by A P Gore
While the Acid Vines and Earth Spikes killed the earth elementals one by one, Jon cast perception on his wand. This must be the tenth time already, but whenever he cast perception on it, it felt like reading the text for the first time. Just like a kid would check on his new toy again and again.
A sweet smile played on his lips when he read the text provided by the perception.
Profane Wand of Spell Casting
Class: Magic
Durability: 25/50
Melee Damage: 5-7
Elemental Damage: 2-3 water damage
Spells cast through the wand add 2-4 water damage.
Every fifth spell has 10% chance to cost zero Spirit.
Technically, the bonuses were not out of this world, but the 2-4 water damage added on top of his existing damage was great. His Earth Spike was dealing 28-30 damage at level 5. And sometimes the fifth spell came out free. Icing on the cake. With the help of this wand, his Acid Vine and Earth Spike had reached level 5 and Mold Earth had reached level 3, adding to his joy from finding the wand.
Suddenly, Dave moved, smashing a monster charging at Jon. “Lord, please focus on the fight.”
Jon smiled sheepishly. That was the final monster of the fifteen-monster herd. As it died, a white light fell from the skies and patched up his clothes.
Congratulations, you have leveled up. You gain 5 stat points and 3 skill points. You can choose the spells available for level 5.
He quickly dumped 2 points in Dexterity, 1 in Strength, and 2 in Wisdom before moving on to the spell list for level 5.
This time, the list looked good, and it was hard to choose two from them. After going through the list, he chose two damage dealing spells, hoping that he would get the Raise Plant spell as the free one.
Call Lightning: Call upon the power of thunder to strike a five square meter area. Lightning strikes randomly. The first strike deals 100n damage, and subsequent strikes deal 15n+15n*SP damage in a small two-foot radius. Where n is the spell level and SP is the spell multiplier. Time: 1 min. Cooldown: 1 min. Cost: 100 Spirit.
Underground Vine: Conjure a vine that sneaks through the land, making it difficult to detect by the normal creatures. It attacks the target for 125n damage. Where n is the spell level. Vine dies after 2 attacks. Conjures 2 vines at a time. Cost: 250 Spirit.
He dropped one point in each, bringing them to level 2. Now he had 3 points free, but he had to look at the random free spell first. Surprisingly, it was as useless as it could be.
Speak with Plants (Passive): You can speak with a plant or vine that you control and make them work for you. 20% chance for a neutral plant to listen. 50% chance for the vine you conjured to listen.
What would he talk to plants about? Make them grow two fruits? Or ask the vine to send a flower to a lady? Damn, why did he get a useless spell like this?
Whatever. He couldn’t expect a badass spell as a free spell. The game developers must have coded it to give only useless spells. The jerks.
“Lord, how many crystals you have collected?” Dave asked, picking up a few from the ground and handing them to Jon.
Jon rubbed his jaw. “With these ten, we have seventy-three. It’s good that drop rate is great, otherwise...” He glanced at the top of the mountain. According to Dave, the mountain top had the biggest lair of earth elementals, and he was planning to kill them all.
“How many do we need?”
“At least five hundred.” Jon eyed the mountain again. They had a long way to go, but he would not back down. Whatever it took, he would fend off the beast tide and save the village. With his new spells, his chances had increased. He would take anything at this point.
Before heading forward, he cast a glance at his character sheet.
Name: Jon (Level 5)
Class: Arch Druid
Second Class: Formationist
Stats:
Strength 23
Dexterity 7
Constitution 13
Intelligence 5
Wisdom 30
Chance 2
Charisma 2
Health 455/455
Stamina 280/280 (6.68/S)
Mana 50/50 (5.25/S)
Spirit 300/300 (14/S)
Utility Class: Herbalist (Level 2)
Stat points available: 0
Skill points available: 3
Experience 13200/19000
Skills:
Passives:
The Circle of Land
Mark of the Formation Master
Formation Painter
Speak with Plants
Mana Manipulation (Level 1)
Land Tasting (Level 1)
Spirit Cycling (Level 6)
Pain Attunement (Level 3)
Formation Painter (Level 2)
Copying (Level 1)
Active:
Mold Earth (Level 3)
Healing Space (Level 3)
Acid Vine (Level 5)
Land Heal (Level 2)
Elemental Shield (Level 1)
Purify (Level 1)
Earth Spike (Level 5)
Conjure Light (Level 1)
Call Lightning (Level 2)
Underground Vine (Level 2)
Utility Skills:
Perception (Level 1)
“Let’s go.” Jon marched toward the top of the mountain, but as soon as he stepped past a huge tree that spanned a nearly ten-foot area, he received a warning.
System: Warning. You are entering an ownerless formation. Do you want to deactivate it? Yes/No.
Chapter 36
Stopping in his tracks, Jon read the warning message again.
Dave was already five meters ahead of him, so he signaled him to come back.
Dave pursed his lips while walking back along the excavated road, his shoes making no sound at all. He must have thought Jon found a monster herd.
“Dave did you get a warning message when you walked past this tree?” A cold breeze passed by, giving his heated body a much-needed break.
“No, Lord. I didn’t. Is there a problem?” Dave replied, his expression solemn.
Jon glanced at the tree. Other than being huge, it looked like a normal tree with a massive trunk and foliage that hosted hundreds of bird nests. It was like any other common tree in Abomination Forest. Nothing amiss.
Jon shook his head and padded forward. Once again, the warning message popped up as he moved past the tree.
System: Warning. You are entering an ownerless formation. Do you want to deactivate it? Yes/No.
After eyeing the message for a couple of seconds, Jon chose Yes.
System: Deactivating the formation... deactivation success.
Congratulations, you have discovered a new formation. I must say, you are a fortunate bastard. + 1 Chance.
New formation learned.
Illusion Formation
Tier: 2
Allow the caster set a large-scale illusion of his choice. Requires seven flags to set up.
Formation Symbol:
A symbol appeared in his mind.
Cost: 1000 Spirit/day
What the heck? What kind of formation was this, and how could he learn it despite it being a tier 1 formation? Wasn’t it meant for someone higher than Formation Adept? And if the formation was deactivated, where were the flags?
“Lord, what in the world is this?” Dave’s voice quaked.
Lifting his eyes, Jon observed the horror on Dave’s face before glancing in the direction Dave was looking. He too didn’t fare well.
The formation was concealing something unnatural. Something that shouldn’t have been revealed at any cost.
A dead dragon as massive as a whole city lay in a huge creator. Its skin was tattered, and its blood stained the land, leaving a permanent mark behind. Its skin was so glowing that it threatened to blind Jon.
Turning his eyes away, Jon stared at the tree in horror. Why was a dragon here? Dead or otherwise?
“Lord, see...” Dave’s whole body quivered.
What the heck was this?
Damn. Why was this dragon laying here? Someone had hidden the dragon for a purpose, and one thing Jon knew was that it wouldn’t be good to expose it right away.
But why was the dragon connected to the formation? Was it charging the formation?
It should have, otherwise how could a person fulfill a 1000/day Spirit requirement?
Whatever. One thing was clear. Jon had to reactivate the formation, or else whatever was searching for the dragon would be here soon and his village might end up tangled up in whatever this was.
Moving around the tree, Jon tried to look for the formation flag with the help of the Spirit thread that still connected to the dragon’s body. After ten minutes of fumbling and searching, he finally spotted the flag hidden behind a small bird nest.
Jon took a deep breath and sent some Spirit inside the flag. He didn’t know if it would work, but he had to give it a try.
System: Do you want to take ownership of the formation? Yes/No.
Yes.
System: Formation ownership change. New Owner: Jonathan Bacardi.
Do you want to activate the formation? Yes/No.
Yes
He shouldn’t have chosen yes.
A pain as sharp as someone stabbing his heart with a thousand knives emerged from his chest and a river of Spirit flooded his hand. This time, he sensed the Spirit line from his right and left hands enlarging to the extreme. The pain, it soon become unbearable as the muscles in his hands tore apart, and the Spirit flooded away into the formation flag.
In a heartbeat, all 300 Spirit he possessed vanished, and the flow shifted to his blood.
Damn, it hurt more than he could endure.
His veins burst. Blood leaked from all his orifices, even from his eyes, and before he could do anything, his brain shut down.
Chapter 37
System: Congratulations, because of your self-destructive nature you have achieved tremendous progress in your Spirit Cycling.
+2 Spirit Cycling.
The feat is not in the pain, but having the veins burst—even on the crotch. That’s gross, man. You should try to stay around your upper body if you want to achieve mastery in Pain Attunement.
+6 Pain Attunement.
+1 Wisdom.
-2 Intelligence for the next twelve hours. For your stupidity, of course. What else could it be?
A myriad of messages crowded Jon’s vision when he opened his eyes. When he was able to look past the nasty messages, he found a familiar face with a twisted chin nearly kissing him.
Thrusting his hands against Dave’s chest, he pushed him away. “What the f-k, Dave. What are you trying to do?” Was this a gay town? First Mitch sneaked up on him while he was bathing, and now Dave was trying to take advantage of a lone passed out male.
Gross!
Instinctively, Jon wrapped his arms around his bloody torso. Only then did he realize he had a sticky liquid all over his body. A throbbing pain echoed from all over, too.
His gaze lowered to his body. His clothes were in tatters, colored dark red.
F-ck! It was his blood. There was no part of his body intact. Even his private parts. Damn that formation, how could it tear apart the best part of his body?
But where was the pain?
All he could feel was a throbbing sensation all over his body. If he closed his eyes, he could feel the cuts, the busted veins, but they weren’t paining him as much they should.
Ah, the Pain Attunement! It had lowered his pain to a certain degree. That’s why he didn’t feel much pain, even though his HP was 5.
What the heck!
First, he went still, and then he cast a Healing Space around himself. Right now, even a gentle breeze could kill him.
A warm wave of relief flowed through his body, easing his aches and refilling his HP. His broken muscles, veins, and everything patched up. Including his private parts. Thank god!
