When I woke up still in a bad mood from my premonition last night, floating down to the floor I noticed that 15 mana shrooms had split during the night. I quickly harvest them and put them into my inventory just to check what I currently have.
Currently I have: 30 mana shrooms, 4 wind shrooms, 1 light shroom and 1 dark shroom. I also have 20 mana shrooms clinging around the room.
Thinking that since I have enough mana I should start farming for AEXP since that's good as well, I plant another 20 around the place and consume the remaining in my inventory gaining 2000 AEXP. I start infusing the 40 mana shrooms around the room when Shade starts talking through me again.
(Shade): “Good morning little Darkness, I expected you to rest until midday like yesterday, and it appears like you are almost finished my request all ready? Did you find a way to farm them faster perhaps?”
(Dark): “Good morning Shade, I did happen to find a way to farm them faster but I'm not going to finish your request today since these are really helpfull for now. Is that ok with you?”
(Shade): “Of course little Darkness but can I ask how fast you can farm them? It seems to fast for there to be 40 mana shrooms grown in only one day.”
(Dark): “Sure but only if you stop calling me little Darkness, deal?”
(Shade): “Counter offer I will add more rewards to completing my request. Would you like that little Darkness?”
(Dark): “mmm… Fine deal.”
I decided to trust my gut instinct, and I'm more than glad I did since a window popped up saying that my quest has been updated and the rewards now for it will add 2 more crystals. Smiling like a fool in my head I started to talk to shade again in slightly higher spirits.
(Dark): “I decided to follow a hunch and found out that I could infuse mana into the shrooms, when I infuse enough mana into it the shroom grows and splits into a second mana shroom.”
(Shade): “... Little Darkness, I don’t know whether to be impressed of shocked. Not only can you farm them, but you found a way to farm them fast, that's strange but I feel cheated if you can do that. Since you can do that I'm changing our agreement, farm for me 500 mana shrooms by the end of our deal and I'll throw in more rewards as well.”
Suddenly the quest window appears in front of me again. This time it read differently than I had expected and it was glorious.
Quest
For both surprising and impressing the Shade Dungeon known as Shade your quest was changed. You now have to farm 500 mana shrooms by the end of your deal. Shade will pay more attention to you and will respect you more due to this quest.
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Rewards
Increase trust with Shade
7 low Energy Crystals
SkillBook: Craft Inventory
???
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Failure
Fail to deliver 500 Mana shrooms by the end your Deal
Reject the quest
Lose to much trust with Shade
I was glad that the quest was changed to something much better, but at my current rate won’t I be able to finish the quest today? Well I will if I go back to absorbing the mana shrooms for mana at least. Before I can finish my thought Shade started speaking to me again.
(Shade): “Excellent. I would like you to continue farming today, however I am going to need all the help I can today. I have to ask you to keep up our initial deal today since this is the day that the merrow come to take a graduation exam. They will be coming in the next hour.”
(Dark): “What do you mean that today’s their exam day?”
(Shade): “Every 25 days the merrow have a ritual where the young run a dungeon on their own and do their best to get something of value. To the merrow this ritual trial is to see who is ready to be an adult in there clan, and since the merrow grow at a relatively fast rate they tend to have these exams every 25 days. Today is one of these days.The goblins you fought 2 days ago always stay away during this time for safety since only those killed by the dungeon revive.”
(Dark): “I knew that premonition wasn’t good… Aw fine just give me enough time to prepare.”
At that Shade told me that when the door in the room opens, that's when I should leave to defend him. Since I had been infusing the shrooms when he was talking to me I had managed to gain another 40. Since I didn’t know how strong I was with all this mana I ended up eating all 40 of the new shrooms gaining another 2000 mana just incase.
I ended up meditating for 20 minutes when an idea came to me, I was lacking in ways to attack and defend myself and since my INT and WIS were higher maybe a can do something other than mana bolt. I spent the next 20 minutes trying different ideas and managed to create a small arsenal to protect myself. Although it wasn’t much it would make a massive difference to defend against the merrow. The new spells I had created were…
Mana Blast Beginner 1
By overcharging a mana bolt a more powerful version was created with the intention of overpowering the enemy's defences. Size and power depends on mana used and INT and WIS.
