Skill: Riding
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Level: 35 (Apprentice)
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Melee attacks while riding are 10% stronger
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Upon advancing into the Journeyman level of Riding, you will be rewarded with one randomly selected item related to this skill.
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You have received the spell scroll: Hallowed Ground
+100,000 EXP
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He stopped reading as a flash of light appeared in front of him and two items appeared in front of him.
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Chilling Breeze
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Attack:
361
Weight:
4.2 kg
Charge:
2,234/5,000
Durability:
84/100
Innate Effect:
Strength of the user increases by 14%
Agility increases by 20%
Enchantment One:
Call down Storm of Swords. 10X10m radius. The speed of user increases by 50% for 3 minutes.
Costs 500 charge
3-hour cooldown
Enchantment Two:
Chilling Strike
Imbue sword with the effects of frost. Increase attack power by 100%. Frost attack reduces the opponent’s speed by 5%; lasts for 5 minutes.
5-hour cooldown
Costs 750 charge
Requirements:
Agility 51
Strength 47
Stamina Regeneration 25
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You have learned the spell: Healing Dagger. Your spell book has been updated.
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Healing Dagger
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Novice
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Attack heals instead of harms
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Consumption of Mana based on effect and power.
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The bow wasn’t much use to Erik and he put it away in his storage ring to sell later. The riding spell was interesting, increasing the speed of his mount and its attack strength.
Still, the first skill that I was able to upgrade wasn’t my healing or my alchemy, but my marksmanship? It makes sense, the higher skill displayed then the faster the skill progresses. I have been shooting most of my life.I just learned alchemy a few years ago and with healing, I haven’t had the patients to work on. I wonder if I will be able to reach Expert level healer.
Erik looked at his remaining notifications.
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Skill: Healer
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Level: 80 (Expert)
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You have become familiar with the body and the arts of repairing it. Healing spells now cost 5% less Mana and Stamina.
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All I need are three more levels. I increased by four levels just today. Come on Expert, I’m coming for you!
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58,087,321/86,100,000 EXP till you reach Level 60
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Erik clicked his tongue at his experience bar.
I earned fifty-five million experience points from the two spells I learned, so what if I got like six hundred thousand from fighting the Orcs? Most of them were level fifty-five which decreases the experience I earned by a large margin. What if we were to clear out all of those Orcs, though?
Unknowingly a smile appeared on Erik’s face, the air chilling around him.
Yao Meng cleared his throat, as he reached the tent and the chilling aura around Erik disappeared in a moment.
“Are you ready to begin?”
“Yes, let's start,” Erik said.
Erik cast his new Divine Ground, the mana from the surrounding area poured in toward him, golden threads of power weaved into a spell formation that rose out of the ground, inner magical circles rotated inside as the tent glowed with the spell formation. Looking at it one would feel relaxed. There was none of the chilling aura that came with the original Hallowed Ground that would attack an enemy.
He stepped out of the Divine Ground and maintained it.
The next batch of patients entered.
“Stand in the glowing circle please,” Erik said and he sent out clean spells to them all. They stepped into the Divine Ground and let out surprised noises as they were healed. Erik watched them, seeing their injuries as he changed the Divine Ground, speeding up their recovery. At the same time his healing skill was quietly but quickly increasing.
Chapter: Mining Trip
Rugrat wandered into one of the smithing sectors of the city. They were dotted across the outpost.
He was eating some skewer that he had found in passing.
Storbon kept surveying the area while Tian Cui’s hands were never far from her daggers and Lucinda was petting the bird on her shoulder.
“Huh,” Rugrat grunted, finding the scene amusing as he continued to look at the smiths.
“Most of these places are refineries, it’s as Berk that map guy was saying; this is just a refinery town. The enhancers are interesting,” Rugrat commented to himself as he looked at the different smitheries. He had become an expert on the matter, now he just needed the damn system to realize that he was an Expert and give him the skill level.
“Have you been mining before?” He asked suddenly.
He looked around, seeing the blank looks. “Me neither, want to check it out?”
“Why?” Tian Cui asked.
“Well,” Rugrat thought back to the time that he had been standing at the top of Vuzgal’s tower and had thought on smithing and on weapons, it had opened up a new path for him. “If I know where they come from and learn about that side of things, then it should help me know what kind of materials I am dealing with. The conditions that they are found in affects the metals themselves. If I want to make weapons that are the other half of the natural whole of a fighter, I should learn about its basics, right?”
I guess?” Tian Cui shrugged.
“Good!” Rugrat said and turned.
“Are we going to do it on our own?” Storbon asked.
“I was thinking so,” Rugrat said.
