《The Bit of Human Left》 (1) Prologue: Deaths Reminiscence It was an exceptionally dreary day. Dark grey, borderline black clouds loomed as far as the horizon, arcs of strange red lighting snaking through their indistinct masses every few minutes. Rain thundered down in a torrential downpour, drenching anything and anyone foolish enough to be out in the middle of the intense thunderstorm. A young man kneeled in the middle of a wide field marred by no obstructions other than two pristine slabs of immaculate granite sticking up out of the turf. Any onlooker would have surely thought the man a fool. There he was, in the middle of a thunderstorm, crouching down in the middle of a puddle, without a rain jacket or umbrella, getting himself and his rather fine clothing utterly and totally drenched. Yet any onlooker who knew anything about Arris Graham would¡¯ve surely held some measure of sympathy for the man. Arris was a young man, twenty years of age, in the prime of his college experience. He was on summer break, returning home to Boston from the California Institute of Applied Sciences, one of the leading engineering colleges in the United States. He¡¯d returned home primarily for two reasons. The first of which was more mundane, and was to visit his foster family who were also his relatives. He¡¯d spend a large portion of his life around them, and seeing them every once in awhile was a social obligation which he happily fulfilled.The other reason he¡¯d returned home to Boston was to visit the graves of his parents, which he was currently kneeling in front of. Arris, crouching in front of the two tombstones, was currently in the midst of placing two separate bouquets of flowers in front of each of the two tombstones. One tombstone was a dedicated to a certain Jayla Graham while the other to a Ranford Graham. These two were his parents, and they¡¯d both been dead for several years now. However, Arris still came out on the anniversary of his mother¡¯s death to put flowers on their graves. He¡¯d never been able to quite get over his mother¡¯s death. After several moments of contemplation, mentally uttered prayers, well wishes to his parent¡¯s souls, and general reverent silence, Arris pulled back, coming out his crouch. He stood up, and inspected the tombstones from a higher vantage point, resuming his respectful vigilance in another position, one not involving using a muddy puddle as a kiddy pool. He¡¯d been standing there for several seconds, feeling rather melancholy as the rain poured down around him, when he was shocked out of his silent and profound revelry by something deep within his pocket vibrating, alerting him that he had a new message. He reached a hand down into his pocket, fishing around until he felt his phone, which he promptly whipped out, checking the notification. It was a text from his cousin Zach, but whom everyone called Phaky. After a couple failed attempts to wipe the water off his phone so he could read it, he simply resorted to shielding it with one arm and holding it with the other. Arris frowned after reading the text. It was a weird text. It read, ¡®Yo man have u seen the news it¡¯s a big ass global storm I didn¡¯t think that was possible¡¯. Arris was sure he¡¯d misread something, or that Phaky was using some hyperbole. A global storm implied it was covering the entire world and Arris¡¯ extensive knowledge in field of science meant that he knew that such a thing was virtually impossible. It was far more likely that there were multiple large storms covering multiple continents at the same time. Arris texted Phaky back. ¡®Bro global storm as in covering entire world that¡¯s not possible multiple storms maybe but one storm no any point to this you know what I¡¯m doing rn right¡¯. Arris was kind of annoyed. Phaky undoubtedly knew where he was and what he was doing: he¡¯d left from his cousin¡¯s house where he was staying and Phaky had been there, even seen him out the door. Phaky soon replied with another message. ¡®Yes man real global storm entire world one storm was gonna say you should probably head back storm warning weak category one hurricane maybe dangerous¡¯. Arris glared at his phone. He was a little peeved that Phaky had the gall to call him back, when he knew that Arris was visiting his parent¡¯s graves. Though after a couple seconds of annoyance, Arris sighed and forgave Phaky for his insensitivity. Phaky knew how much importance Arris placed upon visiting his parent¡¯s graves and wouldn¡¯t tell him to come back unless he was really worried. Arris turned around, looking back along the trail that led out of the graveyard. His parents had been rather wealthy and had their tombstones constructed in a more secluded spot, away from the majority of the headstones in the graveyard. Normally, Arris appreciated the lack of clutter around his parent¡¯s graves. An extra half mile walk through the dark woods usually got him in just the right mood for some melancholy reflection and reaffirmation of life goals. Today, however, that extra half mile of getting himself soaked would suck. Arris strode through the field, clomping through the wet muck and long grass. Walking out to his parent¡¯s graves through the rain, he¡¯d felt like something equivalent to the badass main character in a typical action drama who didn¡¯t give a fuck about the weather or anyone else¡¯s opinions on what he did. Now, he just felt like a retard for deciding he needed to go out and visit his parent¡¯s graves right then. Arris sighed, again. By the time he was halfway through the field, his shoes had already been stained brown and green by the grass and mud and soaked through to the soles. Every inch of him was wet. He slipped and almost fell on a particularly uneven piece of turf, but somehow managed to maintain his balance and not fall and get mud all over the rest of him. After about a minute of slogging his way through the muddy field, Arris finally reached the footpath which led through the graveyard and back to its entrance. Unfortunately, it was a dirt footpath for most of the way back to the central graveyard. Arris looked down the muddy trail, and seriously regretted coming out. Luckily, it was summer and rather warm, so he didn¡¯t have to worry about catching hypothermia or anything too dangerous. Still though, slogging his way back was going to suck. He seriously considered just running, and damn the consequences if he fell, he could just buy another jacket if he really needed to. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Arris decided against it though. He¡¯d only just purchased this jacket, and the rain likely wouldn¡¯t damage it too badly. As long as he sent it to the dry cleaners it¡¯d probably be fine. If he slipped and fell and it stained, however, that would be an entirely different story. His mother had always told him, ¡°Hard work is the key to getting rich. Frugality is the key to staying there.¡± Arris wouldn¡¯t risk ruining a perfectly good suit simply to make his life a little easier. Trudging his way back through the graveyard along the muddy trail was an arduous task. He tried to not get his feet any more wet or muddy, leaping over large puddles, avoiding muddy patches, and sticking to firmer ground where he could find it. It was wet, miserable going, and took far longer than normally traversing the path would¡¯ve. On the way out, it had only been raining for two or three minutes, so he hadn¡¯t thought it was that bad, but now, there was a massive amount of water in and on the ground. Arris was actually rather surprised so much had fallen in such a short time, under regular circumstances this much water shouldn¡¯t be possible: it had been barely fifteen minutes since it had started raining and there were already large pools of water on the ground. About three-quarters of the way back, Arris¡¯ pocket buzzed again. Arris reach into his pocket and pulled out his phone, once again shielding it from the rain with what meager protection his arm could provide. The message was another one from Phaky. It was more urgent, reading, ¡®Hey man something weird going on too many lightning strikes confirmed thirty-four lethal hits in Boston alone neighbors house hit just a couple minutes ago you good right¡¯. Arris frowned as he read the text. Thirty-four lighting strikes in Boston alone? A mega storm spanning the entire globe? What the hell was going on? Was Phaky trolling him? There was no way these things could be happening. Thirty-four lightning strikes on people in Boston alone already sounded pretty far fetched. Occurring concurrently with a global superstorm? It was impossible. Arris had to call him out. He tapped away at his phone for a few seconds, then hit the send button. ¡®No way thirty-four lightning strikes never happened global storm too you trolling me bro¡¯. The reply text was fast coming. ¡®No trolls man this shit is legit come back now not safe¡¯. Arris just frowned. Phaky seemed to actually be worried. Phaky also really wasn¡¯t the type to troll Arris in this sort of situation. Whereas Phaky was a heavy user of sarcasm and wit, he was typically rather emotionally sensitive. He almost certainly wouldn¡¯t troll Arris while he was out visiting his parent¡¯s graves. Another text soon came. ¡®Real man come back now really nasty out there¡¯. Arris just frowned and punched in a quick response, ¡®Ok¡¯, before stowing his phone back in his pocket and continuing the trudge back through the graveyard to his car. Another two minutes, and he was back in the central portion of the graveyard, where the heaviest concentration of headstone was. His pocket vibrated again, and Arris sighed, taking his phone out and seeing another text from Phaky. It read so, ¡®Yo bro you¡¯re headed back right another four strikes confirmed dunno what is happening you need to get back tho man now¡¯. Arris frowned, then quickly punched out a return message of his own. ¡®Yes man headed back can see car in the lot less than 500 feet almost out¡¯. Feeling that wasn¡¯t enough, he followed it up with another text to ensure Phaky would stop bothering him. ¡®Wait till I get in car and text you back don¡¯t like getting rained on don¡¯t text again till I do won¡¯t respond¡¯. With that, Arris irritatedly shoved the phone back into his pocket and continued his trudge back towards his car. Peals of thunder constantly boomed over the ambient sound of the rain pouring down. Arris looked up at the sky, slightly nervous, as arcs of lightning surged through the clouds, over, and over, and over again. It would be just his luck to be hit by lightning now, some three or four hundred feet from the safety of his car. Arris could vaguely remember reading something about how lightning strikes were typically non-lethal but with his luck, he''d somehow draw the short end of the stick and bite the dust. He really hoped that he wouldn¡¯t get hit by a strike. That would really suck. He still had a lot of things to do with his life. Namely, live it. He sped up his walking a little bit, caring a little less when he splashed through a puddle or muddy spot. He was roughly two hundred feet away from his car when all of a sudden, a rather large, blue screen popped up a couple feet away from his face.
Initializing World Server Startup¡­ 15
With a surprised squawk, Arris stumbled backward, flailing his arms out in front of him, before falling straight into a puddle, and ruining all of his clothing. Arris was now more than a little annoyed. He purposely hadn¡¯t run back through the storm just so that he wouldn¡¯t risk slipping and falling and ruining all of his expensive clothing, but now he¡¯d fallen over anyways. With a glint of anger in his eyes, Arris stared back up defiantly at the¡ªwait a fucking minute. There was a blue screen hovering about three feet from his face. And it had followed him after he fell, staying at the same distance. What in the actual fuck was going on? Enthralled by this newfound discovery, Arris totally forgot about the rain and all his problems, swiping at the screen, and finding his hand only went through it. That was odd. Arris read it again.
Initializing World Server Startup¡­ 6
As Arris was staring at it, the counter below the words, Initializing World Server Startup¡­ ticked down again, to 5. In a sudden hurry, Arris got to his feet. He didn¡¯t really know exactly what was about to happen, but the countdown and the phrase Initializing World Server Startup¡­ sounded pretty damn ominous, or at least important. Arris figured he should at least be ready for whatever was about to happen. 4, the timer read. Arris¡¯ heart pounded in his chest, feeling something important was about to happen. 3, and his pocket went off again, someone seemed to be texting him. He hardly noticed, fixated on the words in the box, not sparing a scrap of his attention for such an irrelevance. 2, and he once again jabbed at the floating screen, trying to see if he could affect it in some way. No such luck. 1, and all of a sudden, a brilliant flash of light came down from the sky, striking him, sending power coursing through him, stimulating all his nerves, melting his flesh, and inducing more pain than a human should ever reasonably be able to handle. 0, and the world changed forever. (2) Chapter 1: Officially Boned When Arris came to, the world was entirely grey. Or no, wait, that was the roof of the cave above him. Arris was currently lying down in the middle of a seemingly naturally occurring tunnel. He wondered how he¡¯d come to get there. With a clack, Arris shoved himself up into a sitting position, taking a quick look around him. Aside from an innocuous pair of glowing leg bones sitting right in front of him, there didn¡¯t really appear to be anything in the tunnel aside from him, at least, not anything that could potentially hurt him. It was right about then that a large blue window popped up in front of him.
Welcome, Arris Graham, to the World System! You, alongside another seventy million humans, have survived the transition! Congratulations! You will find many things have changed about the world you now live in! Beware, most forms of modern technology have ceased to function! Most attributes will be determined by the World System, much like in a human video game! You will have to learn to survive in the new world with the tools the World System has given you! For the six months after the implementation of the World System, only low leveled, unintelligent monsters will spawn! No dungeons will be opened, prohibiting monsters both from leaving and brave souls from venturing in! After these first six months, however, dungeons will open and regular monster spawns will commence! It is recommended that during the grace period, transition survivors learn how the World System works! Good luck, and may the worthy survive! Remaining Days of Grace Period: 5 months 29 days
Arris eyed the screen with some considerable skepticism. This couldn¡¯t be real. Well, he¡¯d noticed the description of the world the notice had given talked about lower leveled monsters and the fact that the world would now be like a video game. It would then follow that he should have a level. What level was he? Almost as soon as Arris thought this, another screen popped up.
Current Level: 1
Arris¡¯ eyebrows tried to shoot up. Whatever this World System was, it clearly worked and seemed to somehow be reading his thoughts. Based on the fact that there were levels assigned to both monsters and whatever he qualified as, a player, or person, or something else, Arris assumed that the World System had turned the world into something like a standard MMO RPG. Though, he wouldn¡¯t quite be able to tell for sure until he could go out and around to check things out. Though he could test the system in a couple preliminary ways. There was one simple test Arris could perform to see if the World System had actually turned the world into a game: he could try and open his status page. And sure enough, after desiring to open his status page, a screen filled with a variety of numbers and stats popped up.
Name: Arris Graham
Class None
Profession None
Titles Trailblazer I, Original I
Synchronicity Rating 97.6% Renown 0
Level 1, 0% Race Human Skeleton
Health 120/120 Mana 210/210
Toughness 120/120 Spirit 105/105
Attack : 5-9 Attack Rating : 32 Defense : 1 Defense Rating : 21
Strength : 14 Agility : 18 Intelligence : 20 Wisdom : 22
Luck : 5 Charm : 0 Constitution : 13 Vitality : 8
Health/10sec : 0.018 Mana/10sec : 0.69 Toughness/10sec : 0.09 Spirit/10sec : 0.69%
Resistances +50% damage taken from fire-based attacks +150% damage taken from holy sources -50% damage taken from dark magic -90% damage taken from death magic +30% damage from blunt damage types -30% damage from sharp damage types -10% damage from magical sources 98% chance to resist mind control and other types of subversive magic
Attributes Skeletal Frame Lesser Undead Immortal Soulbound
Passive Skills Mana Sense
Equipped Items N/A
Active Skills Condensed Aether Bolt (4) (30 CD)
Arris pored over the status page, examining the entire thing. It seemed his stats were pretty good, from what he could remember from the MMO RPGs he¡¯d played you usually started with ten points in each stat. Considering that the stats weren¡¯t all the same value, he could assume that they had been assigned off preexisting conditions. Arris would¡¯ve normally assumed his stats to be above the average of most of humanity. He¡¯d done Aikido for most his childhood, ran several miles every morning, and was rather intelligent. The fact that his vitality was low wasn¡¯t too surprising either: he frequently got sick and was practically allergic to air. His luck and charm were admittedly significantly below the values of his other stats, but there were also games where those two stats performed different functions from the other combat based stats. Arris wasn¡¯t quite a socialite, but he still went out partying every once in awhile and had at least a few friends. A charm score of 0 was a little¡­ excessive. Though in general, he was actually rather satisfied with his status page. There were only a couple problems. Why the hell was his race skeleton? And why the hell did he have the attribute ¡°Lesser Undead¡±? The last time he¡¯d checked, Arris had been a human. Raising his arm, he double checked that his hand was still made of flesh and blood. Unfortunately, as he brought it up to his eyes, he could tell it most decidedly wasn¡¯t. A glowing bony claw and forelimb now greeted Arris¡¯ eyes, as opposed to the usual pale pinks and tans of his flesh. Arris jolted back, trying to yelp, bony legs scraping against the ground, flailing as he tried to get away from his own hideously animated hand. Unfortunately, as it was attached to him, and he was unable to escape it. Suddenly, he realized something even more critical. Arris¡¯ hands shot up, frantically patting down his now bony rib cage and skeletal limbs before finally arriving at his crotch in the vain hope some of the old him remained. No such luck. Arris gazed down in shock at his new body of alabaster bone. He could see through himself. It was terribly disconcerting. All of a sudden, a window popped up in the air in front of him.
Hello Arris Graham! The World System would like to apologize for any confusion or shock you may be going through right now! During the implementation of the World System, you appear to have changed races! As the World System was being initialized, the excess residual magical energy condensed in the form of a Lagniappe Nimbus, out of which condensed Aether Bolts, which appear like lightning, were shooting! You were struck by one of these bolts as the system was starting! Your body overloaded with mana, and your flesh melted off as the excess mana took the form of energy or heat! However, before you could fully die and your soul could depart the world, the World System took effect, grounding your soul in what was left of your body! As a soul attached to the skeletal remnants of an organism, your race has been determined as, Skeleton! As a monster type race, you have been placed in the dungeon you spawned near, as opposed to outside of it! Do not worry though, there are paths to regain your humanity! Good luck, and may the worthy survive! You may review this explanation at any time in the future if you are ever unclear as to exactly what has happened to you and why.
Arris stared blankly at the explanation. A Lagniappe Nimbus? Aether Bolts? His flesh boiled away? What the fuck? He died but didn¡¯t die? Arris¡¯ mind felt like it was stretching in a million different directions. He felt like he was going to implode. He simply couldn¡¯t comprehend what was happening to him. Fuck. He¡¯d been a virgin before all this shit had gone down. He¡¯d never get the chance to correct that. Maybe his luck should be 0, as opposed to his charm. After a couple minutes of simply sitting on the ground, and reading the description over and over again, Arris still hadn¡¯t come to terms with what had happened. He tried to let out a nervous chuckle but found that as a skeleton he was unable to make any noise other than an odd clacking together of his jaws. What the fuck. He couldn¡¯t even talk. This whole situation seemed like something out of one of those trashy fantasy reincarnation novels he used to love: he¡¯d been zapped by a lightning bolt, and could now live his new life as a skeleton. No. He did not want to spend the rest of his goddamn life as a skeleton. He would not die a virgin. The World System had mentioned something about a way to regain his humanity. He would fucking find it. Though, he had some more pressing concerns. The system had told him he was currently in a dungeon. Dungeons weren¡¯t supposed to open for another six months. Was he stuck in the dungeon? The World System had implied that the creatures within the dungeon would be higher leveled than the naturally occurring creatures. As he was only level one, wasn¡¯t he screwed? Wouldn¡¯t they all be higher level than him? He also wanted to get back to his relatives, Phaky, Kelly, Aunt Gina and Uncle Kevin. They could help him figure out what had happened and maybe even help him to find a solution. He should definitely try and exit the dungeon as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for Arris though, he really had no idea where exactly he was in the dungeon. It could be possible that he was at the bottom of the dungeon. He wondered if the World System could possibly enlighten him as to where he was. Surely enough, a text box popped up after a quarter second of wait.
You are in the second tunnel of the Skeleton Floor of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon.
Well, that had told Arris jack shit. He scratched his head and frowned at the unenlightening message, before attempting to sigh and feeling rather awkward when he failed. While the second tunnel of the skeleton floor implied he was close to the exit to the floor, the Skeleton Floor could be any floor of the Dungeon. Maybe it would be better if he simply asked the World System to show him the route out of the dungeon. He attempted then attempted to do so. Though, after a couple seconds of impatient waiting, nothing popped up. That was unfortunate. There was only one other option. In many games, there was something called a minimap, which allowed you to see a small portion of the area around you, and save that portion on a map. It wasn¡¯t that unlikely that he had access to a minimap, and could see a small portion of the area around him. And sure enough, when he requested the minimap, the following image popped up in the periphery of his vision. To be fair, it really didn¡¯t tell him a lot more than what the system message had told him. But it had told him two incredibly important things, one being that he was incredibly close to the entrance, and the other that he just needed to travel a little north to find the exit. Arris set off down the corridor, periodically checking his minimap to check his progress. It took him about two minutes of brisk walking to discover that he was going in the wrong direction. He promptly turned around and headed back up the tunnel. After about a minute and a half of walking, he realized he could simply run, and there shouldn¡¯t be any consequences. As a skeleton, he should hypothetically have unlimited stamina. He certainly didn¡¯t have the resource bar. Arris started running down the corridor. Unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t able to run very fast. He was only able to move at a mild run, maybe around 12 miles per hour, which he could have brought up to a low 20 in his old body. A rather unfortunate decline in speed. He could probably beat anyone in a marathon though. After a minute or two of running, Arris came to a large cavern. A large window then popped up, with the following notification.
Congratulations, you have discovered the first level of the Skeleton Floor of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon! You will find monsters within this portion of the Dungeon!
Now Arris was wary. The notification felt rather ominous. ¡°You will find monsters within this portion of the Dungeon!¡± It was basically telling him he¡¯d be attacked if he tried to through the cavern. But through the cavern, he had to go. Since this was the first cavern and he''d just exited the second tunnel, it would then follow that the other exit to this level would lead to the exit of the dungeon. Arris crept out into the cavern, sticking to the walls. He didn¡¯t quite know how large the cavern was, as only a small portion was shown on his minimap, and if he simply struck out across the center, he may become hopelessly lost. Cautiously, Arris made his slow way along the walls of the cavern, staying out of sight as best he could.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. As he walked along the wall of the cavern, Arris looked into the wider expanse of the cavern. It wasn¡¯t actually mainly open space but instead appeared to be the ruins of some ancient, long decayed town or city, with the building¡¯s walls all being interconnected and made of stone. From the couple glances he got into the city from the exits and windows he passed every now and again, the city seemed to form a labyrinth of sorts. Outside of this labyrinth, there were several skeletons roaming the dark of the cavern, keeping a watch for intruders. Arris managed to avoid all of them, until, in a feat of extraordinary unluckiness, Arris got stuck in a situation where he was unable to avoid an encounter without turning back. There were two skeletons. One was also moving along the wall, but in the opposite direction that Arris was. The other was some thirty feet out and ten feet in front of the other skeleton. They were walking together in formation. There was nowhere for Arris to go but back. In his panic to turn around, Arris made a little bit of a scene when he tripped over a rock before falling to the ground with a clatter. Looking up, he saw that the skeletons somehow hadn¡¯t noticed him, even while he¡¯d tripped into an open area in their direct line of sight. Moving slowly, Arris moved out of the open area, before beginning his retreat. He was careful not to make too much noise, and to always stay out of sight of the two patrolling skeletons. He hoped they would turn around, but at no point did they seem inclined to. They pushed him all the way back to the tunnel from which he¡¯d come out of, a thirty-minute setback for Arris. He ground his teeth together in frustration back at the tunnel. That had really sucked. He¡¯d wasted a ton of time being stealthy, and from what he¡¯d seen on the pathway, stealth really didn¡¯t seem to matter too much: the skeletons hadn¡¯t even noticed him when he¡¯d loudly tripped out into the open. On his second venture into the cavern, Arris walked with far less regard for stealth. The skeletons towards the middle didn¡¯t really seem to notice him at all. He¡¯d gotten a couple hundred feet past the prior furthest point he¡¯d reached in about half the time when all of a sudden, he encountered another block of skeletons moving towards him just as he was walking under an especially large stone arch. This time there was a group of three skeletons moving back along the wall towards him. Mentally cursing, Arris once again began stealthily retreating back towards the entrance tunnel. Unfortunately, it was then that he noticed the block of skeletons which had been following at a distance behind him. If Arris could¡¯ve broken into a cold sweat, he would¡¯ve. There was nowhere to run. Arris could see that out towards the middle of the cavern there were several skeletons milling around. The only way to get out would be to dodge around the block of four skeletons moving towards him and make a mad dash for the tunnel. Arris moved towards the skeleton closest to the wall, positioning himself in just the right way behind a boulder so that none of the other skeletons could possibly see him. He raised his fists in a defensive posture, setting his stance, preparing for the skeleton¡¯s charge. Staring at it, he attempted to analyze its characteristics and was rewarded with the following message appearing above its head. The Skeleton Drudge appeared to be carrying a weapon, some sort of curved, badly dented, badly rusted scimitar. Arris nodded. The weapon looked rather unwieldy, and would likely have severe damage penalties. He could do this, no problem. Right? Surprisingly enough though, as the Skeleton Drudge approached, Arris barely felt any fear at all. He supposed it was reasonable that since he was now a skeleton, he would no longer feel emotions quite so intensely. In fact, now that he thought about it, it was surprising that he even felt emotions at all. Skeletons didn¡¯t have a nervous system, and emotions were caused by chemical reactions which required more than bones to occur. Huh. Arris would have to revisit this train of thought later, but this was not the time to be engaging in a self-induced existential debate. There was a skeleton fast approaching. Or actually, it wasn¡¯t. It was leisurely walking towards him as if it had all the time in the world. It could almost definitely see him at this point. If this was any normal MMO RPG, it would¡¯ve aggroed. He was maybe twenty feet away from it, almost directly in the path it would take walking along the wall. The odds that it hadn¡¯t seen him yet were slim to none. Maybe skeletons were just really slow. Though that seemed more than a little ridiculous. If skeletons could only ever walk towards their enemies, anything with half a brain cell and a bunch of rocks could take out a legion of the things. And anyway, he could run at a slow speed and he was a skeleton. Why shouldn¡¯t these skeletons be able to do the same? Now thoroughly perplexed, though still wary of the skeleton, Arris scooted to the side, moving out of its path, though still maintaining his fighting stance. Maybe it would go by. It didn¡¯t seem to be acting aggressively. The skeleton steadily walked closer. Fifteen feet and he was pretty sure that it was looking at him. Ten feet, and now he could tell for sure that it was looking at him. Five feet¡­ and then it just shifted focus, looking back further along its patrol route, totally ignoring Arris and walking right by him without any signs of aggression. Arris waited until it had walked another few feet by him, glanced around himself to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him to launch a sneaky surprise attack, and then dropped his guard, heaving a mental sigh of relief. Now he just felt like an idiot. Of course, the skeleton wouldn¡¯t attack him. They were both skeletons after all. He probably went undetected by other skeletons, and following that logic, other types of undead as well. That was quite convenient. Well, now it should hardly be any trouble getting out of the dungeon. If there were only skeletons on this floor, as the name, The Skeleton Floor implied, he shouldn¡¯t have any unexpected attackers on his walk to the exit. Arris continued walking along the wall, being cautious around the first several skeletons he passed. As he walked by them, he looked at their nameplates, which hovered above them, and the weapons on them. The monsters seemed to be relatively low leveled, with pretty bad equips as well. The weapons they carried were heavily rusted, and barely resembled weapons at all in the state they were in. Even the Archer¡¯s bow seemed like it would snap after a couple shots. Arris figured that with the fact that he could easily get into melee range of the skeletons without them suspecting anything, that if he really wanted to, he could take out some of the lower leveled ones, like the lower leveled drudge. If Arris wasn¡¯t so spooked by the fact that he¡¯d turned into a skeleton and set on finding his relatives and confirming they were alright, he probably would¡¯ve stopped to farm a couple mobs and maybe get a level. As it was though, Arris was hurrying along the wall, searching for a tunnel out. He¡¯d already long since passed the opposite side of the cavern and was now heading back towards the tunnel he¡¯d come out of. After another while of walking, Arris had come full circle, arriving back at the original tunnel he¡¯d come out of. This made no sense. He consulted his minimap. It didn¡¯t appear to be giving him any clues either. Well now, he was well and truly perplexed. Arris sat down, putting his back against the cold stone of a wall, while he pondered on where the exit tunnel to the cavern could be. There were a few options. The first of which was that there was no exit tunnel aside from the one he¡¯d come in. In this situation, he¡¯d simply be well and truly fucked, as there would be no real exit to the dungeon. He¡¯d have to complete the entire thing to get out. He found this scenario unlikely. If there was no way to retreat from a dungeon halfway through it, they¡¯d be literal deathtraps. Unprepared parties could never escape. Another option was that he¡¯d simply missed the exit tunnel while he was walking around. This was also rather unlikely. Arris could be unobservant at times, but this would not be one of them: he was hyped up on the unexpectedness and intensity of the situation he was in and was certainly paying enough attention to see a tunnel his size. The final option was that the exit was concealed, or wasn¡¯t located along the wall. This was probably the most rational conclusion. Of course, then again, it wouldn¡¯t really make sense for the exit to be in the middle of the cavern unless it was a portal or something weird. It was most likely the exit was somehow concealed. Arris went for a second walk around the cavern, this time examining the walls and any cracks with much more scrutiny. He was methodical and precise and missed nothing. He walked with his hand to the wall, to make sure that no illusionary wall was disguising the tunnel. Unfortunately, after another forty minute walk around the cavern, Arris had found nothing. From this, he could draw a couple conclusions. The first of which was that the exit was almost definitely not on the outer wall, and either didn¡¯t exist at all or had to be somewhere near the middle of the cavern. Now he needed to look through the rest of the cave. Arris had felt safer near the walls. He knew that as long as he stuck to the walls, nothing could ambush him and that he could find the entrance tunnel again. Of course, then again, this cavern didn¡¯t seem too large. He could probably comb it in an hour or two. Arris set out into the cavern, intending to methodically search the entire thing. Unfortunately, he soon got lost in the maze of walls. Now that he thought about it, he hadn¡¯t actually seen that many exits to the city while he¡¯d been walking around, maybe five or six. Portions were very clearly designed in the shape of buildings, but removing those stylistic decisions, the place was undoubtedly a labyrinth. Arris wondered if there was some backstory to the whole labyrinth city, or if it was randomly generated. Maybe he¡¯d find out later. After ten minutes of twisting turns, Arris was well and truly lost. This was unfair. There was no way an amateur like him could navigate this labyrinth, and it didn¡¯t really seem like there was any way to zoom in with the minimap to help him. With no clear path to his goal, and too far in to be able to retrace his steps, Arris simply decided to wander through the labyrinth until he found a way out, either back into the rest of the cavern or out of the dungeon. As Arris explored the labyrinth city, he peered into houses, wondering if they had occupants. At one point, he spotted a poorly covered glowing chest in the back of one of the buildings he was walking by. Intrigued, Arris couldn¡¯t help but venture into the building. Glancing around, he didn¡¯t spot anything that could potentially kill him, and no exit corridors or stairwells to possibly conceal enemies, so he simply continued on to the chest. He pulled the worn tarp off the chest and then proceeded to undo the metal clasping which kept it shut. He hesitated before opening the chest, glancing around and behind him. He felt like he was cheating. Any normal delver would¡¯ve had to go through a lot more to get to this chest. Meh. Whatever. First come, first serve. He could use the stuff. It might still be trapped though. Arris slowly opened the chest, wary of a trap. He could see that it was glowing, which he assumed meant that it was magical in some way. However, no arrows shot out, no poison gas misted forth, and no skeletal hands reached out to pull him in. After waiting a second and a half after fully opening the chest, Arris deemed it more or less safe and took a step forwards to loom over and look into the chest. There were a chestplate and a tome. Both seemed in good condition. Arris, now excited, reached into the chest to pick up the book. As soon as his hand went into the chest, however, a dark pulse of energy instantaneously formed at the bottom of the chest, and surged up into him, throwing him back. Arris was hurled back through the air almost to the door, in front of which he fell to the ground in a clatter of limbs. The following notifications popped up. > Dungeon Trap deals 113 dark magic damage to you! <
Warning adventurer! Opening chests without first clearing the area of monsters will result in the chest being trapped!
Well great. Why couldn¡¯t the damn System tell him that before he was almost dead on the ground? Maneuvering himself back into a sitting position, Arris looked peevishly at the chest. In the upper right-hand corner of his vision, he could see a flashing red bar, denoting his health. It currently read 7. Actually, now that he¡¯d noticed, he could see all his resource bars there, for Health, Mana, Toughness, Spirit, and Experience. He frowned. He still didn¡¯t know what Toughness and Spirit did. Whatever. He¡¯d figure it out eventually. Arris got back up, determined to claim his items. The chest had done its worst, and even if it was idiotic, Arris wanted the loot. Looking at the chest, he could see that it was no longer glowing. Whatever magical trap had been on the chest was gone. The book inside it, however, was certainly glowing. Arris tried to grin but instead just clacked his jaws together, raising the tome into the air and reading the title. It read Skill Book: Dark Blow. If Arris¡¯ skeletal face had the muscles to increase the size of his grin, it would¡¯ve certainly stretched even wider. Instead, his jaws just clacked together again. Arris knew how useful skill books were from his experiences playing MMOs. A good skill book was potentially worth a fortune. He immediately popped it open, wanting the skill. The following message appeared.
Would you like to learn skill Dark Blow? Y/N
Arris immediately mentally responded with a, ¡®yes¡¯, and the book popped open, its pages rapidly flipping, darkness pouring out of them and into Arris before it finally slammed shut and crumbled to dust. Another window popped up.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill, Dark Blow! You may activate this skill to infuse your weapon with darkness, causing it to deal bonus dark damage on your next blow! Damage: 100% of Attack physical damage +20% Attack dark damage + 10% Wisdomdark damage Costs: -20 Mana -20 Stamina (Not Applicable) 10 second CD
As far as Arris could tell, it was a pretty good ability. Actually, now that Arris thought about it, he had another active ability, didn¡¯t he? Condensed Aether Bolt. Arris hadn¡¯t really even considered the ability yet. He had no idea how he¡¯d gotten the ability, just assumed when he first saw it that it was just some byproduct of being struck and melted by¡­ well¡­ a condensed Aether Bolt. He asked the System for a description, and one popped up.
Condensed Aether Bolt You may activate this skill to condense your mana into a supercharged mana bolt, which will strike enemies for massive damage. This strike is near instant and inflicts fire, light, and energy damage. This spell does not need a full charge to activate. Additional mana may be channeled into the spell, dealing an additional 52% damage for every 200 mana channeled in. Mana is channeled at a rate of 100 mana per second. At max, 4.16 seconds of overcharge. Damage: 88 base mixed damage +31.2% Wisdommixed damage +3.06% Mana mixed damage Cost: -200 Mana -30 Spirit 2 seconds channeling 30 second CD
Arris had to reread the ability once or twice to confirm it was real. This ability was incredibly powerful! If he was doing his math right, the ability dealt roughly 100 damage in a single shot, and he could charge it to deal a little bit more damage if he really needed! There was no way a noob like him should have access to such a high-level spell. But he did. Now feeling much more confident in himself, Arris went for the second item, the chestplate. Holding it up, he asked the system to show the chestplate¡¯s stats, and the following notifications popped up.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill, Assess!
Crude Iron Chestplate Condition: Medium 12 kg Requirements: 10 Strength 10 Constitution Stats: +20 Defense to equipped area
More weird stuff. Why was the name colored and what was this condition about? As soon as he had that thought, a couple more screens popped up.
Rarity: There are several rankings in terms of Rarity. They are as listed below: Categories: Abundant Common Uncommon Rare Unique Unusual Special Epic Legendary (displayed through color) Rarity is a measure of the abundance of an item. Additional aspects of Rarity remain unmentioned
Condition: There are several rankings in terms of Condition. They are as listed below: Terrible Poor Medium Fine Good Excellent Superb Splendid Exquisite Sublime Condition is not a direct measure of the condition an item is in, instead, it is the measure of the condition an item is in relation to the original craftsmanship of the weapon. For example, if an item were to be crafted at the Splendid level and then rusted, the weapon would likely only decay to the Excellent level. Conversely, a weapon crafted at the Terrible could likely never achieve Sublime level, even with a million sharpenings.
