Chapter 535: This is a litrpg, in case you forgot (1/2)
An uncharged uninterrupted flight to Hallowfort would still take her about a full day of travel time. Possibly more with monster or storm interruptions that she couldn’t ignore. Her charged flight was several times faster though, meaning she could carrya group through the night. Ilea wasn’t sure if a single night was enough to reach Tremor but she would simply have to find another spot for the creatures to shelter through the day.
There was a chance for them to meet dangerous monsters but Ilea knew they weren’t quite helpless either. The Marks she used would make sure she’d find them, even if they were forced to relocate.
It only took a few hours for them to find a small cavern, only populated by a few Burrow Dragoons.
Ilea simply displaced the monsters outside before she collapsed the entrance, teleporting her allies inside. She deemed them capable of breaking out in the case of an emergency. A quick check made sure there was air coming into the small cavern.
The various creatures remained close to her, not necessarily because they liked her but because the cavern simply didn’t allow for a lot of privacy. The thought of them seeking her proximity for safety seemed somewhat absurd to her. In reality, it might very well have been the case.
The Dragoons had understood that Ilea was too much of a monster to challenge but even the Dark Ones could take care of a few of them. In case they decided to return. She hadn’t found a nest or eggs, likely indicating that the creatures had simply rested here for a while.
“I’ll be out for a while,” she said, pointing at herself and towards the rubble. The survivors had been briefed about the northern day and night cycle. They knew about the plan and had agreed.
Ilea blinked outside and moved away a few hundred meters, finding a broader crevice where she built a small fire and sat down.
First to Tremor and if Catelyn allows it, from there to Hallowfort, she thought and summoned a meal.
The plan had worked out so far. It wasn’t hugely complicated and mostly relied on the resistance the Dark Ones showed against the lower mana density. Her main fear had been if they still had issues in the north.
If she had to babysit a bunch of nearly dying Dark Ones, the journey would have taken significantly longer. She had decided to help them and she wouldn’t just leave them stranded in this unknown and dangerous place.
Ilea took a deep breath, relaxing as the dark storms moved past overhead. I missed this place, she thought, enjoying the dish as she once more looked through all the level ups from the past six weeks.
‘ding’ ‘Blink reaches 3rd lvl 30’
‘ding’ ‘Sentinel Sphere reaches 3rd lvl 30’
‘ding’ ‘Sentinel Huntress reaches 3rd lvl 10’
‘ding’ ‘Sentinel Huntress reaches 3rd lvl 11’
‘ding’ ‘Azarinth Perception reaches 3rd lvl 29’
‘ding’ ‘Azarinth Perception reaches 3rd lvl 30’
‘ding’ ‘Azarinth Reversal reaches 3rd lvl 24’
‘ding’ ‘Ash and Ember Unity reaches 3rd lvl 29’
‘ding’ ‘Ash and Ember Unity reaches 3rd lvl 30’
‘ding’ ‘Ashen Wings reaches 3rd lvl 28’
‘ding’ ‘Ashen Wings reaches 3rd lvl 29’
‘ding’ ‘Eyes of Ash reaches 3rd lvl 22’
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‘ding’ ‘Eyes of Ash reaches 3rd lvl 24’
The first three weeks Ilea hadn’t used most of her offensive abilities, focusing on defense and mobility.
With a few open spots for Sentinel Huntress marks, she used them freely on the various spirits, trying to find them again amidst the hordes or after switching between groups.
Each level added another mark, the high level of the creatures or perhaps the distant marks on her allies helping with the skill. Sometimes it even allowed her to damage them without a danger of killing the creatures, having a feel for their remaining health. Amidst the many creatures, this tactic was however difficult to apply.
Every waking hour she spent among the spirit hordes or training with Meadow. The results showed, especially in her third Class.
‘ding’ ‘Phaseshift reaches 2nd lvl 2’
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‘ding’ ‘Phaseshift reaches 2nd lvl 9’
‘ding’ ‘Flare of Creation reaches 3rd lvl 2’
‘ding’ ‘Displacement reaches 3rd lvl 3’
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‘ding’ ‘Displacement reaches 3rd lvl 5’
‘ding’ ‘Space Shift reaches 2nd lvl 18’
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‘ding’ ‘Space Shift reaches 2nd lvl 20’
Ilea had advanced Space Shift as soon as the third tier had become available.
‘ding’ ‘Space Shift reaches 3rd lvl 1’
Passive – Space Shift – 3rd lvl 1
Space wields easier for you, allowing you to unravel its mysteries. Teleportation abilities can be used again 70.5% faster [141%] and you can travel 40.5% farther [81%].
