Chapter Twenty-One: Level Up

Twenty-One

Dane Rawlings

Lvl. 7

Race: Human

Stats

Strength: 16

Dexterity: 10

Endurance: 10

Vitality: 16

Intelligence: 14

Mana Core: F-Grade

Body: F-Grade

Bloodline: F-Grade

Class: Warlock

Skills

Elemental Resistance: F-2

Meditation: F-3

Stealth: F-2

Mental Resistance: F-3

Tracking: F-2

Dane smiled as he saw the increases to his skills and points. The lagging behind stats on his sheet was annoying, but there could be ways of fixing that eventually. Dane risked looking out of the hole he was in and out and across the forest.

Monsters shuffled forward in a constant stream, all heading toward the hill. All of them burned away in sheets of Hellfire. Dane kept an eye on the stream of monsters as they ran up the hill, but none of them turned to look at him.

“You have a new skill?” Tolic asked as he floated over Dane’s shoulder.

“Yeah, going through the list right now. There’s so many of them,” Dane whispered. Most skills like this were things that worked in the background or had very limited ability to do anything proactive. They wouldn’t give him the powerboost he needed to survive and win this fight.

“Mel said part of your deal was a new skill, right?”

“After I complete the task. I need to finish this first,” Dane said. He was scrolling through the long list of skills that were available and having Tolic talk in his ear wasn’t helping him focus.

“I’m bored. I want a partner in crime. A hellhound or a basilisk. Ohhhh…maybe an imp? Those guys are fun,” Tolic continued to rattle on, Dane grinding his teeth in annoyance as he looked for what would be helpful.

Heat Resistance

F-1

Your body is more resistant to all forms of Heat

The pain in his arm faded away to nothing. He could already feel the skill strengthening as the residual heat of his arm bled away.

“Can’t have the natural resistance of a dragonkin, but I can have the skills for it.” With enough levels of the skill, he could mitigate the backlash of using his class skill. Dane looked over at Tolic floating next to him and sighed. Another drain on the sacrifice cores he’d collected and Tolic smiled widely as his level went up again.

Summoned Spirit lvl. 2 Upgraded!

Summoned Spirit lvl. 3

Possession Skill Increased

“That feels good! So much more strength right off the bat. Really loving this!” Tolic said as he flexed all four arms and danced around the small area they were in.

“Will you shut-up. We are trying to stay hidden,” Dane hissed at his spirit. Tolic stopped his cavorting for a moment and glared at him.

“You really suck the joy out of everything. Are you ready to go back or are we going to wait for all the bodies to be turned to ash?” Tolic pouted.

“We keep moving along the edge of the hill, try to flank Gabe. You grab a monster, distract him, and I’ll stab him,” Dane said. He waggled the dagger in his hand and Tolic nodded.

“That’s a decent enough plan. Except for the part where the Hellfire unravels my existence and I die for real.”

“What would your suggestion be, then?”

“You distract him and I kill him!” Tolic offered.

“Same problem. Hellfire will burn me to ash. And with me dead you go back to hell.”

“You know, surprisingly, not that bad of a second choice.”

“Why are you being pissy? You got the levels you wanted. Let’s focus and kill the damn lizard and win this title,” Dane growled. Tolic lowered his crossed arms and looked at him with a glare for a second before it softened.

“Your mana sense is terrible compared to mine. There’s still lots of it running rampant in this area.”

“Tolic, I don’t know what that means,” Dane said with a sigh. He resisted his urge to run his hand over his face.

“It means this event is increasing in scale. There will be more and more stronger monsters coming. I say we wait, ambush one of the higher level ones, and I take it. Something that has some type of fire resistance.”

“I don’t think anything has Hellfire resistance,” Dane grumbled. The spirit had a decent plan. The Aleg-Kinuun had a powerful position and a powerful attack that was leaving nothing left but a thick layer of ash.

“Nothing does. But, regardless of how powerful his blasts are, he’s still an F-Grade. He’s drawing on the highest tier of hellfire and that can be resisted,” Tolic explained.