Mana cost: Varies on use, lowest cost is 10 mana
Mana barrier Beginner 1
This spell is the most basic defence a mage can have but also one of the most effective if used properly. Creates a barrier of solid mana in desired shape. Strength of the barrier depends on INT,WIS and skill level.
Mana cost: 50 initial, plus 50 upkeep per minute(More than one can be in use, cost stacks)
Wind bolt Beginner 1
Basic wind spell that does less damage than a standard mana bolt but is intended to push back or stun opponents rather than hurt them.
Mana cost: 10
Everything else that I tried was to hard to do was either to hard or I couldn’t manipulate mana to such a fine degree although because of that I managed to raise my Wisp Arts main skill which seemed to do nothing new when I checked. Since I had about 35% of my total mana I stat back meditating to recover all of my mana. After 20 minutes I thought I recovered enough to relax a little since I now had 75% of my total mana. I asked Shade how long till I have to go out and help defend the place, and found that it would be about another 15 minutes, so I went back to meditating after I got my mana back to 90% I activated my mana barrier just to see how it worked.
It turned out that I didn’t need to focus on it once it was up but if I wanted to turn it of I had to focus. The same worked if there was multiple barriers and I found out I could turn off either one or both once they were summoned.
Getting bored I sat back to meditating feeling cheated that I didn’t farm more shrooms. Just as my mana was getting close to full Shade told me to get ready while one of his skeletons was opening the door for me. Floating out of the room I was feeling better, but nervous and as I started to follow the skeleton a new quest window poped up.
Challange Quest
The world has issued a challenge to you. Protect this dungeon from the merrow during their exam day until the day is up. The merrow use this dungeon to train their young until adulthood(25 days), once the day has started lots of young merrow will be trying to get to the dungeon boss or find something of value to earn their place as adults.
Accepting this quest will prevent you from gaining EXP from merrow until the quest is complete.
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Rewards
Combined EXP of defeated merrow * 2
AEXP: 15,000
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Failure
Fail to defend Shade
Reject this quest
I thought about it and decided that even though I could die the rewards are too tempting since it's going to be hard for me to gain EXP normally. I said yes and almost immediately regretted my decision when I realised how low my health is. Looking at my health on the stats screen, I decided to put all my AEXP into my health going from 230 up to 450 and hope I don’t see it go down fast if at all.
I drifted through the halls and found a merrow walking alone, as soon as it saw me it tilted its head and started to panic as it raised its spear. That changed as soon as it got a clear view of me as soon as it saw that I was a wisp it lowered its spear and started to walk past me thinking I'm not a threat. I was a little shocked since I was read to fight to the death, but as soon as it walked past me I felt cheated. I started to charge a mana blast and used about 500 mana since I didn’t know how powerful my skill could be. I'm glad that I did since as soon as I fired it it crashed into the merrow tearing the right side of its body clean of I could see the beasts ribs protect its organs but all the organs below its ribcage were ripped out with his right side. As it turned to see who attacked it, the merrow tripped on its loosely attached intestines falling towards the side of the tunnel and impaling its own heart, through its exposed ribs on a shard of shade glass that was growing at the side.
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As the merrow vanished I was stunned at how easy that was, now that I think about it I was lucky since the merrow looked like it could still fight until it tripped on its own intestines, stabbing its own heart. It was still easier than I thought though considering that it was a level 7. I wa underwhelmed with how I killed my first merrow but a win’s a win. I sank and picked up the shade glass for an experiment later.
Floating through the dungeon I found a lot more shade glass than I did 2 days ago, finding a total of 6 before I found another merrow this time it looked a lot smarter than the one that kill himself. Thankfully it was facing a skeleton and was too busy to even notice me, I charged a mana blast with 200 mana and as soon as the skeleton jumped away from each other I fired decimating the merrows neck separating its head from its shoulders, before it vanished I got a quick look at the head and body and notice that I didn’t break the beast's spine but severed the flesh and nerves holding the bones together. I wonder why it didn’t break its neck but severed its flesh instead? I should look into it, I could also look into why I can cope so well in these kind of situations it feels wrong being this level headed during this.
