With no lessons to teach today, there are several things I can do. The help Dylan and Nolan provided the last two lesson visits they had has increased my yard space by plenty, really opening it up. A part of me wants to spend the day foraging to look for more reagents to move into that space, to expand my garden further. If I'm lucky, I might even find another reagent for brewing health potions with.
However, another part of me wants to gain more Skill Levels in magic. It's been nearly a week since I dealt with the pair of royal stoneseeker wolves and while I know I'm a little stronger than them now, it doesn't reassure me. An attack can come at any time and there are creatures even stronger than those wolves in the Mistwood itself.
Which means that it's time for me to go deeper in the mines, to take on tougher foes to build up my Skill Experience faster. That should also reward me with more materials I can use for projects, too. I'll limit myself to hunting until my storage is filled.
I pull on boots and a tunic, then my armor, then make sure my bracelet has necessary supplies within it. My gear isn't the exact same as it was before, though.
The armor has a mild grey tone to it, the same tone as what royal stoneseeker wolf skin is once tanned, as that's what it's made from. Every piece of leather I'm wearing is made from it, including my gloves and boots. After the tanning process, alchemy treatments, and enchantments, I turned the roughly 75 Constitution of the hide into something able to resist around 140 Strength or Magic in damage. As with my previous armor, it also neutralizes a decent amount of kinetic force from attacks, to lighten blows. Only if I get struck in a spot without the armor will I have to worry about harm in the mines.
There is quite a bit of me that's not covered in armor, but I'll make sure to avoid getting struck in them.
As for my my right wrist, there are three bracelets on it now.
The first of those is my stasis pocket bracelet, of course. I never take it off as I don't see a point in doing so.
The second of those is my dusk-sight bracelet, which I put on as I'm going to the mines, where I know I'll need it. There's around fifty years' worth of active time, and it's only active when its power is actually in use – that is, when the light level around me is lower than what it would be at dusk outside.
I won't take it off in the mines if the light level increases as that would just be a hassle to do every time there's a shift. But it's also not one I'll just wear casually since there's no point to it, so I'm currently only planning on wearing it for trips to the mines.
The third and final bracelet is the spatial mithril one I commissioned the other day. It's enchanted and I don't really need it for this trip, but since putting it on, I feel a lot more safe.
[Warp Bracelet] A fashionable bracelet made out of spatial mithril, it allows one to warp to the nearest standard waystone on the same warp frequency which they have activated, so long as it is within range.
This will allow me to immediately return home if I'm out hunting and get attacked by something too strong for me, as long as I'm not in the Mistwood or somewhere else similarly filled with dense mana. I haven't been in a situation where I'd need it since arriving here, but it still makes me feel safer to wear – I won't need to worry about casting a spell and can just quickly activate the bracelet.
Once I'm sure I'm ready to go, I walk over to my waystone and use it to warp to the mines. I then pull out one of my warpstones and use it to warp to the fifth floor, then tuck it away and begin traveling through the floor.
This time, I allow my instincts to guide me to the stairs leading down to the sixth floor, minimizing combat as I go. Upon reaching them, I look around. When a Labyrinth has more than five floors, there's a theme shift after every fifth. So the sixth, eleventh, sixteenth, etc. The main format is generally the same, and this one seems to continue with the theme of mines, including the "support" beams and posts that are really just decoration.
Moss covers some of the boulders down here, and the ground and walls are a little damp. More moss grows up some of the posts, while there's algae on them, the ground, the boulders… not completely covering, but enough to cause this to be a little more hazardous just to walk down than the previous five floors were.
Considering the dampness of the floor, there will probably be slime monsters around as well. I'll make sure to collect any slimeballs that drop, I still have just the one from clearing out the cave back home. No new ones have spawned in there since then and I haven't located a slime nest anywhere else yet.
My dusk-sight bracelet isn't necessary when I enter the sixth floor, either. Hanging from each beam stretching across the ceiling is a lantern with a glass shell, the glass itself glowing enough to illuminate up to where it meets the next lantern's light.
Those aren't for collecting, however. They're a feature of the Labyrinth which will break upon removal and regenerate in their correct spot as the Labyrinth continues to reshape itself and replenish items and monsters.
As I walk, I pay attention to all of my senses, not just my physical ones. A terrain design like this indicates there will be creatures which only attack in groups, not when they're alone. Those are still monsters and will still drop loot even when fought solo. The chances of something which blends into the environment is also greater in a terrain like this and increases after every fifth floor of a Labyrinth.
