Let’s be honest: I hate walking around for hours straight and, based on Leah’s complaints, she completely agrees with me on this. (Wait, I think I already complained about walking…)
Thanks to our mutual hatred of this, we took turns complaining aloud.
“I wish we had a car,” Leah groaned.
“Didn’t you fail your test? Twice?” I shot back.
“It’s your fault! You didn’t tell me about the turn light part!” she complained.
“I did tell you! Fourteen times!”
“Lies.”
“Am not.”
“Yes you are.”
“I am not!”
“Yes!” She glared at me.
“No!” I glared back.
“Yes!”
“No!”
This went on until Leah ran face first into a tree, causing me to laugh and then yelp when she promptly uprooted the tree and threw it at me. Barely dodging, I glared at her as she gave me a smug grin.
“I hate you,” I grumbled.
~~~
After another hour of walking, we finally decided that we should camp for a bit, seeing as our feet were practically crying for mercy at this point.
As we sat around our little fire, me roasting another Unirabbit, Leah brought up a very good point.
“What exactly are we gonna do once we get to The Light?” she asked, clearly nervous. “I mean, for one, since your class is an ‘Abyssal Prince’, you’re kinda guaranteed to get attention. And seeing as I’m a demigod…” she trailed off, expecting me to connect the dots.
As I had definitely thought about this before, I responded, “Yeah, I thought about that too. But, I may or may not have completely disregarded that fact. So, unless we can hide you in some way, shape or form, we can’t exactly waltz into the front gates and act like we’re normally there. For all I know, killing these things in the forests is illegal. So, eh?”
Leah scowled. “So what? We hope this place is abandoned so we can ransack it?”
I snorted. “Imagine we’re that lucky though. All the free loot…”
Leah and I looked at one another, sharing a grin. Then she shook her head and sighed.
“Let’s get some rest; we might make it there by the next First Grey, if we’re lucky,” Leah said. (First Grey is one of the ways we measure the time of day).
Nodding, I pulled open our sleeping bag and was about to kick our fire out when I noticed our rabbit.
“Food?”
Leah tilted her head, looking as if she was horrified she’d forgotten about food. “Right. Food.”
Keeping my face straight, I sighed internally at Leah’s expression, which was thoughtful, yet sad, as she ate. Trying to keep a scowl off my face, I began to eat as well.
***
Leah was not excited as Jason was, that much was for sure. Well, currently, he wasn’t excited, seeing as he was dead asleep.
“What’s the point of this?” Leah muttered, putting her head in her hands. “Killing things to Level- I mean, Leveling in general? I don’t want to be here-”
New Quest Branch!
Regret.
You wish to leave the Abyss. You have one choice to do so quickly. Kill the Abyssal.
Reward : Leave the Abyss
Leah stared at the screen with something akin to contempt… but for some reason, she wasn’t angry. In fact, it took nearly everything in her to not accept the quest immediately.
Hissing, she waved it away and shook her head. He’ll die eventually, she thought. He’s a danger to me and whoever else he interacts with. I’ll probably kill him mysel-
Leah froze. Ice cold horror at her own thoughts flooded Leah, making her nearly shiver.
Did… I just think that? About killing… Jason?
She quickly looked over to him, taking in his vulnerable, sleeping form, completely trusting of her. His hair was over his left eye, like it had been for the past few “days”. His eyes, usually filled with emotion, were closed and his chest went up and down slowly in his sleep, looking like the perfect pillow.
Slowly, she smiled and laid down against him, letting his warmth fight off the cold in her body as she let sleep take her over.
I’m not going to kill him. No matter what.
***
“Woah,” Leah simply muttered in awe. Then she cursed as her hair covered her eyes. “I’m going to cut my god damn hair if it’s the last gods damn thing I do-”
I snorted and pulled out my inferior Swiss Army Knife. “I’ve got scissors. Though-”
Leah ripped the Knife out of my hand and began to cut her own hair, muttering something about… something. I stared at her for a moment before looking at the wall. The very, very tall wall. This was the wall I assumed housed the area that had the lights. It both looked annoying and unnecessarily large. It was a good forty feet tall and seemed to stretch on forever.
I frowned. That was a large overstatement, seeing as I could see both ends of it, though they seemed to be at least seven miles off in either direction.
Oh yeah. Did I mention this wall had a gigantic hole in it?
“What in the seven hells…” I muttered, having no clue what the seven hells were. And I sure wasn’t planning to find out. “What even made that hole?” I asked aloud, easily jumping the seven feet to it.
As I checked out the hole, I gaped at the sheer depth of it. Leah landed next to me and immediately yelled, “This wall’s like ten feet thick! How the hell did something just crash into here like it was paper or something?!”
