Chapter 006
Even Deeper
I woke up with a start, looking around for a few seconds before realizing I was in the small cave still. Calming down a laid back on the sleeping bag and thought about the future. With my skills I could become someone important, but did I really want to? I think so, but that could be a lot of pressure. For now I’m not going to think too hard on the future, I did just get to this world and I’ve only seen one town and talked to 2 people and one fairy, it’s way too early to start planning. Sitting up I notice Pepper resting on the end of the sleeping bag snoring quietly. So strange to think I have a companion now, she’s like a spunky teenager but she’s also a tiny fairy, it’s such a strange juxtaposition to me. I’m just glad that I won’t be lonely since I’ll have someone to talk to, I’m a social person and I’ve been told I trust too easily but I don’t think I’ll be having that problem in this world. I mean sure, I trusted Gerty and Emma right away.. and same with Pepper but.. ok. I’ll have to work on trust. Trust but verify! Be kind but wary! Hah.
Sliding out of the sleeping bag I start to think about magic and how it works. I can shoot fireballs but I have just been using them, not really thinking about how it works. While I’m not the world’s best min-maxer in games I do like to think I know a bit about gaming systems. Maybe if I practice with the magic and try to get ahold of its “essence” or something, I can learn more about it. I mean learning magic has to come from somewhere right, so maybe these spells are one’s other people have already figured out and I can come up with my own. I’m heading more towards the monk class but that doesn’t mean I can’t still branch out with magic and weapons to be diverse. Also I need to get a bow, Monk is very melee oriented so far. But the magic side, as far as I know just from RPG’s and from novels I’ve read some people can interact with it differently. Time to put my OP talents to the test.
Holding out my hand I shoot a fireball towards the stream, far away from Pepper and I. When it shoots out I try to feel the magic that comes from it. The fireball moves a bit too fast for me to feel much but I do feel an energy about it. When the fireball hits the stream a huge wave of steam wafts outwards and makes a loud sizzling splash noise.
-AHHHH!!!- I look over to see Pepper standing up on the sleeping bag looking around in circles frantically –What was that?! Are we under attack?!-
“Oops, that’s my bad, I was testing my magic and I sort of forgot to warn you! Sorry!”
-Oh. My. GOD! I almost had a heart attack Nyla! Wake me first next time!- She flops backwards down onto the sleeping bag while breathing heavily.
“Yeah that was dumb of me, I guess I got excited thinking about magic so I really forgot about my surroundings” I look around embarrassed, I can’t believe I forgot Pepper was sleeping there haha, oops.
-Mhm, just remember for next time, it would be awkward if you had to re-summon me because you killed me of a heart attack. Go on learn about magic, I’m interested in watching this and seeing what you can do after all-
“Sure I’ll remember!” I went back to facing the direction of the stream and thought about the energy I felt coming off the fireball. There was heat of course, but I did feel something else though I couldn’t put a name on what it was. Just a feeling of other energy. Holding my hand out I sent off another fireball, trying to pay more attention to that other foreign energy than the heat. Whatever it is I’m feeling it’s a bit out of reach for me. I think about the feeling for a while and then decide that it’s something I’ll have to work on as I progress. I store my sleeping bag as Pepper hops onto my shoulder and start walking to the stream.
I pause halfway looking at the bioluminescent lichen on the walls and wonder if it has any strange properties, this world most likely has alchemy and strange potions so there may be a use for it. I peel a little bit off the wall and hold it in my hand. “Pepps you have any idea if this stuff is good for anything like potions or magic or anything?”
-Mm, no idea. The things I know about this world are pretty general, not the finer details, sorry-
“No worries, just wondering if it’s worth taking some.”
-Maybe, maybe not. Depends on if you think it’s worth taking up inventory space for it I guess!-
I look at her and bite my lip. “Uh, actually I have infinite inventory space..”
