiverse... well Life and Death are mostly passive, but you get the gist. They have to be in every Tower, regulating the activities of mortals, deities and corruption. The Neutriarch gods, however, can choose which Towers they are active in. They have massive amounts of karma and having one of them be active in The Deiwos Tower will catch the attention of the others, spreading the name of The Deiwos Clan across many worlds and Towers. I wouldn't be surprised if that player ended up getting his name mentioned in The Relgte of The Deiwos Clan."
"It's the first time," Langa said quietly, as he digested the Legacy's words. He felt The Lackadaisical Herald's eyes fixate on him again, sensing his change in mood.
"What?" the Legacy asked.
"No one has ever pulled so far ahead of me before," he said. His hands trembled, but there was a broad smile on his face. "How does he do it?" Langa's blood boiled; he knew he was competitive, and when he had been a child, barely thirteen and running in the Under-16 division, he had learned to mark the people that he wanted to chase. They were fast, but once Langa marked them, he never stopped training and never stopped chasing them until he caught up and overtook them. He had been just a scrawny kid who loved to run, and he refused to allow himself to lose in the sport that he loved.
In the tutorial, Langa had marked Liv, so him pulling so far ahead of him was proof that he had made the right choice. Liv's achievement incited the flame in his blood. That flame soared into his heart, and as it pounded, he was determined that he would not be left behind. "Let's go, Legacy. I have to catch up to him by whatever means necessary.
Langa was happy for his friend, really, he was. But the more Liv pulled away, the faster Langa wanted to run after him and overtake him. It gave him a goal.
Thus, he braved the darkness and continued walking. His eyes darted around, scanning for any signs of danger. As he made his way through the dark room, he spotted a set of stairs leading upwards. A glimmer of hope flickered inside him, urging him to go up and find a place to rest. He was utterly exhausted from his earlier fights, and the acidic powder that had filled the garden had made it harder for him to breathe. Going up a bunch of rock stairs in semi-darkness with only a flower and a Legacy ghost as dim sources of light was not helping him one bit.
The staircase itself was strange too, as it wound upward in an old, magnificent coil shape. In the middle of the steps were large stone pillars that looked both sturdy and ready to crumble any minute. As Langa cautiously walked up, a shiver ran down his spine, giving him a ripple of apprehension. The spiral staircase seemed to stretch endlessly upwards, the cold air of the dungeon making his unease grow. Every step he took echoed ominously over the solid walls.
Langa kept walking up those stairs for what felt like a whole day. He was tired, but he would not dare sleep here, it was too dark to see, and there could be trollimps watching him for all he knew, waiting until his guard was down. He sat down a few times to rest and eat his dungeon rations without sleeping, but the staircase never seemed to get any shorter. What time was it? He wondered, before remembering that he had a literal system with him. He was sure that he had been walking for at least a whole day and some hours. However, when he checked the date on the comcer, it was (13/04/12 MDCCLXXIII).
He'd received the Challenge two days ago and started the dungeon the previous day, so that meant that he had only been walking for one day, or rather, the whole night. Damn, time was really moving slowly.
These damn stairs were unending, and Langa wondered what this place used to be before it got corrupted. According to the Relgtes he'd read, some dungeons came from corrupted worlds, as the Void sealed the corruption in these little pockets and they were transferred into the Tower as corrupted dungeons. Langa was also curious about what kind of creatures these trollimps used to be before they got corrupted.
So he continued to quietly go up the uneven steps that seemed to be testing his stamina with their jagged edges. He saw that more of the large stone pillars were strategically placed at regular intervals. Langa's eyes were drawn to the pillars, their imposing figures casting long, creepy shadows that could be hiding anything. Each pillar had old runes and glyphs carved into it, and there was even a drawing of a large trollimp creature being bestowed with a crown by a humanoid creature with claws and jagged teeth. Once the large wore his crown there was a carving of hundreds of trollimps bowing to him. Below the being that gave him the crown were the words: Praise the lost race, the chosen users of the fourteenth affinity.
The moment Langa placed his foot on the next step after that drawing, a glyph lit up from a pillar up ahead, and an arrow came soaring through the air at him. He dodged upwards, stepping onto the next step. The reason he avoided it was not because he'd sensed the arrow, no, it was thanks to his reflexes and speed that enabled him to move after seeing it.
