The Traveler Initiative [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

I once again found myself sitting in Lophan's office, surrounded by Nimma's team. I'd spent the rest of the week furthering my studies on manual casting together with Andrius, and while the technique was nowhere near combat-ready, I made quite a bit of progress regardless. All of the studying I did also helped to take my mind off my recent mental issues, but now that I was back in the office, I felt a bit nervous. I repeatedly told myself to keep calm and not get overexcited, no matter what the quest would be.

"Alright, are you ready?" Lophan asked, giving me the feeling he was even more nervous than I was. Pulling the tournament quest was incredibly important to him, and we already blew one out of three chances. "Then, I will generate the quest."

New Quest!

Something has the monsters around the city riled up, making them go crazy. In exactly one hour, a horde of monsters will attack the city. Either find and destroy the source that is driving the monsters mad, or successfully defend the city for twelve hours.

Goals:

Either find and destroy the source of this disaster.

-or-

Defend the city for twelve hours.

Rewards:

Depending on which goal has been achieved.

Failure condition:

As soon as the city walls are breached, the quest will be considered failed.

Failure Penalty:

Lose 5 levels.

Lose active skill: Compress (C)

Lose active skill: Maximum Fortification (B)

Randomly lose 50 attribute points.

I read the quest out loud as I went through it myself, causing Lophan to visibly deflate. There was only one chance left for him to get what he wanted. I felt bad for him, but there was nothing I could do to influence the system's decisions.

"So, what do you guys think about this one?" I asked into the room. "It doesn't seem that bad, from my point of view, but it's also quite a bit more vague than the last one."

"It being vague is usually a bad sign," Nimma was the first to speak up. "We have no idea what we're up against. We don't even know how big this horde is going to be or what it will consist of."

"We'll have to assume that the horde will consist of mostly tier seven monsters," Andrius piped up. "It said that the monsters around the city were the ones affected, which at least gives us some idea of what is coming. The system will probably spawn more monsters than usual to ramp up the difficulty."

"I have this weird indicator pointing to the west and a countdown until the hour is over," I said after checking the weird stuff that had appeared in my vision. "I wonder if that means the horde will attack there first?"

"Probably," Orbos nodded while writing down bullet points of what was being said. "The quests almost demand that you do the lion's share of the heavy lifting and if the city was being attacked from all sides at all times, it would literally be impossible to defend for you. The circumference of the wall is huge and they'd breach the wall instantly unless we helped out a ton."

"The system never creates quests that are impossible," Lophan sighed. "I'm not too fond about having to lock down the city for the next twelve hours. Do you think you could just quickly go and wreck whatever is causing the problem?"

"I'm partial to taking that route too," I nodded. Sure, it was probably the more difficult way to complete the quest, but higher difficulty meant higher reward. Besides, I wasn't a big fan of prolonged defensive battles anyway. "If I go out there to look for the source, how long do you think you could hold the walls by yourselves before the system would consider that you helped too much?"

"If I had to guess, two or three hours at most," Lophan said after mulling it over for a bit.

"Okay, so I got about three hours to find whatever is doing this and fuck it up. If I can't find it, I'll come back and defend the city instead. I'm not particularly keen on losing most of my defensive skills, even if I have a shield spell."

"Take Redax with you," Nimma said while gesturing for her team to get up. "He'll find whatever you're looking for long before you could by yourself. We'll organize the defense. If the indicators change, send Redax back to the city with a message. Actually, Andrius, you go with them too. Send a telepathic message if things change, we'll be able to react faster that way."

"Roger that," Andrius said snapping out a half-sarcastic salute. "Ready when you are, guys."

"Then let's not waste any more time," I glanced at the timer telling me that the horde would attack in fifty-four minutes. "Redax, you wanna take the lead on this?"

Redax simply nodded and we briskly left the building. Life in the city continued on undisturbed for now, although there might be some restrictions placed on the citizens pretty soon. I didn't know what the plan was on the city side, but I did not want to inconvenience the population for longer than needed. Redax sprinted ahead with me and Andrius close behind, the Asphons clearing the way for us as soon as they saw us running.

"Some of them are wishing us good luck," Andrius translated the occasional shout of support. I guess it was pretty obvious that we were on a mission.

