Looking over at the valley that stood before us, I couldn’t help but marvel at the sight. Blanketed in snow, the valley ran out of our sight with beautiful plants and flowers growing along the sides. Half a dozen buildings sat just before the entrance and acted as a safe zone. According to Summer, there is also an underground hot spring which helps rejuvenate and alleviate fatigue.
We made it in three weeks. Olivia and Alice had rested well and the monsters on the way were no problem, in fact we had found a small area and allowed Olivia to get used to using her bow again, allowing her to gain some levels. She now sat at level 24.
Level 24 Olivia the Aspiring Hero
Dawnlight Elf
Beginner Elven Archer
Though she couldn’t exactly join us to hunt monsters, Olivia didn’t mind. She wanted time to adjust to her surroundings and slowly figure out what parts of the last six months had been a dream or real. The only strange ‘dream’ she had told us about is when a kind, gentleman with bright blonde hair would sit down with her and only ever listened to her talk while smiling. He had red eyes and wore golden armour, his description did not match anyone we knew. After talking to the party about it, Olivia only ever said he was very gentle, and she missed talking to him.
Summer believed Olivia may have spoken to an Angel or God, but when we asked Olivia she said the man never said if he had been either nor had he ever said if Olivia is a Blessed or Chosen. We came to the conclusion that either she had just dreamed it or the person she saw was a Divine being of sorts. Olivia said if she ever saw him again she would ask.
Pulling our carts to the houses, we stopped and entered. Planning to rest for a while, I started making food for everyone while they unpacked. We would be staying here for a few months. Olivia herself had brought a sewing kit, and a lot of different cloth and equipment. She had been given some knowledge books about making clothing and light armour and so far she had thoroughly enjoyed it. According to Halone with some more practice Olivia could make enchanted gear that provided an increase to strength, like the gloves I wore or the armour I had left in my bags, which I hadn’t used yet as I wanted to get used to Flowing River.
Pulling out the knives I had brought with me, I began cooking with some of the meat we harvested before arriving and the ingredients I had bought along. After we ate and talked, we all went to rest. Currently I had Alice hugging me and Coffee snuggled up on the other side. Laying in the bed, I smiled lightly as I drifted off to sleep.
Waking up, and making sure not to disturb Alice, Coffee and I walked from the room and headed to a balcony. Looking over the valley under the night sky, I smiled lightly while remembering Summer telling us about the hunting zone we had arrived at.
***
“It’s a very famous zone, rich in materials and monsters. Usually nobles hog it while pretending to be adventurers, but thankfully the Guild holds control over it so they can tell the nobles to leave. Last I heard they were pretty upset, but who cares about that. About a day's walk into the valley is a Dimensional Dungeon at level 65. It is a good dungeon, but the real price is what lies at the end of the valley, an external labyrinth. The ruins of a city lay there, though the name has been lost to time it holds a lot of good items. Since it’s mainly nobles here, the labyrinth isn’t really well explored.”
“Does it have a True Route? What is its name?”
Summer had smiled and laughed. “Is one not good enough for you? External labyrinths don’t have anything like True Routes or Path of Rewriting History. It’s basically a place to explore the history of a place, the name isn’t revealed unless one discovers the name within the labyrinth itself.”
“That sounds like the Depth of Crater Hell you explored before, Alisha.” Turning to Olivia, I tilted my head in confusion as she facepalmed. “Sorry, I forgot you forgot. You told me a story once where you fell into a hole and ended up in an External Labyrinth called Depths of Crater Hell and met Teacher Lee. After you trained with him, it took you a few weeks to get out.”
I had heard the name ‘Lee’ before, but I had no idea who it was nor what he trained me on. Eager to know more, I asked Olivia for more. Apparently Alice had hatched from her egg in there and gave me company while trying to find a way out. I felt her story to be familiar, but I couldn’t remember anything about it, but I smiled at the thought of it.
“A rather scary story, being lost underground for that long.” Xeno chips in. “I had gotten lost in a dungeon once, but only for a week. Never again will I get lost like that, can’t imagine how it must’ve felt.”
***
Sighing, I looked up at the moon. The plan we had discussed would be us separating into pairs. Aubrey and I, along with Coffee, Alice and Xia, Xeno and Summer and finally Olivia who will stay at the house. At first I had been worried, but Summer reassured me that the houses were defended with various defensive enchantments, meaning Olivia would be completely safe even if we were out for a few days. I planned to make her plenty of food before we left.
