NOVEL NEXT Chapter 150 - Savoris Silicon Mine Infestation V
The last molerat screeched, its arms flailing in a desperate attempt to claw at its attacker, Aoife, but it stayed pinned to the reinforced stone and silicon floor, skewered through the spine by her Deepiron Lance.
She kept her lance embedded inside the molerat for a few more seconds before ripping it out of both the ground and its body, before scanning the sublevel's hub once more.
Across the semi-ruined sublevel hub, Tim darted in tight circles overhead the final corrupted miner, peppering it with controlled tufts of solarfire. The already crippled corrupted miner shrieked and flailed blindly swinging its drill cybernetic at the air before Tim landed neatly atop its shoulder and, with a sharp thrust of his claws, punctured the base of its skull – into the dark purple glass shard inside.
The miner crumpled instantly, its limbs turning slack in an instant.
Silence fell over the 11th sublevel hub, broken only by the cracking hiss of cooling silicon and the occasional low rumbling, groans of metal from the sublevels below.
Corrupted silicon and darkened blood ash drifted through the air like snow, eerily reminding Archie of that one time he, his brother, and father were about to go camping when he saw that the forest they were going to get hit with a wildfire on TV.
Bringing himself out of his memories, Archie stood atop the remains of the crumpled and dead corrupted silicon elemental, his body wreathed in dying embers, a signifier to him that Spirit Bond with the Emberlash Eudromaeosaur Beastcore was coming to an end.
He nudged a slab of semi-melted silicon aside, only to reveal more corrupted silicon beneath. This had been his second-ever fight against an elemental – the first being the Lava Wraiths near the volcano during the Group Tutorial.
Like the Wraiths, these creatures were made from their element and could regenerate their "bodies" with ease, drawing from the surrounding environment. Since they never left their habitats, according to both 'The Myriad of Races within the Multiverse, 36th edition' and 'The Sapients and Non-Sapients on Fractal', the only real way to damage or kill them was by attacking their core.
Crouching down, his gauntleted hand reached into the semi-cooled-down ruined chest cavity of the corrupted silicon elemental and sifted through it to find nothing. He wasn't sure what he would find, but checking just in case for a loot drop wasn't a bad thing to do in his mind.
Aoife wandered closer to the both of them, stripping a strip of semi-clean cloth off an orange tracksuit belonging to one of the corrupted miners to wipe her bloodied lance and shield clean.
"Did you find anything in it?" Aoife asked, eyeing the crumpled form of the D-Grade corrupted elemental.
"Anything valuable?" Tim asked, perched atop one of the larger chunks of corrupted silicon belonging to the crumpled head of the corrupted elemental.
Archie shook his head disappointedly, taking out his hand from inside its ruined chest cavity and picking up the Corrupted Silicon Elemental Core that he and Aoife had cracked from off the floor.
Corrupted Silicon Elemental Core – Cracked:
A cracked elemental core from a D-Grade Corrupted Silicon Elemental retaining no fragments of its records, left behind after its death.
All in all, both he and Aoife ruined it when they yanked it out of the corrupted silicon elemental's chest.
But it still had its uses, such as being used as side objective findings and discoveries along with the dark purple glass shards they've collected from a couple of the dead corrupted miners.
What those dark purple glass shards were, neither he nor Aoife nor Tim knew, nor did their Identify skills. All he received was a '?'.
'Adding this to the collection of things to turn into the guild once we retrieve that locked safe and kill all the molerats in the mine,' Archie signed before sending the Corrupted Silicon Elemental Core into the spatial storage in his ring.
Narrowing his Vital Sight eyes and putting them at 0% opacity, he looked around the sublevel and found everything around and saw nothing with a vital energy outline around before looking straight down at the sublevels below.
With his sight, he could only see around two-ish kilometers down, before everything became blurry and faint. But he was able to see that there were a couple more molerats still within the sublevel hubs below, and an even larger number of them digging around on the outskirts of the mine, making them not their problem.
'There are a couple of molerats left within the mine, but they're pretty far down,' Archie signed, bringing up the opacity of Vital Sight back to 80% as he looked back at his teammates.
"How far do you think?" Aoife asked, dropping the now completely dirty cloth on the ground and retracting her lance and shield.
"Also, did you see any more elementals like the one we just fought?" Tim chirped, turning his head to look at Archie while he kept poking and prodding at the sunfire orbs and cloak that danced around him.
