Chapter 429: Questions (1/2)

Ilea tried the redirection thing a couple times but couldn’t quite figure it out.

The Elemental wasn’t exactly the best training partner for this either as it simply bombarded her like an F-16 fighter jet with an unlimited ammo cheat.

She soon decided to leave it be as the Elemental seemed quite annoyed about her newfound third tier resistance, once more upping the power output of its spells.

Ilea questioned how far the creature could actually go at the moment. Too much for her, that was obvious.

She signaled to the Fae that they would leave.

The Elemental stopped its assault as soon as the little creature appeared on her shoulder.

Thanks! she sent to the being and bowed lightly.

It watched them as they vanished once more towards the eleventh layer.

What an interesting being, she thought. “What do you think?”

The Fae looked at her as it jumped down and landed in the snow once more.

Proud

Powerful

“I’m surprised it agreed to help,” she said and laughed. “Now I have lightning as well…,”

Dangerous, it sent and pointed at her before it pointed up.

Alone

“I’m alone?” she asked.

It shook its head and once more pointed up.

“The Elemental?”

The Fae nodded.

Dangerous

“You don’t think it’d be as nice with me if I went alone?”

Precisely

Ilea chuckled. “Thought as much. Well, I have what I wanted from it. Thanks to you!” she jumped down and watched the Fae vanish, blinking after it until she grabbed the creature and rolled with it in the snow.

Thanks, she sent.

It waved her off.

“Alright, let me see now… I could get wood magic resistance up on the fifth layer but Lucas can help me with that too, more reliably as well. Anything above is useless I think… sixth and seventh have wind magic which I have already maxed. Poison on the eight layer is useless too now… I guess I could get some to continue leveling. As soon as I’ve used up the stuff I have,” she said, letting go of the Fae as she laid in the snow.

It floated up and twirled, flakes of white falling away from it. A little hat between its horns remained.

“The Wyverns on the ninth can’t really give me much either… more levels for my third tier I guess but the same can be accomplished by any fire mage really. With Avatar… we could look for the weird creature on this layer… but I honestly don’t want to waste anymore time. If it doesn’t want to show up I don’t really care.”

“Seems like everything except for the Deep Mirage and the Trakorov isn’t worth it for now,” she said and sighed. “Sorry about that, little one. We have to go down to layer nineteen again.”

The Fae twirled and tilted its head.

Help

“You want to help?” she asked with a smile.

The Fae nodded and sent excitement.

“How?”

Mana!

“Mana… you want to drain some?” she asked.

It nodded and started.

Ilea quickly disabled her resistance and let the Fae do its thing, interested in what it had planned.

Contrary to last time, the drain was much more powerful, the mana flowing into the Fae like before but instead of remaining there, it flowed straight into a circle below them.

The white glow of the magic intensified in her sphere until it became visible to the naked eye. Nearly ten thousand mana had flowed through the Fae before the space around them warped.

Ilea looked around and grinned. “Hmm… nice one,” she said and bowed to the Fae that was floating in front of her.

Nice, she sent.

Help

Joy!

“No shit, we just saved so much time and annoying creatures,” she said. They were in the small cave between the nineteenth and twentieth layer. Nothing around them suggested a powerful spell had been used but there they were.

The little Fae could use long range teleportation, using mana it siphoned from someone else.

“Is the range limited?” she asked.

Secret!

“Alright, alright,” Ilea said, putting her hands up in a placating gesture. “I just asked because I have a similar skill but mine needs ages to charge.”

I wonder if the time is reduced now that Blink leveled some, as well as my mana capacity, she wondered. Sentinel Huntress allowed further people to be marked with each level but her Blink third tier didn’t offer more locations to travel to or anything similar.

She started using the skill and canceled it after a couple seconds. If do feel like it’s charging quicker, hmm.

Slow, the Fae sent.

“Yes, I know. That’s why I was curious,” she said and smiled. “I guess it has to do with your space magic.”

The being nodded.