Speechless, I shook my head. After a moment of awe, a notification shook me back to my senses. “Right. I think we may have gotten very, very lucky here.”
Welcome to the Kingdom of the Abyss!
You are currently in : Sector 25G
It’s current state is : Abandoned
Enjoy your stay!
“That was… unnervingly optimistic,” Leah muttered, giving me a side eye. Then she shrugged, her now short and uneven hair out of her face. “Let’s go?”
“Your hair is so uneven, it’s killing me,” I complained, clutching my chest in mock pain. “Save me.”
Leah snorted and threw it back. “You can fix it later, Jason,” she said, putting a hand on her hip. “Deal with it.”
I shook my head and stretched my legs one by one. “Let’s go.”
However, we didn’t even make it one step out of the hole before we were attacked.
Leah looked up disdainfully and smacked the dark blur out of the air.
Correction : An attempt to attack us was made, I thought, blinking at the sheer reaction speed Leah had just displayed.
“Leah, love?”
She raised a brow but played with it. “Yes, Jason?”
“What exactly is your Dexterity?” I asked with an exasperated tone.
She averted her eyes, her cheeks reddening. “Um… 115 base… 200% multiplier?”
“Love, what other stats are at 200%, hm?” I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
She slowly reddened further. “Strength and Endurance…”
“How?”
“They, um, started at 180% because of the Demigod thing…”
I shook my head, inwardly raging. “The audacity of the gods.”
Leah looked at me, bewildered. I simply continued onward, not happy in the least.
***
The more she thought, the more she was confused. The Abyss Princess glared at her reflection, fuming.
Her mother didn’t believe her.
When her mother laughed and told her to stop “spewing inane nonsense”, the Princess realized she’d have to resort to… extreme measures.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She frowned. Well, eventually. First she’d try showing her proof. Which was easier said than done, seeing as there was no Jason Andromeda listed in any records. The closest she’d gotten was a Abyssal woman named Maria Andromeda sister of her mother, who had been exiled about four hundred years ago, along with her Voidborn husband-
“Ohmyfucking-! ARG!” the Princess hissed, nearly ripping her hair out of her head at her own stupidity. “WHY DID I DISREGARD THAT?!”
Fuming, she stormed through her room (Quite literally, seeing as she was practically lightning incarnate thanks to her unholy affinity for it, which was most of the reason her mother tried to get that Lightning-Ice Draconic Serpent that’d destroyed Sector 25G for her, not that she wanted it) and out her door, very annoyed.
Servants scurried out of her way, most getting far enough away to not get shocked. The others were simply shocked for a few thousand damage each, whereas the low-level’s who were shocked were turned to dust immediately. Fortunately, only two ended up as piles of dust, though the Princess wasn’t exactly conscious of this.
She flung open the door to the records room and went directly to the area she found Maria Andromeda’s files. However…
“Mother? What are you doing here?” she asked the Queen, who was very clearly rummaging through the section for the Andromedas. “Are you looking for the Andromeda section?”
Her mother’s eyes snapped to her and the Princess wilted under her glare.
“How do you know that name?” the Queen snapped.
“Well… it’s the name of the Prince!” she said after a moment. “Jason Andromeda? Son of your sister. Technically my cousin-” she stopped speaking for a moment, realizing something as her mother’s face contorted. “-oh. You don’t like her, do you-?”
She covered her ears as her mother roared, “ANDROMEDA!”, shaking the entire room and likely half the castle.
This may be slightly more difficult than I thought, the Princess thought, grimacing.
***
“The plot thickens,” Leah muttered from next to me, tapping the gigantic block of ice in front of us. “What in the name of god made this.”
Shrugging, I looked over the side of it to look at the trail of destruction composed of ice and obsidian, which I assumed was because the ice had cooled lava very quickly. “I’m assuming whatever made this was either trying to stop whatever made the obsidian, or, more likely, based on the fact that the ice begins far before the obsidian does, the lava maker was trying to stop the thing that made the ice.”
Studying the ice, we found very… odd formations of it, looking like lightning had struck and grew ice in its path. Which, seeing as Leah could just punch holes through walls like they were made of lego bricks, wasn’t too far off from a possibility.
“Still, I don’t think we want to meet who or what made it,” Leah said, making a good amount of sense. For once.
Why did it seem like it was getting harder to insult Leah?
“Agreed.”
We continued on, scouring whatever buildings looked most intact and looting whatever looked useful, gaining two of something called a Spatial Bag.
Spatial Bag - Tier 2
These bags can hold much more than they look like they can due to Spatial Magic, somehow fitting things that are larger than it’s opening into it…
Preserves anything put into it.
