by Dakota Krout
I zoomed in on one of the creatures that I wanted to learn the name of and waited for someone in the area to say something. What I wasn’t expecting were the screams. Terror and horror filled the space, and the wall hosting the undead creature went *boom* as a Mage charged at the ‘creature’ and punched it. The structure detonated, injuring dozens of weaker humans as it collapsed.
“I got it, I think!” the Mage cheerfully called out.
“You moron, it’s an illusion!” I think this guy was one of the remaining Spotters? Made sense that he was the first to recognize the projection for what it basically was.
A few minutes later, the wall was repaired, and over a hundred people were watching as the undead marched. Speculation ran rampant as people tried to figure out what was going on, and I was getting frustrated by the lack of correct guesses or information that I was hearing. I almost shouted for joy when someone noticed that the area we were flying over looked suspiciously similar to what had been projected recently. From there, the veil came down quickly. There was a collective ‘celestial feces’ moment, and someone must have run off to alert the Guild members because they appeared shortly after. When they confirmed what they could clearly see, people began moving around quickly.
Messengers ran to and through the portal, and merchants were suddenly swarmed with customers who had ‘just remembered’ that they needed an important or life-saving item. Barry tried to yell at me and give me orders to stop getting closer, but I continued with my facade of not being able to ‘hear’ him until he came down to at least the third level of the dungeon. After getting my new orders, I ever so slowly changed directions and continued following, albeit at a glacial rate along a zig-zag path. I still needed to gain Essence to fly freely because I was devoting most of the Essence now collected into other projects.
Barry was now back at the projection, speaking with the other members of the Guild that had been riding along. “As soon as we hear that the Guild is attacking, we will increase our pace. When we have word that our allies have flanked this mass, we will wait six hours and proceed at full speed into the undead. The heavy hitters amongst our groups - A ranked or above - will destroy the Tomb Lords and Abominations as well as any necromancers that we can find. Anyone B-ranked or lesser will fight against the standard undead and lesser necromancers at ground level. Are your orders clear? Does anyone have any question as to which group they will be in?”
Barry waited for anyone to ask a question, and sighed with relief when no one did so. “Thank goodness; I was sure someone would have forgotten their rank by now.” People chuckled at his words. Wait a moment… was this guy popular? Was he liked and respected by the majority of his Guild? He continued to chat, and I looked at the people around him. It was true! They liked him! This cannibalistic monster clothed in the flesh of a man had people fawning over him! I was a little sick to my fifth floor over this! Great, now I can’t not picture my fifth floor as a stomach. I blame Barry for this, too.
Let me see… escape plan in place, a growing group of Silver Legion Goblins setting up positions on the fourth floor, at maximum capacity for Mage-rank Bob production… all done. I can’t really think of anything else to do right now. I suppose I could link myself to the Runescript set up for ley lines, but I figured that I would do that while the war was going on and I was in position not doing much else. Navigation Bob will make the call if we need to run for it, and I should be able to retaliate against anyone attacking me directly.
I was churning out anti-demon weapons, and all of my Mobs that could use these weapons were given them. Even my Bashers had tiny, little shoes with Inscribed silver claws on them. My troops were deadly and adorable!
Chapter Thirty-six
A voice boomed from the balcony of what used to be Dale’s bedroom. The power-infused voice reached everyone on Mountaindale, even those within the dungeon. It took a second to register, but the voice resolved itself as Barry. “People of… Mountaindale. War approaches. The time you have spent here has likely been an excellent respite, a time safe from the constant struggle the rest of the civilized world has been embroiled in. Unfortunately, I must inform you all that your relaxation must now come to an end.”
As the echoes faded, people began talking to each other. Barry interrupted once more; he had apparently been pausing for dramatic effect. Dale shook his head; he had waited too long to continue. In his opinion, everything now sounded stilted and poorly rehearsed. “War approaches. I hope that all of you survive. Though, I know many of you will not. This mountain is flying directly at the rear of the necromantic army, and in a few hours, the strongest members of the Guild will be arriving to assault the leadership of these monsters. We ask all cultivators to prepare themselves and all non-cultivators to remove themselves and either leave through the portal or seek shelter in the dungeon’s… workroom? There’s a workroom down there?”
Now it was obvious that the man was reading from a script. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but he didn’t even bother to read through it beforehand. Just laziness. “*Ahem*. As I was saying, any cultivator attempting to avoid service to the Guild will be placed on the front lines of the battle when they are caught. If they survive, they will be slain after the battle has been won. Time is running out. Get moving.”
Was ‘get moving’ his catchphrase or something? Dale shook his head to clear his thoughts; where had this constant mockery of other people’s speech patterns come from? He hadn’t done this in the past, had he? Dale felt at his aura, pleased with the progress he had made in the last few days. With the help of his team, he had been able to cultivate uninterrupted deep within the dungeon. His rank had increased back to D-three, but there was no comparison in terms of power from the first time he had been at this point. The only reason he was still in the D-ranks was because he had been devoting every spare drop of Essence to enhancing his body.