We made good time and exited through the west gate. Since the first wave was supposedly coming from this direction, we might as well start our search there. It quickly became apparent that there was some sort of unrest brewing. Eerie quiet blanketed the area as the usual fights between the monsters had completely stopped. The few monsters we saw appeared agitated but made no moves to attack each other or us. Whatever was going to drive them crazy was apparently something that took some time to take effect, making me think it was some sort of skill.

Redax suddenly veered to the side and started scaling a medium-sized building, Andrius following via a magically enhanced jump while I opted to void jump up. Once we were all up top, Redax began to scan our surroundings, pacing along the edge of the roof with his head on a swivel. I was sure that he wasn't just looking around, but employing several skills. Knowing perfectly well that I wouldn't be able to match his skills, I still took a look around myself and I could see Andrius doing the same by rapidly casting several spells. I was curious about what spells he was using but decided to shelf my questions for now.

Just two minutes later, Redax motioned for us to move on, this time jumping from roof to roof. I quickly noticed that he was leading us to an even higher building that was close by and went ahead with a void jump. I should really test whether other beings could use my portals, but since the portal adjusted itself to my size, an Asphon had no chance of fitting through. Maybe I should make that a modification project in the future, but I shuddered at the complexity of having to manually cast and manipulate a B-tier spell. I shuddered at the thought of having to adjust an S-tier or higher spell in the future, giving my two companions time to catch up to me.

We repeated the earlier scene, circling the edge of the roof while using several skills in an attempt to find… whatever we were looking for. I assumed it was a monster, but there was no guarantee. We did this over and over, Redax turning us around at some point when it was clear that we had escaped the area of influence. Monsters were behaving normally, which meant we had clearly passed by whatever we were looking for.

"Guys?" I broke the silence we kept up as we stood on yet another roof. "The first wave will begin in five minutes."

The timer had mercilessly continued to count down as we aimlessly searched and time was almost up. They'd most likely be just fine in the city, but it was still bad news. We had spent close to an hour actively looking for the source of the madness and had come up completely empty.

"We'll have to try harder," Andrius said, voice laced with annoyance. "I'll try to see if I can locate any sort of magic pulse once the timer hits zero."

"Good idea. Should we stay here until then?" I directed the question to Redax who readily agreed with a stoic nod.

We had spent so much time looking for this thing and hadn't seen neither hide nor hair of it. Might as well hope that it gave itself away when it came time to send out the horde to attack the city. Redax continued to pace around while keeping a lookout while I kept an eye on the timer. As Andrius had asked, when there was one minute left I told him and he started to cast several spells that would help him track down any magic being cast in a large radius. I studied the spell matrixes a bit while he cast the spells, but couldn't glean any usable information from doing so.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Five, four, three, two, one…"

I counted down the seconds and once the timer hit zero, all the monsters around us got worked up into a frenzy. Screaming, mixed in with other weird animal noises, could be heard all around us as the stampede began. I took a look over the edge and watched all the monsters running in the same direction. It was a weird sight and I hoped that Lophan had enough time to prepare, because they would have to defend themselves from quite a number of monsters.

"Over there," Andrius suddenly pointed to my right, away from where the monsters were going.

Redax didn't have to be told twice and the Asphon literally disappeared from sight as he went to chase down whatever Andrius had felt. We went after him immediately after, jumping from roof to roof while keeping an eye out for any signs from Redax.

"A new timer just started, it's set to one hour again. Looks like the next wave will come from the south," I grabbed Andrius' attention and he magically relayed my information back to the city. "Cool spell," I remarked, briefly having seen how complicated the matrix had been.

"It's pretty useful," Andrius admitted. "But we have other things to worry about right now. I lost the trace almost immediately after I felt it. I hope Redax manages to locate what I felt."

We continued to run for a few more minutes, eventually spotting Redax standing on a roof. He simply shook his head, indicating that he wasn't able to find anything. "The next attack is supposed to come from the south, which just so happens to be the direction of whatever you detected, Andrius. I'd bet it's moving over there to incite more monsters for the next wave."

"If we can get over there early, we might be able to find it before it can start the next attack," Andrius agreed with me and we took off.