More arrows flew at him, and as he dodged behind another pillar, Langa's heart pounded in his chest, both fear and adrenaline growing inside him. His mind raced with questions as wariness washed over him. He looked around wildly. Had he triggered a trap, or was someone here attacking him? He had no way of knowing since it was so fucking dark, so he dropped the flower he was holding for light and held Tonare in both hands as he looked around. He had no perception skills, so he could only rely on his instincts.
Little did he know, this was the beginning of a deadly ambush.
Another arrow flew towards his head, and he crouched down to dodge it, but another flew towards his leg, and just as he quickly stepped out of its way, another struck him in the shoulder. The defence of the jumpsuit armour was good, and the arrow only partially grazed his skin, most of it stuck in the armour. It seemed to be made of metal.
Without any health potions, Langa had to rely on his wound-healing ointments from the tutorial. They weren't nearly as effective, but they did help with the pain.
Arrows descended upon him from above with each step he took on the stairs. The air screamed with magic as the arrows whizzed through the darkness, each possessing a different enchantment. Langa's instincts kicked in, and he swiftly activated his Flash Step, teleporting a short distance downwards to evade the second wave of arrows. Some did hit him though, causing both pain and damage to his already exhausted body.
“You’re a spirit, right, fly up!” Langa shouted at the Legacy as he dove down to avoid another arrow. When this one hit the wall, a chilly mist filled the air, and the area froze up.
The Legacy floated up into the air, complaining the whole time that it was not a source of light. Pretending to be scanning around wildly, he looked up. On top of the pillar ahead of him and the one behind him, Langa saw two trollimps, one holding a physical bow while the other had a magic bow made entirely of ice. At least only he could see the Legacy, so the little shimmer of light was invisible to the trollimps. They didn't know that he had spotted them.
Trollimp Archer
Level 9
HP: 540/540
There were three more pillars up ahead as well, each lined up in a semicircle around the spiral staircase. Langa was sure of it, there were trollimps perched on top of the pillars. He realised he had no idea how many more pillars were up ahead, as it seemed like the staircase was never-ending.
At first, he thought that there were a lot of trollimps hunting him, but instead, he found out that there were only four, and by having the Legacy float near the pillars, he discovered that all the pillars were interconnected by a stone bridge that ran in a spiral like the staircase below it. If he went down the stairs, then each of the trollimps slid down to the lower pillar. If he went up, then they went up one pillar, following him all the way. Shit! They had the height advantage over him, and it was too dark for him to see and try to accurately throw Tonare. He didn’t know what skills they had and was unwilling to risk losing his glaive.
The trollimp on the pillar behind him unleashed more arrows imbued with frost magic. The projectiles left trails of icy mist in their wake, almost freezing him in place. Langa twirled his spear in a circle again, deflecting as many of the frost arrows as he could, however, one managed to graze his left arm, numbing it with cold. Fuck, he could barely move his hand.
"System, convert 120 MP to HP. It took nearly his entire mana pool just to get 12 HP. It helped to lessen the pain a little, but now he could not infuse his mana into Tonare until it regenerated, and there was nowhere to hide, all he could do was keep running.
Just as he started running up the stairs looking for a way to get out of this place because it seemed like it was easier for the trollimps to follow him down than up, another metallic arrow came flying at him from one of the other pillars, and he dodged it to the side. He would be able to dodge them all if he used his attribute, but that would drain his entire pool of stamina, and he would not be able to use Flash Step anymore. Hell, he might even fall under the stamina debuff again. Or, he might lose control of the attribute again.
All these thoughts were going through his mind as he tried to twist through the second and third trollimps' arrows as well. One of them had the icy arrows, while the other was sending a consecutive volley of metal arrows. He was grateful for the +3 agility on his armour because he would not have been able to run, dodge, and block the arrows without it.
What the hell were the trollimps protecting that they were so fierce in their attacks? Langa cursed as he felt his heartbeat starting to pick up again. Was it fatigue? Excitement or fear? He didn't know. All he knew was that he had decided to stand his ground and embrace even this fear as the stimulation that he had been searching his whole life for.