His cultivation technique had never been meant for humans or, really, anything that was able to move. Dale was using a B-ranked dungeon’s personal cultivation technique, and the incredible results were obvious. All he had left to finish his aura entirely was his skin. From there, the way to increase in rank was to increase the flow of Essence to these areas. There were two more steps involved with reaching the Mage ranks from this point. Yes, the Mage ranks. Firstly, his body and external aura needed to be fully enhanced and empowered. Secondly, he needed to break through the barriers that limited his race. This was done by reaching the peak of the C-ranks and attempting to climb the Tower of Ascension.
Climbing the tower was… difficult to learn any real information about. Mages seemed to have different theories on why they were able to attain differing laws, but two facts were widely known. The more knowledge of a particular subject you had, the more likely you were to be able to grasp and bind to it. The second was you needed to have an affinity for it. The C-ranks were where people would usually open affinity channels, like Craig had done in the past in order to have three affinities. Of course, the one that had been trained to this point was going to be the most potent affinity, and the others could only be lesser or just about the same. There were… mishaps sometimes when opening affinity channels, but the process itself was known to be reasonably safe.
All of his channels were open, his aura was already almost built, and he should be able to gather the required Essence in weeks instead of years. Dale would be able to skip all the steps except for learning about the laws. If he attempted to jump into the Tower without the knowledge he needed, he would likely be stuck at the first tier… or he would die. It had happened in the past. Every single cultivator had heard the stories. People who skipped steps, who thought they could cheat, who cut corners… they died. Almost always in some spectacular fashion. That was the real reason that the world wasn’t stuffed with Mages. Either the C-rankers were too lazy to push forward and learn all they could about their possible Mana paths, or they worked very hard and pushed for higher tier knowledge.
There wa
s almost no in-between. There were very few people that would get to the peak of the C-ranks and be happy only reaching the first tier. The very few who were simply glad to be Mages… well, they tended to regret their decisions later on. Dale closed his eyes and smiled. He had a plan, a plan that would make others hate him if they knew about it; he was going to cheat. Dale burst into laughter, startling his team from their own cultivation or guard duty. They were already on edge from Barry’s announcement to Mountaindale, and his random outbursts were not smiled upon. Dale simply kept his eyes closed to avoid the glares and thought through his plan.
Path advancement. That is what it all came down to. Dale would power through the C-ranks, and when he had the chance, he would throw himself into the Tower and climb as high as he could. He would be fine even if he took a first tier power because he knew from Rose that Madame Chandra had recently been able to upgrade her law. If she could do it just from the knowledge she had accrued plus a little nudge from the dungeon, Dale could as well.
He planned to take the several hundred extra years of life that reaching the Mage ranks granted and progress smoothly and continuously. As far as he knew… he was the first person ever to attempt something like this. There had been path advancements in the past, but they were always mysterious. They were not planned events and certainly not to the extent Dale was thinking of. Most dreamed that they may be able to advance once before the S-ranks… not him, though. He was going to climb until he was happy with his choices.
“I still can’t believe what I’m seeing.” Hans shook his head and sighed as he watched the Essence flow through Dale and connect each cell in his body to his Core. The weave was done with pure Essence, and the weave was so tight that Dale’s body must have increased in durability and strength by a factor of ten. “You look like a Royal with that technique. If you ever find or make a spare of that… I have a hidden pit filled with platinum and gold coins I’d hand over.”
Dale chuckled as he infused the skin on his palms, dust falling as his epidermis tightened and thickened. “Ouch! Wasn’t supposed to do that. I’ll see what I can do, Hans.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Dale’s team walked out of the dungeon and looked around, utterly dumbfounded by the sheer chaos in the surrounding area. People were running toward the portal, Guild shock troops were coming out of it, the projection on the wall had increased in size and the undead were clearly visible, and merchants were basically under attack from cultivators trying to buy things. Over all of this was the shouting. Everyone was yelling about something, whether it was ordering another out of their way, screaming for some reason, or attempting to attract the merchant’s attention. A few impromptu bar areas had been set up as well, and these were making money hand over fist.
“Over here, pharmacist!” a man shouted at Stefan. Dale only recognized him because of his unique name. “I was here first!”
Bedraggled and overworked, Stefan nodded painfully and slowly. "One potion of cure disease of sexual origin? Give me fifteen minutes…"
"Hey, hurry it up! If I don’t have that potion ready by the time we are sent to fight, I’m going to cut you!" Stefan didn’t react to this shout, moving at a continuous pace no matter the verbal assault thrown at him.
“I guess we’re getting closer to the undead than I expected.” Dale frowned as he looked at his team. They were all pretty worn down from the last few weeks of intense training and cultivation. “We should all split up and get some rest. Thank you all for helping me get to this point; I won’t forget it. Sorry if I haven’t been as invested in the team as I should have been recently.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Dale, you aren’t the only person in the world. What do you think we do when we aren’t working together, sit around drinking and longing for your company?”
“I mean, I do that.” Hans batted his eyelashes at Dale.
