The bullet of Gregor's cannon cut through the air and then buried itself inside of the neck of the first monster. Surprised and weakened, Maximus was able to quickly jump in and finish it off.
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[You have killed a level 7 -Giant Rabbit-]
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Ryan grinned broadly, watching as Gregor got the cannon ready for the next attack. The three other rabbits that were part of this small group quickly went to attack Maximus, though their attacks were quickly shot down with the help of the elemental greatsword Granfell. The water elemental attacks dug through the monsters' flesh, cutting it apart in almost gruesome ways.
Their blood was pushed out of their bodies through the profusely bleeding wounds. Another bullet hit one of the monsters, clearly cracking its spine and killing it.
One after another, the giant rabbits were killed, either by Maximus' blade or by Gregor's bullets. They were able to kill a group of four giant rabbits much faster they would have been able to before, so just as Ryan expected, the efficiency had gone up considerably. And that was with Gregor just at level one and just a single one of the most 'basic' cannons that Gregor would be able to construct in the future.
"This is great," Ryan grinned broadly, "Great job, everyone."
As Ryan said so, he looked at the metallic system window floating in front of him.
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[Gregor has levelled up!]
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"And congratulations on levelling up, Gregor!"
Quickly, Ryan pulled out his phone as well as Gregor's status window, quickly jotting down the updated stat information.
"Alright, 0.36 total growth, that's great!" he pointed out, quickly pushing his phone back into his pocket, where it was protected by a layer of metal. Silvia had specifically made sure to prepare it like this so that he could carry his phone around. It came in useful in Ryan's first dungeon, so he liked having it close.
Once the sub-golems collected the coins dropped by the giant rabbits, it was time to move on to the next group. If things were like this, then Gregor should be able to level up quickly, and with that, Ryan's next level-up was going to be close as well.
The next group of monsters was some giant goats again. The rabbits and goats were the most common monsters here, so this definitely wasn't a surprise. After Gregor properly deployed the cannons, this time setting up all three at once, he really started showing off his real talent.
He set up one cannon and pre-aimed it, then set up the next and the next. Once Ryan gave the signal to start the attack, the first cannon was quickly fired, and while it cooled down for a moment and all the parts moved back into place, Gregor ran over to cannon number two. Repeating the process until all three cannons were shot, Gregor then returned back to the first one, loaded it back up, and shot another bullet. For the rest of the battle, he kept on doing this exact cycle, loading, shooting, and then moving onto the next.
With the help of the backline support, the fight against the giant goats was over pretty quickly. Their monsters riddled with bullet holes were slowed down considerably, and due to the fact they were not only startled but also focusing more on Gregor than Maximus, the knight was able to take advantage of the confusion and take the monsters down.
That way, throughout a few more encounters, Gregor levelled up to level 3. And before long, finally, something else happened too.
At the same time as Gregor, Ryan levelled up once again as well. He had finally reached level 10. When the body of the group's last monster hit the ground, Ryan's level rolled over.
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[You have levelled up!]
[You have learned the skill -Spirit Seal Recovery-]
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"Yes!" Ryan practically yelled out, though he quickly pressed his hand in front of his mouth. Though, he probably didn't have to be all that quiet. The cannons that Gregor built were surprisingly quiet, but they were still fairly loud, all things considered.
"Runar!" he said, turning into his uncle's direction. Or rather, the direction where he should be lingering, just out of view. He quickly pushed up his thumb with a grin, and just a moment later, Runar rushed through the thicket. Waving his pen in the air, he drew a rune into the air and created a barrier around Ryan and the spirits.
"Level 10?" Runar asked, just making sure, and Ryan immediately nodded his head.
"Yup! Finally I can get those fuckers off my back... I'll head straight to the Awakened Centre to have my level updated," with a relieved sigh, Ryan pulled up his status window, checking out how much his stats grew. And they grew by a whopping 0.40 total! All of his stats were above 1 now, even his 'Spirituality' which has always been sort of lagging behind.
