Chapter 50: Pushing back

I stare at a system window that displays my skills while thinking about Sairal’s most recent lecture. Something of it struck a chord with me. But seeing them as laws or tools doesn’t fit.

Anyone who says that they are just skills is a fool. How can you not feel something take control of your body, nudging claws slightly to the left, or spreading your fingers farther apart to cut better? How do you not feel the Stamina seep away, entering a skill construct and producing an effect?

They aren’t tools or laws. No tool can sculpt something as delicate as a skill construct that occasionally flickers in the back of my mind. No law can be as complex as them, unbending and yet flexible.

But what are they then, if not more? What kind of approach fits for me? Sairal said that I shouldn’t worry about it, but what else to do with spare time, trapped in a cage?

Some part of me sees them as coins, or at least my soul does. Though, skills can be cast and some skills can be spent, even be traded away, but is that the truth?

A hiss escapes my lips and I roll over on my back on the moss carpet where I crashed after working on the walls for one hour too many. The sun shines down on me fervently, wiping away the vestiges of sleep as the leaves in my crown unfurl.

I sit up, glaring at it. How dare it start a new day filled with war and skill training. It’s all just building the walls and testing skills with every spare resource point. And breaks? Breaks are taking a breath of fresh air beyond the walls, returning painted green with insect gore and the occasional piece of chitin glued to your skin.

The sun receives another glare and continues to shine down at the world uncaring of my thoughts. I contemplate rolling over once more, burying my face into the soft moss for just an hour.

I stand up, stretching out my sore muscles that keep complaining that my Stamina pool hasn’t been fully filled for who knows how long and head back towards the walls. I greet the occasional mushroom guardian who’s lugging around entire logs on their own, reinforcing the parts that haven’t been turned into bindweed yet. And yes, that is still most, if not all, of the Bastion. I’m slowly getting to it though. I peek at the timer of the system event.

Time remaining: 277 days, 18 hours, 43 minutes, 28 seconds.

The days have been weird, to say the least. Even the unordinary becomes ordinary given enough time. The hordes of Cave crawlers outside of the walls, the terror of human armies arriving at our doorstep and smashing through the walls with the power of a hundred bulldozers. It all just becomes another day in the end.

I climb up the battlements and greet Cobalt who has her eyes lasered on the land beyond the walls, tracking the mushroom guardians that have taken on the insects not that far from the walls. Every so often her hands twitch and she leans forward the slightest as if preparing to step down and intervene.

Cobalt doesn’t turn to me but still nods her head, acknowledging my presence, “Mandrake Green, did you sleep well?”

The words draw a scowl on my face. She fully knows how spent I was after she pushed me off the walls yesterday, telling me that I needed practice and experience. Again.

“I did,” I say, letting the remaining anger drip into the words.

She ignores the tone and nods again, “Excellent. You should be satisfied with yourself. Your strict regime has pushed your level beyond Sairal’s predictions.”

My eyes flick back to a system window that hangs open next to my head. It’s true, in the past twelve days or so, I gained an ungodly amount of skills and levels. I wave her off and fold my arms over each other, watching a mushroom guardian pummel one of the Cave crawlers repeatedly, trying to smack the monster's brains out its head.

“It’s as expected,” I say, waltzing on as Cobalt opens her mandibles to interrupt me, “Almost drowning in the sheer quantity of the bugs and the constant threat of death hanging above our collective heads…can be very motivating. Besides, I’m not the only one whose level has exploded. The mushroom guardians are growing too.”

She shakes her head, ignoring the change of subject, “You know what I mean, Mandrake Green. You are smarter than you want to come off as. Some cannot handle the pressure. They give up. I have seen it happen before. It is never a pretty sight.”

Her posture sags the slightest and I pat her on the shoulder, “Hey, it’ll be fine. We’re doing better than ever and Sairal even said that we could go out to hunt down some of the stronger bugs that rove around for levels. Perhaps we can even get our hands on one of their generals or the Elites that have been taking potshots at us.”

Like a flower getting watered for the first time in months, she bounces back up again and spreads her mandibles in a vicious grin, her antenna twirling around excitedly, “Dryad Sairal did say that, didn’t he?”

