Skill obtained Slash Smash Stab

Skill level up, Artificial Infusion 14 > 15

Level 15 threshold breached

Skill level up, Deception 13 > 14

Skill level up, Mana Sense 36 > 37

Skill level up, Evasion 29 > 34

Skill level up, Slash Smash Stab 1 > 13

Skill level up, Dodge Roll 22 > 29

Skill level up, Pain Resistance 17 > 19

Skill level up, Shield Proficiency 18 > 22

Slain Quagxyte lv 1 x 268

268 syscred and 40 exp awarded

Slash Smash Stab. Slash with sovereignty, smash with savagery, and stab with sagacity. Boost all weapon's attack damage [by 8%] with every skill level.

Holy damn those Quagxytes are such a pest, true to Billy's prediction a little more than 250 of them arrived. At a little past midnight, the guards had texted me of their arrival, causing me to Blink my way down the stairs in haste. Just in time to witness these blobs kinda seeping out of the walls—imagine milk colored slime flowing out of the walls—only to form up into a neutral humanoid shape. Hundreds of them, only seconds apart, then together, they turned to look at me. And all of a sudden I found hundreds of milky-Zens glaring at me. I commanded the guards on watch to retreat far far away!

And, again, Holy damn! Their punches hurt! I have not felt pain since; a long while. As one good hit from one of them had taken about 800 points off my health pool. If about 17 of them hit me all at once, my current pool of 13,447 would be in the negatives… or zero, because I'm dead! At least Blink, Evasion, Dodge Roll and My Shield Proficiency got a good work out. If only All-Armor Proficiency is not stuck in a bottleneck. A lot of my Spells were also used in the encounter with those weird creatures; Lesser Heal especially. But alas, so much trouble for such little reward, how can level 1 creatures be so mighty.

Though on the bright side, they cannot cast spells, and humans—which I, who they copied am—do not own natural weapons or abilities. So all they have to rely on are punches and kicks, while some did attempt to bite ineffectively. While I have my Spells to rely on, some being more effective than others. For example, Invaseviction-ing parts of their hearts or brains—or any parts at all for that matter—did nothing, mimicking strengths and forgoing the weaknesses, such cheats! Magico Disk and VLoS helped a lot, yet there is only so much the spells can do against hundreds of such suicidal creatures and inhuman physical attributes, all rushing forth to get a piece of me. So I had been forced to use Conjure Weapons, multiple times even, due to them breaking after a few minutes of use. Nonetheless, something good came out of this; that being the awesome new skill I gained from being forced to rely on Conjure Weapons, so I'm quite happy with how things turned out.

Interestingly, each of their corpses sank into the ground upon death. And annoyingly, several stray attacks had killed some of my Weal-lifes posisitioned along the ground and walls. So I spent the rest of the night fixing that and any growing stones. Conclusion; I enjoyed the fight a lot! But would not wish it upon anyone from Rumah in the event I am present. And there has got to be a different way of keeping the earth-healings at bay… Maybe I should modify Will-o'-Weals Basic mastery again?

"How were they?" Someone asks me while I was halfway done repairing the deformed wall and floors; Billy. Behind him stood Henry and the others..?

"What's Jennifer doing here?" I ask instead, I thought pregnant women should avoid walking up or down the stairs. Still, the bulge on her stomach and the blush of her face makes her look healthy.

"What!? You got a problem with me being here?" She challenged me. "I hear people talking about these regenerating walls and want to see it for myself! Okay!!"

"Of course, just looking out for you." I raise both hands up in surrender, then turn to look at Billy. "Anyways~, they were interesting. The stronger a creature they copy are physically, the stronger they are; attribute wise. They become wholly Human after copying me, teeths included; maybe the Devourling Constitution is a little too magical to duplicate. So anyway, as my replica, they were limited to punches and kicks. Attempts to bite were ineffective due to how unwieldy and short ranged that is."

"I see."

"Yep, besides that. They might have copied my outer appearance and attributes, but not a single organ is copied. So the only way to kill them is by attacking them until their health points are reduced to 0. Oh and they're level one, so the rewards are stupid." I continued to describe the Quagxytes.

Thus, following the assault, we decided to first fortify our stairs. To begin with, we got rid of the bottom five meters of the staircase, and the rest of the 200 meters deep tunnel we worked on yesterday. All that effort is undone simply by withdrawing all Weal-Life on the walls. Then, inspired by a killzone-pit below a donut hole design of our Dwarven allies. We cleared out a much larger area slightly above the point where the stones would regrow. This area we will use as a defense point of sorts. Aiming at a newly dug pit 5 meters below; we garrison a dozen magical ballistas. Designed by our resident Runic Enchanter and twin Magitechnician; Agus and both Tenolos. It is a beautiful engine of pure destruction, made to shoot a bolt of plasma every one minute of charge; each shot is equivalent to 1000 mana worth of energy. They tap onto the power provided by our planet's LeyLines, somehow piggybacking on my Tower's access into said fountains of energy way below.

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Along with the ballistas are three companies of soldiers, three groups of 100 brave men and women each. They will be working in three rotational shifts, each person equipped with wands and individually provided a few single target and area of effect spells of their choice, as well as one crowd control spell; Magico Disk, SmartMines.exe, VLoS and Latent Coating to name a few. Preferably several Siege Spells too. Thus, any tunnel that goes deeper into the living stone territory—which is what I decided to call the areas where unattended stone can regrow, until I forget—will be extended out from this 5 meters cube killzone-pit where we plan to ambush any incoming Quagxytes.

