NOVEL NEXT 163- Just Another Day in the Trials.
We get up earlier than Erika's group. That works out well for Mary, since she benefits the most from experience points at her low level. So it's us, not the third-year students, who clear the first floor. As for the second floor, we leave them an intact troll village. While we're working on the third village, Ronan calls back one of his little birds that he usually carries with him. I assume he uses them as an extension of his eyes.
"They have arrived at the village. They are trying to lure the trolls out one by one."
"Great, thanks, Ronan."
We finish up, leave the dungeon, and rest for a bit. When we're eating, we see them come out.
Makes sense—we've set up camp right in the small clearing at the entrance, at the end of the path.
"How'd the mission go?" I ask them.
"Done. We collected thirty pouches for the three commission notes that were still available," Erika answers, her voice tired.
At least she's more relaxed than she was in the dining hall. I like her a lot less in her high-born noble daughter mode.
"What about the other note, the one you had when you were grouped with your brother?"
"I'm including that in those three."
I nod. That means they're finished with the dungeon.
I shift my gaze from Erika's face to scan her entire group. I notice her companions have dirty, stained clothes, like they've been dragged across the ground. As for the tank's armor, it shows dents I don't remember from the other day. And bloodstains too, hopefully not her own.
Hmm... I have mana and I haven't used my healing spell today. If we need a cure later, we always have Mary with her area heal...
But I can't offer it to them because I'm supposed to only have earth magic. What a shame.
"You guys are going back in, right?" Erika asks me.
"Yes."
She's looking at me with a strange expression. Her companions, who haven't said anything, are too.
I think I get it. Ronan looks practically spotless here, like he's been taking a leisurely stroll through a cemetery to leave flowers on a grave instead of fighting in a dungeon. Mary too. Her white robes are, incredibly, still white. Barely a stain of dirt or blood. And me, well, I do look a bit more like their group in that you can tell I've been in melee combat, but unlike them, I'm rested and full of energy.
"But have you slept?" one of the two new additions to their party finally asks.
I get it. He's trying to put two and two together and can't. He's not going to figure out that Ronan burns through mana potions—ridiculously expensive even for nobility—or that Mary is being carried along, just throwing up the occasional shield or landing a finishing blow, or that I have my secret ways of recovering mana, plus some seriously powerful spirit magic.
Since neither Ronan nor I answer him, and it seems Mary doesn't feel right leaving the young man without a response, she tells him from her naive perspective:
"It wasn't really that hard."
The look on his face—I barely manage to keep from bursting into laughter.
"They're different; they have his undead. Don't overthink it," Erika tells her party mate. "Well, good luck with round two. We're heading back to the academy to eat."
Once they've moved far enough away, I let the laughter out.
"What's wrong?" Mary asks, while Ronan shows no reaction whatsoever, not even the slightest smile.
"You killed him. Poor guy, imagine telling him it's not hard."
I keep laughing, unable to keep talking. I hear Ronan explaining to her that if the prince and his friends' level was abnormally high for what you'd expect from academy students, ours—with his necromancy and my magic—breaks all expectations.
"Well, I saw you had everything under control, but I thought it was because you'd gotten the hang of the dungeon mobs' weak points."
"Don't worry about it, Mary," I tell her once I've gotten it out of my system, tears in my eyes. "But you need to get used to it. Your light magic level is high, so you're going to stand out a lot too. And unlike Ronan, who gets dirty looks for practicing dark magic, and me, who have to hide it, you'll be able to shine without problems. They'll adore you."
Yeah, she'd be perfect as a match for the crown prince, perfect to be queen and have her subjects enchanted with her. She'd be the Saint if the gods were allowed. Though, given what Sigfrig did to Catrina, I'm glad it's Faith and not her who's his fiancée.
I leave the two of them resting and chatting comfortably while I go meditate. When we figure the dungeon has had enough time to respawn, we go back in.
The truth is, I wouldn't want it to have not been able to respawn its creatures, or just a few of them. Honestly, Tovan is right: we're being a bit hard on this poor dungeon core.
I wonder when Vincent will tell us to go back to the desert one, now that his brother has investigated it with the army.
The creatures are there, and in the battle against the bats, one manages to bite Ronan. Luckily, it's nothing serious. Once the cave is clear, Mary wants to heal him, but I ask her to let me do it. Because I know that healing someone actually injured in combat, somehow, counts more for leveling up than when I cast it on an injured bunny or on myself after making a cut for the occasion.
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I cast the spell and, to my delight, it levels up.
All my effort to have it ready for the ball just paid off.
Congratulations. Your low healing spell has leveled up. It is now intermediate healing.
Intermediate healing: heals up to five health points to the target. Cannot be used more than once every 12 hours. Does not resurrect and does not regenerate lost limbs. Cost: 1 MP.
And not only that, it comes with an unexpected gift:
Congratulations. Your healing spell has evolved into minor dispel.
Minor Dispel (evolution of the healing spell): Removes or softens altered states such as poisoning, paralysis, confusion, or blindness. Can only remove minor poisons and soften the effect of low poison. The effect on the other altered states depends on the level of the spell or mastery that created the altered state, your affinity to the light element, and your intelligence.
"Mary, do you have the dispel spell?"
"Yes, it was one of the first ones I learned."
I nod to myself. With her high affinity, her spells are more powerful than mine, heal included.
Once we finish the second dive, Mary tells us she's leveled up again. That should put her at level 8. As for Ronan, he's still at level 10, but he tells us he thinks he's leveled up both his mace mastery and his resistance to altered states. What he uses most—exhaust, animate skeletons and animate zombies—those didn't level. Makes sense; he has those spells at high or advanced level.
As for me, I haven't leveled up anything new, nor my level. I'm at just over 14,000 XP, still very far from the 22,026 needed for level 11.