“So, let’s say, a rock monster would be better?” Dane asked.

“Yeah. Why? Is there a rock monster behind us?” Tolic asked. He spun around and looked behind him to see a wall of crumbly rock lurching forward. It had lopsided legs and overly long arms that dragged across the ground leaving furrows in the snow. Vines wrapped around the limbs holding everything together as if shuffled towards the hill. It wasn’t a rock golem, Dane had seen artistic sketches of those, but something lesser. Its core was a half dozen boulders wedged together with a mortar of mud and pebbles in the gaps.

“I don’t want that. It’s ugly,” Tolic complained. He crossed his arms as the two of them watched the crumbling rock monster walk past them. With every step chunks of rock and mud came falling out of it, splattering loudly on the ground.

“It’s already falling apart. And it’s strong. You’d have to damage it for me to enter. It’d be just a waste of time,” Tolic said.

“You’re getting into that rock monster. We’re going to climb that hill and take the lizard’s head,” Dane growled. Tolic stared at him for a moment before shrugging all four arms.

“You’re the boss.” Dane waited a moment to see if the rebellious spirit was going to say anything else. When he didn’t the two of them skulked out of their hiding place and started towards the slow moving rock monster. Dane looked around them to see if there was anyone else following.

Two more of the slow moving rock monsters were lumbering forward in the distance, jackalopes running through their legs, and far in the distance, more of the Grass Fiends. The baying cry of Aji-Abami warriors was clear but far away, somewhere on the other side of the hill.

“Leaves only the natives. They won’t be running around screaming.” Dane ran behind the rock monster, its back to him, and reached over and stabbed the sacrificial blade into the mud and crushed rock. The blade sank easily, sliding deep into the hilt without pause. Tolic floated beside him and looked at Dane before shrugging.

The blade hadn’t lit up. No runes glowed where it showed him draining away the creature. In fact, there was no reaction at all. It continued its slow march forward, one trembling step at a time.

“I don’t think it noticed. You should try stabbing somewhere else,” Tolic said. The damned spirit ran a hand along the exterior of a rock and then chuckled.

“There’s nothing living in here for me to kick out. It's just plain old rock.”

“What does that mean?” Dane asked. His mind was furiously thinking about all the besitaries he had read as part of his training. The problem was that there was so many things it could be.

Dane started to stab, sliding the blade in and out of the gaps of the armor, searching for the weak spot he knew would be there. They were getting close to the edge of the forest, heat pressed them as nearby trees crackled. Burst of the hellfire had ignited several of the trees even with them having been soaked in water.

“Told you this isn’t going to work,” Tolic said. Dane rolled his eyes but kept working the blade around, never once seeing the runes even begin to burn. Frustration built up as the damn thing didn’t even turn to look at them, walking forward like it was an automaton. Dane froze, blade hovering inches from another seam.

“Remind me to take an identification skill next time,” Dane grumbled as he left the crudely designed golem march its way out of the forest and start going up the hill. Standing on the edge of the forest it was like looking at a warzone.

Steam rose to form a constant haze, mud bubbling from the heat, but the constant melted water flowed down to keep it from drying up. Where one of the blasts had carved a channel, there was nothing there aside from ash. On the sides of those channels were burnt and destroyed bodies, lying in twisted ruins.

“Tolic, go and find whoever or whatever is creating those golems. Don’t engage them though. I’m going to go and deal with the lizard,” Dane ordered.

“Uhmmm? You want to duel him or something? I thought we were going to double team him. Fight unfair,” Tolic said as he threw a few shadow punches.

“Oh, I’m fighting unfair, it’s just not with you. Don’t worry about it and go and find whomever is controlling these.” The frustration of being run off by the dragonkin had bubbled slowly beneath the surface. It was a blow to his pride, to his ego, to the sense of accomplishment he had. He had trained since he was a child to be an invisible killer for the Emperor and even if his class didn’t support that skillset, it didn’t change who and what he was.