Storage : 10’ x 10’ x 10’ Space
As its description said, it could fit a lot of things, allowing us to finally ditch our backpacks. Leah’s mood finally seemed to lift as she shoveled canned fruits into her new storage. I sighed at this and instead gathered cooking utensils and - thank god - a second sleeping bag for myself. For some reason, Leah seemed to dislike this prospect but let it go after I argued that we finally had enough space for the stuff, so there was no need to not have it.
As we continued onward, I decided to collect some of the obsidian and Eye it.
Ice Attuned Obsidian
This obsidian, which previously was filled with Lava attuned Mana, is now flooded with Ice attuned Mana, giving it a large affinity to ice. This may be able to be added to a weapon to give it a special, Ice-like affect. Maybe… transmuted to a weapon?
After this, I grabbed my horn-dagger and used [Abyss Touch: Transmute] with them touching. The shard of obsidian melted into it and I grinned at the following notification.
Transmutation Progress - 3%
While a weapon is being transmuted, it will be unusable. Finish this to use it.
Leah gave me a strange look as my grin steadily grew wider, but didn’t say anything other than “Sure.”
~~~
Transmutation Progress - 95%
Item Needed: Mana Crystal - Tier 3
Scowling, I growled for the seventh time, “What is a ‘Mana Crystal’?”
Leah gave me a flat look. “I wonder what it could be,” she said mockingly. “Possibly… a crystal that stores Mana?”
I gave her the same expression back. “Ah, that must be it, Einstein.”
She rolled her eyes and looked up at the gold rimmed building we’d stopped in front of, her face contorting. “I’m getting the strange urge to kneel in front of this building and pray. What for, I don’t know. Am I going to? Hell to the no.”
“Mhm,” I muttered, observing.
The building was quite simple for all the aura it released. It was made of gold rimmed bricks that stretched nearly thirty feet high with a - you guessed it - a gold rimmed wooden door, which I suspected was made of Abyssal wood.
“Doesn’t look like it has a door handle. And I really don’t like that smug aura,” I said aloud. “So-”
I Wreathed my fist with Void and simply hit the door. Leah flinched at the resulting crack and stared at me, clearly thinking it came from my hand. However, no pain blasted through my arm causing me to frown. Pulling my hand back, I ended the timer early for the infusion and looked down at my fingers, confused.
Leah walked over next to me, looked at the door to my hand, and back at the door again, confused.
“What just happened?” she asked, tapping the door.
She then proceeded to jump back, yelping, as the door shivered and crumbled into dust, leaving only the gold rim at the edges.
We both stood there, gaping for a good thirty seconds before looking at one another.
“Well… remind me not to get on your bad side,” Leah said in a small voice.
I frowned. “Says the person who’s been kicking down walls like they’re made of wet toilet paper.”
She snorted before grabbing my arm. “Looting time!” she exclaimed, dragging me into the building.
~~~
The building felt like some sort of dungeon. And like all good dungeons, it had traps.
“Ow, ow, ow ow-OUCH!” I yelled, as I was pincushioned by what I assumed were darts of some kind. “WHAT KIND OF CITY HAS DARTS IN A VAULT?!” Fortunately, I had [Void Armor] up and running and it had gained nearly three Levels from being broken so often.
“This one clearly!” Leah hissed from the other side of the room, ripping another barbed dart out of her arm. “FU- AH!” she dove away as the dart exploded, sending more shards of metal into my armor, sending it into a critical state.
I immediately began rushing over to her, dodging as many darts as I could. My armor finally broke as I hit the ground in front of Leah, knocking her over and rolling down the stairs that led further down. We both screamed as we fell further down into this gods forsaken dungeon.
***
Treia glared at her stats again.
Status
Name : Treia Kia
Level 1
Race : Human
Health : 60/60 (9 Health/min)
Mana : 80/80 (10 Mana/min)
Class : None
Stats
Strength : 8
Dexterity : 10
Endurance : 6
Vitality : 9
Mana : 8
Intelligence : 10
Titles : Next In Line
Skills : Wind Manipulation - Level 10 | Tier 0, Wind Blade - Level 13 | Tier 0
Alex gave her a suspicious look. “Are you glaring at your stats again? That can’t be healthy.
Alex, her sister’s fiancé, looked at her through his long brown hair, almost teasing.
Shifting her gaze to him, she snapped, “You wouldn’t know! I don’t even have an Identification skill! Also, aren’t you supposed to be escorting Xaila to that meeting?”
“About the new Abyssal? Pish, posh; why should I?” he responded.
