Our trip back to Elendar was as uneventful as our trip out here. At least up until we were ambushed.
During that trip, I was able to take a look at all the levels I gained during our short stint out in the field. For as short of a time as we had actually been doing stuff, we’d had lots of fights.
‘Ping’ [Bandit Level 18³ / Cut-Throat Level 10³ / Dagger-bound Level 32² / Human] Has been slain - experience divided amongst group. 5 ability points awarded.
…
‘Ping’ [Dagger Master Level 32³ / Bladed Myrmidon Level 25³ / Shadow-Claimed Level 10³ / Human] Has been slain - experience divided amongst group. 5 ability points awarded.
‘Ping’ [Mage of the Storm] has leveled 3 > 7
‘Ping’ [Blade of Lightning] has leveled 3 > 8
‘Ping’ [Nature’s Enforcer] has leveled 2 > 5
‘Ping’ [Identify] has leveled 42 > 44
‘Ping’ [Rest] has leveled 31 > 32
‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] has leveled 12 > 21
‘Ping’ [Electric Sense] has leveled 15 > 20
‘Ping’ [Sword Expert] has leveled 16 > 20
‘Ping’ [Martial Technique] has leveled 4 > 10
‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] has leveled 18 > 26
‘Ping’ [Electric Manipulation] has leveled 13 > 22
‘Ping’ [Accelerated Thoughts] has leveled 14 > 19
‘Ping’ [Parallel Minds] has leveled 49 > 33
‘Ping’ [Fatigue Resistance] has leveled 35 > 40
‘Ping’ [Mathematic Calculation] has leveled 4 > 2²
‘Ping’ [Anatomy] has leveled 1 > 3
Everything that had leveled had been more or less expected. Except [Anatomy], although I guess that one had leveled simply because I was seeing people’s nervous systems through walls and stuff using [Electric Sense]. Either way, the levels were nice for essentially no effort.
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 5
Tier 3 Class - [Mage of the Storm] - Level 7
Ability - [Storm Call]
Ability - [Storm Explosion]
Ability - [As Fast As Lighting - Passive]
Ability - [Storm Aura]
Ability - [Web of Lightning]
Ability - [Storm Points]
Tier 3 Class - [Blade of Lightning] - Level 8
Ability - [Forged by the Storm - Passive]
Ability - [Lightning Strikes]
Ability - [Lightning Blade’s Guidance - Hybrid]
Ability - [Lightning Stream]
Ability - [Ride the Lightning]
Ability - [Lightning Defense]
Tier 3 Class - [Nature’s Enforcer] - Level 5
Ability - [Wood-Infused Armor]
Ability - [Healing Lily]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Bind]
Ability - [Nature’s Embrace]
Ability - [Nature’s Rampart]
Ability - [One With Nature]
Skill Combinations -
Ability - [Web of Lightning / Ride the Lightning] > [Wings of Lightning]
Ability -
Ability -
Enhancements -
Tier 1 [Point Blank] (Level 25)
Tier 1 [Weapon Proficiency] (Level 25)
Tier 1 [Quickness] (Level 25)
Tier 2 - [Close Quarters Casting] (Level 50)
Tier 2 - [Dodge] (Level 50)
Tier 2 - [Feint Proficiency] (Level 50)
Tier 3 - [Improved Weapon Proficiency] (Level 45)
Tier 3 - [Matter Creation Proficiency] (Level 1
Tier 3 - [Team Flanking] (Level 1)
General Skills -
Tier 3 [Identify] - Level 44
Tier 2 [Rest] - Level 32
Tier 3 [Mana Sense] - Level 21
Tier 3 [Electric Sense] - Level 20
Tier 3 [Sword Expert] - Level 20
Tier 3 [Martial Technique] - Level 10
Tier 3 [Dagger Apprentice] - Level 2
Tier 3 [Wood Manipulation] - Level 26
Tier 3 [Electric Manipulation] - Level 22
Tier 3 [Accelerated Thoughts] - Level 19
Tier 3 [Parallel Minds] - Level 3 (31.0 (32.0 total) additional minds)
Tier 3 [Fruit Production] - Level 1
Tier 3 [Plant Production] - Level 2
Tier 3 [Vegetable Production] - Level 1
Tier 3 [Fatigue Resistance] - Level 40
Tier 2 [Erotic Arts] - Level 2
Tier 1 [Calligraphy] - Level 6
Tier 2 [Mathematic Calculation] - Level 2
Tier 0 [Mining] - Level 3
Tier 0 [Anatomy] - Level 3
Status -
Vig - [4464] (8570.88)
End - [4242] (8144.64)
Str - [3967]
Dex - [4228] (8391.95) [12965.57] {12587.93}
Agi - [4254] (12331.63) |13541.38| {18497.45/19707.20}
Int - [4839]
Wis - [4924]
Health - 85708/85708
Stamina - 81446/81446
Mana - 49240/492240
(number represents passives provided by classes) |number represents CQC enhancement bonus| {Number represents 1 second spike when dodging/with CQC active} [number for weapon dexterity]
I had also spent all the ability points I had recently gotten on leveling up [Improved Weapon Proficiency]. It was now giving me a bonus of 4.5% to my weapon proficiency, on top of the 50% from the original enhancement.