Hearing footsteps behind me, I didn't turn around as Aubrey leaned against the railing next to me. We stood there in silence as we looked out at the valley. Turning to look at her, I couldn’t help but admire how beautiful she looked. She had an air of confidence around her that made her seem like someone else when compared to how she was when we first met. Making sure to remember how she looked at this moment, I turned back to the valley.
“Excited?” Aubrey asked.
“Mm. It’ll be nice to relax while hunting monsters here.”
“Well, other than the danger of being swarmed by monsters, I agree, it’ll be nice to relax. I can’t wait to see how much we get!”
Smiling at her comment, silence returns as Aubrey starts humming softly. Closing my eyes, I enjoyed the humming as we stood there under the moonlight.
***
“Right, we’ll have three carts here, here and here. Once we fill up all three, we’ll call it for the day and head back. We’ll get to work sorting everything we get and putting them into the dimensional bags. We have about twenty three house-sized dimensional bags. The Guild will have people come and collect our carts in two months, replacing the carts and bags. Don’t get reckless, a monster swarm can happen at any time, if it does just retreat.
“Xeno and I will head to the mines and focus on that today. We’ll switch pairs to go to the mines, they will give us quite a bit. Xia and Alice will be exempt since Alice can’t do mining yet. Olivia, in addition to you practising your weaving, please ensure you prepare the ration packs for us. We’ll try and hunt monsters around your level to help you level, but because of the high level of monsters it’s unlikely we’ll run into anything that low level.”
“Yes!”
“Good. And no soloing dungeons.” Summer looked at me as I giggled. “We’ll ignore the Dimension Dungeon and once we’re level 70 we’ll head to the end of the valley. It’ll take us some time to explore it and hopefully we get a large score. I wouldn't be surprised if we walked away from all of this with a few Diamond coins.” Summer giggles as she looks around. “Once Bloom’s team arrives, we’ll take a fourth cart out. Any questions?”
We remained silent as Summer nodded. “Good, let's head out now.”
As we left the building, I took one of the carts along with Xeno and Xia. We walked together before separating, the carts would be about a ten minute walk from each other. They had enchantments that prevented smells from leaking out and the locations we were heading are clearings that had little to no monster activity. Arriving at outs with little trouble, I put the cart down. Coffee jumps off the cart and sniffs around, his tail wagging happily.
“Right, shall we get started?” Turning to Aubrey, she gave me a nod.
Diving deeper into the valley and trees, we quickly found monsters around level 63. The first one we approached was a large purple skinned snake, poison that melted the ground dropped from its fangs. We had antidotes for this monster but we didn’t want to get poisoned by it. Aubrey grabbed her whip and shield, and lashing the monster she raised her shield to block its blows with a bit of a struggle. She was thirteen levels lower after all, but she kept it up. The whip itself did no damage, but it had an enchantment that caused anything struck by it to feel a slight sting of pain, annoying monsters.
Coffee runs off, his job is to find another monster and bring it over to us while we deal with the one here. We would kill four monsters, harvest them and then repeat until our normal bags were full. We would then empty the contents into the cart before returning. If we ran out of monsters we would move to another spot. Due to Aubrey’s need to absorb lifeforce, we would take it in turns on killing a monster then entrapping one. Aubrey had certain magic tools that could bind monsters for a short time, and while she absorbed lifeforce I would defend her.
Killing the snake quickly, since its large body makes it easy for me to strike, we take a moment to breathe while waiting for Coffee.
You killed an Acid Poison Coiler.
Gained 57,500 experience
Gained 100 Class experience.
“Huh, lower than I had thought.”
“Mm, the experience is low here, but the main point is the materials we get. It’s why we’re here for a few months after all.” Hearing a bark, we turn and see Coffee leading a monster back to us. Aubrey had finished her trap and with Coffee leading it there, the monster became bound and as I distracted it Aubrey sank her vine hand into the monster as she slowly drained its experience.
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***
You have levelled to 58!
Gained the following Stats:
Strength: +600
Agility: +1,000
Intelligence: +400
Toughness: +100
You gain 15% more Stats due to Hero of History, you gain the following:
Strength: +90
Agility: +150
Intelligence: +60
Toughness: +15
Health increased to 17,000.
