Leaving the tent, Kelsey joined her group and started chatting with them before something she hadn’t considered before popped into her mind as she was thinking of the attributes she had just gained.
“Hey Greg. What's the average attribute total for a Gold rank advancement?” she asked.
“Ehh, roughly 120 per level give or take. 150 is the absolute high end of the spectrum though.” he said after a few moments of thought. “A really good secondary class can bump that up by twenty or thirty points, but secondary classes give considerably less attributes than primary ones, if they give attributes at all.”
“Oh cool. Thanks.” she responded as neutrally as possible.
She did some very quick math and looked at her total. 200 per level. This Magus class just keeps giving and giving, doesn’t it? I guess it better, considering I don’t get a second class…
The group spent the next few hours eating and chatting about various topics. More serious conversations were moved into the privacy of her tent, which thankfully was more than large enough to fit all five of them.
Kelsey took off the next day, as she was still feeling sore from her too-quick advancement. She decided to spend the day hopping between Lisa and Owen’s group, and Gregory’s group.
Thadius and her mostly just spend their time sitting in the back trading stories from their time on Anoura. Kelsey had been in a ton of fights, and Thadius had experienced a ton of hilarious office politics in his forty years in Anoura, so there was always more to talk about. She also spent some time trying to teach Thadius how to accurately sense how much mana he was using.
It was slow going, but he made progress. Their brief stint of training told her that it was a definitely skill that could be learned. The key was starting with something familiar and working to make the skill as consistent as possible. Only after it was consistent, could someone then begin to gauge how much mana it was consuming. She didn't know if the testing would end up being necessary, but it was good to know now rather than wait till later. She assumed that the Mageblood body would give them the ability to sense mana usage, but she wasn't even sure the ritual was real yet.
During this time, she finally got to see how Lisa, and Gregory fought. Owen didn't do any fighting and was standing next to Lisa, letting her get all the experience, so all Kelsey saw him do was defend when Lisa got into a tough spot. Lisa would be catching up with Owen that day and once that happened, they would finally be able to fight together again.
Lisa and Owen had decided to start their journey on the second floor. Kelsey had skipped this floor originally, and she was upset that she had, because the monsters on the second floor were giant praying mantises. They seemed like they would have been fun to fight before her advancement.
Watching Lisa fight was a truly beautiful sight to behold. She danced around her opponents with grace and poise, her glaive striking out at joints when she was given any opportunity. Watching her was like watching an amazing stage performer. It was as if the fight had already happened, and she was just going through the motions to reenact it.
Kelsey watched her battle with the mantises for over an hour straight, and in the entire time, Owen had only needed to defend her once.
I wish I could fight like that...
Moving down to the ninth floor where Gregory was fighting, the experience was a bit different. Gregory was fighting earth aspected monkeys that were above his level and doing it with absolute ease. It turned out that Gregory's secondary class was a Water Creation mage, and his main tactic was surrounding his opponents in water, making them helpless, and then using a rapier to stab them to death. Brutal, but effective.
While watching both parties, she learned something very important about how the average person fights monsters.
Lisa and Gregory were both excellent fighters. Easily more skilled than herself. Both of them could have killed their opponents significantly more quickly, and efficiently, if they were willing to take risks. But risks got people hurt, and it was clear that they both fought with the primary goal being to protect themselves. They were methodical and careful the entire time. It made perfect sense to Kelsey, but it was frustrating to see nonetheless.
God, I need to check that Mageblood ritual the moment I’m an Immortal...
If the ritual ended up working, she originally intended to share it primarily with her friends and loved ones, but now that she was really considering it, she was tempted to share the secret with the entire world. It was ridiculous that something that powerful was lost to time, and she was extremely curious as to how something like that had happened. If she had it her way, everyone in Anoura would have access to the ritual and every single person could say goodbye to being dealt lifelong debilitating injuries. Adventurers could be safer, and stronger too. For all she knew, the ritual may even be able to heal injuries suffered prior to the ritual. Gregory may even get his eye back.
