The blue light spread from her spine, encompassing more and more of her skeleton until eventually the entire structure was glowing inside her body. From the outside Elaria guessed she looked like a magic lamp. It was a rather worrying sign given how things had been progressing so far, though it seemed to be healing the damage caused by the corrosion of mana, so she wasn’t immediately scared for her safety. It was a little late for that level of caution.
The glow subsided after just a minute or so, her body now completely healed and despite the mana continuing to leak from her mana veins into her muscles and bones there was no further corrosion. A notification from the Chain appeared along with a message from the elusive Zel. It had been a while since the last one and Elaria had been beginning to wonder if they had forgotten about her. Zel was more of a hands off deity, rather than the actively involved sponsor gods that seemed to litter web novels back on Earth.
Due to your actions you have gained a skill!
Mana Skeleton Lv.1
Your skeletal structure is enhanced by mana, allowing you to store 15 mana per level. It also increases your durability, granting a permanent +3 to Fortitude.
Mana Skeleton Lv.1 > Lv.29
That was a little dangerous. Rather creative solution, though you may experience some interesting side effects from eating mana cores. A problem for the future. It’s good to see you learning how to wield power outside of the Chain, I’m very certain you will need it for what is coming.
Zel
That was… ominous. Elaria really didn’t like the sound of that, though it was nice to have some validation for all of the spellwork she’d been experimenting with recently. It was much less stressful to deal with things as they happened and right now her main priority was clearing the dungeon and returning back to the surface. Everything else could wait. Mana Skeleton was a huge boon. At the current level it could store almost ten times the amount that her mana veins could, meaning she had a huge reserve to draw on during fights. It had also seemed to absorb a colossal quantity of mana while forming, as the flow of mana from her mana well had dropped significantly.
The part of Zel’s message that actually worried her the most was the mention of side effects from consuming the mana cores. They had been a unique fix for her problem that she’d come up with while thinking she was literally about to explode, but thinking back Elaria was really curious as to why she’d thought it was a sensible idea. Eating a monster drop? It was not only disgusting and likely to be highly unhygienic, but everything to do with mana was extremely unstable and dangerous and she was lucky nothing went wrong.
Actually a lot of her behaviour had been very reckless and impulsive since her birthing ceremony, perhaps even since before then. It was rather unusual. Perhaps some quirk of reincarnation and the fact she was a child once more? The more insidious answer was that Zel or the Chain had messed with her personality or mind in some imperceptible way and it was affecting her behaviour. She had always wanted to be a little more confident so it wasn’t the worst change, but definitely something that Elaria needed to keep a watchful eye on.
In an attempt to release the remainder of the mana being converted by her mana well now that her mana skeleton’s storage had also filled completely, Elaria cast a medium sized firestorm at the gate which she guessed led to the domain of the dungeon’s final challenge - the kobolds. Whether it was simply open because she’d defeated all of the stonescale serpents or her spell was just that powerful she didn’t know, but as the explosion rocked the cavern, which by now was used to the trauma of constant destruction, the huge stone gates were blasted open and the flames continued down a long corridor before eventually dissipating.
You have defeated Kobold Warrior x2
+153 XP
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Kobold Leather x2
You have defeated Kobold Mage x3
+231 XP
Kobold Leather x3
Mana Core (Common) x1
You have levelled up!
+1 stat point
Finally, a stat point she could invest in something other than intelligence. Maybe luck? A dangerous game. It might end up going into intelligence anyway. Elaria was really starting to see the benefit of magic and how much more powerful and impactful it was compared to physical combat. Sure, both combat styles could probably match each other at the very pinnacle and she had been enjoying the sheer thrill of facing monsters in hand to hand battle so far, but the complexity and large scale destructive power of spells was incredible. It definitely wasn’t a childish desire to be a witch or anything like that… definitely.
