The only Celestial I know seems to be terrible at telling time and the fact that the Mythic Forests seems to exist within their own time cycles probably doesn't help them with that. They might not live here but I'm starting to understand that it's something like a garden for them.
Around five hundred Earth years ago is when Mythic Forests stopped being known as rewards from the System, but that doesn't say much for the length within them. To Aster, that period of time is just "many sleeps", but so is the time between winters and the time it takes for summer to end.
During downtime after Ryan and Nick left my shop earlier, I did a little bit of research and found that all decreases in the System began sometime after that last record of the Mythic Forests. Some of it could just be shoddy record keeping from before the 1500s, but probably not all of it.
From what I was able to find, there are no records of any significant dips in Dungeon appearances until around three or four hundred years ago. They then slowly became more frequent, leading up to the current situation. Awakenings also slowly became more rare percentage-wise. Even the amount of loot found within Dungeons slowly decreased.
If my suspicions are correct, the System drew its power from the Mythic Forests, which the King of the Celestials probably regulated or restored somehow. That energy is nearly gone, so the King of the Celestials decided to hold off on replenishing it until after whatever it is he's doing with me finishes.
That's just a theory, however, so it could be something completely different.
Whatever is going on, I'm certain it's tied into the Mythic Forests and their states. The King of the Celestials might be waiting on fixing everything just for the sake of observing mankind. If he's like Aster and has a laziness which exceeds mine on top of that, he probably doesn't really perceive time properly. That might even explain why the time of this realm passes inconsistently when I'm not around.
The sooner I get a decent amount of this Mythic Forest restored, the better things will be outside. I don't really care about that too much, but I do want to see this place's beauty. It'll open up more resting spots until the King of the Celestials cuts my access to here, too.
As much as I don't want to walk dozens of miles to kill monsters, I should at least do part of the Quest for the river. That will boost up my Levels and power, enabling me to handle more of the Mythic Forest with ease.
Once I feel comfortable with my Level, I'm sure it'll be fine if I head to the hills and open up the water source there. That'll just drown the rest of the monsters and eliminate the remainder of the work. A little bit of effort for a lot of work. If I'm lucky, that should also deal with monsters in the bed of the lake.
I access the Quest and let it take me back to where I ended my last walk in the river. There don't seem to be any new monsters back the way I'd started yesterday, so I continue walking forward. As with yesterday, I only take on the goblins and avoid the trolls.
Higher stats means stronger attacks, and [Magic Missile] now takes out these goblins with a single shot each. That speeds the trip up a little bit, though it still takes me nearly two hours to reach Level 4.
Special Quest Completed! +5,000 EXP
You have reached the EXP threshold to reach Level 4! Your Level 4 Awakening Quest is now available! Would you like to participate? Yes No
There's no reason for me to delay the Level 4 Awakening Quest and doing so would just slow down my goal of restoring the Mythic Forest, anyway. I accept the Quest and find myself in an unfamiliar zone. Only after I arrive do I realize I didn't bother putting away things I didn't want to risk being destroyed, but it's worked out. I should definitely make sure to do that in the future, however, as my gear is a fair bit too expensive to have to replace every time I do an Awakening Quest and will only grow in value as I acquire higher-strength gear.
As with the first three Awakening Quests, this one takes place in the Mythic Forest as evidenced by the dead and dry soil making up the ground and the fog wall which surrounds and covers the zone.
What makes this Awakening Quest unusual over the last two is that it's just a circular space around five hundred feet in diameter. No hills, no slopes, no signs of it being the bed of a lake or large pond, no indication it might be part of a river, nothing at all like that.
There's also only one monster in here, a goblin wearing boots, pants, a jacket, and gloves all made out of leather, and a wooden helmet. Rather than being barehanded or wielding a club, he holds a shield in his left hand and uses a rusty sword as his weapon. The goblin rests both of his hands on the hilt of the sword, which is pointed straight into the ground as he waits.
I guess there's a reason it's not too high of a quality weapon, if he's going to treat it like that. Underestimating him because of his stance and treatment of his sword would be a bad idea, though.
A Level 3 Rank 5 is already stronger than many lower-tier Awakened. Though I'm only Level 3, this enemy is one which might be found near the end of a Category 1-6 Dungeon, or the equivalent of a Rank 1 Awakened in their upper Level 50s in terms of strength itself. This being a solo fight means the individual monster is most likely more of a boss beast than a normal mob one.
The Awakening Quests suggests that as well.
Your Level 4 Awakening Quest will begin in 5 minutes. Fail to complete the task, and you will not progress to the next Level. Slay the goblin knight: 0/1 Time Limit: 15 minutes
Despite the strength of the monster being above any I've faced since becoming an Awakened, I'm not too concerned. All Awakening Quests are something which can be completed within the time limit and with time to spare. That's been made quite clear to me through asking friends and from my past Awakening Quests.
