21 Rise (1/2)
I frowned, ”What's with the sudden change?”
”Mana is sentient. It has a will of its own.” She cracked her knuckles. ”It's only fitting that having the mana inside me unleashed would create a change befiting the size of the surge. It was like half of my mind was suppressed, and now it's being given free reign. Enough talk. What kind of training are we doing?”
”A variety of different stuff. Combat will be the main thing we do, but I have other plans for getting the tree points I need. I'm going to be practicing my skill dreadnought brute. It's almost level 80 now.”
Her eyes narrow, ”That's a unique skill then?”
”Yes.”
”That's how you beat me despite the trap I set?”
”Naw, I beat you because you rely way too much on Schema. I'm guessing you've probably never even lived without these screens in front of your face, telling you just what you need to do. I've lived and fought without them. Hell, our planet had made games about shit like this.”
Black veins crawled up the sides of her face, ”This is no game.”
I rolled my eyes, ”It's pretty damn similar. You get easy bonuses all the time. All you have to do is take some calculated risks and boom. You're super strong.”
”You've never been to a world where even the most tame of forests hold creatures that move like walking mountains. Everything had become a monster, a terrifying creature that can level cities. Killing even a single creature without a family or institution helping you was nigh impossible.”
She shivered. ”Being born on these worlds is like being born into a war zone. So few stay there, and even fewer survive. I plan on doing so much more.”
I shrugged, ”Eh, I started out in a dungeon with bats at level 35. I had to face bosses 50, 60, even 90 levels above me. All while alone, without knowing what the fuck was going on. You don't see me acting all angsty about it. You just do what you have to do. Anyway, enough of all this.”
I clamped my fists together, ”It's time for some fun. Let's go.”
I charged towards her. She met my charge before we collided like two bullets. As I pushed her shoulders, I forced her back. She hadn't opted into constitution. She was, however, stronger than me. She strained as she pushed me back, my feet dragging on the stone. She gripped on my shoulders so hard than my armor bent.
The metal squealed, ”Is this all the strength this little lamb has?”
I bent down while pulling her up, forcing her off her feet. Her body weighed far less than my own, so I used her tremendous power against her. I grabbed her shoulders and slammed her into the ground. The echo exploded outwards across the cavern. Before she could recover, I picked her up once more and slammed her into the other side of the ground.
When I lifted her again, she pushed her feet against me. Her limbs overpowering my own. She shot off me before rolling back onto her feet. I stepped towards her, my footing firm like a pillar. Her eyes narrowed before she sprinted away towards a back wall.
She picked up stones before tossing them towards me. When the rocks smashed into me, they crushed into powder, like bombs of dust. The thick, brown cloud covered me. This blinded me before she darted around, fast as a speeding car.
A second later, she tackled my side, knocking me onto the ground. Her flesh tore as she shapeshifted, and she clawed at my armor with long talons. Flashes of light brimmed from the cloud of dust as the claws scraped across the metal. Like fighting in a thunder soaked cloud, she chewed through my hp with ease.
My helm ripped open with jagged teeth of armor. They clamped onto her thigh before I stabbed my hand into the stone. The tips of my gauntlets bent, but they dug several inches into the stone. With my fingernails peeled back in pain, I pulled myself sideways while jerking with my neck.
I turned her off of me before scrambling on top of her once more. I reared back my fist before hammering her face with my fist. Savage, brutal blows clapped her head against the stone floor before her legs bent backwards, the tendons within them snapping.
Like a human made of gelatin, her legs coiled around my head before she pulled me down. My head whiplashed against the ground, a hunk of her thigh within my helmet's teeth. Her spine broke backwards as she contorted, eerie and disgusting. Her eyes flashed black now as she grinned with long, sharp canines.
She slithered her arms into the slit of my helmet as she laughed. Her arms squeezed into my helmet before covering my face. All of a sudden, I couldn't breath.
I squirmed and writhed, pulling her off me, but she kept forcing more and more of her arms into my helmet. Pressure built on my nose and mouth. My lungs screamed for air as my struggling turned to a frenzy. Right as I believed I was going to die, the slit of my armor chomped onto her limbs. She fell backwards, her arms severed.