Aside from starting to question why I'm like this, I ended floating towards the large room I found before and found 3 merrow fighting 6 skeletons. I decided to join in but I didn’t want to be stupid and charge in dieing again. Instead I waited and every so often I'd throw a wind bolt disrupting a merrow giving the skeletons a chance to attack. I kept using wind bolt instead of my other attacks cause if I missed I'd probably destroy the skeletons or at least damage them. After about 10 minutes of moving the merrow about with wind bolts they couldn’t find the source of I started to get a headache since I was using the spell almost every 10 seconds. I couldn’t deal with it any more since the skeletons were only doing small amounts of damage and I wanted to rest. With that in mind I launched 10 mana bolts landing 8 of them accidentally disarming a skeleton but thankfully I distracted 1 of the merrows and caused heavy damage to the other 2 ripping their flesh from the bones were I hit if more than one shot landed next to each other. One of the merrow had its back bleeding heavily, another lost the use of its left leg with its thigh ripped from most of its bone, leaking blood at a strangely slow rate. The last that got distracted I didn’t see in time as a skeleton cut it down while I wasn’t looking. After that the last 2 merrow were working closely together but were destroyed by a mana blast that cost 300 that threw them into the skeletons weapons.
Feeling like my mind was cracked I found a shade torch on a wall down a corridor, deciding to rest and take a minute to recover from mental fatigue I started meditating once I notice my mana was below 75%. I was immediately glad that I did cause once I started my mental fatigue lessened to non existence almost as fast as I could move down the hall. Taking my time to recover I was glad that I managed to defeat 5 merrow within my first hour, although I got luck with the first 2 and had help with the 3 in the large room. Once I was recovered I set out and left the safety of my shade torch taking this one with me for an experiment later.
Finding myself waltzing into the room with the treasure chest that the goblin tried fighting me, I found a merrow with a grin on its face as it raided the chest. When I looked closer it was the first merrow that I killed about an hour ago, it looks like it decided to come back. Since it was busy I decided to hide in a shade torch on the wall next to the door. I asked Shade quietly why this merrow is back so soon only to find out that anyone that dies in a dungeon on Ohmaze can return to the dungeon within half an hour if they want to, and since the merrow have to get something of value be pass the ritualistic exam they come back as soon as they can.
As I finished listening to Shade I didn’t notice it leave. Practically jumping from my shade torch I flew out the door I was next to and spotted the merrow and trying to get it to fight me since I was feeling cheap for killing it on accident I used wing bolt on it. Knocking it over straight onto another piece of shade glass I failed to notice, I accidently pierced its heart again killing it instantly. Well at least I killed him… I better start looking for other merrows again.
Picking up the shade glass that killed the merrow I wanted to fight I spent the next hour looking for other merrow to fight. I found one that had larger frills than the merrow I've been fighting up until now. Almost as soon as I got in range for it to see me, this merrow lunged to me and tried to stab me with a copper sword it was using. I recognised that this was the larger merrow that split the loot the gained from defeating the skeletons 3 days ago. It also appears to be level 8. I nearly got hit quite a few times during the fight only to dodge because of how small I was. I was stalling for time because mana blast needs to charge the mana I was using and since I had full mana I wanted to try something. Almost as soon as my mana blast was charged with 1000 mana I floated up and fires the vicious attack down at the poor merrow. My attack hit him directly on the head and splattered blood all over the walls all the while scattering the upper torso outward like a disgusting flower with broken bones and internal organs as the petals. As as soon as it blossomed it began to wilt, vanishing into white light.
As I was feeling sick with myself for not even caring how horrifyingly disgusting my actions were, or at the very least what they caused. I found the same merrow that's died twice to shade glass. This time I didn’t attack it and waited until it saw me floating. As soon as it saw me it started running towards me and stood on some shade glass. It jumped at the sudden pain in itf foot, but its momentum carried it forward tripping on a larger piece of glass next to it. It was immediately impaled on another piece of shade glass. Just as it died again I swear I could hear it mumble something similar to ‘For fuck’s sake’. I think I'll leave this poor guy alone from now on.
