NOVEL NEXT [Vol-1] Ch.26 Mythic Imp
When I wake up today, I decide not to be greedy, and just focus on butchering the imps I've already killed. It'll take a few hours, but ultimately, I want to rest until I'm sure that the goblins are gone. I'm very close to max level as well, which normally would mean that this is when I can be the most bold with my actions, but because of my leg injury, instead I feel like I should rest, and hope that the prestige fixes what injury remains of my broken leg.
After half the day has passed, I've finished butchering the remaining imps. With the meat put on drying racks, and all the refuse in sealed containers, I don't have anything else to do for the rest of today, so I go back to separating lighter stone from darker stone.
After doing that for the remainder of the day, I go to sleep.
Today, when I check the cavern, I don't see any living creatures left, imp or otherwise. I'm still hesitant to leave though, since there is a chance that the goblins could come back in for something. I think today I'll play it safe again as well, and just separate stone again.
With there still being no evidence of goblins today as well, I decide that I can spend some time moving the corpses back into a pile to burn later. If my leg doesn't heal on prestige, I'm going to really regret this, but for now, it's at least some work I can do that isn't the same boring work I've been doing. It'll likely take a few days again however, so I'll keep working at it until I've got them all piled up.
It took three days, but I finished moving all the corpses into a pile again. Considering I was then at level 99, I spent the next day just separating stone to safely reach level 100, as I lie down to begin my transformation, I remove my brace for tonight. I wouldn't want its restricting nature getting in the way in case that somehow prevents my prestige from taking hold.
<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 100
HP: 754/756
MP: 216/216
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping
Available Traits:
Iron Gut: Negates some negative aspects of eaten foods.
Improved Dexterity: Increases dexterity and manipulation beyond what your form would normally allow.
Tectonic Sense: Spell. Variable Cost. Radar ping style view through an earthen surface where you cast. Default cost is 20 mana for a 10 foot radius. Cost increases at a cubic rate versus radius.
Improved Regeneration: Increases regenerative speed somewhat.
Available Species:
Hobgoblin
There are a lot of things to take in here. First, a new species replaced goblin, and frankly, I have no idea why. Second, two new traits are available. Which means I actually need to make a complicated decision here. I was aiming to get improved dexterity, but the new choices are good as well.
If I take a moment to evaluate the options (while ignoring Iron gut), Improved Dexterity should be useful for tool utilization, but half of the problem is currently being solved by the fact I'm making things from stone with magic, so I don't have to fumble trying to use my claws to actually make things.
Tectonic Sense could be neat though, since I could essentially see through the stone walls to some degree, which, given my environment, would help greatly. In fact, long term, it might be even more valuable if it works like ground penetrating radar, since I could identify pockets of different material, and potentially use them.
The last option, Improved Regeneration sounds like it would be useful, but I feel like it fits in a category similar to Iron Gut. Ultimately, I don't want to put myself in situations where it is necessary to utilize it. If I can avoid dangerous fights, I will. I'm sure someone somewhere would like this, since they could fight dangerous fights, and recover quicker, but I'm content with only taking safe fights as necessary.
I think I've made up my mind. I'm sorry improved dexterity, but I'm going to be choosing Tectonic Sense this time around. As I make my choice to prestige, I feel my consciousness draining, as it has each time before.
<MYTHIC IMP>
Level: 0
HP: 186/186
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense
Well, I suppose I'm back to being somewhat weak again. The plus side is that my leg seems to be completely healed. I'm not missing any HP, and I don't have any odd feelings in my leg anymore. The unfortunate thing now is that I'm going to level even slower if each prior prestige was anything to go off of.
First things first though, I'm ravenously hungry. I go and fill my belly before anything else. Once I've eaten a bunch of food, I check myself out. The small horn stubs from before have gained a little size, and my fur has gotten even darker.
For the next few days at least, I want to haul the buckets of refuse from butchery to the pile of corpses, and collect wood to burn it. I was planning on attempting to boil blood down, but I think that'll have to wait until the next time at the soonest.
I spent 7 days gathering wood both for the corpse pile and for myself, since my own collection had gotten dangerously low. I was nervous heading outside at first, given my low level, but after a little while, I found it to be as peaceful as it normally is. So tomorrow I'll be burning the corpse pile, along with all the refuse that I had stored in the sealed buckets.
While that happens, I've decided to haul all my buckets of separated dark stone to my storehouse, since they've also started to pile up in my room. The smell of the burning corpses is really quite bad, so I seal my room and the storehouse off whenever I enter or leave, just for the sake of preventing the smell from lingering.
The corpse pile seems like it's going to take a long time to really burn down, so I've come up with another task to work on here in the cave. Since I moved into this sub-cave, I've been using the mana storage crystals a lot, especially once I was injured. At this point, I've drained almost all of the ones I've gathered. I wasn't particularly concerned, since they're all around me here, but I actually do need to collect more of them, plus I've actually noticed a new feature with them.
I had left a few empty ones on my desk, and they've regained some of their glow. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. However, the ones that are all clumped together in the bin are still basically empty. Now, I don't know the exact issue, but my hypothesis is that they absorb ambient mana, and all of them close together are essentially all trying to share the same limited supply of ambient mana, and barely filling up. This isn't the only evidence I have for this either.
When I tried taking some crystals to the surface, the crystals overheated and fell apart. I know from experience that I regain mana much more quickly on the surface than down in the cave here. Which means that if I want these crystals to recharge, I'll need to space them out. The other thing I noticed on my trip to the surface was that the larger crystal seemed to last longer before overcharging on the way to the surface and breaking, which probably has to do with its higher volume to surface area ratio.
For the rest of today, I make my way into some sub caves, and fill buckets with fully charged crystals, and bring them back to my room. For now, this can be a temporary solution. What I want to do is make a crystal charging apparatus that I can haul part of the way up the cave, to charge a bunch of the crystals, and then bring it back before any break.
As much as I want to go out and collect some more lion root to re-supplement my food supply, I do have enough imp to get me until the next goblin visit, and given my weaker state right now, I'd like to wait until I'm stronger to venture part of the way down the mountain to harvest lion root.
Since I've decided to stay inside for this cycle as much as I can, I begin tinkering with a crystal apparatus for attempting to charge them. I have one or two ideas I'd like to try tomorrow. For tonight though, I go to sleep after checking my status.
<MYTHIC IMP>
Level: 4
HP: 213/213
MP: 83/83
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense