by Aleron Kong
Sixteen of the twenty-one scorpions were caught in the AoE. They ran around in a panic, crashing into each other. The other five reared back in fear. An intelligent opponent might have just skirted the fire to press their attack, but these monsters lived in darkness. The sudden heat was like hell coming to earth. Richter didn’t pause for a second. Once more, red light surrounded both hands and he dual cast Weak Fireball.
A marble of flame appeared between his hands and shot forward two seconds later. After leaving his hands, it grew in size. The spell exploded on the ground, several feet to the left of the raging inferno. Four of the unharmed scorpions were caught in the blast, along with five that were already in the inferno. That only left one completely unharmed. It ran toward the cave entrance, squealing in anger. Richter wasn’t worried. This was literally what Sloth was born for.
A mental order brought the Earth construct running into the cave. After that, it was just cleanup. Richter kept spamming his spells to attack from afar. A few scorpions made it out of the fire, but every one of them was afflicted with Burn status. Even leaving the patch of blazing grease didn’t save them, as their very bodies were ablaze now. The DoT would fade eventually, but the juvenile beasts wouldn’t live long enough to see it.
The few that made it toward the entrance of the cave were crushed under his golem’s feet. The others died either electrocuted, fried or riddled with holes from Dark magic. The BBQ actually smelled pretty good in Richter’s opinion. His stomach gurgled, something that had been happening since he ate their mom. Clearly, he still had room for more.
He made sure to cast Soul Trap copiously as well. Every death was heralded by a swirl of rainbow light. After he saw the last scorpion stop moving, he dismissed his Grease spell. Without that, the sea of flames went out. The only light was from two monsters that were still burning like creepy candles.
He banished the darkness completely with a few seconds of casting. Ten balls of Far Light shot around the chamber. Individually the balls weren’t too much stronger than a candle, but together they were enough to let him see. He observed the cavern for a full minute, and made sure to check behind him as well. The last thing he wanted was for another monster to take a bite out of his butt. There was no movement. Carefully, he sent the golem ahead of him and walked behind it. Gold light surrounded his fingers and he cast Weak Detect Hostile Intent.
The spell let him know about any creatures within a ten-yard radius that had active, hostile intent toward him. The short range didn’t make it practical to have it on while traveling. It also didn’t register all threats. If there was a sleeping monster, for instance, there would be no intent to make the spell ping. Similarly, there were predators that didn’t mean you ill, but would attack if you got too close. A well-fed lion wouldn’t trigger the spell, but would most certainly maul you if you got too close.
The Life spell definitely had its limitations, but for checking a small space after a battle, it was perfect. The chance that there was something still living in the monster lair that didn’t want to hurt him was small-to-none.
Richter walked along, pulses of gold light radiating out from him in a slow throb. To his relief, nothing turned red. As he walked, he cast Far Light several more times. The spell only cost 4 MP thanks to Tranquil Soul, and more light was definitely a good thing in Richter’s book. Most definitely a good thing. While he cleared the room, he also cleared out the notifications that were waiting for him.
You have slain Ironspine Scorpions (juvenile) x 21. You have gained 651 XP.
XP deficit remaining: -3,841,198
The piss-poor amount of experience made Richter curse. He’d just killed nearly two dozen monsters, some of which had had a higher level than the average level of his villagers, and he’d only gotten a measly six hundred and fifty-one experience? Seriously?
The chaos lord had never really paid too much attention to battle XP before. With Alma being able to Brain Drain it had never been that important. Now that he had a several million XP deficit though, sure as shit was shiny it mattered now!
He focused on the experience he got from a level ten scorpion and saw that the base experience the monster offered at its level was 407 XP. From a half-remembered conversation with Terrod, he recalled that for every ten levels he was higher than his enemy, the XP gained would be halved. So if he’d been level twenty, then he’d have gotten 203 XP. At level forty-five, that had shrunk down to only 68.
To add some truffle butter to the crap sandwich, his new tier further decreased any experience gained from lower-tiered creatures by an additional 20%. That meant the grand total he got from each monster was about 30. Thirty points for a Doberman-sized scorpion that shot acid out of its ass. How the hell was a guy supposed to make a living?
He was seriously disheartened by the experience decay. He’d need to kill a hundred and twenty-five thousand more of the bamas to pay back his XP deficit. If he managed to do that, then boom, Bob’s your uncle. Of course, then he’d have to kill another thirty thousand to make it to level forty-six. At that moment, Richter’s view of monsters shifted in a fundamental way. They stopped being fearsome entities and started looking like sacks of XP. “I need to find some higher-level things to kill,” he muttered.
His mood lifted a bit when he stepped over a particularly well-cooked scorpion. Unlike some of the others, it wasn’t blackened, and the chitin on one of its claws had split open. He could see orange-pink flesh beneath. Some steam was rising out of the hole, and it looked better than a crab boil. His stomach gurgled loud enough to rouse the dead. With a smile on his face, he thought, don’t mind if I do.
Richter reached down and tore pieces of the shell away. The chitin was flexible and tough, but his super strength made quick work of it. His fingers got burned slightly, but he didn’t notice that any more than he noticed the meat searing his taste buds a second later. He munched on two of the claws while he looked a bit frantically around the cavern. The fight had gone well, but it had taken about fifteen minutes. He had less than an hour left before his debuff killed him. He had to find water.
As he searched, he realized that the cave was not as simple as he’d first thought. There were a few short tunnels and smaller caves, in addition to the main cavern. Seeing that, he made the golem explore them first, but there weren’t any other monsters. Most were just filled with trash. There were bits of rotting flesh, gnawed bones scored with sharp teeth, and everywhere he looked, smears of a crusty white substance.
The entire cave was like that, just a trash heap of the scorpions’ daily lives. To his mounting concern, there wasn’t a drop of water to be seen. His spell didn’t find any either. Richter was starting to think that he’d have to rush blindly back out into the tunnels. The danger in that was obvious, but what else was he going to do?
He’d just finished checking the last side tunnel when, despair gripping him, his Tracking skill saved his life. He noticed the faintly glowing trail of an adult scorpion’s footprints leading to what he’d thought was bare rock. Curious and desperate, he walked over and looked behind an upraised lip of stone. There he discovered a small tunnel that had been hidden from view. Without his Tracking skill, he never would have found the scorpion’s trail. The entrance was only about three feet across and two feet high. With the weak light from his spells, it would have been easy to miss. It led downward at a steep angle.
One thing gave Richter hope. Unlike the rest of the monster nest, only a few prints led down the passageway. The rest of the den looked like Grand Central Station, but it seemed the juvenile scorpions rarely traveled down this one shaft. It might have been the home of the adult. Maybe, just maybe, he’d find something worthwhile down there.
He still wasn’t just going to shove himself down a hole with no room to wiggle around. This wasn’t college. Death magic wreathed his fingers as he summoned rats again. They ran down the hole and spread around. When he didn’t hear any dying squeaks, he figured it was safe enough. Magical light illuminated his way a
s he squeezed his muscular body into the hole. He began cursing as he lost skin on the rock walls. He’d never been a big fan of tight spaces, but he comforted himself that if the scorpion had managed to climb through the tunnel, he could too. Richter did his best to ignore the voice in his head pointing out that bugs could compress their bodies in ways that he couldn’t.
After what felt like an hour but was actually only minutes, he emerged into a small cave. It would have been just big enough to fit two bunk beds side-by-side with no space left over. There was no other exit, but that didn’t matter to Richter. The only thing that mattered was that his nose had picked up the scent of water!
Richter cast Weak Find Water once again. Immediately, the spell located a small stream flowing along the back of the cave. If his body had had enough water he would have cried. As thirsty as he was, he didn’t forget the toxic metals he’d drunk just hours ago. Cupping a hand in the stream that was no more than a foot across, he brought it up to his nose. Sniffing, he couldn’t smell anything off. It took major willpower, but he cast Weak Purify Drink.
No major impurities detected.
With an audible cheer, he slurped it down.
While the meat from the scorpions’ claws had made him croon in pleasure, the water nearly made him swoon. He literally felt it flowing into his tissues. He dipped his hand into the stream several times, before setting aside all shame. He got down on all fours and placed his lips on the surface of the water flow. “Umm. Ummmm. Um!” were the only sounds he made while he finally gave his poor body what it needed. It was sweeter than any wine he’d ever had, and after several swallows, he read something even sweeter.
You are no longer Dehydrated.
A surge of relief shot through him. Richter cast Weak Slow Heal and Minor Slow Heal in succession. At long last, he could restore his health. While his red bar refilled, the low level of constant pain that plagued him faded away. It was possible that this was the happiest moment of his new life. He fell onto his back and laughed in giddy exuberance.
He was alive. He had fed and his thirst was quenched. The chaos lord lay on the rough stone and realized that the cold stone, in that moment, was more comfortable than any bed. He gave a mental order for Sloth to guard the entrance of the side tunnel, then just gave in. His consciousness sank into the still surface of the bottomless Sea of Dreams, with one thought echoing across the mirror of smooth water.
I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.
CHAPTER 34 – Day 152 – Juren 3, 0 AoC
Richter woke up feeling like a new man. His light had gone out while he was lying down so he opened his eyes to darkness. For a moment he was disoriented, but not worried. It was the kind of confusion that only comes from sleeping so deeply that you suffer from temporary memory loss. Despite that lack of knowledge, he was so relaxed he just didn’t care. A prompt flashed in the corner of his vision. He checked it with the absentmindedness of scanning for emails when you just woke up.
Congratulations! You have learned the enchantment Earth Boundary, Level I
Enchantment Type: Item
Enchantment Size: 5
Enchantment School: Earth
Effect: Create a stationary shield comprised of Earth magic.
Base Defense: +2
Base Health: +50
Radius: 10 yards
Richter blinked away the cobwebs. This was great! Now had a way to make a shield to protect him while he slept. The defense and health weren’t much. Even a low-level monster could probably get through it in a couple seconds. It wasn’t meant to really keep anything out. It was an alarm system. If he got even one moment of warning, it could save his life.
Sadly, there was more to the prompt.
To create a shield enchantment, an object with a Mana level of 1 or higher is required.
“Hmph.” Just like that, his dreams of a force shield faded away. He’d only recently become aware of the importance of mana levels when he’d killed the slime. Unless he found something magically active, he wouldn’t have a shield any time soon. It wasn’t all bad news though. This wasn’t something he could use down here, but what if he leveled it up after returning to the village? It was something worth thinking about.
After redirecting his excess mana to unlocking the third level of Sonic Damage, Richter turned his mind back to the here and now. Checking his Bloodline Points, he saw that the purple-green bar was full, so he’d been out for about eight to nine hours. The chaos lord sat up and worked his tongue around his teeth. A slight exertion of will and a few muttered words of power later, balls of light attached themselves to the walls of his small cave. Except for a vague unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, he felt great.
For the first time, he closely examined his surroundings. The three balls of light were more than enough to illuminate the cavern he’d slept in. Absentmindedly, he ran his fingers through his long black curls, then stopped when he felt something crunchy. With a suspicious look on his face, he pulled it out and looked at it. Yep. That was not dandruff. It was doodoo. The small cavern was covered in scorpion excrement, just like the rest of the nest.
Seeing as how he probably smelled like week-old medical waste in Nevada, having slept in dried monster shit was the least of his problems. Other than some old gnawed bones, there wasn’t much else in the cave. Still, he kept looking around, trying to find an explanation for the uneasy pit in his stomach. After another minute, he thought, maybe I’m just stressed. Not like I have any reason to be, he thought with a chuckle. Who wouldn’t love to be trapped miles underground in monster central? Richter smiled. It was amazing how much a meal, a drink and a nap could improve your mood. Pushing the hint of worry out of his mind, he crawled over to get some more water.
The stream ran out of a hole at the back of the small cave. It continued along the wall for several feet before disappearing back into the wall. It couldn’t have been more than a foot across and six inches deep, but to Richter, it was a treasure. Cupping his hands, he drank several mouthfuls. The luxury of being able to drink clean water made him feel like a king. It wasn’t much, but compared to fighting monsters in near-total darkness with debuffs threatening certain death, it was everything.
After he drank his fill, he turned his head to the side, and saw that his first perusal of the cave had actually missed something. There was indeed another living thing here. It was a weed-like plant that wasn’t much to look at it. It was stringy, only a couple feet tall, and had been partially hidden by an outcropping of stone. That coupled with the fact that it was gunmetal grey and blended into the rock made it easy to see why he hadn’t seen it immediately. Actually, it was the white pods hanging off it that had finally caught his eye.
Thinking the plant might be edible, he activated his Herb Lore skill. Since acquiring the skill, useful plants could glow in his sight. It didn’t always work. He was only a third-ranked apprentice in the skill after all. Higher-ranked plants might be beyond his ability to identify. Most useful herbs would light up though and he’d gain valuable information about them. The aura around useful herbs normally didn’t vary much, but this time was different. The glow around the white pods of the withered tree was brighter than the luminescence of any common root or vine.
A prompt appeared. To Richter’s surprise, the notification had the red color of a rare item!
You have found:
White Iron Beanpod
Herb Class: Rare
Herb Quality: Vibrant
Uses:
Novice: None
Initiate: None
Apprentice: Consuming the seeds of this beanpod offers a chance to strengthen the body.
Richter had never seen an herb description like this before. Not only was it rare, but it didn’t have any novice or initiate uses. That meant that if his Herb Lore skill was just a few levels lower, he probably wouldn’t have been able to identify the plant at all. Every skill had benchmarks. Reaching a certain level in the skill would advance you to a higher rank, progressing
from novice to initiate to apprentice, and then to journeyman, adept and master.
There were always perks to advancing ranks. One of the bonuses for Herb Lore was that every rank he achieved could potentially reveal another use of a plant. Typically, the higher-ranked the use, the more powerful the effect. It wasn’t always true. Richter had definitely found plants that did not have effects for every rank. Some only had uses up to the initiate rank or even just the novice rank. Before today, however, he’d always assumed any useful herb would have a novice use. This white iron beanpod was the first plant he’d come across that skipped the first two ranks. He started getting excited, wondering if this might mean that the apprentice effect was more profound than the simple description suggested.
The plant was about three feet tall and had several thin branches. Looking closer at the ground around it, Richter could see that there were a few empty husks lying at the base. The beans were missing. Had the scorpions been eating the peas? Ironspine scorpion and white iron beanpod sounded too much alike to be a coincidence. Maybe the beans strengthened their carapace and imbued it with metal.
He accessed his Tracking skill. Faint trails in the dust lit up in his vision. From what he could see, there were tracks from juvenile scorpions around the plant, but not nearly as many as in the other parts of the cave system. It made sense to him that the adult had monopolized this herb, rationing both it and the water out to the rest of the nest.
As fascinating as the social dynamics of slain monsters were, the question now was what to do with the plant. Everything pointed to the fact that it was powerful. That didn’t mean it was safe to eat. One of the first lessons his granddad had taught him was not to just put things in his mouth, even on a dare. He still remembered the old man correcting himself. Especially not on a dare!