“I see,” I said, unsure if I was being under-changed or not.
I suddenly heard Shamash’s voice in my head where no one else could hear. “This crystal is worth 100 Metal Dragons. Either they don’t fully understand its worth, or they’re more desperate to have you join them than I thought.”
Keeping my reaction to myself, I didn’t hesitate. “Thank you. I accept your offer.”
“I’d also like to give you something in exchange,” Whitfield said, joining the conversation. “You haven’t just agreed to trade the Metal corpse but have opened this Metal Dungeon to mining. The Protestants of the Illuminated Cathedral would like to reward you.” With a flick of his thumb, a ring flipped through the air toward me.
I caught it. Opening my hand, a pearl white ring with a silver opal sparkled with a lackluster shine.
“It’s a Wind Mirror,” the pastor said. “Darkness is the magic most commonly used for stealth, but Wind Magic has a few advantages Dark Magic does not. Monsters like vampires have all of their senses enhanced. They can find you out just as easily by hearing or smelling you. Place this ring on your finger and give it a steady stream of neutral mana. It won’t mask your image as well as Dark Magic, but nothing is better for masking your scent. It also reduces sound and blurs your image.”
Shamash’s voice sounded again. “It’s not worth as much as the focal crystal, but for our purposes, it might be more useful.”
“Thank you,” I responded. I hadn’t really considered what their payment would be since I’d intended to give them the Metal Dragon’s corpse from the beginning. It seemed like too much.
I found out not long after accepting the focal crystal that Travis had been given more than just the Metal Armor. Pastor Whitfield had already given him a Wind Mirror Ring as well.
As soon as we’d finished trading, I heard the small troop of soldiers marching toward us. Only two of them had stayed in the middle of the dungeon to guard the area. The rest were removing their helmets and taking a variety of mining tools from their inventories. Every one of them had blonde hair like the bishop, Leeman, and Amilia. Whitfield was the only exception in their ranks. Was it because of their Light Magic focus or just genetics? Only the bishop had the same innate glow that I did in my Ascended Form.
The soldiers didn’t stop at the Metal Dragon but skirted around it and started digging at the base of the overlook. Bishop Mather caught me off guard by casting Laser and slowly bringing it across the Metal Dragon’s neck. In less than thirty seconds he had it severed from the beast’s body. Just how powerful was he?
It was then that Leeman and Amilia started to remove their mining gear from their inventories. I’d hoped we’d get some time to speak with them…
“When you do make it to the Illuminated Cathedral, we’ll show you around,” Amilia promised. “There’s much to see and many people that will want to meet you both.”
Metal Armor to Metal Armor, Travis, and Leeman embraced like brothers. I gave them, and the whole group from the Illuminated Cathedral, a Heal. After our goodbyes, while we were heading toward the dungeon’s entrance, I was surprised by my feelings of loss. The little I knew about their politics gave me a headache just thinking about it and they didn’t hide their prejudices. I liked Pastor Whitfield, but still wasn’t sure if he was hiding something, and the bishop was a difficult pill to swallow. Still, if things were different, I would have left with them, even without the chance of being able to return home. But without my friends—without having the people of Sanctuary at my side—that simply wasn’t an option.
We were off to the next dungeon, and finally back on the road toward home. I’d also finally found something for my golems to do. They were dragging a giant dragon’s head behind them.
Chapter 35 – Stealth Teddy
I let Travis take the lead on the next dungeon. It was a large network of interconnected tunnels that seemed appropriate for the monsters of an Earth Dungeon. The rock was a mix of red clay and granite with thick wisps of Earth Mana throughout.
Not holding back, Travis approached the horse-sized Rock Beavers that were munching on the walls. He was already in his Werewolf Form as rich bronze spread over his fur like a forest fire meeting an oil-soaked field, leaving him looking like a glossy golden statue—one that was about to eat you. Queen Degima had produced for him an upgraded Firazite Spear, the same as she had made for me. Shamash had even approved, saying that only high concentrations of opposing elements would be able to chip away at its durability.