Huh. That pretty much made sense. Too many terms at once for Arris, but he¡¯d acclimate eventually. From what he could tell, it seemed the chestplate was pretty shitty. That was fine with him though. Better a shitty chestplate than no chestplate at all. With his new loot and ability, Arris felt far more secure in exploring the dungeon. He went house to house, searching for chests. He found none, but in the 17th household he ventured into, he discovered something debatably just as interesting. A stairway leading upwards. Hesitantly, he ascended it, looking around to be careful nothing was going to jump down from the top of the stairwell and kill him. He made it to the top with no incident. Now at the top, he realized that he was actually standing above the network of the labyrinth, and could see the entire thing. The walls seemed to be uneven in terms of height, and this was one of the highest points visible. Off to one side, about three hundred feet away, there was a large stone arch which led to a small tunnel, actually the same stone arch the previous group of seven skeletons had cornered him under. The arch was considerably higher than the rest of the dungeon, and the entire thing could easily be seen from the top. Now it all made a lot more sense. The dungeon wasn¡¯t throwing the noobs straight into a complicated labyrinth of impassable stone walls. It was seeing if they were actually prepared to traverse the dungeon. If they went down into the labyrinth and attempted to traverse it without taking advantage of the fact they could easily see the entire thing and route a path through, they would surely get lost. A smart adventurer could prepare though. From his vantage point, Arris could see everything in the level. A small barracks with some twenty skeletons milling around near it. A small hall with what appeared to be a boss. And the billion twisting turns and ruined houses of the labyrinth. But Arris didn¡¯t have time to appreciate and inspect the labyrinth. No. He had one goal: to get to the exit, leave the dungeon, and find his relatives. He struck out across the top of the labyrinth, running along the tops of walls till he reached the exit tunnel.
You are in the first tunnel of the Skeleton Floor of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon
Arris ran down the tunnel, making good time and quickly nearing the exit. After roughly three minutes of running, he reached another larger cavern and entered it.
Congratulations, you have discovered the Initial Safe Cavern of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon! However, beware, monsters may frequent this cavern during the grace period!
Alright, it seemed Arris was close to the exit. Looking out across the cavern, Arris could spot what looked like a mining area, a sleeping area full of tents, an area for waste disposal of various types, and an area for cooking. Beyond those places, he could see two exit tunnels. Frowning, he decided to go with the one closer to the dungeon entrance on his minimap.
You are in the first tunnel of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon
It wouldn¡¯t be long now. Just two more minutes of running, an easy feat for a skeleton like him with no measurable stamina. He jogged down the tunnel, looking forward to seeing the sun and the green of grass once again. He¡¯d spent too long in the darkness of the dungeon. But when he finally reached the end of the tunnel, there was no sunlight, no breeze, no green grass and outside world awaiting him. Just a cold stone wall and a notification.
Dungeons are closed during the World System¡¯s grace period! Nothing may enter or exit a dungeon until the grace period has ended! Time Remaining: 5 months 29 days Good luck, and may the worthy survive!
(3) Chapter 2: Leveling Up Arris was sitting in the Safe Cavern, trying to decide what to do. If he was still a human and society hadn¡¯t fallen yet, he would¡¯ve gone and tried to get himself drunk, screw the fact that he was underage, the situation demanded it. Unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t human anymore and couldn¡¯t drink anything, let alone leave the dungeon to find a drink, so he was pretty much screwed on that count. That didn¡¯t mean though, that he couldn¡¯t wallow in his own self pity. That was fairly simple to achieve, even without alcohol. In truth, despite the fact that he was a video gaming, martial art wielding, ivy league attender, he was really quite the needy guy. California Institute of Applied Sciences was a good escape from his past¡ªit was also a good college. The faculty to student ratio was rather low, and he could find help whenever he needed it. There were always people to guide him through lab procedures, or point him in the right direction. Now he was stuck in a dungeon for six months, with no obvious path forwards presenting itself, and nobody to tell him what to do. It was a novel experience. An incredibly daunting one. If he fucked up, he was dead, not just broke, not just flunking out of school, not just falling short of the expectations of his peers, but dead. That was pretty fucking final. He¡¯d come way too close to death earlier. 7 Health. If he wasn¡¯t a skeleton with 50% resistance to dark magic he would literally be dead right now. That was his first mistake. Now that he had the assess skill, he would be sure to check everything that seemed magical before he used it. And he¡¯d make sure to always plan before he walked into a situation. That trap had been made to kill careless noobs who thought they could cheat the System and score some free loot. The System had likely created many more traps to kill off such careless idiots. Arris would have to be sure not be a careless idiot. That would get him killed quickly. Though one of the first steps to not being a careless idiot is to formulate a viable plan of action. Unfortunately for Arris, he had no clue what a viable course of action would be. Was exploring the dungeon solo a good idea? He felt like the first floor, with nothing but skeletons, seemed to be pretty risk free. The skeletons wouldn¡¯t actively try to attack him, and he could use that to his advantage, getting a salvo of spells off before the fight actually began. As long as he played it right, levelling up a few times in the skeleton floor should really be no problem. Of course then again, with nobody watching his back, some seriously nasty traps could get sprung on him without him having any inkling of their coming. If he got injured, there would be nobody to pull him out of the combat zone. And it seemed like the dungeon was for a group of people to clear, not a solo adventurer. The concentration of skeletons in the cavern he¡¯d been in before had been huge. No single person would reasonably be able to clear them all out. Weighing the options though, there really wasn¡¯t much of a choice. While the dungeon surely was dangerous, what other options did he have besides exploring it? Hole up in the safe zone and pray that nothing found him? Furthermore, earlier the System had mentioned that monsters could and would enter the initial safe zone. The skeletons wouldn¡¯t attack him, but whatever was down that other tunnel very well might. Staying in the safe zone may not actually be safe at all. It would also be astoundingly boring. He had no pencils, no pens, no books, no iPhone, no TV, no nothing, in fact, now that he was a skeleton, he didn¡¯t even have¡­ other body parts to play with. He¡¯d go insane from the inactivity over six months. There really was only one option. To go and try to clear some of the dungeon. Though, Arris was more than a little low on health right now. He had lost a ton of health from that earlier trap on the chest and was still recovering from it. His health bar in the upper right-hand corner of his vision still only read 11/120. That was pretty much nothing. It would be idiotic to enter the dungeon without full health though. Arris guessed he just had to wait. A little over four hours later, Arris was doing something idiotic. He was entering the dungeon without full health. After sitting around for four hours, Arris had realized the truth of the situation. Forget waiting around for six months with nothing to do. He couldn¡¯t even make six hours. Plus, the tools he was equipped with should be more than enough for him to take out any enemy near his level. He would be fine. He just had to keep repeating that to himself. Arris struck out down the first tunnel, the notification for him entering the tunnel popping up in front of him. He casually waved it away. After a couple minutes, he had jogged its length and was back in the cave with the labyrinth that was full of skeletons. He immediately began scoping out the skeletons which were walking on top of the Labyrinth. In total, he managed to spot seventeen, though there may be a couple more further off in the distance. They were pretty much all low leveled. As far as he could tell, the highest level skeleton on this upper section was level 3. Arris slowly walked around, trying to find a good target for his first attempt at a kill. Eventually, he found the perfect candidate, a level 1 Skeleton Drudge holding what looked to be a club, slightly further away than any of the other skeletons. Arris didn¡¯t know if they¡¯d aggro on him after he took out this first skeleton, so he was playing it safe. It should be an easy kill. Arris raised his arms, then spoke the mental command for Condensed Aether Bolt. All of a sudden, time seemingly froze. A window popped up.
Hello Arris Graham, the World System has noticed you are attempting to cast a spell! As this is your first time using mana or a resource bar in a conscious manner, you are being given a tutorial to show you how to properly access your resource bars. First, think of your mana, then look within your core. There, you should be able to find a spark of energy. Pull on it.
Arris did so, reaching within himself mentally, questing for mana. Upon reaching a space near his stomach, Arris felt something in his mind twinge. This was the place.
Excellently done Arris! Now, mentally attempt to cast the spell! The World System will give you a mental suggestion for a pattern. This pattern is called a spell matrix. Channeling mana through this matrix will result in the spell taking physical form! Be sure to direct your spell while casting it, or disaster may occur!
Arris mentally thought the words, Condensed Aether Bolt, and surely enough, felt the hints of a pattern gathering in his conscience. He tried to make manifest this spell matrix, and surely enough, a glowing orange pattern appeared in the air before his hands.
Congratulations, you have learned to cast spells! Good luck, and may the worthy survive!
Time then unfroze. The spell still hovered in front of Arris though, and he could still feel the mana within himself. Pulling it outwards, he fed it into the spell matrix. A second passed, then two, and Arris could see his mana bar in the upper right-hand corner rapidly draining. Another half second, and it was all gone. Now, all he was left with was a supercharged spell matrix. He mentally took aim at the skeleton and then released. The spell matrix shuddered, and then a flash of red lightning poured forth from the spell matrix. It smashed into the skeleton, incinerating half its torso. > You deal 208 mixed damage to Skeleton Drudge! < > Skeleton Drudge has died! < Arris blinked. That had been¡­ rather impressive. He still didn¡¯t know quite how much hp these skeletons had but¡­ 224 damage was enough to one shot him with an extra 100 damage overkill. And his stats were probably more than a little above average. He seriously doubted that a level two skeleton would fare much better than this one had. Over the course of the next several hours, he took out the skeletons standing on the walls of the labyrinth. His mana took roughly forty minutes to recharge, though while the wait was boring, better to play it safe than get himself killed in an aggrandizing act of stupidity. Maybe after he got a couple levels under his belt, he''d resort to more drastic tactics. After about half a day of frying skeletons, there were only four left on the walls of the labyrinth. Condensed Aether Bolt had not ranked up, though that was to be expected, it seemed to be a higher leveled spell, and frying these skeletons didn''t really take too much effort. Though aside from his lack of progression in Condensed Aether Bolt, Arris had managed to make gains in several other areas namely experience and loot. In terms of experience, it seemed he had gained 5% for every skeleton of his level, increasing by 50% for each level the skeleton had on him, and decreasing by 50% for each level below him the enemy was. In total, Arris had slain a total of twelve skeletons that were his level, and five that were level two, putting him at 97.5% of the total experience needed to make level two. He¡¯d also picked up a considerable amount of loot. Eight copper coins, 45.6 g Bone Powder, a battered cudgel, a sword rusted beyond use, a set of battered greaves, and more importantly, a Battered Iron Mace. When he¡¯d first picked up his first packet of Bone Powder, which was dropped by the skeletons, the World System had shown him how to use his inventory, which was a dimensional space which could carry up to 40 kg. Arris equipped both the iron mace, which was in far better condition than any of the other items, and the greaves, for whatever meager protection they could give him.
Battered Iron Mace Condition: Poor 2 kg Requirements: 13 Strength Stats: +15-20 Damage
Damaged Leather Greaves Condition: Terrible 2 kg Requirements: 8 Constitution Stats: +9 Defense to equipped area
With the mace equipped, his attack had risen to 22-27, considerably higher than the pitiful 5-9 it had been before. With a modicum of luck, he could kill a skeleton with his health in 5 blows. Arris was feeling considerably more secure about taking on higher leveled mobs. If Arris hit a higher leveled skeleton with his Condensed Aether Bolt before he fought it, it didn¡¯t matter even if dealt triple the damage he did, he would likely kill it in one blow with his mace. And since it had been many hours since he¡¯d been hit by the shadow bolt, his health had almost fully regenerated and was at 117. He could take on a level 3 skeleton, no problem. Sighting down on one of the three level 3 skeletons on the walls of the labyrinth, Arris funneled mana into his Condensed Aether Bolt¡¯s spell matrix. After a couple seconds, the spell was ready to cast, and Arris loosed it, sending it crackling through the air. > You deal 197 mixed damage to Skeleton Archer! < > Skeleton Archer has died! <
Congratulations, you have leveled up!
Arris lowered his arms, feeling a good deal of apprehension drain out of him. That hadn¡¯t really been anything. Doing that a couple more tim¡ªCRACK. > Skeleton Drudge deals you 36 damage! <
Warning! Surprise blows and blows to vital places will deal additional damage to you!
Arris lurched forwards, caught off balance by the sudden impact of a blade between his shoulders. Luckily though, as a skeleton, he felt absolutely no pain. Instead of going into a panic, Arris analyzed the situation like you would a book. His muscle memory activated and his mind went into combat mode and purged unnecessary thoughts. He quickly rolled, anticipating and dodging the next blow of the skeleton. Now looking up, and able to get a clear look at his enemy, Arris assessed it. < Skeleton Drudge | Undead Monster | Level 2 | 100% HP > He should certainly be able to handle this. While the skeleton recovered from its missed, sloppy, overhead slash, Arris pulled himself back across the stone, increasing the distance between the two combatants. He lightly sprang to his feet, now out of its range. Having actually seen the speed of the skeleton, Arris knew he¡¯d have hardly any problem beating it. The skeleton raised its sword and stepped forwards, telegraphing the incoming lunge. Arris batted the oncoming blow away with a simple swipe, and then took a step forwards, using the combination of its momentum and his strength to launch a powerful blow into the spinal column of its neck. In a single strike, its head was smashed from its neck. > You deal Skeleton Drudge LETHAL Damage! < > Skeleton Drudge has died! < Arris stood over the remains of his enemy, staring at them. That had been¡­ really easy. He was fit, in good shape, and knew at least the basics of fighting with various weapons due to his years doing MMA, but that skeleton had been less of a challenge than members of his club with ten years less experience than him. And that was saying something, considering the fact that those kids were ten, and he could pick up half of them with one arm. Maybe the skeleton could¡¯ve killed an unarmed, trembling, shocked citizen who¡¯d never been in a real fight before and had just had their world collapse around them. But to Arris, who¡¯d been beaten bloody on several occasions, whether in the dojo or real life, knew what a real fight was like. To him, the skeleton was an easy mark. The tension eased out of his body. Though, while he¡¯d expected the blow to the neck to deal a lot of damage, he hadn¡¯t quite expected it to one shot the skeleton. He guessed it made sense though. Landing a critical shot, one that would smash their heads in, should still kill them, regardless of level difference. This just meant that Arris needed to be more careful. If that skeleton had been just a little more even with his blow, and if he¡¯d aimed just a little higher, it may be Arris¡¯ head on the ground, not the skeleton¡¯s. And anyway, now that Arris considered it, the situation was weird. The blow had struck nearly his entire back, with extreme and considerable force. He felt like 36 damage for its blow and LETHAL, which was presumably a lot more was a little unbalanced. Glancing at his resource bars, Arris noticed that in addition to his health having decreased, his toughness was empty, at 0. He frowned and wondered exactly what his toughness was. In fact, toughness wasn''t the only strange stat he''d received. He''d also gotten spirit since he''d become a skeleton, and Arris had no idea what either spirit or toughness were. Arris made an inquiry to the system, and descriptions for both popped up.
Toughness: Toughness is a resource which increases a character¡¯s resistance to all forms of physical damage. Toughness will initially substitute for Health at a ratio of 2 : 1. Toughness benefits from all the regeneration bonuses that Health does. Toughness may also be used as a resource to use abilities for certain creatures with exoskeletons or hard outer bodies.
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Spirit: Spirit is a resource most often used to cast spells. Many spells require Spirit to cast. Spirit is the raw essence of a person''s soul, and should never be overtaxed. Over usage of Spirit drains both Mana and Health at a one to one ratio with the amount of Spirit used.
Those kind of made sense. The Spirit thing was pretty much just a specific resource for certain spells, it''d probably come in handy later. Arris didn''t quite know why he''d gotten the resource but he wouldn''t complain. Though the toughness resource made considerably more sense. As he had a hard outer frame made of bone he''d recieved the toughness resource which would absorb part of the damage of physical blows. So that blow which had dealt him 36 damage¡­ should¡¯ve actually dealt him 86. That made a lot more sense. Arris really would need to be a lot more careful. The next time something snuck up behind him, he may not be so lucky. Wait a minute. He¡¯d let that skeleton sneak up behind him? How the hell did that skeleton get behind him? Arris was sure he¡¯d checked to make sure there were no skeletons nearby. In fact, he¡¯d even checked to make sure that there were no level 2 skeletons left. Where the hell had this one come from? Had it respawned next to him? If random mob respawn was part of the System, that would suck, and be entirely unbalanced. Monsters spawning on the heads of adventurers could happen with reasonable frequency, and would make exploring dungeons incredibly dangerous, likely not worth the potential profits. It was an unlikely scenario. Looking around, Arris sought an alternative way the skeleton may have been able to sneak up on him. After several moments, Arris spotted the telltale indentation that was a stairwell. That made a lot more sense. The skeleton had been coming up the stairwell when Arris had been casting his Condensed Aether Bolt. Then when he dealt damage to the other skeleton, it had aggroed on him. Having made sense of the situation, Arris then quickly looted the two corpses. From the drudge, he received another 0.002 kg of bone powder, and from the level three archer a copper coin and another 0.001 kg of bone powder. Then, he walked over to the stairwell, to figure out exactly what leveling up had done for him. The game hadn¡¯t really given him any help telling him what to do, so he simply tried to open his stat page. The following screen instead popped up.
Congratulations, you have leveled up! You have gained 6 distributable stat points! You may distribute these through your stat page which will open once you close this notification! Stat points will randomly distribute themselves 1 week after you have gained them!
Arris waved the notification away, and his stat page promptly opened. Arris now had a hard decision to make. He could either dump his stat points into wisdom or intelligence, and try to become a stronger mage, or strength or agility, and use his fighting prowess to level quickly. It didn¡¯t take too long for Arris to make a decision. Ultimately, he went with strength, dumping all 6 stat points into the stat. While being a mage was nice, being a mage solo was an incredibly slow way of leveling. He killed skeletons at a rate of about 1 every 40 minutes. Doing it through simple melee combat would likely cut the time between kills to ten minutes. Strength would give him an edge in these fights. After distributing the points, Arris regarded his stat page with satisfaction. He was pretty damn strong.
Name: Arris Graham
Class None
Profession None
Titles Trailblazer I, Original I
Synchronicity Rating 97.6 Renown 0
Level 2, 11% Race Human Skeleton
Health 89/125 Mana 1/220
Toughness 1/125 Spirit 80/110
Damage : 25-30 Attack Rating : 38 Defense : 3.25 Defense Rating : 21
Strength : 20 Agility : 18 Intelligence : 20 Wisdom : 22
Luck : 5 Charm : 0 Constitution : 13 Vitality : 8
Health/10sec : 0.02 Mana/10sec : 0.72 Toughness/10sec : 0.1 Spirit/10sec : 0.72
Resistances +50% damage taken from fire-based attacks +150% damage taken from holy sources -50% damage taken from dark magic +30% damage from blunt damage types -30% damage from sharp damage types -10% damage from magical sources 99% chance to resist mind control and other types of subversive magic
Attributes Skeletal Frame Lesser Undead Immortal Soulbound
Passive Skills Mana Sense
Equipped Items Crude Iron Chestplate (Chest) Damaged Leather Greaves (Lower Legs) Battered Iron Mace(Right Hand)
Active Skills Assess Condensed Aether Bolt (4) (30 CD) Dark Blow (0) (10 CD)
Looking at his stat page, Arris realized there were multiple aspects of it which he didn¡¯t understand. A lot of the stuff was self-explanatory, but he still didn''t actually know what any of his stats actually did for him, or what any of his titles and attributes did. Arris went and pulled up the various descriptors for the things he wanted information on.
Trailblazer I As the first one to explore an unknown region, you have been granted the title Trailblazer I! For Rank I: +50% Experience in Cartography based professions +1 Luck
Original I As the first of your race, you have been deemed an exceptional specimen and should stand at the pinnacle of your Race! For Rank I: +1 Stat point per level +1 Class point per 5 levels +1 Race point per 5 Levels +500 Reputation with all members of your race
Skeletal Frame As a creature with an outer coating made of bone, you have a Skeletal Frame! Having a Skeletal Frame grants access to the resource, Toughness.
Lesser Undead Undead are strange creatures, halfway between life and death. They do not feel pain and are wholly reliant on magic to exist. Lesser undead are the weakest of all forms of undead. The following resistances are gained. +50% damage taken from fire-based attacks +150% damage taken from holy sources -50% damage taken from dark magic -90% damage taken from death magic +30% damage from blunt damage types -30% damage from sharp damage types -10% damage from magical sources 99% chance to resist mind control and other types of subversive magic
Immortal Your expected lifespan is over 100,000 years!
Soulbound As a soul tied to an inanimate object, you are more closely linked to Aether and magic! As a result, you have gained the resource, Spirit!
Strength Strength increases a character¡¯s raw carrying capacity by 1 kg per point and damage dealt with melee attacks by 1 damage per 2 points. Strength also increases the literal strength of the character allowing them to lift or move more weight.
Agility Agility increases the speed of all aspects of a character¡¯s movement, arms, head, legs, etc. Agility also increases hand dexterity and reaction time.
Intelligence Intelligence increases the size of a character¡¯s mana pool by 10 per ranking. Intelligence also increases the values of any magic related resources, possibly at a different value per ranking.
Wisdom Wisdom increases the mana regen of a character by 0.03 per ranking. Wisdom also increases the rate of regen for any magic related resources, possibly at a different value per ranking.
Constitution Constitution increases health by 5 per ranking, also increasing the values of any resources which can substitute for health, possibly at a different value per ranking.
Vitality Vitality increases stamina by 10 per ranking. Vitality also increases the rate of regen for all body related resources, at varying levels.
That was a lot to process. For the most part, the stats were not noteworthy, more or less what he''d expected them to be. It was the same for Soulbound, Lesser Undead, Skeletal Frame, and Trailblazer I. But the Immortal and Original I descriptors were shocking to Arris. Glancing at his stat page earlier, Arris had seen the Immortal attribute but hadn¡¯t really considered the implications. Now, reading the description, he finally realized the implications. He was going to live, practically until the end of time. 100,000 years was longer than modern humans had been on the planet. He¡¯d outlive¡­ everything. 100,000 years was a lot of time to do things with his life. All his wildest ambitions could be achieved thrice over in that span of time, and he¡¯d still have another couple thousand of spare change. It was terrifying to contemplate. He¡¯d live for what was essentially forever, and everyone he knew would be long gone and forgotten by the end. Arris shook his head, clearing his thoughts of the doom and gloom, and refocusing on the Original I title. The title was absolutely broken. He didn¡¯t exactly know what class points, racial points or relationship points were, but that extra stat point every level would prove to be broken, especially if he was Immortal. After reading the attributes over a couple more times Arris had more or less memorized them and was ready to move on. Arris got up and walked down the stairs. He was done fighting skeletons on top of the ramparts. It was too easy to miss a stairwell leading up and get himself ambushed. He¡¯d try his luck in the labyrinth. While he had no paper to map it on, he could compare his memory of what he¡¯d seen from the walls to his location on his minimap to know relatively where he was. Arris set off down the street going from house to house checking for chests containing loot while killing the skeletons he passed by. It was vastly more efficient than killing skeletons on the labyrinth walls had been. Whereas it had taken him nearly thirteen hours to get level 2 throwing spells at skeletons on top of the labyrinth, he was able to make level 3 in a mere five hours. When Arris encountered a single skeleton, the process he used to kill it was simple. He¡¯d creep up behind it, activate Dark Blow, and then execute it with a well-placed hit. For skeletons in pairs, he¡¯d simply assassinate one with the same strategy, then dispatch the other with his mace. And for the one trio of skeletons which he encountered, he simply assassinated one, ran away and blasted the other with his Condensed Aether Bolt, and then dueled the third. In total, Arris killed about twenty skeletons before he leveled up. He also gained two skill levels in Dark Blow, putting the skill to level 2. He''d been killing level 4 skeletons as well as level 1s, 2s, and 3s and it seemed he could handle any normal mob that was in the labyrinth, as he was yet to see a level 5 wandering the streets. Having always had a secret desire to cast fearsome magics, Arris decided to instead invest in his magical capabilities, not needing any more combat stats. He had to choose between Wisdom and Intelligence. Ultimately, Arris decided to put more points into Wisdom, as he felt his mana regen was sorely lacking. This brought his total count up to 28, increasing his mana regen by a considerable amount. Having distributed his stat points, Arris simply decided to go around and keep farming skeletons on the level. The group of twenty skeletons around the barracks he¡¯d seen earlier were certainly too much for him to take on now. He¡¯d bide his time and slowly level off of the wandering skeletons before he took on a challenge which may wind up in him being dead. Getting to level 4 was a much more difficult experience than level 3. As he killed the skeletons in the dungeon, the population of skeletons in the dungeon steadily lowered, making them more and more difficult to find. While he was hunting skeletons, Arris passed by the boss room and the skeleton barracks several times. Each time, he became more and more inclined to simply try baiting some skeletons away from the barracks and taking them out. The number of skeletons roaming the city had declined to virtually nothing, it was now taking Arris several minutes to find his next mark. He managed to make level 4 after another eight hours of exploring the dungeon and finding skeletons. He made sure to clear out all skeletons remaining on the labyrinth walls. When he finally got the kill that put him to level 4, Arris decided that maybe it was time to take on the skeletons at the barracks. He¡¯d gained yet another two skill levels in Dark Blow, bringing the skill level up to 4, and had managed to increase the skill level of Condensed Aether Bolt to 5 after smiting a couple more skeletons. Once again, Arris dumped all of his stat points from leveling up into Intelligence, further increasing the damage from his spells. His Battered Iron Mace was a little worse for wear, but for the most part, he¡¯d been able to avoid trading blows with the skeletons, and its condition hadn¡¯t degraded. He hadn¡¯t found anything better either and had actually stopped picking up and dropped all the junk weapons he¡¯d found. However, while he hadn¡¯t found any new weapons, he¡¯d found a full armor set for himself. His kit was now comprised of a set complete with steel vambraces, iron gauntlets, leather pauldrons, the chestplate and greaves from before, leather thigh armor, steel boots, and an iron helm. The items were for the most part in poor condition, with only the greaves and gauntlets in terrible condition, though they still contributed to his defense. After he put the full set on, the following notification appeared.
Congratulations Arris, you have equipped a full set of armor. Your armor stat has become your total item defense divided by seven plus your vitality divided by eight Total Defense Gained: 13.5
He''d also asked the system exactly what it was defense did, so he could figure out exactly what the armor was doing for him.
Defense The Defense stat reduces physical damage dealt to the character by 1 per each point of Defense. Certain abilities and weapons are better at penetrating through Defense.
That was pretty useful. His new total of defense was at 16.5, which mean that he''d block 16.5 flat physical damage from all attacks. That would make farming skeletons significantly easier and much less dangerous. Skeletons would barely hit him for 10 damage. In addition to the new defensive items, Arris also discovered several other commodities, most of which he took. After he¡¯d realized the abundance of human bones, he¡¯d simply stopped picking them up and actually dropped all of them, though he¡¯d kept the bone powder, picking up another 0.0896 kg. He also found another 22 copper coins, and one silver coin, of which he kept all of, due to their reasonably lightweight and the presumption he¡¯d have a use for them later. He¡¯d also found a single bronze ring. Now with his loot safely stashed in his inventory, and the streets almost entirely clear of any skeletons, Arris only had two places to search for more skeletons to kill. The boss room and the barracks. From what he¡¯d seen passing by the barracks on several occasions, the skeletons there were levels 3 to 5, the highest levels that he¡¯d seen in the labyrinth. And from what he could tell, his original estimation of their numbers was rather far off. There were about twenty skeletons milling around the plaza next to the barracks at any given time, sure, but they were constantly flowing in and out of the barracks. It seemed that it was more likely that there were thirty or forty skeletons in and around the barracks, with a large portion of their number concealed within the barracks. That was a lot of skeletons to contend with, and it would likely be rather dangerous to kill any of them, as he¡¯d need to aggro a decently sized portion of the skeletons to get even one, and he likely would die to a group of skeletons larger than four. Though from the single glance he¡¯d gotten into the boss room, he knew his stats were nowhere near high enough to handle the boss. The boss appeared to be level 7 and had a guard of eight skeletons protecting him. That was simply too many for Arris to take on. And even if he could bait out the eight guards, the one level 7 skeleton could still likely take him: its nameplate read, < Elite Skeleton Warrior | Undead Boss | Level 7 | 100% HP>, and it was the only Skeleton Warrior that he¡¯d seen aside from the ones outside the labyrinth. Arris wasn¡¯t sure how skilled in swordplay it was, and he wouldn¡¯t risk himself until he had comparable stats. If it was decently skilled, he could very easily die to it simply due to stat differential. There were simply too many unknowns in taking on the boss. The barracks were much more controllable. He¡¯d take his chances there. His decision made, Arris now had to decide on the best plan to take down the skeletons in the barracks. He would be sure to take his time and make a careful, well-constructed plan. After all, he still had another 5 months and 27 days in the dungeon. He needed to spend that time somehow. (4) Chapter 3: Real Power A few hours later, Arris had fully scoped out the area surrounding the barracks. There wasn¡¯t really anything he could exploit too heavily to his advantage. There were two exits to the barracks, one which continued straight down a long empty street, and the other which emptied directly onto a larger street, forcing you to turn immediately left or right. The rest of the area was surrounded by large, insurmountable stone walls, unscalable and significantly higher than the surrounding walls. In fact, the barracks¡¯ entrances had been placed in such an orientation so that a ranged fighter would need to be down on the street to have a clear shot at any skeleton. There would be no skullduggery involving standing on the roof and blowing skeletons up with spells from relative safety. Arris would need to risk himself to get the skeletons. Ultimately, the plan Arris had decided on was rather simple. He was currently standing in the middle of the long street that led away from the barracks, close enough to stare at the congregation of skeletons milling around in and about the barracks, about to put his plan into action. Arris raised his arms and began channeling the mana needed for a Condensed Aether Bolt. He¡¯d done some math earlier and had realized he could actually kill these skeletons for far less mana than he was currently expending to kill them. Making the assumption that the skeletons were investing into strength or agility for their stats, Arris had come to the conclusion that they really shouldn¡¯t have more than 150 health. His previous Condensed Aether Bolts had been overshooting that amount by some 50 damage. And while that was fine when he was being cautious, now he needed efficiency. If he simply ran out of mana every time he cast Condensed Aether Bolt, he would never be able to clear the barracks. A small portion of the time spent planning and scouting Arris had actually spent making calculations, to try and figure out exactly how much mana he needed to put into his spells to have them still deal enough damage to kill skeletons. One of the first things Arris had done was to ask the System for Condensed Aether Bolt¡¯s scalings per skill level. The following window popped up.
Condensed Aether Bolt You may activate this skill to condense your mana into a supercharged mana bolt, which will strike enemies for massive damage. This strike is near instant and inflicts fire, light, and energy damage. This spell does not need a full charge to activate. Additional mana may be channeled into the spell, dealing an additional (50 + 0.5)% damage for every 200 mana channeled in. Mana is channeled at a rate of 100 mana per second. At max, (4 + 0.04) Skill Level seconds of overcharge. Damage: (80 + 2 Skill Level) base mixed damage +(30 + 0.3 Skill Level)% Wisdom mixed damage +(3 + 0.02 Skill Level)% Mana mixed damage Cost: -200 Mana -30 Spirit 2 seconds channeling 30 second CD
Using that information, Arris had done some calculations, using a rock to scribe numbers down on a stone wall so that he could remember them. After crunching out the numbers, Arris had realized that he dealt roughly 106 damage with his Aether bolt when there was 200 mana pumped into it. Though, that was without factoring in resistances. As far as Arris could tell, the skeletons should have the same resistances as him. After he¡¯d asked the System how mixed resistances had worked, a brief window had popped up.
Mixed Resistance Mixed resistances are calculated by finding the average of the percentage increases, and then adding them to the average of the percentage decreases.
That was really quite straightforward. Factoring this into his calculations, Arris now knew that his condensed aether bolt should deal about 205 damage to a skeleton when charged with 200 mana. Though, the system had mentioned that his Condensed Aether Bolt did not need a full charge to cast. As the ratio was roughly 1 to 1, Arris knew that he only needed about 150 mana in his Condensed Aether Bolt to take down a skeleton, which would leave him with 90 left over. As he was currently regenerating roughly 1 mana per 10 seconds, that meant that if he drew a battle out for ten minutes, then he could potentially blast 2 skeletons with Condensed Aether Bolts. Alternatively, he could simply use that mana for Dark Blows, which cost considerably less and allowed for much more usage, but wouldn¡¯t necessarily guarantee a kill or even deal more damage. Ultimately Arris had decided to simply cast the Condensed Aether Bolt once to get some skeletons¡¯ attention, lure them away from the barracks, and then use Dark Blows to finish the rest of the skeletons. Arris continued channeling mana into his spell matrix until 150 mana had drained out of his pool. Stopping the flow of mana, Arris sighted on one of the skeletons towards the edge of the group before letting his spell loose. > You deal Skeleton Drudge 154 Damage! < > Skeleton Drudge has died! < As soon as his Condensed Aether Bolt hit, the entire barracks of skeletons which had been in view of the single skeleton turned and charged out after Arris. Mentally cursing, he turned and fled down the long street. If the entire barracks continued to follow him, picking off a few at a time would be very difficult. Luckily though, when he glanced back after ten seconds of running he noticed that only six skeletons had continued chasing more than a couple hundred feet. The rest were slowing and some already walking back to the barracks. Clacking his teeth together in an attempt to laugh and grin, Arris continued running forwards down the street. His plan seemed to be working. Time to initialize the second phase. His turn was coming up very shortly. Another fifty feet and Arris turned off onto a side street. He ran about fifty feet down the street, before stopping. It wasn¡¯t long before the skeletons arrived at the entrance of the street, and without slowing at all, charged in after him. Arris turned and continued running down the street. Another fifty feet and he¡¯d reached another side street. He turned off into it, and immediately ran into the first house he saw, taking the stairway inside up onto the walls of the labyrinth. Looking back down onto the street from the top of the stairway, Arris waited for the skeletons to continue their pursuit. This next portion of his plan was critical. If the skeletons had an innate sense of where he was, this plan wouldn¡¯t work at all. Otherwise, they should just run right by, allowing Arris to get behind them. It was only another couple seconds before the skeletons came into view. Much to Arris¡¯ relief, instead of turning and following him up onto the labyrinth walls, the skeletons simply ran by down the street. The very second Arris saw the last of the skeletons run by, he ran down the stairway, now falling in behind them. Unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t fast enough to catch up with them, running at more or less their speed, but he¡¯d already anticipated this and had a plan. Arris opened his inventory and pulled out a human bone. Once four of the skeletons had rounded the corner, he threw the bone at the last two, hitting the rearmost one in the back, sending it staggering into the one in front. > You deal Skeleton Archer 1 damage! < After recovering, the two skeletons turned, seeing Arris, but the other four skeletons which had rounded the corner did not come back to their compatriots'' aid. Delighted his plan had worked, Arris once again happily clacked his jaws together, and checked the nameplates of the two skeletons. < Skeleton Archer | Undead Monster | Level 4 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Warrior | Undead Monster | Level 5 | 100% > Arris considered the duo with a little more consternation than he had previously. This would be the first level 5 skeleton he¡¯d take in melee combat. This one seemed to have some sort of Warrior class. The Skeleton Drudges were easy fights, but Arris wasn¡¯t so sure about a Warrior. And plus, with that archer providing ranged support, Arris could be in serious trouble. Turning, Arris ran back down the street and into the house continuing up the stairway before circling around behind it to ambush the two skeletons, only twenty or so feet behind him. After a couple more seconds, the skeletons came into view, charging up the stairway, totally oblivious to the warrior waiting in ambush right above them. Arris leaped off the stairway towards the archer who had been outpaced by the warrior and was now in the back. He empowered his mace with Dark Blow and chopped violently down towards the skeleton¡¯s head. With a resounding crack, the skeleton¡¯s head split open. > You deal Skeleton Archer LETHAL damage! < > Skeleton Archer has died! < Arris attempted to grin but instead just clacked his jaws together. Peeved, but not about to let himself get distracted, Arris settled for an anticipatory twirl of his mace before retreating down the stairs. Currently, the Skeleton Warrior held all the advantages. It was fighting down an incline, meaning it could put more force into his blows, and if Arris lost his balance he¡¯d fall to the bottom and expose himself to an attack. Better to not risk fighting on the stairs at all if he could. After the Skeleton Warrior finished its ponderous turn, it glared down the stairs at Arris, who was now awaiting it in the open area of the house. The Skeleton Warrior walked down the stairs, its sword out in a ready position, clearly prepared to fight. Arris could tell just from its body posture that this skeleton would be far more of a challenge than any he¡¯d faced before. The two combatants eyed each other for several seconds before the skeleton warrior came in hard and fast. It opened with a low, sweeping blow in the hopes of getting under Arris¡¯ guard and maybe immobilizing him. Arris though was no amateur to combat. He dropped his mace low in a parry, successfully blocking the blow of the skeleton, all the while stepping in to deliver a sharp blow to its shoulder before dancing away, just out of range of its counterattack. > You deal Skeleton Warrior 29 damage! < And so began a long fight. Luckily, it didn¡¯t seem that this Skeleton Warrior was significantly stronger than a Skeleton Drudge. While clearly possessing at least some amount of skill, in the end, it only ever managed to parry two of his ripostes, and only landed a single blow during the entire fight. Though while the fight was none too difficult, it ended up being surprisingly long, a total of two minutes. Back when he was still human, if Arris was up again a regular human, an actual match to a single touch rarely lasted more than thirty seconds, only being particularly long if the fighters were being overly cautious or were exceptionally well matched. The reason was simple: people get tired very quickly, and tired people tend to make mistakes. When you make a big enough mistake against a competent enough opponent, you¡¯ll often lose the match because of it. The Skeleton Warrior was the perfect example. If it were a real flesh and blood human, his single blow to the arm could¡¯ve potentially broken and severely damaged it, causing massive pain and likely incapacitating the human. The fight would¡¯ve been over in ten or so seconds, because the skeleton had been over-eager in his initial blow, stepping too close to Arris and leaving his guard too open. Fights to the death lasting any significant amount of time were exceptionally rare. Now that the world was operating on an entirely different system though, things had changed. That blow in the first ten seconds which may have incapacitated a combatant before the System initialized instead dealt the skeleton 10% of its health. Instead of ten seconds, the fight took two minutes. Though the end result had been the same as it would¡¯ve been, in one world or the other. Arris had won. After the fight, a screen popped up.