“Yep. But he also said that we shouldn’t go too far since he can’t take on all the Cave crawlers on his own if they decide to probe us again.”

The conversation falls flat and the mushroom guardian beneath that captured our attention finishes the monster, raising a fist in triumph before seeking out their next foe.

I look at the forest beyond the Bastion. The grass floor of the forest has been torn away like wallpaper, some pieces still clinging on through sheer luck or persistence. The trees that once reached tall, their branches meeting the sky and providing homes for birds, have fallen. Nothing but gnawed-on stumps and dug-up roots remain as the faintest reminder that not even weeks ago a forest that harboured life spread out further than the eye once was here.

The Cave crawlers have taken it all, given it to their queens. And in return, they are more.

But there, far, far in the distance amongst a sea of broken corpses, a single one remains standing tall. Its roots firmly cling onto the soil against any force the Cave crawlers can put up. Grass pools around it like it's the eye of a storm, a final piece of home outside the wall.

And that is what it actually is, or at least Sairal thinks that. When I pointed it out to him, he gave one of his honest smiles and said that it was a refuge for all and an extension of the Grove Mother. Whatever that means.

That far away, the leaves pinned in its crown are nothing but a smudge. Though, it is a message from one to another, or at least I’d like to think so. We are still standing, The tree says.

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I turn back to Cobalt whose eyes are still upon the mushroom guardians. “Are you ready to go for a stroll?” I ask, not able to keep an impish smile off my face.

Her antennae wiggle happily, “Let me recall the mushroom guardians first. It is too dangerous for them outside without supervision.”

“Fine, I’ll tell Sairal that we’re going on a walk.”

I jump off the walls, passing the special mushroom guardians that are in the process of eviscerating a bottom (H) grade Cave crawler they slew together. I don’t know if it is their instinct to hate the pests like any other proper forest dweller, or that it has been Cobalt’s training but these five harbour some special kind of hatred for them.

While heading towards Sairal’s tree where he has been commanding most of the guardians from, sending out commands and creating spore concoctions for every situation he can come up with, I open my system menu and take another look at the progress Cobalt has pointed out.

Species: Mandrake: Bindweed force lvl 12/20 (G) -> lvl 17/20(G)

HP: 193/205 -> 193/255

SP: 173/225 -> 300/300

Strength: 50 -> 60

Agility: 37 -> 47

Perception: 23 -> 28

Constitution: 60 (+15) -> 70 (+15)

Endurance: 36 -> 46

Mind: 40 -> 50

Unallocated Stat points: 16 -> 36

Skill points: 19 -> 16

Skills: 13/17 skill stots in use

Solar Storage (C) lvl 3/20 -> Solar Storage (C) lvl 11/20.

Mandrake Scream (Un) lvl 16/20 -> Mandrake scream (Un) lvl 21/25.

Identify (C) lvl 19/20 -> Identify (C) lvl 22/25.

Bindweed of Nature (R) lvl 12/20 -> Bindweed of Nature (R) lvl 16/20.

Claw Infusion (C) lvl 15/20 -> Claw Infusion (C) lvl 23/25.

Hide (B) lvl 12/20.

Dance of Death (C) lvl 11/20 -> Dance of Death (C) lvl 27/30.

Fire Resistance (B) lvl 12/20 -> Fire Resistance (B) lvl 13/20

Depth Sense (O) lvl 17/20.

Bindweed Manipulation (R) lvl 25/30 -> Bindweed Manipulation (R) lvl 31/35.

Bindweed Conjuration (R) lvl 23/25 -> Bindweed Conjuration (R) 33/35.

Breathe (B) lvl 17/20 -> Energising Breath (C) lvl 3/20.

Efficient Movement (B) lvl 11/20 -> Flexibility (C) lvl 6/20.

Time remaining: 277 days, 18 hours, 26 minutes, 44 seconds.

*Event points: 3326,92

There might be the constant struggle of life in this world where a poorly picked fight might mean death, but seeing my progress and hard work being quantified by the system is damn nice.