An hour later and another triggered wave later, we were starting to feel the pressure. Andrius had once again been able to detect the activation of a spell when the timer hit zero, but our elusive opponent gave us the slip once more.

"Shit," I couldn't help but exclaim. "If we don't find it before the next wave starts, I'll have to go back to the city, or the quest might fail due to too much assistance."

We were hauling ass toward the east side of Lophan, where the next wave was supposed to come from when a flash of green caught my attention. By now familiar with how the activation of my hidden radar skill worked, I changed course immediately, barreling toward where I'd seen the flash. My two friends noticed shortly after and followed me, a tad confused, but trusting in me nonetheless. As I went around the bend of a building, I finally laid eyes upon my opponent.

Praise be the Luck attribute!

Mother Brain (T9)

A mother brain is the final evolution of a psychedelic parasite. The tier zero monster burrows itself into the brain of an unsuspecting victim, continuously draining experience points from its host. It grows with its host, eventually completely taking over the body at the fifth tier. Once the monster achieves the ninth tier, it separates the brain from the body, signifying the end of the incubation period and starting a new journey as a completely different monster.

Equipped with a variety of mental skills and an extreme affinity for casting spells, it is a terrible monster to encounter. While it employs several, toxin-laden tentacles to fight up close, it is still almost helpless should a proficient warrior manage to close the gap.

Hovering about two meters above the ground, a brain was leisurely making its way down the street. It was slightly larger than a human brain and had three thin tentacles attached to its back that almost scraped against the ground. It was covered in a shimmering film of liquid, little droplets occasionally falling off.

"Fall back, Redax, Andrius!" It may have been tiny, but I wasn't about to underestimate a tier-nine monster. And since it had a ton of mental attacks, I wasn't too keen on having my friends switch sides. Luckily, I had gotten a mental protection skill on the last floor, which should give me a fighting chance. While I hated what the eximovere tree had done to me, I had to thank it for making me get a resistance skill.

Not wanting to give the brain time to notice me, I opened up the hostilities with my strongest spell: Void Rend.

The damn thing managed to react to my spell and conjured up several layers of shields, somehow managing to tank my most devastating attack. Shortly after, I felt like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to my brain. Rattled, my vision swam a bit, but I recovered quickly. I didn't want to know what that would have done to me if I didn't have my mind protected. The cocky brain was already turning away from me, thinking that it had taken me out.

Foolish.

The fucker even dropped the shields it had conjured. Not one to let dumb mistakes go unpunished, I sent out two poison assassination spells that hit home without issue. But, for the first time ever, something had noticed the spell. The brain whirled around and I could swear it was glaring at me, even though it had no eyes. By this time it had turned around to glare at me, I had already readied up another void rend and sent it after the creepy thing.

I wondered if the Asphons felt the same way about me as I felt about the mother brain right now.

The spell slammed home, but a few hastily erected shields blocked my attack once again. Through the kicked-up dust, I could see two spell matrixes appear and rapidly approach completion. It was hard to analyze them while I was relocating, but with a dreaded realization, I recognized them as a wind and a fire spell. This thing wasn't about to do what Andrius had just taught me, right?

Turns out, I was right. The mother brain indeed combined a wind and a fire spell to create a massive inferno. The flames exploded outwards, engulfing the whole street and several of the buildings around. It was a truly impressive display of magic, that would no doubt do quite a bit of damage if there hadn't been that one little thing.

Heat Immunity (Passive) (S)

Gain immunity to any kind of heat-based damage.

The upgrade to my lava diver passive I'd gained from fighting Tempus in the last city quest was simply amazing. Going forward, I would never have to worry about fire-based attacks ever again, as well as other heat-based things, whatever that meant. The inferno raged all around me but to me, it felt like I was taking a comfortable hot bath. To show my appreciation for the late Prince Tempus, I decided to counter the inferno with the other skill I'd gotten from that quest.

Lava Torrent (A)

Summon forth a torrent of lava that lasts three seconds.

Cost: 5'000 MP

Just as the admittedly impressive fire spell came to an end, I'd finished casting my own spell. Visibility was still bad, so I used my void feelers to find my target and let loose. Just like when the spell was used against me, a torrent of lava appeared out of nowhere, blasting the mother brain with the highly damaging substance. I couldn't see it, but by the way, the lava was flung away from the mother brain, I knew it had put up shields again. Too bad for it that I could keep this up almost indefinitely.