Travis rushed forward like a wrecking ball. A Metal Spear had replaced his left hand, while the Firazite Spear was in his right. Reaching the Rock Beavers, he led with a jab from his Metal Spear, impaling one in the ribs before it could move. His Firazite Spear followed up so quickly that it would’ve been difficult to see if it wasn’t for what happened next. A wave of Fire Aura exploded from his spear as he forced Neutral Mana into it, displacing the Fire Mana inside. It plowed into the half dozen monsters.
That would have probably been enough to kill them on its own, but Travis couldn’t help but experiment with Metal finally unlocked. Metal-empowered Spear Wall brutalized what was left. It was like stabbing them with one hundred enhanced spears and smashing them against the wall. It was the definition of overkill and Travis could hardly believe his own strength.
I took some time to play with a Master Earth Elemental to better understand Earth in hopes of advancing my Light Mastery and stole a few lesser monster forms for Shapeshifting. Other than that, Travis cleared the dungeon on his own. He no longer lacked the offensive or defensive ability to handle most mobs as high as level 5,000 to 6,000, but he was having to learn how to conserve his mana for the first time. 1,000 Intelligence and Wisdom made him no slouch. He still had a long way to go, but solo clearing dungeons would give him the chance to quickly advance.
I wasn’t exactly focused on leveling as we went from dungeon to dungeon during our return. Shamash was no longer singling out Dark Dungeons though. We literally hit up everything in our path. My level rose quickly.
My main focus was on using Light Magic against any and every school of magic, but I also made a point to max out my Rog Form and continued working up the ranks of Metal Dragon.
That wasn’t all. Vampire’s Might’s progression had slowed once it reached the Advanced Rank. I continued to refine mana and replaced my internal mana with liquid power. My maximum mana was climbing slowly, but since I wanted to reserve my Refined Mana for emergencies, it actually decreased the amount of mana I allowed myself to use. With Master Mind Buff a constant, it still meant I had a huge mana pool, but once I had completely refined all of my mana and filled my body with its liquid variation, I’d be limited to relying on my mana regeneration during a fight. The only other option was to use my refined mana or absorb mana orbs with Vampire’s Might and bloat my body with mana. There was a limited amount I could hold, and the buff would slowly dwindle over time. That would limit the power leveling I could do with my forms, so I made use of my non-refined mana while it was available to me.
I faced off against a twenty-foot Death Grizzly with a coat of Dark Mana fur. It was just over level 2,000 and seemed to manipulate its aura with its rage. It was not incredibly fast on its feet, but its attacks were terrifyingly swift.
Instead of dodging, I blocked its attack with a pulse of Solar focused to the palm of my hand. I was in my Ascended Human Form, except for the Crimson Incubus wings that held me in the air before it. I didn’t fear its strength despite its enormous size. Its mana had a rare emphasis on the Darkness Aspect of Dark Magic.
If I had to guess, its aura was 80% Darkness Aspect and only 20% Corruption, or Undeath. My own Solar pulse was only 70% Solar, which cut through the Darkness Aspect with little effort. My greater concentration of Life Aspect was then free to wreak havoc against its Corruption Aspect.
It seemingly went against the laws of physics as my Solar pulse knocked back his paw that had to weigh much more than I did. It should
have at least knocked me out of the air, but my wings held against the force and my magic did the rest. I was beginning to understand a little better how Darkness had little resistance against Solar. At least at this level. It was the relationships between Darkness and Life, and Solar and Corruption that were currently unclear. When I’d defeated Lady Contessa or faced off with Mistress Nava, their magic and mine seemed to be mixed in equal portions.
The Death Grisly staggered after coming down on all fours. It looked like it wasn’t able to take the reaction between our magics without taking damage.