She actually opted to put the point into dexterity. Her mana pool was gigantic thanks to her newly upgraded skeleton that was filled to the brim with wonderful mana and while the damage increase on her magical skills would be nice if she opted for intelligence there was definitely a large delay in her cast times, which dexterity could plug. It would no doubt give her a great boost if she reached 5 points in the stat too, which would happen pretty soon. After feeding Luna another health potion to make sure the wolf was in fighting shape, the two of them entered the tunnel, passing through the colossal stone gates which slammed shut behind them.
Thirty seconds later, they passed five charred corpses of various animal monster hybrids which Elaria was able to identify as the kobolds her Firestorm had caught before it burnt out. The tunnel sloped gently downwards, the dungeon bringing them ever deeper under the ground as it progressed. They ran into a few more kobolds along the way, a mix of warriors and mages which were easily dispatched either by controlled applications of Compression Blow from Elaria or a brutal assault from the fierce canine at her side.
Of all the items she’d received through her personal ability so far, the taming collar was definitely the one with the greatest result. Luna was quickly becoming more than just a tool for the usually anti social Elaria and going through so many life-or-death experiences together had served to deepen their bond, a fact which was proven by the Chain denoting their relationship to now be ‘Friendly’ rather than just the ‘Amicable’ it had been when she first put the collar on the injured beast.
After nearly fifteen minutes of walking and stopping occasionally to fight kobolds, which had resulted in Elaria levelling up once more, reaching five points in dexterity just as quickly as she’d expected, the tunnel finally started to level out once more and she could see the light of a fire in the distance, a welcome break from the rather intense glow of the crystals which lit the tunnels and caverns of the dungeon so far. Quickly stopping to check her status and collect her thoughts before entering what would likely be the ‘boss fight’ of the dungeon, Elaria had to take a few deep breaths. It really was amazing how quickly she’d progressed.
Was this rate of progression normal among the citizens of this world or was she an outlier? Given the grades of her personal and bloodline ability it would be extremely disappointing if she ended up simply being average, but having only met older adventurers and soldiers so far she was lacking a baseline to judge those of her own age who were just starting out with the Chain. Unlike many of those in the capital she also had little prior knowledge of the Chain and would be working at a disadvantage when it came to things like the best classes to choose or the best ways to invest your stat points when following a certain path. That kind of life had little appeal to her anyway, she was just interested in comparing herself to the talented youth of Erlich and the world beyond out of her own twisted sense of pride.
[https://i.imgur.com/OydqIcF.png]
“Are you ready for this, Luna? We can finally get some fresh air once we beat these freaks into paste,” she whispered.
Luna responded as she always did, with an affirming growl and a terrifying smile that flashed her razor sharp pearly white fangs. It took a short while to arrive at the exit to the tunnel, a few more kobolds meeting an untimely demise along the way. They exited the tunnel into another cavern, a rather unsurprising result but Elaria had still been holding out hope for something a little grander, like a hidden kobold castle underground or some kind of elaborate treasure room. Dungeons preferred to keep it simple, or maybe it was just a quirk of the location?
At the back of the cavern was a grotesque throne constructed from various bones and hides collected from goddess knows where. Elaria hadn’t seen a single animal in the dungeon so maybe it simply spawned along with it? Upon the throne was a huge kobold, thick reptilian legs that ended in weirdly canine feet and claws like large kitchen knives, a powerful looking chest and the head of what seemed to be a lion, or at least the monster equivalent. The moment Elaria and Luna stepped into the cavern its eyes flashed open and it stomped heavily, shaking the whole room and prompting a stampede of kobolds to appear from various hiding places.
No prizes for guessing which one was the kobold lord. With a sigh at how predictable the dungeon was, Elaria began to charge a Firestorm to make her life easier. Right as she prepared to unleash it, a diagram on the floor of the cavern flashed and her budding mana construct broke, causing her internal mana flow to freeze momentarily, just long enough for the nearest kobold to get close enough for a lethal strike.