Eric and I worked together to practice our skills we had not used the Soul crystal from the last slaver to attack us. We were going to save them up.
Watching Eric behead a bear as I cooked dinner made me smile. This wasn’t so bad. Yes, I missed my brother, yet this feeling was something I haven't felt in a long time. Fun and excitement. I loved Etis Online and my brother. However, there was little left for me in the game and even the update they were working on would only have lasted for so long. According to Eric, there were hidden pockets of the world where beings existed that were over level 10,000. That was something that just didn’t seem real. Knowing that such power existed here.
I wanted to get a real base where we could level and gain strength, where I could gather knowledge from every corner of the world. Eric tore through animals like we were on a time limit per kill. My Arcane bolt leveled slowly, but Icy wind, Earth spear, and Meditation were still leveling decently. Along with the two of us gathering herbs. I handled the cooking, Eric was hopeless when it came to the skill. Which surprised me.
We fell into an easy rhythm, and a sense of security formed between us, knowing we had each other's backs. Our actual levels were growing slowly, though our collection of Soul Crystals grew every day. Soon we would need to leave to go somewhere with stronger monsters. We would be able to live here safely for now but not for much longer if demons were spreading. We needed to get to the center of the continent, or to the ocean.
Places, where magic was more dense, would lead to higher level monsters. So we needed to find an area like that for us to start truly power leveling. Here was okay, the Rabbits were level 10, Alpha rabbits were 12, Wolves were 15 and Alpha wolves were 17, Bears were 20 and Alpha bears were 22.
In a week we had gained 5 levels, 120 Rabbits, 40 Alpha Rabbits, 40 Wolves, 10 Alpha wolves, 11 Bears, and 10 Alpha Bears. Now though all the animals are staying clear of our clearing, and we also had all the soul crystals from the animals.
As the sun set, I looked at out Pile of Soul Crystals And I about passed out at the information that filled my mind. Rabbits Soul Crystals 330,000 experience, Alpha Rabbits Soul Crystals 156,000 Experience, Wolves Soul Crystals 240,000, Alpha Wolves Soul Crystals 76,500, Bears Soul Crystals 115,500, Alpha Bears Soul Crystals 126,500, Slaver Soul Crystal 12,000. Total amount of Experience 1,056,500.
“Alex is everything okay?” Eric asked I could tell even Alic was worried that something had happened.
“I knew this spell would be amazing at higher levels, but I didn’t….” I broke off.
“What?”
“It's over 1 million Experience points.”
Eric fell onto his butt as he looked at me. Even Alic dipped a bit as if in shock.
“What Level is the spell?” Eric asked.
“It's no, It doesn’t have a ranking, it just says mastery Level.”
“That means it isn’t a spell you can not normally lear, Only a god or Goddess can pass on Mastery spells. Even after mastering the spell you will only have a basic understanding. You will be unable to teach it.” Alic informed us.
“I’ve heard of mastery Magic’s in the lore I’ve read but only as a myth.”
“Most myths are based on facts,” Alic said.
“Isn’t this to powerful, we cannot use all of these, people would know something is up,” I said.
“I agree, this skill is way to powerful, you will have to use them gradually. Also if you find an auction house where you can be anonymous you could sell one, only ever sell one at a time, and never more than one a month at the same auction house. Whenever you are alone cast the spell and save them up to work towards full mastery of the spell. You guys are not living in a town like normal adventures, so obviously you will gain levels faster but you cannot just jump levels like they don’t exist. Be smart,” Alic Warned us.
“I understand.” Eric and I said together.
‘Alex, do you really think I would give you a spell that was so basic.’ Alic said suddenly, but his voice was very different.
“Goddess, it is wonderful to hear from you,” I said bowing.
‘I heard you guys talking, though Alic when you are stronger you need to go to towards the center kingdom, demons are coming from there.’ She said. ‘The spell though what does it give you?’
“Experience towards our level,” I answered.
‘Yes and no, it is crystalized Experience. Because you have not mastered it, you only get 2,750 experience from the rabbits instead of 5,500. So you would normally think to add that to your experience bar, which everyone does seeing as the crystals are normally very rare. You can apply the experience to a skill, but only at a hundredth of the effect. So instead of getting 2,750 experience, you would get 27.5% progression. That only works on active skill though. Like spells, your Magical or historical Lore would not gain anything. Skinning, Tracking, alchemy those would work too I guess, but I don’t think they would help you as much in a fight. I have to go,’
Alic shuddered, “What just happened?”
“The goddess used you to talk to us and tell us we didn’t understand anything,” I said laughing.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Apparently we can use these crystals to increase our skills, but they are not very cost effective but in terms of survivability,” I said shrugging.