“We’re in a new realm, who knows what we might run into. If we haven’t mined before, shouldn’t we learn from the people that have?”
Rugrat opened his mouth and then closed it.
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Rugrat spotted someone coming out of the smithy.
“Hey, where can we sign up to go mining?”
“Go mining?” The smith looked at them and his tired expression turned into one of anger.
“This place is for smiths, not miners. Go to the job boards and join a group there. If I see you around here again, I’ll get the guards to throw you out of the outpost!”
The man turned around without letting them say anything and headed back into the smithy.
“Someone has a stick up their ass,” Rugrat said and kept eating his skewer. On the being- chewed- out scale, it barely registered to Rugrat.
They didn’t take long to get to a courtyard.
“Looks like there is a team leaving in a few minutes if we run then we can catch them,” Lucinda said.
“Lead on! I smell gold!” Rugrat said.
“That’s not all that valuable up here you know,” Tian Cui said.
“It’s a saying,” Rugrat shot back.
“How do you smell gold exactly, is it a spell?” Storbon asked.
Rugrat slumped his shoulders in suffering and sighed, chewing on his skewer as he petted his support: George.
“Looking for ten miners! Keep forty percent of your haul!”
“Need four more guards for mining trip! You’ll get paid based on your contribution. No less than one percent of entire haul!”
“People with mining related spells come right here! Everything is negotiable.”
Lucinda fo
und them a group. Getting them the position of miners.
The guards eyed them, bandits weren’t unheard of around these areas.
They got into carriages and headed out of the gates. After a short ride they reached a mining plot that had been rented out to the foreman running the entire operation.
There were several other groups. It was a large cavernous area. Great pillars of stone supported the ceiling above. There was a great big pit in the middle where indentured members were breaking stone apart and shoving it into storage rings. The strong stone could be refused together and create strong walls or floors.
Above and around the mining pit there were different tunnels and openings that led to other caverns. Miners were rushing into these tunnels to find their riches. The area was enclosed in a simple wooden barricade to fend off beasts.
People jumped out of the carraiges. Group of miners that were working together rushed out to different plots, setting up quickly.
They were using all kinds of gear and spells, checking the walls.
“Why do we need so many guiards inside the walls?” Tian Cui asked.
“We’re mining through the very walls of the dungeon. There is no knowing if we won’t open up another dungeon filled with all kinds of creatures.” Lucinda said.
“Oh, that’s terrifying,” Tian Cui said.
“What’s worse is if you hit a pocket of gas, it can kill you before you have time to get a second breath,” Rugrat said, moving along the walls and watching the miners working.
Rugrat moved along the walls, he used his hand, seeing through the stone.
He pulled out a pick axe and swung it at the wall.
His powerful blows sent stone flying. Storbon raised walls on either side of Rugrat so he wasn’t hitting others with chips.
Rugrat worked for a good half hour before he slowed his attack, opening up the hole he had made.
Then he used different tools and mana created blades.
He started to pull out a metal that shimmered blue and silver with hints of pink deep within.
Rugrat worked with a frown, putting the metal down.
“What is it?”
“It’s called Chrysantaline rock. Great with Spell scrolls and explosives. Not so good with formations or anything you want to keep for a long time,” Rugrat seemed distracted.
“Something wrong?” Storbon asked.
“Nothing is wrong. I think that I just thought there was something romantic about smashing rocks all day. Doing it you can change the world. If you’re a miner, harvesting all this rock. It is a thrill to think of how you might get a big score. I’ve spent weeks in the libraries learning about all of these different materials. I know what temperature that they need to be at to melt down. Just what other enhancers that it needs to be combined with before it can be used for spell scroll ink. Mining isn’t going to be the source of how to get to Expert.”
Rugrat rolled his shoulders. “All of this jumping around, trying to figure out what I am missing, it is just like I am chasing my tail. I am not acting on anything. Instead of jumping from thing to thing. I should start to work on a new project.”
“What kind of project?”
“Instead of aiming to make an expert grade weapon right off of the bat. Lets just try to make gear that is useful. At a time our normal gear will not work, our rifles won’t be as powerful, nor will our gunpowder rounds. There is a limit. It is high but it is there. On Earth we were talking about rail guns, coil guns and such. I know how weapons work, I’m familiar with them and even if it doesn’t reach Expert. We get new gear that could save a person’s life. Maybe I just won’t make it through the barrier of Expert. Maybe I don’t need to, in order to make a weapon stronger than an experts. That could be cool. Use different information from different places from the very start to make a better weapon. Not create a weapon then add a formation. Like with the repeater the formation is a core part of the weapon. Combine Earth and realm knowledge completely.”
“Well what do we do with this?” Tian Cui nodded at the Chrysantaline rock.