Celestial Eclipse Mana Increased to 230,000.
Stats
Alisha the Hero of History
Stats Rank Base Stat Stat Total Strength: C+ 6,255 7,506 Agility: B+ 9,931 11,917 Intelligence: C- 4,372 5,246 Toughness D- 877 1,052
Current Bonuses: Monster Title, +20%
“Gravity!”
Surrounding a monster were three large magic circles. A heavy force descends on the monster, forcing it to the ground as Aubrey plunged her hand in and absorbed its lifeforce. After a few minutes she pulls it out, a blush on her face.
Level 54 Aubrey
Daughter of the Forest
I had asked her earlier about herself and why she needed lifeforce. She had smiled and told me that her constitution differed greatly because of the type of power she had. She had a mutated Mana Realm like I did, but it combined her lifeforce with her Mana Realm, giving her a unique source of power. It wasn’t exactly mana but it wasn’t lifeforce either. The spell she knew, Gaia’s Blessing, was the only one she knew, and she only knew this spell due to a vision she had during her evolution from monster to evolved monster. Her Race was similar to mine, it was an SS+.
“Why don’t you have a Class? I’ve noticed some others don’t either.”
“Shrine Masters aren’t cheap you know? You need two Diamond coins to even apply to see one! Then if the Shrine Master you choose belongs to some noble, they demand another Diamond coin as a ‘service fee’!”
“What is a Shrine Master?”
“A Shrine Master is one who has vast knowledge about certain topics. They have shrines dedicated to them that you can approach and gain an opportunity to learn from as long as you have some potential of the knowledge they provide. Vale has a lot of different Shrine Masters, which is probably another reason why Harrington wants to conquer Vale.”
“Oh, you know about that too?”
“Yup. I got told the night of my evolution. I’ll follow what you do, Alisha.”
“Why?”
“Cause you’re my friend.” Giggling, Aubrey grabs my hand. “Let's get going. The cart is full and it’s midnight. Come Coffee.”
“Woof!” Coffee gets up and runs over with his tail wagging. We walk back to the cart, empty our bags and with me taking the cart, we make our way back to the houses. The cart was loaded and required a bit of strength to push through the snow, but it didn’t take much effort. Getting back, we see others who were about half done with their carts. Thanks to Aubrey though, we knew exactly what to harvest. Thanks to her perfect memory, she had memorised exactly what was valuable and what we could leave behind so we didn’t have to worry about sorting everything out, instead we just had to make sure we put the cores into the core bag, skin into the skin bag and so on.
Aubrey had warned me not to feed Alice any of the monster cores we found, unless they did not contain any type of elemental power. For example, the Acid Poison Coiler’s core contained potent Poison-based magic, and while it didn’t contain much, it was enough to make one sick if they did not know how to use that school of magic. If we found cores that came from a monster that knew Water magic though, I could eat it and it would help me. Same went with Darkness cores. This only ever applied to monsters above level 50.
“Mummy!”
Speaking of Alice, I turn to her as she jumps and hugs me.
“Did you have fun, Alice!”
“Yes!”
“Good good. Make sure to help Xia, okay?”
“Alice ok!”
Alice jumps down and runs back over to Xia, who gave me an exhausted smile. I knew she was likely tired of taking care of Alice and I was nothing but thankful for it. Originally Xia had wanted to come along with me, but I told her that we should take it easy here. She had convinced me to allow her to mark me with an Arcane spell, that way she could teleport to my side in case anything happened. After learning she could bring Alice with her, I agreed.
Xeno comes over and hands us two pickaxes and two shovels, as well as some other tools. “The mine is quite deep. There are some monsters, but they’re easy pickings. Good luck.” Patting Aubrey and I on the shoulder, Xeno headed inside as we put the equipment into our own bags. Heading inside, we turned in for the night.
***
Heading into the mines with Aubrey and Coffee, I kept a touch in front of me. While I didn’t need a light source, Aubrey did and we had more torches for when we found a good place to mine. A lot of what we were gathering was used in weapon crafting and the demand had gone up recently. There were other valuable materials that we planned to get if we could.