Congratulations, you have gained Blunt Weapon Proficiency (1)!
Arris quickly asked the System for a description of blunt weapon proficiency.
Blunt Weapon Proficiency: Deal +(1 Skill Level)% damage with all Blunt Weapons
Arris waved the notification away, and then quickly looted the two corpses, netting another bit of bone dust and a copper coin. He then wandered back through the streets, moving towards the main street which connected to the barracks. And sure enough, there were the four skeletons, slowly trudging back towards the barracks. Arris crept up behind them, and pulling a skeletal hand from his inventory, chucked it at one of the skeletons, which it impacted into with a clatter. The rest of the skeletons turned, fixing their malevolent, red flamed gazes upon Arris. He clacked his jaws together, then turned around and ran. This was going to take a while. For the next several hours, Arris continued using the same strategy. He¡¯d first begin by baiting a small group of skeletons out of the barracks by hitting one near the edge of the crowd and attracting five to ten skeleton¡¯s attention. Then he¡¯d run off till he got to his stairway just around the corner. He¡¯d run up the stairway, the skeletons would run by, and just as the majority of the skeletons had gone rounded the next bend onto another street, he¡¯d throw a hand bone at one of the rearmost skeleton¡¯s backs attracting one or two skeleton¡¯s attention, causing them to separate from the group. He¡¯d kill those skeletons, go find the other skeletons which would typically be walking back to the barracks, and then repeat the stairway and separation strategy until all the skeletons in the group were dead. Then he¡¯d wait for his mana to regen to full and simply repeat the strategy. Fortunately, the strategy took far less time than it would¡¯ve once before. With Arris¡¯ mana regen at 1.14 mana every ten seconds, Arris refilled his entire pool of 240 once every thirty-five minutes. But even so, after a couple hours of using the same strategy over and over and over again, the novelty had worn off. But it wasn¡¯t really like Arris had a better plan or even anything else to do anyway, so he just continued killing skeletons. Then, when Arris was working on his fourth group of skeletons, he realized: he was about to level up! Another 6 points in Wisdom would increase his mana regen by a considerable amount. He could speed up the process even more. Eager for the increase in efficiency, Arris drew three skeletons on a single pull so that he¡¯d hit that 100% experience. He was currently at 87.5%. The group he pulled had two Drudges and an Archer. He sent the Archer to a permanent death with a surprise blow after leaping off the staircase. The two Drudges, hardly any sort of challenge, followed soon after. Then, the much-coveted screen appeared.
Congratulations, you have leveled up!
Arris pumped a fist in a celebration, about to open his status page to dump his six new wondrous stat points into Wisdom. But it appeared the System wasn¡¯t quite done with him.
Congratulations Arris Graham! You appear to have reached level 5 without dying! The World System would like to congratulate you on your survival skills! You have clearly proved you have the resourcefulness to survive in a strange environment! Beware, that you will gain 4% experience from mobs of your level, as opposed to the previous 5%! However, not all is bad tidings! At this point, The World System will give you your first ¡®tools¡¯ to survive! You will be given a selection between a mage and a warrior class, and also given the opportunity to select your first subclass! Be careful though, you may only choose or replace a single subclass every five levels, and may have a maximum of two subclasses! And while you will be able to change subclasses every 5 levels, the opportunity to change classes comes almost never! In addition to your class and first subclass, you will also progress your first level as a race! After you close this screen, you will be sent to the class selection screen, and then after that, the race advancement screen! Good luck, and may the worthy survive!
Arris read it over twice, making sure to miss no details, and then closed the notification. Another screen popped up.
Class Selection Mage: Mages walk the paths of magic and mana. Channeling the power of the universe through their very fingertips, the right mage with enough determination and mana can accomplish any task. Will you walk the path of magic and mana? (think mage to select mage) Warrior: Warriors walk the paths of struggle and strength. Harnessing the capabilities of their bodies to their maximum potentials, warriors can accomplish physical feats beyond imagining. Will you walk the path of struggle and strength? (think warrior to select warrior)
Arris frowned at the status page. The flowery language was great and all, but the descriptions weren¡¯t telling him the most critical information in regards to his choice. This was another trick by the system to try and get people to make an uninformed choice. He hadn¡¯t been told what selecting either class actually did. With a ding, a notification popped up.
Congratulations, you have gained the stat Perception!
Arris nodded, actually a little surprised the system had given him some sort of reward for noticing such a trite thing and then waved the notification away. He had more important things on his mind right now. He needed to figure out what each class would give him. Arris asked the system, and a pop up appeared.
Warrior: +5 Strength +5 Agility +5 Constitution +5 Vitality +100% progression rate to physical based subclasses Mage: +10 Intelligence +10 Wisdom +100% progression rate to magic based subclassesIf you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
So essentially, Arris would get 20 stat points, in either categories improving the body¡¯s capabilities for warrior, or categories improving the body¡¯s mana capabilities in mage. He could actually use those combat stats. But it was the next portion of the two class descriptions which really made Arris¡¯ decision clear. If he went with warrior, it would be an incredible struggle to rank up his magic based subclasses. He didn¡¯t quite know what class progression was, but the loss of 100% was a huge loss. And Arris really wanted to do magic. Magic was safer and felt a million times flashier. Sure, he could handle his mace decently well, but he had loved all of the magic he¡¯d done so far. It was fun. Blasting skeletons to oblivion from fifty feet off was exhilarating. Arris thought, ¡®mage¡¯, and another screen popped up.
Are you sure you would like to become a mage? Remember that this decision is final. Y/N
Arris rolled his spectral flames of eyes and thought, ¡®yes¡¯. With that thought, yet another screen popped up.
Congratulations, you have successfully selected a class! You may now select your first subclass! For ranking up Condensed Aether Bolt you have received access to the subclasses: Thaumaturge or Aetheromancer You may only choose one of these two types, so be sure to choose wisely! For ranking up Dark Blow you have received access to the subclasses: Death Knight or Dark Paladin (think the subclass you would like to select)
That was actually quite a few choices. Though, as before, all the System had given him were a bunch of empty words. He¡¯d need to inquire to get more information. And Arris did, pulling up descriptions of all of the subclasses presented to him.
Thaumaturge Thaumaturges wield the raw power of mana itself and the essence that powers all magic: soul energy. Thaumaturges are capable of outputting massive amounts of power over large amounts of time. They typically have smaller mana pools, high mana regeneration rates, and focus on casting a wide array of offensive spells of various damage types to quickly overwhelm and destroy their opponents. Thaumaturges are some of the most powerful mages in direct combat. Thaumaturges will gain: +10% Damage with Spirit resource spells Spirit Resource Bar Spirit Regeneration Rate +10 Wisdom The Skill, Spirit Shards 200% Progression Rate
Aetheromancer Aetheromancers wield the raw power of mana itself and the essence that powers all magic: soul energy. Aetheromancers are capable of outputting massive amounts of power in a short amount of time. They typically have large mana pools, low mana regeneration rates, and focus on a few incredibly destructive offensive spells to smash their enemies in a single blow. Aetheromancers are some of the most powerful mages in direct combat. Aetheromancers will gain: +10% Damage to spells with mana scalings Spirit Resource Bar Spirit Regeneration Rate +10 Intelligence The Skill, Mana Sparks 200% Progression Rate
Death Knight Death Knights are the most unholy fusion of physical prowess and raw death. Death Knights use their death magic to give themselves the edge in fights and then use their physical prowess to finish enemies. They typically focus on physical power over magical power. Death Knights are capable of feeding on the very souls of their enemies to replenish and increase their strength. They can use this power in large battle to become near indomitable warriors. Death Knights will gain: +10% Resistance to death +5 Strength +5 Wisdom The Skill, Death Wisps 133% Progression Rate
Dark Paladin Dark Paladins are the ultimate corruptions of regular Paladins. Dark Paladins channel the unholy powers of darkness to devastate their opponents. They typically focus on magical power over physical prowess. In combat, they tend to use a combination of debilitating debuffs and massive dark damage on their opponents to totally and completely overwhelm them. Dark Paladins are some of the strongest opponents in single combat. Dark Paladins will gain: 10% Resistance to dark +5 Strength +5 Wisdom The Skill, Disorient 166% Progression Rate
Arris made sure to read over each subclass description a couple times, analyzing each choice as he went. Thaumaturge and Aetheromancer seemed to be two similar types of mage, Thaumaturge focusedon drawn-out combat, and Aetheromancer focused on short fights. Of the two, Arris would have to choose Thaumaturge. It would be nice to actually make it through a fight, instead of running out of mana at the beginning. Between Death Knight and Dark Paladin, there wasn¡¯t really much of a choice. Death Knight only had a 133% progression rate, while Dark Paladin¡¯s was 166%. While Death Knight did admittedly sound far cooler, the drop of 33% in progression rate was simply too much to deem the class viable. Of course, then again, he wasn¡¯t making an informed decision. He needed to know what progression rate actually did to decide whether it was worth eliminating Death Knight as a choice due to its low progression rate. Arris inquired, and the system responded.
Progression Rate A measure of the number of class points received for obtaining a subclass, based on the average class point gain per level of a character.
Huh. That was a little confusing. And Arris didn¡¯t know what class points were. He inquired the system again.
Class Points Class points can be used to unlock skills pertaining to a character¡¯s subclasses.
Arris¡¯ spectral flames of eyes widened. This was hardly a decision. He¡¯d lose access to a bunch of skills if he decided to become a Death Knight? Yeah, no, not for him. Ultimately, Arris had narrowed the pool of subclass choices to two. It was either Dark Paladin or Thaumaturge. He actually liked both quite a bit. Dark Paladin seemed rather versatile, and as he was soon to go and face a boss, that extra boost in single combat potential could be very helpful. On the other hand, that extra ten Wisdom from Thaumaturge was a huge boost to his mana regen. After this level up, he¡¯d gain 10 Wisdom from his mage class, 10 Wisdom from his Thaumaturge subclass, and 6 Wisdom from his stat points, totaling to 26, plus the 0.03 for his level up. That was a grand total of an addition 0.81 mana regen, almost doubling his current amount. The amount of mana he¡¯d need for a Condensed Aether Bolt would also go down considerably, as his increase in Wisdom and mana pool would increase the damage per two seconds of charge massively. And there was that additional offensive spell, Spirit Shards. Dark Paladin sounded good, but it really couldn¡¯t compare. He thought the word, ¡®Thaumaturge,¡¯ making his decision.
Are you sure you would like to select the subclass, Thaumaturge? You may not undo this decision for another 5 levels. Y/N
Arris thought, ¡®yes,¡¯ and yet another window popped up.
Congratulations, you have gained the subclass, Thaumaturge, and gained the opportunity to purchase Thaumaturgical Skills! +6 Class Points As the only path of progression from Lesser Undead is to Minor Undead, you have progressed to Minor Undead! +6 Racial Stat Points After you clear this notification, you will proceed to the Skills store, which you now have access to at level 5!
Wow. There was more. Arris had already spent 15 minutes reading the previous texts and considering his options. Though it seemed he would soon have many more options to consider. He waved the screen away, and yet another notification popped up, continuing the seemingly unending stream of decisions to make.
Class Skill Store
Aether Bolt (2 Class Points) Spirit Surge (5 Class Points)
Condensed Aether Bolt (7 Class Points) (prerequisite Aether Bolt) Spirit Shift (11 Class points)
Aether Sheen (5 Class Points) Spirit Blast (6 Class Points)
You will unlock 2 new skills every 5 levels
Racial Skill Store
Bone Shards (4 Racial Points) Bone Shield (6 Racial Points)
Soul Stealing (12 Racial Points) Consummation (1 Skill Point (progressive))
Bone Armaments (7 Racial Points) (Prerequisite Bone Shards) Bone Reinforcements (4 Racial Points)
You will unlock 2 new skills every 5 levels
Arris quickly opened the various descriptors of each skill. Aether Bolt was essentially just a less efficient version of Condensed Aether Bolt that cost less mana. Spirit Surge was an area of effect damage ability which dealt raw damage and slowed. Spirit Shift was a short range teleportation ability which left a wake of area of effect damage over time damage. Aether Sheen was some sort of ripoff of a mana barrier and could block around 50 damage with Arris¡¯ stats. And spirit blast was a medium ranged, high damage, single target blast which dealt raw damage and shredded resistance. Though, these were only his starting spells. Would he eventually get access to greater spells which he needed to start saving up for? Before Arris started willy-nilly buying things, he needed to check. The other spells he¡¯d eventually get from Thaumaturge seemed to be more or less all the same. They were for the most part damage based spells. The speeds, sizes, types of damage, quantities, and types of projectiles varied for every spell. But the general function was the was the same. To deal a massive amount of damage. There were a couple spells to protect the caster, a couple spells to increase mobility, and many spells applied minor debuffs. But for the most part, they were damage spells. He went through to the level 30 spells before he stopped. There wasn¡¯t anything terribly impressive or worth buying. He could reevaluate at level 30. The racial skills, however, were of an entirely different type. They were highly varied in function and form. Bone Shards was a spell which summoned a small set of bone darts, which could be propelled at enemies. Bone Shield was the skeleton version of Aether Sheen, except it covered the body like armor, and only blocked physical damage. Soul Stealing seemed to be a version of what the Death Knight could do, and this made Arris even more glad he hadn¡¯t taken that class. He could get its skills from his racial skill store. Consummation was an ability which allowed the user to consume souls of the living to regenerate resources and gain experience. More efficiency could be gained by putting more points in. Unfortunately, It specifically mentioned it didn¡¯t work on undead, and being in an undead dungeon, the skill was currently pointless. Bone Armaments was essentially an enhanced, larger version of Bone Shards. And Bone Reinforcements reduced damage taken and increased damage dealt. They were pretty versatile abilities, and Arris would¡¯ve liked to pick up a couple of them. But unfortunately, after he had looked into the shop, he realized there were some other Skills he could purchase that would be massively beneficial to Arris. At level 15, he had the option to buy a skill called, ¡°Mini-Boss¡±. The skill would quite literally turn him into a mini-boss, guaranteeing him +1 Stat Point a level, +1 Class and Racial point every 5 levels, a random increase in all stats totaling a minimum of 20, and a single free, unique or rare unspecified ability. The total cost was 15, and it was progressional to a ranking of two, needing the same amount of skill points for the next level. Provided the fact that he currently had the attribute Immortal which gave him a lifespan of thousands of years, Arris was set to live for a very long time provided he didn''t get himself killed in a fight somewhere along the way. And if he was planning in the long term, that increase in a skill point per level would be massive. Who knew the highest levels he could reach. He may cap at 100. He may never cap at all. In any event, upgrading this ability could give him huge bonuses, letting him buy a ton more skills and gain a ton more Wisdom. He needed that upgrade and would save for nothing else. Arris ultimately decided to purchase nothing from Racial Skills and purchase Spirit Blast from his Class Skills. He then opened the scalings for his new skill.
Spirit Blast You may activate this spell to mold your spirit into a powerful blast, which can strike enemies for large amounts of raw damage. This projectile moves quickly but can be evaded by a fast enough enemy. Damage: (40+ 1.5 Skill Level) base raw damage +(20 + 0.2 Skill Level)% Wisdom raw damage +(10 + 0.01 Skill Level)% magic damage dealt to target upon successful hit, lasting for 1 + (0.01 Skill Level) minutes Applies Stagger effect to enemy struck Cost: -40 Mana -40 Spirit 15 second CD
It was a great ability. Paired with his Condensed Aether Bolt, he had a perfect combo. Arris could first Spirit Blast his enemies and then with the increased damage strike them with a Condensed Aether Bolt, dealing a massive amount of damage. Aside from Spirit Blast, he¡¯d also gotten Spirit Shards from gaining the Thaumaturge class. Wanting to check what Spirit Shards did, Arris also opened a window for that.
Spirit Shards You may activate this spell to gather your spirit into a collection of shards, which can be held for significant durations of time before being released. Each shard deals a small amount of raw damage. These projectiles move at high speeds but can be evaded by a quick enough enemy. Damage: (10 + 0.5 Skill Level) base raw damage +(10 + 0.1 Skill Level)% Wisdom raw damage Targets hit with more than 10 Spirit Shards will soul shatter, decreasing all health and mana regeneration by (20 + 0.2 Skill Level)% for (2 + 0.01 Skill Level) minutes Cost per Spirit Shard: -30 Mana -25 Spirit 3 second CD A maximum of (4 + 0.06 Skill Level) Spirit Shards may be maintained at a single time. This value is rounded to the nearest whole number. Shards last for a full 24 hours.
Arris really liked this new skill. While it soaked up far too much mana and spirit for its damage ratios to be worth it in straight-up combat, preparing four or more of these things before an actual fight could be a game changer. With only one thing left to do, Arris opened his stat page and dumped all his stat points into Wisdom. His stat page read as below.
Name: Arris Graham
Class Mage (Thaumaturge)
Profession None
Titles Trailblazer I, Original I
Synchronicity Rating 97.6 Renown 0
Level 5, 0% Race Human Skeleton
Health 140/140 Mana 227/350
Toughness 140/140 Spirit 152/175
Attack : 25-30 Attack Rating : 38 Defense : 16.75 Defense Rating : 21
Strength : 20 Agility : 18 Intelligence : 30 Wisdom : 60
Luck : 5 Charm : 0 Constitution : 13 Vitality : 8
Health/10sec : 0.026 Mana/10sec : 1.95 Toughness/10sec : 0.13 Spirit/10sec : 1.95
Perception : 1
Resistances +50% damage taken from fire-based attacks +150% damage taken from holy sources -50% damage taken from dark magic -90% damage taken from death magic +30% damage from blunt damage types -30% damage from sharp damage types -10% damage from magical sources 99% chance to resist mind control and other types of subversive magic
Attributes Skeletal Frame Minor Undead Immortal Soulbound
Passive Skills Mana Sense Perception (1) Blunt Weapon Proficiency (3)
Equipped Items Crude Iron Chestplate (Chest) Damaged Leather Greaves (Lower Legs) Battered Iron Mace (Right Hand) Rusted Steel Vambraces (Forearm) Damaged Leather Thigh Armor (Upper Legs) Bent Iron Gauntlets (Hands) Worried Leather Pauldrons (Upper Arm) Used Steel Boots (Feet) Dented Iron Helm (Head)
Active Skills Assess Condensed Aether Bolt (5) (30 CD) Dark Blow (4) (10 CD) Spirit Shards(1) (3 CD) Spirit Blast (1) (15 CD)
Arris had another important question on his mind. When he¡¯d first opened his stat page, he¡¯d noticed that different skills had different colors. He wondered what that was all about. The following window popped up.
Different skills have different colors assigned based on the maximum level of a skill. 1 Rank 10 Ranks 100 Ranks 1000 Ranks Number of rankings has no impact on rarity, uniqueness, or function of a skill.
That was rather simple. Arris swiped the screen aside and then¡­ no more popped up. Questions answered, level up dealt with, new class understood, and racial skills examined, Arris was ready to get back to killing skeletons and test out his new powers. First, though, he needed to redo all his calculations. After a minute or so of grinding out numbers in his head, Arris had calculated the maximum amount of damage he could deal with his full combo. The number was 469.That was enough damage to one shot himself three times over. There was no way the boss could justifiably have that much health, and even if it did, whatever health was left over after Arris unleashed the full power of his combo should be a very small amount. Though, before he got to the boss fight, Arris still needed to finish cleaning up the barracks. There weren¡¯t really a lot of skeletons left, and with his new magical powers, Arris was reasonably sure he could dispatch them reasonably quickly. He did some math and realized that he only needed to put around 130 mana into a Condensed Aether Bolt for it to one shot one of the lesser skeletons. This meant that he could theoretically use Condensed Aether Bolt on three consecutive skeletons. After baiting out one more group of skeletons, Arris went to the barracks to find them almost completely empty. In total, he¡¯d killed 25 so far. Looking inside he could only see four remaining. Though there may still be a few left within the barracks. Arris would play it safe. Arris was pretty much out of mana at this point, as he¡¯d used another Condensed Aether Bolt in his skirmish with the 4 skeletons, and he needed a full bar of mana to be totally prepared. After forty minutes of sitting around, Arris had prepped 4 Spirit Shards and regenerated his mana to full. He was ready to go. He stood up and set off towards the barracks. (5) Chapter 4: Beating Bosses Arris walked towards the barracks, fully ready to smite down to some skeletons. Arris strode boldly into the courtyard, glaring around defiantly, daring any skeleton to attack, but none of the skeletons aggroed on him. That was actually fortunate. It meant he could down one with a sneak attack before the real fight started. Looking around, he quickly analyzed the situation. There were two level 5 warriors, a level 4 archer, and a level 4 drudge. He knew the two Skeleton Warriors had to go first and selected one for his sneak attack, easily decapitating it in a single blow. The skeletons then snapped to attention, recognizing him as an enemy, but it was already too late. Arris had already fully charged his Condensed Aether Bolt with 130 mana, and unleashed it into the other Skeleton Warrior, killing it instantly. He then Aether Blasted the one Skeleton Archer before his four Spirit Shards followed, downing it instantly. The only enemy left in the area was a single Skeleton Drudge. Arris dispatched it with ease. He quickly looted the corpses of the skeletons he had just slain and the corpses of the skeletons he¡¯d slain earlier while casting Condensed Aether Bolts into the barracks¡¯ enclosure to bait groups of skeletons out. He then went into the barracks, searching for loot and enemies. Unfortunately, there wasn¡¯t really a lot within the barracks. The barracks was a single building, with a central hallway connecting all of the twenty or so rooms. Each room had two dessicated bunk beds each capable of fitting three people. There was a strongbox attached to the foot of every bed. Many were locked, but Arris paid no mind to this. He had a mace and plenty of strength. Using the yard of steel as a prybar to pop open the strongboxes was no issue for Arris. The opened strongboxes, for the most part, contained the decayed remains of papers or clothing. For some reason though, his human need for cleanliness and repulsion for rotted, disgusting things had fled. Arris had no problem rifling through these ancient, rotted belongings and uncovered several copper coins and a few pieces of jewelry. There was only a single surprise within the entire barracks. When Arris came to the very end of the hall, he encountered something he had not expected. A single, ominous, locked door. After he¡¯d fiddled with the knob for a solid twenty seconds, Arris had decided that the lock had either rusted shut or that the door really was locked. In any event, it was the largest, most ornate door in all the barracks. There had to be something interesting behind it. He was gonna get in, one way or another. Arris braced himself and then began using himself as an improvised battering ram. Once, twice, then thrice he slammed the door. On his fourth bash of the door, it finally gave way, exploding backward into a cloud of splinters and couple pieces of flying wood. Arris fell through the doorway, collapsing to the ground due to the sudden lack of resistance. And because Arris was on the ground, he didn¡¯t see the skeleton rising up in front of him.
Congratulations, you have found and activated the hidden boss challenge Skeleton Quartermaster! Do your best to survive!
Arris¡¯ red flames of eyes widened upon reading the notification. His head snapped up, viewing its nameplate, just as the Skeleton Quartermaster let loose a feral scream.
You have been afflicted with Fear! -20% Stamina Regeneration -20% Movement Speed -20% Agility 30-second duration
This skeleton appeared more than willing to aggro on its kin. The Skeleton Quartermaster was already halfway across the room by the time Arris got to his feet. It was ironically wielding a spiked Quarterstaff, and the entirety of its upper body was clad in leather armor. It quickly closed the distance between itself and Arris, before it sent its quarterstaff sweeping down towards Arris. Arris, not prepared with his mace, simply allowed the staff to strike his arm, whereupon his vambraces actually broke. > Skeleton Quartermaster deals you 34 damage! < Luckily though, Arris¡¯ hands were in just the right position to cast a spell. The spell matrix for Spirit Blast flashed into existence in front of his hands, before a blast of raw energy came thundering forth, slamming into and staggering the Skeleton Quartermaster. > You deal Skeleton Quartermaster 51 damage! < The quartermaster recovered quickly from being struck, returning its baleful gaze back to Arris. Unfortunately for the Skeleton Quartermaster, it was already too late. After casting Spirit Blast, Arris had immediately begun channeling a Condensed Aether Bolt. As the Skeleton Quartermaster raised its arm to strike, Arris released his spell. > You deal Skeleton Quartermaster 247 damage! < > Skeleton Quartermaster has died! < The Condensed Aether Bolt impacted heavily into the Quartermaster¡¯s chest sending it spinning to the ground, dead. After a half second wait of insurance to make sure it wouldn¡¯t be getting up, Arris clacked his jaws together happily and then moved forward to claim his loot. It dropped a silver coin, its quarterstaff, and its bracers. Arris¡¯ excitement grew greater as he looked at the item descriptions and realized that the quarterstaff and bracers both augmented his stats, and the quarterstaff actually gave the ability to cast a spell. The quarterstaff and bracers descriptions were as below.
Iron Quarterstaff of Command Lesser Undead Condition: Good 4 kg Requirements: 18 Strength 18 Agility Stats: +22 - 27 Damage Command Lesser Undead: Command up to 1 Lesser Undead at a time to follow your orders. Can be used up to once every 12 hours.
Leather Bracers of Agility Condition: Fine 2 kg Requirements: 18 Agility 11 Constitution Stats: +11 defense to equipped area +2 Agility
Not just did the staff deal more damage than his mace, it gave him a spell. A potentially game-changing spell, given that he was in a dungeon full of undead. Of course, then again, it only worked on Lesser Undead. Arris had graduated to Minor Undead at level 5. So could he only use it on Undead lower than level 5? That would be kind of a killjoy. Still, though, it may mean the difference between life and death in the upcoming boss fight. The Bracers of Agility were also great. More than a perfect replacement for his broken steel vambraces. That 2 extra Agility could potentially do a lot in a fight, though Arris still wasn¡¯t quite sure exactly what it was Agility did since it didn¡¯t really have any quantifiable impact on a fight. The two Agility at least seemed to warrant the item being classified as Uncommon, and not common. Arris was actually rather surprised the Skeleton Quartermaster had dropped quite as much loot as it had. It hadn¡¯t seemed that tough of a fight. He had to admit though if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he had access to Condensed Aether Bolt, or if he was a regular warrior, that fight could¡¯ve gone very bad very quickly. The debilitating debuff would screw over any regular warrior¡¯s combat chances, and that thing had been incredibly fast. If he wasn¡¯t a cheapass one-shot mage, he¡¯d have lost the fight. Of course then again, as far as Arris could tell, this dungeon wasn¡¯t made for a single person to conquer. He¡¯d imagine it would be far more suited for a group of five or six adventurers, complete with a tank, a healer, a couple ranged damage dealers, and maybe a rogue to counter any ranged opponents. Not a single mage. For any decent group with any form of communication, that skeleton shouldn¡¯t have been much of a problem. Of course, then again, Arris really shouldn¡¯t be complaining. He¡¯d been presented with good fortune over and over again. He shouldn¡¯t look a gift horse in the mouth. The notification when the Quartermaster had appeared had also said it was a hidden boss. Maybe he was getting extra loot for finding it? Then, Arris had an insightful realization. This was the first floor of the dungeon and was set up to be rather easy, and introduce adventurers to dungeon mechanics. Adventurers were given the opportunity map out the labyrinth, could find or avoid the boss very easily, get free, good loot from an easily found chest within the city, and now, they were given the option to kill this ¡°Hidden Boss¡±, that had actually been rather easily found, placed within an area any adventurer with any sort of loot sense would have to search. No, this ¡°Hidden Boss¡± was most likely designed to be found. In fact, if Arris¡¯ guess was right, there should be a ¡°Hidden Boss¡± on every single further level which would also drop good loot which would be useful in the boss fight. In fact, it was probably the same way for the hidden chest, and for the vantage point used for reconnaissance. He could find all of those things in later floors within the dungeon. A notification popped up. > Perception +1 < The notification only served to confirm his assumptions. That was some useful information to have. Arris clacked his jaws together contentedly. He then made sure to look around the Skeleton Quartermaster¡¯s room and check for any further loot. For the most part, there was nothing, aside from desiccated paper and rotted broken furniture. However, there was a strongbox which, once busted open, gave him 3 silver and another bronze ring. After giving the rest of the barracks another brief search, Arris decided he¡¯d thoroughly looted the place, and wouldn¡¯t find anything else of significant value. With that, he¡¯d more or less concluded his looting and farming of the labyrinth. There were likely two or three skeletons still roaming around but the experience for finding them simply wasn¡¯t worth the effort. There was only the boss room to clear before he continued on to the next level. Before going on to clear the boss room, Arris decided he¡¯d take stock of his inventory, and sort out any trash. In total, he¡¯d picked up another 0.1021 kg of bone dust, 27 copper coins, 2 more bronze rings, a silver locket, and 4 more silver. He threw away a bunch of lightweight human bones he¡¯d been using for throwing. His inventory screen read as below.
Inventory: 0.2412 kg Human Bone Powder 58 Copper Coins 5 Silver Coins 0.018 kg 3 Bronze Rings 0.006 kg 1 Silver Locket 2 kg 1 Battered Iron Mace Capacity 2.2436 / 40 kg
Arris actually decided to hang on to the mace on the off chance something ever happened to his quarterstaff. If he was ever out of mana and had lost his quarterstaff, he¡¯d likely die if he had nothing to protect himself with. The mace would serve as a good failsafe until he found a more suitable weapon and could discard it. Having sorted out his inventory, Arris was now ready to head to the boss room. Though, Arris decided to wait. He¡¯d seen how that Skeleton Quartermaster had immediately aggroed on him. If all bosses would immediately aggro on Arris as soon as he walked within a certain range of them, then it would be foolish to go and enter the boss room until he was totally prepared. Once again though, preparation meant waiting around for mana. He would also need to use his quarterstaff to command a lesser undead to follow him into the fight. As the boss had had 8 guards, an extra minion as backup could be used as a distraction and reduce that count to 7. Then, Arris had a epiphany. He could just command one of the undead in the boss room, and then have it turn on one of its brethren. If it got in a sneak attack, it may even be able to take down 2 of its undead compatriots. Arris then went to take a look inside the boss room. Much as it had been with the barracks, the walls were simply too high and steep to climb or look over except from a couple vantage points in distant sections of the city. The boss, however, was actually visible from the entrance. Arris had to wonder. Could the dungeon be giving it him so freely? It seemed like Arris could attack the boss safely from the exit, but he¡¯d still wait for his mana to recharge before trying anything risky. In the meantime, he took stock of the skeletons which lined the walls of the short hall. < Skeleton Warrior | Undead Monster | Level 5 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Warrior | Undead Monster | Level 5 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Warrior | Undead Monster | Level 5 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Warrior | Undead Monster | Level 5 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Archer | Undead Monster | Level 4 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Archer | Undead Monster | Level 4 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Archer | Undead Monster | Level 4 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Archer | Undead Monster | Level 4 | 100% HP > Arris'' jaws clacked together in an excited manner. Luckily, it seemed that there were lesser undead in the hall, and Arris could command one of them to fight for him. In fact, an archer would be far better than any drudge could¡¯ve ever been. It could provide support from the back, and provided he soaked up aggro and took out the rest of the archers, it wasn¡¯t even likely anything would attack it. The 4 warriors together may be a problem, but looking at the terrain, Arris believed he may be able to circumvent their advantage of numbers with clever strategy. The hall was not an empty corridor, but instead had a double set of pillars on each side. Arris supposed there could be more skeletons hiding back there, but he doubted it. It seemed more likely to be terrain that an enterprising solo adventurer like him could use to their advantage, using the pillars as cover so that the skeletons couldn¡¯t all come at him at once. Along each column of pillars in the center of the hall and also along the walls of the hall there were several large candelabras likely placed to add to the ambiance of the scene. They would make excellent distractions if he could tip them over. His plan for the boss was more simple. He¡¯d just use all his magic to kill the thing. Though, it sure would be nice if he could hit the minions or the boss from outside of the hall. Then his entire problem would be solved. If for some reason he wasn¡¯t allowed to hit the boss from outside of the boss room, which was entirely possible, then he¡¯d need to spend more time waiting for his mana to regenerate. Testing whether he could shoot the boss from outside the hall or not would take a while. Then, Arris had a realization. He could just ask the System! He quickly sent out an inquisitory thought, asking the System, ¡®How do boss fights work?¡¯ A response window popped up only a couple seconds after.
