NOVEL NEXT Chapter 218 – Two months later
Almost two months passed, and during that time, I went hunting a few times, but not too much, so my level increased by a little bit. It could be even less, but at some point, I got into a big fight.
Who wouldn't get angry, having to fight against a big group of invisible snakes somewhere in a jungle-like forest? Well, I kind of burned it down, so it's not that much of a forest anymore.
And less than five days remain until I can enter Beyond once again.
My status also looks nice as heck.
Name: Nathaniel Gwyn
Difficulty: Hell
Floor: 4 - Waning Realm
Time left until forced return: 4y 130d 16h 21m 16s
Traits (1/3): Mana Circuit (Passive)
Lvl 170
Strength: 83
Dexterity: 86
Constitution: 221
Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 650 + 650
Primary Class: Focused Channeler (epic)
Sub-class: [Initiate of Pride]
Active skills:
Focus (Dual Focus Consolidation) - Lvl 39
Mana Manipulation (Advanced Mana Manipulation) - Lvl 41
Perception - Lvl 39
Redistribution (Symbiotic Transference) - Lvl 38
Armament - Lvl 36
Mana Infusion - Lvl 35
Resonance - Lvl 31
Mana Domain - Lvl 11
Constructs:
Reinforcement (Construct)
Kinetic Mana Heart (Construct)
Mana Regulator (Construct)
Mana Sovereignty Mantle (Construct)
Passive skills:
Cerebral Harmony (rare)
Mana-Fortified Resilience (rare)
Pyrokinetic Resurgence (rare)
Mana Reservoir (epic)
Tokens:
Beyond Difficulty entrance token
Shards: 2990
I did another round of active tempering that got me only 30 stats in constitution, 10 in strength, and 10 in dexterity. As Lissandra said before, the effect is getting weaker. I'm not complaining; even that much is amazing, but I almost died back then. I got really annoyed with tempering not working that well, so I again turned off my passives and constructs and even reached into Mana Reservoir.
A totally unexpected incident required the help of Lily. It took a while afterward to regrow my arm that somehow… well, it exploded.
My skills increased, [Focus] by only 1 level, and [Mana Manipulation] by one as well. That leaves [Focus] and [Perception] at a bottleneck to level 40.
Most noticeably, [Mana Infusion] leveled 4 times, [Resonance] three times, and [Mana Domain] 4 levels. [Tether] also leveled a bit.
I also doubled my shards from selling some stuff into the shop and from some side quests I got while hunting.
My not-too-much-higher level is annoying, but the growth of my skills will be worth stalling on that front. The sheer amount of work I did is amazing, if I have to say so, and I slept only 2-3 hours each night, spending most of the day working on stuff.
At some point, there was another incident where Lily used [Disintegration] on my door to force me out of my room while I was in the middle of inscribing a mana stone, which caused it to explode. After healing me, Lily said her [Rejuvenation] leveled up, so that's at least something.
After that, I started experimenting with mana stones in the living room, every night, in the company of others. As always, I ignored them most of the time, only rarely joining the conversation, but it has become something like a habit for our group, sitting in the group and talking about their day, successes, and annoyances.
I have learned that I am not the only one improving. With Tess and Hadwin having a shitload of information, they set up a great regimen for everyone, from training to hunting. Apparently, if you have a lot of money, you can even pay other people to help you create some really nice regimen. Who would have known?
The regimen were set to help members of Group 4 improve their skills or work on their weaknesses, sometimes hunting only to level as quickly as possible, sometimes putting their lives in danger to keep them sharp.
I went through a few of them, and they are works of art, to be honest. A lot of time was spent on them, and some professionals helped as well, especially Obelia and her guild that is trying to keep Tess close, singing praises about Tess's Primordial lightning.
It's annoying. I have two Primordial energies, so why is no one praising me?
New equipment was bought or ordered to be made, and tailored. Once again, paid by what's probably my money, and to be honest, I have no idea how much I have. I just know I'm rich, and Tess and Haddy deal with that instead of me.
From what I know, they could be stealing from me like crazy and not going to hunt, but on expensive holidays or whatever rich people like to do.