Using [Fireball] would probably handle things quite well, but I might need to use two of them thanks to its Constitution and likely high HP count. That means I'd need to move around to take on the beast. Same for if I used [Magic Missile], as this one is tougher than the ones I've been facing off against and so wouldn't be downed with just one or two shots.
Fortunately, I have an option which won't require me to run around the place.
I hold my hand forward and begin shaping a spell I've never cast before. As with [Telekinesis], however, it's one I've learned the formula for and so doesn't take much effort for me to cast. When the spell completes, the runes form in my mind and a notification appears in my vision.
You've unlocked the [Flamethrower] Skill!
The moment I began casting the spell, the barrier around me disappeared and the goblin knight began his approach. It doesn't manage to reach me, however, as [Flamethrower] only takes five seconds to cast and the goblin's not that fast. He starts off just walking at first, then begins to run after a few seconds.
Those few seconds were more than enough to give me plenty of time to complete the spell before the monster drew too near.
I keep the jet of flames up as the goblin begins to scream, the monster's pained cries fading after about ten seconds. Six seconds after that, a notification appears in my vision and I reappear in the riverbed. The first thing I do after realizing the Awakening Quest completes is cancel the spell.
Apparently, spells I'm actively casting don't get interrupted by the transfer. That sort of makes sense since I'm not actually "affected", my location is simply different than it was before.
Now that that's done, I read the notice in my vision.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Congratulations on completing your Level 4 Awakening Quest! Your stats have been increased and your HP and MP have been refreshed!
No new area has been unlocked, which means I might find myself facing a goblin knight in that zone again at some point, wherever it might be. The System or the King of the Celestials or whatever must be only unlocking "key" locations for me. That zone might just be some random spot of the Mythic Forest which had something worthy of being a Level 4 Awakening Quest, even if it was technically easy.
Though it only concluded as fast as it did because of me deciding to officially learn the [Flamethrower] spell. It was one I looked up to help deal with the trolls here as it will probably cost me significantly less MP to use that for thirty seconds at Status Level 4 than to cast [Fireball] two or three times.
While the latter would work for groups, I don't want to have to bother rounding up enough trolls to make it worth doing so. Adding in other monsters like goblins to the mix only makes it more risky as well.
Deciding to test out my [Flamethrower] theory now rather than later, I approach the nearest troll and unleash oneupon it. The higher power of the flames and my ability to sustain it enables me to kill the troll in around thirty seconds, or the cost of a single [Fireball].
The trade-off to that is that I have to actively keep the spell running and I have to keep backing up as the troll pushes forward through the flames even as its flesh burns off, up until it's not able to walk any more.
Now that I can handle the trolls with ease and the goblins are still one-shot kills, I'm able to reach Level 5 in roughly an hour and a half. There's roughly one troll for every seven or eight goblins, so I'm able to reach the thresholds for that one much faster than for the goblins.
It's still the goblin threshold which puts me to the limit for the Level, an additional notification popping up as the last goblin for the set drops to the ground.
Special Quest Completed! +5,000 EXP
You have reached the EXP threshold to reach Level 5! Your Level 5 Awakening Quest is now available! Would you like to participate? Yes No
I'll do this now to get it out of the way, then return home to fix myself lunch. Before accepting, however, I make sure to strip down and put everything into my [Dimensional Storage], but also make sure to restore my MP as I want to be at full for the Quest. Only then do I accept the Level 5 Awakening Quest.
Upon confirmation that I wish to take it on, I find myself in another plain zone. This one is fifty feet in diameter and no distinguishing features for the space. There aren't any monsters here, but the soil seems to have some sort of contaminant, judging by the tinting in the dry dirt.
Also by the notification in my vision.
Your Level 5 Awakening Quest will begin in 5 minutes. Fail to complete the task, and you will not progress to the next Level. Cleanse the surface soil: 0%/85% Time Limit: 2 hours
The first four were all combat ones, so I'd forgotten that I could receive ones not related to that since I have Classes not related to combat. This one is just for cleansing the land, but it's probably not that simple.
A circular space fifty feet across seems like it would be simple to do, but [Cleanse] has a spherical effect area. I can't just cast it, then cast another next to it, and so on and so forth. Instead, I need to overlap the cleansed spaces to maximize how much of the land is actually covered. I'll also need to make sure to cast it on the ground so that the most space possible is cleansed.
That's the real challenge here – since I can't recover MP using mana potions while in an Awakening Quest, I'm stuck with just the 12,400 MP I have. [Cleanse] costs 50 MP so I can do quite a few of them and there's room for error, meaning the limitation isn't based on my pool.
It's based on how much space I cover with each cast.