By the weird gaze Dave gave him before turning away, Jon guessed it must have looked pretty bad.
After nearly two minutes, Jon felt like he could move his hands and feet. Still, a dull ache remained in his body, a relentless throbbing pain.
What was it?
His HP was full, so there shouldn’t be any pain.
Anyway, he jumped to his feet and glanced down, making sure everything was intact. One thing struck him hard. There were no women in his village. He would have to work hard on attracting some beautiful talent. Otherwise, the village would be famous for being the first gay community in the game.
Even the thought creeped him out.
“Take this, Lord.” Dave handed him a pair of clean trousers and a shirt without looking back.
Jon smiled sheepishly as he accepted it. Now he really hoped Grimish would bring some new clothes for him.
After putting the clothes on, Jon touched the formation flag lying next to him.
Formation of Illusion
Active
Do you want to deactivate it? Yes/No.
No.
Lifting the flag up, Jon placed it back behind the nest. Without understanding the formations, no one could find and deactivate the formation. The world had lost the Formationist and upgraded classes, so at least he wasn’t worried about anyone else finding out about the dragon.
Now, to find out the secrets of the dragon.
“Dave, let’s go.” Jon marched toward the dragon corpse.
“Lord, where did the dragon go? Was it just an illusion?”
A smirk spread on Jon’s lips. Right, only he could see through the formation. Dave wouldn’t see a thing. “It was an illusion to scare us away. But don’t worry. I’ll show you the correct path now.”
Dave nodded and followed Jon.
It was a long, straight, uneventful path. They didn’t encounter any earth elemental herds, and it made Jon worry a bit. To get his wall patched up, he needed at least five hundred crystals, and he only had seventy-three right now.
Where did the elementals go? Did he scare them off?
It made little sense, unless they had telepathy powers, but the hordes he had killed before were just a few hundred meters away from each other. In that case, the first horde should have notified the second, and so on, or at least some reinforcements should have arrived to stop him.
That wasn’t the case.
Suddenly, a group of ten earth elementals popped out of the land and circled them. They had legs. Legs.
Jon tried to cast his new spell, Call Lightning, but before he could wave his hand, the wands in the earth elementals’ hands moved and locked Jon in place.
Jon groaned, unable to move.
The dark red eyes of the elementals locked on them, the wands in their hands still moving. Were they going to kill them both?
Jon tried to cast perception on one of the monsters, but it failed with a nasty message from the system.
“Lord, we are doomed! These are level 15 rare monsters. We aren’t getting out of here alive.”
Chapter 38
Sweat trickled over Jon’s back as ten pairs of red eyes locked on him. Grasping, he braced himself for pain and death. Hopefully, Pain Attunement would negate most of the pain for him.
“Formationist, come with them. We need to talk.” A growling voice echoed from the elementals. They didn’t have mouths, but the sound originated from somewhere on their faces.
Jon swallowed. What did they want to talk about? Did he have a choice? If they wanted to talk, then they could talk.
“Dave let’s follow them for now,” he whispered.
“Other intruder. Scram!” The elementals shouted at Dave, sending chills down Jon’s legs.
Dave eyed him for a moment and then ran off with his tail in between his legs
. Not that he had a tail, but he ran like he had one. Poor guy.
Now, only Jon remained locked in place before the creatures and their baleful red eyes. This was bad. Why did they want to talk with him, alone?
“Okay, he’s gone. Let’s talk,” Jon said as Dave vanished from his view. Poor Dave just took off like anything. Dexterity rocks!
“Come to me.” The deep growling voice boomed around him before the elementals turned and started walking. Actually, started stumbling and falling. If that could be called walking. Even Jon felt bad for them as they stumbled again and again.
The invisible lock around him vanished, so he followed them.
After what felt like an eternity of walking, they entered a small opening in the rock that led into a dark valley. Abruptly, everything went dark like someone had shut off the lights, and a presence probed him for a moment before he was pulled from his place. In a flash, he was teleported in front of a huge stone door.
The door opened with a thud that threatened to blast Jon’s ears off. Well, it sort of did. -30 damage appeared in his vision. If the door had this much damage potential, how much strength would its owner have?
Damn, he was in trouble.
A blast of warm wind rushed outside as the door opened and pushed Jon back. Pushing his heels on the stone pavement, Jon padded forward, entering through the door.
A large hall awaited him. And ten immense stone earth elemental statues. The statues had legs, and they were huge, nearly five meters tall, carved with precision.
Jon’s heart sank as a thought occurred to him. What if these statues were alive? Even a stomp of a foot from one statue would turn his body into a paste.
“Come to me, Formationist.” The same growling voice echoed from one corner of the hall.
Jon increased his pace and avoided staring at the statues. He had a gut feeling that their red eyes tracked his every action.
The owner of the voice was scarier than the statues. Five meters tall when seated, the monster stared at Jon with two dark red vertically-stacked eyes that made Jon grasp for a breath. It was like two different monsters staring at him, probing him, making plans to kill him independently. And the worst part, the eye on the forehead shifted its place all along the monster’s forehead, and the other one in between the brows constantly glared at him.