The first thing that Langa realised when he woke up was that he was no longer in pain. His left arm was back, and his right was healed. The fatigue and weariness in his body had disappeared, as if he’d been given restful sleep. Every fibre of his being was filled with vibrant energy, and although he was lying on the cold, hard floor, he was not tired at all. He was happy because he dreamt about his father. How long had it been since the memories from before his father's death had started to fade away? Even in his dream, he could not see his father's face. It was strange because he had plenty of pictures of him back home, but he could never see his face in his memories.
He opened his eyes.
Immediately, he noticed that Tonare was not with him. It was not in its sheath, and it was nowhere near where he was sleeping. A quick wave of panic overcame him, he was not sure when it had happened, but Tonare was now his centering object that he held whenever he wanted to calm down. His connection to it probably started in the tutorial, but he wasn't sure. He was anxious to find it as soon as possible.
Looking around, much to his amazement, he took in the room that he was in—if he could even call it that. It seemed as if he had somehow ended up in the other part of the dungeon level, where he fought the trollimp warden. The area where he was seemed to have been damaged when the stairs above collapsed. There was pink powder clinging to his hands. The old, worn-out stone pillars had caused the upper roof of this place to cave in, and there was a large open space above, but it was too dark to see what was up there.
He saw the Legacy sitting with its back to him on top of a pile of broken rocks.
All around him were broken rocks, and he was sure he was in some underground room that had been below that giant staircase. There were multiple small metal cages scattered all over the floor, all open, and Langa was instantly alert. Although they looked big enough to hold only a small kitten each, he couldn’t be sure since this was a corrupted dungeon. He did not want to get scratched by a corrupted kitty. When he touched the material of the tiny cage, it felt like a rough stone on his palms, with strange inscriptions and carvings lighting up along it. He instantly retracted his hand, not wanting to activate any unknown traps.
The wall of this underground room was half-crumbled, and there were cracks all over it. A stone statue that looked similar to the carving of the trollimp wearing a crown also lay broken on the floor, its pieces scattered all over.
Dead clumps of vitality saffrons were scattered along the floor, and there was a large cauldron the size of Langa in the middle of the room, connected by strange tubes to the cages. The cauldron was half broken now, and Langa could see the bright-coloured potion that he'd seen the trollimps using to water the vitality saffrons inside.
When Langa stood up, the uneven floor of the room felt rough, even through his boots, and the dust in the air made him cough out loudly. Tonare was buried under a large rock, and he pulled it out. It was not damaged, so he shrank it and put it back into the sheath.
Since he was making a ruckus, the Legacy turned around and looked at him. There was a mixture of relief, anger, and joy on its face, but it quickly righted its face and scowled at him. "Do you not value your life? How could you eat a flower that clearly tells you in its description that it's poisonous?"
Langa stretched his arms and flashed the Legacy a smile. "I'm alive, aren't I?"
"Yeah, thanks to these little ones. If they didn't force-feed you their lifeblood and combine their power to control the lifeblood in your body, you would be dead," the Legacy said, and from under the broken rocks, small creatures the size of kittens popped out. "It's okay, he's an idiot, but he won't harm you."
The little creatures had fluffy snow-white fur, big pink eyes, and large bat-like ears. They had three sharp claws on their feet and hands. There were perhaps ten of the little things looking at Langa curiously.
"Wow, what are these things?" he asked, crouching down to pet one of them when it nuzzled his leg. He decided to scan it, just to be safe, he couldn't trust anything in the Tower, no matter how cute it was. It could be a corrupted monster.
Vitality Allemak
Level 2
HP: 30/30
Okay, good, it wasn't a corrupted monster, so he picked it up in his hands, and looked at it closely. As far as he was concerned, Langa had four weaknesses, besides his family, that he would unhesitantly risk his life for: children needing protection, his compulsive need to recover the bodies of the dead and lay them to rest, cute, tiny animals, and... beautiful older women who could cook. This little allemak touched two of his weaknesses, it was obviously a child.