She looks at me like I’m a monster before rolling her eyes. –Why am I not surprised? Are you sure you’re not royalty too and own a stretch of land somewhere with maids and butlers? Haha goodness! You have it so easy! Well then I depends on whether you want to take the time to take some, since it won’t take up room then you might as well, if it’s worth anything then you’ll have it, if not you only wasted a little time.-
I agreed with her so I started peeling of 6 inch by 6 inch squares, about 50 of them before I got bored enough to stop. Walking over to the stream again I sat down and scooted off into the water slowly. “Pepps you’re going to want to hold on and keep your head about level with my face while we exit through this tunnel.”
-No problem!- She said as she sat by my collarbone and held onto my chin. Having a cute little fairy around was kind of adorable. I slowly laid back until I was mostly submerged then let the stream pull me along until we were out of the cave and back in the tunnel. Exiting was much faster than entering as this time I was going with the flow of the stream, so it was surprising how quickly I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. As we exited I waited a moment before grabbing onto the grass and pulling myself up.
Pepper was floating around looking at the grass, trees and the large walls taking in the cavern scenery. –This is better, I don’t mind dark dank dungeons but sun and trees just vibe better with me you know?-
“Sure, you’re a fairy I’m pretty sure trees and grass is better than caves to you any day of the week, right?”
-You got it!- She said, giving me a thumbs up. -Forests are the best!-
I smiled at her and tried drying off my clothes as best as I could by squeezing the water out with my hands. Then I prepped my sword at my hip and started walking. “Come on Pepps I’ve had enough of this level I really need to get deeper to get to things that give more experience!”
-Ooh, sounds fun!- She lands on my shoulder and holds on. –Lead the way!-
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A few short fights later and we reached the staircase to the next level. Not pausing I jugged down the steps and opened the door in the room at the bottom. Walking through we were in a wasteland of fire and ash. The heat was mildly oppressive and I started to sweat. The ground reminded me of what was left after lava flow solidified, solid dark stone-like matter. Walking on for a while I saw what looked like a burnt dog in the distance and upon assaying it was tagged as [FIRE HOUND LVL 4]. Meh, these levels are too low still. I’m going to have to speed through to get to another floor where I can fight something that nets me some real XP gain.
“So Pepps what are you going to do while I fight? Shoulder isn’t the best location during a fight, you might get hurt.”
-You’re right, when you’re going to engage in a fight I’ll just fly up in the air and watch so I’m not in the way!-
“Ok good deal. Stay safe!”
Jogging up to the hound deciding not to use fire since he is obviously either immune or really resistant since he’s got flames coming off him, I instead just go with my unarmored skills and as he growls at me and takes a step towards me I give him a right hook to the jaw knocking him back. As I do that I feel a searing pain in my hand and let out a few swears. “Shit, that burns! I mean come on! Ow!”
Blowing on my fist I check to see that the burn was 2 damage. Rude. Noticing the hound coming at me again I prepare my stance and when he comes in close I thrust out a monk’s palm strike into his muzzle, this time hearing a crack he falls over dead. Hmm, that time didn’t hurt. Maybe the monk skills using magic gives me a buffer so that the fire doesn’t get to me. Looks like It’s time to go full monk on this level!
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After two hours of sweaty fighting against hounds I noticed a feeling like I was getting from the fireball, only stronger. It was coming from a lava pool nearby. I was interested because it might help me understand the magic better so I went towards it, not too closely as the lava was hot as hell. Feeling the presence of the energy I looked all around me in a circle to make sure no enemies were around.
“Pepps keep a lookout please, I feel magic energy here and I want to try to study it a little, it might help me learn magic better, at least that’s my hope.”
-Sure bestie I have your back! I’ll yell if anything approaches!-
“Thanks!” I close my eyes and reach my hands out. I can feel it in the air, the energy, it’s slowly emanating from the lava pool and wafting this way. I try to reach out to the energy itself and feel it. There’s resistance but I can feel that I can affect it if I force myself to concentrate hard enough. Pushing out with my mind, using all the willpower I have to try to make something happen, I notice a slight tug. I stop what I’m doing out of surprise but try to concentrate again, focusing on finding that feeling again. It takes a while but eventually I get back to it and when I feel the tug this time I don’t stop, I hold onto that feeling and pull. It feels like pulling on a heavy rope but with my mind. I keep tugging at that rope, pulling and pulling, and after a long tug of war I finally pull enough that the resistance gives and I can feel a floodgate of energy around me. It was like pulling on an elastic until it snapped, now that it snapped I had access to that feeling of energy without much constraint.