Splitting the crystals in half I gave half to Eric and I took the other half. I absorbed two Rabbit crystals bringing my level to 30. Though It almost took me to 31. Eric also raised his level to 30. Now that I had 10 Class points I unlocked Fireball. I used the remaining 58 Rabbit crystals to increase the skill progression of Arcane bolt to Adept one.
Arcane bolt - Adept 1 (0%)
Fires one bolt of arcane energy at the target. Higher levels offer more power as well as extra evolution options. 20 Mana, 70 Damage
Two Evolution options required to proceed, Choose two:
Double attack
Increase Bolts
I chose to increase the arrows twice this time
Arcane bolt - Adept 1 (0%)
Fires three bolt of arcane energy at the target. Higher levels offer more power as well as extra evolution options. 40 Mana, 281 Damage
It seemed each time the skill level to a new progression tier, 3 was added to the damage gained for each level.
I raised Icy Wind was raised to beginner 1 using the Alpha rabbits crystals.
Icy Wind Beginner 1
A Strong gust of Icy wind that chills the opponent slowing them.
Has a chance to blow targets over
10 mana per second, higher levels increase the cold and can add damage to the slow effect.
Using the wolves, alpha wolves and the slaver crystal I raised Fireball to Beginner 6. At the beginner range, it gave me an evolution option double damage, or extend explosion range by 2 feet. I chose to double damage for my first evolution. There would be time to increase the size later if I wanted to.
Fireball Beginner 6
Deals 98 damage, +3 per rank, explodes dealing half damage in 5 feet, 50 Mana
Looking at the Soul Crystals left my heart clenched, I only had the ones from the Bears and Alpha bears left. Leveling up skill was very expensive. Eric saved the Soul Crystals from the bears as well.
“What did you level?” I asked curiously.
“Behead to Proficient 2, the beginner and Proficient evolutions added to unexpected and while sneaking, so I can use it more often though it does use 300 Stamina now. I also got the Class skill stealth and got it to Proficient 3, making it 33% harder to detect me, though it uses 8 Mana per second. I can use it for a little over an hour without counting my meager regeneration rate.”
We had a reasonable number of Items to turn in for the quest. The lack of Soul Crystals was alarming, enough experience to put both of us over level 100, gone in the blink of an eye. The goddess had given us a powerful way to get stronger, but she also wanted us to wage war against increasingly strong enemies. We were not even sure if this would be enough for us to survive.
“Let's head back to town, we will rest for a week then turn everything in.”
We didn’t encounter any monsters or slavers on the way back to the town, though with our increased level it would have been easy to handle any threat here. Because of the Animals turning into soul Crystals we didn’t have any animal corpses to turn in, but we had 255 of each of the herbs to turn in. We had actually gathered more of them, but I still needed some to work on my alchemy.
We rented a room for a week again, we each took a long shower before laying down to sleep. We woke at noon the next day. We sat in the room and spent the day reviewing our status sheets.
The Following morning, I headed down to the Quest counter to turn in the three completed quests.
“Thank you, you have turned in 255 Vasol, Maltha and Svol Leaves, 102 Silver and 51 Quest Points, I’m surprised you didn’t bring back corpses again,” She said smiling.
“They were avoiding us this time, so we only were able to catch what we needed for cooking,” I said shrugging. “You win sometimes and sometimes you lose.”
I walked Over to the Receptionist. “I would like to request a meeting with Guild master Ostena, please, I am sure she will want to talk.”
“Let me see if she has time.” The receptionist said walking away.
She came back 15 minutes later and asked me to wait for the Guild master to finish her meeting. Three hours passed before the door opened. Five people walked out, their armor was impressive.
“Alex, please come in.” A voice called.
I bowed slightly to the group as they passed. Before walking into the room. Closing the doors behind me I saw the guild master surrounded by papers.
“Thank you for waiting, we had a SS request come in.” She said motioning for me to take a seat. “How can I help you?”
“I have a request that I think you will find beneficial. However, I would need you to swear on the goddess name that you will never reveal this to anyone without my permission.”
“You have my attention, but how can I be sure what you have will be worth that vow.”
“I’m fairly confident. If you would like I can swear a vow as well.” I said smiling.
“I am curious, In the name of Neris Goddess of Etis, I swear to never reveal anything that we discuss in this meeting without your permission.”
‘The goddess has heard your vow and Accepted it. Should you break the Vow you will be stricken with sickness and die.’
Pulling two Alpha Bear Soul Crystal out of my inventory I placed it on her desk. A look of shock covered her face.
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