Chapter 309. Fangs and Upgrades.

“Welcome back, sir,” Whirtmir, the head butler announced as I appeared back in my personal space.

“Thanks, is everything okay here?” I asked.

“Precisely, sir, all is as it should be,” Whirtmir said. I did notice that he turned and looked at the door to Gary’s room when he spoke. The staff weren’t fans of Gary, and neither was I. Still, as long as Gary paid his rent on time, I couldn’t complain about his presence just a door away from my personal space. It looked like Tzes’zod was out and about somewhere doing whatever it was he did. Melvin also left and headed toward the training room.

Having him as an armor upgrade had been nice. He was less talkative when in his armor form, but his presence was still comforting. The gelatinous cube companion had proven to be one of the better purchases I’d made in Somhagen. Thinking about Somhagen, I was still a bit concerned about my abrupt exit from the city last time. Hopefully, when I did hit tier three, I would get at least one more chance to visit and shop in peace.

After saying hello to the rest of the staff, I made my way toward the reward chest. I knew that only the head butler and maid had any sort of sapience, but I didn’t want to be rude to them. It would be a mistake to get into the habit of treating others poorly, you never knew when that would backfire.

Reward Chest.

1. 57 gold.

2. Fangs of the Hydra Pouch.

3. Class ability upgrade token.

4. Minion experience token (3).

5. Minion equipment token (5).

6. Minion ability/spell token (5).

I’d done well with the minion upgrades, and even had an upgrade token for myself. Before I dug into those, I wanted to see what the fangs were all about.

Fangs of the Hydra Pouch. This small pouch of hydra teeth can be thrown onto any blood-soaked ground to call forth a Hydra to serve you for up to one hour. The number of teeth used determines the Tier, Rank, and powers the hydra you summoned will possess. Alternatively, you can throw the teeth at one of your minions to instantly revive them when they fall. A single tooth will regenerate at the end of each summoning, and the pouch can hold up to 10 teeth.

To start, the Fangs of the Hydra Pouch has 3 teeth inside.

That was a rather interesting item. A hydra sounded formidable, but I supposed that it really depended on how many teeth I decided to use. With only one tooth regenerating on each summoning, it would take a while to replenish. On my next combat-oriented summoning, I had to try one of the teeth just to gauge the power of the creature I could call forth.

Any summoning item, like the fangs, should also be affected by class abilities, making them even stronger. The only drawback was that I had to toss them onto blood-soaked ground. I hoped that included a floor and I wasn’t blocked from using them inside a structure. In a pinch, I could always give myself a small cut to donate my own blood for the teeth to use. If there was combat going on, and the opponents weren’t summoned creatures that turned into mana vapor, there was usually plenty of blood to go around.

I equipped the fangs into my summoning loadout. There was a very good chance that back home, they would function once, and then be useless with the mana of the pouch drained. As part of my loadout, I was guaranteed to have a recurring benefit from the item. Before I went on a minion upgrading spree. I activated my class ability upgrade token.

As soon as I used the token, it pulled up my status page. Instead of a randomized upgrade, the token highlighted three abilities and spells I could choose for it to upgrade. I had a choice of upgrading my Health Bloom spell, Duplicate, or my Template Hunter ability.

So far, since I’d gotten Digbaz, I hadn’t run into anything or anyone I was keen on targeting for my next minion. Despite not having a great target yet, upgrading the Template Hunter could help lock in a powerful minion template that would blend well with my other forces. The Health Bloom was also a heavily used spell, but having it upgraded didn’t seem as critical. It served well enough back home and during summonings, so I was leaning toward ruling it out for an upgrade.

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Duplicate was also used both at home and during summonings. Having two of my most powerful minions, especially now that I could duplicate Digbaz and his devastating tornado spell, was very appealing. The system didn’t give any further details, or show what the upgrade would accomplish, so I was flying blind as usual when it came to this stuff.

I had to make a decision, so I went ahead and selected Duplicate, in the hopes I could field three tornado wielding kobold sorcerers.