Calculating parameters¡­ Referencing index¡­ Finding information for standard dungeon boss fights¡­ Standard Dungeon Boss Fights Dungeon boss fights typically have two components: the boss and the boss¡¯ environment. Typically, the boss is a powerful monster with increased base stats. They are often larger, more magically capable, stronger, and faster than their dungeon creature counterparts. If capable of equipping gear, bosses typically have equipment far better than that of their dungeon creature counterparts. The boss¡¯ environment is always designed to be befitting of whatever boss occupies said environment. Many boss¡¯ environments include several weaker dungeon creature counterparts. Bosses can command these weaker dungeon creature counterparts, which serve purely as an extension of the boss. However, these minions will continue to attack even after the boss is dead, and the fight will not end until a certain number of important boss environment creatures have been killed. Boss¡¯ environments are specifically designed so that soloists, small parties, and large groups all have a chance at fighting the boss and triumphing. Bosses cannot leave their environments, yet at the same time, once a character has attacked the boss or its environment, there is no retreating from the environment. Bosses and their environments cannot be influenced from outside their environments. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
There were a couple important facts in the selection, namely that he couldn¡¯t retreat from the boss fight, and that he couldn¡¯t attack the boss from outside. Arris frowned. Of all the ways things could be, this was just about the worst. There would be no cheating his way around this one, he¡¯d need to be prepared to take out all eight skeletons and the boss by himself. Damn. If Arris could, he¡¯d totally avoid this fight. Could he simply skip the boss and go farm the next level of the dungeon? That would make things a lot easier. Arris was about to go physically check if he could proceed on to the next level when he realized he could just ask the System. After a couple seconds of thought to try and craft a question which would get the most thorough result Arris thought, ¡®Are there any requirements to the progression to the second level of a dungeon?¡¯ Sure enough, a window then popped up.
Calculating parameters¡­ Referencing index¡­ Finding information for dungeon level advancement¡­ Dungeon General Structure A standard dungeon typically has a total of sixty levels. A mature dungeon is divided into three segments or zones. Each zone of the dungeon has a distinct monster theme, some more common themes being amorphous, undead, animal, humanoid, etc. In a mature dungeon, the zones are ordered in terms of monster strength and must be cleared sequentially. Each zone of the dungeon is further separated into four distinct floors, each housing a species which fits into the monster theme of the zone. Each progressive floor is more diverse and more complicated to clear than the last. Floors are divided into five separate levels. Each level is home to a boss, a hidden boss, and a hidden loot chest. At the end of each floor, a level is dedicated to a single, more powerful unique boss. After a final level of a floor the player gains access to a safe room which dungeon monsters will not enter. The very final level in a zone is home to a named boss, which is sentient and considerably stronger than any other boss in the zone. In a mature dungeon, the previous level¡¯s bosses must be cleared to progress. Failure to do so will result in a -75% exp gain from all kills in future zones.
Upon reading the last couple sentences of the informative screen, Arris tried to curse but ended up just clacking his jaws together. He glowered at the screen. It seemed that he couldn¡¯t just go farm the next level of the dungeon. He¡¯d need to clear the boss he was staring at if he wanted to go anywhere. That -75% exp reduction would make leveling on the next floor near impossible if he didn¡¯t clear the boss first. Though this need for bosses to be cleared raised another question. What about respawns? Would the bosses respawn and force you to go back and clear them as you progressed? If he was always needing to go back and clear bosses, that would suck. Arris phrased a question to the System, ¡°How do monster respawns work?¡± The following window popped up.
Calculating parameters¡­ Referencing index¡­ Finding information for dungeon monster respawns¡­ Standard dungeon monsters do not respawn until the person who cleared them has exited the floor for at least 72 hours. Normal dungeon bosses respawn 144 hours after the person who has cleared them has exited the zone. Unique dungeon bosses respawn 240 hours after the person who has cleared them has exited the dungeon. Named dungeon bosses do not respawn at all.
Arris supposed that was pretty reasonable. What wasn¡¯t reasonable however was all this information the System was so freely throwing at him. Arris was incredibly surprised he¡¯d gotten even half the answers he had. In most of the video games, he¡¯d played, getting this sort of information took hours of surfing forums and looking at guides. The System had told him all of it in five minutes without any complaint. How far could Arris take his use of the System? What constraints would his questions have on them? For example, would he be able to ask what the best possible build for him to clear the dungeon would be? Could he ask for strategies against the boss? Hope flaring, Arris asked the System another question, ¡®What is the best strategy for Arris Graham to use against the Elite Skeleton Warrior boss?¡¯ Unfortunately, after waiting a couple seconds, the following window popped up.
Calculating parameters¡­ Illegal question detected¡­ Inquiry session terminating¡­
Arris frowned, and then shrugged. A little disappointing, but nothing less than what he¡¯d expected. The World System seemed to have been designed to be difficult to survive in. Arris was sure that if he wasn¡¯t undead and had totally lucked out by getting Condensed Aether Bolt, he¡¯d either be dead or still level 1 right now. If he was still a regular human who felt pain, needed to eat and drink, and felt overwhelming emotions, Arris wasn¡¯t so sure he could¡¯ve survived the apocalypse. While he may have initially freaked out and been pissed off at becoming a skeleton, it may be the only reason he was still alive¡ªor at least undead. He supposed that in a way the System was giving any person innovative enough to seek out answers their own personal guide to their new world so as to counterbalance the fact that the world under the System was incredibly difficult to survive in. > Perception +1 < Arris'' jaws absentmindedly clicked together in satisfied ascent. Who didn¡¯t like free stats for some simple critical thinking? Refocusing, Arris returned his attention to the boss. He should theoretically be able to enter the boss room without any of the skeletons attacking him. Ever so slowly, Arris walked through the entrance to the boss room. The Elite Skeleton Warrior¡¯s head slowly turned to regard him, but beyond that, there were no hostile movements. After a couple minutes of creeping around and by the skeletons, Arris had finally come to the conclusion that unlike the hidden boss, the Elite Skeleton Warrior wouldn¡¯t attack him. Now assured in his safety, Arris freely explored the hall. He spent nearly twenty minutes looking for anything he couldn¡¯t observe from the entrance but found nothing which could give him any sort of advantage. Arris now had to contemplate his various options. He could go to the next level of the dungeon and attempt to get another couple levels before coming back, but that would be a huge waste of exp. He could attempt to simply fight the boss as he was now: the odds weren¡¯t totally stacked against him, provided he killed the boss with his full combo and mind controlled a skeleton to dispatch another, he¡¯d only have to deal with six skeletons. That was more than enough to kill him, but if he used those pillars in the sides of the hall, he could effectively render the archers useless, and make the fight a four on one. But even then, the remaining skeletons would be skeleton warriors which were hard enough for Arris to take on alone. Four definitely had a good shot at killing him. If he could get another level or two before the fight it might give him the edge he''d need to win. Unfortunately, there wasn''t anything else to farm. Then, Arris had a realization. There were a bunch of skeletons wandering around outside the labyrinth. He could probably hit level 6 off farming those. And for that matter, couldn''t he just leave the first level and wait 72 hours for everything to respawn? He''d probably be able to hit level 7 if he cleared the entire dungeon again. While it would be going to be a lot of boring waiting around, better safe than dead. Arris turned away from the boss room and navigated his way to one of the exits to the labyrinth. It didn''t take him long to find his first group of three skeletons. He slaughtered them, then went off looking for more. |~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~| Four and a half days later, Arris had finally cleared everything in the floor for the second time. He''d just barely managed to hit level 7 and it would probably take him another few clears of the level to hit level 8, requiring more than a week of waiting. He wasn¡¯t willing to wait that long, and the single extra level wouldn¡¯t really make much of a difference. Level 9 would take more than a month to accomplish if he simply cleared this same level over and over again. No, if he couldn¡¯t handle the boss now, he would never be able to. And in any event, Arris wanted to hurry up and get on with the dungeon. There wasn''t anything to do but sit around and scribble on walls with a rock while he was waiting. He also didn''t have anything interesting in his inventory except the bone dust, but when he asked the System what he could use bone dust for, it merely told him it was most commonly used in alchemy. Arris didn''t even know what alchemy was, so that information was practically useless. The other thing Arris had done in his free time was attempt to explore the other tunnel which led out of the safe area. It actually led another zone, this one seeming to have an animal theme, being filled with low-level rats. But Arris got a 75% exp reduction for any kills he got in the zone, and the rats naturally aggroed on him, so he couldn''t freely explore. After being mobbed by 0.05% exp rats a couple of times and almost dying, Arris simply decided that the level just wasn¡¯t worth the trouble. He could just come back after he finally cleared the zone with the undead. Now after three days of waiting and some additional time spent clearing the level again Arris had finally hit level 7. Arris had put the skill points from one level up into strength to give him the edge in combat and put the other six into wisdom for a small boost in mana regen. In addition to his stat increases, his blunt weapon proficiency had doubled to six, and his spell skill ranks had all gone up one, aside from spirit shards and blast, which had both gone up two skills ranks. He was currently standing outside of the boss¡¯ environment, just about to go in for the fight. He¡¯d already summoned his Spirit Shards and was as prepared as he could be. He went over his plan for the twentieth or so time in his head. First he would blast the boss with everything he had, then he¡¯d mind control a skeleton, and finally, he¡¯d retreat to one of the sides of the room, hiding among the pillars and nullifying the archer advantage the skeletons had on him. There was nothing left to do but give it a go. Back when Arris was still human, he didn¡¯t know if he would have been able to take such an extreme risk like the one he was taking now. If he didn¡¯t one shot the boss, or if his quarterstaff of command skeleton failed, or if the skeletons didn¡¯t react exactly as he thought they would he could very easily die. This might''ve once terrified him. Now though, his fear was totally gone. As much as his brain was logically telling him that he should be scared of the life and death fight he was about to engage in, he simply wasn''t. Arris hardly felt any fear at all. No, in fact, if he felt any emotion at all it was excitement. That was really weird. Before tests, matches in sparring tournaments, presentations, or important standardized exams, Arris had always been extremely nervous, afraid of failing and embarrassing himself. Now he just felt strange. Detached. Calm. Eager. The emotions were completely foreign from anything he¡¯d felt before. It was almost definitely some byproduct of him becoming a skeleton. Could he no longer feel negative emotions? No. That was certainly not the case. He was still scared of the fight, the emotion was just far less prevalent than it usually was. Maybe becoming a skeleton had changed something fundamental about his emotional state and mindset. Was he slowly becoming a monster, like so many of the other skeletons in the dungeon? He shuddered at the thought. Nervous, he carefully asked the system the question, ¡®Has turning into a skeleton influenced my thought patterns in any way?¡¯ The following window popped up.
Calculating parameters¡­ Referencing Index¡­ Finding information on race change to skeleton¡­ Results inconclusive
Arris frowned. The System really hadn¡¯t given him anything to work with this time. That wasn¡¯t terribly reassuring. Arris clacked his jaws together in a self-reassuring manner and then tried to put his existential debate out of mind. He had no answers, and it didn¡¯t really matter yet. No matter what form he was in, as long as he could use logic, as long as he had emotions, and as long as he could remember who he was, he could keep track of and adhere to his moral compass. Anyways, he had a boss to kill, it was no time to be distracted by an existential crisis. Arris stepped forwards, clearing the threshold of the hall and entering it. As Arris could choose wherever he was going to start the fight, he decided to start as close to the boss as possible. The reason for this was simple. The four skeleton archers were much closer to the boss than the skeleton warriors, who were near the entrance of the hall. After he took out the Elite Skeleton Warrior, if he could take out a Skeleton Archer or two before the fight with the Skeleton Warriors broke out it would make all the difference. Once in position, Arris turned to face the boss before opening the spell matrix for a spirit blast and channeling mana into it. The Elite Skeleton Warrior just stared at him, contemplating and judging him as he prepared to attack it. Creepy. Arris aimed the spell, and then let it loose, sending it slamming into the Elite Skeleton Warrior shoving it down further into its throne. Right after the Spirit Blast, the four spirit shards flew in, striking for even more damage. > You deal 52 raw damage to Elite Skeleton Warrior! < > You deal 19raw damage to Elite Skeleton Warrior! < > You deal 19raw damage to Elite Skeleton Warrior! < > You deal 19raw damage to Elite Skeleton Warrior! < > You deal 19raw damage to Elite Skeleton Warrior! < Arris immediately started channeling the mana for his next spell, Condensed Aether Bolt, before any of the skeletons could react to his attack. As he did so, he checked the nameplate above the Elite Skeleton Warrior. < Elite Skeleton Warrior | Undead Boss | Level 7 | 61% HP > Arris did some fast math. If it only had 61% hp after he¡¯d dealt a little over 110 damage to it, then it had about 300 health which meant he needed about 200 more to down it. Arris channeled the necessary mana into his Condensed Aether Bolt¡¯s spell matrix. With a roar, the Elite Skeleton Warrior attempted to rise to meet its challenger. But it was too late. Arris had already channeled all of the 200 or so necessary mana into his spell. He sent it crackling away into the chest of the Elite Skeleton Warrior. > You deal 228 mixed damage to Elite Skeleton Warrior! < > Elite Skeleton Warrior has died! < But there was no reprieve from battle for killing the boss. He still had another eight skeletons to deal with. Spinning, Arris smashed his staff into the head of the Skeleton Archer which was standing next to him, sending it staggering into the pillar behind it. He quickly followed the initial blow up with another heavy strike, and without any real weapon to defend itself the Skeleton Archer died. > Critical Strike! You deal 96 blunt damage to Skeleton Archer! < > You deal 50 blunt damage to Skeleton Archer! < > Skeleton Archer has died! < Having killed the first of his opponents, Arris then raised his quarterstaff, aiming it at one of the other Skeleton Archers, before activating its ability. A spell matrix flashed into existence at the end of the staff, before a notification popped up. > You have gained control of Skeleton Archer! < Arris pumped a fist. That was two enemies down. Now all he needed to do was kill the other six. Originally, Arris had assumed he¡¯d use all of his mana taking down the boss. But he still had some 170 left. If he could last 30 seconds, he¡¯d be able to cast another lethal Condensed Aether Bolt, which would make the fight effectively a five on one, and if the controlled Skeleton Archer did its job well, then the fight would be a four on one. Using the pillars to his advantage would negate the skills of the single archer left, and ultimately, the fight would effectively be a three on one, difficult but winnable for Arris. Dancing back, Arris dodged around a pillar just as the two aggressive Skeleton Archers aimed arrows at him. Fortunately, neither of the two arrows they launched struck, instead clattering off the pillar Arris had jumped behind. Only a couple seconds later, the four Skeleton Warriors rounded the pillar, coming at him from both sides. He jabbed his staff at one, knocking it off balance and backward, and spun his staff into a strike at the other, which it unfortunately parried. > Glancing Blow! You deal Skeleton Warrior 28 blunt damage! < The four skeleton warriors fanned out into in front of him, mindlessly trying to attack him as quickly as they could without injuring themselves. It was very fortunate for Arris that these Skeletons had no real coordination, or he might¡¯ve been screwed. With no real strategy to their attack, he could easily keep the skeletons back by swinging his quarterstaff in large sweeps in front of him while retreating around pillars. He could easily keep this going for 30 seconds and get off another Condensed Aether Bolt. It was right about then that the archers re-entered the fight. All three Skeleton Archers suddenly popped into vision as Arris was transitioning between two pillars, with the Skeleton Warriors not far behind him. They hefted their bows, took aim, and released at Arris and the Skeleton Warriors. Flaming eyes widening, Arris leaped backward and behind a pillar, away from the hail of arrows. The Skeleton Warriors, oblivious the danger, ran straight into them. All three of the arrows impacted into the single, leading Skeleton Warrior, dropping its health by a whopping 62% and knocking it over. > Controlled Skeleton Archer deals Skeleton Warrior 32 piercing damage! < > Skeleton Archer deals Skeleton Warrior 29 piercing damage! < > Skeleton Archer deals Skeleton Warrior 34 piercing damage! < > Skeleton Warrior has been knocked over! < Now, there were only three Skeleton Warriors left, and his Condensed Aether Bolt only had five seconds left on its cooldown. Much to Arris¡¯ fortune, it also seemed that the Skeleton Warrior that had been shot by his Archer had shifted aggro to the Archer. When it got up, it instead turned and ran at the Controlled Skeleton Archer, which promptly put another arrow in it. The two uncontrolled Skeleton Archers were shooting at the Controlled Skeleton Archer the entire time, but they didn¡¯t deal enough to damage to kill it before it launched its third and final arrow which took out the Skeleton Warrior. > Controlled Skeleton Archer deals Skeleton Warrior 28 piercing damage! < > Skeleton Archer deals Controlled Skeleton Archer 32 piercing damage! < > Skeleton Archer deals Controlled Skeleton Archer 27 piercing damage! < > Controlled Skeleton Archer deals Skeleton Warrior 29 piercing damage! < > Skeleton Warrior has died! < > Skeleton Archer deals Controlled Skeleton Archer 30 piercing damage! < > Controlled Skeleton Archer has died! < Arris'' jaws clacked together in a happy manner. That had turned out far better than he¡¯d thought it would. He¡¯d expected the Controlled Skeleton Archer to only take out another Skeleton Archer, but a Skeleton Warrior was by far better. He wasn¡¯t really sure how combat would work with a Controlled minion, especially once he realized he couldn¡¯t actually give it orders, but everything had turned out better than he thought it would. And by now, his Condensed Aether Bolt was back up. With a smug click of his jaws, he made an especially large sweep, shoving back the Skeleton Warriors, before leaping back himself, and funneling mana into the spell matrix. The Condensed Aether Bolt tore forth from his hands, impacting into an undamaged Skeleton Warrior and killing it. > You deal Skeleton Warrior 146 mixed damage! < > Skeleton Warrior has died! < This fight was more or less over at this point. The remaining two uncoordinated Skeleton Warriors were easily dispatched. He¡¯d simply block the blow of one, and spin his staff to level a powerful strike at the other. He mixed in a couple Dark Blows, Spirit Shards, and Spirit Blasts with his leftover 60 or so mana. He finished them off easily, only taking a grand total of two hits which didn¡¯t even penetrate halfway through his toughness before he finally moved on to kill the Skeleton Archers. The Skeleton Archers each managed to get off a shot for a total of 37 damage, reduced by his armor before he killed them. All that was left to do after that was loot the corpses. Arris went around the hall, his jaws occasionally happily clicking together, as he absorbed the loot of the various skeletons. From the Archers and Warriors, he only got a few copper coins, some more bone dust, and some beaten up armor worse than what he already had. But the Elite Skeleton Warrior had a real treat. Yet another skill book, this one for a skill named Warrior¡¯s Stance. With no reason not to, Arris immediately learned the skill.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill, Warrior¡¯s Stance! You may activate this skill to root yourself where you stand, becoming an immovable powerhouse! While standing still, you gain a variety of buffs, however, beware, because once the stance is broken a brief debuff will be applied to the caster. All skill and attacks are more powerful while in this stance. Effects: +10 Strength +10 Agility +5 Defense +25% melee range ability damage +50% increased Health/10 Penalty: Lose 50% of all gains for 10 seconds after breaking Warrior¡¯s Stance
It was a great skill. This would be immensely useful in future fights and could be used very effectively against any enemies which were slower than Arris, weren¡¯t ranged, and didn¡¯t use a lot of a strategy. In fact, if Arris had this ability during the boss fight he¡¯d just won, he was reasonably confident he could¡¯ve taken on the four skeletons without needing to retreat. Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t seem he was allowed to take the shiny metal armor the boss had on, but Arris was more than satisfied with this new skill. The boss had also dropped its sword, but it wasn¡¯t magical and dealt less damage than both his quarterstaff and mace: Arris just left it behind. Now finished with the level, Arris decided it was time to move on to the next level. Though, just as he left the boss¡¯ environment, a window popped up.
Congratulations! You have met the requirements for clearing the first level of the Skeleton Floor of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon (Boss slain, 75% Monsters slain)! As the first to clear this level, an additional 100% level 6 exp has been awarded! You may now proceed to the next level and kill creatures without any sort of experience deduction! Good luck, and may the worthy survive!
With the boss having given him 20% of experience towards the next level, Arris¡¯ experience had risen to 78%, very close to level 8. He was kind of peeved that it wasn¡¯t level 7 exp, but he wasn¡¯t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If he got this sort of exp every time he cleared a level, he¡¯d be a really high level by the time he was through with all 60 levels of the dungeon. With visions of his future running through his head and a slight spring in his skeletal step, Arris slowly navigated his way through the labyrinth before finally arriving at the exit. Another couple minutes of running around the edge of the labyrinth, and he¡¯d finally reached the tunnel to the second level. Arris set off at a run and was at the end of the tunnel after just another couple minutes. Looking out into the new level, Arris¡¯ vision was obstructed by large stone walls and pillars, ending before they met the roof of the cavern. There were skeletons wandering infrequently between the obstructions. Plenty of enemies to kill. Arris clacked his jaws together happily. He couldn¡¯t wait to get started clearing this level. (6) Chapter 5: The Road to Hell Arris pulled up the image of his minimap, trying to gauge his relative position in the level. Arris was currently in the midst of exploring the level, attempting to map out the entire thing. He¡¯d already made his way through 90% of it in the course of the last day, but he had only so far found the primary boss and not the hidden treasure chest or the hidden boss. The section he was currently in was the very last place he could check. Within another hour of a walking around massive stone pillars, arches, and walls, he¡¯d finally finished exploring the last section of the level, the upper right-hand corner of the cavern on his minimap. Still, though, he was yet to find the hidden loot chest or the hidden boss. He¡¯d expected the two to take a little more searching this time around, but he¡¯d literally searched the entire cavern and found nothing. Arris frowned, glancing at his minimap again. The boss for the level was located in the lower lefthand corner of the cavern and was a Skeletal Reaver, some strange bone warrior with 4 arms and a demonic aura which reduced both his strength and agility by 10% while nearby. Instead of Undead Monster, its nameplate read, ¡°Raised Demon¡±. It was level 9. Arris wanted to get a little stronger before he took it on. As he¡¯d been exploring the cavern, Arris had been systematically killing the skeletons in the floor. He¡¯d initially kept a Lesser Skeleton controlled by his staff around for the extra combat potential, but after two separate skeletons died almost immediately in fights Arris had simply stopped wasting his time going back to the first level to find more. For the most part, the average level of skeletons seemed to be somewhere around 7, and they tended to travel in groups of three to five. This made the going a little slower, as Arris could only assassinate one of the group and then would need to fight off the rest of the skeletons. If the group had five skeletons he¡¯d kill one with Condensed Aether Bolt, kill another with Spirit Blast into some previously prepared Spirit Shards, and kill a third with a surprise blow. Whenever he encountered a group of this size, he¡¯d always need to wait to regen mana afterward which would eat up a lot of time. There were still plenty of skeletons in the cavern after he¡¯d killed many of them, and he felt he should definitely be able to hit level 9 after a few more hours of killing skeletons. He was reasonably confident he could take on the boss if he had the same level. But even so, Arris wanted to find the hidden boss and loot before he fought. If the Skeleton Quartermaster was any indicator, the hidden boss should be easier to kill and either the hidden loot or boss would definitely drop something which could be critical in taking on the boss solo. While his full magical combo might be able to kill the boss, it was also highly likely this boss was far stronger than the previous Elite Skeleton Warrior. The warrior had eight minions which combined were as much of a threat as the Elite Skeleton Warrior, if not more of a threat. This Skeletal Reaver was alone and certainly far stronger with far more hp than the Elite Skeleton Warrior, and he didn¡¯t know if he could take it down in a single combo. Simply launching himself into the fight could be suicidal. No, he needed to explore more and find that hidden loot chest and boss. |~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~| A full day and a half later of exploring the cavern and killing skeletons, Arris had increased in level to about halfway through level 9. His skills had gone up as well, his Blunt Weapon Proficiency increasing by 3, Condensed Aether Bolt by 2, Spirit Blast by 3, Spirit Shards by 4, Warrior¡¯s Stance by 4, and Dark Blow by 3. He¡¯d hunted down every single skeleton he could find and had nothing left to kill but the boss. Arris was well and truly stumped. There was quite literally nowhere in the entire level he hadn¡¯t searched. In fact, he¡¯d literally searched the entire thing thrice over, side to side, top to bottom, everywhere. Well, not so much top to bottom because there was only a single floor to this level, but that was beside the point. Wait a minute. Only a single floor? Arris suddenly had a moment of clarity. Craning his neck upwards, Arris looked at the top of the obstructions and could clearly see that they ended before the roof. The hidden boss and chest must be on top of the obstructions! He¡¯d searched everywhere else in the level, there was nowhere else for the hidden boss and chest to be. > Perception +1 < Arris smugly clicked his jaws together. The System had basically just told him he was right. He felt like a fool for not checking out the pillars earlier. He hadn¡¯t even considered the loot and boss may be in a such a difficult to reach location, but now that he thought about it, it made sense that the system would want to make you work to get free loot and fight an extra boss for even more loot. Arris approached the nearest pillar, looking closely at the rough stone wall. There were handholds and footholds aplenty and it seemed even a novice climber could easily make the ascent. Arris might¡¯ve once been cautious of climbing a tall pillar and scared of the height, but it seemed his reservations and fears had left him since becoming a skeleton. Feeling only excitement for the upcoming battle with the hidden boss, Arris placed his bony claws upon the grooves of the wall and began hauling himself upwards. About halfway up the pillar, a notification popped into view.
Congratulations! You have learned the passive skill, Climbing. Climbing passively increases your ability to climb, lessening the amount of stamina required and noise generated while increasing the speed of climbing. +5% Climbing speed -5% Climbing noise -5% Climbing stamina cost
Arris waved the notification away. The skill didn¡¯t give him any important boosts and was virtually useless in all but a few niche combat situations. He kept climbing, now a little bit faster. It wasn¡¯t long before Arris finally ascended to the top of the pillar. Arris latched his hands onto the lip of the edge before heaving himself up and onto the very top of the pillar. He stood up and glanced around. It appeared that the various high rising stone walls and pillars made a sort of patchwork elevated pathway around the level. He could actually travel almost anywhere in the level hopping from the top of one obstruction to the next. Looking closer, there also appeared to be several higher leveled skeletons wandering around. Glancing at the nameplates of the skeletons Arris saw several level 8s, a few level 9s, and a couple level 7s, staying only in groups of two to three. If Arris had been a normal human, maybe fighting small groups of higher leveled skeletons on the dangerous pathway would be hard. But with the fact that he could ambush them and easily take one out to halve their effective fighting force, the fights with the skeletons should be very simple for him. Off to one side, Arris spotted an indent in the cavern wall, and a building which looked like it had once been some sort of cottage but was now just a run down, rotten shack. Arris would bet that the hidden chest and maybe the hidden boss would be in there. He couldn¡¯t wait to get his hands on that new, shiny loot. Lost in his observations and imagination, Arris almost didn¡¯t react when a shadow suddenly crossed over him, something large and aerial flying over his head. A screen popped up.
Congratulations, you have found and activated the hidden boss challenge Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling! Do your best to survive!
Arris spun about, glancing upwards at his newest enemy, which was currently turning about in a lazy arc so that it could face him directly. The Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling was long and serpentine, roughly fifteen feet head to tail, with its skull appearing to be reminiscent of some sort of dragon or lizard. The front half of its body had two large wings attached to it, while the back half of the body was a long tail ending in a set of nasty looking bone spikes. Its fours legs actually appeared to be part of its wings, which were decayed scraps of skin stretched between the two legs. In many ways, it appeared a skeletal snake with wings and a spiked tail. Arris immediately took action, not sparing a moment to gawk at the skeletal drake. The thing was flying straight at him and making like it was about to attack. Judging from his prior experience with the Skeleton Quartermaster, this hidden boss had probably aggroed on him and was currently in the midst of making an attack run. Arris began casting his regular combo, starting with his Spirit Blast and then following it up with his 4 Spirit Shards. The Skeletal Wrathion trembled in flight, but with a screech of determination, somehow managed to flap several times and maintain its flight path. > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 52 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 19 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 19 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 19 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 19 raw damage! < Arris frowned. His damage had gone up considerably since he¡¯d last fought a boss, and he was more accustomed to his Spirit Blasts dealing 60 or so damage and his Spirit Shards dealing 22 or so damage. This thing must have some sort of resistance towards magic. Arris glanced at its nameplate, hoping his first round of combos had dealt a decent portion of the Skeletal Wrathion¡¯s health. < Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling | Undead Monster | Level 10 | 79% HP > Crap. Arris¡¯ red flames of eyes widened as he realized he may be in over his head. 21% for over 100 damage? The thing had more than 500 health! If it could continuously fly around, he couldn¡¯t get into melee ranged and it wouldn¡¯t take long before it grabbed him on one of its flybys. At the height they were currently at, all the Skeletal Wrathion had to do was drop him and he¡¯d almost certainly be dead, half the bones in his body shattered. But Arris wasn¡¯t through with his combo yet. The Condensed Aether Bolt matrix flared in front of his hands as he rammed more mana into it. He just had to trust in himself and the System. There had to be some sort of way to win. Maybe if he struck it on flybys he could rack up the damage he¡¯d need to kill the thing. The damage from this Condensed Aether Bolt would put the Skeletal Wrathion at less than half health. That was only 250 health. He could handle that. Right? Right?!?!? Arris channeled every last drop of his remaining 250 mana into the Condensed Aether Bolt. The Skeletal Wrathion was still about 300 feet in the air in front of him when the spell finished channeling. Arris aimed it and released it, sending red lighting thundering through the air colliding with the Skeletal Wrathion violently. > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 235 mixed damage! < This time it seemed Arris had dealt some real damage to the thing. With a shriek, one of its wings gave out and the Skeletal Wrathion tumbled downwards. It managed to somehow utilize its wings to change its trajectory a little and crash landed on top of one of the stone obstructions instead of falling to its death. > Skeletal Wrathion takes 26 blunt damage! < The Skeletal Wrathion clambered to its feet with an angry hiss, and Arris checked its nameplate again. < Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling | Undead Monster | Level 10 | 40% HP > Then, a blessed notification popped up.
Congratulations! You have managed to reduce the hidden boss Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling¡¯s health to less than 50%! It has lost the strength necessary to fly, and is grounded!
Arris almost collapsed in relief. If the Skeletal Wrathion had still been able to fly after he¡¯d hit it with all his spells, he¡¯d have been doomed. His chances of killing it while it was flying without any ranged weapons were slim to none. Earlier he¡¯d said that he¡¯d be able to figure something out and win, but that was more him reassuring himself. If it could fly and he was out of mana, he would have been dead for sure. Now that the Skeletal Wrathion was grounded, Arris had regained some semblance of a fighting chance. But the fight still wasn¡¯t over. The Skeletal Wrathion was currently crawling across the stony obstructions towards him, other skeletons clambering to get out of the way. Arris felt lucky that none of these skeletons on the obstructions seemed inclined to attack him even after he¡¯d attacked the Skeletal Wrathion. If he had to fight other enemies while fighting the Skeletal Wrathion, he¡¯d surely die. Arris glanced around and noted how very small the platform he was on was. It was barely one hundred cubic feet. He looked over to the platform next to him which was over twenty times the size of the one he was on. A far more suitable place to fight a boss. With a running start, he leaped over onto the platform, putting himself a little closer to the Wrathion. Two more obstructions¡­ one more obstruction¡­ and then the Skeletal Wrathion had leaped onto the very same platform he was on. Now that it was closer, Arris could see a couple more details about the creature. Both of its legs were quintuple jointed as opposed to the human quadruple jointed. Its forelimbs curved forwards instead of backward, meaning it would be near impossible for it to use its legs to swipe at him. In fact, Arris was pretty sure he¡¯d figured out its fighting strategy just from looking at the thing. If he approached from the front, it would use its jaws to snap at him. From the back, it would be well protected by its long spiked tail. He guessed the structure of its legs would allow it to both jump high when attempting to take off and also jump far and fast when lunging at prey. This thing would leap at its prey, and try to put its prey either behind or in front of it with every leap so as to be able to attack said prey with either its tail or jaws. However, if Arris could get to the side of the creature, he could inflict some massive damage. Arris just needed to stay close to the creature and off to the sides. The Skeletal Wrathion regarded Arris for a couple more seconds before it roared and then crouched. It was painfully obvious the creature was about to lunge, but when it actually did Arris was surprised by the speed and distance covered. With the combined push of both its back legs and forelimbs, the creature shot off, aided in its jump by a small flap of its wings. Arris was already at the edge of the obstruction, and if he stepped back he¡¯d fall off to his death. There was no choice but to leap to the side. And leap to the side Arris did. As soon as the creature had launched itself Arris was already in motion, moving out of its strike zone. Unfortunately, Arris wasn¡¯t quite fast enough. He was able to dodge the strike of its head and its grasping talons, but the rotted wings splayed out to the sides in its massive jump caught him, knocking him back and off the ledge. > Glancing Blow! Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling deals you 13 blunt damage! < In a miracle of dexterity, Arris managed to twist his upper body and latch his free hand into the face of the obstruction, preventing his fall. His body slammed into the cliff face, but Arris held on. > You take 7 blunt damage! < Arris banished the Quarterstaff into his inventory and then secured his hold on the wall. If this was a typical Hollywood movie, all Arris would¡¯ve done would be to hang on to the obstruction¡¯s face and not fall. But this wasn¡¯t a Hollywood movie, and Arris could climb a wall. Hoisting himself up he peeked up over the edge and saw the Wrathion not five feet away, just about to look over the edge and check on him. Arris immediately dropped off the edge of the wall before grabbing some handholds six feet lower and arresting his descent. Meanwhile, the Wrathion¡¯s head shot over the lip of the obstruction, snapping down where he¡¯d been a quarter second ago. It then proceeded to stretch itself downwards as far as it could possibly go but found it could not reach him. After a couple seconds of staring at him and contemplating, the creature finally snorted and withdrew its head. Arris breathed a sigh of relief. Now he had to figure out what to do. The Skeletal Wrathion wouldn¡¯t leave just because he was out of reach. No, the creature would wait in place until he came back up and then attack him. And if he got knocked off again, he probably wouldn¡¯t get lucky and be able to grab onto the stone ledge again. He¡¯d fall to his death. Maybe he should just clamber down and avoid the boss. He supposedly wasn¡¯t allowed to leave the boss¡¯ environment, but he couldn¡¯t see anything below him preventing it. But it was possible that after the Skeletal Wrathion regained all its health, it would just come after him again. It seemed likely the entire level was the creature¡¯s environment. If he didn¡¯t kill it now, later he¡¯d be innocently strolling through the cavern and then all of a sudden it would swoop out of nowhere and snag him in its claws, dragging him off into the air before dropping him to a long fall and violent death. Arris shuddered. It would be best to kill the beast now, rather than risk the potential consequences. He could just clamber a short ways to the side, and then climb back up, where it wouldn¡¯t be able to get him immediately. Arris had just started to move when all of a sudden the Skeletal Wrathion¡¯s head popped back up over the side of the obstruction, peering at him. Arris froze. But then, almost as quickly as the head had appeared, it disappeared. Arris wondered what the Skeletal Wrathion was doing. It wasn¡¯t really like it could attack him. Its head wasn¡¯t long enough to reach. Why would it look over again? Maybe it was just checking on him. Huh. Then, Arris¡¯ spectral flames of eyes widened as he had a startling realization. Without a moment to spare Arris madly scrambled to the side, moving as far away as possible from the area he was just in. And not a moment too soon. A half second after he¡¯d cleared the area he was in, the Skeletal Wrathion¡¯s tail swung down over the side of the obstruction, sweeping across its face. If Arris had still been there, he¡¯d have been knocked off and died. A couple seconds later, the Skeletal Wrathion¡¯s head popped back up over the side. When it spotted him, still clambering away, far out of range of its tail, it gave a frustrated growl and brought its head back up. Arris then heard the sound of the Skeletal Wrathion moving across the top of the obstruction towards him. In a sudden flash of ingenuity and foresight, Arris reversed directions moving back towards where he originally began. He then started clambering upwards towards the top of the obstruction. Some twenty-five feet away on the face of the obstruction, a tail swept down, crossing through the area where he would have been if he¡¯d kept crawling along the wall in the same direction at the same speed. Arris chittered, his jaws clacking together rapidly in an excited fashion. He¡¯d out planned the Skeletal Wrathion completely and utterly. He quickly hauled himself up on top of the obstruction, safely out of range of its tail and bite. The Skeletal Wrathion, which was in the middle of turning to check what had happened to Arris, had turned in the opposite direction he¡¯d climbed up in and didn¡¯t spot him till he was already on top of the obstruction. > Perception +3 < Arris waved the notification away. This was not the time to revel over new stat gains. The Skeletal Wrathion turned, roaring angrily and preparing to leap. Arris, having learned his lesson, ran away from the edge before it could leap at him and knock him off. The Skeletal Wrathion coiled it legs and shot off towards him. But this time, Arris was ready for the speed. Arris was already in a crouch and as soon as he saw its head twitch forwards into a strike, he rolled back just barely avoiding the strike. As the Skeletal Wrathion¡¯s body continued forwards, it flew over him before crashing down only a couple feet beyond where he¡¯d rolled to his feet. Arris was just where he wanted to be. Towards the side, away from its snapping jaws, and too close to the back for the tail to swing around and smash him. With a savage clack of his jaws, Arris commanded his staff out of his inventory whereupon it appeared in his hand. He then launched into a rapid three strike combo, each blow cracking into the same joint of the Skeletal Wrathion¡¯s leg. On the third blow, something cracked loudly, and the Skeletal Wrathion gave a tortured scream. > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 47 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 49 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling 48 blunt damage! < > You have crippled Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling! < The Skeletal Wrathion used its two good front legs and a flap of its wings to push itself backward so that it could face Arris with its head in front. But it was too late for the Skeletal Wrathion to win this fight. Arris glanced at its nameplate and read that the Skeletal Wrathion only had 16% of its health left. With a leg crippled its primary attack, the speedy lunge, was disabled. It was now just a matter of Arris being patient and waiting for the Skeletal Wrathion to make mistakes. And it did. Arris baited the creature by dancing in and out of its maximum strike range. Several times it tried to attack him but missed and he got in a light blow, shaving off another few percentages of health. It wasn¡¯t long before it was at 3% of its health, and then dead. After finally delivering the coup de grace, Arris collapsed onto the stone floor, spent. Holy shit. If the Skeletal Reaver was even half as hard to kill as this thing had been, Arris was fucking done with the dungeon. He could wait a few months for a party to come help him clear it. He¡¯d just satisfy himself with repeating floor clears. You surely needed to risk yourself for reward, but the sort of fights where the barest sliver of luck staves off death several times aren¡¯t the sorts of risks you want to be taking for rewards. Arris sighed and approached the corpse, raising his hand and placing it upon the head to loot the body. He received several items, including 7 kg of young drake bones, 0.276 kg of drake bone powder, an enchanted ¡°Spiked Shield,¡± and a scroll of teleport. It was some seriously jacked loot. When he searched the stuff up in the System, drake bones were listed as a rare level crafting item, and the bone powder was a rare level alchemical ingredient. The Spiked Shield, much like his staff, was also a rare item and reflected 10% of all damage blocked back to the attacker. Its actual defense stats were pretty crap, only giving another 8 defense on a successful block. But to a tank this could be an invaluable item, allowing the tank to actually deal damage to fighters and ranged artillery simply by blocking their attacks. And it was especially useful when you went up against a four-armed demon skeleton that did nothing but strike you over and over again. Kind of like the one he was about to fight. The scroll was seemingly the most valuable item though, allowing you to teleport anywhere within two miles of yourself as long as you could envision it. When he searched it up, it seemed the System was preventing him from leaving the dungeon with it, but when he asked if he could escape from a boss fight the System told him that he could. That was huge news. It was a literal get out of death free card. The next time a boss was too strong, he could just tp away, no problem. The Skeletal Wrathion hadn¡¯t dropped any cash, but that was fine. He was more than satisfied with the loot. Now, Arris had to make his way over to the rundown cottage. He was sure that the hidden chest was in there. There was no other place for the hidden chest to be. An hour later, Arris had finally made his way over to the front of the cottage. If Arris had gone directly to the cottage he probably could¡¯ve made it in a quarter hour, but he¡¯d also paused to kill the skeletons he passed picking up bone dust and a bunch of coins. He was currently at 99% of the way to level 10. With a shrug, Arris decided to go find another skeleton to kill before he looted the cottage. It didn¡¯t take him long to find a skeleton. There was one standing only three platform jumps away and Arris quickly closed in and smacked the skeleton to death, netting him that last bit of exp. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Congratulations, you have leveled up! This level you have the chance to change or choose a subclass, and also gain Class Points, Stat Points, and Racial Points. Spend them Wisely.