"Wait, did these things just look at you, Legacy? I thought that only I could see you. How come they can see you?" No one else had been able to see the Legacy so far.
"They are creatures with a natural sensitivity to life magic. Of course, they can see me," the Legacy said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.
So did that mean that The Lackadaisical Herald had created the Legacy using life magic? But The Lackadaisical Herald had also said that he had no control over the personality of the Legacy. What the hell was the Legacy?
"How long was I out?" Langa asked, rubbing his eyes. He decided not to dwell on things that he had no idea about. He could always do some research later.
"It was almost a full day. That's how long it took the allemaks to use their lifeblood to clear the poison from your body," it said, fixing him with a disapproving gaze. "Now, you need to go, according to them, the trollimp crafters will come down here to collect the lifeblood soon, and once they do, they'll be able to see what you did up there. You need to keep moving."
"These things can speak?" That was the most important thing that he got from that conversation.
"Not very well, their Towerspeak is bad," the Legacy told him.
The allemaks on the ground started chattering in a screeching language Langa couldn't understand, and the one he was holding opened its mouth. "Me can speak," it, no she, said in a barely audible voice.
A week ago, this would have taken him by surprise, but things like this no longer freaked him out. "Yes, you can, so what's your name?"
"Rila. Player feels better now?" she asked, her bright pink eyes on him.
"I feel great. You guys saved me, right? Thank you. So, that pink potion, it's your lifeblood?" He asked, and she nodded.
"Player save Rila, so Rila save player," it said. "Player break roof, roof break the cage."
Had he saved them? He had no idea how. Then he remembered something. “Shit, where are the bodies of the trollimp archers and the warden? Damn it, did I lose the healing sacs?" He knew that the bodies would disappear after a while if they were not looted. "And wasn’t there a chest?"
Rila screeched loudly at the other allemaks on the floor and they excitedly dragged a small pouch from behind the rubble towards him. Langa bent down curiously and picked it up, still holding Rila in one hand. Opening it, Langa found five trollimp healing sacs. He had honestly thought that he had lost them, but these little things must have retrieved the sacs from the dead trollimp archers and the warden for him.
"Did you tell them to do this?" He asked the Legacy, touched.
The Legacy scowled and looked away as Langa checked out the contents of the chest in his Feathervault bag. Opening up the chest, Langa found a scroll inside. He’d nearly been killed by those fucking archers, so the reward had better be good.
[Volley of Arrows Spell Scroll
Rank: Uncommon (Consumable)
Effects:
Unleashes a volley of 20 arrows into the sky, in a 5 metre radius around the caster.
Each arrow deals 50 discipline damage within a 3 metre radius of its landing point.
Should any targets be within range, 60 bonus discipline damage will be dealt upon the target.
Charges: 4/4
Each charge will release arrows of either one of three types: poison damage, ice damage, metal damage or random discipline damage.
Infuse Mana to activate
Cost: 100 MP
Cool-down: 10 minutes]
Langa smiled, this was a good reward, but the mana cost was steep. One charge would take almost 80% of his total mana at once! Still, that reward was absolutely worth it. He had even gained (+1%) poison resistance. He put his rewards away, focusing on the task at hand. What was so special about the allemaks' lifeblood, anyway? He scanned the large cauldron containing the pink liquid.
[Allermak Lifeblood
Item Rank: Rare
The mana-filled blood extracted from the body of a rare creature filled with vitality and water mana.
Useful crafting ingredient. Helps improve HP regeneration when used over a long period of time.
Slow and controlled usage is advised to prevent toxic overflow of life energy.]
Putting it away, he turned back to Rila. "Why are they keeping you prisoner like this? This is awful," he said through gritted teeth, looking at the broken cages.
The allemak tilted her head like she didn't understand. "Lifeblood precious, elder say. Me don't know?"
"Where's your elder?" he asked. Why would an elder leave children imprisoned inside a dungeon like this?
"Pool. Locked with warriors, too strong, and fight. Must watch," she said. She struggled to talk and explain the situation. Langa listened to Rila's disjointed story and wanted to help her. He owed her a life debt after all.
