Chapter 42: Sushi (1/2)

‘diiiing’ ‘You have been poisoned by the coco fruit. -25 HP/s for 30 seconds.’

‘Quite potent eh.’ she thought and continued eating. The damage was nothing compared to Reconstruction. ‘Maybe some light poison resistance leveling the next days?’

Thinking about it, she walked up to Edwin and asked her question. “What do you think of resistances, worth going through the pain to get them and level them up?”

He looked at her, seemingly a bit distracted but then focused again. “Oh, I mean most people wouldn’t want to go through the pain. You gain some through class changes. Pain resistance would help a lot in getting them but as I said, generally people wouldn’t do it.”

“I have pain tolerance in the 2nd stage.” Ilea simply said and continued eating her fruit.

He took a while to comprehend her words. “What?” he said but then shook his head. “I know like ten people who even have the skill and only two that might have the second stage. They never confirmed though. What does it do?”

“You can turn off pain.” she said and smiled.

He stared at her and then started laughing. “Hahahahahahahaha!” Edwin was caught in a fit and only stopped after a solid minute of laughing.

Wishing away a tear that formed in his eye, he slowly calmed down into chuckles. “Oh that...that is. Thank you for that Ilea. So you’re basically perfectly equipped for getting resistances then. With what should we start?” he asked, still smiling.

“What do we have?” Ilea answered, matching his smile.

There was sadly nothing that could be gained by Edwin’s swords. He also mentioned that no other skills he had would contribute towards any possible resistances. The obvious ones that could be gained were Aliana’s water and Felicia’s wind magic.

Sadly neither of them could be convinced to spar or use their time to shoot spells her way. Ilea simply decided to join Felicia in a nice bath. It wasn’t a warm bathhouse yet but as soon as Aliana was done cooking, that would be changed in a heartbeat.

It took around half an hour and the group followed up the swimming with a proper portion of meat. Ilea was actually craving some potatoes and vegetables but she felt her life was in danger enough as it was and thus refrained from mentioning anything to Aliana.

‘Edwin is open enough about murdering me but that woman has something about her...’ Ilea thought and looked away quickly when their eyes met.

“So Ilea wants to train some resistances, she can apparently turn off her perception of pain...which by the way is the second stage of pain resistance.” Edwin said to the others once everyone had their fill.

“Well let’s get started then.” Aliana stated in a matter of fact way and boiling water formed around Ilea.

As soon as the water touched Ilea, she received a notification.

‘blang’ ‘Heat Resistance reaches lvl 10’

‘Guess that one was close to leveling...not surprising considering my bath from before.’ Ilea of course didn’t think of the nice lake but more the doors of hell that Aliana had opened on their round of sparring.

She had gotten better and better at keeping up her sphere skill and magic perception skill in the past couple days. Magic perception sometimes got in the way a little but with conscious effort she could dim the light a little and it would help a lot with noticing magical attacks before they actually happened. This had allowed her to disable her pain before the water had hit her.

So in the next couple of hours there was a constant pour of boiling water, only interrupted by cuts of wind. Felicia actually turned away to not look at the constantly melting and reforming flesh of Ilea. Aliana on the other hand had an incredibly unsettling expression on her face that Ilea only saw glimpses off between healing and losing her eyes.

‘Not feeling pain is very weird...’ she thought, getting a bit bored of the whole process. There was a difference in grinding something like this and actually fighting against something that tried to kill you. Edwin seemingly thought something similar and motioned for them to stop and finally continue on their way.

Ilea checked her messages and was rather happy at the results. ‘Although fighting Guardians is certainly more effective…’ she thought.

‘clang’ ‘Heat Resistance reaches lvl 11’

‘bing’ ‘You have learned the General skill Water Resistance – lvl 1

In your days you have learned many things. One of them is that water pressure is not a joke. This Resistance helps a little with reducing the damage.’

‘bing’ ‘You have learned the General skill Wind Resistance – lvl 1

The ever elusive magic of Wind can cut from any side. You have learned that it might’ve been a good idea to become a Void mage. This skill helps you resist the power of wind a little more.

‘kong’ ‘Heat Resistance reaches lvl 13’

“Yea, let’s move on actually. As much as this is beneficial to me it’s boring as fuck...” Ilea commented to which Felicia let out a big breath and opened her eyes after a long while.

They packed their things together, most of it going into Aliana’s ring and walked towards the door. The room behind the door had runes on each wall quite similar to most interiors they had seen so far in the dwarven ruin. Of course it was also carved in the white stone that seemed to be the norm inside what Edwin had called the great hall.

The room was rather spacious and in the middle was a rectangular stone platform with a pressure plate in the center of it. “A lift?” Ilea asked to which Edwin nodded. He then motioned for her to go activate the elevator.

Ilea nodded solemnly and stepped onto the platform. Mechanisms came to life and the stone floor dropped downwards quickly with a noise that indicated no use in quite some time. Ilea braced herself against an impact that never came. Suddenly the tight walls were replaced by a beautiful view spanning several hundred meters in all directions, filled with water and white light.

‘Filled with water...’ Ilea repeated in her head and started to blink upwards to the opening in the roof where the elevator had come from. She reached it in four blinks and dug her hand into the white stone to keep herself there.

The platform kept falling for another five seconds before finally impacting upon the still water. Waves were created and Ilea watched on as a set of massive tentacles suddenly shot out of the water and dragged the platform downwards. She was too far away to identify the creature and couldn’t see through the dark water to make out its shape.

“I’ve got the right girl for the job...” she said and blinked upwards until finally reaching the top again. The others were already busy with their own things. Edwin was sketching the trap rooms when he lifted his head to look at Ilea.

“Already back? No trap down there then?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not exactly...” she went on to explain what she had seen down below and suggested her idea. Edwin was against it at first, saying that she could certainly blink close to the creature and use her reverse healing spell to drain it. The other two in the room overheard the conversation though and Aliana accepted Ilea’s proposal immediately, putting a stop to Edwin’s arguing.

“If I can control the water, I’ll be able to cook it just perfectly.” she said while licking her lips. “It’s been long enough since we ate some fish...Ilea, a hand?” Aliana extended her hand before Ilea grabbed it and they started to climb downwards.