As we head deeper, we finally arrive where Xeno and Summer had left off. We had encountered a few monsters on the way, but they weren’t even above level 50. The monsters got stronger the deeper we got but we were only looking to get certain metals and materials so we weren’t planning to venture deeper in. As I swung the pickaxe, I felt a strange familiarity with it making me believe I might’ve done this in the past. Shrugging the feeling off, Aubrey and I continued on.
***
Over the next week we slowly made our way through the valley, taking time to kill monsters, explore caves, harvest herbs and fruits, some of which I took as I wanted to grow them, and slowly we continued to level. As I finish off another monster, I wipe the sweat off my face.
You killed a Hungry Hungry Hippo.
Gained 36,000 experience
Gained 50 Class Experience
You levelled to 62!
Gained the following Stats:
Strength: +1,200
Agility: +2,000
Intelligence: +800
Toughness: +200
You gain 15% more Stats due to Hero of History, you gain the following:
Strength: +180
Agility: +300
Intelligence: +120
Toughness: +30
Health increased to 21,000.
Celestial Eclipse Mana Increased to 250,000.
Breathing out while stretching, I walked out of the river while dragging the monster behind me. Aubrey sat nearby yawning.
“The experience is getting lower.” Dropping the corpse of the hippo, I took the knife from Aubrey and with practised cuts I took all the good meat from the hippo. Handing the knife back to Aubrey, she handled the rest of the monster. I stood on the lookout for monsters. Monsters could appear from thin air, something that had caught me off guard yet Aubrey took as something natural. I had asked her why it happened and she had shrugged, saying it was rather normal. I hadn’t stepped out of Vale since teleporting and travelling to rescue Olivia and had not seen this phenomenon happen.
According to Aubrey, outside of Vale it’s very common to see it happen when too many monsters die in an area. According to her, it's like the world ensured there were monsters no matter what. It’s also how monster swarms happen, a large group of monsters would suddenly appear out of nowhere which could lead to us being overwhelmed, so it is best to retreat if it happens.
“Well, the experience is lower in general here. In return though, we get a lot of valuable materials. Plus even though the monsters here are a pain to kill, it's kind of relaxing, isn’t it?”
Smiling while looking around, I knew from our previous talks that the most one would get is 15,000 to 20,000 experience once we caught up with the levels of the monsters here. Right now the ones we were hunting were level 63 and 64, so it wouldn’t be long. The deeper we explore the higher level they become, and since we planned to explore the external labyrinth at the end of the valley we would eventually be level 70 or so once we got there.
As we walked back to our now full cart, we returned back and once again sorted everything. We had half filled one cart with our dimensional bags and I had to wonder just how on earth one could bring that back to Vale from here. Xeno said the Guild had certain ‘strongmen’ who had retired from the life of an adventurer and would come for the carts. They were under an oath to never steal from the carts and their strength was aided by certain, strictly used magic tools. When I asked about those magic tools, Aubrey had mentioned they were useless in combat as they were only really used for pushing the carts, otherwise no one knew anything about them.
Heading inside, I sat down at a table, took out the book that taught one how to write and got to practising. Alice also joined me, though she ended up just randomly drawing. Xia would help me from time to time, and I had made some headway. I could write my name with ease as well as some basic sentences. I planned to take the time between going out to hunt to learn about things I didn’t know. I planned to read the book about Gods next as well as the one about the Moon Goddess.
Looking out the window, I frowned. For the last few days I had an uncomfortable feeling about all of this, like something was coming. I couldn’t place my finger on it and after sharing my feelings with Xia she said it’s likely because I had gone from one dangerous situation to another. I hadn’t had to exert myself yet against the monsters here and due to that Xia said it’s likely I had been slowly lowering my guard as if I was safe. I hadn’t lowered my guard and told Xia that, she smiled and said that recently I hadn’t been as on guard as I was before losing my memories. Not sure on what she meant, I asked her what she was saying and she said before I was constantly on guard, as if ready for an attack at any moment, but since that night I hadn’t been.
Thinking it’s because I had dealt with the Church and had thought I wouldn’t be randomly attacked, I thought her to be right. But I still felt uncomfortable, but as I looked out the window, I could only see the peaceful valley outside. Thinking that I might be imagining things or that Xia was right that I had simply expected a dangerous situation since I’ve constantly had them happen, I relaxed a bit as I went back to practising my writing.