Thankfully, the vast pit which they had been dropped into was not pitch black like the cavern above. The glowing crystals that had littered the entrance area were scattered around, embedded in the walls and floors, casting an eerie hue over the surroundings. Elaria’s first sighting of the approaching monsters came in the form of a slithering mass of stone that seemed to be held together by the mana of the serpentine beast.
Ugh.
More monsters that she would be struggling against. The world’s twisted logic was throwing her into the deep end, challenging her with monsters that completely ignored her current methods of fighting. Elaria decided not to focus on the negative thoughts and instead face the stonescale serpents as a refreshing puzzle to help her figure out new and exciting ways of controlling her mana and battling. Luna turned to her with an understanding look, fully aware that she was once again going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Although judging from how she’d heard dungeons worked, these snakes were going to be much tougher than the rowdy balls of aggression from before.
Elaria had levelled up twice during the battle with the brocks, and with the extremely short window of time they had before the snakes decided that twenty-five on two would not be much of a challenge, she tried to think how best to invest her stat points. Her time in the dungeon and the battle in the goblin fortress had revealed just how powerful magic was - mostly as a weapon, but perhaps also as a utility tool in the future. Most people probably didn’t have the benefit of being guided to new uses of mana by the world around them, but Elaria wasn’t one to squander a gift. She wouldn’t sit back and forget to train herself simply because she had an advantage.
Her newly acquired skill, Compression Blow, allowed her to multiply her physical strength using her mana, therefore investing stats into her strength felt like a waste - at least for now. Agility was definitely still an option that was on the table. The brocks had almost caught her off guard a few times and the stonescale serpents were sure to be even more tricky to deal with and Elaria felt that a little extra speed would benefit her greatly. It also finetuned her reaction times and bolstered her brain’s processing speed - something that would likely improve her ability to spellcast and make rapid decisions in battle. After all, in life or death combat just a few milliseconds can make all the difference in who is slain and who remains victorious.
Once again, she was drawn to the luck stat. If she was being completely honest with herself, it may just be a placebo effect given how little she’d actually used her personal ability thus far, but she really did feel as if improving her luck had a positive impact on the items she received from the Lost Treasury of Tal’Gemud. However, most of the items she’d managed to obtain, with the exception of the Eye of Zolaris, had only been limited in utility or very specific to her situation. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but her original hopes of obtaining some kind of world breaking item far beyond her current power level had been tempered somewhat.
She still had absolutely zero regrets about choosing it as her personal ability, especially since the more powerful skills the ability granted had only been activated once and she was still yet to try out the Lifebound Call of the Treasury. That would perhaps be when a heavenly object finally arrived to fulfil her hopes and dreams. If she was able to survive this dungeon, Call of the Treasury’s week long cooldown should be near to ending. There were two reasons she was hesitant to put more stats into luck just yet. The first was her stylish cowboy hat that was still firmly sat on her head in the same position she’d originally worn it - some strange magical trickery no doubt.
Items could provide stat boosts and from the hints she’d gathered so far, Elaria would hopefully be able to delve into crafting some items of her own at some point. If she was still dead set on becoming a follower of the god of luck then, she could dedicate some time to making a set of luck boosting gear. The benefits of bonus stats didn’t seem to be quite as powerful as those that you invested in yourself, but the difference wasn’t much. It seemed to simply be the case that bonus stats didn’t count towards the milestones at which the impact of stats was multiplied, the way her health and mana pools had suddenly jumped in size once she reached 5 points in vitality and intelligence.
The second reason was that she had yet to achieve a critical hit in all of her time battling monsters. Luck supposedly provided a boost to the rate you could make one, but either the initial chance was ridiculously miniscule or the boost per point in luck wasn’t very good. Although, given how punishing this world was, it was possible there was a specific way to achieve a critical hit that she just had yet to figure out. It was probably the latter. Anyway, she had made her decision from the start pretty much. Given that her life was in imminent danger, there was only one stat that would actually make a difference in the outcome of the coming fight.
Elaria invested both points into intelligence, immediately giving her an extra six mana to work with as well as boosting her regeneration by two points per hour. It wasn’t much, but at the very least she’d be able to pulverise one of the snakes with a Compression Blow, perhaps more if she figured out a way to catch a couple of them with the same strike. More than the little increase in numbers on her status, she could feel the metaphysical impact on her internal mana. The flow quickened just a little, streaming through her mana system smoother than before. Prodding it a little, it reacted quicker to her touch. Elaria could only guess at how it would feel when her mana reached greater heights - twenty, fifty, a hundred?
