Riseth, holding his severed arm, approached him with a worried expression. They had managed to slay the Lirsaross after King and Alistair pinned it long enough for the others to finish it off, severing its head and destroying its surprisingly small brain effectively ending the fight.
"What does it need such a big head for if it has no brain to fill it with?" Desily cursed, still glancing worriedly at the stump that had been Alistair's arm.
Using her healing ability, Riseth reattached his arm, though the process was incredibly painful and unpleasant for Alistair as he had to focus on his body not resisting her magic as his flesh and bones reconeccted. After he flexed his reattached arm and wiggled his fingers, she spoke up.
"We need to exercise more caution. No more approaching powerful beasts like that," Riseth said firmly.
"Yeah, I shoulnd'nt have gone that close. I didn't anticipate it could attack so swiftly and at that range," Alistair admitted.
"It's nearly forty levels above us. We should have taken it more seriously. Even if we're all powerful and high-tier, we can't afford to take risks like that anymore," she emphasized.
Alistair nodded quietly. The fight underscored the dangers of monsters outside the trial and revealed several flaws in his skills and combat style. Due to his experiences in the arena and the Ascendant Tournament, he had developed a habit of physically evading attacks instead of teleporting out of the way. He realized he needed to break this habit and use both means of evasion to ensure his safety even if one ended up being supressed.
His Body Cultivation was also behind the curve now, and he needed much more storage to withstand powerful monster attacks. Additionally, he needed to significantly improve the rate at which his skills could absorb and convert energies. While his Kinetic Skinguard was incredibly powerful and useful, it struggled to keep up if the power difference was too large. It made him almost impervious to weaker attacks, but single powerful strikes exposed a weakness in the skill. He needed to enhance its ability to cope with such attacks.
He had also been allocating more and more points into his power stat lately to bolster his Telekinesis skill. This potent tool had been hindered by his previously insufficient power stat. Alistair wasn't sure that it was a good thing and would seek to balance his allocation again. He had leveled up twice from this encounter, which was far more than he had expected, especially since they had grouped up, though he supposed he had been close to a level-up to begin with. His plans to develop his Dragon Heart would have to wait, as he urgently needed to refine his skin and ribcage to keep up with the increasing dangers they faced. Prioritizing this would ensure his survival and effectiveness in future battles. But what surprised him more was that he was given a skill selection. It had been the first one in what felt like ages, and it meant he had received skill selection every 15 levels, not 20.
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SKILL CHOICES:
Tier: [Epic]
Skill Name: Enchantment Proficiency
Description: Enchantment Proficiency Greatly enhances the efficiency, speed, and cost-effectiveness of all enchantment-related tasks. This encompasses enchanting the body, equipment, consumables, and performing rune and array techniques and all other enchantment-related techniques. The user's [Control] and [Senses] stats are greatly improved when working on any enchantments. Passively increases the quality and [Power] of all enchantments created by the user where applicable to a large degree.
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Tier: [Epic]
Skill Name: Persuasive
Description: Passively enhances the user's ability to influence and intimidate others, significantly swaying attitudes in favor of the user's perspective. The effectiveness of this skill is determined by a contest between the user's [Mind] stat and the opponent's. The skill's impact is further amplified when the user's arguments are perceived as reasonable by both parties and diminished when the arguments are deemed unreasonable. Additionally, this skill slightly boosts the effectiveness of other charm-related abilities. The user's Aura Suppression skill can conceal and nullify the effects of the Persuasive skill. When suppressed, the user's skill level and [Mind] stat engage in a contest against the target's [Senses].
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Tier: [Rare]
Skill Name: Space Manipulation
Description: A [Compound] skill that enhances the user's ability to manipulate the surrounding space by a moderate amount. When utilizing space manipulation or related abilities, the user's [MP] and [Qi] costs are reduced by a moderate amount. The overall efficiency is improved due to the user's stronger space affinity.
Compounded Skills:
[Enlarge Space][Tighten Space] [Bend Space] [Tear Space] [Fold Space] [Anchor Space]
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Alistair kissed the top of Riseth's head after briefly reading over his skill selection. "Don't worry. I'll be sure to watch out better."
He hadn't been overly careless, maintaining a fair distance between himself and the beast. However, its attack had been so blindingly fast, and the water it used was so incredibly charged with magic that it was far more lethal than if it had used ordinary water. Upon closer inspection of its claws, they discovered that the creature could store water in chambers located within its claws and paws, enhancing its potency before launching an attack. The process had become even more formidable with an entire lake of mana-rich water at its disposal. It reminded Alistair of pistol shrimps from Earth, but instead of creating a bubble bullet, it had unleashed a water sickle. He was impressed by the ingenuity of the creature's ability and wondered if that was just a quirk of shrimp-like species.
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Taking a moment to look over his new skills in detail, he picked up both the Enchantment Proficiency and Persuasive skill. In Alistair's opinion, both of these skills had been overdue, as he had spent significant amounts of time practicing and walking both paths. He wondered if his realization that Body Cultivation had been a type of enchantment all along had delayed the skill upgrade but discarded the thought as the System occasionally dropped hints through the skill acquisition, occasionally making him aware of misconceptions. Persuasive was a great skill, though he hoped its passive nature wouldn't be viewed as rude by others. However, he knew of a handful of races that had inherent persuasive and charm skills, such as Sirens, so he doubted many in the wider multiverse would take offense to such a reasonable persuasive skill. He would still test the skill to see how effective the skill was and how difficult it was to veil the effects of the skills from others. The Space manipulation skill was something he had started practicing with Riseth a long time ago, and it had since fallen to the wayside since he had learned how to manipulate space and enter small spaces long after he had needed it for the Wendigo-infested tunnels. He had no need to pick up the skill at this point in time as he could manually use the skill and didn't have any other space skills that could benefit from the passive benefits other than his teleportation skills.