“Beer fund,” Rugrat smiled, feeling like a weight lifted from his shoulders. I can’t do everything, just keep working on the things I know I can do and see a path forward. Maybe later I will see a clearer path.
Chapter: Renowned Competition
As the preliminary matches ended, the betting houses had another wave of patrons coming in and placing their bets.
News spread across the Fourth Realm. As more people heard about the competition they headed over to Vuzgal. Sects that had believed the competition beneath their standing could only watch the competition and they grit their teeth when hearing the rewards the competitors would receive.
Some were already planning to bring their people over for the next competition to get a part of those rewards.
There were very few guilds in Vuzgal, but that was starting to change. Most of the guilds saw the crafter dungeon and all of the crafting that went on inside Vuzgal and while they purchased items from Vuzgal, they didn’t think of making it their base of operations.
They were fighting guilds and they needed to be based in dangerous locations. These were where they would get the greatest payouts for their services and they would be able to fight to their heart's content.
It came as a shock to them when a rumor was circulated that eighty of the top one hundred people in the competition had trained in the Battle Arena. After testing out the training rooms in the Battle Arena most Guilds started to invest in Vuzgal, looking to buy out land. Many were scraping together as much money as they could to get a guild hall after learning of the benefits one might earn.
They complained to the guilds that had already purchased a guildhall and silently kept the advantages to themselves. One could see how their people’s fighting abilities had increased greatly.
Vuzgal was a holy land to crafters, and it appeared that it was becoming a holy land for fighters as well.
The military and the police of Vuzgal had the time to mature and grow into their roles. With the military’s formations and teamwork, even if some of the higher level visitors wanted to make trouble, they were unable to.
As this was all unfolding, the first day of the true competition began. Blaze was sitting in his seat once again and the area around him had more people than before. All of the guild leaders that resided in Vuzgal already were quickly snatching up contracts.
Blaze listened to the conversations around him as people were getting to their seats in anticipation of the fights.
“I heard that there was another fight last night between the Executor guild and the Voidless,” one of the merchants said to his friend.
“Those two are like fire and water, whenever they see one another they’re sure to break out into a fight,” his friend sighed.
“I thought that they would tear up the whole district, but then the Vuzgal people came in on their mounts. The Executor guild leader warned them to stay out of it, there were three groups of like ten of them and there were around fifty executors and Voidless.”
“Ahh, too bold,” The second merchant sighed.
“No, the Executors and Voidless went at it, and then the Vuzgal army beat the hell out of them!”
“What?”
“You know what people have been saying about the Vuzgal being a new weak army, well I doubt that they’d say it anymore. The Voidless and Executor guilds brought people over that were in the mid-forties. They bloody veterans but they were handled easily by the Vuzgal army.”
“How is that possible? Aren’t they recruiting people as fast as possible? The Vuzgal army is only newly formed.”
“I talked to some of the people I know from Vuzgal, it isn’t strange for someone to join the army and reach the mid level forties after a few months of training.”
“Are they hiring experts? How can they level so fast?”
“They’re not hiring on experts, they don’t care about one’s previous record, just their loyalty supposedly.�
�� The first merchant seemed a little shocked as well.
“A fighting force with mid-level Forties as the main body of soldiers, isn’t that a little too powerful?” The second merchant said.
“Well, makes me feel safer with all of the guilds and fighters that are moving around.”
“Too right,” the second merchant agreed.
Blaze smiled to himself. The endless dungeon was closed off every night to the adventurers and while that happened, a group from the Vuzgal army would head over to fight all night against the beasts, increasing their levels and acquiring loot and gear. They kept the monster cores and sold the rest as training resources for the group. Groups cycled through the endless dungeon one after another. After several weeks their levels were bound to increase.
The creatures only reached level Forty-Three at their peak, as they reached that level, they used their saved monster cores to increase their levels once again, leaving them at their current range. Still, they were looking for more ways to increase their power. What they couldn’t do with levels, they did with training, honing their abilities.
Add in learning skills and techniques and some were able to gain a few extra levels. Blaze had talked to Glosil through messages about the operations against the Willful Institute and the dungeon core that he was given by Niemm.
From it, he was able to learn about the Alvan army’s training regime. He was excited to see just how it would improve his own guild members’ power.
Referees walked out to the stages; larger stages filled each level of the Battle Arena for the fighters.
It reduced the number of fights happening but each one would be a soul-stirring battle between experts.
Those who weren’t in their seats, rushed to them while others slowed their conversations to a stop as they looked out at the stages.
Cheering erupted from the stands. Fighters that had been well known or not known at all walked out. Some had grim expressions while others waved to their fans.
Sixth Realm Page 19