I systematically whittled the monster down by using my magic to counter its natural mana. I’d done something similar when facing the Werewolf Pack Leader in my first visit to the Belly. This time it was more than instinct and desperation that drove me. I was sad to see the creature die after helping me better understand the bridge between Dark and Light.
Death Grisly Form
Cost: 100,000 Mana Per Minute (10,000 with buffs)
Strength: +2,000
Constitution: +2,000
Special Abilities: Slip into Shadows
Slip into Shadows: Retain your enormous size while becoming a master of stealth.
It was one of the oddest Forms yet. It didn’t level, but the Strength and Constitution bonuses were decent for the cost, and the Slip into Shadows ability gave it an interesting twist. If I got the urge to become a bear assassin, I now had a form that would allow me to live out such a fantasy.
I’d faced off against most of the difficult bosses we ran into on our way to the Metal Dungeon. When we ran into a Blackthorn Wood boss monster, Travis insisted.
The Blackthorn was a strange mix between humanoid and tree. Its two legs were like thick stumps. It didn’t move across the ground quickly, but it was extremely surefooted with living vines that crawled along the ground before and behind it to add to its stability. It had multiple arm-like branches. Some looked eerily similar to hands and others were more like thorny whips. Its head was shaped like a human’s, mostly, except for the bush of leafless branches that sprouted from the top of its head like a dead bush of hair.
As Travis sped forward, the Blackthorn smiled at him, showing off a mouth full of needlelike teeth. I feared it would be too much for Travis, but he was like a playful dog with the fire from his Firazite Spear and his Metal Magic chipping away at the boss monster in no time.
We cleared twenty-one dungeons on our way back to Sanctuary. Because Travis was now able to clear them on his own, we ended up taking turns in the end so neither of us would feel left out. It took us three weeks to come back into range of Richard’s communication ability. It could have gone faster, but Shamash pressed us to continue to level and, I must admit, our rate of progression was addicting.
During our visit to our eighteenth dungeon, while Travis was clearing an army of car-sized beetles, I heard a sudden pop and then the entire area seemed to go silent as if the noise had been sucked out of the area.
My eyes landed on my Werewolf friend to see that he’d been forced out of his Form while still in the middle of fighting. I would’ve jumped in to help, but his aura was pulsing like a hyperactive snare drummer that couldn’t stop himself from playing even faster.
There was a second pop and all the sound returned and his body began to change. It wasn’t as drastic as transforming into his Werewolf Form, but he grew taller before my eyes. It was hard to know exactly what had changed because of his armor. Then he disappeared in a blur and appeared twenty feet away with his spear already piercing a beetle’s head between its steel-cutting pinchers. Not only had he reached 10,000 Dexterity, but he’d finally Ascended.
I didn’t know why he’d Ascended now and not before when he’d reached 1,000 in every stat, but it was as potent as gaining a True Form. Perhaps True Forms weren’t for everyone? He finished the couple hundred beetles that remained in a couple of minutes. Afterward, I met up with him and he removed his upper body armor to see what had happened to him. His glow was subtler than my own, but his musculature was like chiseled marble. He was built for speed. The biggest change however was with his eyes. They were unnaturally bright blue, and his pupils had doubled in size. Like super lenses from a high-end camera, the size of his pupils shrank and expanded at hypersonic speed as he looked around the room. They looked almost alien.
When I mentioned the change, he crossed his eyes and made a face. We shared a laugh, but he then explained that it was like he was seeing with a superior being’s eyes. He could see the finest detail even in failing light and could zoom in to see something hundreds of feet away as if it were a foot from his face.
“Regal Sight…” Shamash said. “Elorion, leave the group, and use Invisibility.”
When I did as he asked, the lich continued, “What can you see?”
“Elorion, you’re still in the group,” Travis replied.
“No I’m not,” I said.
“What? You’re ethereal. You look the same as you do when using Invisibility.”
“That’s enough confirmation.” Shamash directed me to rejoin the group. “You have developed Regal Sight. Outstanding. Except for the most advanced stealth, now nothing will be able to get past you. It will take a while to get used to, but you’ve only scratched the surface of what your new eyes are capable of.”