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The amount of work required to get anywhere close to those insane figures was mind boggling. One step at a time. No need to overreach when she wasn’t even sure if she would make it through the dungeon alive or intact. Even more frightening than those thoughts was the realisation that all of that calculation and decision making had been completed in under two seconds. Maybe the effect of agility and intelligence was slightly more terrifying than she realised? Stats were weird. Perhaps a question for Zel, if they ever deigned to pop in for a chat in the near future. She quickly peeked at her status to check her health and mana. Not great.
[https://i.imgur.com/ULNInon.png]
With just under half her health remaining and enough mana for perhaps two compression blows, or maybe a strategic use of magnetic pull, if the stonescale serpents were formed in a similar way to the brocks with a mixture of magnetic and non magnetic ores and rock. Given the size of the few that had come into view, there had to be some magnetic metals in each of them, even if it was just a small amount. The monsters measured around five to six metres from what she could see. Hopefully that was the average and these early arrivals weren’t the runts of their species. Elaria wasn’t sure her and Luna had it in them to take down a ten metre plus snake made of solid stone that was fuelled purely by mana and hatred.
Gently stroking Luna’s soft fur, she whispered a few words of encouragement to the wolf, who simply yipped back in a similar manner and turned to face the rapidly approaching enemies. The first stonescale serpent had gotten over any reservations it had previously been mulling over and raised the front half of its body off the ground, in a move reminiscent of that very first monster Elaria had encountered - the verdant greenscale adder. Stone or flesh, it seemed they were still just snakes. Preparing to block the incoming strike, Elaria slowly channelled mana into her arms and fists, trying to limit the amount to make sure she still had enough left over for another attempt.
Unfortunately, the monster took her completely by surprise when instead of darting forwards to attack, it began firing a barrage of rocks from its mouth at the unsuspecting girl and wolf.
“It was only a matter of time before I encountered a magical monster. Shit,” cursed Elaria as she sprinted to the side in an attempt to avoid the lethal stream of mana infused stones. The mana she’d been channelling dissipated as her focus was broken and a few points of mana trickled away, lost to the world. Luna was performing a similar action but in the opposite direction, under even more duress than Elaria as a second stonescale serpent started casting another barrage of stone at the nimble wolf.
This was going to be a major problem. Elaria had already been struggling to deal with the brocks simply because of the fact they resisted her typical style of combat. Now that the prospect of facing twenty five spellcasting snakes reared its ugly head, a familiar feeling seeded itself in the depths of her mind. Fear. That same fear she’d had facing assassination attempts in her old life. The same fear of death that she’d faced when encountering that pack of wolves before her birthing ceremony during her foolish attempt to run away from home. Her life was truly on the line once more, yet Elaria didn’t feel disheartened.
Fear was a useful tool. Fear keeps you alive. Fear helped to remind her just why she was so hellbent on pursuing the pinnacle of power in this life. A rock smashed into her shoulder in a moment of distraction, shaking her to the bone and leaving a nasty cut. A lumpy, blue bruise was already forming around the impact zone. They were already struggling with just two of the damn things, if more of the monsters arrived and started channelling their spells it would be a death sentence. Elaria sent out a pulse of mana, her Mana Sense returning the same information about the terrain and locations of the approaching monsters as before, but this time there were ripples.
Two fluctuations in space where the two monsters were casting their spell. Elaria had named it rock gatling for now, it was as apt a name as any and it helped to refer to it by a name while thinking rather than just ‘the spell’. The beginnings of an idea were forming in her mind, but she was entirely out of her depth and not certain if she had the skill to pull it off. Regardless, there weren’t many other options available and thus far her most potent growth had come in moments of great danger.
A yelp of pain startled her out of focus and turning to the source she saw Luna sprinting back towards her, away from three more stonescale serpents who’d crawled from the surrounding rubble, one of which had begun spitting more deadly rocks at the wolf who was doing an excellent job of avoiding the stones which smacked into the ground with the force of a bullet, leaving little craters all over the floor. Thankfully, the new arrivals were a similar size, but they needed to get on the offensive soon, or turning the situation around would be impossible. Elaria suddenly felt a fluctuation in the mana, a sharp spike from right behind her.