Available Subclasses For ranking up Dark Blow you have received access to the subclasses: Death Knight or Dark Paladin (think the subclass you would like to select)
Arris had already made his choice long ago. Someone could argue that it would be better for Arris to wait and eventually get a mage subclass with a 100% progression rate, but considering the fact that he was dealing half his damage in melee combat, it would be far more wise to have at least one melee oriented subclass. With a thought, Arris selected the Dark Paladin subclass and the next screen popped up.
Congratulations, you have gained the subclass Dark Paladin and gained the opportunity to purchase Dark Paladin Skills! +11 Class Points (+5 Dark Paladin, +6 Thaumaturge) There are no available Racial progression options! +6 Racial Stat Points After this screen, you will proceed to the Racial and Class Skills store!
Arris waved the screen away, wanting to get to his Class Store and see what new skills he could buy. The skill store popped up.
Class Skill Store
Thaumaturge Skills
Aether Bolt (2 Class Points) Spirit Surge (5 Class Points)
Condensed Aether Bolt (7 Class Points) (prerequisite Aether Bolt) Spirit Shift (11 Class points)
Aether Sheen (5 Class Points) Spirit Blast (6 Class Points)
Aether Sword (8 Class Points) Last Gasp (9 Class Points)
Dark Paladin
Shadowbolt (7 Class Points) Intimidate (6 Class Points)
Power of Darkness (11 Class Points) Affliction (3 Class Points)
Dark Blow (5 Class Points) Summon Shade (8 Class Points)
Gutting Blow (10 Class Points) Mental Onslaught (12 Class Points)
You will unlock 2 new skills every 5 levels for each subclass
Racial Skill Store
Bone Shards (4 Racial Points) Bone Shield (6 Racial Points)
Soul Stealing (12 Racial Points) Consummation (1 Skill Point (progressive))
Bone Armaments (7 Racial Points) (Prerequisite Bone Shards) Bone Reinforcements (4 Racial Points)
Soul Strengthening (4 Racial Points) Summon Skeleton Warrior (13 Racial Points)
You will unlock 2 new skills every 5 levels
Arris was already in love with his new class. All of the skills for Dark Paladin in the Class Skill store were very powerful. Intimidate would frighten lower leveled enemies and cause them to be feared and try to run away. Shadowbolt was the Dark Paladin equivalent of an Aether Bolt. Affliction was a dot which slowed enemies. Summon Shade briefly summoned the shade of a slain enemy, complete with abilities and stats. Mental Onslaught was ridiculous, it essentially caused hallucinations in the middle of combat while dealing damage to the enemy and debuffing them. Gutting blow was a pretty much a kill shot if it connected to the gut, as its damage was multiplied by seven from a value three quarters that of Dark Blow. But by far the best was Power of Darkness, which was a general stat and damage resist buff. Its description is below.
Power of Darkness Power of Darkness imbues the user with the very essence of darkness, giving the character increased staying power and magical endurance in combat. +10 Strength +10 Agility +10 Wisdom -5% Damage taken from physical sources
The new skills on the Thaumaturge side and in the Racial Skills were okay, but not half as good as Power of Darkness, and plus, Arris had already looked at them and come to the conclusion they weren¡¯t worth buying quite yet. Aether Sword was a melee ranged, half cost, one use, fully charged Condensed Aether Bolt, but if you missed it fizzled. Arris would probably pick this up someday as a tool against assassins, but until the day he was having assassin troubles¡­ Last Gasp was also pretty good, costing 50% of total spirit but dealing double the damage of Spirit Blast increasing by 1% per every 1% health missing. Good when he had enough health to be missing half of it, not so good when missing half was a couple blows from death. Summon Skeleton Warrior was pretty much self-explanatory. And Soul Strengthening was a buff to Intelligence alongside a bonus percentage mana and spirit regen rate. Nice to have and he¡¯d probably get it eventually when his resource pools were huge, but not today or tomorrow. Arris¡¯ mind made up, he purchased Power of Darkness, once again spending every single class point he had. He then opened his stat page, checking out his newfound stat increases.
Name: Arris Graham
Class Mage (Thaumaturge, Dark Paladin)
Profession None
Titles Trailblazer I, Original I
Synchronicity Rating 97.6 Renown 0
Level 10, 0% Race Human Skeleton
Health 190/190 Mana 17/400
Toughness 162/190 Spirit 147/200
Attack : 42-48 Attack Rating : 71 Defense : 16.75 Defense Rating : 21
Strength : 41 Agility : 30 Intelligence : 30 Wisdom : 99
Luck : 5 Charm : 0 Constitution : 18 Vitality : 13
Health/10sec : 0.046 Mana/10sec : 3.24 Toughness/10sec : 0.23 Spirit/10sec : 3.24
Perception : 7
Resistances -5% damage taken from physical sources +50% damage taken from fire-based attacks +150% damage taken from holy sources -50% damage taken from dark magic -90% damage taken from death magic +30% damage from blunt damage types -30% damage from sharp damage types -10% damage from magical sources 99% chance to resist mind control and other types of subversive magic
Attributes Skeletal Frame Minor Undead Immortal Soulbound
Passive Skills Mana Sense Blunt Weapon Proficiency (11) Climbing (1) Power of Darkness
Equipped Items Crude Iron Chestplate (Chest) Damaged Leather Greaves (Lower Legs) Iron Quarterstaff of Command Lesser Undead (Two Hands) Leather Bracers of Agility (Forearm) Damaged Leather Thigh Armor (Upper Legs) Damaged Iron Gauntlets (Hands) Worried Leather Pauldrons (Upper Arm) Used Steel Boots (Feet) Dented Iron Helm (Head)
Active Skills Assess Warrior¡¯s Stance (4) Condensed Aether Bolt (8) (30 CD) Dark Blow (8) (10 CD) Spirit Blast (6) (15) Spirit Shards (7) (3) Disorient (0) (15)
Then, realizing he hadn¡¯t checked out Disorient either, Arris opened the description for that as well.
Disorient You may activate this skill to use your mana and the powers of darkness to influence the very mind of your enemy. This spell is targeted and instant but takes effect over two seconds. It can easily be resisted by a prepared person. This spell requires an invocation as well as a spell matrix. Upon Successful Cast: -20% Balance -10% All combat stats 10% Chance to confuse allies with enemies 10 Second duration Cost: -20 Mana 20 Second CD
It was a great skill. It was super cheap and if he got it off it would quite literally win a 1 v 1 fight. There was really no reason not to use it, simply because it was such a cheap ability. 20 mana was nothing in a fight, and even if it only had a 5% chance of working, that was a 5% chance he¡¯d disorient his opponent so badly they were practically at his mercy. Very happy with his new buff and spell, Arris waved away Disorient¡¯s description and walked towards the cottage. The cottage was on a piece of loam which had surely once been full of vibrant plants and life but was now just full of unrecognizable dead things. The cottage itself was dark and rotten, the roof on one side caved in, and the door just barely hanging by its hinges. Arris approached the door and tried to open it towards him. However, instead of opening the door simply flopped off of its hinges, nearly falling on Arris who only just barely managed to hop out of the way. It shattered on the ground and Arris, after a moment¡¯s trepidation, peeked in through the doorway to check out the interior and make sure nothing would fall on him or attack. After a couple seconds glancing about, Arris decided that despite outside looks, the building seemed to be more or less safe. The frame was actually constructed primarily out of stone with only minor decorative parts being wood, it appeared that the roof¡¯s cave-in was caused not so much by the decay of the decorative wood but by the massive stone piece of artillery sitting in the middle of the house. Arris seriously had to wonder what had happened and who had lived in this house to warrant being thrown a massive boulder at. Of course, then again, who knew, it may have just been some catapult crew screwing up badly. But by the fact that this house seemed to be the only one left standing in the level, Arris kind of had to doubt it was something that mundane. Oh well. He¡¯d probably never know. The hidden chest wasn''t plainly obvious from immediately glancing around the cottage, so Arris began searching. It didn''t take long, however, as the chest was merely placed behind the massive boulder in the middle of the cottage and all it took was one stroll around the cottage before Arris spotted it. He eagerly approached it and after noting that it was not glowing and thus not trapped immediately popped it open. Inside was a helm, a set of greaves, a book, a bunch of copper coins, and a few silver. Arris once again decided it was a good time to take stock of his inventory and check out his three new items.
Bronze Helm of Intelligence Condition: Fine 3 kg Requirements: 15 Constitution 20 Intelligence Stats: +14 Defense to equipped area +5 Intelligence
Thief¡¯s Leather Greaves Condition: Fine 1.5 kg Requirements: 11 Vitality 24 Agility Stats: +11 Defense to equipped area +1 Agility -10% Noise to all movement
Alarian¡¯s Journal Condition: Terrible 0.5 kg
Inventory: 0.8233 kg Human Bone Powder 247 Copper Coins 22 Silver Coins 0.030 kg 5 Bronze Rings 0.012 kg 2 Silver Lockets 0.012 kg 2 Gemstone Necklace 0.006 kg 1 Gold Ring 2 kg 1 Battered Iron Mace 0.276 kg Drake Bone Powder 3 kg Spiked Shield 7 kg Young Drake Bones 0.2 kg Scroll of Teleport Capacity 13.3593 / 40 kg
Upon reading the descriptions for the two pieces of armor he¡¯d found, Arris immediately equipped them. They were far better than the junk he was currently wearing. That bonus Intelligence from the helm would be a huge asset in a fight, allowing for another couple spell casts, and the stat boost from the greaves was great to have, even if it was practically negligible. The noise reduction would also surely be useful in some situation later on down the line. Having equipped his gear, Arris then looked at the journal. Arris had initially assumed that the book was a skill book and now that he knew it wasn¡¯t he was a little sad he wouldn¡¯t be getting another skill. But the journal was unique in rarity: there has to be something special about it. With nothing to do but wait around as his resources slowly regenerated, Arris opened the book and began to read. As could be rather easily guessed by the title of the book, it was the journal of a being named Alarian. It was rather disjointed and certainly lived up to its condition of terrible, with near half the pages having been eaten by bugs, torn out, or faded into illegibility. However, what few words it did still have made it very clear the book was about animal training. In fact, the book started with the very quote, ¡°The path of the animal trainer is one of companionship, trust, and camaraderie. Us dravakiim, despite our often stoic and silent natures, are community creatures at heart. Without the presence of others to console our existences, we soon turn to longing and seek others for companionship, returning to the Great Mother Citadel. As the warrior of legends Grenieras once said, ¡®the road to hell is one paved with loneliness and death, often ending at the hands of another.¡¯ On the path of the animal trainer you will never walk this road, never being truly alone.¡± Arris shrugged. The words were some archaic mumbo jumbo, spawned by the vanity of the author who was exalting his hobby or class. He hardly glanced at them before flipping the page. Reading whatever pages that were still legible, Arris encountered various stories wherein the writer, Alarian Valdric, tamed and trained a wide variety of creatures. The whole process seemed to be almost entirely reliant on the trainer¡¯s determination and hard work, and very rarely were skills mentioned. Arris learned of a wide and astounding variety of beasts, all of which Alarian tried to tame but many of which he was forced to fight and kill. As far as he could tell, Alarian was not human. There was no direct mention of his race, but several times Alarian made comments how in his younger days some couple hundred years ago he may have been able to take on certain powerful beasts. Further corroborating the idea that Alarian was several hundred years old was the sheer number of beasts described and tamed within the book, far more than any human could tame in a single lifetime included just on the pages that hadn¡¯t been ruined. Unless things drastically changed with the System Initialization, humans did not live for hundreds of years. Most importantly though was the fact that Alarian referenced to himself as a dravakiim, and spoke several times of his special connection with drakes and longing for his kin. Humans were specifically referred to and both disdained and admired, though towards the end of the journal Alarian ultimately decided to settle down in a human city named Hrakvacrim. Arris had to wonder if he¡¯d eventually meet other sentient humanoids. The subsequent section was devoted to the taming of several subterranean species, including and heavily focussing on Wrathions. Arris found several detailed entries regarding adult Wrathions, including their mating habits, eating habits, and waste habits. Arris had to assume that in the last section Alarian had taken residence in the once flourishing and now ruined city he was currently in. And if he¡¯d encountered one baby skeletal Wrathion, it would follow that he would later encounter one of the multiple adult Wrathions mentioned in the journal in skeleton form. An adult skeletal Wrathion would almost assuredly be either the floor boss or the boss before it. > Perception +1 < As much as Arris was happy to get the skill point, he did not want to fight another one of those goddamn things. They were too strong, too fast, and in the air they were unstoppable. Fighting one of those things was a bad idea if he¡¯d ever heard one. After another twenty or so pages of descriptions of the taming of subterranean creatures the journal abruptly cut off, with no goodbye or explanation as to why. Arris could only assume that at that time something had happened to the city which had resulted in everything dying and becoming undead. He wondered if there would be more backstory to come. Who knew? The only way to find out would be to continue deeper into the dungeon. Upon flipping through the rest of the pages, the final fifty or so all blank, Arris finally finished and closed the book. Upon doing so, a notification popped up.
Congratulations! You have gained the profession, Animal Trainer! You have gained a massively increased capacity to tame and train various species of live animals. Special skills, attributes, and titles may be unlocked by leveling this profession. You have also gained the rapport stat, as it is necessary for this class. +5 Rapport
Arris wasn¡¯t quite sure what to make of this new profession. On one hand, it hadn¡¯t given him any skills or advantages that he could immediately make use of in combat. However, if he could find animals and then tame and train them to fight for him his combat potential could increase by leaps and bounds. Of course, then again, he was still an undead: there was the possibility no animal would ever even allow him to approach. But that was a problem for another time. Arris could go to the animal dungeon and attempt to tame and train the animals he found, but he didn¡¯t want any weak rats as pets, and currently only had access to the Rat Warrens, presumably only containing rats. Once he got more powerful though, he could clear through the Rat Warrens with relative ease and then maybe tame and train something actually useful on the second floor of that zone. Arris had just one more thing to do and that was to check out his new stats. He¡¯d gotten perception a while back and had been meaning to check it out but had completely forgotten about it, figuring it to be an unimportant sort of means of notification by the System that he¡¯d done something clever. Rapport, however, was something he definitely needed to check out to see what sort of impact it could have on his new profession. And if he was going to check out one stat, why not just do both. Arris opened the descriptors for both stats.
Perception Perception increases the thinking capacity and awareness of a being. Each rank of Perception increases Thought Speed by 1%, Vision Awareness by 1%, and increases the odds of spotting anomalies by 0.05%.
Rapport Rapport increases affinity towards all other beings, functioning in a manner very similar to charisma. Rapport, however, serves primarily to strengthen and encourage existing relationships, whereas charisma makes the character generally more appealing.
Arris was very surprised after reading the two descriptions for the stats. Rapport was pretty much exactly what he¡¯d expected it to be but perception was¡­ well¡­ it was overpowered. Increasing the speed of thought? It was something out of a sci-fi movie. Maybe someday if he got both the agility and perception stats high enough he could be like Neo or Agent Smith, capable trading lightning fast blows at speeds too fast for comprehension. And anyway, it wasn¡¯t like he needed to double his thought speed or anything for the stat to be busted. He hadn¡¯t really noticed it yet, but get another ten or twenty points into that stat and it would make a marked difference in combat. After being excited by his discoveries about his stats and his gain of the Animal Tamer class, Arris was finally ready to move on to the level boss. He navigated his way across the obstructions killing the skeletons he met before he finally reached the area where he knew the Skeletal Reaver was. Looking down from the top of the obstruction he could actually see the Skeletal Reaver down below. Then, Arris realized something rather obvious. He could just hit it with magic from on top of the obstruction. After a short wait, Arris had prepped 4 Spirit Shards and was ready to attack. He went through his full combo, expending all but 40 mana. The spells crackled down and smashed violently into the Skeletal Reaver. > You deal Skeletal Reaver 56 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Reaver 21 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Reaver 21 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Reaver 21 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Reaver 21 raw damage! < > You deal Skeletal Reaver 373 mixed damage! < > Skeletal Reaver has died! < > Condensed Aether Bolt +1 < Holy crap. He¡¯d literally just one shot that boss. After the Skeletal Wrathion he''d been expecting a little bit more of a fight than that. It wasn¡¯t too surprising though, considering the fact that he¡¯d knocked off 75% or so of the Wrathion¡¯s health with his combo. And the Skeletal Wrathion, unlike the Reaver, was practically a dragon. It was only reasonable to assume that it had a little more health. Both relieved and disappointed at not having to do any real fighting to take down the boss, Arris began the descent to its body. The boss had dropped all four of its scimitars as well as a ton of cash, a total of thirty-four copper coins and four silver. Arris also opened a window to check what the scimitars did.
Scimitar of Synchronization Condition: Excellent 2 kg Requirements: 36 Agility 23 Strength Stats: +19-24 Damage +1 Agility Synchronization: Scimitars of Synchronization deal an additional 5 damage and give an addition 1 agility for each Scimitar of Synchronization equipped and in use during combat. If there are four or more Scimitars of Synchronization equipped and in use during combat, gain an extra 10 damage and 1 agility per weapon, for a total of 5 agility and 49-54 damage on each weapon.
After initially seeing the unique color indicator and the excellent condition, Arris had been rather excited. But after reading the actual item description Arris was rather disappointed, for the simple reason that he couldn¡¯t effectively use the items. If you could somehow equip four of the item at a single time it would surely be overpowered. But since Arris only had two arms and could only equip two at a time the scimitars were effectively useless since they didn¡¯t deal as much damage as the Quarterstaff. Ah well. While the Scimitars were less useful than the Quarterstaff, they would make a good replacement for his mace, which he dropped and then replaced with the four scimitars. Who knew. Maybe he could find a good use for the items later. Finally clear of the level, Arris then traveled from the site of the boss fight to the entrance of the tunnel to the next level. It was time to move onwards and further into the dungeon. There was no telling what would be waiting for him in the next few caverns, and Arris couldn''t wait to find out. (7) Chapter 6: Broken Bits Four days later Arris had finished clearing the next level of the floor. Compared to the second level of the floor it was somewhat of a joke in terms of strength difference from the last floor. The primary boss of the level was level 11, but even having a level on the Wrathion it was still not anywhere near as difficult a fight. The boss was some sort of massive skeletal hound guarding a massive stone castle in the middle of the level. Arris dealt 93% of its health with his full combo and finished it off easily after a quick exchange of blows. While the boss was a bit of a pushover the loot it dropped was still pretty decent. After absorbing the corpse, Arris collected a collar of strength which went around his neck and gave him 3 bonus strength, several of its massive canines which were rare crafting items, and a ton of cash. The rest of the level seemed to have been some sort of city with a large, dead forest surrounding it. Many undead roamed the city streets as opposed to the few which stumbled about the forest. They ranged from large groups of eight to ten level 9 to 11 skeletons, solitary repeats of the Skeletal Reaver he¡¯d encountered in the last level, or Elite Skeleton Warriors with small entourages. With his prior experience in defeating all three groups or types of enemies, Arris was able to kill most of the skeletons in the town, netting him level 11 and most of the experience towards 12. The reavers were the easiest, Arris simply blasting them down from far away. The Elite Skeleton Warrior groups weren¡¯t much more difficult, only having three or four minions which were easily dealt with after the Elite Skeleton Warrior went down to his magic. And the large groups of skeletons simply had to be baited into the confines of the alleyways between the city¡¯s buildings. There were narrow passages aplenty there and Arris just had to duck into one of them and fight there where the skeletons could only come at him one or two at a time. He¡¯d activate Warrior¡¯s Stance, dig in, and slaughter them all. These skeletons also dropped far better loot than the previous levels'' regular skeletons had dropped. While not quite on the level of the loot of the bosses from previous levels the creatures represented, it was still a marked upgrade in average loot drops. Alongside more of the usual stuff, several uncommon pieces of armor were dropped alongside an uncommon morningstar all of which he equipped or added to his inventory. The morningstar dealt mixed blunt and piercing damage and had just a tiny bit more damage than his two scimitars would. Unlike what he had done with the mace though, Arris didn¡¯t drop the scimitars figuring he¡¯d eventually find a use for them. The pieces of armor brought his defense up by another 2 points, the looted items¡¯ descriptions all below.
Mail Pauldrons of Constitution Condition: Good 5 kg Requirements: 13 Constitution 20 Strength Stats: +16 Defense to equipped area + 2 Constitution
Battered Sabatons of Swiftness Condition: Fine 3 kg Requirements: 17 Constitution 31 Strength Stats: +17 Defense to equipped area +1 Agility
Steel Gauntlets of the Pugilist Condition: Fine 3 kg Requirements: 11 Vitality 28 Strength Stats: +11 Defense to equipped area +10 Damage to unarmed melee blows
Studded Morningstar Condition: Fine 3 kg Requirements: 36 Strength 20 Agility Stats: +20 - 25 damage +10% chance to break inflict crippling statuses
In addition to the items, Arris had also received a variety of experience gains. With his rather frequent casting of spells and usage of abilities, Arris¡¯ abilities had all ranked up. Blunt Weapon Proficiency had increased by seven, Warrior¡¯s Stance had increased by two, Condensed Aether Bolt had increased by four, Dark Blow had increased by three, Spirit Blast and Shard had both increased by five, and Disorient had increased by a full six. After finally downing the skeletal hound and the various skeletons within the city Arris was less than 20% experience off level 12. Once he killed the hidden boss and found the hidden loot chest he¡¯d be level 12 and ready to move on to the next level. It took him many hours of searching to find the two. The hidden loot chest was the first thing he found. Like the hidden loot chest in the first level, this one was merely hidden and not indirectly guarded by the hidden boss. Unlike the hidden loot chest in the first level though, this hidden loot chest was difficult to find. The hidden loot chest was in a hidden room connected to a hidden exit to the throne room of the massive castle. Upon seeing the castle, Arris had assumed that either the hidden boss or the hidden loot chest was somewhere within it and had decided to do a very thorough search of the premises. All paths in the building led to the throne room but even after passing through multiple times Arris was unable to discern that there was a hidden passageway leading out. He likely wouldn¡¯t have found it at all if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the System decided to give him a hint in the form of a note in one of the largest bedrooms of the castle. The note was conspicuously titled ¡®The Hidden Treasures¡¯ almost directly telling him it was some sort of hint regarding the hidden loot chest. It read as below. In the foyer find the fish jumping free, Dragons fly overhead, they tilt their heads for me, In the hidden rose¡¯s petal beauty awaits, Underneath the chair silver lies gleaming in plaits, Up a stairway to heaven you shall see, Hidden treasures there for free. It was a nice little rhyme but had no real meaning beyond the puzzle it conveyed. Arris followed the instructions within the note and first went to the foyer. It didn¡¯t take him long to find the fish mentioned. The fish was part of a statue in the middle of what might have been a once glorious fountain but had long since fallen into disrepair. The fish was currently in the middle of being caught by a fisherman. As nothing had happened and he was pretty sure he''d found the fish in question, Arris had to assume he needed to interact with the statue in some way. The note said the fish was jumping free. Well, in the statue the fish was halfway caught by the fisherman¡¯s net. Maybe he needed to pull it out? Arris stepped into the fountain, approaching the fish. He grabbed it and tugged, steadily increasing the amount of strength he was using as the fish refused to budge. Just as Arris was about to reach the maximum amount of strength he could use and was sure the fish wouldn¡¯t budge it slowly began moving. With the loud grinding and cracking of gears, the fish slowly slid upwards into the air and out of the net. Arris pulled and pulled until the fish finally reached a certain point and slid to a stop in a crunch of mechanisms. The whirring and clacking continued for another couple seconds before silence reigned. With the fish having been freed, Arris had finished the first step of the puzzle. The next portion involved dragons. After exploring the castle for a bit Arris finally found a series of six statues of dragons lining a corridor. Arris approached the first dragon and tried to tilt its head. It easily tilted, and a single brass note played from some unseen instrument. After a couple seconds the stone dragon lifted its head on its own. It didn¡¯t take long for Arris to figure out how this section of the puzzle worked. Each dragon played a different octave upon having its head tilted and all Arris needed to do to complete the puzzle was to tilt their heads in order from highest octave to lowest. When he finally accomplished the task once again the dragon''s heads locked in a downwards position and the noise of grinding gears and machinery clicking started up again, but Arris saw nothing. After a few seconds, it stopped. Continuing his exploration of the castle, Arris now began to search for a hidden rose. What he was looking for he had no idea, but Arris would at least search for a little before he gave up. Upon coming back to the throne room, however, he found that massive glass panels had folded down from the walls of the throne room and formed a beautiful maze of shimmering glass. Figuring that it had to somehow be part of the puzzle Arris began exploring his way through the maze of glass looking for anything resembling a rose. It didn¡¯t take him long before he found it. Four glass panes in different layers of the glass maze comprised its petals and attached to each of the petals there was a sort of artistic pin or screw. He collected all four. Now Arris needed to find a chair with silver plaits beneath it. Of all the tasks, this was the most quickly accomplished. The chair was almost assuredly the throne, and the silver plaits a reference to the silver inlay decorating the bottom most section of the throne. Arris quickly found on each side of the throne a small hole in which he could insert a pin. Seeing it as the next, most obvious and logical step Arris inserted a pin into each hole, each insertion prompting a loud click and faint whirring of gears. Upon inserting the fourth pin all the glass panes in the room which had previously formed a sort of maze shifted and swirled through the air in a cacophony of grinding gears and machinery. After several seconds of reorientation, the glass panes finally settled into the form of a massive, shimmering, multicolored glass staircase leading up to the roof of the throne room. After testing the panes with his quarterstaff for durability, Arris decided the stairway was safe and began his ascent. Erring on the side of caution, Arris tested all steps before he stepped on them. Not one broke. This staircase, which Arris was assuming was the stairway to heaven mentioned in the note, spiraled upwards into the atrium of the roof. An arch which he''d originally assumed had been a decoration turned out to be the entrance to a hidden passageway. Arris took the passage, following it for over a couple minutes but found that after sloping down for a while the passage exited behind the castle with no hidden loot chest being found along the way or visible from the back of the castle. Perplexed and sure that the hidden loot chest had to be somewhere along the hidden passage, Arris went back up the passage while taping and pushing at the walls and searching for another hidden room or passage. It didn''t take Arris too long to find a hollow space behind one of the walls. Arris then tried to see if he couldn''t find an activation mechanism that would open the room. It was easily found. The activation mechanism was rather obvious, a rock which was presumably attached to a lever protruding out of a crack in the wall. When the rock lever was cranked down the wall slid upwards with a loud rumble and the crunching of gears. Arris then received a welcome notification that he¡¯d been expecting since had discovered the note and began following the trail of clues. > Perception +2 < Behind the wall was that blessed hidden loot chest along with a whole bunch of other equipment that looked somewhat like an over-decorated chemistry set. Upon asking the System what he¡¯d just found, Arris was informed that he¡¯d found an alchemical laboratory. Arris was excited to test the new equipment but before he got to that he needed to loot the chest. Inside the chest, he found some very interesting loot that certainly fit the theme of the alchemical laboratory. There were a grand total of four magical grenades, two of two different types, several different types of alchemical components, a bunch of empty flasks, and a book titled Chamler¡¯s Guide to Basic Alchemy. He then opened his updated inventory and the descriptions of his new items.
Chamler¡¯s Guide to Basic Alchemy Condition: Excellent 0.7 kg A basic guide to alchemy, written by a being named Chamler.
Magical Grenade of Fireblast Condition: Good 0.5 kg Effects: 140 - 200 fire damage in a ten-foot radius from the epicenter, decreases to 50% at the edge All affected characters burn for 5 fire damage per second for the 20 seconds following the blast Item Triggers and Usage: Single use Explodes upon impact after magical activation
Magical Grenade of Mana Dispersal Condition: Good 0.5 kg Effects: -200 - 300 Mana in a ten-foot radius from the epicenter Cancels all channeled spell matrixes Mana regen of afflicted characters decreased by 75% for ten minutes Item Triggers and Usage: Single use Explodes upon impact after magical activation
Inventory: 1.0372 kg Human Bone Powder 392 Copper Coins 48 Silver Coins 0.042 kg 7 Bronze Rings 0.024 kg 4 Silver Lockets 0.030 kg 5 Gemstone Necklaces 0.006 kg 1 Gold Ring 8 kg 4 Scimitar of Synchronicity 0.276 kg Drake Bone Powder 3 kg Spiked Shield 7 kg Young Drake Bones 0.2 kg Scroll of Teleport 0.5 kg Alarian¡¯s Journal 3 kg Studded Morningstar 0.0048 kg 6 Root of Branthia Blast Plant 0.0112 12 Leaf of Hartweed 0.0024 3 Stalk of Airwort 2.4 kg 20 Glass Flasks 1 kg 2 Magical Grenade of Mana Dispersal 1 kg 2 Magical Grenade of Fireblast Capacity 27.5320 / 40 kg
As much as Arris wanted to do some alchemy, it would be stupid to start experimenting with his limited pool of resources. Instead, Arris turned to the guidebook for alchemy to read up on how alchemy actually worked. Several hours later Arris had finally finished reading the book and a notification popped up.
Congratulations! You have gained the profession, Alchemist! You have learned the necessary knowledge to combine various mundane and magical components to create a variety of substances with varied effects. You have also gained the Poison Resistance and Ingenuity stats, as they are paramount in developing your skills as an alchemist.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! +5 Poison Resistance +5 Ingenuity
Arris then opened the two pages for the stats, eager to check out his new stats.
Poison Resistance Poison Resistance gives the character increased resistance to all poisons. Each rank of Poison Resistance decreases all negative effects of the poison by 1% per ranking.
Ingenuity Ingenuity increases the creative capacity of the character. Each rank of Ingenuity increases the potential for the character to have new ideas by 1% and their improvisation capacity by 1%. Ingenuity does not increase base mental acuity.
