NOVEL NEXT Chapter 123: Shield
The Adventurer's Guild had the most elaborate design Valens had seen in the whole city. Built from darkwood, supported by a number of marble pillars, decorated with richly colored banners that carried a sword and a shield, it housed a giant crowd that buzzed in and out in an endless tide.
That was why nobody cared for a second look at their group as they stepped in through the great doors of the place. The low hum of conversations and a variety of people welcomed them inside. Some had their wounds recently patched, armors dented or broken in places, faces downcast or bright depending on their success. Others seemed painfully in good condition against them, likely people who were yet to take on a mission.
While they were lining up ahead, Valens's group took a different turn and neared a rather deserted table with a bored guy sitting half-asleep behind it.
They're not taking too many applications here, I suppose.
A tap of Nomad's fingers pulled the guy from his dreams as he blinked up at them, and his face actually fell. He yawned as he fished his counter for a pen and paper, then finally decided to spare a true glance at them.
"Purpose of visit?" he asked.
"We'd like to register ourselves to the Adventurer's Guild," Nomad said simply. "Get our badges and take a look at the missions in hand."
"You two can have your silver badges right away," the man said, pointing with his pen to Nomad and Valens. "The little miss there would have to settle for a bronze badge, for now. And the Nursemaid… Well, it'd be better to keep her away from monsters. I'll go get the badges."
Then slowly he pushed himself out of the chair, turned his back, and marched off somewhere back where the people of the Adventurer's Guild were busy handling other tasks.
"It's that easy, eh?" Valens muttered.
"This is nothing," Celme said. "Badges don't mean anything to these people. Not at first, at least. But the moment you start handing in the missions, you'd get more attention from them."
"Action speaks louder than words, then?" Valens said, nodding his head. "Makes sense, though I'm not sure how if it serves to their purpose."
"Adventurer's Guild is an unaffiliated entity on its own. There's hardly a purpose in their operation other than serving as a hub to allow transactions between groups. City-states are especially fond of them since it saves them the effort of handling the nearby threats by assigning their already limited workforce to these jobs," Celme said.
"They still take a cut from the earnings, though," Nomad muttered. "And the higher you climb, the more intricate this whole thing gets. Reckon we'll be finding out soon."
The clerk came back with two sparkling badges and a worn bronze one, handing them out right away before taking their names to his sorry-looking register. There wasn't anything magical in the process, nothing binding them to the badges or anything like that.
You could make one your own and they wouldn't understand a thing.
But then, Valens guessed that was the whole purpose here. You want to do missions of the Adventurer's Guild? Then by all means, you're free to do so. Going as far as to make your own badges when they're handing them out like candies didn't seem like it'd be worth the effort.
"Nice," Valens said, weighing the silver badge in his hand. "Let's take a look at these so-called missions."
They did, which showed clearly to him why Celme had said those words before. She'd never been much of a fan of adventurers, thinking of them as glorified treasure hunters out for their own skin. Money and, in part, glory, was their sole motivation.
Hunting Skarnveils. Gathering different herbs. Clearing certain areas. The various missions being displayed on multiple boards were mostly about these little things. Sure, there was some effort at keeping the exterior of the Ashen City safe from unwanted guests, but beyond that, Valens couldn't see a single mission involving a grander purpose.
Percival told me the same, hasn't he? Say whatever you want against them, but in the end, the Divine Orders are the ones who are fighting the good war.
He wasn't sure if there was truly someone to blame, though. Divine Orders themselves had kept the populace in the dark back in the day, using their knowledge and strength to impress their control upon the people. So then, when the times changed, there was little they could do to stop the people from being selfish.
Still, the scene they came across underneath the Golden Cathedral remained fresh in Valens's mind. A few Templars and the disciples of the Golden Brotherhood managed to hold on against the Undead tide, but in the end, a single Dread proved enough to break them as a whole.
What about here? These adventurers look strong, but the most I've seen was a man who passed his Second Trial. Could they mount a resistance against a swarm of shadows? Or would they scamper away like the many guilds in Belgrave did when things took a drastic turn?
No wonder this world needed heroes to save it from the Tainted Father. Granted, Damon the Undying killed the others and betrayed his people, but that didn't change the fact that humanity had to rely on saviors rather than uniting against the common enemy.
Belgrave is just the beginning. I might've dealt with that Evercrest woman, but there will be others. The shadows are stirring.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Which meant that he had to get stronger as well.
……
In the afternoon, they found their way to one of the large openings that the other adventurers used for practice. Dozens of people were out swinging swords against each other, flinging arrows and even an occasional Fireball for the sake of sparring.
"We'll take this slow," Valens said as he peered at Nomad and his giant sword, while Celme and Selin watched from beyond the wooden railings circling the opening. "I need to get the feeling of it before we get serious."
"I'll try, but can't make a promise," Nomad said, sweeping his false hair back with a hand, looking as disturbingly handsome as ever under his new skin. He tapped a finger to the sword just then. "But whenever I get this thing in my hand, something in me changes. Can't seem to help it. Either way, I've seen you fix a broken arm and a chopped-off leg. There's no need to worry."
"Fine. I'll start with earth, then," Valens said, reaching for the Gravitating Earth with his mind, the ground answering his call right away as a part of the bare patch ripped itself gently from the rest of the soil. "Let's see if this holds."