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As I was mentally patting myself on the back for being able to access whatever strange energy this was I felt the ground start to tremor. I opened my eyes as the ground started actually shaking quite a bit and I looked around with surprise. An earthquake in a dungeon, that doesn’t seem normal but maybe it is. Backing away from the lava pool in case it’s an eruption I call out to Pepper “Um Pepper the ground is shaking so maybe we oughta hightail it out of this area and look for the stairs to the lower level huh?”
-Oh, that’s odd! Sure let’s go!-
As I started to walk in the opposite direction I came from I saw movement to my left back at the lava pool. I looked over as I walked to see the pool start bubbling, then flames came out of the lava and rose up, and a humanoid shaped being made of fire was standing on the lava. My eyes widened in shock and I assayed them and got back [IMMATURE FIRE SPIRIT LVL 7 ELITE]. Wow I wasn’t expecting that! A fire spirit, I wonder if I was messing with them since I was tugging on that energy.. oops!
“Ok so be ready to run if this goes badly Pepps, I think I can take it with my monk skills but I don’t know since I might get hurt just being close to it”
-Are you sure? It’s above your level and elite!-
“Yeah I mean I have to try, even if it’s the counter to everything I know so far. Too bad I don’t know a water spell. Just stay back!”
-OK good luck!-
Watching the spirit come towards me was a little terrifying. Flesh and bone wasn’t bad but a spirit made of fire just seems excessive at this point! But I had to do this, I’m sure there are worse things out there. I need to be ready for anything. Plus, I want to see if this monk class is as good as I hope. I wanted the initiative so I ran up to the spirit and as it swung at me I gave it’s arm a palm strike, knocking it back. Okay, the heat was painful but it didn’t seem to be taking health just by being this close which was excellent. I dodged the spirits next swing and let out a series of palm strikes against its side, then a knifehand strike. The spirit seemed to take it without care which was worrying but I backed up a little and prepared anyway. It looked in my direction and shuddered for a few seconds before letting out a blast of fire in every direction that I tried to dodge but still got hit with since there was nowhere to dodge to as it was an AOE attack. The fire blast took off 5 health leaving me at 35 and singed. I ran in angrily and started letting loose with palm strikes and knifehand attacks, all while dodging its swinging arms left and right back and forth.
I noticed that when I was up close he wasn’t trying anything more than swinging at me so I tried to stay in close. I attacked and dodged as much as I could, and he only hit me once with a swing of his arm, which did 3 damage. As I was pummeling and dodging getting into the groove the spirit suddenly shifted back a few feet and started shuddering again so I knew a blast was coming. I jumped back as much as I could but the blast still hit me and did another 5 damage while burning me quite a bit. I yelled loudly in pain and ran in, hitting left and right with palm strikes. As fast as I could, watching my mana run down quickly.
I knew palm strikes and knifehand strikes worked but I wanted to hit harder, more straight on, and so I tried to feel that energy I had felt before and when I could I pulled it towards me and tried to concentrate it on my fist. I had no idea if any of this would work but I was becoming crispier by the minute and taking a lot of damage so I was getting desperate. Feeling that energy coalesce on my fist I kept adding to it as I could and when the spirit lifted its arm to swing at me again I punched out into its chest as hard as I could. The punch hit with a shock of white energy and the spirit dimmed for a moment while stalling out. Taking the moment this gave me I concentrated again and pulled the energy towards my fist for a second punch, this time pulling for longer trying to add more of the energy. While I was doing this I could see the flames of the spirit growing smaller and less intense. Wondering what that was about I just kept charging the fist hoping it wasn’t going to drain my mana too much. When the spirit finally decided to react and attack me I pulled my fist back dodged his swing, and brought my fist in a hard punch to the spirits side. The punch hit with an explosion of white energy and the flames of the spirit wilted and withered away, floating off, and as I watched this a little white orb fell out of the flames and dropped to the ground. As that happened the rest of the flames disappeared.