Shaking her head, Kelsey refocused on watching Gregory fight and ensuring Thadius made progress on his mana training.
Thadius, as it turned out, was anything but a prodigy when it came to mana control. Sure, he could make a wall or a boulder, but the moment Kelsey asked him to make anything much more complex, his manipulation would fail and crumble. Making a large two-handed stone hammer was about as complex as he could go. Trying to make a sword, or dagger that wouldn't crumble under the slightest pressure, however, was pointless.
She was somewhat surprised to find this out, but once he explained, it began to make sense.
"When I was a fresh Gold ranker, I was able to make small and complex manipulations, but then I traveled to Kytan. While I was there, my primary job was rebuilding entire cities from the ground up. That included roads, foundations for buildings, and walls. I spent twenty years doing almost nothing except large scale manipulations, and my control suffered for it." He said, clearly frustrated.
"The more mana you have, and the higher your regeneration, the more personal skill you need to make complex creations. As I leveled up, I gained more, and more mana, but I didn't work on my control. It has gotten to the point where all I could is large-scale manipulations. So much so that my Immortal path class is called Mover of Mountains..." Thadius finished dejectedly.
Thadius shook his head. "It's something I've been meaning to work on, but I keep putting it off in lieu of other things. First it was my company, then it was my kids... I guess now I need to buckle down, huh?"
Kelsey patted him on the back and shot him a grin. "You've got eternity to figure it out. Don't stress... Plus, my entire class is about mana control and manipulation. No doubt I can help you through some of the rough patches."
Thadius nodded his head. "Yeah. Thanks Kel."
The next day, Kelsey began fighting again. She first went back to the Shadow Panther floor until the distance between each panther became too time consuming to travel, and the experience gained wasn’t worth it. She did however switch up her fighting style against them. When she entered the room for the first time after her leveling, she created a slew of weapons made from steel and used them to kill the Panthers in melee. Thanks to her increased attributes, Armory, and Greater Enhancement, the Panthers were no longer a threat to her, but they still provided quite good experience.
With Melody’s training, and all of her other benefits, Kelsey was able to effortlessly switch to a fighting style that revolved around her Armory, Greater Teleport, Flight, Greater Enhancement, and Vault of the Magus. She used her creation and manipulation skills very infrequently, only relying on them when she made a mistake.
She killed another 1,500 Shadow Panthers before moving on. A task that had taken her three additional days. She could have stayed on floor 17 longer, but she was tired of ending every day with sore eyes and a migraine from the constant darkness.
She then moved down to Floor 18, which was another perfect hunting ground for her. It was a floor that was created to mimic a blizzard in the middle of frozen mountain valley. Thadius chose, once again, to not follow her onto the 18th floor as he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of staying in a blizzard all day. He said he was going to spend time practicing with his magic and hanging out with the other groups. Kelsey understood and continued working towards her advancement.
The monsters on the 18th floor were two and a half meter tall Yetis with an ice affinity. They had white fur, blue eyes, and horns jutting out from their temples. Each of them carried a club made of either wood or crude iron. A rare few of them were equipped with large bows made of a pale-yellow wood.
The ever-present blizzard thankfully didn’t affect her much thanks to pain tolerance and regeneration. The temperature wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she could manage.
She scouted the entire floor, only seeing one party camping out in the far end of the room. They were all wearing thick fur clothing with metal plates attached to the exterior to keep out the cold and protect them from the ice storm. They were several kilometers away, so Kelsey felt pretty safe to let loose with fire magic and turn the Yetis to smoldering piles of ash for a time as she learned their fighting styles. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that for long, as she needed to ensure her melee-oriented skills would keep pace with her leveling. She also had to ensure she was using equipment from her vault during the fights in order to ensure that skill would level as well. Her Greater Teleport ability leveled very naturally when she was fighting in melee as she was much more reliant on it in order to dodge.
After switching to melee and only using her fire magic sparingly, the fights began to take much longer. The Yetis weren’t exactly dangerous, but they were extremely durable and strong. They had one huge weakness though; they were very slow for their level, which gave Kelsey plenty of time to outmaneuver them, even in melee ranges.