He worked the soil patch into a round shield, big enough to cover his entire front. A manageable effort that didn't demand too much on his attention, which was why he wanted to try it first rather than relying solely on his mana.
"Hah!" Nomad strode off with the sword in hand, his frequencies rising slowly in the Resonance. Soon, he was bounding across the earth, steps hammering against the ground with strength, the sharp tip of the sword catching the wind in a warning whistle.
When he neared the round earthen shield, he lowered his sword and instead shouldered his way straight into it, straining only for a second before the whole thing crumbled like a castle of sand. He came out swinging from the pieces, Valens stepping barely back before the sword caught him by the arm.
"Too light," Nomad offered after coming to a stop. "The walls you've managed back in Belgrave were harder and stronger. Now I wouldn't want to ram a shoulder into those things even if I have the bones for it."
Valens paused, looking at the broken pieces of his little shield, one hand under his chin. The Gravitating Earth essentially gave him control over earth, which could be considered an elemental spell in its own right. However, the downside of working with the soil was that it was rather too stiff a material.
It works wonders when I'm alone, but with people around me, it gets a touch tedious taking account of the variables.
"We'll try with mana this time," he then said, reaching to his mana pool and feeling the boundless waves in the fleshy cage. With the recent boost to his Intelligence and Wisdom, his mana had gained almost a solid quality to it.
Will it be solid enough to stop this undead's charge, though?
No other way around it but to try.
He willed the mana to pour out from his fingers, threads of it moving smoothly under his control. He stitched them together as he slowly managed a circular web before him. To an outsider's eye, it looked like a circle of shimmering blue that covered from all around, leaving not a single opening. To him, though, it was a web of frequencies expertly woven with purpose.
Ding!
[You have learned the skill 'Mana Shield - (Adept).' Do you want to register it in one of your skill slots?]
For now, he waved off the notification and gestured at Nomad to come at him. The false-skinned, overly excited undead obliged, bounding toward him with his sword hauled high.
Valens had to admit there was a difference between hiding behind a solid block of earth and a waspy circle of precious mana. For one, he didn't have to rely on his sound vision as he could see through the mana threads the undead coming for his head. And, it felt light. Lighter than it had any right to be.
It's supposed to be light.
The first move came right away, and this time, it was the sword. The sharp tip screamed a muffled cry as it stabbed into the round shield of mana. It didn't give in, which was good news, and even forced Nomad to a stop.
Unfortunately, that only lasted for a moment before he poured more strength into the blow and drove the sharp tip further into the shield. Valens tried to manage new threads over the slowly widening hole, but he might as well have raised his own hand against it by how easily the sword kept tearing through them one by one.
In the end, it came to a screaming stop an inch before his face, at which point the whole shield had already crumbled.
"Ain't half bad," Nomad commented as he pulled his sword back, looking slightly bothered as he examined his sword. "Left its mark on the weapon, too."
"You didn't use a skill, did you?" Valens asked, hoping for a good answer.
"No," Nomad shook his head. "My Pierces would've blasted the whole thing right away."
"That is a problem," Valens nodded with difficulty.
He could weave an extra web behind the first one, and one behind even that to keep it strong enough, but that wouldn't be the most viable use of his mana pool. It had grown quite a bit when he poured new stats into the Intelligence, but he didn't want to lose half of his mana against a single blow.
What if I use something else? Right now, this thing is just a shield. It can stop a couple of weak blows, but it does nothing to deter the attacker from another blow. They could just keep hammering the damn thing.
That was the whole reason why he wanted a shield in the first place—to keep himself safe when he couldn't spare immediate attention to a surprising blow. While at it, he wanted the shield to force the attacker to stop, or even better, force them to move back.
"Hold there for me," he said to Nomad as he raised his chin and stared at his frame. He was a strong undead, nearly as strong as the Captain and Garran who were well beyond their Second Trials. Never mentioned anything about his class, and the [Identify] showed he was an Undead Warrior, but after dealing with a bunch of Undead Warriors in Belgrave, Valens surely suspected that wasn't the case here.
He's passed his First Trial, after all, and is level 165.
"I've told you, that thing ain't half bad," Nomad protested. By the look on his face, he had his troubles with standing under the sun and letting his new skin be baked for a change. "That could work against a bunch of creatures. Once you get a few levels in it, it'll become a bastard to deal with."
I don't want to level it up to make it usable. I want one to work right now.
Mana threads stretched out from his fingers. Valens stitched them into a circular web once again, but this time, he left openings between them like veins coursing through a human's body. He then repeated the process and wove a second web behind the first one, creating a two-layered structure with little canals between them.
That done, he summoned Gale. Taming the furious winds and guiding them toward those little canals, he waited as they swelled to fill the opening between the two webs. He tied their ends with a pair of Lifesurge stitches, then removed his touch from them.
Ding!
[You have learned the skill 'Windpulse Barrier - (Adept).' Do you want to register it in one of your skill slots?]
"That's more like it," Valens felt a smile creeping on his lips as he regarded the notifications.
"What's that?" Celme asked from the side, curious.
Valens raised a hand and gestured at Nomad. "Come, and try not to ruin your sword this time since this one will bite back."