2nd stage: Interrupt or stop an enemy teleportation spell within a distance of 20.5m. Cooldown and efficiency is affected by available teleportation spells. You cannot teleport while this skill is active.
3rd stage: Your understanding of space magic grows. You learn to latch on to ongoing teleportation spells with your own teleportation abilities. Long range and channeled teleportation spells have their range doubled and their cooldown as well as cost reduced by half.
Category: Space magic
The bonuses to her long range abilities were quite helpful. Both her third tier of Displacement as well as her third tier Blink were affected.
The bonuses applied after all the other multipliers, meaning her third tier Blink could now be used every fifteen or so hours.
‘Active: Blink – 3rd lvl 30:
Immediately appear at a distant place. Distance based on the level of the skill.
2nd stage: The time between blinks is reduced greatly. No ground contact needed between blinks.
3rd stage: You may set one destination you touch. You may change it every six months [37.34 days]. You may travel to said destination once every three days [14.93h].
Category: Teleportation Magic’
The reduced cost changed her channeling time of the spell from six minutes to three.
Her third tier of Displacement now had a range of about one point eight kilometers and could be used again after just about two minutes. The main benefit were the reduced costs, slashing it from 450 mana per second to 225. The spell actually provided a reasonable breather against several Astral Spirits too stupid to understand what was happening when their spells suddenly vanished right in front of her, just to appear somewhere else.
Ilea had thought the bonuses from her third tier space shift good but not incredible.
The first part of the new third tier had taken her some testing to understand but essentially she could connect either blink or displacement to an ongoing teleportation spell that activated within the range of either of her own abilities.
It meant that if someone used a teleportation ability, she could use either blink or displacement at the same time to be moved alongside whoever cast the spell she latched onto.
Ilea would be moved the same distance as her target. She wouldn’t have to guess where they went, nor did she have to watch the lines in space. As long as she attached herself to whoever used a teleportation spell and had one of her abilities ready, she would appear close to where they moved.
The distance and relation to her target would remain the same. If she would have appeared inside of an object, the spell behaved the same way as when she tried to blink into solid matter. She would simply appear outside of whatever solid object was in the way.
Ilea’s double teleportation coupled with her reduced cooldowns already made it difficult for anything to get away but now even a longer range wouldn’t be enough to flee from her or regroup.
‘ding’ ‘Body of the Valkyrie reaches 2nd lvl 19’
‘ding’ ‘Body of the Valkyrie reaches 2nd lvl 20’
Passive – Body of the Valkyrie – 3rd lvl 1
The flame of creation flows through your veins, increasing your resilience by 35.5% [319.5%]. Increases your physical damage resistance by 9.1% [81.9%]. Increases your magic damage resistance by 9.1% [81.9%]. You won’t be fazed anymore by heavy damage or powerful sources of light and sound.
2nd stage: Your body has withstood incredible damage, endured the hardships of battle. The fires flowing through you have hardened your bones and muscles. Your health is increased by 7.1% [63.9%].
3rd stage: Your ability to adapt to your enemy grows. Continued battle against the same foe increases damage reduction against its attacks by 0.5% [4.5%] per minute to a maximum of a static 50%.
Category: Body enhancement – Space Magic
A minute was long but coupled with her second tier Phaseshift, the new bonuses allowed for much longer battles against the spirits before she had to retreat. The only downside to the newfound defensive power was that it only applied for each foe separately.
If a new Astral Spirit arrived, she took full damage from its attacks until a minute had passed.
Ilea learned that the bonuses applied in a similar way as the second tier of Aspect of Ash. As long as she considered the battle to be ongoing, it would count. Well there were some plain range and time limitations too but they never came into play when she blinked away for a short breather.
The spirits didn’t make it easy to test how much of a difference the bonus made practically speaking, due to the continued arrival of more enemies. Ilea knew however that the simple addition would have made it quite a bit harder for Queen Zaiked to pressure her during their battle.
‘ding’ ‘Space Awareness reaches 2nd lvl 9’
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‘ding’ ‘Space Awareness reaches 2nd lvl 13’
Ilea benefited from the theory taught to her by both Meadow and Michael, the various examples the former could conjure up helping greatly with her increasing awareness.
Contrary to the other spells, Space Awareness leveled more in the third week than in the previous two.
Ilea moved the notifications about her general skills down to the very bottom and read through the second three weeks worth of advancements.