According to her, it seemed that when he made the stairs collapse, he had accidentally broken open a prison by the forge room where the trollimps kept the allemaks children captive. Since the battles with the trollimp archers and the warden had taken their toll on him, and the vitality saffron's poison was spreading in his body, he was saved by the now-free allemak children.
Looking closely at the allemak in his hands, something became clear to Langa as he saw that there were areas on Rila's soft fur that were just gone, replaced with needle and knife scars. The other little allemaks at his feet were also covered in the same scars, and Langa clenched his fist in anger. So, the trollimps were keeping these allemaks imprisoned and draining their blood? They were carelessly using another living being's blood as watering material for some fucking flowers?
Rila showed him a map inside the dead trollimp warden's room. It consisted of all five levels of this dungeon. The entrance grassland and the garden were on the same level, then came the pillar stairs, below that was the current level, marked as the residential area. This room, the forge, and an unnamed tunnel after it were on the third level. The final two levels were labelled only as the pool and the throne room.
It was not hard to guess where the boss could be found. Well, he knew how he was going to repay his life debt to the allemaks. Besides, it sounded like he needed to pass through the pool and the area where the allemak adults were being held anyway to get to the boss room. Since he had to kill some trollimps for his quest anyway, he would enjoy it more knowing how vile they were.
According to Rila, the pool cavern was divided into two parts: the cells where the trollimp guards kept the allemaks and drained their lifeblood for the pool, and the pool where the trollimps took turns and bathed in allemak lifeblood.
Since there were apparently three more levels of this dungeon left—this level, the level with the prison and the pool, as well as the level with the boss room, it made Langa a bit apprehensive since he barely had two and a half days left to clear the dungeon. Unfortunately, the little allemaks didn’t know how many more trollimps there were.
“Where are the enchanters and blacksmiths if this is a forge?” Langa asked, once more walking around this room, exploring it.
“Swimming in lifeblood pool for 3 days. Come back tomorrow. Player go back before come back,” Rila said as she scratched him anxiously.
The trollimps seemed to be storing most of the lifeblood in a pool for themselves to bathe in on certain days in order to improve their health regeneration. The trollimps had left the warden in charge of watching the allemaks in the forge room, but Langa had killed him.
“Why not run away? I mean, can’t you leave the room now, and go back up? The stairs collapsed, sure, but you guys should be able to make your way up the broken stairs. There's no danger, and I'm sure the poison in the garden has dissipated by now. I killed all the trollimps up there,” he said.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
But Rila shook her head. “Only elder knows way. But, can’t leave dungeon. Bad, dark barrier hurts,” she said, her body shaking in his arms.
The only ways out of here seemed to be up, where Langa had come from, or through the trollimp warden's room, where there was a half-broken wall. Langa walked over to the wall, stepping over the rubble until he reached the tunnel next to it. There was a black mist all over the tunnel, and he tentatively stuck the tip of a single finger into the mist, and his hand instantly started to shake and tremble as something began to eat away at it. It only hurt a little, but he wasn't keen on putting his whole body through the mist barrier.
[You are under the influence of a corrupted barrier mist. Darkness damage will be incurred for every second in contact with the barrier mist.]
[-2HP
-2HP]
So, like the allemaks, Langa was also kind of trapped now; well, that was just great. If he climbed back up the way he came, he might be able to find another way into the remaining three dungeon levels, but he knew that would take time. He would have to pass through the barrier somehow.
“How high is your darkness resistance?” the Legacy asked him, eyeing the barrier.
"It's actually my highest resistance stat, but I'm not going to risk going into the mist without knowing how long the tunnel goes for, so it's too risky," Langa said. His darkness resistance was 39%, but he did not want to take the dangerous route. Besides, he had a great idea, and now might be the time to implement it. He had a skill that he wanted to learn, and if he learnt it, he would be able to make an item to pass through the barrier.