It's night, and I'm once again sitting in the living room. This time, I'm taking a short break and just waiting for Sophie to finish examining the coordinates I inscribed into the mana stone I gave her. I have a feeling that we are getting really close.
Min-Jae taps my shoulder, and I turn around and look at him standing behind the couch I sit on.
"Level 110," he says with a big smile on his face, "When Tess lets me focus on leveling instead of on my skills, I will leave Dennis and Aaron in the dust!" the young boy shows off.
As always, he is waiting for praise or a piece of advice. He is also getting a bit cocky. Just a few days ago, I heard him saying that he might be able to beat my level if I "continue to sit on my ass and do nothing," yup, that's what he said.
Little jerk.
"Tess, Min-Jae said your hair is pretty today," I say out loud and lean back to watch as Min-Jae's face turns pale and red at the same time. Tess pretends she didn't hear it, and the twins instantly smell weakness and attack Min-Jae, making fun of him.
Biscuit starts woofing, to which Isabella starts shouting something as well.
I stand up and move towards Tess, who sips on a drink she seems to enjoy lately. There is weird blue smoke coming out of it, and she says it's apparently really tasty and reminds her of coffee a little bit.
When I sit next to her, I activate [Resonance], which blocks the sound of the group in the living room, and turn to her.
Tess has a different haircut from before. If I'm not wrong, this is the second in the past month or two, and she says she is enjoying trying new ones. When I look around, most of us are similar. How to say it, they look more civilized. Nice tailor-made fitting clothes, expensive haircuts, smelling of luxirious soaps. Some even paid tailors to create custom clothes that resemble those on Earth and apparently even made some mana stones by selling the ideas.
"This really doesn't feel like Hell difficulty," I say to Tess.
"I know what you mean," she sips on her drink and then gives me her full attention, "I think it's just because we are trying to enjoy it as much as we can before things go to shit again."
"We might have jinxed it right now."
Tess laughs shortly, "We did, didn't we?? But Nat, do you still want to continue to other floors, even after seeing how this floor is? I believe we can slowly kill one Calamity and then just not use the entrance. Level up, kill other Calamities. It would be easy enough, I believe."
Even though she says that I can see that she is not serious. Tess is in some ways similar to me. She has tasted the power the system offers her, mana flowing through her body and lightning bending to her will.
No, Tess would be itching to leave, to continue to higher floors.
So I do not answer, and even that is enough for us to understand each other. The silence that ensues is comfortable.
Well, until Lily steps closer, passing through the field I created that blocks sounds. Before she says anything, I stand up and pinch her nose.
Lily also changed a bit during that time. Her left arm is still pale white, as well as mine, and she refuses to change it. Her hair is a bit shorter now, and she is a bit taller. She says she didn't mess with her height and it's just how she grows, but I have my theories.
Her [Rejuvenation] improved greatly and apparently, she got another skill but refuses to share its name with me, as well as her subclass.
Surprisingly, she doesn't change her mind even if I offer to sell her Biscuit.
Not having anything more valuable, I can only give up and let her keep her secrets.
Lily can now regenerate missing limbs much faster, and apparently, she is using something similar to my Active Tempering to make her body stronger and muscles tougher. She says she increased her physical stats this way.
Unlike Active Tempering, her version that uses her skill to change her body takes much longer. But slowly and surely, she is gaining some free stats.
Being adult-like, I am not jealous at all.
I let go of Lily and send her to Tess so they can talk about training.
"Lily is so silly!" Isabella says while passing by me on her way to grab some sweets from the kitchen. Over her head, a blue fire orb hovers as she continues to shape it and make it denser.
Currently, the orb is filled enough to explode the entire house and take a big chunk of the street with it.
That's my girl!
It was my idea, obviously, and Izzy seems to love it. Especially the name of the orb that I came up with. Us, two fire enjoyers, call it the ANTomic bomb, to her amusement.
Sophie doesn't like it, and apparently, Izzy is allowed to train that way only when I am around so I can disrupt the orb in case something happens.
It's silly, a little bit of danger will only make her improve faster! Maybe we should get her an epic passive a bit later. Something similar to my Mana Reservoir to store her fire. Unfortunately, epic passives start at 8 thousand shards and much more for some of them so it might take a while.