Needles formed inside my armor, mincing the goopy arm she forced into my helmet. My armor drinks the blood, soaking it in. Air rushes into my lungs as I breath with a blood covered face. Leaning up, I turn towards Althea.
She laid with her head against the stone floor, her arms gone. She hissed and gasped as blood retracted back into her wounds, regenerating her with a pace even I couldn't match. Within 30 seconds, her arms returned and she stood once more. She lay there heaving for a few minutes.
”What is that armor of yours?”
I stood and shrugged, ”It eats eldritch. You happen to be part eldritch, so I'm sure it decided that was close enough. Anyways, ready for another go?”
She raised an eyebrow, ”Can I rest for a few more minutes?”
”You're hp's full, or near it I'm sure. You'll be fine.”
She frowned as she spit, ”Is this some elaborate plan for torture?”
I frowned in turn, ”Oh yes, I torture you by having you choke me with your arms and scratch my face off.”
”You tore my arms off.”
”I never said this shit was going to be easy. Besides, I recall someone saying that they plan on doing more than surviving. Put some weight behind your words.”
Her face turned hard. ”Fine. Again.”
I grinned. ”Then onto the next round.”
*****************************
We fought for several hours before our minds were so exhausted that we just ran into each other. As you can imagine, that didn't increase our skills by much. Instead, we took a several hour long break. During that time, I read some books about basic mana manipulation that Torix carried with him.
They mentioned quite a bit that I already knew, like how mana was the will and power of the mind. The interesting bits were how it compared with the eldritch energy.
You see, eldritch energy had a way of controlling the user. It infects and contorts the will of the user, more like a parasite than a fuel. The book mentioned several historical mages that advanced the field of eldritch magic. None of them survived the ordeal. They all died horrific deaths at the hands of their own experiments, often times fates worse than death. A few even became advanced level bosses with a few unbeaten to this day.
As I read these books and applied the knowledge to my own cool stream spell, I leveled several skills. Mana theory, reading comprehension, and especially arcane blood manipulation. Althea and I repeated this cycle of battle and study several times before Althea fell asleep against a wall.
Leaving her there, I walked up to Torix. ”Mind talking for a minute? I'm sure a break from staring at the wall would help.”
Torix sighed, ”Alright then. What is it?”
”How and why are dungeon cores so valuable? I mean, there's only so many perks that I can get. I don't understand why their so heavily sought after.”
Torix pursed his undead lips, ”It's all a matter of circumstance. For starters, you do gain perks for every time you hit 100 with an attribute. Obviously, by the time most people reach that cusp of power, they've filled out their perks. for the most part.”
Torix put his fingetips together, ”Dungeon cores can be exchanged at sentinel locations for an attribute point as well. This makes them hold innate value. This is further inflated due to the presence of fringe worlds.”
His eyes narrowed as he continued, ”Fringe worlds are planets at the very cusp of being overwhelmed by the eldritch. They are often kept afloat by battle hungry heathens in need of a challenge. The natives of planets like this have no way of killing the creatures on their planets. This leaves them at hopelessly low levels. So low, in fact, that they can't leave the planet.”
Torix leaned onto a hand, ”Summoners like myself are of exceptionally high value there, as we offer lower level creatures for them to defeat. Of course, you've seen that it takes well over level 100 to fill out your perks. In most cases, it takes well over 200-300. Regular summons of that level simply aren't feasible without a great cost.”
Torix grinned, ”As you've seen, being level 100 doesn't make you strong by any galactic metric. Leaving your new planet is an easy way of getting yourself slaughtered.”
I grimaced, ”Yeah. It sucks, but it's true.”
Torix nodded, ”Imagine a normal person. They'd be even worse off. Dungeon cores allow these people entrenched on their world to at least fill out another few perks for leveling. This makes leaving their torn worlds far safer. The mental resistances are of particular importance.”
I nodded, ”The orbs are pretty much 5 levels for people on those worlds.”
”Precisely. As you've no doubt noticed, Schema's way of doing things can be unforgiving. Speaking of unforgiving, how much energy have you gained from your bond with Althea?”
I glanced at my menu screen, finding around a hundred thousand ambient mana absorbed. Notable, but by no means a ridiculous amount.