Next, we came across a small stream likely too small to be marked on the map. We took a small break and refilled our water skins.
I perked up at the sound of a small branch snapping.
"Turtle, front left," Vel called out. She had been keeping watch while I filled the skins in the river.
> [Gem Back Turtle (Level 51, Rank 3)]
A six legged turtle was looking at us. The small gems on its shell sparkled in the faint light of the jungle. I threw myself back as soon as I felt the magic, the light of my ice enhancement lit the jungle, and a blade of water missed my head by a few centimeters. Vel fired her bow and her arrow managed to sink into a leg.
As soon as I was back on my feet, I threw an air bullet at the turtle. I aimed for the space between the ground and its shell in the hopes of flipping it on its back. The detonation shook the monster but didn't flip it completely. Despite being only the size of my torso, it was surprisingly heavy.
Vines were already growing around it to ensnare it.
"Vel, flip it," I said and fired another bullet.
The vines immediately changed tactics and started to grow underneath the turtle. The yellow gem on the turtle's back glowed and I dashed to interpose myself in front of Vel, my arcane shield at the ready. It intercepted the air bullets the turtle fired back at us.
I slapped my hand on the ground and cast Melody of Earth, I extended the reach of the spell with metamagic and started to create a pit under the turtle. I had aimed for the side Vel had been trying to flip it into. As the ground started to deform and sink, the brown gem glowed and the ground started to fight me. I grinned and poured more mana into my spell.
"It's fighting me," I said.
I felt a surge of magic from Vel and her vines grew faster, they provided the small push needed to flip the turtle over and into the half-formed pit.
At this point, the turtle started to panic and bray. I pulled out my bow and fired two empowered arrows at its head. The first hit the neck and the second was a lucky hit and pierced the roof of the mouth and brain.
> Your group has defeated [Gem Back Turtle (Level 56, Rank 3)]
> Experience gain reduced by 20% for fighting with a group
> Experience gain increased by 50% for fighting a strong enemy
> Experience gain increased by 50% for defeating a monster above your rank
> Essence Absorption collected 3 ES
>
> Skill Magic Combat has reached rank 1, level 8 (+2 levels)
> Skill Mystic Enhancement has reached rank 1, level 9 (+1 level)
> Skill Metamagic has reached rank 2, level 6 (+2 level)
>
> Reached Level 30 (Rank 2, +3 levels)
> Gained: 26 ES
"That was a lot of experience," Vel said.
I nodded. Gem Back Turtles were rare and difficult to fight if you weren't prepared, or got lucky like us. It was a very prized catch however, due to the gems on its back being able to channel magic.
"Let's bring this with us," I said, "I am not letting those gems out of my sight!"
"Good thing we brought some rope," Vel snickered, "you want it, you carry it."
"Who do you take me for?" I chuckled.
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The cliff face came into view, the trees started to thin a few hundred meters before the cliff where the terrain became much more rocky. The promised cavern was right where the map had said. Nothing seemed to be living in the cavern but we approached cautiously nonetheless, it was possible the tenants were only temporarily out.
I handed the turtle to Vel as I approached the cliff. I was by far the better climber out of the two of us so it fell on me to check out the cavern first.
Climbing the cliff face was fairly easy. The stone had plenty of handholds and the incline was slightly angled rather than vertical. I took a peek at the cavern and spotted the remains of a fire inside. It was possible another expedition had stopped here previously. Nothing else stood out, a small pile of bones at the back, some spare sticks to feed the fire. From my position, I could confirm there was no-one inside.
I signaled Vel that the way was clear and pulled myself up inside the cave. I waited for her to climb up, watching for any danger like she had done for me. She brought the turtle as well. As a safety, I placed some trap runes at the entrance of the cave.
"Awfully nice to leave us a fire," I said.
"Another scout team?"
"Possible."
I examined the bones. They had been picked clean. I took a closer look at the teeth marks. The grooves in the bone were too sharp to have been caused by elf teeth, which were mostly human-like. The presence of a fire indicated a minimum level of intelligence, which pointed to the presence of some draconids in the area.
Skill Tracking has reached rank 2, level 7 (+1 level)
"Looks like some draconids were here," I said, "kobolds or drakonians."
Hopefully, it was the former. The latter was usually bad news.
"Think they'll come back?"
"Those are old, a few days at least, they've probably moved on."
"Set some more traps, just in case," I nodded and went to do just that.
----------------------------------------
After reinforcing the entrance, we settled in the cave and set up our small camp. Since there was the potential for some visitors, Vel set up her shelter and we would sleep in shifts.
Vel started the fire while I worked on the turtle corpse. The first task was to remove the gems from the stone-like carapace. One by one, I slid my dagger underneath and gently pried them out. This particular specimen had three gems, water, earth, and air. I carefully wrapped them in cloth and stored them inside one of my pouches.
Next, I managed to split the shell in two. The dorsal and ventral sections were held together by cartilage instead of hard bone. Once the ventral section had been removed, all that was left were turtle meat and guts. I took my time removing all the organs and piled them up on the spare carapace piece. They would need to be disposed of. After having sufficiently cleaned everything, I set the shell on a trio of stones Vel had placed around the fire. I filled the shell part way through with water and dropped the turtle meat back in. Vel dropped some herbs we had picked up on the way and added some coarse salt from her pouch.