This room was a forge, right? Langa looked around once more, spotting a large pile of rocks that had created a wall between him and the rest of this dungeon room. He stretched one arm, holding Rila in the other, and walked over to that place. The forge was half-destroyed, but it was still covered in a bright pink glow coming from the numerous lifeblood pipe-channels running along the floor. Most of them were busted, and the lifeblood spilt all over the dungeon floor.
Strange glyphs and runes were etched into the cracking walls, and they glowed white and blue, giving the room a rainbowy light. There were anvils of all sizes close to the wall, near what looked like an empty fireplace with fire lucent crystals. Next to it were various broken and intact swords, multiple daggers, arrows, shields, some bracers, a necklace, and four lucent crystals, as well as scattered enchanting tools. The lucent crystals were two uncommon darkness lucent crystals, one common life crystal and one common fire lucent crystal.
The lifeblood of the allemaks was also everywhere, next to the enchanting needles, and next to the fireplace as well. The trollimps were apparently using lifeblood as auink to create enchanted weapons, the most recent being a jacket for their king. Langa found that to be unacceptable.
“So, besides the barrier, you guys can’t leave the dungeon?” Langa asked the allemak quietly. “I mean, you’re not corrupted. Isn't the dungeon only supposed to seal away corruption?”
Rila tilted her head in confusion and said, “Can’t leave. No home.”
“I don’t-“
“It means that this place was their home before the corruption corrupted the trollimps and everything around here was sealed away by the Void into a corrupted dimension dungeon,” the Legacy explained. “They can’t leave unless the dungeon is completely cleared and the boss monster has no more respawns left to rebuild the dungeon.”
Was that right? Langa patted the allemak, “Don’t worry, this is the last life that the boss has. I’ll clear it, and then you guys can be free to leave,” he told her.
Rila beamed at him.
“With the barrier in the tunnel, how do the trollimps come here back and forth, then?” Langa asked.
“Have ring, pass barrier,” she said. “Rila steal ring from dead warden but only not work. Can’t use.” Rila reached into her fur with her tiny claws, and produced a broken ring.
[Inferior Barrier Sleutel Ring
Rank: Common
Effects: Allows the user to pass through a corrupted magic barrier of common rank or lower by nullifying 92% darkness damage.
Durability: 0/25 (DAMAGED)]
The defeated trollimp’s ring was damaged, and its charges were finished, so he could not use it to break through the barrier. If he wanted to reach the other dungeon levels, he had no choice but to find a working ring or make his own item to pass through the barrier. Langa glanced around the room, taking in the books, grimoires, enchanting needles, and the bag filled with metals and weapons.
"Alright, I'm going to learn the Lucent Enchanting Skill and make myself an item to cross the barrier," Langa announced to the room at large. He had been planning to learn the skill later anyway, and if it could help him now, then all the better.
"Enchant? Cool player!" Rila said, enthusiastically scratching Langa's face in excitement.
The Legacy, however, was not so easily impressed. If anything, it looked unhappy. "Are you a fool? You would have to raise the skill to at least Beginner level 3 before you could make any usable items. That could take days or weeks, even at the beginner level. I would even argue that level 5 is the best level to create a useful item with decent durability, so..." the Legacy paused when it saw the broad grin on Langa's face. "Why are you smiling like that? Stop it, it's creepy."
"Level 3, you say?" Langa asked. "Well, then it's a good thing I've got 4 unused skill points."
The Legacy was appalled. "You're going to waste precious skill points on a Beginner level skill? Do you have any idea how hard it is to raise your skill levels at Master level?" it asked. "Skill points are hard to come by unless you have a lot of achievements."
"Well," Langa said, opening the skill book. "I guess I'd better earn a lot of achievements then."
Langa put Rila down and pulled out the skill book from his inventory. Before he started, he watched and then deleted the footage of when he was sleeping to free up his vicomcer for more hours to store his videos. Maybe some weirdos would be interested in watching him enchant. Even though he had already made his decision, he still hesitated because he was throwing away at least 5 gold. That was how much Fidser had listed the skill for on the auction site.