“Any ideas?” she asked.

The Fae thought for a moment but then shook its head.

Uncertain

“Like so much, isn’t it?” Ilea said and started flying up and towards the Deep Mirage. “Well, as long as I have you around I’d love to abuse that ability,” she said. “I assume the locations are limited?”

It nodded.

“Well, I’ll just ask you if we need another teleport. Now that I have enough mana,” she added and winked at the creature.

Affirmative

Ilea was happy to find the Deep Mirage quickly finding them and continuing right where they had left off.

It was a powerful being for sure and Ilea would have a very hard time getting anywhere near close the creature while it was hiding within this layer. Yet still, she couldn’t help but compare it to the Elemental, finding its power insignificant to the Lightning creature.

Is that how that fucker thinks of me? she wondered, getting shred through by sand.

The Deep Mirage was too powerful for her to drop the Ash armor and the resilience bonuses it provided. That sadly meant little use from the Fae’s space magic in her training.

The three still had fun. At least she liked the idea of that. The other beings were of another species entirely. It was possible their thoughts and emotions were too different for her to comprehend.

At the very least, she didn’t feel distress from either through her sphere.

It took quite some time to get the two skills to the end of the second tier, Ilea eating several meals in between, letting the Fae pop her eyes in the process to make sure it wasn’t getting annoyed by its lacking power.

Ilea checked her notifications as soon as her Stamina Drain Resistance reached level twenty.

‘ding’ ‘Sand Magic Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 19’

‘ding’ ‘Sand Magic Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 20’

‘ding’ ‘Space Magic Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 5’

‘ding’ ‘Stamina Drain Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 11’

…

‘ding’ ‘Stamina Drain Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 20’

“Level twenty in everything,” she murmured and let the Deep Mirage attack her, all resistances activated at that point.

She smirked at the massively reduced impact the attacks had on her. Just shows how fucking important all these skills are. Thanks Pain Tolerance and Avatar of Ash, for making this a possibility.

Ilea had only six third tier General skill points remaining out of the total eleven she had.

“I think I should wait with more third tier resistances,” she murmured. The bonuses from her third tier Meditation were ridiculously insane compared to what the Resistances provided. The skill in its very nature was more versatile while the Resistances helped specifically against a single school of magic.

Ilea knew all of them could save her life in the right situation but she decided for now to keep the rest of her skill points until such a situation came around. Plenty of skills to level and now I can even benefit from Heavy Archery and skills in the same vein.

Veteran and Monster Hunter were the most interesting to her, the former actually somewhat close to the third tier. What’s that going to be? Me being able to paralyze higher leveled beings? she thought with a chuckle.

They flew out into the twentieth layer after saying their goodbyes to the Deep Mirage, Ilea still thinking about her general skills.

Identify was just such a shit skill to level, only at eleven after all this time. Ilea had stopped using it on literally everything but even identifying high level creatures seemed to offer little return to the skill.

I should ask the librarians about more General Skills that could be useful. Might also be helpful to get my language skills higher. Write some essays or even better, stories about my adventures.

“Darth Violence, any clue about leveling Identify? It’s so fucking slow.”

The Fae turned to her and giggled into her mind.

Time

Patience

Ilea rolled her eyes. Nemesis, she sent back.

The Fae giggled.

“What’s the second tier? You must have it at your apparent ancient age.”

Boring

Information

“Ah… I see. Well I’ll be the judge of that as soon as I get it,” Ilea said with a smile. If the Fae didn’t think of it very highly, she had no reason to be super bummed out about not having it yet.

“Think the Trakorov is up for some training?” she asked and checked the new notification in her list of available third tier General skills.

- Sand Magic Resistance

It’s been like a week. Please slow down with these. A Lightning Elemental and a Sand Elemental. I think it is time to accept that you will not learn. Sand Magic Resistance can be increased to the third tier, should you wish to do so. Perhaps this skill will help steer you towards a different fate than a certain Chosen One.

The Fae nodded in response.