‘ding’ ‘You have defeated [Spirit of Death – lvl 530]
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‘ding’ ‘You have defeated [Spirit of Death – lvl 681]
There were thousands upon thousands of kill notifications. At first it was quite welcome to her that there was an apparently endless number of Death Spirits in Erendar but as time went on, she grew more apprehensive, the gate’s closure rising in importance. The fact that she hadn’t managed to kill an Astral Spirit so far didn’t exactly add to her confidence.
‘ding’ ‘The Azarinth Sentinel has reached lvl 368 – Five stat points awarded’
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‘ding’ ‘The Azarinth Sentinel has reached lvl 370 – Five stat points awarded – One Core skill point awarded’
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‘ding’ ‘The Azarinth Sentinel has reached lvl 380 – Five stat points awarded – One Core skill point awarded’
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‘ding’ ‘The Azarinth Sentinel has reached lvl 390 – Five stat points awarded – One Core skill point awarded’
‘ding’ ‘The Azarinth Sentinel has reached lvl 391 – Five stat points awarded’
‘ding’ ‘The Azarinth Sentinel has reached lvl 392 – Five stat points awarded’
‘ding’ ‘The Azarinth Sentinel has reached lvl 393 – Five stat points awarded’
‘ding’ ‘Kin of Ashhas reached lvl 368 – Five stat points awarded’
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Ilea was pretty sure that her kills awarded more experience the more Astral Spirits were present in the fray. As time went on, the rewards gradually slowed.
In the last few days, she only managed to level her main Classes once despite an even higher number of overall kills. Her own rising levels added to the gradually lower rewards.
Her decision to start fighting back in the first place was two fold. In one part, she really did trust Meadow’s information on her leveling. Especially her third Class seemed unlikely to gain another evolution for quite some time. The second part was her growing familiarity with the Spirits and their attacks.
The longer she fought without killing any of them, the fewer overall levels she would gain once she decided to finally fight back.
‘ding’ ‘The Faen Valkyrie has reached lvl 191 – One stat point awarded’
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Ilea hoped to get all her third Class skills to the third tier before reaching three hundred in the Class. It turned out that her concerns wouldn’t exactly be met by her leveling speed.
‘ding’ ‘Absolute Destruction reaches 3rd lvl 30’
‘ding’ ‘Sentinel Huntress reaches 3rd lvl 12’
‘ding’ ‘Azarinth Reversal reaches 3rd lvl 25’
‘ding’ ‘Azarinth Reversal reaches 3rd lvl 26’
‘ding’ ‘Heart of Cinder reaches 3rd lvl 29’
‘ding’ ‘Heart of Cinder reaches 3rd lvl 30’
‘ding’ ‘Storm of Cinders reaches 3rd lvl 24’
...
‘ding’ ‘Storm of Cinders reaches 3rd lvl 26’
‘ding’ ‘Ashen Wings reaches 3rd lvl 30’
‘ding’ ‘Eyes of Ash reaches 3rd lvl 25’
‘ding’ ‘Eyes of Ash reaches 3rd lvl 26’
Ilea now only had four skills in her main two Classes left to top off.
‘ding’ ‘Phaseshift reaches 2nd lvl 10’
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‘ding’ ‘Phaseshift reaches 2nd lvl 17’
‘ding’ ‘Flare of Creation reaches 3rd lvl 3’
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‘ding’ ‘Flare of Creation reaches 3rd lvl 5’
‘ding’ ‘Displacement reaches 3rd lvl 6’
‘ding’ ‘Displacement reaches 3rd lvl 7’
‘ding’ ‘Space Shift reaches 3rd lvl 2’
‘ding’ ‘Body of the Valkyrie reaches 3rd lvl 2’
‘ding’ ‘Body of the Valkyrie reaches 3rd lvl 3’
‘ding’ ‘Space Awareness reaches 2nd lvl 14’
…
‘ding’ ‘Space Awareness reaches 2nd lvl 20’
Ilea found most of her third Class skills somewhat simple to level, the spells widely and constantly usable against the enemy hordes and their spells. Phaseshift got close but would need to see some more use to reach the end of the second tier.
Space Awareness was the obvious outlier. She doubted it would have been possible to get to the end of the second tier even with a year of training on her own. And still, she found it the only skill in her third Class that she couldn’t immediately advance to tier three once it hit the previous cap.
It was a little frustrating but hardly an issue, knowing that the overall growth from the one and a half months surpassed most of her previous training endeavors.