"Let's hope these beasts aren't too common," Alistair said after finishing his skill selection. "We should relocate our outpost here to prevent another monster from taking over. Once we clear the rest of the mountain, we can start preparations for setting up the anti-scrying array."
This set things into motion. Desily contacted Simon and Braxik, while Alistair sent King to fetch them once they finished dismantling the emplacements. Alistair had discussed the array placement with Braxik, who insisted on digging into the main mountain to create a dedicated chamber. This would vastly enhance the array's security, as setting it up outside would leave it too exposed. This had the added bonus of letting the array extend into the wall and ceiling of the chamber, and they could expand the chamber to house more arrays up to a point, which meant they would have to dive relatively deep to leave the chamber enough space to expand in the future.
They had plans to build on the foothills of the mountain, but the local terrain was quite uneven, with limited building space. To address this, they would need to excavate a significant amount of material from the mountain and its surrounding elevations. The mined rock and dirt could then be used to create a flatter, more buildable area, essentially expanding the buildable area and transforming the site into a formidable mountain fortress. Looking at the rock face, Alistair hoped the mining equipment they brought would be strong enough to handle the magically infused rock. At the very least, the magically infused rock would make for a powerful foundation upon which to build.
Alistair and Riseth went about scouring the mountainside some more and scaring off the last of the wyverns that occupied the mountain, watching them settle some mountains over in the distance. Curiously, they had only found one species of wyvern, but from their scans and visuals, they knew there had been more, though they might be migratory or had extended hunting periods and simply hadn't returned yet. They found a lot of beasts that were harmless and docile and left them alone as they wouldn't threaten any of the workers bound to arrive in the coming weeks or days. They found quite a few local herbs and even an ore seam that Alistair identified as Oricalcum as it was almost a blind spot to his Conceptual Awareness as it rejected the surrounding magic.
Roughly a week later, the operation was in full swing, with the main mountain firmly under their control. Multiple bunkers armed with emplacements ensured that beasts were kept at bay, and squads of automata mined into the mountainside, with hovercrafts unloading the mined material in the designated locations. They were a few days away from the chamber reaching a sufficient size for the array plate to be used. Alistair already yearned to go out and explore the planet but knew his presence was needed to ensure the safety of the location.
Simon was hard at work using his earth magic to terraform and extend a cliffside near the peak. This area would house the Heavenly Purity Ginkgo and serve as the residence for Alistair and Riseth. Despite Braxik's warnings about the peak's vulnerability in an attack, even with shielding and protective arrays, they remained steadfast in their decision to live there. They were drawn to the breathtaking landscape and the practicality of integrating the gathering array into their living space. Alistair had already begun carving in the large gathering array and devised plans to place the focal points in separate chambers adjacent to their living space to store treasures without clutter while also ensuring they could guard the most valuable items due to their proximity. Creating the array now would allow them to cover most of it under floorboards and other obstructions, hiding it and protecting it from damage.
Initially, Alistair and Riseth told Simon that their accommodations were not a high priority since they would be out and about most of the time and suggested he help Braxik with more pressing projects. However, Simon waved off their concerns, insisting they treat it as a wedding gift. Braxik also sided with Simon, pointing out that Neshan culture wouldn’t tolerate its leaders living in accommodations worse than those of their workers, as it would reflect poorly on their standing.
While Neshan norms dictated that leaders typically reigned from the depths, Braxik acknowledged that their demon followers would respect the decision to live at the peak. The human cultural norm of placing important people at the top was something the demons could understand and respect, even if it diverged from their own traditions. Despite the cultural differences, the breathtaking view from the peak provided a compelling argument for the decision.
Braxik admitted that the view from the peak was stunning, rivaling even the most elaborate decorative underground flora and lava fall chambers he had created for the wealthy. While most of Neshan's surface was barren and unappealing to the demon’s sensibilities, with the exception of the occasional jungle, their origins underground had taught them to appreciate the flora and environments deep below. This planet's surface offered a rare and stunning beauty that even Braxik found hard to resist and suspected others would want to live at higher elevations to enjoy the view.
They suspected they would cause Braxik some logistical headaches by setting up so high while most of the prepared space was deeper inside and below the mountain. However, Braxik embraced the challenge, surprising them by immediately deploying their specialized automata to construct elevation shafts. Unlike the small square elevators Alistair was familiar with from Earth, they opted for a Neshan design: circular and significantly larger, capable of rapidly transporting people and equipment across various elevations within the mountain. Braxik confided that he had been looking forward to creating these, especially with the new possibilities magic allowed for. He was also developing elaborate plans to fabricate magically enhanced glass panels. Neshans had made great strides compared to Earth, creating glass that could effortlessly resist molten lava while still providing a clear view. The older demon had been working hard during the trial to further improve these designs with the introduction of magic and couldn't wait to build them into the mountainside.
For his part, Alistair couldn't wait to see the mountain transform. He sat with Riseth on the cliffside Simon had extended and smiled as he looked out to the sea in the distance, dangling their legs over the cliffside, taking a well-deserved break.