"Sure do that. What's the skill you got?" Runar asked curiously, seemingly also relieved that the Bluesky guys would stop bothering them for a while.
Ryan looked at the skill's name. He hadn't even registered it properly until now, "It, uh, it wasn't on the list you gave me. It's called 'Spirit Seal Recovery'."
Immediately, Runar frowned, "Excuse me? What do you mean, 'Seal Recovery'?"
"I don't know, don't ask me. You know more about all of this than I do," Ryan retorted, "Hold on, I'll pull it up for a second."
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[Spirit Seal Recovery]
[Level – 1] [Proficiency – 0%]
[Allows for the temporary relief on the seals placed on the spirits]
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
[Effect – 1/9 Scale]
[Cost – 1 MP per 1 Minute per Spirit]
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Ryan read the skill out loud, though he was a bit confused, "Wait, wasn't this effect the same one as in the 'Spirit Enlargement' skill on the list you gave me?"
Runar silently averted his gaze, trying to think about what all of this meant. He was muttering to himself, and his eyes darted around.
"I..." he finally let out, "I don't know what's going on... Can you try the skill out?"
"Of course. The mana cost is super low, and it doesn't even have a cooldown like the Spirit Enlargement skill was supposed to have, so..." Ryan said, quickly looking at Maximus, "Want to give it a try first?"
Immediately, the knight nodded his head. He held his sword tightly in his hands, as Ryan took a deep breath and activated the new skill. Maximus started giving off a soft red glow, as though he was about to fall apart into the red wisps that appeared whenever he moved in and out of his domain. But instead of flowing toward Ryan, they simple moved slightly outward, as Maximus doubled in size.
Just as Ryan thought, this was the same 'Spirit Enlargement' skill, just with a different name and description. Instead of being 1/10th scale, Maximus was now 1/9th scale, now around 45 centimetres tall. If the skill progressed like the original 'Spirit Enlargement' skill, then every ten levels, the available scales would increase. 1/8th, 1/7th, 1/6th, and so on. There should even be a 10% boost in stats for every increase, which was amazing on top of the increased weight and reach that obviously came with the increased size. That effect wasn't mentioned in the description of the original skill either, being just something like a side-effect. That being the case, Ryan quickly opened Maximus' status to check, but what he saw was... confusing.
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[Maximus]
[Knight | Level - 10]
[AP - 128 (Temp)]
[Stats]
-[Aura - 2.76 (Temp)]
-[Strength - 2.98 (Temp)]
-[Stamina 2.70 (Temp)]
-[Resistance - 2.98 (Temp)]
-[Physicality - 2.74 (Temp)]
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"Double..." Ryan muttered quietly, and the confused Runar, who was still stuck in stunned contemplation, snapped his head toward him.
"What? Yeah, he doubled in size... is there anything else weird?"
"His stats... they're supposed to just be 10% higher, but they're double. Double. Runar, they're fucking doub-"
"I get it, calm down," Runar tapped his foot on the ground, starting to anxiously bite his fingernail, "Alright, we'll figure this out. This is weird, but there has to be a reason why the skill is so different."
Ryan stared at his uncle. His gut was telling him something.
"Runar. You know what's going on. Or at least, you have a better idea than I do. I've conceded in trying to learn more about your abilities and level and whatnot, but I'm not going to let you hide things about my class. So tell me what's going on."
"... Fine," Runar sighed loudly, "This is just speculation. I'm not really the most knowledgeable about the intricacies of the Spirit Keeper class either. Learning about it always felt... weird to me. I've been looking into it a bit more since you awakened, but-"
"Just say it, man. What do you think is going on? Like, how the hell am I giving Maximus that kind of boost with just 1MP per minute?"
"... Because you're not boosting him. As the skill says, you're temporarily releasing a seal. Seals are complicated, there's a lot of different types, but generally if you know how they work, you can release them. And it looks like what the skill is doing is placing 1MP worth of mana in a very precise spot of a seal, interrupting the flow and allowing the spirits' real power to shine through while that is the case," Runar explained, but Ryan was still confused.