I repeatedly cast the spell, flooding the entire area with lava. The temperature rose to insane heights as the buildings around us started melting. I had conjured a veritable sea of lava! Sadly, when Lava Diver was upgraded, I lost the benefit of being able to swim around in the stuff, but I'd gladly give that up for having Heat Immunity. A large bubble formed in the lava and the mother brain emerged, ensconced in a bubble shield. It had successfully defended against the spell, but it looked like it was struggling. The inside of the shield must be cooking the damn thing alive. It was a testament to its strength that it hadn't already croaked.

To make matters worse for it, my poison was still chipping away at its health as well.

The mother brain was pissed and wanted revenge, but I still saw it recoil in surprise when I plopped onto the surface of its bubble shield. The Archive Of Asphon said that these things weakness was close combat, and that was exactly what I aimed to do. First, I activated my skill, MP Drain. Doing this was a tad experimental, but I happily found out that it properly activated. The skill specified having to be in physical contact with the target, which I interpreted as making contact with a monster, but as it turned out, I could drain the MP from a solid, active spell as well.

The mother brain now needed to either drop the shield and let me in, or deal with the fact that I was constantly draining its resources. To make matters worse for it I started bombarding the shield with low-level spells and activated a rarely used spell: Poison Aura. Its shield spell probably functions similarly to my own, which meant taking damage to the shield was a massive MP drain. The three tentacles lashed out at me, somehow passing through the shield, although their impact did close to no damage. It continued slapping away at me while I kept up the barrage, probably thinking that the toxins in its tentacles would take me out.

Too bad that poisons and toxins were the two other things I was completely immune to!

I felt like a villain as I mercilessly continued to rain down spell after spell. We were barely hovering above the lava, which meant it must've still been incredibly hot in there. Realizing that its toxin was doing absolutely nothing, it started flinging spells at me as well. Air blades, water torrents, earth bullets, fire jets, the whole shebang. An elemental onslaught rained down on me as I simply cast my own shield spell. In a fight between mages, I was confident that I would win an endurance fight in terms of MP.

It didn't take too long until my prediction came true and the mother brain's shield popped out of existence. Seeing my chance, I extended my tentacles to grab onto the brain and started pelting it point-blank with elementally charged magical bolts. I could have gone for something flashier, but with how small this guy was, I didn't want to risk blowing it to smithereens, since I wanted to eat my prize afterward. Now that its defenses were down and I was in melee range, its low HP pool should bottom out soon, even with these low-tiered spells.

You have successfully completed the city-tier quest!

Rewards:

5 Level ups

Upgrade Mutation: Spell Attuned Brain (T9) to Magic Infused Brain (T9)

Upgrade Mutation: All tentacle mutations gain the ability to inflict poison.

Bonus Objective:

Complete three city-tier quests (2/3)

I quickly stored the defeated mother brain in my inventory and void-jumped higher up. As I began to glide I kept a lookout for Redax and Andrius, ignoring the cooling lava and half-melted buildings below me. The system would fix up the area eventually. My friends had seemingly spotted me first since I found them after Andrius sent a clearly visible fireball into the air.

"All done!" I said as I unceremoniously dropped myself out of the sky next to them. "That's another quest in the bag," I added smugly.

"Congratulations," Andrius replied, clearly meaning it, while Redax simply gave me an approving nod. "Get any good rewards?"

"I'd say so," I nodded happily. I wasn't entirely certain if I would ever be using my tentacles to inflict poison, since I had a whole array of spells to do just that, but the upgraded brain was definitely going to help me. I had picked the spell-attuned brain pretty early on in my journey, and while it had served me well, it was a rather basic mutation. The new magic-infused brain did everything my old mutation did, but even better. I couldn't wait to see what effect it would have on my manual spellcasting. "Come on, let's go see if the city needs any help, and then, we got some more magic experimentation to do!"

Not waiting for a reply, I jumped backward off the building and snapped my wings open. The fight had been short, but it had been fun. And it put me one step closer to my goal!