Their control over ice was also mediocre at best. They only used their magic to create incredibly large ice spike attacks that were pitifully easy to dodge. Thinking that she was starting to get a big head, Kelsey briefly spied on the group of Classers at the far end of the room and saw that they too were effortlessly outmaneuvering the yetis. They were an even lower level than Kelsey, who arrived on Floor 18 at level 183. The yetis were all level 220 - 230, yet a group of four, with the highest one being level 177 were treating the yetis like nothing more than practice dummies. Their kills took time, but they were in absolutely zero danger during the entire encounter.
Okay, glad it's not just me. These yetis are useless for their level. Why the hell are they such a high level if they're so weak?
It didn’t make much sense, but Kelsey didn’t particularly care. She knew there was likely some reason, but it didn’t matter. They were weak and helped her level quickly.
On the third day fighting with the Yetis, Kelsey's battle was interrupted by a giant pressure wave that ripped through the floor, sending snow and sheets of ice blasting in the direction of the door.
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That came from where that Classer group is fighting.
As she realized that they might be in trouble, Kelsey activated her Flight, created some fire, and quickly incinerated the Yeti she had been fighting. Flying as fast as her skill would take her, she made her way north, in the direction she had last seen the adventuring party earlier in the day. Each morning as she arrived, she scouted the floor, and each time had found the same adventuring party camping on the far side of the dungeon floor.
It took her less than 30 seconds to find them, and when she did, she found what had caused the massive shockwave. Breaking free from one of the artificial mountains that surrounded the floor, she saw a massive yeti pulling itself free. It was at least 15 meters tall, its head nearly touching the ceiling. In its hand was a large club with a crude metal ball on the end.
[King of the North - lvl 303]
Well, this isn’t good. That thing’s an Immortal. What the hell is a boss tier monster doing on this floor? I thought they were only created at the bottom of dungeons when mana had nowhere else to go.
She could see that the Classers were in the process of fleeing. It seemed that one of their members had been hurt as they were being carried by one of the frontline fighters. Kelsey didn’t know what to do. On one hand, she couldn’t just sit and let these people die, on the other, she would need everything in her class's toolkit to fight a monster that strong and that would likely mean that these Classers would be able to see at least some of her skills if she wasn't careful.
In the end, it only took Kelsey a few moments to decide. There was no way in hell she could just stand by and watch while there were people in danger. Pouring mana into her flight skill, Kelsey made her way down in between the giant yeti and the group of adventures.
“Hey, you guys! Get out of here, I’ll watch your back!” she shouted over the sounds of the blizzard surrounding them.
The group looked back at her as she yelled at them. “Are you sure you can take that thing!?” one of the members shouted out.
“No, but it can’t hurt to try!” Kelsey shouted back as she began moving towards the Yeti king.
As Kelsey got closer, she studied the large yeti, looking for any potential weak points. She knew from fighting against the smaller yetis that fire was always effective, but she wasn’t sure she had enough output to do more than singe the yeti’s fur. At least not while also dodging attacks. While she was in the process of thinking, the Yeti King noticed her and grabbed a fist full of stone in its hand before ripping it out of the ground and throwing it at her.
Feeling annoyed at her thoughts being interrupted, Kelsey raised her hands and used Manipulation of the Magus to turn the rock into harmless dust before it reached her. She had learned during her time in solitude that while she didn’t need gestures to cast magic, it actually did improve the effectiveness of her skills. She suspected that it wasn’t the act of moving her body that improved the magic, it was more likely that doing hand motions improved her conceptual understanding of what she intended the magic to do, which in itself improved the strength of her skill.
As the Yeti King saw Kelsey disregard its attack so effortlessly, it enraged and finished pulling itself out of the ground before charging her recklessly.
Works for me she thought as she created some stone lances and began launching them at the monster. Maybe those Classers will think I’m just a stone mage. Once they get far enough away, I'll really be able to let loose.