"What do you mean? The spirits are sealed?"
"That's one of the theories at least, which I think was just confirmed by your own class. Initially, we just thought that the spirits simply never had the ability to form their own bodies in the first place. But instead, it seems as though that ability, together with a lot of their strengths and powers, was sealed away. And the Spirit Keeper is the one that allows them to overcome that seal."
Ryan looked over at the spirits. Gaia, Maximus, and Gregor were looking up at him, but none of them seemed to know anything about this either. Rather, they seemed shocked to hear this as well.
"Who, or what, or whatever... just how did they get sealed?"
"How would I know? Clearly, we didn't even know that the spirits were sealed to begin with. I think that maybe whatever sealed the spirits away also did something to the Spirit Keeper class, and then when..." Runar started, though he stopped mid-sentence. Ryan as well was starting to realize something.
"Do you think that... my dad knew about this? That he tried to release whatever influence was on the Spirit Keeper class, and then... things went wrong? Or maybe they went right, and he gave up the class and his connection to the system to-"
"Please," Runar interrupted his nephew, "Just... let's not think about that right now. I'll try to look into some things. But I will keep you updated, alright?"
"Alright. Thanks, man," Ryan responded, turning around toward the spirits, "But in that case... let's see if this..."
Right now, with just one of them being affected by the skill, Ryan's passive mana recovery was higher than the mana used by the skill. However, with two of them, it would be much higher. But since the skill didn't need to be active constantly, it should be easy enough to deal with. Ryan activated the skill on Gregor, and watched as the automaton doubled in size. But while Gregor grew, the machines that he had built stayed the same size.
"Gregor, do you think you can scale up your blueprints if you build them like this?" Ryan asked, and Gregor immediately nodded his head in response. In that case, maybe they could prepare larger cannons in advance, and while they would be harder to move, they would also have a lot more firepower.
But for now, there was one particular benefit to Gregor's size increasing. Not only was he able to move around faster, but with his doubled stats, the speed at which he could manipulate the cannons was faster as well.
Ryan looked over at Gaia, "Sorry, we'll test it out with you later, alright? Having you grow to two meters tall all of a sudden might make things a bit more difficult," he pointed out, but the golem seemed to understand, and didn't mind it at all. Rather, she just seemed excited that her friends were a bit closer to her size right now.
Runar stepped away again, clearly still taken aback by this whole situation. Meanwhile, Ryan got moving, trying to find a particular monster. By now, he had learned enough about its habits that he could figure out roughly where it tended to be in here. As long as that didn't change along with the dungeon's overall structure, finding the area boss wasn't going to be hard.
And it seemed as though Ryan was right; before long, he was able to find the boss monster of the petting zoo; the Moss sheep. While it was too strong for them to take on before, with more than double the strength they had back then, there wasn't any doubt in Ryan's mind that they could take it now.
Ryan had Gaia stay further away and set down the cannons for Gregor. While the artillerist prepared for the start of the battle, Maximus got ready to attack as well. Usually, him and Ryan would have discussed what weapon he was going to use, but this time around, there was only one choice.
As Maximus grew, his elemental greatsword also grew. It looked like only things that were made of magic like the spirits, which included the sword, grew in size alongside them. All the other weapons were now simply too small for the knight to actually use.
Once Gregor prepared, Ryan looked at the Moss Sheep and waited for the right moment. Right now, it was tearing into the flesh of one of the fellow monsters. Somehow, it was always carrying around a different one of the petting zoo monsters whenever Ryan spotted it here. Obviously, considering that they should disappear when they died, but in this case, the area boss seemed to be able to hunt and kill them without letting that happen.
"Three, two, one..." Ryan slowly counted down, whispering to Gregor. He was waiting for the right moment to shoot, and having some grasp of the cannons' accuracy by now, he knew what the best moment to shoot really was.
Ryan stared at the moss sheep as the monster turned its head and body slightly.
"Now!"