The turtle soup was slowly left to cook on the fire. Vel and I took turns watching out for any intruders at the entrance while the other stirred the broth from time to time. After an hour or so, the soup was finally ready to eat. The taste was good for something prepared on the fly, the meat had contributed to most of the flavor and thickened the broth.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
We kept the lizard legs for later, monster meat usually stayed fresh for a few days due to the mana saturation. I took the first watch while Vel went to sleep. I used this time to see what I could get with my newly acquired essence.
Danger Sense (Cost: 32 ES 24 ES, Requires Improved Senses)
Gives advance warning of danger.
Magic Perception (Cost: 32 ES 24 ES, Requires: Improved Senses, Mana Perception, Rare Magic Class)
Grants the ability to perceive and analyze magical frameworks.
Perception Domain (Cost: 32 ES 24 ES, Requires: Improved Senses, Mana Perception, Rare Magic Class)
Extends all your sensory abilities in a sphere around you.
Mana Well (Cost: 24 ES 18 ES)
Increases the Mana granted by Attributes by a fixed 200%
Mana Efficiency (Cost: 24 ES 18)
Reduces the Mana cost of spells and skills by 50%.
Major Grimoire (Cost: 32 ES 24 ES)
Increases the number of major spell slots by 1/2/3/4/5
Minor Grimoire (Cost: 24 ES 18 ES)
Increases the number of minor spell slots by 2/4/6/8/10
I was intrigued at the new possibilities. Danger sense still seemed like a good idea but I wasn't convinced it would be useful in the long term. I didn’t expect to get into surprise fights all that often. I left mana efficiency and mana well to the side for the moment, I hadn't had problems with mana yet.
Magic Perception was a straight upgrade, I would finally be able to analyze spells and possibly reproduce them. Perception Domain seemed too good to be true. The perk didn't specify the size of the sphere but that was to be expected. What stopped me from immediately picking this skill was that I was wary of it, mana perception had been the source of many headaches in my youth and it had taken me a while to adapt. I suspected this would have the same result or worse. I could possibly offload the task to a separate mental partition but I wanted to have more of them before I considered it.
With my fifty essence, I technically had the budget to pick both perks and raise Mental Partition to the next threshold but it was a serious investment. I felt the essence would be better spent on improving my Mystic Knight class, there were bound to be interesting skills at the next threshold.
> Upgraded Mana Perception to Magic Perception for 24 ES
The world didn't look all that different from what it had before through mana perception. However, if I focused on my dagger I could now see the enchantments in much more detail. I could see the tiny channels which guided the mana through the metal and the runes which had been engraved underneath the handle.
I started to cast a spell and watched the magic circle appear in my vision matching the one in my memory. It was time for some experimentation. Before that, however, I wanted to see which skills I could get for Mystic Knight. The first threshold for skills was at twenty cumulative levels, then at sixty.
I was currently at 25 total levels, I needed 35 more levels to reach 60. At three levels per essence, it was 12 essence which would leave around 30 depending on how the multiples lined up, plenty for skills. I prioritized raising Mystic Enhancement to unlock the second enhancement slot and Magic Strike to reduce the penalty.
> Skill Mystic Enhancement raised to rank 2, level 4 for 5 ES (+15 levels)
> Skill Magic Strike raised to rank 2, level 3 for 5 ES (+15 levels)
> Skill Magic Combat raised to rank 2, level 3 for 5 ES (+15 levels)
With all the levels acquired, I looked at the skill list.
Multishot (Cost: 8 ES, 6 ES)
Instant, 50 MP/additional projectile
Allows firing multiple projectiles from a bow or other ranged weapon.
Can fire 1 additional projectile per skill rank
Mystic Arrow (Cost: 8 ES, 6 ES)
Instant, 25 MP
Create a projectile from mana.
The skill can duplicate an existing projectile if provided a reference.
Enchanted projectiles require additional mana to create.
Can create 1 additional projectile per skill rank.
Mystic Perception (Cost: 8 ES, 6 ES)
Active, 10 MP/sec
Increases your perception and reaction speed by 100% for each skill rank.
Mystic Aura (8 ES, 6 ES)
Passive, 150% cost
You can apply Mystic Enhancement to willing entities other than yourself.
Can target 1 entity per skill level.
Spatial Movement (8 ES, 6 ES)
Passive/Active, 20 MP/surface
Improves movement speed and jump reach.
Magical platforms can be created in the air.
Can manifest 1 platform per 10 skill levels.
A lot of options. Multishot was an obvious pick, more arrows were always better after all. It was likely the gateway into further archer skills as well like Powershot or Guideshot. Mystic Arrow was a close second, it would turn my quiver from a store of munitions to a library of options.
Mystic Perception was good but I wasn't certain about it, the cost was fairly steep and I already had some form of enhancement on that front that synergized well with the partitions. The Aura was interesting, I would be able to empower Vel as well. Spatial Movement, my life was a video game and I could get the double jump. I could possibly replicate it with Wind Overture or Beehive Barrier, I needed to do some tests.
I had enough essence to purchase everything but it was usually a bad idea to spread your build too thin, especially at the start. It was better to purchase one or two skills and to train them to a higher rank. I would have more essence to spend in the future as well.
> Purchased Skill Multishot for 6 ES
> Purchased Skill Mystic Arrow for 6 ES
I had seventeen essence left after everything. I still needed to increase my attributes but I was done for that day. I had a few hours ahead of me and it was time for some magic research.