Arris was pleased with these new stats. They weren¡¯t quite as good as Perception but they were far more valuable to him than Rapport. Ingenuity was surely going to be useful somewhere down the road, and while he was a skeleton and couldn¡¯t ingest normal poisons there was probably some obscure magically transmitted poison or some such that the poison resistance would still take effect against. Now though, it was time to test some of the recipes in the book. Arris had actually been quite intrigued by alchemy. At first, he¡¯d expected to find the art was just a bunch of mysticism and archaic practices, explained by and only functional because of magic. But after reading the basic guide Arris had found his original assumption to have been rather thoroughly disproven. Alchemy in very many ways actually resembled the very chemistry he¡¯d spent several years in high school and college studying. It was very organized, and it wasn¡¯t as simple and simplified as, ¡®this plant goes with that plant and makes a potion because of magic and yeah,¡¯ but was something more along the lines of, ¡®this plant has this compound in it which reacts with a magical factor found in this substance to cause a certain effect.¡¯ A good example would be the Branthia Blast Plant, which had concentrations of potassium nitrate in it. Mixing it with the Hyvernia Riverstalk¡ªa plant which ignited not long after being pumped full of mana¡ªand a source of carbon would ultimately create a blast potion, a potion that when charged would soon after explode. Stored in a vial, it was a cheap yet reliable improvised grenade. Of the many recipes, Arris only encountered one he actually had the resources for. It was a potion of increased regeneration. The recipe was rather simple: Arris just had to mix the bone powder of any creature with a single leaf of Hartweed. For human bone powder the most effective combination ratio was 0.025 kg to 1 leaf and for drake bone powder the most effective combination ratio was about 0.015 kg to 1 leaf. Both potions required about 0.4 kg of water. Arris decided he¡¯d make 8 potions with human bone powder and 4 potions with drake bone powder. The process for the actual creation of the potion was rather simple. Arris simply had to grind up the Hartweed and combine it with the bone powder and water. The water was in a magically refilling flask which was part of the alchemy set, and the bone powder he could measure out by commanding his inventory to only remove a certain amount of it. Each and every potion that Arris created was a success. Creating potions was completely unlike the process was in most video games he¡¯d played. In video games alchemy and the creation of potions typically failed often, the needed materials common and easily obtained. But Arris guessed that in the new world with the System just getting the recipe right could be hard enough without the potion failing to come into existence half the time for no real reason. Without the book it was likely Arris would¡¯ve never gotten the recipe in the first place. After an hour or so Arris had finally finished making the various potions that he wanted to. A notification popped up. Arris read and dismissed it. > Alchemist +4 < Arris had ultimately received 8 Medium Potions of Regeneration from the human bone powder potions and 4 Excellent Potions of Regeneration from the drake bone powder. While the medium potion gave a decent quintupling to health regeneration for six hours, the excellent potions multiplied regeneration by a whopping sixty times. Admittedly, the effect only lasted a half hour but it was more than enough to totally reverse a fight. The increase would bring his Health/10 to around a whopping 3. That was a health every three seconds or so. Unfortunately though, as a skeleton, Arris may not be able to consume the potions. That would really suck. Arris sent an inquiry to the system in the hopes that there was indeed some way for skeletons to consume things.
Calculating parameters¡­ Referencing index¡­ Finding information for undead consumption of resources¡­ Undead, much like their living counterparts, are able to consume a wide variety of substances. However, as magical constructs lacking any sort of an actual stomach undead instead degrade this organic matter and either incorporate it into their own form if possible or convert it into mana or health. In the case of potions and poisons, undead are capable of selectively decomposing potentially harmful things but keeping and absorbing or incorporating helpful things, such as health potions or buff potions.
Well, according to the information given to Arris by the System he could indeed consume potions and would benefit from all their helpful effects. What he hadn¡¯t realized was that he could also consume organic matter, namely the flesh of various living things, and it would regenerate his resources. That was helpful to know. While Arris couldn¡¯t eat the undead in this zone of the dungeon, maybe when he got to that creature themed zone of the dungeon this information would come into play. Now all he had to figure out was how to eat the potions. After a quick search on how specifically skeletons consumed things, Arris found that skeletons simply ate things with their mouths much like any normal human would. He would have expected things to simply pour through his empty jaw and onto his ribcage, but who knew? The world was full of magic now and if skeletons could exist why couldn¡¯t they use magic to eat things? Arris wouldn¡¯t really know for sure until he tested it, but he wasn¡¯t quite willing to waste one of his 12 good potions for a test just to be sure he could eat things. Having found the hidden loot chest and beat the primary boss on the level, all Arris had left to do was to find and kill the hidden boss. Obviously not in the thoroughly searched castle or town, Arris figured that the hidden boss had to be somewhere hidden in the dead forest surrounding the man-made establishments. So Arris began roaming the woods searching for any sort of conspicuous clue which might lead him to the hidden boss. Unfortunately for Arris, the woods were rather vast. As he wandered, Arris killed whatever skeletons he chanced across. Almost all of them were level 10, netting him another 2% experience with every kill. After a couple hours of wandering, Arris had hit level 12 but was still yet to see any sign of any sort of hidden boss. He was getting a little exasperated. After all, he¡¯d gotten pretty damn good loot out of this level already, maybe it would be better to simply take his gains and move on. But once again, Arris reminded himself that patience was a virtue. He had six months to complete the dungeon. If this extra loot and experience could help him down the road, then it was his own duty to himself to get it. Not long after having those thoughts, he was finally rewarded for his patience and diligence. He found his first clue of the hidden boss, a single skeleton whose nameplate read as below. < Skeleton Warrior | Bound Undead Monster | Level 10 | 100% HP > However, more strange than the fact that its nameplate read Bound Undead Monster as opposed to Undead Monster was the fact that after Arris killed it he gained no experience. It also attacked him when he walked near it. Arris wasn¡¯t really quite sure what to make of the situation so he just asked the system.
Calculating parameters¡­ Referencing index¡­ Finding information for lack of experience from kills¡­ There are a variety of circumstances which can lead to no experience being gained from kills. The first and most obvious reason would be for the killed subject to have such a lower level compared to its killer that the amount of experience the killer gained would be negligible. An example of this would be if a level 20 character killed a level 1 character. Another likely instance in which no experience could be gained from a kill would be for said killed subject to have been a Summoned or Bound creature. Summoned and Bound creatures are given form and completely controlled by another being. They are extensions of their controllers and experience is only distributed for dispatching the controller. The third instance in which a character may receive no experience from a kill would for the experience to instead flow into an experience deficit. Some skills cost experience to cast. While level and experience will not decrease with the casting of these spells, an experience deficit will be created. This experience deficit must be made up before experience can be regularly gained.
Arris had pretty much tuned out after he¡¯d read the second option for what could happen. The skeleton was literally categorized as a Bound Undead Monster. He was almost certainly about to square off against some sort of controller of undead. Maybe a necromancer? He¡¯d soon find out. Wandering about, Arris found a couple more skeletons categorized as Bound Undead Monsters. He easily dispatched them all. But when Arris chanced across his first unbound Undead Monster Arris just turned back and walked back the way he¡¯d come. Wherever the boss had been, he¡¯d missed it. So Arris began searching through the woods, being more thorough and strategic in his search. After working his way through the woods a couple more times, Arris finally came upon a large congregation of skeletons categorized as Bound Undead Monsters. At first, Arris hung back out of sight of the skeletons. Arris wanted to get a good read on the situation and make a plan. There were at least ten skeletons in that clearing. There was no cave or narrow passage in the forest to funnel that troop count into. Arris would need to take them in open combat which would be difficult and dangerous. Add in a strong boss and they could easily overwhelm Arris. He needed to be careful how he went about killing these skeletons. One of the first things Arris did was check the nameplates of all the skeletons in the clearing. For the most part, the skeletons all seemed to be the same, their nameplates reading < Skeleton Warrior | Bound Undead Monster | Level 10 | 100% HP >. But according to what the system had told him, there should be a controller somewhere nearby. Maybe it was shorter and somehow disguised within the ranks. Arris slunk towards the skeletons for a closer look. It wasn¡¯t long before he spotted his quarry. The reason why Arris hadn¡¯t initially been able to spot the creature was that from his previous vantage point it had been concealed by a group of three of its minions while also making itself shorter by leaning over a stone altar and making inscriptions of some sort around a dead skeleton. He checked its nameplate. < Jano Norry | Skeleton Necromancer | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > It seemed to be a sort of mage boss which would use its minions to overwhelm him while it cast spells from the backline. Arris initially thought to take out the necromancer first. But after watching the intricate and difficult work it was currently doing to create a new minion Arris realized the necromancer¡¯s minion pool was actually most likely limited to what he currently had available. If it did indeed have a limited pool of minions then Arris should be able to deal with it rather easily. He could just use the same strategy he¡¯d always used: bait a couple skeletons away, kill them, and then rinse and repeat until all his enemies were dead. But of course, Arris couldn¡¯t forget the necromancer. In almost all the video games he¡¯d played necromancers had some assortment of crowd control abilities to slow down or inhibit their enemy¡¯s movements. If it could lock him down for even a couple seconds, that might give the rest of its minions enough time to swarm and kill Arris. Though Arris could always just go with his original plan and kill the necromancer first. Arris was vaguely hopeful that the minion skeletons would all collapse into piles of bones upon the necromancer''s death, but judging from his experiences so far it seemed unlikely. The System had never before made anything so easy for him. This plan seemed a little drastic for Arris. He wasn''t quite sure if the necromancer could magically shield itself, and if its minions swarmed him after he killed the necromancer he might be screwed. He also knew that there were some of its minions wandering through the woods, and running pell-mell away from a crowd of angry undead into another angry undead could spell his doom. The third and most drastic thing he could do would be to simply chuck one of his grenades into the middle of the crowd. If he used a Fireblast grenade, between the 50% increased damage to undead and 240 or so minimum base damage Arris would instantly kill all the skeletons. But still, it felt like such a waste. The Fireblast Grenades would have put the Wrathion down to about 10% health with maximum damage. Between a round of his spells and a grenade, Arris was pretty sure he could take out a boss even several levels upwards of 12. The same could be said for the Mana Dispersal grenade. Arris knew from his video game experiences that big, powerful bosses often had channeling abilities that wreaked massive destruction. If he could cancel one of those abilities with this grenade it would have serious value later on down the line. The real question was whether this boss was worth wasting such a valuable resource on or not. Arris ultimately decided that it wasn¡¯t. While the grenade was pretty much the perfect tool to take the necromancer down, it was the perfect tool for taking down a lot of undead bosses. He had a level up on this thing anyways, and two levels up on all its minions. He should be able to take it down, just considering the numbers. And plus, if worst came to worst he could just pull out the grenade and chuck it at the necromancer. The skeletons alone were definitely manageable. Ultimately Arris decided he¡¯d go with a modification of his baiting strategy. Instead of going near the skeletons, his plan was to hit them from far away, get them searching for him and split up, and then take out the necromancer. Before actually making any offensive actions, Arris prepped his now five spirit shards and waited for his mana and spirit to regen to full. Then, Arris was ready to begin his attack. Assuming the necromancer¡¯s skeletal minions all had the same health as him, Arris pumped about 135 mana into his Condensed Aether Bolt before releasing it at one of the Skeleton Warriors. Arris¡¯ Condensed Aether Bolt crackled through the dark woods before smashing apart one of the ten Skeleton Warriors surrounding the necromancer. With a start, the necromancer straightened its back and turned to peer off into the dark and gloomy woods in the general direction of where the bolt had come from. As soon as he¡¯d cast his Condensed Aether Bolt Arris was already moving and had gotten a good amount of distance between himself and the place where he¡¯d cast his Condensed Aether Bolt. Arris was currently crouched in a small copse of dead trees, hidden from vision in most directions. Then, the necromancer did something incredibly unexpected. It called him out. ¡°What sort of cowardly adventurer would strike from afar and then run away! How dare you disturb my work! Come out and face Jano Norry, third tier necromancer, and meet your doom!¡± Arris¡¯ spectral flames of eyes widened, and he peeked back around the corner to take another look at the undead. Speech was actually a skill in the undead racial skill store, but it wasn¡¯t one that was available up until level 20. This thing was only level 11. How the hell could it talk? Maybe it was some strange function of it being a boss. When nothing came out to meet the necromancer in open combat, it scoffed and waved its hand at its minions which set out into the dark woods in the general direction of where he¡¯d last been. ¡°Fine then, if you are so dastardly as to be unwilling to face me in open combat then I shall simply find and crush you!¡± For an undead, this thing weirdly seemed to have at least some sort of sense of honor. Maybe it was just failing miserably at trying to trick him. Who knew. At least it had fallen into his trap. Arris watched and waited patiently as the skeletons moved out into the woods, the necromancer at the back with an honor guard of three skeletons. That was a big mistake on its part. The other six skeletons, spread out and roaming through the woods, would be too far away to help if he made a direct attack on the necromancer. Arris waited until the all the skeletons had moved past him in the woods and then slunk out of the small copse and started tree hoping, exchanging the cover of one tree for another. Then, a notification popped up.
Congratulations! You have learned the active skill, Sneak. Activating Sneak will increase your ability to move silently and undetected. -47.5% Movement speed -5% Movement noise -5% Chance of detection
Nice to know, but right now an unnecessary distraction. Arris waved the notification away and continued moving towards the necromancer. Arris figured it would know when one of its minions died so he could only take out one of its guards who currently formed a triangle around it. Arris slunk up behind one of the minions and delivered the coup de grace. > You deal Skeleton Warrior LETHAL damage! < > Skeleton Warrior has died! < As a collective whole, the three remaining skeletons spun to look at Arris. Arris had already charged the necromancer, and the two Skeleton Warriors charged him as soon as they had fully turned and seen him. ¡°How dare you attack me,¡± the Skeleton Necromancer boomed as it turned to face him, raising his staff and forming a spell matrix at its tip, ¡°a lesser being such as you has no sort of ch¡ªack.¡± As soon as he¡¯d seen the skeleton start to cast its spell Arris had thrown a disorient its way. It seemed to be a spell to confuse and disorient the opponent and it seemed likely it would cancel whatever spell the necromancer had been about to throw at him. While the spell didn¡¯t cancel, what did happen was the necromancer totally botched it. Instead of the spell flying forward to hit Arris, the dark bolt of energy the necromancer released instead flew far clear of him to impact a tree some ten feet to his right. With a grim anticipatory clack of his jaws, Arris leaped over one last fallen and rotten log before he got to the necromancer. He feinted an attack towards its head and it desperately tried to parry with its staff, throwing its staff wildly off guard and far too far away to block the next blow which impacted heavily into its chest in a loud crunch of bone. The necromancer staggered back and away from Arris. > Critical Hit! You deal Jano Norry 119 blunt damage! < Arris would¡¯ve loved to pursue the necromancer farther, but he had another problem to deal with. By this point in time, the two guard Skeleton Warriors had just about reached him. Luckily though, his cooldowns were all up and he had about 350 mana to throw around. Arris raised his right arm and channeled a Spirit Blast into the nearest Skeleton Warrior. > You deal Skeleton Warrior 73 raw damage! < With one skeleton staggered and temporarily disabled, Arris turned to the other skeleton. He raised the other hand, a Condensed Aether Bolt matrix flashing into existence. Mana streamed from Arris into the matrix as the skeleton got ever closer. Ten feet, five feet, then the skeleton made a desperate lunge toward Arris, seeking a hit. Unfortunately for the Skeleton Warrior, it was already too late. With two deft steps, Arris avoided the blow. Then, Condensed Aether Bolt was finally appropriately charged and Arris let it loose into the Skeleton Warrior¡¯s chest. As the skeleton was lunging forwards for a second blow, the Condensed Aether Bolt Impacted into it and it exploded into a cloud of bones and armor, its chest and pelvis flying backward while a host of small bones flew through the air and impacted into Arris. > You deal Skeleton Warrior 218 mixed damage! < > Skeleton Warrior has died! < > Flying Debris deals you 0 blunt damage! < Not a moment to spare, Arris then waved his right arm down, directing the five Spirit shards swirling around him into the Spirit Blasted Skeleton Warrior which had recovered and turned to attack him. > You deal Skeleton Warrior 28 raw damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 28 raw damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 28 raw damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 28 raw damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 28 raw damage! < > Skeleton Warrior has died! < With the last Spirit Shard, this skeleton also collapsed into a pile of bones. Now it was just Arris and the necromancer. Still, though, he was in a bit of time crunch as its other minions would soon be returning to aid it. He needed to finish it before that happened. Glancing towards the still recovering necromancer, Arris saw that another spell matrix had appeared in its hands. This time, there were no words insulting Arris or promising his defeat. Instead, the necromancer just aimed the spell matrix at his feet and let loose. A host of hands exploded up from the ground underneath Arris and grabbed onto his legs. Further hands attempted to grab his arms and head and totally restrain him, but Arris smashed them with measured swings of his staff. A couple more seconds and the eruption of hands halted, and Arris smashed the ones which had grabbed onto his legs, stopping his movement. Freed from the restraints, Arris started running after the now fleeing necromancer. With a couple seconds head start on Arris it was already some thirty feet away. After a couple seconds of running very little distance had been closed and Arris realized that it would make it to its other six skeleton minions before he caught up with it or his spells came off cooldown. He needed another plan and fast. None of his spells would work, the only one off cooldown was Spirit Shards, the rest of his spells still had over ten seconds before they¡¯d be up again. He could use one of the grenades but once again, he was so close and it would be such a waste. It was a shame he didn¡¯t have any ranged weapons that he could use against the necromancer. Maybe he could pick up a rock and knock the Skeleton Necromancer over with that. Then, Arris had a realization. He had something better than a rock to throw. Arris stowed his quarterstaff in his inventory and then pulled out his morningstar. Taking careful aim, Arris sighted on the back of the necromancer, now some twenty-five feet in front of him. He then whipped his arm forwards, hurling the morningstar at the necromancer¡¯s back. With a loud crunch, the makeshift projectile smashed into its back, bowling it over. A notification popped up.
Congratulations! You have learned the passive skill, Projectile Throwing! Projectile Throwing increases the likelihood thrown projectiles will hit and increases the damage they deal! Effects: +1% Accuracy of thrown projectiles per ranking +1% Thrown projectile damage per ranking
Arris didn''t even glance at the popup as he rushed to the necromancer. Toppled to the ground, it only took Arris only a couple seconds to catch up with the recovering necromancer. He summoned his quarterstaff, preparing to pummel the necromancer into a permanent death. Just before he reached it though, it flopped over onto its back, a spell matrix flaring at the tip of its staff and a mana shield exploding brightly into existence before it. But no mana shield would be able to stop Arris at this point. With two savage whacks, Arris broke through the shield. > You deal Mana Barrier 47 blunt damage! < > You deal Mana Barrier 48 blunt damage! < > Mana Barrier has been destroyed! < He then raised his arms, raising the quarter staff for the coup de grace. Just before he struck, the necromancer tried to reason with him. ¡°Please, we¡¯re both fellow undead, I¡¯m sure¡ª¡± But Arris was in no mood to talk to the creature. It had to die now before any of its cooldowns could come up. Stalling out the fight with a conversation would help it a lot more than it would help him. His staff hurtled down, cutting off its words and smashing into the creature once then twice. > You deal Jano Norry 59 blunt damage! < > You deal Jano Norry 64 blunt damage! < > Jano Norry has died! < With the necromancer down and only 6 spread out and uncoordinated skeletons left, the remainder of the fight was a cinch. The remaining skeletons only came at him only one or two at a time, and with his blows dealing some sixty to seventy odd damage now that he was in Warrior¡¯s Stance, the skeletons hardly had a chance against him. He could down the one or two that attacked him before the others could even arrive. About a minute later the remaining skeletons were all dead. It was a shame he couldn¡¯t collect loot from the necromancer''s minions as that number of level 10 skeletons would¡¯ve typically dropped some pretty good loot. But the loot he found on the Skeleton Necromancer more than made up for it. The Skeleton Necromancer dropped only two things. However, both things were incredibly useful. One was a skill book for a spell named Grasping Hands, and the other its staff. Arris learned the spell and assessed the staff.
Congratulations! You have learnt the spell, Grasping Hands! You may activate Grasping Hands to summon a swarm of skeletal hands in a small radius at a target area! These hands do not deal damage, but instead attempt to restrain the target, inhibiting all movement if possible. The effect lasts for 3 seconds. Effects: Totally restrain all characters hit with less than 43 Strength within 2 feet of the epicenter 30 total skeletal hands summoned over the duration. Costs: -40 Mana 20 second CD
Warlock¡¯s Bone Staff of Power and Mana Regen Condition: Superb 4 kg Requirements: 79 Wisdom 30 Intelligence Stats: +15 - 20 damage +10 Wisdom +50% Increased Mana Regen +10% Additional dark damage to all spells channeled through Warlock¡¯s Bone Staff of Power and Mana Regen
Arris gleefully tossed the morningstar from his inventory, stowed his quarterstaff in his inventory, and equipped his beautiful new staff of power. With it equipped his wisdom had risen to a massive 121 and his Mana/10 was at a full 5.64. That was over half a mana per second! Now Arris actually had some sustainability in terms of spells during fights. All the boring searching for the necromancer had turned out to be truly worthwhile. His new staff was truly awesome and gaining his first real crowd control ability only made it even better. Spirit Blast¡¯s stagger wasn¡¯t too bad, but the effect barely lasted half a second. 3 full seconds of immobilizing an enemy was sure to be a huge asset. His new loot adorning him and all bosses and the vast majority of minions cleared, Arris was ready to head to the next level. He already knew where the exit was. The central city in the middle of the level had two roads leading out of it, one going to the exit of the level and the other leading to the entrance. Arris took the pathway leading to the exit to the level. After several minutes of walking, he¡¯d finally reached the exit. After the next level, he¡¯d be on the final level of the floor. Arris couldn¡¯t wait to see what awaited him there. (8) Chapter 7: Synthesis After running for a couple minutes Arris had finally traversed the length of the tunnel leading to the fourth level. Upon one glance around the intro room to the level told him it would be thematically different from any of the previous levels of the dungeon. Instead of a large, semi-open expanse or city, Arris found himself in a small enclosed area with large stalactites, stalagmites, and pillars extending from the roofs and floors. The roof of the cavern was only some twenty feet above Arris¡¯ head, far closer than it had been on any prior level. On the far ends of the room, some three hundred or so feet across the way, Arris could see three separate exits to the room. However, arguably most worrying, he couldn¡¯t spot any enemies. On every level Arris had cleared so far, the enemies had been rather easily spotted and how they were approached was Arris decision. But on this level, any number of any sort of enemies could be concealing themselves within the maze of stone. Of course, then again, Arris was still on the skeleton floor so they really shouldn¡¯t attack him without any provocation. Having a bad feeling and wanting to be careful, Arris prepped his five spirit shards before wandering into the room. Instead of walking through the center and opening himself up for an attack on all four sides, Arris stuck to a wall so that he¡¯d have somewhere to put his back if something did attack. Arris kept his staff ready and his eyes peeled as he slowly walked through the maze of stone protrusions, ready to react at the first signs of any sort of aggression. Only the soft scrape of bone against stone belied the fact that there was something behind Arris. Spinning, half sure he¡¯d just imagined the noise, Arris found himself face to face with a bone monstrosity. The creature was like nothing he¡¯d encountered so far. All the skeletons he¡¯d seen so far had been of more or less normal creatures he¡¯d seen before. There were human skeletons, a dog skeleton, and a dragon skeleton, but even with the dragon skeleton none of them were too abnormal. This thing broke the mold. The creature was some odd combination of an ape and a wolf. Its forearms were elongated, some four and a half feet long. Its rear legs were much shorter, some two and a half feet long, giving the creature a strange hunchbacked appearance. Protruding off its rear end was a long bone tail, measuring some four or five feet in length, presumably allowing the creature to balance itself. Its forelimbs each sported a nasty set of four razor-sharp claws, with three fingers and an opposable thumb. Its head was a shortened version of the usual dog¡¯s snout and appeared as if some mad scientist had taken a usual dog''s face and crammed it in upon itself. From the bottom of the mouth sprouted two massive four-inch tusks, and from the top a pair of two-inch canines. The rest of its jaws were filled with razor-sharp teeth. The creature looked like something out of a horror show. Arris warily regarded the creature, checking its nameplate. < Skeletal Wolven | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > From what he could infer from its name the creature was indeed somehow related to wolves. Though how exactly the wolven was related to wolves he had no idea. The creature, which had been halfway through a careful stride, set its foot down and cocked its head at him. It then opened its jaws and clacked them together in a very unsettling manner. Arris slowly backed away from the creature, wanting to put a little distance between it and himself. It seemed rather docile, even if it had been suspiciously creeping up behind him. Maybe it would turn around and leave him alone? Yet as he backed away, the creature followed, once again clacking its jaws together. Arris kept it in his vision at all times, only sparing the occasional quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he didn¡¯t trip over anything. All of a sudden Arris remembered something very important. Wolves hunted in packs. Arris put his back to the wall and turned so he could look out into the rest of the cavern while keeping his back protected. And sure enough, after another couple seconds, another wolven crept out from behind a stone protrusion some fifteen or so feet down the wall and yet another crept out of the maze of stone right in front of him. The three wolven regarded him, eerily silent, while the third wolven walked towards the other two currently in front of Arris. While not quite as large as a human, they had at least three quarters the mass, and the fact that they were able to sneak so well was rather disconcerting to Arris. Now though, Arris was literally caught between a rock and a hard place. He could either wait for the wolven to make the first move which would allow them better positioning but may result in them not attacking him at all, or he could make the first move and take advantage of the fact that one of the wolven was still far off. Arris only had a couple seconds to make his decision and ultimately decided to take the initiative. Getting a surprise blow it would be nice but he didn¡¯t actually know if it was possible against these wolven. Arris proceeded with his regular combo, starting off with a Spirit Blast into closest wolven which was four or five feet along the wall to his left. Light crackled in front of his staff as he channeled the mana through it and into the spell matrix in front of it before the spell thundered forth and into the wolven. It hit the creature and sent it staggering backward. > You deal Skeletal Wolven 81 rawdamage! < As soon as he¡¯d finished casting the Spirit Blast Arris had begun channeling his Condensed Aether Bolt, wanting to kill the other nearby wolven. But unlike the skeletons he¡¯d faced so far, these wolven were extremely fast. The second he¡¯d released his Spirit Blast the wolvens to the front and to the right of him had charged. Before a full second had elapsed the second wolven was already in the air, leaping at Arris. Though with the aid of his perception Arris was able to dodge the blow. Arris rolled towards his right side, away from the wolven on the ground, toward the other charging wolven. Coming out of his roll Arris crouched and angled his staff towards the wolven which he¡¯d just dodged and was currently spinning around to face Arris again. With roughly three-quarters of a charge in his Condensed Aether Bolt which should give it enough damage to one shot himself, Arris released the spell. The wolven¡¯s bones scattered across the ground upon impact, the spell killing it permanently. > You deal Skeletal Wolven 243 mixed damage! < > Skeletal Wolven has died! < But the fight was nowhere near over yet. He still had another two wolven to take down. The wolven coming up behind Arris was his most immediate problem. Arris pivoted, turning halfway to partially face the wolven which had previously been on his right and was in the midst of leaping at him. With no time to switch to his other staff in his inventory, Arris simply brought his mage¡¯s staff in a massive arc before it slammed down into wolven¡¯s chest, knocking it out of its lunge and dealing massive damage. > Critical Strike! You deal Skeletal Wolven 99 blunt damage! < With that wolven temporarily incapacitated by the massive blow which had sent it smashing down into the cave¡¯s floor, Arris turned back to the initial wolven which had gotten back on its feet and was preparing to charge Arris. With a dismissive flick of his hand, the five Spirit Shards floating in the air behind Arris shot off towards the recovered wolven. It leaped to the side, miraculously managing to dodge one, but the other four adjusted course and connected, pummeling the creature to death. > You deal Skeletal Wolven 31 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 31 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 31 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 31 rawdamage! < > Skeletal Wolven has died! < Now there was a single wolven left. Alone Arris figured it stood very little chance against him. Not wanting to give it any sort of opportunity though, Arris swapped out his staff of power for his quarterstaff. The skeletal beast, now back on its feet and far more wary of him, circled to the side and tried to find a way around his weapon. It tentatively swiped its right claw up towards Arris, testing his defenses. It was the opportunity Arris had been waiting for. In a flash, Arris corrected his stance and brought his staff to bear, quickly cracking it down into the extended claw and batting it away, knocking the wolven off balance. Arris stepped forwards into its guard, realizing the creature was off balance and hoping to get a couple extra hits in. > Glancing Blow! You deal Skeletal Wolven 27 blunt damage! < The creature idiotically stood its ground and tried to fight instead of retreating to a safer distance where it could collect itself. It swiped its left claw at Arris, rearing up on its hind legs to keep its balance. Unfortunately for the wolven though, Arris was ready with a counter. He caught the blow on his quarterstaff, deflected it, and took another step forwards. The creature, no reason or strategy behind its actions, took offensive action yet again. Its head snapped forwards, attempting to bite Arris. Already having anticipated the attack, Arris¡¯ quarterstaff snapped upwards in a resounding and powerful blow into its lower jaw, taking off its head. > Critical Strike! You deal Skeletal Wolven 120 blunt damage! < > Skeletal Wolven has died! < Having won the fight, all that was left to do was to loot the corpses of his enemies. Between the three wolven Arris found four different types of loot. The first two of which were the wolven¡¯s claws and teeth, which both seemed to be a sort of crafting ingredient. The next was the wolven¡¯s bone powder which was an alchemical reagent that Arris had used before. The final bit of loot was just random bones from the wolven which had no real use. Usually, Arris would¡¯ve simply thrown the random bones away but this time Arris had a plan. A minute or so later Arris had finished looting the three wolvenand a quarter hour after that his mana had regenerated to full and he¡¯d summoned his five Spirit Shards. Going through one of the three exits to the room Arris found himself in a very similar cave to the first. It would naturally follow that there was a small pack of wolven somewhere within the room, waiting for an intrepid adventurer such as himself to enter. But Arris wasn¡¯t quite as willing to risk himself like he had in the first room. While he¡¯d been able to take out all of the wolven without taking any damage himself it was a close thing. And Arris had no idea how much damage the wolven dealt, they might deal forty to fifty like Arris did with his normal attacks or they could deal far more. What he was sure of though was that a party of four or five wolven definitely had a chance of killing him if they managed to surround him. Arris had only seen one pack of wolven so far and wasn¡¯t sure if he¡¯d encounter larger packs. There might be a large one waiting for him in the room he was about to go in. So instead of blindly charging into the room Arris took one of the larger bones from his inventory and threw it through the air to a spot in the middle of the room some thirty feet in front of him, in an open area well within his line of vision. He then positioned himself at the end of the small passage between the two caves and waited. He didn¡¯t have to wait too long. It was only a minute before a skeletal wolven walked up to the bone, curiously poking at it with its snout. This was exactly what Arris had been waiting for. Arris raised his staff, pointing it at the skeletal wolven. He mentally formed the spell matrix and began channeling the necessary mana into it before releasing the spell at the wolven. > You deal Skeletal Wolven 233 mixed damage! < > Skeletal Wolven has died! < The sound of scrabbling bones could be heard as whatever wolven were left in the room headed towards where Arris was. A couple seconds later and a trio of wolven burst into vision from behind stone protrusions, running towards Arris. But he was in the perfect place to take them on. He dug in with Warrior¡¯s Stance and prepared for a vicious fight. Funneled into the small passageway the wolven were at a severe disadvantage. Divvying up his spells, Arris staggered one with his Spirit Blast and used its distraction to make quick work of it before using his Spirit Shards on another and focussing that one down while fighting defensively. The last wolven managed to sneak under his defenses while he finished off the other wolven, but that left the two in a one on one fight. It barely had a second to spin around before Arris landed his first blow, stunning it. And after a series of savage blows to its back, the last skeletal wolven slumped to the floor, dead. Deciding it was as good a time as any, Arris chugged one of his Medium potions of regeneration. The single bite the wolven had gotten off had dealt 55 damage, but each second it held on it dealt an additional 12 or so. In total Arris had taken 99 damage. After the second cave, Arris had sat around for about an hour and a half and reflected upon the fight as his health regenerated. Something he very quickly realized was that he wasn¡¯t making good use of his various spells. He still had nearly half his mana simply sitting around in his mana pool doing nothing. He could¡¯ve spent that mana on Dark Blows, Disorients, and most importantly, Grasping Hands. All three could¡¯ve been used to distract or deal more damage to the Skeletal Wolven, and he¡¯d completely forgotten the spells in the heat of the moment. In previous levels, certain situations had only required him to either use his damage spells, Disorient, or Dark Blow and Warrior¡¯s Stance individually but now he needed to string them together if he wanted to live. The dungeon wasn¡¯t throwing him more spells at him so that he didn¡¯t use them, after all. A couple fights later, Arris had gotten down the strategy perfectly. It was simple: he¡¯d Condensed Aether Bolt the first Skeletal Wolven, Grasping Hands another to temporarily keep it from the fight, and then use his remaining damage spells combined with a couple strikes to take down whatever was left. It was a wonderfully efficient strategy. In the rest of his cave clears he only took damage a single time when the wolven pack numbered six. They seemed to generally around level 12 and gave him good experience. After clearing about twenty caves Arris had finally hit level 13. As per usual, he dumped all his assignable stat points into wisdom. This brought Mana/10 to a little over 6. Then, on his twenty-third clear Arris encountered the first signs of a boss. Looking into a cave Arris could see bones. Tons of bones. Enough bones for the corpses of thousands of animals. Inside the mounds of bones, Arris could spot human skulls, rat skulls, wolven skulls, and the skulls of many more unnamed creatures. There were only a couple visible stone obstructions in the cave, but the cave still formed a maze as there were so many bones stacked up in certain places that they formed a pillar of sorts which reached the roof, obscuring much of the cave. Cautious, Arris employed much the same strategy he had in the rest of the caverns, throwing a bone out into the middle of the cave. The bone hurtled through the air for a couple seconds before impacting into a large, unstable pile of bones, sending them toppling over in a cacophonous clatter. A couple second later the sound of a massive roar reverberated through the cavern. The loud thud of footsteps moved slowly through the cavern as something massive moved through the cave towards Arris. Then, the level boss finally came into view. Whereas the Skeletal Wrathion Fledgling and the Skeletal Hound had been large, this creature was huge. Arris checked its nameplate. < Skeletal Scragath Adolescent | Undead Monster | Level 13 | 100% HP > Whereas the Skeletal Wolven may have been something out of a horror show, the Skeletal Dire Scragath Hatchling was something out of your worst nightmares. It was like some grotesque mashup of a dragon, elephant, and praying mantis. Four massive tusk-like spines adorned its two-yard snout, a pair on the top and a pair on the bottom, appearing roughly halfway along its length and extending forwards to meet just in front of its mouth in four wicked points. Its mouth had no teeth but was instead a bony beak capable of easily shearing through bone¡ªand maybe even stone. Its face was completely devoid of any holes for eyes and the glowing red flames revealing it capable of vision. The creature had two massive trunk-like back legs capable of supporting its weight and a series of massive spines interspersed randomly along the creature¡¯s back and ribcage. Instead of forelimbs, the creature sported a dual set of three short appendages terminating in a wickedly curving spike. The remnants of the creature¡¯s tail extended in a long line protruding from its rear end, giving the creature a counterbalance for its massive weight. It was stocky and wide, built like a tank. In total, the creature was roughly thirty feet head to tail and around ten feet in height. The Skeletal Wrathion Hatchling likely only had roughly a quarter of its biomass. This thing was massive in comparison. Praying to whatever gods that were currently watching, Arris slowly backed away from the Skeletal Scragath, not wanting to give any indication he was there. Luckily, it didn¡¯t move as he crept away, silently observing with its massive eyeless face pointed towards Arris. After half a minute of creeping backward and away, he finally got out of visual range of the creature. > Sneak +1 < Arris then hid behind the wall and waited for the creature to disappear back into its lair before venturing back into the cave that connected to the Scragath¡¯s lair. While Arris had been feeling rather confident before actually meeting the boss, now he was no longer quite so sure of himself. Arris had been so sure that the boss would be a low health, stealth reliant, easily outwitted melee fighter. While the easily outwitted melee fighter part might still be true the Skeletal Scragath Adolescent had to have at least 1000 health if the Wrathion had around 500. And it definitely wasn¡¯t stealth reliant. Arris was tempted to go and search for the hidden boss. Arris didn¡¯t quite know how difficult it would be, but surely it wouldn¡¯t be quite as daunting as the Scragath. Judging from its size and its power, Arris felt reasonably confident that the Scragath would one shot him if it could land a blow with its beak or catch him with its tusks. But the last time he¡¯d gone off searching for the hidden boss because he didn¡¯t want to face the main boss the hidden boss had almost killed him. That had been when he¡¯d found the Wrathion. In fact, thinking back on it, every single hidden boss that Arris had encountered so far had actually been more difficult to kill than the main boss of the level aside from the very first hidden boss. If the hidden boss for this level was more dangerous than the Skeletal Scragath Adolescent then Arris could be in some serious trouble. He might not be able to clear any of the level bosses. Well, it didn¡¯t matter. Arris wasn¡¯t quite willing to face the Scragath yet so instead, he went off wandering and searching for more monsters to kill. Maybe if he found the hidden loot chest he¡¯d get an item which would help him kill the Scragath. Some five or so hours later Arris had cleared out yet another ten rooms of wolven. He¡¯d gotten more loot and his inventory was getting dangerously close to full. Another couple big, heavy items and Arris would need to start dropping things. It was right about then that Arris found the second odd room in the level. Unlike the rest of the rooms in the level this one was huge. Most of the rooms were only some three hundred by three hundred feet: this one more had more than double the area and far, far more height. Whereas the roofs of the previous caves had only been some twenty to forty feet off the ground, the roof to this cave was well over three hundred feet above Arris¡¯ head. A ten or twelve-foot wide spiral ramp went up through the room, leading towards a platform at the top. Pillars starting from the base level supported its massive weight. But what might have once been a grand piece of architecture had turned into a crumbling ruin. If there was once a railing, it was long gone, the sparse pillars the only safeguard between the pathway and a long fall down. The path itself was rocky and had debris strewn all over it. Massive sections of the pathway had crumbled and fallen. At several places on the walkway a fallen pillar connecting two sections of walkway between which the path had crumbled was the only safe route upwards. At several other places on the walkway, pillars had broken free from their foundations and fallen to connect one side of the pathway to another. Arris traced the pathway to the top, ensuring there was a safe path up. As far as he could tell, the pillars were perfectly positioned just so that he could safely make it to the top between them and the ramp. Arris absently scratched at his head. The hidden loot chest had to be up there. It was also equally as probable, however, that the hidden boss would attack him on the ascent. Arris decided to prepare for the event on the off chance it happened. He sure hoped it didn¡¯t. The designer of the dungeon shouldn¡¯t be that cruel. Right? After prepping his five Spirit Shards Arris began his steady ascent. He didn¡¯t have to climb the ramp for long before he reached his first connecting pillar. He ascended that one. Then the next. Then the one after that. And then another one. It wasn¡¯t long before he gained a level in climbing. > Climbing +1 < When Arris had traversed about half the length necessary to reach the top loud howling started up from somewhere above him. Arris glanced up in confusion and spotted two large wolven looking creatures staring down at him from the next level of the ramp. Aside from their general increased size, they had larger, longer claws, an additional set of tusks protruding from their lower jaws, and a longer tail with a cross of bone spikes at the end. The two beasts started running down the ramp towards Arris. Just then a notification popped up.