“She specifically asked you to.”
“Well, maybe I don’t listen to everything your sister says, Your Highness.”
Treia groaned. “Says the person who said he wanted to, and I quote, ‘Try my hand at fighting an Abyssal.’”
Alex grimaced, looking away. “I mean…”
“So wouldn’t you want to get as much information on this Abyssal as you can so you can have the best chance at fighting them?”
Alex gave her a confused look. “You say you don’t want to be Queen, but you put as much, if not more, pressure on me as your Aunt does to me about your sis. You really are taking lessons to heart.”
Scowling, Treia kicked his shin with her metal tipped boot. He yelped, hopping on one foot, glaring as he distanced himself from her. “Your kick could kill a dragon! Geez…”
“Are you implying you’re stronger than a dragon?”
“Oh whatever; I’ll just go find some more stuff out about this Abyssal,” he muttered, sidling away from her.
As he left, Treia called, “Oh, and report back to me!”
“No!”
***
“Was a pile of gold worth becoming pincushions?” I muttered, wiping a bit of blood off my cheek while throwing down a dart that was stuck in my armor.
“No. It was not,” Leah responded, kicking the head of one of the automatons we’d, ah, disassembled.
We looked from one another to the gold and crystals with blank expressions. I sighed, pulling up my notifications.
You have disabled Guard Automaton - Level 36!
You have Leveled Up (x2)!
+ 10 All Stats
+ 24 Free Stats
Stretching, I began to analyze the gold and crystals as Leah sat down next to me, giving them an odd look.
Throwing a few bars of gold into my bag (which my Eye said were priced at 32 Tier 3 Mana Crystals each, T3MC for short), I mused, “So Mana Crystals are used as a currency as well, huh?”
“Really? That could be useful, if we somehow get outta this place,” Leah said, looking over my shoulder at the bars of gold. “I mean, assuming that you’re not immediately killed by the first person we see.”
I tilted at my head slightly, thinking for a moment.
Then : “Good point.”
Leah shook her head and gave me a pensive look. “You should definitely be a bit more hesitant to accept that, ya’know.”
“Yep. The fact I’m not says a lot about my personality,” I grumbled, picking up an orange crystal.
Mana Crystal - Tier 2
A crystal that holds Mana. Used as an Alchemical/Transmutation ingredient or currency. Cannot be refilled.
Max Storage : 14400 Mana
Current Mana : 14400/14400
“Dang,” I muttered. “Not what I need. I’ll still take it though,” I finished, dumping about fifty of them into the Spatial Bag.
Leah, on the other hand, was inspecting what I assumed were pieces of enchanted armor and enchanted weapons.
She held up a scarf to show it to me. “Ooh, this increases both Divine and unarmed damage… Was there someone who went the same way I’m going right now back when this was made?”
I shrugged as she put it on and grinned at me as it automatically adjusted to her, wrapping her arms to the elbows and letting off a faint glow.
“Oh, wow, that feels pretty good,” Leah mused, flexing.
Shaking my head, I finally found what I was looking for: a Tier 3 Mana Stone that held a whopping-
“Holy shit,” I spat. “This thing holds nearly 58 thousand Mana! And my weapon wants this thing!”
Leah frowned and grabbed a green Crystal like the one I was holding and immediately blanched. “Jesus Christ. That’s a lot. Well for now.”
Snorting, I brought up my now sword-like dagger and pressed the Crystal into it while activating [Abyss Touch : Transmute]. It immediately was partially absorbed and shifted down to the hilt as the horn-now-sword began to shiver a bit.
I flinched as a very loud ding! rang in my mind. Reading the notification, I was speechless. And down nearly all my Mana with a raging headache, but that’s not important. Not right now.
Transmutation Completed!
You have made a new weapon!
[Name Pending] (Sword Type) - Level 50 | Tier Growth
A sword “forged” from the horn of a Unirabbit, the shards of a battle recently fought, and the infusion of the Abyss. This weapon has a special ability: [Prodigy I] with six charges and is constantly infused with Abyss or Void, which can be changed at will for no cost. Any Abyss or Void Skill can be used through this weapon (with exceptions) with increased effect.
Recharge Time : 15 min or 9600 Mana
Damage : 500 - 1500 Abyss/Void Damage
+ 50% Abyss Damage
+ 40% Void Damage
+ 25% Abyss/Void Skill Effectiveness
Skill : Prodigy I
When used, increases Damage dealt by for up to two hits. Can be stacked.
Damage Increase : 25%
Max Stacks : 6
You can make one Growth item with your Skill, [Abyss Touch] for every 25 Levels, starting at Level 1
Current Uses : 0