I also found out what Izzy's subclass is and bought information on Sophie's.
Isabella picked one of the seven Blights, Kindness. She refused to tell me more about the effects as I was unable to sell Biscuit anymore. Sophie went with Greed.
It looks like I'm still the only one with Pride, even after talking to others in the community who were willing to share their subclass.
Surely my subclass is the best one! Just looking at how much it helps me to improve my control over skills and class, I can say it must be one of the best when it comes to improving personal power, and I'm curious to see what higher stages of it will prove.
Initiate, adept, and master. The difference should be huge.
I lean over Maya and take some dried fruit from the bowl in front of her while she fiddles with some musical instrument on her lap.
She has been nice lately and supplies me with nice snacks, so I ask, “How is your practice going?” I gesture at the instrument, similar to a violin.
“I used to be really good ten years ago back on Earth, so I believe I can do well here,” she says.
From past conversations, I even know she hired a teacher in Virelia who helps her learn to play.
“What happened that you stopped playing?” I ask.
“I have learned that a few of my friends constantly called me a fat bitch behind my back, so I dropped it and started going to the gym,” she turns to me and smiles. Black hair, dark skin, and a figure that only proves what she said.
Even though Maya is close to thirty, she starts to look younger with each passing week. It's something that is even more noticeable on Haddy. It's not like they are turning to teenagers, but their skin looks better, and some wrinkles are disappearing. Not too much, but if you look deeply enough, there is a difference.
“Gym can be really addicting,” I tell her.
“Yes, after two years, I called them fat bitches and made their boyfriends leave them. Then I ditched the guys before they got what they wanted,” she smiles even wider, “But it's as you said, the gym is really addicting,” she laughs shortly.
After saying a thing or two more, I quickly leave.
Heck, even Maya is scary. All Hell difficulty people are scary. I am the most normal one here.
Nommimg on the same snacks that I got from vengeful Maya, I reach Hadwin, who is diligently taking care of his armor and epic sword from the 3rd floor that I gave him. His armor is only upper rare grade, but not bad at all, and the older man takes care of his equipment extremely carefully.
It's something I do not understand that much. Having his [Strengthening], I would just walk around without armor at all. I saw his fight a few times during hunts, and he is really extremely durable, and rarely do enemies draw blood from him, even when they are at a higher level.
Hadwin has already used his attribute upgrade token on constitution, and that made him even tougher. The cheeky ex-policeman even asked me for help, and he learned to use his [Disruption] to create a barrier of disruptive mana on his skin.
Instead of using it to directly attack, he creates a disruptive barrier that reaches only a little bit over his skin. That allows him to ignore plenty of magic-based attacks, and when he attacks, it also disrupts the enemy's defense magic.
When I finally get to create a construct for him, he will become even scarier. His only weakness is a somewhat weak attack, but with a strong item that he uses [Strengthening] on, he becomes quite cool.
And that item is the epic sword that I gave him! Epic-grade weapons cost around 4 thousand shards in the system shop, and even though this one isn't too strong, its effect was lost after all, it still is nice of me to share it, isn't it?
Old Haddy is even taking some swordsmanship lessons in Virelia and apparently, he has a talent for it.
“Nat, I think I got it,” I hear out of nowhere. It's Sophie's voice, and when I turn to her, there is a big happy smile on her face.
There is no fear towards me in it anymore, and Sophie looks happier and more comfortable than ever.
She shows me the mana stone I gave her, “I finally did it! Finally!” There is excitement and happiness from success in her voice.
It looks like after months of hard work, we can finally try to sell coordinates to the shop and get ourselves a huge amount of shards.
Just in time to buy an epic passive before the 2nd Beyond trial.
Noname - Hey, weirdo, any advice on the second Beyond trial?
Savant - Nope, just don't die.
Noname - Simple as that?
Savant - And maybe invest some stats into your brain.
Noname - It didn't help you.
Savant - Screw you.
To make it hurt, I do not answer and just close the window, absolutely sure it will annoy Savant more this way.
I look at the mana stone in my hand and then at Sophie, "Okay, let's sell the coordinates."