Congratulations, you have found and activated the hidden boss challenge Skeletal Dire Wolven Duo! Do your best to survive!
Uh oh. Arris had really been hoping that nothing would attack him on the ascent. Even worse, Arris was three-quarters the way up a pillar connecting one undestroyed piece of ledge to another undestroyed piece of ledge. The fallen pillar was a terrible place to fight the wolven. The agile creatures would have every advantage fightingon the small, round, difficult to balance on pillar. Arris needed to climb to a flat level of ramp. Unfortunately, the Skeletal Dire Wolven were on the next level of the ramp, and from the way they were quickly moving down ittowards him he knew he couldn¡¯t make it to the top before they did. But he definitely wouldn¡¯t be able to crawl back to the previous level either. It was too precarious and Arris wasn¡¯t that good or fast a climber yet. With only one option left Arris summoned his staff of power from his inventory and began preparing his Condensed Aether Bolt. The two agile Skeletal Dire Wolven only increased their speed once they saw him channeling the spell. But as fast as they were they had only just made it to the ramp and begun clambering down it towards Arris before he finished casting the spell. For safety¡¯s sake, Arris channeled extra mana into the Condensed Aether Bolt. He wasn¡¯t quite sure exactly how much health the wolvenhad but he figured it was around 300, maybe 350. Just to be safe, Arris overcharged his Condensed Aether Bolt with a bonus half charge, totaling about 300 mana, before releasing it. > You deal Skeletal Dire Wolven 428 mixed damage! < > Skeletal Dire Wolven has died! < The Skeletal Dire Wolven blew apart, its ribcage exploding as its bones fell off the pillar and through the air towards the ground. With its companion dead, the second wolven let loose a bestial howl, its red flames of eyes glaring malevolently towards Arris. Arris attempted to cast Grasping Hands on the second wolven and keep it in place for a second so that he could smack it with the remainder of his damage spells, but the nimble creature somehow noticed the hands and launched itself off the pillar and out of their reach. In a feat of extreme dexterity, it then managed to twist in midair before grabbing and somehow managing to land on the section of pillar just a few feet behind Arris. Very unfortunately, this put the creature within ten feet of Arris. Arris immediately brought his staff to bear, forming the spell matrix for Spirit Blast and sending it rocketing into the creature. The five Spirit Shards followed right after. > You deal Skeletal Wolven 85 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 33 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 33 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 33 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 33 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Wolven 33 rawdamage! < The spells weren¡¯t enough to kill the creature though. Arris checked its nameplate. < Skeletal Dire Wolven | Undead Monster | Level 12 | 37% HP > Arris did some fast math and realized that the creature should have less than a hundred and fifty health. A Dark Blow followed by a Disorient into a Spirit Blast should take the beast down. But only a second more and the creature shook its head, regaining its senses. It was much faster than Arris expected. It quickly focused on Arris and roared, springing towards him. The beast scrambled up the steep incline of the pillar and swiped a claw at Arris. He raised his staff in front of him, parrying the blow but almost getting knocked off in the process. > Climbing +1 < ¡®Not the time right now System¡¯ Arris thought to himself, trying to ignore the notification. Distracted, Arris almost wasn¡¯t able to shimmy up the pillar in time to dodge the Skeletal Dire Wolven¡¯s step forwards into a lunging bite. And he certainly wasn¡¯t able to dodge the following powerful swipe of its claw. The blow smacked into Arris¡¯ staff violently, not deflected at all this time, knocking him clear of the pillar with its force. Arris¡¯ arms pinwheeled rapidly as he tried to regain his balance and plant his feet on the pillar. But he was too far away and his balance was ruined. Then one of his footholds slipped, and Arris plummeted down from the pillar, through the air, and towards the ground. It was some one hundred and fifty feet to the floor from the point Arris had fallen from. There were no pillars directly below him which he could grab onto or land on. The ramp itself would never be closer than fifteen feet away horizontally from where he was falling. The only pillar even remotely close to below him was a full seven feet away, not even nearly close enough for him to grab onto. It seemed Arris was about to meet his end as bone powder on the floor of the dungeon. Then, in a flash of genius, Arris had a brilliant idea. Instead of hopelessly flailing at the out of reach pillar, Arris began casting a spell. There were only ten or so feet left between him and the pillar when Arris finally managed to cast the spell, planting it horizontally facing towards him on the pillar. As Grasping Hands went off, a veritable swarm of hands erupted from the wall, grabbing onto Arris¡¯ legs and then his arms, yanking him sharply into contact with the pillar. > Ingenuity +1 < Arris gave a skeletal clacked his jaws together in cold anticipation, now firmly reattached to the wall and no longer about to plummet to his death. The Skeletal Dire Wolven which had been avidly tracking his progress howled with disbelief as it saw its nemesis recover from what had seemed an irrecoverable situation. It immediately began scampering further down the ramp, trying to recover the distance made between it and Arris. Unfortunately for the wolven, its time was up. Arris¡¯ Condensed Aether Bolt was off cooldown. His staff somewhere far below him, Arris channeled the spell regularly, taking careful aim. The Skeletal Dire Wolven saw the spell matrix forming and froze, maybe about to take evasive action, maybe accepting its impending doom. The world would never know because a second later the beast was dead. > You deal Skeletal Dire Wolven 203 mixed damage! Skeletal Dire Wolven has died! < With the second wolven dead there were no remaining impediments to Arris¡¯ ascent. While he¡¯d just killed the hidden boss Arris felt there was still a good chance there was something at the top of the room, namely the hidden loot chest. It could potentially be in any of the unexplored rooms that remained in the level but Arris doubted it. This dangerous climb seemed to be something that the System would reward people for its undertaking. As much as he wanted to loot the hidden bosses¡¯ bodies, Arris didn¡¯t want to have to climb to the top of the room again. So instead of making the descent to the bottom of the room where the Skeletal Dire Wolven¡¯s bones were scattered, Arris simply continued the ascent towards the top. After another quarter hour of arduous, dangerous climbing, Arris finally arrived at the top. He slipped once but a hasty Grasping Hands immediately arrested his descent. At the top, a single pillar ended in a rather large platform. Clambering up onto the platform Arris found what he had been looking for: a massive chest. Arris eagerly ran up to the chest and popped it open. Inside was a massive sword, a pair of silken red and white lined gloves, and a decent bit of cash, namely five silver and sixty-four copper. Arris stowed the cash then Assessed each of his new items, eager to see what new items he¡¯d received.
Slayer¡¯s Falchion of Execution Condition: Excellent 6 kg Requirements: 79 Strength 32 Agility Stats: +57 - 62 Damage +10% Damage to Monsters Execution: Critical Strikes gain a +50% chance of inflicting crippling effects or grievous wounds
Silken Gloves of Levitation Condition: Excellent 0.5 kg Requirements: 9 Agility 12 Vitality Stats: +3 Defense to equipped area Levitation: While equipped, you may channel mana into this item to levitate. This costs 30 mana per second.
Arris frowned down at the items. Arris had gotten what he wished for: the falchion was definitely an item which could help with the boss. The boss was so large that hitting vital areas couldn¡¯t be too hard, and crippling effects and grievous wounds both sounded pretty nasty. No, the problem was that he couldn¡¯t actually use the sword, even in Warrior¡¯s Stance his strength missed the mark by some thirty points. Arris sighed and stowed the item in his inventory. He was tempted to invest in strength a little so that he could maybe later use the item, but he knew that it would seriously detract from his mage build. Maybe the boss race evolution at level 15 would give him the strength he needed. For now, though, Arris would just hang on to the weapon. There were a couple other things he¡¯d drop before he got rid of it and anyways he still had 5 kg of space in his inventory. Continuing his evaluation of his new gear, Arris read the description for The Silken Gloves of Levitation. While they were surely convenient, and they may allow him to get to the floor in a single jump, but they had no real practical use in combat. Who knew, maybe they¡¯d be useful for something further on down the line. Arris quickly swapped his armored gloves out for the silken ones and did a couple tests. He didn¡¯t have a lot of mana left in his mana pool, so he had to be quick. He did a quick jump test on the flat surface which went fine, and then a leap test where he jumped twenty feet down a pillar before levitating himself. Both worked fine, totally stopping his fall. Deciding he might as well trust the System and the item to work, Arris¡¯ next move was the hurl himself off of the side of a pillar where there was nothing below but the ground. Arris fell downwards for several seconds before stopping once at 20 feet, again at 5 feet, and then finally at the ground. No damage was taken. Arris then quickly hunted around for bones from each of the Skeletal Dire Wolven. As there were no obstructions blocking his vision, Arris was able to quickly locate some of the bones of each of the creatures. They were broken and smashed but Arris was still able to pick up loot off of them. He also found and retrieved his staff which was fortunately unbroken. He received a grand total of 0.2345 kg of Dire Wolven bone powder, the Dire Wolven¡¯s head which was apparently some sort of strange helm, and two sets of Dire Wolven claws. He then assessed the helm, not really expecting much.
Dire Wolven Skull Headpiece Condition: Good 1 kg Requirements: 27 Intelligence 26 Strength 29 Agility 56 Wisdom Stats: +7 Defense to equipped area +5 to all Stats Aspect of the Dire Wolven: +10% Speed +10 Damage to biting and unarmed attacks
Arris¡¯ eyes widened. While he could only just barely use the item, he could equip it. And the item was absolutely overpowered. The single item brought a whopping stat buff of 30 by itself. While the Bronze Helm of Intelligence gave him 5 more Intelligence, when you factored in the general stat buff it wasn¡¯t even a competition. Arris took off the Bronze Helm of Intelligence and equipped his new bone piece of headgear. As much as he might want to keep the Bronze Helm of Intelligence he simply didn¡¯t have the room for it in his inventory. Dropping the helm on the ground, Arris was done sorting through his inventory. Now Arris had two paths forwards. He could go and try to fight the Scragath or he could continue clearing the floor and try to get level 14. He was actually rather close to level 14, only 18% experience off. Another two or so rooms and he¡¯d hit level 14. Deciding it was a good idea to be more prepared for the boss fight, Arris went and found four uncleared rooms and killed all the wolven in them, getting himself to level 14. Now it was time for Arris to formulate a plan. He opened both his stat page and inventory, wanting all his tools in front of him so that he could easily remember and include them in his planning.
Name: Arris Graham
Class Mage (Thaumaturge, Dark Paladin)
Profession Animal Trainer (0), Alchemist (4)
Titles Trailblazer I, Original I
Synchronicity Rating 97.6 Renown 0
Level 14, 3% Race Human Skeleton
Health 245/245 Mana 398/440
Toughness 245/245 Spirit 220/220
Attack : 39-45 Attack Rating : 86 Defense : 19.25 Defense Rating : 43
Strength : 49 Agility : 37 Intelligence : 30 Wisdom : 139
Luck : 5 Charm : 0 Constitution : 25 Vitality : 18
Health/10sec : 0.064 Mana/10sec : 6.885 Toughness/10sec : 0.32 Spirit/10sec : 6.885
Perception : 10 Rapport : 5 Ingenuity : 6 Poison Resistance : 5
Resistances -5% damage taken from physical sources +50% damage taken from fire-based attacks +150% damage taken from holy sources -50% damage taken from dark magic -90% damage taken from death magic +30% damage from blunt damage types -30% damage from sharp damage types -10% damage from magical sources 99% chance to resist mind control and other types of subversive magic
Attributes Skeletal Frame Minor Undead Immortal Soulbound
Passive Skills Mana Sense Blunt Weapon Proficiency (28) Projectile Throwing (1) Climbing (4) Power of Darkness
Equipped Items Collar of Strength (Neck) Crude Iron Chestplate (Chest) Thief¡¯s Leather Greaves (Lower Legs) Warlock''s Bone Staff of Power(Two Hands) Leather Bracers of Agility (Forearm) Damaged Leather Thigh Armor (Upper Legs) Steel Gauntlets of the Pugilist (Hands) Mail Pauldrons of Constitution (Upper Arm) Battered Sabatons of Swiftness (Feet) Dire Wolven Skull Headpiece (Head)
Active Skills Assess Sneak (2) Warrior¡¯s Stance (8) Condensed Aether Bolt(18) (30 CD) Dark Blow(14) (10 CD) Spirit Blast(15) (15 CD) Spirit Shards(16) (3 CD) Disorient(12) (15 CD) Grasping Hands(9) (20 CD)
Inventory: 0.9153 kg Human Bone Powder 0.3110 kg Wolven Bone Powder 0.111 kg 37 Wolven Fangs 456 Copper Coins 53 Silver Coins 0.042 kg 7 Bronze Rings 0.024 kg 4 Silver Lockets 0.030 kg 5 Gemstone Necklaces 0.006 kg 1 Gold Ring 8 kg 4 Scimitar of Synchronicity 0.216 kg Drake Bone Powder 3 kg Spiked Shield 7 kg Young Drake Bones 0.2 kg Scroll of Teleport 0.5 kg Alarian¡¯s Journal 4 kg Iron Quarterstaff of Command Lesser Undead 0.0048 kg 6 Root of Branthia Blast Plant 0.0024 3 Stalk of Airwort 1.08 kg 9 empty flask 0.8456 kg 7 Medium Potion of Regeneration 0.4832 kg 4 Excellent Potion of Regeneration 1 kg 2 Magical Grenade of Mana Dispersal 1 kg 2 Magical Grenade of Fireblast 2 kg 2 Dire Wolven Claws (Complete) 6 kg Slayer¡¯s Falchion of Execution 0.2345 Dire Wolven Bone Powder Capacity 37.6142 / 40 kg
Scrolling through both his inventory and his status page, Arris¡¯ eyes passed over something he¡¯d almost completely forgotten: Alarian¡¯s Journal. With a flash of insight, Arris realized that the journal may include some important information on Scragath behavior and what way was best to fight them. After a quarter hour of scanning through various journal entries, Arris finally found the one he was looking for. It turned out that Scragath belonged to a family of creatures named Multadonts. They were characterized by their massive size, voracious carnivorous appetites, and unusual sensory body parts. The creatures located and sensed their prey primarily with their absurdly powerful hearing and extremely sensitive skin which could pick up vibrations in the ground and in the air. They had eyes and a nose but tended not to use them. Also worthy of note was the fact that, according to Alarian, even the Scragath pups were untrainable. The creatures in question were fiercely territorial and highly competitive over mating rights. Both males and females would often fight to the death protecting their mates and territories, never willing to share. Once in a fight, they never backed down.The only way to deal with a Scragath was to run or fight, there was no frightening it off or forcing it into a stalemate. In terms of actual combat, Scragath were easily provoked and favored charge attacks. Anything caught with their tusks, which they could spread out like the jaws of a trap, would meet a swift and brutal end. What few creatures could dodge their tusks would often be caught by their spikes of arms. Alarian emphasized several times it was recommended that only seasoned adventurers should dare tussle with the violent and powerful creatures. To be fully honest, while the journal entry was interesting, it wasn¡¯t very helpful. He¡¯d already figured that it would engage in some sort of charging attack and use its arms to catching anything dodging much like the Wrathion had with its wings. Scanning back over his inventory, Arris began to formulate a plan. He still had both of his fire grenades and was thankful that he hadn¡¯t wasted one on the necromancer. If he needed, he could just use both on the Scragath which would likely deal at least a quarter its health. And while his Grasping hands likely couldn¡¯t actually hold the creature down, it might be able to halt its charge or even trip it. And now that he considered it, there was also that scroll of teleport. If things got too hairy he could just jump himself out. After another couple minutes, Arris had finally finalized his plan. When Grasping Hands was up, he could use the spell to trip the creature and get in a couple melee blows. Otherwise, Arris would use the pillars as cover to break the creature¡¯s charges and kite it around waiting for his spells to come off cooldown and his mana to regenerate. It may take him an hour or two but he¡¯d eventually kill the beast. After prepping his five Spirit Shards, Arris set off for the boss room. With trepidation, Arris stepped into the boss room. With much care to be silent, Arris crept to the area where the boss was resting. He was sure not to kick any of the bones scattered on the floor and disturb the silence. It wasn¡¯t long before he found the Skeletal Scragath Adolescent, laying silently and seemingly lifelessly on the floor in the back right side of the cave, out of sight of the entrance. He checked its nameplate to verify the pile of bones in front of him was the actual boss. < Skeletal Scragath Adolescent | Undead Monster | Level 13 | 100% HP > With its identity verified and his plan already carefully laid out Arris decided that hesitating would only make him more nervous and initiated his simple plan. He snuck back some one hundred or so feet to stand on the opposite side of the room of the Skeletal Scragath. He then raised his staff of power and channeled the mana for a Spirit Blast through it, letting the spell loose at the Skeletal Scragath. He quickly followed it with a Condensed Aether Bolt with exactly 200 mana in it, and then his five Spirit Shards. He didn¡¯t know how long the fight would last, and he needed to save every single drop of mana he could. Cost wise, overcharging Condensed Aether Bolt was not half as efficient as normal casting the spell and Arris could stall the fight out and wait for his cooldown. With an explosion, Arris¡¯ initial salvo of spells collided into the Scragath. > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 91 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 331 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 36 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 36 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 36 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 36 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 36 rawdamage! < Arris then checked its nameplate for its percentage health. < Skeletal Scragath Adolescent | Undead Monster | Level 13 | 61% HP > He did some fast math, tallying up his damage and referencing it with the monster¡¯s percentage remaining health. When he finally finished crunching the numbers he realized that the monster had a little bit over 1500 health. That was a lot of fucking health. Its toughness bar could substitute for some 750 to 800 health of physical damage. He only had enough mana for one more salvo of spells. How the fuck was he supposed to take this thing on?!?! The Skeletal Scragath shook off the confusion of being awoken by a massive spell combo and rose to its feet, letting loose a terrifying roar. Somewhere in the auditory background, Arris heard the rumble of stone, likely the exit to the boss room closing. Great. Now he had nowhere to run. That Scroll of Teleport was looking awfully tempting. But Arris steeled his resolve and calmed his nerves. The fight hadn¡¯t even truly begun yet. The Skeletal Scragath was only just lining him up in its sights and preparing for a charge. With another earth-shaking roar, the creature heaved its massive bulk forwards, slowly accelerating. Scratch that. Rapidly accelerating. In the brief few seconds that Arris had taken to refocus his attention from himself back to the beast, it had already covered half the room¡¯s length and was only some fifty feet in front of him. Banish all panic from his mind, Arris put his plan into action. With a wave of his staff, a host of hands sprang up from the ground around one of the Scragath¡¯s legs, grabbing onto and tripping the creature. With a surprised bellow, the creature pitched forwards onto its face, violently impacting into the ground and sliding most of the remaining distance towards Arris. > Critical Strike! Skeletal Scragath Adolescent takes 121 blunt damage! < It was an unexpected windfall of damage. Surprised, but not quite to the point of not being able to take advantage of the Skeletal Scragath¡¯s moment of weakness, Arris swapped staffs, darted forwards, and landed two blows on the Skeletal Scragath¡¯s snout, charing one with a Dark Blow. The creature then shoved itself forwards a little with its hind legs and almost snapped its tusks down on him but Arris, noticing the movement out of the corner of his eye, managed to leap back out of range. > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 97 rawdamage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 71 blunt damage! < In the span of a few seconds, Arris had taken down the creature¡¯s health by yet another 300 or so damage. Suddenly, things weren¡¯t looking so bad for Arris. He turned and ran away as the creature clambered to its feet, righting itself before looking at Arris and roaring. Just as the creature was beginning its charge Arris ducked behind a pillar of bones, stymying the creature¡¯s attempt at reaching him. With a frustrated roar, the creature walked around the pillar, expecting to find Arris behind it. He wasn¡¯t. Arris was instead running towards the next pillar of bones. He repeated this strategy, preventing the creature from charging him and waiting for the cooldown on grasping hands. Without any movement speed while not charging or the brains to do anything but mindlessly chase after Arris, he was able to efficiently kite the creature. Every couple pillars Arris¡¯ Grasping Hands would come off cooldown and he¡¯d allow the creature to charge him and trip the beast. He¡¯d then get in two to three fast blows and then continue running. He averaged about 300 damage a run. Unfortunately for Arris, the fight changed when the boss finally dropped below 40% health. As Arris was running away from the boss towards the next pillar after landing his combo on it, Arris realized he could no longer hear the stomping of its feet behind him. Turning around slowly, Arris glanced at the beast in confusion. What was the thing doing? It was just laying on the ground where it had tripped, doing nothing. Well, actually, now that Arris looked closer, he realized that it wasn¡¯t doing anything. Or wait. Was it? The creature was starting to glow. Its eyes, red orbs of malevolence, grew larger and more intense. And even stranger, its very bones themselves had taken on a red hue and begun to emit a red mist. Arris peered closer, his red orbs of eyes narrowing, as he wondered what was happening. He soon had his answer, as the creature veritably sprang to its feet and let loose a bone-chilling roar, just as a notification window popped up.
Skeletal Scragath Adolescent has become Enraged! Beware! Its speed and damage have drastically increased.
Arris gulped, nervously. Whatever. This shouldn¡¯t be too big a problem. A little speed and damage shouldn¡¯t give the creature an advantage as he could just kite it out with the pillars. His plan was flawless. Obviously. With that fact in mind Arris turned and ran behind the pillar. The loud thumping of feet approached the pillar from the opposite side. This time though, the noise didn¡¯t slow and halt as it approached. It increased in tempo instead. With a massive smashing noise, the Scragath collided with the pillar sending bones flying every which way before swinging about, throwing its head up and releasing a massive roar. Then, the creature turned. But not to face Arris, who was madly running away towards the next pillar. No. To face the shattered remains of the bone pillar. Extending its massive maw, the creature greedily crunched up the scattered bones lying on the ground.
Skeletal Scragath Adolescent has regenerated its Toughness!
Arris broke out into a cold sweat. How was this in any way fair. If the creature could do that again, then his previous strategy was worthless. Best to scrap it. It was time for plan B. Checking his mana pool, Arris knew he only had 140 mana left. Checking its nameplate, Arris verified the creature had 40% of its health or 600 health points. Thank goodness spells bypassed toughness. In terms of mana efficiency, Spirit Blast was by far his most efficient spell in terms of damage to mana spent. But he only had enough mana for three and he needed seven to kill the creature at 90 damage a shot. The mana for a Spirit Blast took approximately a minute to charge. So that meant that he¡¯d need to stall the creature for three and a half minutes if he wanted to kill the creature. That was significantly longer than the fight had already gone on. Arris gulped. This was not going to be easy. The creature, done with its bony meal, turned and lumbered towards the pillar Arris was hiding behind. It rapidly closed the distance and smashed into the pillar, once again sending bones flying everywhere. Arris was already running and spun about only so that he could throw a Spirit Blast back at the creature. > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 89 rawdamage! < The creature was much faster than it had been before though. Now, there was hardly half a second of hesitation before the beast focussed on him, roared, and resumed its charge. It was gaining ground on him. Rapidly. This time one of the flying bones from the smashed pillar almost clipped Arris. It hadn¡¯t even been thirty seconds. He needed to stall for three minutes. But at this rate, Arris wouldn''t even last for a third of that. He needed a plan C. Glancing around, Arris desperately tried to discern some path to victory. The room was just full of bone pillars and stacks of bones. There was no stalactite loosely connected to the ceiling or massive magical sword conveniently laying on the ground. Desperately scheming, Arris sprinted to the next pillar at his maximum speed, only barely managing to outrun the Scragath and dodge the flying bones from the pillar breaking. And even worse, in front of him was the wall. To make it to another pillar Arris would have to run back into the room, past the Scragath. He¡¯d never make it. Then, inspiration struck. Arris ran at the wall. The Scragath, after quickly reorienting itself, followed Arris, expecting an easy kill with nowhere for its prey to run. The creature trumpeted a triumphant roar. But Arris just savagely clacked his jaws together. The Scragath wouldn¡¯t be eating him today. As Arris ran, he channeled the mana for a spell through his staff. He pointed it at the roof, some twenty feet above him, and let loose. A good ten feet before reaching the wall, Arris leaped upwards, extending his staff as high up in the air as he could. The grasping hands, reaching down from the roof, were just in range to grab it. They hauled Arris up out of the charge of the Scragath. The creature howled in disbelief as it charged underneath him, shocked to see its prey slip away from what it had been sure was a hopeless situation. Then its massive head slammed into the wall. > Critical Strike! Skeletal Scragath Adolescent takes 219 blunt damage! < Arris savagely gnashed his teeth together, and swapped out his staff for his combat staff, dropping onto the back of the creature and striking it heavily. > Critical Strike! You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 107 blunt damage! < Arris then followed up the blow with another two quick smacks to the creature¡¯s back. > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 74 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 67 blunt damage! < The Scragath, quickly recovering from the savage impact with the wall, realized what had happened and roared angrily before beginning to buck wildly. Arris almost fell off before he hooked a foot between a bony armor plate and the Scragath¡¯s ribcage before he went back to smacking, landing another four blows whenever he could manage to balance for it. > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 68 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 65 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 73 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 70 blunt damage! < The Scragath, whether through brain power or instinct, quickly came to the realization the enemy wasn¡¯t coming off with mere shaking. With a keening cry, the creature lurched and started to flop over onto its side in an effort to crush Arris. Realizing what was happening, Arris landed one final quick blow before leaping off the side of the falling beast and coming to his feet quickly in a roll. > Glancing Blow! You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 54 blunt damage! < > Critical Strike! Skeletal Scragath Adolescent takes 44 blunt damage! < Arris wasn¡¯t done quite yet however. He hadn¡¯t wanted to approach the creature directly from the front, but now he had the opportunity to get behind the creature, to its relatively undefended side. He close the distance quickly, getting in a blow as the Scragath rolled to its feet. > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 75 blunt damage! < The creature began to spin towards him, but Arris had anticipated the move and rolled through its feet while avoiding getting stomped. He came up behind the spinning Scragath, and struck another two strong blows on the back legs of the creature. > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 68 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 69 blunt damage! < The Screagath growled with frustration and took several steps forwards, realizing that Arris could simply keep rolling around through its legs and stay behind the creature to defeat it. Arris managed to land one final one-handed blow on the rear end of the creature before he turned and ran. > Glancing Blow! You deal Skeletal Scragath Adolescent 50 blunt damage! < The Scragath, spinning once sure it was out of range only to see Arris¡¯ retreating back, screamed with frustration. Arris just turned back and pegged it with a Spirit Blast, checking its nameplate after the impact. < Skeletal Scragath Adolescent | Undead Monster | Level 13 | 8% HP > Arris clacked his jaws together savagely. A Spirit Blast and a Spirit Shard or two and the creature was down. Considering that it should stop one more time to replenish its toughness, the remainder of this fight should be a cinch. Sure enough, it was. The creature took a solid fifteen seconds to eat a bone pillar and regenerate its toughness. And a few more desperate scrambles from pillar to pillar later he had the mana needed for the combo and finished off the beast. It collapsed to the ground, with a shriek as its body lost its magic potency and broke apart into a pile of bones. Somewhere in the background there was the rattling noise of the entrance to the boss room opening, but Arris hardly heard it. He was eagerly reaching forwards to loot the Scragath. That had been an epic fight, and Arris could only hope the loot would be equally as epic. Unfortunately, for beating the Skeletal Scragath Arris only received three things. 8 Stalks of Riverwart, a veritable mountain of cash, and a Tanker¡¯s Plated Steel Chestplate. He opened the description of the new piece of armor, praying to god that it wouldn¡¯t be another dud like the falchion had been.
Tanker¡¯s Divine Plated Steel Chestplate Condition: Excellent 22 kg Requirements: 49 Strength 134 Constitution Stats: +67 Defense to equipped area -10% to all damage dealt to equipped area Divine: Gain 10 Health/10sec for three seconds after taking damage
It was every bit the dud the falchion had been, if not more. The item was absolutely overpowered and would literally straight up give almost 10 defense to the defense stat. Throw in the -10% damage to the most commonly struck part of the body and the 30 health regenerated every time the character was struck and any attacking enemies may as well be ants trying to attack an elephant. The only problem, the one incredibly important and frustrating problem, was that Arris couldn¡¯t equip the item. Nor could he put it in his inventory to save it for later. Sighing, Arris had to drop the item. At least he¡¯d gotten some alchemical ingredients and a ton of cash from the creature, a total of one hundred and twenty one copper coins, eighteen silver, and his first two gold pieces. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Arris had to let go of the amazing chestplate and leave it behind in the boss room. Who knew? Maybe if he could find a way to store more stuff he could come back for it. As he stepped out of the boss room a notification popped up.
Congratulations! You have met the requirements for clearing the first level of the Skeleton Floor of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon (Boss slain, 75% Monsters slain)! You may now proceed to the next level and kill creatures without any sort of experience deduction! Beware though, the next level is the final level of the floor and will possess unexpected challenges and stronger monsters! Good luck, and may the worthy survive!
Arris read the notification once over and his jaws clacked happily together, phantom lips trying to twist into a smile. He was almost done with the floor. Arris could only imagine the treasures he would find at the end of the first floor of the dungeon. They must be guarded by suitably terrifying and difficult to defeat monsters. This level had truly been exceedingly challenging, but like all the other challenges in the dungeon Arris had overcome it. The next level would up the danger. Despite the near-death experience and promise of more to come, however, Arris reveled in the fact that he would soon have the chance to put himself to the test again. It felt good to have a challenge. It felt good to feel something, at all. Arris waved his hand and the notification floated away. He strode away into the darkness, jaws clacking intermittently. (9) Chapter 8: Gains and Losses Upon exiting the connection tunnel, Arris found himself standing at the edge of a massive expanse of rugged black stone that strongly reminded him of basalt. He bent over to scrape a bony claw over the rough surface of the stone. Maybe it was basalt. He couldn¡¯t really tell anymore, not with the way he was now. Arris straightened up and continued his observation of the cavern. Looking around Arris spotted several massive stone pillars measuring hundreds of feet in diameter, sprouting up from the ground and shooting towards the ceiling some four or five hundred feet above where Arris was currently standing. These massive pillars were thoroughly connected by a series of large, slightly slanted stone cylinders. Here and there large stalagmites could be seen popping up from the floor, concealing minor sections of the area. The vague, indistinct yet somehow familiar shrieks of an unknown creature echoed through the cavern every once in awhile, a warning to all adventurers of the challenges to come. In front of Arris hovered a screen.
Congratulations, you have discovered the fifth level of the Skeleton Floor of Malechian¡¯s Dungeon, also known as the Revenant¡¯s Roost! Please note that the last level of a floor is unique and more challenging than the rest! Instead of a hidden boss, normal boss, and hidden loot chest, there will be several challenges for explorers throughout the level and a single boss with a loot chest as a reward for defeating it. Beware, this boss will be the most difficult of all those that you have faced!
