Pareth and the vampires made steady progress in the corridor until a certain point where they got overwhelmed. Two of the vampires got killed and that made everything harder. Pareth’s mana was also starting to run low, so they retreated and came back to the pond.
Sofia was too busy carving the runes on her body to be thinking about the next steps at the moment. Only when she got done carving the first one did she pause to look at the system notifications.
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 172]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 180]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 201]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 199]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 236]’
‘You gained a level!’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 236]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 212]’
All I get from this is general experience and even that will become worthless soon. That’s not ideal. I need to get in there and fight with my own skills. But that’s dangerous… I need my three runes ready.
She focused on carving her second immortality rune on her other shoulder. Then the third one appeared on her waist.
I’m starting to look like a piece of spare paper used to try out a new stamp. And with this, I have an absolute 9 seconds of invincibility. That or three random death cancels. That does make me feel a lot safer. Though if something manages to break all three runes it can likely kill me a fourth time.
Sofia left her makeshift bark and joined Pareth and the two Vampires. One of them was badly damaged. Sofia healed him, frowning at the mana consumption.
‘[Heal Undead] reached level 59’
[Heal Undead] : Invokes a pillar of Holy healing light. Only heals the undead.
Max range and radius of 59 meter (1*Skill Level).
Heal the undead for 69 (10 + Skill level) Health + (5% of the healed undead’s maximum health) per second while the light is channeled.
The light pillar’s upkeep is 100 mana per second plus 1 mana per 2 Health points restored.
Does not work in restricted spaces.
This is not so good anymore. Every skeleton starts to have so much health I can barely heal them without drying out my mana. And the levels don’t actually do anything to help the issue.
There’s really only one way to fix that. I need more mana.
Or to get a better healing skill. I also have the high-priest skeleton for healing now but he takes so much mist from the book...
Skill issues aside, it was time to explore the dungeon. The new team formation was Pareth ahead, and Sofia with the Vampires a good thirty meters behind. If anything happened, Pareth could always teleport back.
Sofia still couldn’t see anything in the dark, but she picked up on something new around where she got attacked before thanks to her mana sense. There were a few piles of something near the walls, they emanated some remnants of mana.
Is that what’s left of the killed Shades?
She crouched to check on the nearest pile of grainy stuff, she picked some between her thumb and index, trying to understand what this was. Some kind of dust, powder? It’s very fine and volatile. Does [Identify] work?
The skill didn’t work, that she had to be able to see the object was still a requirement, and mana senses didn’t count.
Wait, actually.
She could see objects in her storage ring, so it stood to reason that if she collected the dust…
She had a lot of empty jars left over from all the food she ate during her training of the passive skill's first step. She scooped some of the powder with the jar and stored that. Inside the storage space, she could perfectly see the glass jar containing a handful of fine black powder. Looks like charcoal dust. I bet that would make a nice black ink.
[True Shade Dust]: The remains of a purified True Shade killed by holy light. Can be used to fuel rituals, brew potions, or dye clothing and armor. Does not reflect any light. Highly flammable while in powder form, store with caution!
That’s right, no mere darkness can stop my scribe; that dust will be useful. Sofia decided to collect all of it. If the description was correct, this was a rare commodity. In fact, the way to get this was so specific it could very well be worth enormous money if there were any buyers.
With that out of the way, they kept advancing, reaching the spot where two of the Vampires had succumbed. Pareth was ready and his [Sanctified grounds] flared up. Sofia didn’t take part in the fight and neither did the vampires. She let Pareth handle it since he was taking no damage anyway, instead, she focused on trying to find a way to see the shades. Even for Pareth, it would make it easier if he could rely on sight instead of only sound and birdlocation.
Since there was no way to produce any light in the dungeon, she also had to listen for the Shades and tried showering them with [Summon Blood]. Blood always contained mana, even the blood she summoned. So if that could hit the Shades, she would be able to see them.
For some reason that did not work. The blood splattered against the walls and ground, hitting nothing. Either they dodged it all or the blood didn’t stick. Is that because they’re essentially ghosts and the blood is counted as a physical attack? Sofia was earnestly trying and she felt indignant that all her ideas except sending Pareth failed so miserably at dealing with the Shades.
She tried other things like throwing the dust from their fallen comrades at them since that was also mana charged but it didn’t work either.
Wait a minute. They don’t go near the pond.
Silverwater dissolves souls.