Something which I encounter rather fast. Not even halfway to the first split in the tunnels, I sense a mind within moss- and algae-covered boulders. Judging by the feel of the mind and the appearance of the boulders, it's likely just another stone golem.
One which is swiftly destroyed by [Magic Missile]s. I ignore its loot and continue walking, taking out three more golems before reaching the first branching path. From the fourth one, I collect the earth magic crystal which dropped, as it's quite useful in a variety of things, both as a sale item and in crafting and farming/gardening.
I continue my journey through the tunnels, encountering some snail-like monsters three inches in height. They drop normal magic crystals and occasionally, a shell fragment, full shell, bottle of mucus, or a small glass bottle of acid. When on their own, they ignore people and can be taken out with just a [Magic Missile].
If I were physically strong enough, I could also just stomp on them, but my 39 Strength isn't much comparable to the 50 Constitution they have and the hardness of their shells. It would take quite a few stomps to break those.
In a swarm, the snails are more dangerous. They'll gang up on someone and start corroding armor and gear that's weak enough for their acid to work against. Even if one manages to knock them off, the damage they cause is still present – and the acid will continue to eat away until it's used up.
To eliminate any risk of them getting on me, as I only have 18 Constitution right now, I unleash a [Flamethrower] anytime a group of them attempts to swarm me. It quickly and efficiently burns through the HP of the individuals quickly when they're bunched up and prevents them from having a chance at harming me. That, in turn, saves me MP in the long run as I don't need to heal up.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The bats down here grow more annoying than they were in the upper floors, their sonic waves more potent, able to travel further. Fortunately, I'm still strong enough to take them down without issue on the sixth floor.
As I travel deeper into this floor, I encounter another new monster, an octopus which camouflages itself to blend in with the stone and moss and mushrooms. From my personal experience of hearing others talk about their personal experiences with it, the monster is an extremely dangerous one even for experienced adventurers and soldiers without enough Constitution to simply ignore its attacks.
They'll walk by it thinking it's just an irrelevant part of the landscape and once they've passed it, it uncurls itself and approaches from behind, then constricts their legs while releasing acids and poisons from their suckers. It quickly corrodes through armor and burns flesh, and even if one manages to pry them off and heal the wounds, there's still the poison to deal with – and one of its effects is blindness. Not only that, but the monster can hang itself from the ceiling of a cave or tunnel and blend in there as well, allowing it to drop down onto unsuspecting adventurers.
Even should someone manage to avoid those attacks, they'll have to deal with its high-pressure water stream spell, or [Water Jet]. The very same spell Dylan thought I was using on Nolan, and which is capable of ripping flesh from bone on direct contact if the beast is strong enough. It can even tear through armor with that spell. Stronger variants of them have acids and poisons in their [Water Jet]s, too.
In my personal experience… the monster is rather easy to deal with. All I have to do is start blasting it with [Magic Missile]s, [Arc Slash]es, or something else when I sense it via [Empathy]. It can react fairly fast, but not quickly enough to launch a counterattack of its own before my spells start striking it and knocking it back. That prevents it from managing to fight back, enabling me to pummel it with spells until it dies.
Its main advantage is its camouflage, which fails before my [Empathy]. Should someone spot the monster before it attacks, they can take it out just as easily as I do. The trick is spotting the monster before its first attack.
By the time I reach the ninth floor of the mines, [Combat] has increased to Level 10, [Mind Magic] has gone up to Level 9, and I suspect that [Arcane Magic] and [Elemental Magic] are both nearing a Level.
This is where I'll start to need to be more careful. The monsters here will have around 70-80 Points in their highest stats, as well as having a decent amount of HP and MP to burn. With me being at only 81 Magic right now and my Constitution being a lot lower than that, that means these monsters are at roughly the right difficulty level for me.
My armor will only do so much to protect me, even with its enchantments. I need to be careful about not letting anything hit where the armor doesn't cover.
Though I have an advantage as well. Most mages as strong as me only have Skill Levels in two or three magical Skills, plus [Casting]. Mine are spread between all of them, which means the Skill Levels are much lower, which means that I need a lot less Skill Experience to boost them than someone who could normally come here would. That's also before factoring in my blessings which speed the Levels up even further.
So it shouldn't take me too long to gain more Skill Levels here, especially since I am sure that two of them are nearing another.