[Please note: Player can only learn a maximum of:
5 Passive Skills (1/5)
10 Active Skills (1/10)
10 Divine Skills (0/10)
Would you like to learn the active skill ‘Lucent Enchanting’? Y/N]
"Yes!"
[You have learned the skill: Lucent Enchanting]
[Skill: Lucent Enchanting
Active skill
Skill Rank: C
Skill description:
You gain the knowledge required to disenchant and imbue any non-living items containing lucents with glyphs, runes, auink and threads to give them diverse abilities.
Raise the skill level to gain more enchantments.
Cost: 50 mana (Base)
Cool-down: 100 seconds.]
[At Beginner Level, only Common Rank or lower items can be disenchanted.]
Knowledge flowed into his head on how to disenchant items to gain the enchantments, and the need to make an auink to inscribe the enchantments on objects. He now knew of the importance of accurate inscriptions and constant mana infusion.
Langa sat on the stool behind the enchanting table and got ready to begin. Since he had just learnt the Enchanting Skill, he knew what he had to do. He needed to first disenchant some items to learn some enchantments, then use those to enchant the various broken swords, daggers, and arrows in this dungeon room. From the knowledge that the skill gave him, he learnt that if he replaced one enchantment with another, he would no longer be able to use the replaced one. No matter how well he inscribed it, if he did not have the enchantment on his menu, it would not work.
It was a good thing that he was stuck in an enchanting forge right now. While some weapons would not be useful for him because of how weak they were, he could use them to gain enchantments in order to level up his skill. Now that he had the skill, he could read the enchantment glyphs without having to infuse his mana into the weapon.
According to the grimoire he found in this forge, in order to gain an enchantment, he first had to disenchant an item containing it. The disenchanted item would be destroyed, but the enchantment would be on his list of available enchantments to use. Because of that, he planned to use the most useless weapons for now.
Langa gave himself a day to do this. That was how long it would take for the trollimp enchanters to return, and he would still have two days left to complete the Challenge. If all that was left was the pool and the boss room, he was fairly confident that he could do it. Also, that was the longest amount of time that he was willing to spend learning a crafting skill. He swore to himself that this would be his one and only crafting skill. The Legacy watched, bored, as Langa selected the weapons that he wanted to disenchant.
"I don't know why you are complicating things for yourself like this," it said, shaking its head. "You could learn this skill any other time, but you chose now?"
"Of course, I chose now. I have the resources in here, and a forge to use for free, at least for a while. Besides, I need to make that ring for myself as well." Langa said, ready to start. He was sure that this was going to be annoyingly boring. All he wanted to do right now was either run and fight, or sleep. There was no in-between for him, and in his opinion, repetitive tasks were the plague of progress. Sighing, he got to work. First, he wanted to disenchant one of the short swords with the +5 Sharpness enchantment.
Once he reached level 5 in the skill, Langa would be able to enchant an item that would enable him to break the magic barrier trapping him inside this dungeon room.
“Strange, this floor is made from takelerite, that is quite an ancient material,” the Legacy said, sounding impressed. “I wonder what world this dungeon comes from.” When it spoke, it’d startled Langa from his diligent crafting, so he didn’t respond.
He needed to concentrate and not let floating spirits disturb him. Learning crafting skills was never easy, and he hated that more than anything. They required study, knowledge, and hard work.
"When I read the Relgte of The Unrivalled, it said something like that corrupted dimension dungeons are sealed into pockets by the Void, right? Maybe that's where this stone comes from, the Void," Langa said, answering the Legacy's earlier statement.
"Wow, even when you study, you don't understand," the Legacy said with an exasperated sigh. "Listen, this is basic knowledge that every three-year-old child in any natural world knows. When a world gets targeted by corruption, the world's Void is the first line of defence to seal the corruption as much as possible before every living being in that world is corrupted. Those sealed pocket dimensions are then transported into a Tower as corrupted dimension dungeons."
That was something that Langa could not understand even after reading all those Relgtes. Was corruption so bad that a Void Eruption was considered a better alternative to it? He'd seen what happened to Zamone, and to him, it looked like the Void had done as much damage as the corruption, if not more.