“Oh, stop it. No! We train, hone our skills, and live our own lives. Also, when we party up like this, you aren’t the only one who benefits. We’ve all been cultivating. We’ve all gotten stronger. You’re fine; we work with you because it is mutually beneficial, and we all like each other.” Rose glanced at Hans. “That is, we all like most of the group. Don’t go all melodramatic on us again.”
Dale froze, slowly losing his severe expression and laughing. “You mean to tell me that I shouldn’t sacrifice myself to the necromancers in an attempt to appease them and halt this war? Well… there goes that plan.” This got a few pity laughs, but the message was clear. They were all friends who would stick together without the need to promise rewards in the future.
“I will gladly take you up on the offer of rest, friend Dale.” Tom clapped Dale on the back, frowning as his hand stung and Dale didn’t budge an inch. “Huh. That is new. You seem to have become denser.”
“That explains why we need to keep explaining things to him!” Rose called as she walked away.
The others chuckled and scattered to pursue their own interests, leaving Dale to plan his next move. He opened his bag and counted the gold and silver he had stored away. His bank account held more, but the large pile of gold he carried with him should do for now. He walked into one of the only places in the academy courtyard not stuffed with people and started shouting, adding to the noise. “Buying Cores in bulk! Sell your Cores for gold here!”
There were a few people giving him strange looks, but soon enough, students began drifting over to sell him their Cores. When word spread that he was paying good coin, the crowd around him increased quickly. Usually, Cores were graded and judged by the person buying them, but Dale gave a gold coin for any that held the density of an upper C-rank and half that for anything mid or low. No one offered him a B-rank Core, or he would have certainly bought that as well. When interest in his services waned, he went around to any merchant that was offering cultivation supplies and purchased any Cores they had. Finally, he went to the Guild store and purchased Cores until his coin ran out.
Looking through his bags, Dale could only smile as he saw the vast amount of gem-like objects gathered there. If the dungeon had been truthful, his meridians were more easily able to handle the large amount of Essence that shattering a Core would inject into his body. He needed to be careful, but if this worked, he would be able to get so much more Essence for his trouble. Cultivating while holding a Core worked far better, but it was too slow for his needs. He wasted less doing it properly, but it would take hours to drain a single Core. In a pinch, this would also let him empower abilities and supercharge his Essence attacks.
Dale needed to finish working with his skin. He was honestly surprised how long it took to work on this organ; you couldn’t just infuse a patch of skin to completion, each layer of skin across the entire body needed to be slowly connected at the same time so that it wouldn’t crack and separate from the other layers or the flesh around it. Dale was close to being done but still needed to devote time to making it happen. He rented one of the best empty rooms and took it for himself, barring the door and preparing himself mentally. He was nearly drained from the work he had done so far and so wasted no time in getting a Core out and forcefully crushing it.
*Bamph!* The Core exploded, and Dale grasped at all of the Essence that was now around him and on his body. He tried to pull it all in through his gauntlet but realized that he was being foolish. If there was Essence escaping, why not draw it in with his normal technique? Dale popped another Core and maintained his cultivation. This time, he was able to gain a large amount of Essence before the remaining power diffused into the area. Dale grinned, pleased he had been able to get one of the personal cultivation rooms at the academy. Being the headmaster’s pupil did have some side benefits. There was a reason he had taken this particular room; it had weak but useful Essence gathering Runes throughout the area. Even though he was losing some of the energy from the Core, he would eventually get it back. There was no real escape for this Essence; he would have it all.
An hour passed, and Dale’s bag
full of Cores had been reduced by a quarter. He was absolutely sick of the feeling of Essence crashing into him like this; it felt like an instant drunken high followed by an immediate hangover. At the start, it had only felt good, but this was no longer fun. It was work, and that was all Dale needed to remind himself of in order to get the motivation to withdraw and crush yet another Core. His skin had finished infusing within the first ten minutes of this training, and his cultivation rank had skyrocketed. He broke one more Core and shoved the Essence against the barriers in his Center.
A common misconception was that if you had enough power, you would easily break the bottlenecks that held you in place. Unfortunately, the barriers to advancement were… elastic. ‘Pushing’ on them weakened them over time, but they were fine with expanding to a small degree. Cultivation usually stretched the barriers over and over until they finally gave out, but Dale was attempting to break the barriers as if they were rigid structures. If someone else was using sandpaper to scrape away, he was wildly swinging a hammer and hoping that it would hit a weak spot just right.
This method was painful, as the blockages were not in your physical body; but in your soul and your psyche. Dale crushed another Core and coughed, wiping away fresh blood that had begun dripping from his nose. He absorbed the Essence, and his barriers stopped expanding for a moment before deflating slightly. Dale felt this, and before his Center could use the Essence or remove it… he crushed another Core. The power rushed into him, and his barriers to the C-ranks began to crack. As he pulled in more and more of the Essence in the room, the barriers gave way with a groan like wood splitting. Dale felt the energy that had been used by his mind and body to maintain the barriers flowed back into him, condensing in his Core and wrapping his Chi spiral in a pearly substance.