The pup hasn't either. While we're heading back, I hang back and discreetly ask him to share his stats. He's at 95% toward level 8. That stings, but with Mary around, that's just how it is. Tomorrow he'll level up.
We return to the academy, collect our points, and dine alone this time. Then I go to sleep early. Tomorrow is Saturday and time for solo diving. Since I already cleared the first level alone the other day, the only challenge I'm going to face are the trolls.
Let's see if I can manage it without having to evolve the seed into it's shadow wolf form, but I'm definitely not going to risk it again. It's clear that my safety has to come first.
New day, off to the dungeon. The guards at the human village exit gate are surprised to see me alone, but they let me through.
Both the first level of the dungeon and the labyrinth are pretty much a repeat of the other day, but with solid earth channeling on my body to avoid any risks. I don't dare let the pup fight beside me—not against golems with ranged attacks or against bats that swarm and haven't been exhausted. By my calculations, that missing 5% is about 50 XP. However, he doesn't gain it from the tunnel golems or the main bat swarm. So when only a couple are left, I tell him to come out of my pocket and I pin the bats down so he can finish them off safely.
When he's done, the pup barks excitedly. I ask him to share his stats and, yes, he's leveled up:
Seed of darkness Phase II. Level 8.
Progress toward level 9: 0%
Constitution: 17
Strength: 18
Intelligence: 12
Agility: 14
Wisdom: 9
Health Points: 17
Mana Points: 9
Skills:
Shadow Jump minor level. Active. Teleport to a shadow within vision range. Instant. Cooldown: 5 minutes. No mana cost.
Not available
Spells:
Healing Lick low level: restores sixty percent of the future Dark Lord's maximum HP and MP. Not applicable to itself or other targets that aren't the future Dark Lord or the Dark Lord. Cost: 1 MP. Restriction: Can only be used a maximum of 2 times every 24 hours.
Shadow Claws minor level. Layer of darkness that covers the wolf's front claws with dark mana making claws ignore targets' armor. Physical armor is completely ignored. If target has magical armor or shields, they're also ignored if their value is less than x. Cost: x MP. Duration: 10x minutes. Damage: 5x damage points.
Pack Summoning minor level. Active. Summons up to two level 1 shadow wolves. Cost: 1MP per shadow wolf. Duration: 5 minutes.
Not available
Not available
Oh my gosh! I lift the pup in my arms and hug him excitedly.
One thing at a time, I tell myself. This is a lot of information all at once.
Phase II? Does he have phases like bosses? So the seed doesn't evolve into a sprout?
Well, it makes sense... in the end, he has to become a divine beast, not a tree.
And they've given him the mastery and the two spells that were marked as unavailable, plus he has new ones that have appeared—I assume for his next phase!
At level 7, I expected either the mastery or one of those two spells to unlock. After all, humans get their specialization at level 7. This phase thing, besides giving him the mastery and spells, also provides a power boost since his stats have gone up quite a bit. To start with, all of them increased, and many by as much as two points.
I also got a power boost, plus a mastery and a spell, with my specialization. So I'm going to assume his Phase II is the equivalent of specialization for a divine beast.
The power boosts for people are at levels 7, 14, and according to the legends of the great heroes who fought the demon king and reached level 20, right there at the max level instead of the unreachable 21.
Since I have the seed's system screen shared, I tap on Phase II. I don't expect to find anything, so I'm surprised when the screen changes:
Phase II of IV. Phases are the stages the seed goes through to become a divine beast. Phase I coincides with the newly born seed, Phase IV with the divine beast, at level 30.
No matter how much I tap, I can't learn anything else. I can only return to the previous screen with his stats, masteries, and spells.
But if the math works in multiples like it does for me, then he'll advance at levels 8, 16, and 30 since he can't reach 32.
I'm dying to see him hit 16 to see if he changes phases again.
The next thing that catches my attention is that his mastery is one he already has in his current shadow wolf form, but only one of his spells comes from that form. That makes me think that maybe when he reaches level 30, the current divine beast's spells and abilities will be enhanced, just like his stats are improving right now with each level up.
Shadow Wolf. Level 30.
As a divine creature, it can exceed the level 20 restriction
imposed on mundane creatures.
Constitution: 47
Strength: 48
Intelligence: 42
Agility: 44
Wisdom: 39
Health Points: 47
Mana Points: 39
Skills:
Shadow Jump grandmaster level. Active. Teleport to a shadow within vision range. Instant. No cooldown. No mana cost.
Regeneration grandmaster level. Passive. Heals 6HP per minute. Regenerates lost limbs.
Hard Skin grandmaster level. Passive. +10 points physical resistance.
Magic Resistance grandmaster level. Passive. +10 points magic resistance.
Spells:
Shadow Howl grandmaster level. Paralyzes for 10 seconds all creatures that hear it and don't have the magic resistance skill. If the creature has magic resistance skill at a level lower than grandmaster, will be paralyzed several seconds depending on their mastery in magic resistance. Cost: 2 MP.
Shadow Aura grandmaster level. Decreases enemies' defense and attack by 10x%, both physical and magical. Range: 300 meter radius circular area. Cost: x MP.
Darkness Ball grandmaster level. Ball made of dark mana that explodes in a 30m² area. Range: 300 meter radius circular area. Cost: x MP. Damage: 2.5x damage points to the target on direct hit. 2x damage points to targets within explosion area.
Shadow Claws grandmaster level. Layer of darkness that covers the wolf's front claws with dark mana making claws ignore targets' armor. Physical armor is completely ignored. If target has magical armor or shields, they're also ignored if their value is less than x. Cost: x MP. Duration: 10x minutes. Damage: 5x damage points.