As the stone lances impacted the Yeti King, she saw them pierce its hide by several centimeters before stopping dead and dropping lazily off its skin. Damn that thing’s hide is thick. Those lances had about as much mana as I used to obliterate a mountain last week.
From that short interaction, she realized that stone wasn’t likely to work against this monster, so, she moved on to her next element, metal. There was something she had wanted to try since the first moment she realized what her skills would let her do. She thought that this would be the perfect opponent to test her idea on.
Using her Creation of the Magus skill, Kelsey began creating hundreds of small spears of all shapes and sizes. Then, once all of the weapons were created, she launched them one after another in a rapid succession, like a machine gun. All the while she was creating more spears to use. Using all 6,000 of her mana every second she was able to create somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 weapons with 5 mana each, leaving the rest of her regeneration to launch the projectiles themselves. This was an unbelievably inefficient way to fight, and she was unable to enter Mediation due to the insane levels of concentration that creating so many individual projectiles took, but it sure was cool to see.
Surprisingly, her barrage actually had an effect on the Yeti King. As the staccato of spears began slamming into the yeti, it recoiled and tried to cover its face in an effort to protect its eyes. This only went on for a few seconds until the yeti recovered and did something truly unexpected.
All of the ice in the blizzard surrounding her froze in place for a brief instant before it all began rushing towards her. As this happened, Kelsey was in the middle of creating a wave of spears and was unable to stop herself from getting encased in the flurry of ice. Now that she was in, there was also no way for her to escape using either her manipulation, or her teleport. She was unable to manipulate the ice due to it already being manipulated, and she wasn’t able to teleport because of the interference from the mana imbued in the ice. She wasn’t even able to see the outside world with her domain anymore for the same reason.
Thinking quickly, Kelsey began creating as much fire as she could in order to try to melt the ice around her. But, she was too slow. Moments after being encased in the ice, she felt a large ice lance rip through the ice and slam into her body before exiting her back, leaving a gaping wound where her stomach used to be.
She quickly wrapped her head in a telekinetic barrier and began channeling all of her Meditation enhanced mana regeneration into creating as much fire as possible, directed at a single spot. Thankfully, this time it was enough. A few moments later, enough of the ice had melted that she was able to see with her domain again. This also allowed her to use manipulation to destroy the ice lances before they could reach her. All the while continuing to create as much fire and heat as possible.
The Yeti King wasn’t letting her go easily however and was continuously dumping more and more ice onto the cocoon surrounding her, trying its best to bury her again. The yeti was somewhat successful, covering her once again, and managing to hit her with another ice lance, this time on the side of her waist, tore both of her legs off her body.
Realizing that she might be in real danger, Kelsey burned another hole through the exterior of the ice and created a bubble of dense air around herself. She threw all of her mana into making it expand just enough so that none of the ice was touching her directly. Once she was clear, she activated her Greater Teleport and moved a few hundred meters away, letting herself regenerate fully.
Okay, that was close… No more playing around. Time to turn this yeti into ash.
With that thought, she entered Meditation, held out her palm, and began creating fire. A small blue flame appeared in Kelsey's hand as she began pouring mana into it at a prodigious rate. As she added mana, she used Manipulation of the Magus to continuously increase the density, until sitting in her hand was a small ball of fire mana with over 100,000 mana inside. This process took a little over three seconds, and in a fight at her level, three seconds may as well have been an eternity. The Yeti king was slow enough that she probably could have put another five or six hundred thousand mana into her creation before he got within range of her, but unfortunately, she didn’t think she had enough control to manage much more than what she had already used, and the last thing she wanted was a repeat of the incident against her first Werewolf of Blood.
As she finished her creation, she activated her teleport and appeared in front of the Yeti King. Trying to teleport with her fire creation in hand was nearly a catastrophic mistake. As she appeared, she felt her concentration waver for a moment, the ball of fire beginning to expand. Thankfully, she caught it quickly and was able to force the fire back into the ball and maintain its structure.