So, he imagined that he was jumping through the hurdles on the track and felt himself start to enjoy it a little. But alas, the trollimps did not give him a moment of rest, and no matter how fast he was, Flash Step had a cool-down, and a stamina cost. His stamina had already been low from climbing the stairs, and this just made it worse.
Black arrows rained down on him, and only after one of them pieced his armour in the abdomen did Langa realise that they were shadow arrows. The arrows were hard to detect because they seemed to blend seamlessly with the darkness. Fuck, he was running out of stamina again, and his breaths were heavy and ragged.
Langa relied on his keen reflexes as he ran up the stairs, narrowly dodging the shadow arrows as they whistled past him, however, a few found their mark, leaving him momentarily disoriented as one grazed his neck. If he had still been wearing his leather armour, he would be an arrow pincushion right now. He should remember to buy Instructor Rancho a drink when he made his way back to the Valley of Guardians.
The fourth trollimp's arrows were the worst, though; black blisters appeared on his skin whenever they struck him. The poison in those arrows slowly started to melt his armour as well. Despite his best efforts to dodge, a couple of the arrows pierced his flesh, causing his vision to blur, and Langa found himself overwhelmed by the trollimps' ruthless assault. Their height made it difficult for him to gain any ground, especially since they could move around in those bridges between the pillars. If he went lower, they went lower, and if he went higher, they went higher. If he used the exploding orbs, he might be able to bring a pillar down, but the trollimps would just jump onto the next one. Besides, the orbs only dealt about 150 to 250 damage, and there was no way that was enough to take down the sturdy pillars.
He lost two daggers in the darkness when he threw them up at the trollimps. He was not getting anywhere.
Well, he decided to take the chance and run further up the stairs, hopefully, outrun the trollimps and go into the next dungeon level, wherever that was. But since he needed the healing sacs to complete his Challenge, he was hoping that gaining higher ground would give him an advantage over the archers. An ice arrow struck him in the back, and he winced as he felt the chill. Shit, there were no more pillars up here, nowhere to hide. He would put in the ointment later.
There had to be a way out. He ran and ran up those stars until he reached the end of the staircase, but it was only a wall, no door. He tried to kick it, but it wouldn't budge. "Fuck!" He'd wasted his stamina for nothing. The trollimps were slow when following him up, but they would reach here soon enough, and he was stuck at a dead end.
The Legacy wasn't saying anything, there was no snarky advice. The Lackadaisical Herald was watching him quietly, and Langa couldn't feel anything from him other than the fact that he was there.
Langa pulled out an arrow that was lodged in his shoulder, wincing in pain, and then proceeded to pull out two more that were in his body. His pain tolerance had really gone up. A week ago, this would have had him screaming. While trying to think of a way forward, Langa applied the wound healing ointment to his wounds, and the warmth as it closed the wounds calmed him down a bit.
He knew that there was no way that he could defeat four trollimps coming at him with arrows from all sides, each with different types of magic, with only one active skill, one passive skill, one weapon skill, and one stamina-draining attribute. There was no fucking way he was going to be able to do that. He had to run back to the garden, he would regroup or… leave the dungeon entirely. If he did that, would The Lackadaisical Herald forgive him and give him another Challenge in 26 days? If not, he was sure that at least one of the 815 deities interested in him would still want him. Langa knew that he had asked for stimulation himself, but was this too much, too fast, or was he not trying hard enough? Would it be better if he went back?
A voice inside of him asked, “And then what?”. Why did he always default back to running away from his problems? He could run like he always did in his previous life, run away from this Challenge, and choose an easier one. Run away from his curse and the lives it kept taking; run away from his broken mind, his fears, and everything that tried to hurt him. He would keep running and running until he faced nothing in his own life.
He clutched Tonare in his hand, the lightning mana in his body quivering at the thought of just existing again, living monotonously for nothing. He hated that. With his lightning and the electricity in the glaive resonating, he stood still. He didn't know why, but it felt like all this was a part of him too—Tonare, the god watching over him, and the Legacy that was letting him make his own decision, not influencing him.
Desperation clawed at Langa's heart as he contemplated retreating. But the memory of a lifetime spent running, of never standing his ground, fuelled a fire within him. He had someone to chase, he had a god watching him, and he had a goal to reach. He could not run away this time. He would see this through to the end.