Arris momentarily paused. A single boss with the loot chest as the reward? So there was no hidden boss to warm up on or hidden loot chest to gear up with before challenging the main boss. Arris wasn¡¯t sure how he felt about that. But then he shrugged after a couple seconds of thought. He¡¯d triumph over this boss just as he¡¯d triumphed over all the others. That didn¡¯t mean, however, that he wouldn¡¯t adequately prepare to take this boss on. Before he faced the creature, Arris really wanted to hit level 15. He only needed roughly another 80% to finish off level 14, and once he hit 15 he could pick up another couple abilities and more importantly could finally get his mini-boss racial upgrade. That could potentially be huge. An extra twenty to forty bonus to his stats alongside an ability could potentially be a game changer. Setting aside his worries about the upcoming boss fight and dreams of power, Arris set off into the level. Looking around Arris could actually spot his enemies on this level, as opposed to the last where the wolven had pretty much all been concealed. These monsters were of a familiar type: human skeletons. They ambled to and fro, interspersed periodically in small groups throughout the massive open cavern. Shrugging, his path to his enemies easily found, Arris simply began walking towards the nearest small group. Glancing at their nameplates, Arris gave the skeletons a brief scan before actually engaging them. < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 14 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Archer | Undead Monster | Level 13 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Warrior | Undead Monster | Level 15 | 100% HP > Arris frowned. While he¡¯d seen two of the types of skeletons previously, he hadn¡¯t seen any skeleton knights ever. Looking more closely Arris could see that the skeleton was wearing some rather nice armor and had a fancy looking black sword with a hooked tip. He didn¡¯t know the exact name for the type of sword but had others like it a million times in various RPG video games he¡¯d played back before the System. Arris thought that now that the dungeon was getting harder it was probably a good idea to switch up his approach to taking on mobs in the dungeon. Usually, he just obliterated new monsters without taking their measure. This time he would let the Skeleton Knight engage him in melee combat so he could take its measure before he destroyed it. He might not be able to destroy an entire group of skeletons at a later date and if he had to fight more Skeleton Knights better to have gauged their strength before caught in a sticky situation. After prepping his customary five Spirit Shards Arris approached the skeletons. As per usual Arris assumed that the Skeleton Warrior and Skeleton Archer had roughly the same amount of health as him. This actually meant that Arris could save one of his Spirit Shards. Creeping up behind the group of skeletons, Arris raised his mage staff and then brought it smashing down onto the head of the Skeleton Archer. > You deal Skeleton Archer Lethal damage! < > Skeleton Archer has died! < With that Skeleton down, Arris quickly refocused, a Spirit Blast¡¯s spell matrix appearing before his staff a second before the spell itself flew out to smash into the Skeleton Warrior. With a further wave of his hand, four of his five Spirit Shards shot out to finish it off. > You deal Skeleton Warrior 92 mixed damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 36 mixed damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 36 mixed damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 36 mixed damage! < > You deal Skeleton Warrior 36 mixed damage! < > Skeleton Warrior has died! < Now it was just him and the Skeleton Knight. Its eyes glowing balls of red, the monster¡¯s jaws clacked together as it watched its fellow Skeleton Warrior collapse into an inanimate pile of bones. The Skeleton Knight hardly waited a moment. The creature leveled its sword at Arris and charged him. Arris quickly swapped out his two staffs, the Quarterstaff popping out of his inventory and into his hands, ready for use. A split second later and the Skeleton Knight had closed range and swung its sword out in a sweeping blow at Arris. The blow was well-placed, however, and unlike the clumsy and slow attacks of the Skeleton Warriors, Drudges Arris had no choice but to parry or dodge backward. Arris opted for the second choice, dancing backward as the Skeleton Knight finished its blow, returning to a ready position. Seeming to realize its foe had swapped to a melee weapon and had prepared for melee combat, the Skeleton Knight did not rush in again and instead slowly circled Arris, its blade at the ready. Deciding to take the initiative, Arris stepped in and unleashed a swift blow aimed at the Skeleton Knight¡¯s head. The monster was ready, however, and the blow bounced off of the Skeleton¡¯s upraised sword. Quickly swapping weight from one foot to the other, Arris stepped forwards to press his advantage and launch a series of rapid, powerful blows angling to smash through the Skeleton Knights defenses. However, the Skeleton Knight displayed a remarkable amount of competency with its blade. It bobbed and weaved, retreated and parried, and let loose a couple ripostes of its own before Arris¡¯ assault ended. After thirty or so blows, Arris had only managed to get three hits and the Skeleton Knight had landed its first. > You deal Skeleton Knight 42 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeleton Knight 38 blunt damage! < > You deal Skeleton Knight 41 blunt damage! < > Skeleton Knight deals you 65 slashing damage! < Taking a couple steps backward, Arris retreated out of range of skeleton, giving its nameplate a glance. < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 14 | 100% HP > Having dealt some 120 damage but not having penetrated through the Skeleton Warrior¡¯s toughness, Arris figured it had to have over 240 health. With his blows dealing some 30 reduced damage, it was fair to say that the creature had roughly 30 armor or so. This monster was easily the most dangerous out of all the weapon-wielding monsters he¡¯d faced so far. While the Skeleton Knight wasn¡¯t quite as fast as Arris, it was faster than anything he¡¯d faced before and was definitely stronger than him. If it wasn¡¯t for his superior weapon skills and speed Arris would likely lose in a physical fight against his strong, better armed, better-armored adversary. Still, though, it would likely take Arris at least another five minutes to finish chipping off the rest of the Skeleton Knight¡¯s health. Quickly making his decision, Arris ultimately decided to finish the monster off without magical means. With the level of competency and defensive style, the Skeleton Knight was showing the fight should be rather long and net him a good bit of experience for both Warrior¡¯s Stance and Blunt Weapon Proficiency. The rest of the fight was rather predictable. Arris would close on the Skeleton Knight till he was in attack range, trigger Warrior¡¯s Stance, and then begin hammering away. Every once in awhile the Skeleton Knight would get a little too close to Arris or would step away. Arris would simply break Warrior¡¯s Stance and then hang back out of range till the Warrior¡¯s Stance debuff ended before continuing the fight. Towards the end of the fight, a notification popped up. > Blunt Weapon Proficiency +1 < Waving the notification away, Arris continued smacking away at the Skeleton Knight¡¯s defenses. It didn¡¯t take him too long to land the final couple blows he needed to finish the monster off. > Skeleton Knight has died! < With the knight slain, Arris continued on towards the nearest pillar, whereupon he could get on a ramp leading upwards towards the roof of the dungeon. Arris had to guess that the boss was somewhere near the top of the dungeon. It would be prudent to find the boss and then decide how many levels he wanted to farm before he fought the boss. And looking around, Arris quickly realized there were far too many mobs for him to farm in any reasonable amount of time. Arris roughly estimated that there were some five hundred or so skeletons simply wandering about the level. Luckily none of the skeletons seemed to be aggroing on him so Arris could pick and choose which groups he wanted to fight. For now, though Arris simply avoided fighting any groups with more than five skeletons or more than two knights. For the most part, the skeletons seemed to be the same level as him, and he quickly gained experience. By the time he reached the base of the first ramp leading towards a pillar Arris had almost hit level 15, at a full 80% experience. Then, Arris was on the ramp and moving towards a pillar. There was one last group of skeletons in between Arris and the pillar¡¯s entrance. Arris slew them with ease, bumping himself up to 85% experience. And then Arris was through the small entrance to the pillar and inside the complex. A loud clicking ensued, and then a massive stone door crashed down to block the entrance Arris had just walked through.
You have entered the first instance of the Skeleton Floor! Overcome the challenges that await you to exit and proceed! Good Luck!
Arris¡¯ first move was to turn around and inspect the stone door. It didn¡¯t seem at all like it would budge, and Arris couldn¡¯t spot any levers or buttons on the nearby walls that would open it. It seemed he would need to complete this instance if he wanted to proceed. Arris decided to first take stock of his surroundings. He was currently standing in a small circular stone room, made of the same type of stone that the rest of the level was made of. The circular room had a singular exit which led towards the heart of the pillar. Seeing as there was no other path forwards, Arris elected to travel down the corridor. He wasn¡¯t going to rush into it, however. Arris cautiously prepared five Spirit-Shards before he set off down the corridor. It turned out the corridor was not a straight shot to whatever objective it was that Arris was headed towards. The corridor twisted and curved and was far, far longer than Arris anticipated. Arris was expecting some sort of challenge, however, maybe even the level boss, so he walked instead of ran and in general took a slow and cautious approach to things. It was lucky he did. As he was walking, he noticed a strange thin black line at the very bottom of his vision. Already on high alert, Arris immediately paused to take a closer look at the object. The thin black line went from one side of the corridor to the other. On both sides of the corridor, there were small holes in the wall that the thin black line went into. Was this¡­ A tripwire? It seemed blatantly obvious to Arris, but maybe that was just a combination of his perception and Mana Sense. > Perception +1 < Arris clacked his teeth together as his vanished lips tried to twist into a smile. A free point in Perception was always welcome. Stowing his happiness, Arris stepped forwards and over the trap, very slowly putting one foot down on the other side of the tripwire to gain his balance before moving the other foot over to join it. Pleased with himself Arris turned around and confidently strode forwards¡ªonly to have the floor cave out from underneath his feet after another three steps. Fucking shit! Arris thought to himself as he fell through the air and into the pitfall trap. He hit the bottom after some forty feet of falling in a violent crunch of bones. > Critical Strike! You take 159 blunt damage! < Luckily it wasn¡¯t too much damage. The fall damage had only just barely managed to penetrate through Arris¡¯ Toughness which would regenerate much faster than his health. That fact wasn¡¯t, however, going to stop Arris from feeling like an idiot. He¡¯d fallen for the most basic of dungeon tricks: the double trap. It was a simple psychological trick. Mere present an adventurer with a first, easy to spot trap and distract him with it only to have set up a more difficult to spot, more dangerous trap just behind it. The adventurer, overconfident from spotting the first, would be far more susceptible to the second. Just as Arris had been. He wouldn¡¯t make the same mistake again. Looking around Arris found himself back in the circular room which was the start of the dungeon. He mentally groaned to himself. Now he needed to walk all the way back to the place where he¡¯d fallen from. It was nearly half an hour getting there, and a boring one at that! Instead of waiting the twelve minutes in the entry circular room, Arris immediately set out for the place he¡¯d fallen from at a brisk pace. Some twenty minutes later, after his Toughness had fully regenerated, Arris reached the place where the traps were. Arris carefully stepped over the tripwire and leaped over the pitfall trap. Then he resumed his trek down the tunnel. As he walked, Arris would vigilantly scan the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel for any sign of a trap. There were none. Arris¡¯ slow progression through the tunnel continued for nearly another hour. Arris was just about to throw caution to the wind and stop being quite so vigilant in his progression down the tunnel when he came to a wide room. It was strangely familiar. The room seemed to be an enlarged hallway, with a tall roof some twenty feet above the floor and a single set of pillars on each side of the room. In total, there were twenty pillars, with six-foot spacings on either side of the pillars. The room was approximately seventy feet long. On the sides of the room stood six ornately decorated arches. In the center of each arch, there was a mural of a skeleton knight. The depictions were so realistic that Arris had thought them to be real Skeleton Knights. But upon closer inspection, Arris realized the depictions were merely popping out of the stone and lacked nameplates or glowing red eyes. Carefully prowling out into the room, Arris warily inspected the room for any hidden traps or enemies. But there was nothing waiting in the shadows to strike out at Arris, and no hidden traps waiting to surprise and destroy him. Confused, Arris continued his slow and careful walk across the room. When Arris had gotten about halfway across the room there was a sudden explosion of noise. Arris turned to see stone cascading off of what he¡¯d thought were merely statues of Skeleton Knights. It turned out the depictions were actual Skeleton Knights encased in a loose layer of rock. Their red globes of eyes flared into existence, not a second before their nameplates did. < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > < Skeleton Knight | Undead Monster | Level 11 | 100% HP > Arris shrugged. Six level 11 Skeleton Knights. He had a three-level advantage on them. He should be able to handle them. Then, Arris noticed something else moving around before the Skeleton Knight. It seemed that more than just the stone the Skeleton Knight had been encased in had collapsed. The entire archway itself had collapsed. And behind the archway, there was a room. As the Skeleton Knights stepped out of their archways a veritable horde of normal skeletons followed them out. One¡­ two¡­ three¡­ four¡­ ten¡­ Arris stopped counting the skeletons about there and ran for the exit he¡¯d just come out of. As he ran, he shot Spirit blasts over his shoulder and tried to come up with a plan. It seemed that the only chance he had for winning this fight was in the enclosed corridor. Only three skeletons would be able to come at him at a time and he should be able to manage that many especially with the level difference. As long as the skeletons didn¡¯t manage to get around him, Arris would be fine. He was just about done considering his options and about to turn and fight when inspiration struck him. He wouldn¡¯t need to make a desperate stand if he just ran a little further. A plan started to form in Arris¡¯ mind. Roughly ten minutes of running later Arris had come to the pitfall trap and tripwire trap. He had no idea what the tripwire trap did, but he was soon to find out. Leaping over the pitfall trap, Arris turned around to face the skeletons. This was the first step of his plan. The skeletons, being little more than mere monsters, ran one by one to try and leap over the pit and get to Arris. Arris just batted them down into the trap one by one, losing large amounts of health upon impact with the floor. Some thirty skeletons later, by Arris¡¯ approximation two-thirds the horde had been batted down the pitfall trap and back to the entry room. Arris cast a Grasping Hands, snaring the leading skeletons and impeding the path of any skeletons behind them. He then turned around, leaped over the tripwire, and ran some fifty feet down the corridor. Not long after, the Grasping Hands retreated back into the earth and the skeletons continued their headlong chase of Arris. It only took them a couple seconds to reach the trip-wire and set it off. A couple seconds ticked by and Arris wondered if the trap had been a dud. Nothing was happening. Did monsters not activate the trap or something? His suppositions proved wrong when a noise halfway between a scream and the tearing of metal echoed through the corridor. Small metal tubes popped out from the upper corners of the walls before a stream of fire erupted out of the tubes, leaving behind ashes where a group of fifteen skeletons had once stood. Arris clacked his jaws together in appreciation. That had been exactly what he was hoping for. Four of the six Skeleton Knights had been in that group and a full third of the horde was eliminated. Two more Skeleton Knights and a ragtag group of approximately thirty skeletons were much less of a threat to him than six knights and forty skeletons. From that point on, the rest of the fight was a cakewalk. In ten minute intervals, the skeletons would finally make it back up the corridor to Arris. The first couple would always arrive before or ahead of their companions and Arris could take down two or three. Before they started to swarm him though, Arris would retreat down the corridor to the pitfall trap and just send them hurtling back to the beginning of the instance. Once there were only four or five skeletons left, Arris would stop knocking them down and just kill them. Arris repeated this strategy three times before he¡¯d killed the last Skeleton Knight. At that point, there were ten skeletons left and Arris just killed them in straight-up combat when they came up through the tunnel. After all the combat Arris had received another two points in Blunt Weapon Proficiency and another point of Ingenuity which he gratefully accepted before looting the skeletons and continuing on his journey. Arris lucked out and found an uncommon quality chestplate on one of the Skeleton Knights, which he promptly opened the status window for and then equipped after a second of looking.
Knight¡¯s Steel Cuirass Condition: Medium 10 kg Requirements: 45 Strength 25 Constitution Stats: +30 Defense to equipped area
While the item didn¡¯t give him stats it gave a full ten more defense. There was no question this was a better item than the Crude Iron Chestplate. Unfortunately aside from the loot Arris hardly got anything else off the mobs. He¡¯d expected to level up but due to their extremely low levels, Arris hadn¡¯t been able to level up off the mob of skeletons, instead hitting an unfortunate 98% experience. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Jogging back down the tunnel, it didn¡¯t take Arris long to reach the room where he¡¯d first encountered the skeleton horde. Checking around the room Arris was unable to find any loot. Reluctantly, Arris entered the sole corridor leading out of the room and continued his slow trek down the corridor, still wary of traps. After nearly fifteen minutes of slow walking, Arris¡¯ vigilance was finally rewarded. He found a trio of traps, the first of which being a spiked pitfall trap followed by a pressure plate and a tripwire some ten feet down the corridor from that. Arris leaped over the pitfall trap so he landed away from the pressure plate, and then carefully stepped over the tripwire before proceeding along the corridor. Just as he finished stepping over the last trap, a notification popped up.
Congratulations, you have gained Trap Detection (1)
Arris waved the notification away. Glancing back towards the traps to see if the skill was actively doing anything, Arris noticed that when he moved his eyes the traps seemed to almost shimmer like the air would on an extremely hot day. Not a particularly obvious tell, but something that would definitely help. Moving further down the corridor, Arris encountered one last set of traps after about twenty minutes of walking. He received both another point in Trap Detection and another point in Perception for spotting the last set of traps. Thirty minutes of walking passed before Arris¡¯ walk through the corridor finally ended. Coming to the end of the corridor, Arris found himself in one of the few lit places he¡¯d been in while in the dungeon. Having not used his Spirit Shards in the last fight, Arris had no need to prep more so he simply entered the room and glanced around. It was a massive hall with a double set of pillars on both sides. The pillars were ornately decorated, with artistic engravings covering each of the pillars. Every second pillar had a torch, the source of the light in the room. At the back of the hallway was a very familiar sight. A skeleton sitting on a throne. Arris strode slowly into the room, taking stock of the situation. As soon as he¡¯d walked past the first pillar, the entrance behind Arris slammed shut. Arris didn¡¯t even spin to look at the door. He¡¯d been expecting that would happen. This fight¡¯s setting was exactly what the Elite Skeleton Warrior¡¯s had been, and the exit had slammed shut during that fight too. The skeletons eyes lit up red just as the skeleton stood up from its throne. Fortunately, as Arris peered into the shadows behind the pillars, he didn¡¯t spot any skeleton flunkies to help out the boss. It was just him and the boss. That meant this was probably about to be a very easy fight. Arris glanced at the creature¡¯s nameplate quickly. < Skeleton Death Knight | Undead Mini-Boss | Level 13 | 100% HP> Arris did a double take when he spotted the skeleton¡¯s class. That was very interesting. Arris was half tempted to actually let the thing fight him without obliterating it with his magic just so that he could see what the thing could do and if he should take up the Death Knight class. The monster, its eyes settling upon the intruder, stood up from its throne with a roar and took a menacing step towards Arris. Deciding to err on the side of safety after a couple seconds of contemplation, Arris just blasted the monster with all his spells and mana. A Spirit Blast shot across the room, soon followed by a Condensed Aether Bolt and his five Spirit Shards. > You deal Skeleton Death Knight 92 raw damage! < > You deal Skeleton Death Knight 420 mixed damage! < > You deal Skeleton Death Knight 31 raw damage! < > You deal Skeleton Death Knight 32 raw damage! < The monster died upon the second impact of the Spirit Shards. A half second later a series of notifications popped up in front of Arris.
Congratulations! You have cleared the first Instance of the final level of the Skeleton Floor! After you collect your loot, you may exit the instance through the portal opening behind the mini-boss!
Glancing up, Arris did indeed see a stone door grinding open behind the Skeleton Death Knight. But that first notification wasn¡¯t the that made him clack his jaws together in excitement. It was the other one, congratulating Arris on his level up.
Congratulations, you have leveled up! You have reached level 15! The World System would like to congratulate you on overcoming several challenges which many before you have fallen prey to! You have clearly proved your resourcefulness and confidence in the face of adversity! Beware, that you will gain 3% experience from mobs of your level, as opposed to the previous 4%! Not all is bad tidings, however! In addition to gaining the customary Class Points, Stat Points, and Racial Points, you may also advance as a race as this point in time! After you close this screen, you will be sent to the race advancement screen! Good luck, and may the worthy survive!
Arris plunked the six distributable stat points into wisdom and then eagerly swiped the congratulatory screen away, wanting to quickly begin making his decisions and, more importantly, finally get the Mini-Boss upgrade. The race advancement screen popped up less than half a second after he swiped the congratulatory screen away.
Congratulations! At this point in time, you have reached the level at which your race advances! You may choose from one of three options!
Unbound Soul Undead
(No racial advancement)
Arris¡¯ jaws clacked together in an unsatisfactory manner as he tried to frown. This was very strange. Why was he being offered the chance to not racially advance this time when he hadn¡¯t the first? Not like it really mattered. He would¡¯ve racially advanced the last time and would advance this time. The question now was what he was going to choose. Unbound Soul sounded cooler, but sounding cooler wasn¡¯t always a better thing. He needed to research the topic, so he turned to his only source of information: the system. ¡®What is an Unbound Soul and what does a Minor Undead receive for upgrading to Unbound Soul?¡¯ Arris did his best to project the thought, and sure enough, the system answered.
Calculating parameters¡­ Referencing Index¡­ Finding information about Unbound Souls and Unbound Soul racial advancement¡­ Unbound Souls and Unbound Soul racial advancement Unbound Souls are a general class of souls that lack a corporeal body. They are comprised entirely of Aether and thus are capable of interacting with the physical realm. Unfortunately, doing so costs them Spirit. However, while interacting with the physical realm is difficult for Unbound Souls, they are virtually unaffected by physical attacks. The vast majority of weapons will do no damage to Unbound Souls. Being the remnants of deceased being¡¯s souls, Unbound Souls also manifest a deeper connection with the Aether and all magic, giving them resistance to all magical damage, massive cooldown reduction, and a large stat buff. Unfortunately, this closer connection to the Aether slowly unravels an Unbound Soul. As a being largely made of Aether, parts of the Unbound Soul will slowly but surely crumble away into the Aether. As a result, the Unbound Soul¡¯s stat points will slowly decrease, and they will slowly go insane. -50% All Cooldowns +10 to all Stats Resistances Reconfigured +0.1 Insanity per day Stats decrease at a rate proportional to Insanity
Yeah, no. Halfway through the reading drool would¡¯ve been coming out of Arris¡¯ mouth if he still had saliva, but by the time he¡¯d gotten to the end he decided this path was simply far too risky. Arris and his buddies often made jokes about going insane, but Arris didn¡¯t actually want to experience the process. Even worse would be his stat decrease. In a single year, his stat decrease would be nearly four-hundred times what it would begin at. If the stat loss began at an appreciable value Arris would never be able to raise his stats quickly enough to beat that. And when his stats hit zero¡­ No, Unbound Soul was far too risky. There was the chance that he could quickly level up and advance to a race that wouldn¡¯t cause him to steadily kill himself but the risk simply wasn¡¯t worth it. He didn¡¯t even have to read Undead before he chose it. Another screen soon popped up.
Congratulations, you have become an Undead! +6 Racial Stat Points +5 to all Stats Resistances Modified You also gain Class Points. +11 Class Points (+5 Dark Paladin, +6 Thaumaturge) After this screen, you will proceed to the Racial and Class Skill store!
Arris¡¯ jaws clacked together in satisfaction before he waved the screen away and the Racial and Class Skill store popped up.
Class Skills
Thaumaturge Skills
Aether Bolt (2 Class Points) Spirit Surge (5 Class Points)
Condensed Aether Bolt (7 Class Points) (prerequisite Aether Bolt) Spirit Shift (11 Class points)
Aether Sheen (5 Class Points) Spirit Blast (6 Class Points)
Aether Sword (8 Class Points) Last Gasp (9 Class Points)
Aether Stream (10 Class Points) Spirit Swell (7 Class Points) (Prerequisite Spirit Surge)
Dark Paladin
Shadowbolt (7 Class Points) Intimidate (6 Class Points)
Power of Darkness (11 Class Points) Affliction (3 Class Points)
Dark Blow (5 Class Points) Summon Shade (8 Class Points)
Gutting Blow (10 Class Points) Mental Onslaught (12 Class Points)
Rot (9 Class Points) (Prerequisite Affliction) Shadowstep (8 Class Points)
You will unlock 2 new skills every 5 levels for each subclass
Racial Skill Store
Bone Shards (4 Racial Points) Bone Shield (6 Racial Points)
Soul Stealing (12 Racial Points) Consummation (1 Skill Point (progressive))
Bone Armaments (7 Racial Points) (Prerequisite Bone Shards) Bone Reinforcements (4 Racial Points)
Soul Strengthening (4 Racial Points) Summon Skeleton Warrior (13 Racial Points)
Soul Furnace (9 Racial Points) Mini-Boss (15 Racial Points)
You will unlock 2 new skills every 5 levels
Arris had long since decided what his racial skill was but still read Soul Furnace once again to remind himself of its function. The spell was a rather simple one that allowed him to convert his Spirit into Health and Toughness. Powerful in the right situation, and Arris was sure that he would pick it up eventually. The Mini-Boss upgrade was more pressing, however. He would surely purchase that. Moving back to review his class skill, Arris was faced with yet another decision. There were so many choices. Originally he¡¯d been planning on taking Spirit Shift. A short-range teleport that dealt damage would serve as both a great escape and deterrent to anyone chasing him. But his new Dark Paladin spells had him reconsidering. Shadowstep was a cliche spell, teleport to any shadow within a certain range. The spell cost slightly more than Spirit Shift and had the longer cooldown of twenty-five seconds to Spirit Shift¡¯s twenty. Despite these detractors, however, Shadowstep had triple the range, letting him teleport sixty feet to Spirit Shift¡¯s twenty. And honestly, Arris would be primarily purchasing the teleport so that he could use it to gain better positioning during a fight. The damage, shorter cooldown, and mana cost were nice, but if he wanted to reposition well he needed distance. Shadowstep served that function far better. Despite Shadowstep being the better spell for repositioning, he was still torn over the choice. Spirit Shift seemed like it could have equally as much utility, no, it was instead his second new Dark Paladin spell that sold him on Shadowstep. Rot. The spell was the upgraded version of Affliction, and in addition to dealing far more damage and slowing far more, Rot also applied Grievous Wounds to the target and an increased chance of applying Crippling Effects. And after reading up on Grievous Wounds and Crippling Effects, Arris had discovered they were very much status effects that he wanted to apply to his enemies. Grevious Wounds was a status effect which permanently decreased the maximum health of the enemy by a percentage of damage dealt to the enemy until a certain amount of time had elapsed. It also reduced healing effects every time the enemy took damage, increasing up to a cap. Very nasty. Crippling Effects were effects that impaired the function whatever they had been applied to. Taking out someone¡¯s eyes would apply Blindness to them. Breaking their leg would apply Crippled to them. Even applying a single Crippling Effect to an enemy could signal the end of a fight. Arris needed that ability. If Arris took Shadowstep, he¡¯d have just enough Class Points to buy Affliction. After five more levels, he would then be able to buy Rot. As for the other two new Thaumaturge spells, Arris read and immediately dismissed them. Aether Stream was a great spell, a channeled AOE dot that was effectively the equivalent of a Spirit based flamethrower that had the bonus effect of draining Spirit and Stamina. Unfortunately, half the spell¡¯s utility was draining Spirit and Stamina, and without having encountered a single creature that used either of the two resources, Arris would have to bench the ability until he encountered different enemies. As for Spirit Swell, he would need Spirit Surge first and wouldn¡¯t be able to unlock the ability for yet another five levels. Besides, Spirit Swell wasn¡¯t exactly the best spell for a solo dungeon dive. Spirit Swell was barely an upgrade on Spirit Surge in terms of damage and crowd control but instead of being in a single line forwards the spell was AOE and healed any nearby allies. Useful but not for Arris. Another spell to bench until he finally came across allies. His decisions made and spell store scanned over, Arris made his selections, purchasing the Mini-Boss upgrade, Affliction, and Shadowstep. The following windows popped up.
Congratulations! You have learned the spell, Shadowstep! You may cast Shadowstep to step through the shadows, appearing from any shadow within 60 feet of your casting of the spell. It takes 1 second to reform upon teleporting. Effects: Teleport to any shadow within 60 feet Costs: -100 Mana 25 second CD
Congratulations! You have learned the spell, Affliction! You may cast Affliction to afflict an enemy with a debilitating magical plague! While the plague is in effect, the enemy¡¯s movement is slowed and they take damage over time. This effect ends after a ten-second duration! This spell affects different strength opponents differing amounts! Effects: Slow enemy¡¯s movement speed by 20% 6.4 dark damage per second Costs: -40 Mana -30 second CD
Congratulations! You have unlocked the rare Racial Advancement option, Mini-Boss upgrade! Please choose your upgrade from the options listed below! You will evolve into an appropriate boss based on your selection and existing Statuses.
Mage Mini-Boss Warrior Mini-Boss
It wasn¡¯t even a choice. Arris didn¡¯t even hesitate before he thought, ¡®Mage¡¯. A congratulatory screen almost immediately popped up.
Congratulations! Your race, Undead, has specialized to become Undead?Skeletal Wight! The system will soon apply the widespread changes needed to become a Mini-Boss. After you advance you will gain: +5 to all stats +10 to Intelligence and Wisdom +1 Racial Point, Stat Point, and Class Point per relevant level up The skills, Life Siphon and Project Voice
Clacking his jaws together several times in satisfaction, Arris read the buffs he would receive from the Mini-Boss upgrade before waving the screen away and opening his status page to check his newfound stats.
Name: Arris Graham
Class Mage (Thaumaturge, Dark Paladin)
Profession Animal Trainer (0), Alchemist (4)
Titles Trailblazer I, Original I
Synchronicity Rating 97.6 Renown 0
Level 15, 1% Race Human Skeleton
Health 275/275 Mana 500/500
Toughness 275/275 Spirit 250/250
Attack : 42-47 Attack Rating : 96 Defense : 21.31 Defense Rating : 53
Strength : 54 Agility : 42 Intelligence : 35 Wisdom : 150
Luck : 5 Charm : 0 Constitution : 30 Vitality : 23
Health/10sec : 0.076 Mana/10sec : 7.425 Toughness/10sec : 0.38 Spirit/10sec : 7.425
Perception : 12 Rapport : 5 Ingenuity : 7 Poison Resistance : 5
Resistances -10% damage taken from physical sources +50% damage taken from fire-based attacks +150% damage taken from holy sources -50% damage taken from dark magic -90% damage taken from death magic +30% damage from blunt damage types -30% damage from sharp damage types -15% damage from magical sources 99% chance to resist mind control and other types of subversive magic 5% Resistance to all negative effects of poison
Attributes Skeletal Frame Undead Immortal Soulbound
Passive Skills Mana Sense Blunt Weapon Proficiency (31) Projectile Throwing (1) Climbing (4) Trap Detection (2) Power of Darkness
Equipped Items Collar of Strength (Neck) Steel Cuirass (Chest) Thief¡¯s Leather Greaves (Lower Legs) Lich¡¯s Marrow Staff of Power (Two Hands) Leather Bracers of Agility (Forearm) Damaged Leather Thigh Armor (Upper Legs) Steel Gauntlets of the Pugilist (Hands) Mail Pauldrons of Constitution (Upper Arm) Battered Sabatons of Swiftness (Feet) Dire Wolven Skull Headpiece (Head)
Active Skills Assess Sneak (3) Warrior¡¯s Stance (9) Condensed Aether Bolt (19) (30 CD) Dark Blow (14) (10 CD) Shadowstep (0) (30 CD) Affliction (0) (30 CD) Spirit Blast (19) (15 CD) Spirit Shards (17) (3 CD) Disorient (12) (15 CD) Grasping Hands (10) (20 CD)
Arris gave a slow clack of his jaws, perplexed. Nothing had changed. Where were the aforementioned stat buffs? Shouldn¡¯t he have gotten 15 to Intelligence and Wisdom? Arris was confused and starting to get frustrated when all of a sudden a notification finally popped up.
Initializing Mini-Boss Metamorphosis¡­ 60
Arris threw his arms out and clacked his jaws together in sudden understanding. So that¡¯s what the system had meant when it said that it would apply the widespread changes needed to become a Mini-Boss. Considering that he only had 60 seconds before the process began, Arris knew he needed to find a good spot to hide and fast. Looking around the boss room Arris couldn¡¯t spot any conveniently placed piles of waste or stacks of bones he could hide in. There were no banners hanging from the ceiling or the wall, nothing decorating the room other than the throne and the torches on the wall.
Initializing Mini-Boss Metamorphosis¡­ 23
Crap. Only 23 seconds left. There only one option left. Running over to the boss¡¯s corpse, Arris didn¡¯t even pause to loot the thing as he painstakingly hauled it up and over himself.
Initializing Mini-Boss Metamorphosis¡­ 3
Arris turned off his Mana-Sense and the world went dark. Then he knew nothing. Dropped Hey guys. Instead of just disappearing without saying anything, I decided to post a chapter both saying that I was dropping and explaining why. I just can''t get into this story anymore. This is one of my oldest stories. Through the last four years of my life, I''ve been through four or five drafts of it, each progressively better. This draft was so much better than the others that I decided it was worth posting on Royal Road. But now, after a year and a half of writing (or not writing) the story, I''ve come to the realization that while this story is better than a lot of the stuff I''ve done in the past, I can definitely do better. This year I''ve been taking a creative writing course and I''ve been forced by my teacher to write a bunch of works in creative writing outside of my typical comfort zone. Some of them were so-so. Other''s were exceptional. They outstripped TBoHL by such a wide margin that when I sit down to write TBoHL I just... can''t. A large part of the reason why TBoHL is such low quality is because of a key decision I made when I started writing TBoHL. I structured the narrative in an extremely limited and narrow way. I introduced no other characters that could reasonably be placed in the dungeon with Arris and essentially locked him into a seventy or sixty chapter long farming segment with no real character development. It was literally just supposed to be a massive montage of action arcs. Maybe fun to read, but boring as hell and repetitive to write.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. At the time, my idea was to improve my action sequence writing and general use of descriptive language to describe scenes. While these two functions of language won''t make a given work particularly deep or meaningful, they will make it be entertaining and exciting to the reader, which will keep roughly half of all people reading. I think that when I started writing I was a lot more fixated on keeping people reading my stuff. I feel like that''s less of a priority for me now, and I want to focus on writing more meaningful stories. And that''s the crux of the problem. TBoHLhas no meaning and has no real avenue to change that. It''s a cliche, wish fulfillment, zero to op hero LitRPG novel. The MC isn''t a very deep character and there''s no supporting cast easily introduced. Now don''t get me wrong. It''s entertaining. If it was kindle unlimited I''d buy it and read the whole thing in half a day. But I wouldn''t remember it. And I want to write something memorable, or at least try. I don''t feel TBoHL can get there short of a full rewrite, and even then I''ll still be dropping this work. So yeah, that''s pretty much it. I''m gonna go work on other stuff for a while. I can probably start posting some of it now but the odds of a specific work I''m working on now eventually being completed are pretty low. I''m gonna get at least 200 pages in a fiction before I come back and start posting. So yeah. See you around, if there''s anyone still reading. New Story Hey guys, after I dropped this story I had a bunch of people in the Dropped post tell me that if I ever started publishing something new that I should link it from a chapter here. So here I am, doing that. As of now, my new work is just a prologue and a single chapter. Right now, I''m going pretty steady at a page a day, but who knows how long I can keep that up. You might want to wait until chapter 10 or so before you start reading so that some content can accrue, but that might take a while. Anyways, if you''re expecting something like The Bit of Human Left, I''m just gonna go ahead and warn you off now. The Second Sun''s Rise is nothing like TBoHL. TBoHL was hard Lit-RPG, all action, no character development, little worldbuilding, and a little bit of plot. SSR is all character development, tons of worldbuilding, a splash of plot, light Lit-RPG, with minimal action. Slice of Life is in the tags, and for good reason.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. I still hope that you''ll give it a try. The story is futuristic Sci-Fi, set some number of years into the future. Read the prologue, if it''s not your thing, well, maybe I''ll see you for the next story. Thanks for reading The Bit of Human Left, and I hope I see you around in the future. Here''s the link to the story:https://royalroadl.com/fiction/18235/the-second-suns-rise