When the yeti saw her, it opened its mouth and let out a roar that instantly ruptured her eardrums.
Perfect.
The moment the yeti opened its mouth, Kelsey launched her small ball of blue fire directly into its gaping maw. The ball flew true and landed directly between the monster's teeth before she released her manipulation, letting all of the fire mana contained within the ball expand freely.
The explosion that followed was truly spectacular. The moment she canceled her skill, the flame expanded violently, blowing the yeti’s head clean off its body before continuing to expand for another dozen meters. Similar to how she noticed the Yeti King in the first place, a massive pressure wave was created from the explosion that traveled along the air, rupturing Kelsey’s eardrums for the second time in as many seconds, before traveling along for several kilometers in every direction.
*ding* You have defeated a [King of the North - lvl 303]
*ding* Magus has reached level 202 -> 206 - 80 free stat points have been awarded!
Well, the adventurers will definitely have noticed that. She thought as she let herself drop to the ground and began searching for the Yeti’s core. She also created some new pants since hers were now somewhere else buried in the snow with her old legs.
Finding the core only took Kelsey a few minutes, but once she did, she was amazed by what she saw.
[King of the North core] - Can be used to begin a class ritual.
The core itself was over a full meter in diameter and was colored the light blue of ice mana. But the most interesting part by far was the description of the core itself. She had never seen a core that had a description of anything other than ‘Can be used to make based magical tools.’, This was the second thing Kelsey had found that was able to start a class ritual. I’ll need to get this to the group, see what they think. She thought as she stored the core inside her vault and then moved towards the door, looking for the group of Classers.
Before leaving, Kelsey also took the time to dismiss all of the creations she had made during the fight with the Yeti King. The last thing she needed was someone finding this place and asking themselves why there were thousands of random metal spears just laying around.
As she started moving in the direction of the door, Kelsey noticed that the blizzard around her had died down significantly. Oh, I see, the Yeti’s themselves must be responsible for the blizzard. That would explain why they're at such a high level, if their weather magic is included in their levels… Still seems kinda weak if you ask me.
A few minutes later, Kelsey saw the group. In total there were five people. Four of them were currently able to walk, and the fifth person was being carried on the back of a woman in full armor, she looked to be their primary frontline fighter based on her full metal plate and sword and shield weapon set.
Before letting herself drop out of the sky, Kelsey quickly repaired the rest of her clothing and pulled the dried blood off her skin, hair, and clothing. This is so gross every single time. Once she was done, she deactivated Flight and landed down with the Classers.
“Hey, everyone okay?” Kelsey asked as they noticed her.
The woman who was carrying the unconscious member of their team answered. “We’re doing alright. Thanks for the assist back there.” she said.
“Not a problem. What happened? Where did that thing come from?” Kelsey asked as she began walking with the group.
“We’re not sure. One minute we were fighting a yeti near that mountain, the next thing we knew there was a powerful explosion, and the mountain blew into pieces.” A man with a bow on his back answered.
“I see. Well, I’m glad you all made it out of there safely.” Kelsey said.
“Only thanks to you. If you hadn’t come in and distracted that thing long enough for us to get away, we may be Yeti food right now.” A woman with a mage identification said.
“Don’t mention it, really. Anyways, I’ve gotta run. Good luck out there, I’ll be coming back down here again, so maybe I’ll see you around.” Kelsey said as she activated her Flight and prepared to make her way to the door.
As she was leaving and the group was saying goodbyes, Kelsey was forced to stand awkwardly through another round of thanks from the party, as they all individually told her how much they appreciated her help. As usual, Kelsey had no idea how to respond so she just smiled awkwardly until they stopped and said goodbye.
During their time thanking her, Kelsey did learn that they planned on reaching out to the Crimson Lions and asking them to take care of the boss. Kelsey quickly interjected and told them not to worry and that she knew someone at the guild personally so she would take care of letting them know.
That was a close one. Last thing I need is for an Immortal Guild to snoop around that thing’s corpse. Hopefully it will dissipate into mana before anyone finds it.