'Pretty deep... maybe ten or fifteen sublevels down,' Archie signed, glancing at Aoife before turning his head to Tim. 'Not sure if there are more corrupted silicon elementals or any other elementals. I can't detect anything that doesn't have vital energy, it's why I was just as confused as you both were when we first saw that corrupted miner on the 3rd sublevel.'
"Ugh, so we don't know if we're gonna get pounced on like the one we just killed, nor do we know how many of them there could be," Tim groaned as he flopped onto his back and slid down the silicon chunks before lying flat on the ground. "The highest level creature we should have faced should have been peak E-Grades if not early D-Grades, not a level 112."
It was a level 112? Archie thought to himself, before looking through his notifications.
*[Molerat Lv 77] has been slain – XP has been given.*
***
*[Molerat Lv 83] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*
*[Reanimated Corrupted Human Lv 80] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*
***
*[Reanimated Corrupted Human Lv 80] has been slain – XP has been given.*
*[Corrupted Silicon Elemental Lv 112] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
*Your Class has reached Lv 93 – Points allocated, +4 Free Points*
***
*Your Class has reached Lv 95 – Points allocated, +4 Free Points*
*Your Race has reached Lv 89 – Points allocated, +3 Free Points*
***
*Your Race has reached Lv 91 – Points allocated, +3 Free Points*
Woah…that's quite a whole lot of notifications, he thought to himself as he read through the sixty or so notifications that he'd ignored ever since entering the Savoris Silver Mine.
Looking through his Status Page, he assigned 11 points into Wisdom and 10 points into Willpower, before dismissing it away.
Archie Gracefield
Race: Human E-Grade Lv 91
Class: Nature-Attuned Pugilist Lv 95
Profession: Novice Forgesmith Lv 86
Health: 11564/12582
Mana: 5014/5746
Stamina: 11051/12404
Stats:
Vitality: 932 (1258)
Strength: 1211 (1816)
Endurance: 886 (1240)
Agility: 532 (691)
Intelligence: 496 (644)
Wisdom: 442 (574)
Willpower: 269 (376)
Perception: 461 (599)
Free Points: 0
General Skills: Identify (Common), Nature's Meditation (Epic), Vital Sight (Radiant), Spirit Link (Epic), Botanokinesis (Initiate)
Class Skills: Leeching Strikes of Fury (Uncommon), Savage Charge (Rare), Adrenaline Rush (Legendary), Vital Metabolism (Epic), Retaliation (Uncommon), Relentless Flurry (Rare), Primal Roar (Radiant), Thornscourge Expansion (Epic), Spirit Bond (Rare), Last Stand (Rare), Earthen Grasp (Uncommon), Sixth Sense (Uncommon), Hyper Impact (Uncommon)
Bloodline: Adrenaline Junkie (Unique) [+10% to Strength and +10% to Willpower]
Affinity: Greater Nature Affinity (Epic)
Blessing: Blessing of the Forgefather (High) [+10% to Strength and +10% to Endurance]
Titles Collected: Bloodline Progenitor [+10 Vitality and +5% Vitality], Flawless E-Grade Evolution [+10 all Stats], Legendary Innovator [+20 to all Stats and +10% to all Stats], 72nd Universe's Harbinger [+20% to all Stats]
Hopefully by the end of this quest, we can kill at least two or three more corrupted silicon elementals so I can reach the maximum level for my Class and get that Perfect Evolution quest and see what requirements I need to complete in order to evolve into a D-Grade.
Looking back at Tim and Aoife, he identified them.
[Dragon Sprite Lv 99]
[Human Lv ???]
"What?" Tim asked, as he lazily looked over to Archie, still lying on the floor, while Aoife turned her attention back to him, curious as to what Archie wanted.
'Was just curious about something,' he signed. 'What type of requirements did, or do you have, for your evolution?'
"What do you mean?" Tim asked. "Do you mean for the evolution to D-Grade or the ones you need to do to get your new D-Grade Class and Profession?"
'The first,' Archie signed back. 'Tell me if I'm wrong but, I was told that every Class and Profession option has its own trial that's tailored to you specifically – up to a certain degree, and you have two attempts for a trial before you fail it, else you lose a level in your Race and get shittier options the next time you attempt a Class or Profession evolution.'
"Yes, that is correct, you have two attempts for a trial, but you don't really lose a level in your Race unless you fail all the options offered to you twice, not just failing one trial twice," Tim answered. "Say you are given three options, you have six tries, but if you fail on the sixth attempt, you remain a D-Grade, but you lose a race level, and you cannot attempt the trial again until you reach level 100 once again in your Race."