"I don't get it, can the Void actually stop the corruption?"
"I said it's the first line of defence, not the only one. If the Void fails, and corruption overwhelms the world, then to prevent the corruption from spreading to other worlds, a Void Eruption will occur, effectively destroying the world and turning it into a Void world. That way, the corruption is sealed inside the Void world, and it cannot get out," the Legacy explained. "Otherwise if the world is lucky, it can get integrated into a Tower, stopping the spread of corruption."
"Well, the way I understood it when I was reading is that Ch- The Dark Void influences mortals' minds and makes them more vulnerable. How can they resist corruption in that state? I read that he manipulates the world's Void so that he can take it over with his maestrils," Langa said, paging through the grimoire to make sure that he had not missed anything on disenchanting. It grounded him to talk and kept him from worrying about whether he would be able to learn the skill in time to complete the Challenge.
The moment he said that, however, it felt like there was a collective shocked gasp from the deities watching him, and he felt the essence of The Lackadaisical Herald laughing. Abruptly, more and more eyes of deities were on him and it honestly felt a bit creepy. The Legacy was also looking at Langa like it expected him to say he had been joking.
[The Onslaught of The Dark Void, states that his maestrils have the free will to do whatever they desire. He does not control them.]
[Too many deities are communicating with you all at once. Please wait while the system organises their comments for you.]
"Don't bother yourself, system," Langa said. "I know that they are all expressing their shock at the fact that I just spoke ill of one of the greatest deities of all time. It wasn't malicious, I just stated my conclusion from what I read."
[Too many deities are communicating with you all at once. Please wait while the system organises their comments for you.]
"Again? Oh my gods, Lackadaisical Herald, can you block them from communicating with me like you did before?" Langa said, concentrating on studying the glyph pattern on the short sword. "Actually, I am permitting you to prevent any deity who isn't you from communicating with me until I finish the Challenge. They can watch but they can't talk."
As soon as he said that, the air chilled, and his whole body froze for a second.
[The Deiwos Clan god: The Lackadaisical Herald of The Lightning Storm, restricts access to your karma channel and disables all communication to you from all the deities operating within the Deiwos Tower, besides him.]
[System Alert! With your permission, The Lackadaisical Herald of The Lightning Storm has used his Authority as one of the Tower Administrators of The Deiwos Tower on you! A deity who is not your patron deity has assumed control of your karma channel, and no deities operating within the Deiwos Tower can communicate with you besides himself. The permission granted will last until the end of your current Sponsorship Challenge.]
"Thank you," Langa said, as the eyes watching him started to feel even more distant than before, while The Lackadaisical Herald's presence felt even more prominent.
"You are insane! Disrespecting one of the most powerful gods of all time like that and blocking the other deities from correcting your behaviour? You and The Lackadaisical Herald share the same lack of self-preservation. You are just the same, " the Legacy lamented, looking around as if expecting the Incarnation of Chaos to appear out of nowhere and smite Langa. But Langa was sure that Chaos was not angry. Even if he was, Langa was too busy to worry about him.
Satisfied with what he read in the grimoire, Langa picked up the short sword, and infused his mana into it, “Disenchant,” he said. One glyph in the middle of the sword glowed brightly.
[Inferior Short-Sword has one Enchantment: +5 Sharpness. Would you like to Disenchant this Item? Yes/No]
“Yes!”
50 mana was drawn from him, and the glyph disappeared. On his system interface, he now had an Enchanting Menu. On it, the sharpness glyph was listed under available enchantments. There were thirteen slots that he could store enchantments in as a beginner level enchanter.
[You have learnt the Enchanting Glyph: Inferior Sharpness.
At Beginner Level, only 13 Enchanting Glyphs can be stored in your Enchanting Menu. To add a new Enchanting Glyph, one must be deleted, and cannot be used again.]
[Inferior Sharpness
Type: Enchanting Glyph
Rank: Common
Effects: On successful inscription, adds +5 Sharpness to an item
Restrictions: Can only be applied to common rank items.]
"I did it!" Langa said with a smile.