Is this Awakening Quest truly random, though? Or is it the System's or King of the Celestials' way of letting me know that I'm able to take care of the soil at the [Pup Leisure Pond] now? That's not important right now, so I get to work on cleansing the soil. The spell has a radius of 11.25" at my current Magic, or 0.25" per 1 Magic. That's not quite twofeeteach cast and the spell takes five seconds to cast. When factoring in time moving around, this won't be a quick trial.
There's not really time to waste, here. Well, there is, but I don't want to push things too close. The sooner I can finish here, the sooner I can start cleaning up the [Pup Leisure Pond] and have a new place with a scenic view to relax in.
I cleanse four spots in a slight overlap, then a fifth in the center. After a few runs of that, I realize it would be more efficient to just have the circles' edges touching and do a fifth in the contaminated center of that.
Almost an hour and a half passes before I manage to finish the Awakening Quest. As with before, I find myself right back in the riverbed with only one notification in my vision the moment I do.
Not that I have time to process the message, however, as there's a situation going on here. I dismiss the notice – it's no doubt the standard Level-Up one – as I walk over to the source of the commotion.
"Arf arf arf! Arf arf arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!"
Aster is here and he's barking at a nearby troll while running around it in circles. The troll is trying to follow the pup, except it's too slow and Aster keeps changing directions. I get the feeling that the pup is just harassing the troll out of boredom… but it also means he can enter the Special Quest zones when Mrow doesn't seem capable of it.
Or maybe Mrow can, just not while I'm here? Now that I think about it, the remains of the goblins from yesterday are gone. He was definitely here at some point between my first two visits. He was also in the one at the Pup Leisure Pond, so it could just be related to if there are monsters present or not.
Though Aster probably has more travel permissions than the lifeseed worm since he's a Celestial, too.
The pup keeps repeating his barking cycle, with two sets of three followed by three individual ones. He's not just running around the troll, but jumping back and forth as well. It's definitely some sort of harassment.
I try to pick him up, but he just jumps out of the way while giving me what looks like a grin before continuing his dashing around the troll, which has now spotted me and has decided to change its target.
I take several steps back as I raise my right hand up to cast a [Magic Missile], which blasts a hole into the troll's chest. I'm still not strong enough for that to kill the monster when taking into consideration its regeneration factor, but it's enough to make the troll stumble back.
Also to cause the pup to let out an unhappy whine, which I ignore as I cast a [Flamethrower] and begin to incinerate the monster.
Special Quest Completed! +5,000 EXP
Oh, right. I was at nine trolls already.
"Come on, Aster," I pick the pup up. "How come you were taunting him instead of killing him?"
Aster sends me a message that's more clear than before. He was bored while waiting for me to finish, as the System was blocking him from entering the Awakening Zone.
You've reached Level 2 in [Animal Communication]!
It seems being a passive recipient helps with that, or maybe just talking to animals will help give the Skill some experience. Either way, I'm grateful things are going to be a little bit more clear when I talk to him and the others from now on.
"Boredom is no reason to bother others," I scold the pup, and he sends me another message. "You're not able to kill? Redips was killing spider monsters and she's just a mythical beast. And I'm fairly certain the springscale icthinios kill the lake icthinios regularly."
Now that I'm thinking about it, Redips probably visited here regularly and I misunderstood her message. She wasn't checking out what the others were doing, she came to hunt to clear out monsters. Flow must have been doing that as well and then noticed that something had changed.
Mythicals have been killing monsters here all this time.
"Hrm…" he lets out an odd partial whine, then another message comes as his tail starts wagging.
"Wait," I say. "So it's within restrictions?"
Aster nods.
The restrictions he gives me seem to suggest that he can only kill "similar" types of beasts here, and only monsters. Spider-type mythical beasts can kill spider-type monsters, wolf-type mythical beasts can kill wolf-type monsters, icthinios-type mythical beasts can kill icthinios-type monsters, and so on.
This is also something that didn't start until "many sleeps ago", long after the Mythical Forests died off. Aster isn't sure why, but the King of the Celestials probably implemented it at some point for some reason.
Maybe people aren't the only beings he's observing? He might be observing the mythical beasts as well, to see what they do.
After all, Aster can't kill anything here because there are no monsters which really fit into the same "type" as Celestials.
As much as he'd like to just wipe out all of the monsters within the land. He lets me know that if it were up to him, he'd simply wipe out all of the monsters and make sure no more ever appeared while he waited his king's return.
"That's kind of sad," I tell him, then hold him against my chest. "Let's head back home, you are sticky as can be again. Better not have gotten into someone's stuff again, little guy."
He sends me a memory of him in a bear cub form inside of a very large beehive, lapping up honey while ignoring the stings of angry bees.
At least he didn't steal it from people this time.