I shatter a few of the boulders as I walk, then feel a mind in a mossy one that's the pale grey of the ones with temporal magic loot. It's between the entrance of the floor and the first split in the path, which poses a little bit of a problem. Tempo golems can be annoying to deal with at the best of times when near them in power.
As I told Thomas, though, I can take them out, they're just annoying. I know all of the attack patterns for one this strong.
The first step to doing so is to act before they do. With their ability to hasten themselves and slow others and the attacks of others, whichever one of us attacks first makes a massive difference. With a small prayer that the golem doesn't act before I do, I begin casting my opening attack.
It's a quick cast, even if I have to weave 1,000 MP into it. Not just anyone can do that, and my casting speed gives me an edge in attempting to attack before the tempo golem reacts.
The moment my spell completes, the tempo golem begins to react, but [Stop] hits it before it can cast [Haste] upon itself. The effects of [Stop] are lessened or even neutralized by having [Haste] cast on oneself.
In an instant, the enter golem's body freezes up and its mind becomes still to me.
Describing how the mind of a being under the influence of [Stop] has always been difficult as it's still there, but there's a distinctly different feel to it. The feel of said minds are also always a little disturbing to me.
Better to try and take this thing out before the spell ends, both for my own safety and to get rid of that feeling faster. At my current magical strength, [Stop] will last a little more than eight seconds – but only half that on a tempo golem.
I waste no time and immediately cast [Haste] on myself, which consumes 10 MP per second while it's active, a maximum duration of 0.2 seconds per 1 Magic, so roughly sixteen seconds. It accelerates my speed by a multiplier equal to +1 per 50 Magic, unaffected by anything that's not a multiple of that. At where I'm at now, that's just twice the speed as my norm.
Even that is enough, though. I'm not all that's affected by [Haste] – even the speed of my attacks are. Each spell I cast under its influence also moves at twice the speed. That, in turn, increases the amount of force they carry with them.
I send a swarm of [Magic Missile]s at the golem, then a second, then a third, then a fourth. They impact the monster but don't seem to do any damage to it – most damage dealt to a target under the influence of [Stop] will only happen once the spell wears off.
The last spell I cast while the tempo golem is frozen is [Rend Space], another spell which costs 1,000 MP. I cast it right before [Stop] ends, and jagged black scars form in the air, space itself torn apart around and through the golem.
This is one of the few spells which can actually damage something under the effect of [Stop] rather than building up until the effect ends. What parts of the monster are severed from the rest shift away from the body for a moment from the force of the separation, then freeze in place again.
Only for a moment, though, as [Stop] ends in the next. When that happens, all of the impacts from the [Magic Missile]s sink in and the golem's body and broken-off pieces are thrown back and shattered. They then burst into black-and-red mist that fades away, loot dropping to the ground.
[Rend Space] alone wouldn't have done enough damage to kill it, but the haste-increased [Magic Missile] swarms striking while the golem was [Stop]ped did the rest.
[Combat] is now Level 11! +200 HP +2 Strength +2 Constitution
[Casting] is now Level 9! +100 MP +1 Magic +1 Mind
[Arcane Magic] is now Level 13! +200 MP +2 Magic
[Spatial Magic] is now Level 14! +200 MP +2 Magic
[Time Magic] is now Level 11! +200 MP +2 Magic
Even if it's only a ninth-floor monster, a tempo golem isn't something someone can defeat easily without knowing both of those schools of magic. It awards a lot of Skill Experience when taken down, and at my current Skill Levels…
I should actually be able to handle the tenth floor just from that one kill. If I face off against a few more monsters like tempo golems and warp golems on this floor, I'll even be able to take on some of the earlier monsters on the eleventh.
"Hm…" I mull over the options as I collect my loot.
Today's goal was just to gather some items for crafting and alchemy while gaining some Levels, but I could definitely use the mines to boost my strength up a bit some more. I do still feel really weak and not entirely comfortable. I need to make sure I can handle any potential attack and that does mean gaining a little bit more magical power and mana capacity.
"Then it's settled," I mumble.
I'll focus on gaining more Skill Levels before leaving, though I'll limit myself to the tenth floor. There will be another feature shift on the eleventh, and new monsters as well. The tenth floor will reward me with plenty of Skill Levels and loot while I hunt there today.
Depending on how long I hunt on it, I should gain a decent amount of Skill Levels and a good boost to my overall power. More than enough to make me comfortable for now.