All in all, my stats were slowly climbing. [OWN] had reached 4000 feet of range with my most recent levels. My ramparts now had a total of 145 sq. feet of area to work with as well, a 45% increase over what I had started with on entering the third tier.
What was insane was the scaling of [Lightning Stream]. Currently, it is providing a 27% bonus to agility. Now that math happens to work from the base number of my agility since class stat bonuses don’t stack on each other given that they’re applying at the same time. But this pushed my agility to 13,480.
If [CQC] got involved? 14,689.
[Dodge]? 20,220. The jump to that was insane. And given the non-linear speed scaling of agility that I had found out about thanks to my brief learning stint at the NSA base, I knew that it was a 67.31% increase in speed.
This was…
I was strong.
And the most frustrating part of it all was that I had been absolutely useless in dealing with that tier four. The best I had been able to hope for was just to delay him so my team could escape. But if he had decided to just kill me with that punch, I wouldn’t be here right now. Most likely, Jazz and Lea wouldn’t be either.
I cared a little bit less about Jazz making it back, he was still a pompous asshole, even if he had mellowed out a bit. Lea, on the other hand, was a sweet angel who deserved the world. She had been nothing but kind to everyone she had met, minus the bandits.
I hadn’t seen her do a single mean or rude thing to someone who hadn’t deserved it, she treated everyone as an equal and didn’t try to cow people with her social status.
I liked Lea.
…
Platonically, as a friend. Not that she wasn’t attractive, but…
Penny was still…
I shook my head trying not to think of her. Every time I thought of her I could only see… what had remained.
The thought made me nauseous. And reignited my hatred for Ili’kithari again. All the Earth Raiders, and from what I remembered of Penny’s specifically, had been tortured before they were killed. There were injuries on what remained of their bodies that wouldn’t have been natural if she had just been killing them.
In fact, there shouldn’t have been any other injuries on them that would have arisen from a fight. Ili’kithari would have been so much stronger than them that they shouldn’t have even been able to struggle.
But there had been marks of a struggle. Meaning she hadn’t made it quick and painless.
Which meant I was going to make sure her suffering was long and drawn out. If I could visit even a fraction of their pain on Ili’kithari, I would have done my job. But I planned to go further than that. I was going to break her.
I was-
“Alex, you okay?” My eyes instantly snapped onto the face looking at me.
Lea.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, “Yeah? Why, what’s up?”
She frowned, “You were sparking, like… lightning was sparking off of you and you looked pretty upset.”
It was my turn to frown at her, mostly out of embarrassment, “Was I? I didn’t really notice, my bad.”
Lea kept looking at me with a concerned look, “Alex… Are you sure you’re okay? If there’s anything you need to talk about I’m more than willing to listen and help you.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be?”
She gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, “Well… my offer always stands, if you need to talk about anything troubling you…”
I smiled at her, “Thank you, Lea, if anything ever comes up I might take you up on that.”
As I said, she was an angel who deserved the world. Always looking out for the people around her.
What had I been thinking about?
Oh yeah, [Lightning Stream] was ridiculously powerful. Another skill that would eventually, hopefully, stack with it was [Lightning Strikes]. That one increased the speed of my attacks by 0.5% per level. So right now it was only sitting at 4%, not really enough to write home about.
But hopefully, in the future, it would be an amazing skill that I could activate for quick bursts of speed to surprise my opponents and maybe end fights before they had even gotten started.
[Storm Aura] had been working out nicely as well, I’d noticed that a few times attacks that should’ve done more damage were just flat-out reduced entirely.
A flat negation to any damage coming my way is insane. 10%, doesn’t sound like a lot, but over ten attacks? Twenty?
The numbers add up quickly. It made me want to go out and spend more time killing stuff to grind levels. The only problem was that it would slowly get more and more dangerous for me to do so. As I got to a higher level, the gap between my capabilities and the people around me would slowly close.
Right now I hold a heavy advantage because of the heart. How would that change in the future? Especially when I started facing more and more people who had purple-level classes or better.
Only time will tell.
***
We made our way back to Elendar in good time, mainly because we didn’t stop for any breaks. Our group was also quiet for most of the trip, still trying to internalize our close brush with death at the hands of The Sons.
We didn’t relax the entire time, constantly checking over our shoulders to make sure that no one was going to appear over the horizon and ambush us in the middle of the road.
It was possibly one of the most nerve-wracking experiences I’d been in, if not the most. Although it had to contend with my initial escape attempt from Alixia and the skirmish I had been a part of in the capital.
It wasn’t long before our silent uneventful trip ended, Elendar rising up in the distance. The walls filled me with a strange sort of security, knowing that, at least inside the NSA compound, I’d be safe.
From most things.
We reached the gates and just like Lustirne we were quickly waved through as Lea showed the gate guards our credentials. We wasted no time and made our way straight to the compound. Walking in I let out a quiet sigh of relief. We’d crossed a huge portion of the country and back in a couple of days. Despite all of my stats being full at this point, I was exhausted. I could probably keep going for another day or so without much effort, but right now I just wanted to fall asleep.