Duplicate. Mana cost 5. This spell has been upgraded and now has a duration of 2-minutes. The cooldown before Duplicate can be cast again is 1-minute and only 1 instance of Duplicate can be active at a time. In addition to duplicating the targeted minion, Duplicate will also create a copy of your lowest Tier and Rank minion.

It didn’t look like I was going to get extra sorcerers but having a free Blieek duplicate every time I cast the spell was a strong upgrade. The upgrade would continue to improve as Blieek maxed out his rank, gear, and abilities. Having the duration of the duplicate increased was also a nice bonus. All in all, I wasn’t disappointed with my choice, but I did wish I could have seen what the other abilities would have upgraded into.

With myself taken care of. I went on an upgrade binge for my minions.

Digbaz Bazam has received 15 experience.

Glem, Glamb, and Glurk have received 15 experience.

Blieek has received 15 experience. Blieek has reached Tier 0, Rank 3.

Blieek has improved his strength and constitution.

Digbaz and the goblin trio were only about halfway to their next rank after the experience boost. Digbaz had the highest experience pool to fill for each rank, but with Blieek, fifteen experience was a guaranteed rank upgrade. I summoned my newly ranked up minion, and while it didn’t look like he’d gained any new abilities with his rank increase, he was now stronger and more durable. Next up were the equipment tokens, which I had five of.

Khurr has reached Weapons, Rank 2. Khurr’s hand crossbow has been upgraded to a Light Crossbow.

Elida Silverbarrow has reached Weapons, Rank 5. Elida has gained a masterwork sling for ranged attacks.

Mana Slayer Drone has reached Weapons, Rank 4. The mana slayer drone’s attacks now drain 1 mana from a foe with each strike. The mana drained is converted into a damage boost for the next melee strike the drone makes.

Digbaz Bazam has reached Weapons, Rank 2. Digbaz’s magic missile wand now holds a total of three charges. His backup dagger is now a masterwork weapon.

Digbaz Bazam has reached Armor, Rank 2. Digbaz’s robe has been replaced with studded leather armor. This armor is carefully crafted to not interfere with the sorcerers’ casting abilities.

It was as solid round of upgrades, especially when I considered that this was only from one summoning. A quick check of the mana gauge showed it was at 64% and was filling up nicely. I was still anxious to be home to help with the training before I hit tier three and was shuffled off somewhere away from Earth. Of course, the more powerful that me and my minions became from the summoning rewards was also important.

Last up were the ability/spell upgrade tokens. I had also gotten five of these, which was a nice haul.

Mana Slayer Drone has upgraded his Stealth Field Generator to Rank 2. The generator now will function for up to three minutes per tier. The distortion field that can give away his position is less noticeable.

Mana Slayer Drone has upgraded his Shoulder Mounted Launcher to Rank 2. The launcher now holds 4 grenades, and the range has increased to 120-yards.

Elida Silverbarrow has upgraded her Minor Healing Burst to Rank 2. The amount of healing generated by this spell has increased by a modest amount.

Elida Silverbarrow has upgraded her Minor Healing Burst to Rank 3. The spell now adds a healing over time effect for 3 seconds after it is cast.

Blieek has upgraded his charge ability to Rank 2. The range of the ability is increased to 15 feet. The bonus to hit and damage has increased to 12%. He can now use this ability 2/day.

Elida and the drone both came away with two upgrades, and Blieek’s charge was now a bit more useful. With all my upgrades completed, there was no immediate summoning portal, so I spent some time in the training center with Melvin. I put my minions through their paces, seeing how the recent upgrades functioned. In particular, the drone’s new mana draining attacks seemed to be particularly effective against the caster opponents I summoned for him.

One point of mana being drained didn’t sound like much, until I considered the sheer number of attacks the drone could unleash. With four arms, and two deadly, clawed feet, he would strike a foe multiple times, and with each attack, their mana dropped and in turn, empowered the drones next strike.

I did cast Duplicate to see how it would function, and true to the upgrade’s description, it summoned a copy of Blieek in addition to the targeted minion. Between duplicate, my existing minions, and consumables, I could call forth a small army if given enough time to work.

After some time in the training center, the summoning portal opened, and I was called back into action.

A summoning link has been activated.

You are Summoned!