By the end of the day I had killed a total of 36 merrow and had to rest quite a bit since the mental strain got too much from using a lot of mana, I even gained a level in mana blast and wind bolt as well as 2 in mana manipulation and 1 in elemental manipulation from how often I use mana bolt, mana blast and wind bolt. I never once used my mana barrier, since I forgot but thankfully I never once got hit. I had spent a total of 12 hours fighting the merrow I even saw the merrow that kept killing itself. Not once did I get to fight him since he keep dieing to shade glass, which in turn helped me find a lot of it. Other than the suicide merrow every fight with them was hard there was even a fight where I nearly ran out of mana finishing the fight with only just over 100 out of my 7000 mana, what made it worse was it was a fight against a level 6 merrow instead of the level 7’s or the level 8’s I fought.
My only excuse is that that merrow was very cautious unlike the rest.
Shade talked to me just as I finished my last fight with a merrow saying that will be the last one for tonight, out of curiousity I asked how many merrow came to the dungeon today to find that a staggering 153 came to take his trail. I asked why I only saw the same 20 odd and he just said it was a Dungeon secret. After about 20 minutes of waiting Shade said that’s it for today and everything will be back to normal from tomorrow and I should get back to my room for some rest. As I drifted through the corridors and arrived at the room I practically crashed into my room exhausted, ready to fall asleep. However just as I was about to fall asleep a new window poped up in front of me.
Challenge Quest Complete
Due to completing the challenge quest you have been awarded
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Rewards
EXP: 295,867
AEXP: 15,000
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Congratulations you have level up As a Profound Wisp you will gain 2 times the normal growth rate of a Wisp
You have gained:
+2 AGI
+4 INT
+6 WIS
+2 LUC
+100 Health
+200 Mana
Due to special skill you gained:
+2000 AEXP
Since you gained enough EXP for more levels, and because you can only level up due to being a profound creature. You can select a bonus in exchange.
Select one of the following.
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Random skill based on excess EXP
Upgrade a stat
EXP too AEXP
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I was once again stunned cause of these damn windows, I was getting fed up with the stuff that could pop up any moment. Since I couldn’t look at any additional information I was tempted to get the AEXP and the skill but I was too curious about the upgrade stat option. So I clicked it and as soon as I did it gave me a window which had STR,VIT,AGI,INT,WIS and a lot of ??? but I noticed there wasn’t any LUC at all. Since I really didn’t want to have any more of that crappy mental fatigue I selected WIS.
Congratulations your WIS stat has been changed to G.WIS G.WIS stand for Greater wisdom, the new stat is essentially the same as normal WIS but is twice as effective per stat point. For example 10 G.WIS is equal to 20 WIS
Even though a skill could have been better I think this is far better in the long run since I'm always going to get G.WIS every level from now own, I think. And now that I think about it with mt equivalent WIS almost at 50 I'm a lot stronger than most Wisps at my level, and I'm only level 3! Even though I was excited I was barely able to see my stats screen before I passed out
Status Screen
Name Darkness Level 3 Race Wisp Gender Female Title Foreign Soul, Magic Melder Health 550/550 Health Regen 1% per Min Mana 7200/7200 Mana Regen 1% per Min Stamina N/A-------------------- STR 6 INT 22 VIT 10 G.WIS24 AGI 12 LUC 21AEXP15,099--------------------Affinity’s Fire0 Wind6 Water0 Earth0 Lightning0 Arcane0 Holy0 Demonic0 Light1 Dark1--------------------Skill List
Wisp Arts Beginner level 2
--Entropic Mist Beginner level 2
--Energy consumption Max level
--Mana Manipulation Beginner level 4
Exp Conversion(variant) Max level
Observe Beginner level 2
Advance of the Drudge Beginner level 1
Mana Bolt Max level
Mana Infusion Beginner level 2
Meditation Beginner level 1
Elemental manipulation Beginner level 2
Mana Blast Beginner level 2
Mana Barrier Beginner level 1
Wind bolt Beginner level 2
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Authors Notes
I noticed that while i was writing this chapter that i forgot to change the name in the stat screen from N/A to Darkness, so i fixed that in all previous chapters. also feel free to point out any of my mistakes like the lack of a capital on the also at the start of this sentence.