The pit itself was dug a little further away from our staircase. Digging the pit and the donut shaped area took us the rest of the day. We could not use my Weal-Life on the pit, as they die too easily. So as an alternative, Agus Enchanted several Shape Stone infused Mana Core to continuously maintain a precast Shape Stone Spell. Then, we layered that with a thick layer of metal, like, super more than one meter thick, thick piece of metal. Everyone worked overtime for this, by the time we were dismissed, it was about 30 minutes to midnight.

As everyone settled down to rest and the guards changed shifts. I too, took a quick nap before once again sitting on the roof of my Tower and redesigning Will-o'-Weal's Basic mastery. Say I want to allow them the ability to fully assimilate themselves into an object, how can I—or any other caster—still maintain communication with them? I sat there silently, deep in thought. Absentmindedly staring into the horizon, and witnessing a few Vespas flying in the distance. Their hive must be nearby… Hive… Maybe a hive mind for the Weal-Life. That way, we can just keep one around to command the others.

Yeah, I like that idea. First, I recast the Basic mastery and allowed for a third option, that is allowing them to fully assimilate into a targeted stone. That was simple enough. Next comes the hard part, I plan to integrate the hive mind as an upgrade for the Spell's Intermediate Mastery, and this I have never done before. And that is how I found that these creatures do not have a conscious mind. They mostly run on some kinda instinct, a copy of their caster's intent of sorts. So, intend for them to Ignite a campfire; camp fire Ignited. Intend for them to assimilate into stone, off they go. But have them communicate with each other, well, they don't as it is too complicated. Even having them fuse is merely them acting out their casters intent, just individually-together.

I'm stumped. The next two or three hours are spent brainstorming a better solution amongst myself. Not forgetting to routinely fabricate Mana Cores while I'm at it; since when I last used them to recast my Novice Repository in the morning, five days ago. I have fabricated another 520 Mana Cores; which is an average of 130 Core per day, plus—assisted by my Mana Tower's regeneration boost—another 36 since midnight. I am still stumped about Weal.

It is currently 3 am, my mind wonders from finding a solution for Weal to my efforts of fabricating Mana cores. I still have the rest of today to make more. Those numbers are the result of even higher regeneration due to having SYMPHONY at a higher level, but also due to being distracted with plenty of other events every once in a while. And unlike previously, each one has a pool of 150 mana points this time around. Not to mention how these 5 days; none of the larger Mana Cores had been produced, instead I had been lending them out to a plethora of people who used the mana within to recast their Novice Repository. None had produced any Repository that is larger than half of mine, being limited by their Mana Manipulation Skill, but an 8 meters cube space of storage is much better than something barely one meter cube in size.

All tunneling within the living stone territory has been halted until sufficient defense has been achieved, so I imagine I would spend the day Artificial Infusing a few of my Core-125s for Agus to craft the wands that our newest batch of tunnel guards will use. 300 peoples worth, about 3 each for a total of 900 Infused cores. Of the 900 Cores, 300 would be Infused with Lesser Heal, another 200 each with Latent Coating, Blink, and Beam Torrent. Which means everyone of them can heal, and a good spread in each company will have AoE damage in Beam Torrent, crowd control in Latent Coating and an even higher chance of survival with Blink and Lesser Heals.

It is important to note that one very significant advantage of using an Artificially Infused wand is how the Spell Mastery in effect during the cast is dependent upon the original Infuser, yours truly; me! Which means, besides Latent Coating that is still in its Early Mastery. Their Blinks are of the semi-permanent kind—even if they do not raise their mental stats, there are 10 uses before they dissipate—and people can take turns casting the spell during downtime, so given time, everyone can have it. Any Lesser Heal cast through the wand will heal almost any wounds, bar critical injuries on important organs. And their Beam Torrents may be conjured as an arm barrel or a turret sticking out of the caster's body or a standalone turret; the last one would, again, allow others to use them.

(300 x 25) + (200 x (40 + 50 + 60)) = 37,500 mana total. With almost 18,000 mana and a mere 8 minutes to regenerate that amount, not to mention the 200% regeneration boost provided by my Tower; slowed only by the time needed to retrieve and store the Cores, I took about 1.5 hours to get everything Infused and done with, including Fashioning simple symbols of what is infused on each Cores. So, contrary to my previous imagination of doing this all day, it was not even morning by the time I was done. Instead, by 6 am, I had fabricated an additional 20 Core-150s.

Vaulting the latest fabrication, I jump off the roof, cast Micro Flight, and approach Agus's chamber. He's got 900 Cores to refine and craft into Wands…

Very soon, I stood before his door and gave it a few knocks.

"Thank you, please put it there for now. There is time for that after coffee." He said upon opening the door and taking a few seconds to remember why I'm disturbing his sleep so early in the morning. "How many Infusions did you manage last night?"

"Eh, I got plenty done, it happens when you don't need much sleep." I reply, purposely not mentioning an exact number while following him to get breakfast. Might as well check on our family of three—cooks while I'm at this. Besides, coffee sounds super! I grin at the thought of drinking some.