Jazz and Lea both had similar looks on their faces right now.
“Before we do anything else, we’re going to have to report on the results of our mission. It’d probably be for the best if our entire time was there for that,” Lea said.
I nodded, I had assumed something like that. I was sure for other, less important things, Lea would be enough as team leader, but given that we had failed and the fact that I was the one that saw a majority of the compound I would at least need to be there to report on what I knew.
Jazz… could be there for moral support.
Lea returned my nod and turned around, once again leading the way for our group. This time, we headed towards the administration building on the far end of the compound. Making our way there we swiftly made our way inside and Lea walked up to the front desk where a group of receptionists were working away at… stuff.
As we approached one of them looked up at us and gave a friendly smile and greeted us, “Hi, how can I help.”
She was a blonde woman of average height and soft features. Honestly was a picturesque example of a secretary.
Lea cleared her throat before speaking, “Team 72 reporting back.”
The receptionist nodded and pulled out a piece of paper and started scribbling on it, “Status?”
“Failure,” Lea replied tightly.
If the receptionist cared in any way they didn’t show it through their expressions. Although I had an assumption that they probably had a skill that prevented them from feeding back information like that.
They scribbled down some more things before asking another question, “region and mission criteria?”
“North East, bandit clearing.”
“Casualties?”
“None.”
“Threat ranking?”
“It was marked as a C to maybe a B-class threat. It’s A to S-class on severity right now.”
That got the receptionist's attention, “Are you sure?”
“If a major cell operation of The Sons isn’t A or higher…” Lea let the sentence trail off, not that she needed to infer much more.
She nodded before quickly filling out the rest of what I assumed was a form of our mission results, stamped it, handed it to one of the people nearby, a young boy, and said, “Run this to Edel,” she then turned to look at us and gestured to the boy, “Follow him, please.”
Lea nodded politely, and we turned to follow after the boy as he made his way down the grandiose hallways.
We eventually reached an office door, and the boy knocked twice politely and waited. From inside we heard a muffled voice call out, “Enter.”
The boy opened the door and stepped inside leaving it open for us to see, and walked up to the man behind the desk, handing him the sheet of paper.
He was middle-aged and balding. Which was a slight surprise considering I hadn’t seen a single balding person since I’d come here. I’d seen people that were bald or had hair, but not the in-between.
He looked like he should be wearing a pair of glasses low down on his nose for him to peer over, but instead, he just looked straight at us imperiously.
He took the paper from the boy who bowed, before turning around and walking away. Just as I was contemplating whether we were supposed to follow after him the person, I’m assuming was named Edel, said, “Come inside and close the door.”
Their tone clipped, but not out of annoyance. At least, it didn’t feel that way to me.
We did as we were told and stepped inside, closing the door. As we did that Edel quickly reviewed the paper. His expression was unchanging the entire time.
[Level 954Human]
He was certainly up there. I wonder if his levels were in combat classes or if they were purely administrative.
“I see,” he said after a moment of silence as we stood before his desk.
“You say it was The Sons, do you have any proof of that?”
Lea shook her head, “Beyond the words and admission we… forced from one of the members we captured. Their base was extremely well-built and defended. Guarded by several enchantments to prevent detection and was manned by coordinated staff, and headed by someone in the fourth tier. There were also several hundred members within the base.”
Edel nodded, “I understand, start from the beginning. I’m sure there are some important details to explain along the way.”
Lea nodded and began our tale, starting from when we were ambushed after leaving Lustirne.
***
It didn’t take long for her to go through the entire story, she obviously wasn’t able to fully describe what the base appeared like or what had happened when we had split the group.
During those moments he had turned to me and asked for clarification.
“Alex, carried us up into the sky being the only one of our group with an actual flying skill. It was a gamble on hoping that the tier four didn’t have his own, given that he seemed more like a martial to Alex he assumed that it would be unlikely that he would.”
I hadn’t actually considered it like that, but I kept my face neutral. I could at least pretend that I did.
“And it paid off, he followed us until we approached Lustirne before leaving. We hovered around there for a moment before collectively agreeing we should return here.”
Edel nodded but didn’t say anything. He looked between each of us, and we each met his gaze in turn, the silence was tense but none of us so much as even shifted.
My eyes narrowed slightly as I realized what was happening, he was searching for tells in our behavior, a skill that possibly allowed him to extrapolate information perhaps? Interesting, I could see why he was the one we had reported to.
Eventually, he spoke, “I will report this up the ladder, the fact that The Sons are operating in the area and are being quiet about it is concerning. According to reports they’ve been in that area for… several years now. And quiet is not usually their modus operandi. They will need to be dealt with.”
Lea didn’t say anything, but I could see a look of relief on her face.
I could feel the “But…” coming.
“More than likely, a response will be mounted and sent towards them. You three will be joining to help guide them.”
Lea nodded.
Well, she had certainly predicted this outcome. I wasn’t too beat up over it, from the sounds of it we wouldn’t be the ones expected to deal with fighting them this time. Just making sure they could find where they were supposed to go and helping them with the general layout of the base.
Simple enough.