I felt the healing of the level up so I knew the spirit had died. I sat down for a minute out of breath even though I had just leveled and healed back to full I had used a lot of stamina and while that had refilled as well my body was still tired from the exertion.
Pepper flew over and perched on my knee. –Wow that was pretty intense Nyla, not going to lie I was worried you we’re going to be burnt to death but you really pulled through! That was scary but exciting!-
“Yeah, it was crazy I was actually worried too but I couldn’t think about that at the time! I’ll check my report now because I think I used a new attack.”
Looking at the report I was actually surprised by everything I saw.
[SKILL LEARNED: ARCANE ENERGY MANIPULATION]
[SKILL CREATED: MANA SIPHON]
[TITLE GAINED: ARCANE CREATOR]
[SKILL LEARNED: MONK’S CHARGED ARCANE ATTACK]
[LEVEL UP! NEW LEVEL IS 7. YOU GAIN 5 ATTRIBUTE POINTS AND ONE SKILL POINT]
Okay so a lot happened in the beginning there! Wow! Skipping skill level advances and only looking at major stuff it was still a lot to see. “From what I’m looking at here Pepps it seems like when I was concentrating on that energy earlier I had a breakthrough, and then I sort of took mana from the spirit so it probably got pissed and came to see what was messing with it. Then I used my new skill combined with unarmed combat to make another magical attack skill. All in all quite beneficial while being exhausting.”
-You do realize that most people don’t learn 3 skills in one fight right? You know that you’re abnormal right?-
“Psh of course. I’m special!” I stuck my tongue out at her. “Anyway let me check out what each of these skills does before I eat some food and we move on.”
Looking at arcane energy manipulation made me really happy, I was wondering if I could game the system somehow and it actually worked.
[ARCANE ENERGY MANIPULATION: THIS SKILL ALLOWS YOU TO FEEL AND MANIPULATE THE NATURAL ENERGY OF MAGIC ITSELF. VERY FEW EVER TAP INTO THE ARCANE, INSTEAD ONLY LEARNING THE ELEMENTAL MAGICS THAT ARE CREATED FROM IT. WITH THE SKILL TO FEEL AND MANIPULATE ARCANE ENERGY YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO CUSTOM CREATE SPELLS AND MAGIC. THIS IS NOT AN EASY ROAD TO MASTERY BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THIS SKILL DEPENDS COMPLETELY ON YOUR IMAGINATION AND ABILITY TO CREATE]
So basically I can make my own spells and the limit is my imagination? That seems epic. I’m going to have to think of all the interesting things I did in other games with magic and try to adapt that to here. First on the list being an AOE in case I’m surrounded, second being something long range and fast like a magic bow attack. So much to think about.
[MANA SPIHON: THE ABILITY TO STEAL THE MAGICAL ENERGY OF ANOTHER BEING OR YOUR SURROUNDINGS IN A MANA RICH ENVIRONMENT. THIS CAN BE USED TO EMPOWER ATTACKS OR TO REFILL YOUR OWN MANA SUPPLY.]
Looks like another sustainable skill as long as who I’m fighting has magic I can drain them to use their magic supply against them. Also sort of like the meditate skill for regaining mana from the surroundings but maybe faster in a mana rich environment? We shall see. Let’s check out this new title!
[TITLE: ARCANE CREATOR: +10% INCREASED CHANCE FOR SPELLS YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO CREATE TO BE SUCCESSFUL]
That will help me in the future especially with tough to pin down spells that I’m trying to create.
[MONK’S CHARGED ARCANE ATTACK: CHARGE YOUR ATTACK WITH ARCANE ENERGY. THE LONGER YOU CHARGE, THE MORE DAMAGE. CAN BE USED WITH ANY MELEE ATTACK. CHARGING FOR LONGER THAN 5 SECONDS CAUSES OVERCHARGE, WHICH DOUBLES TOTAL ATTACK DAMAGE.]