"If I remember right, you mentioned something about owning a book about Classes and Professions on the way here, right?" Tim asked, his tail flicking with curiosity, who received a nod from Archie before continuing on. "What was the name of it again?"
'It's a General Information Pamphlet about 'Class and Profession Evolutions',' Archie signed, pulling out the thick booklet from his spatial storage. Despite Tim's surrounding aura of sunfire, Archie held it up carefully at a safe distance.
The cover was a tad bit scuffed and dirtied from use, but the title could still be made out clearly: General Information Pamphlet about 'Class and Profession Evolutions' – though calling it a 'pamphlet' was a bit generous in his opinion, considering it looked and felt more like an encyclopedia.
'It covers options up to C-Grade,' Archie signed, shifting his stance a little to keep the embers from Tim's flames from accidentally scorching it as his own flames had extinguished themselves as Spirit Bond ended.
Tim's eyes widened as he lifted his head a little higher off the ground, clearly surprised. "Really? That's... wow. Those are really rare. I assume you got it from the Tutorial, right? 'Cause there is no way you got one here randomly," He said, pushing himself off his back and flopping atop a chunk of silicon to give Archie his full attention, the flames around him rising slightly in his excitement. "How many Classes and Professions does it list? Does it have ones for dragons too?"
'Yeah, I got it from the Tutorial, so it should be authentic,' Archie signed as he looked through the table of contents and flipped the booklet to Tim to show one of the Professions for a Dragon. 'As for how many options are there? I'm not really sure, but I think it has every Class and Profession under the sun.
'I've been looking through it every now and then whenever I get bored, and I don't even think I've gone through a fourth of the D-Grade Class options for Iguanas… Okay, there is a reason why; I saw this cool ninja fighter Iguana in my Tutorial, so I was just curious,' Archie finished, trying to explain himself to the both of them as Tim gave him a teasing whistle.
'Anyways, my question?' Archie signed while clearing his throat.
"Yeah, D-Grade Evolutions requirements are somewhat like the trials, where you need to accomplish something related to your Class and Profession," Tim said, chuckling at the beginning of his sentence.
"For example, since you love fighting, the evolutionary requirement for your Class to reach D-Grade could be to kill a D-Grade by yourself without any help from others, and for your Profession, it could be to craft a Rare or Epic rarity item or something equally just as difficult."
"I just got my Evolutionary quest to D-Grade just after we killed that Corrupted Silicon Elemental together, and my Evolutionary requirement for my Class is to kill someone or something strong."
'What about your Profession?' Archie asked.
"Still grayed out for me on the Quest Panel," Tim sighed, shaking his head. "Since I picked the Perfect Evolution Quest option when my Class hit level 99, I can only see the Evolutionary Requirement for my Class at the moment, and once I reach level 99 in my Profession, which I haven't yet, I can see the Evolutionary Requirement for my Profession."
'Can you only complete the requirement after accepting the quest and reaching level 99 in the respective field, or could you technically meet the requirement before even picking up the quest?' Archie asked.
"You can complete them before receiving the quest," Aoife answered, kneeling beside one of the dead corrupted miners and placing their pickaxe pendant in her Pouch of Holding. "It'll just show up as completed when you receive the quest, it happened for my Profession Evolutionary Requirement when I was an E-Grade."
Nice to know, Archie signed and gave them both a nod of thanks. I'm guessing my Evolutionary Requirement for my Class is probably to kill something strong, so I'll hunt down a tough D-Grade – maybe a level 124 – and do it without any mind-altering boosts like the Amulet of Infernal.
As for my Profession, creating a teleporter should do the trick, assuming the Epic-rarity Bracers I made didn't already meet the cutoff.
"Say, Archie?" Tim said, pushing himself off the silicon chunk and hovering in the air. "Would you be willing to loan me your pamphlet that has all the Class and Profession Evolutions for a bit so I can look over the options I could potentially get before I evolve?"
'Yeah, no problem,' Archie nodded as he crouched down and started to collect some silicon chunks that had spilled from a minecart. 'Just don't read it around fire or be on fire when you have it out.'
"Nice," Tim smiled. "What do I owe you to borrow it?"
Owe me? Archie blinked, pausing mid-grab to look up at Tim. 'Why would you owe me anything? You're a friend. Same as Aoife – you don't owe me a thing. If you need something I have and I have the ability to give it to you, why would I not give it to you?'
'Just return it the way I gave it to you and we're good,' Archie snorted to himself in amusement.