Travis had left Sanctuary at under level 500. He would return at over 3,000.
Travis
Level: 3,066
Attributes
Strength: 2,967
Dexterity: 10,033
Constitution: 1,023
Intelligence: 1,019
Wisdom: 1,017
Tens of thousands of monsters was all it had taken. He was well on his way to being a powerhouse. I was still planning on asking him to stay in Sanctuary. We’d outgrown the difficulties of the dungeons in this region of the Dungeon Level, but an army of vampires with levels ten to twenty thousand was a completely different story.
“Richard. Are you there?” I said after we’d slowed our pace. We were pretty sure we were nearing his range.
“Elorion! That’s you, right?” Richard replied.
“We’re back!” Travis said before I could respond.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll be a few days before we’re near Sanctuary. We’re hauling a surprise or two.”
“Really? That’s great,” Richard said. “We have a few surprises for you as well. I’m assuming you want to talk to the girls? I have the pathways open, so whenever you’re ready.”
Chapter 36 – Big Head
“Aeris,” I said. My voice came out a little louder than a whisper.
The first thing that I heard was a gasp. “El? You’re back?”
“Yes. We just got back into range.”
“It’s great to hear from you…”
I could tell that something was sapping her enthusiasm. “Are you okay?”
“Better now. As good as can be expected while attending succubus boarding school.”
My first thought was to drop everything and head to where she was to try rescuing her from this nonsense, but reality smacked me in the face a moment later as I couldn’t help but remember Mistress Nava’s beatdown. It had been weeks since we’d talked, and I felt the distance with the sensitivity of an open nerve. I didn’t want to make it worse for her by being a downer, so I literally slapped myself before responding. “Is it ‘sucking’ the life out of you?”
“Ha. Ha,” she said sarcastically. “You’re such a dork. My dork…”
“I miss you too.”
I didn’t have to be with her to visualize her smile.
“So tell me everything,” she said. “What have you been up to?”
“You first,” I replied. “Travis and I leveled up a few times, but nothing interesting happened.”
“Come on.”
“Well, there were a few things…” I began from the beginning to make it easier to keep from jumping around or missing something. There was much we’d already discussed d
uring the first stage of my journey before we’d lost the ability to communicate. I did my best to limit the tangents I wanted to take her on regarding my different discoveries with magic, my advanced ascension, and the many new Forms I could play with, but I knew there was one thing that would pique her interest above all.
“You met other humans!” she said in disbelief.
I fielded question after question and even got into Illuminated Cathedral politics. As much as I knew at least.
“So there’s a chance for the others to go home…” she said.
The others?
“There’s a chance you could see your family again,” I probed.
“Not me. If you were reaching the limit of who they could send to the surface at level 2,200, then I’ve already surpassed it. The other girls could still make it though. I’ll inform them right away. If they focus on mastering their skills and magic instead of leveling they could still return to the surface. They’re all still within range.”
“It still might work, Aeris. What level are you?”
“3,604.”
My mouth snapped shut. How was that possible? If the others were still around level 2,000, how was she close to doubling their level? I half knew the answer before I asked, but I asked anyway. “What have you had to do to keep them safe?”
“They treat me differently because—I am different. So I befriended a succubus from a powerful lineage and have benefited from it.”
I could hear the masked disgust in her words. I didn’t ask directly, but as the conversation continued, two things became clear. This friendship of hers required her to do something she loathed, and at least part of it had to do with killing.
Since Shamash had brought up taking a long term approach while in the Vampire Domain so that I could eventually become powerful enough to face off against the Head Mistress, I’d been seriously considering staying in the Vampire Realm longer, even if it weren’t as long as he was recommending. The more powerful I became, the more options we would have. How could I bring myself to stay there any longer than necessary if I knew she was suffering?
Underworld - Vampire Gate: A LitRPG Series Page 28