Last but not least is my newest attack! This is great, with this I can do magical kicks as well. Plus I can punch like a truck and if I can hold on long enough to charge for five seconds I can do double damage! I already know I can dodge while holding the charge, I need to see if I can dodge while charging the attack as well, if so this could be a really devastating part of my attack arsenal. Okay, throwing my five points to strength and one skill point into unarmed I got up and went over to the orb the spirit dropped and picked it up. It was [Elemental Spirit Orb] so I tried assaying it for more information. [Elemental Spirit Orb: Use consumes orb to recharge your mana to full. Can also be used in item crafting.] Hmm, seems interesting, I’ll keep it for later until I know what kind of items can be crafted with it.
“Okay Pepps, rations then we move on. I don’t like this dungeon level much, I’m sweating up a storm!”
-Mhm sounds good to me bestie! I could use a little less heat myself, that’s for sure.-
Walking on for a while I tried to see if my charged strike would stop at 5 seconds charge or if it could keep going higher. Holding the charge on my fist I watched as the power climbed and my mana lowered. At five seconds it continued to eat up my mana and it never stopped. I didn’t want to let the attack go so I figured I would use the full might of my 26 mana in one attack against the next enemy I came across.
Ten minutes later I saw a fire hound so I ran up to it and as it lunged at me I punched it in the side of the head with the fully charged attack. The explosion of white energy was quite large but was gone in a flash and I stood there pleasantly surprised at the damage. The front half of the hound was vaporized with nothing left! Now I just had to wait while my mana recharged. Attempting to loot the hound gave me the same message I got previously [YOU HAVE RECEIVED NOTHING FROM LOOTING] which was just uncool.
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Four uncomfortably hot hours and 12 fire hounds later we arrived at another stairwell down to the next level. Making our way to level 4 we stopped in the level entrance room relaxing and letting our sweat dry, happy to be out of the inferno that was the previous floor.
“So Pepps what do you think of this dungeon? You’ve only seen a little bit of it but are dungeons usually like this? Where each floor is different? Or do they normally have their own theme?”
-Well I’m certainly no expert but this does strike me as unusual, to go from grass and trees to ash and flames is not normal! At least I don’t think so. But each dungeon is unique in some way so that might just be this dungeon’s ‘theme’. Ugh I’m sweaty. I haven’t been this sweaty since my cousin talked me into that aerobic workout class!- Pepper was laying on the dungeon floor gently panting. I felt bad that I brought her from her world right into an inferno. But at least with the way levels work I can just skip that one from now on!
“I guess. Just seems crazy to me. Like harder monsters I get but new scenery every level? It’s not bad, just confusing. Well if they keep going like that at least it won’t get boring. Tell me something about your realm, what’s it like?”
-Hm, it’s fine, it’s a normal world I guess. Same as any realm really. Got family, friends, schooling, not much else to say about it. Let’s see, there is an infinite forest to the west end of our continent and in the south there’s a tree in a jungle that is 60 miles high. Things like that are common in my realm though so I assume it might be strange to you depending on what your realm was like before you came here but for me it’s pretty normal!-
Huh.. “Well a 60 mile tall tree sounds suspiciously abnormal to me haha, and an infinite forest, how does that even work? What’s on the other side? Can you map out the part you enter or is it random? How do you know it’s infinite? So many questions!”
-If you enter the forest and turn around there will be nothing but forest behind you, and everywhere you go will forever be forest. Where you enter does become random. And we only know these things because of some of our people who have teleportation skills, it’s the only way to exit the forest is to have the ability to teleport to a specific location outside of the forest. It’s interesting for sure but it’s just a forest! No modern luxuries, sounds horrible to me!-
“Maybe, but it would be fun to explore and see if there was anything to find! Some long lost treasure or secret! But yeah, not until I have a long range teleport spell that is for sure. But that is far off, I haven’t even barely explored this realm yet. Ah, let’s get moving through this next level. Unless they’re super quick and easy to kill and give good loot and rewards I just want to get to the next level!”
-Ok bestie, you lead I’ll follow! On your shoulder of course, so I don’t have to walk or fly.-