Lots of stats gained, a few levels, and a lot of skill levels. I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t get the option to upgrade most of my skills when they reached their cap. However, for Common rarity skills, some will only start offering upgrades when they hit the threshold of level 40. Maybe most of my skills are just strong and therefore require higher levels to improve.

Something else that stumped me was upgrading Breathe. I planned to fuse it with Mandrake Scream in my next evolution since they synergise well and I always seem to get the option to merge skills with Pursua’s hammer. But when I saw the upgrades for the skill, I opted to pick more Stamina generation. The gods know I need it.

It might be sacrificing the future for the present but as things were…there might not have been a future. Even now the Cave crawlers continue to swell in number and each day more Elites show up.

I reach Sairal’s tree, tell him the news and head off again after he reminds me to not wander too far away with Cobalt.

Back on the walls, Cobalt is already waiting for me, tapping her left foot on the floor impatiently.

Not even waiting for me to climb up the walls she leaps off the battlements like a starving beast. And in a way, she’s right. The truly juicy Cave crawlers always stay out of range, knowing better than to heedlessly throw themselves onto the walls. She lands with a thud, the ground freezing solid before she hits it.

I make my way down less gracefully, splatters of dirt springing up where I land, some of the drops hitting her and marring her carapace. She gives me a glare but doesn’t mention it, stepping forward and stretching her limbs.

“So the Elites,” I say, looking around for the roving bands of bugs that blend in with the muddy earth. “I’ll let you have the first crack at them. We all know that you’ve been itching for it.”

Cobalt grins and we head further out from the Bastion, a carpet of mist hanging low to the ground taking care of any weaklings that try to take a swing at us.

While almost all of the Cave crawlers and quite a few of the Elites share the same dull colour of brown that helps them blend in with the cavern walls in the Depths, there is the occasional one that sticks out like a sore thumb. Their distinct colouration often betraying the special element they wield.

“There,” I point to a roving band not even a kilometre away, the single spot of ocean blue having drawn my focus.

“Should be in our range,” Cobalt says as she shifts into a jog, her body crouched low to the ground.

My legs can barely keep up as mist slowly wafts off her form leaving behind a frozen trail of unlucky bugs that crossed our path.

They didn’t even know what hit them when she tore through the outer lines of their defence, barging past them, stomping on their bodies.

She buffeted away the mandibles of a peak (G) grade while she stared at the Elite as the monster frantically pulled moisture out of the ground and created a shield of water between them. She reached out for the wall of water, giving it the gentlest touch as if handling a spider web.

The Elite twitched and the wall of water burst forward, wrapping around Cobalt, entering her throat like a parasite and drowning her on land. But as that happened, her lungs filling with water, she just looked at the creature in contempt.

Water and mist entangled, coiling around each other as they fought over control, water turning into ice, and back to water again. Lances of ice shot out of the sculpture, piercing through the nearby Cave crawlers and reeled their bodies into the amphomorphous mass. Their bodies broke apart as the mass of water flickered between liquid and solid.

The Elite struggled on, the legs under it twitching as if holding up its own weight grew difficult, all of its energy diverted to pushing back against Cobalt.

The bug suffered the same fate as its henchman, a spear of ice sprouting from its thorax. In the next second Cobalt had her hands wrapped around the monster’s head, lovingly brushing against it, looking the poor bug into its eyes before unscrewing its head, turning towards me and throwing the head back to the corpse over her shoulder.

In seconds the battle ended, not even leaving enough time for me to catch up to her. Cobalt lets go of her skill and in the next moment the ice sculpture, tainted green, falls apart. I cock my head to the side, “Had your fun?”

She takes in a deep, satisfied breath, not gagging on the rotting mud and insect guts, “I did. I missed taking them on like this, breaking their skills and spirits.”

My eyes leave her form and drift towards the brown landscape around us, searching for the next target. “Good,” I idly comment to her, “Next Elite is mine. Can you deal with the weaklings for me? I don’t want to spend any Stamina on holding them off.”

“Very well, Mandrake Green. However, the one after that is mine again.”

I shake my head at her and stare at the broken forest around us. No more cowering behind walls, spending all my energy to build them stronger and raise them higher and higher. It’s time to fight the Elites, kill the strongest and grow strong ourselves.