It’s water that affects the spirit realm, right?
She had collected a whole barrel’s worth of the thing and the pond was still nearby. It’s a bit wasteful but… Sofia summoned the whole barrel out of her storage. Of course, the light of the water was still suppressed by the darkness. She plunged her hand into the thick liquid. That has to work. Like the powder before, she put some of the liquid in a glass jar, closed it, and threw it at the screaming monsters further ahead.
She missed by a long shot, she could tell without even checking with her mana sense. What am I doing? Next, she filled another jar and gave it to the Vampire skeleton on her left.
The jar flew toward the next screaming Shade. It exploded and the monster was covered in liquid. Its screaming only got worse, and Sofia could finally see her enemies with her mana senses.
The liquid showed the Shade moving along the wall as it screamed, it was truly like a shadow stuck to the whole and filling every crevice, following the grain of the stone. It was vaguely humanoid with uneven features, and where a normal human’s shadow would have had arms, it had two blade-like spikes as long as the rest of its body. It flailed around, howling in pain, and Sofia understood how these things attacked, they could detach their sword-like arms from the wall, turning them corporeal and using them like actual weapons. At the moment, these were scratching the floor, leaving deep grooves as the monster struggled because of the Silverwater.
Leave this one to me.
Pareth did so. He was fighting at least three more of the monsters that were already taking up all his attention. Three seconds later Sofia’s [Spine of the Black Sun] was fully materialized in her hand, and she lashed out at the Shade that was shaking off more and more of the Silverwater with each passing instant.
The monster shook so badly as the solar flare from the spine’s whip attack engulfed it that Sofia almost felt bad for it. She struck a second time. Between the Silverwater and the repeated debilitating explosions the Shade was very sensitive to, it couldn’t move anymore.
Sofia struck and struck again. The shade caught fire, it burned up in a flash of mana, completely obstructing Sofia’s mana senses. She could clearly hear the roar of a raging fire coming from his direction. It calmed down as abruptly as it had started and all that was left was another pile of dust. It looks brighter than Pareth’s piles.
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 206]’
‘[Way of the Fool] grants bonus experience'
‘You gained a level!’
Sofia raised her whip, cheering at her victory, but she had to double-check [Way of the Fool]’s description.
[Way of the Fool] : Analytical thinking is 69% (1*Skill level + 50) more efficient when used for personal gains. The Fool always stumbles but never falls. Gain extra experience from performing kills with trickery and deceit.
That was trickery or deceit? Why, because it felt safe from me throwing useless shit at it before finding something that worked? Was that the trickery? Hey, I’ll take it. But I’d rather for the skill to level up and not my class.
Pareth and the vampires made steady progress in the corridor until a certain point where they got overwhelmed. Two of the vampires got killed and that made everything harder. Pareth’s mana was also starting to run low, so they retreated and came back to the pond.
Sofia was too busy carving the runes on her body to be thinking about the next steps at the moment. Only when she got done carving the first one did she pause to look at the system notifications.
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 172]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 180]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 201]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 199]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 236]’
‘You gained a level!’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 236]’
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 212]’
All I get from this is general experience and even that will become worthless soon. That’s not ideal. I need to get in there and fight with my own skills. But that’s dangerous… I need my three runes ready.
She focused on carving her second immortality rune on her other shoulder. Then the third one appeared on her waist.
I’m starting to look like a piece of spare paper used to try out a new stamp. And with this, I have an absolute 9 seconds of invincibility. That or three random death cancels. That does make me feel a lot safer. Though if something manages to break all three runes it can likely kill me a fourth time.
Sofia left her makeshift bark and joined Pareth and the two Vampires. One of them was badly damaged. Sofia healed him, frowning at the mana consumption.
‘[Heal Undead] reached level 59’
[Heal Undead] : Invokes a pillar of Holy healing light. Only heals the undead.
Max range and radius of 59 meter (1*Skill Level).
Heal the undead for 69 (10 + Skill level) Health + (5% of the healed undead’s maximum health) per second while the light is channeled.
The light pillar’s upkeep is 100 mana per second plus 1 mana per 2 Health points restored.
Does not work in restricted spaces.
This is not so good anymore. Every skeleton starts to have so much health I can barely heal them without drying out my mana. And the levels don’t actually do anything to help the issue.
There’s really only one way to fix that. I need more mana.
Or to get a better healing skill. I also have the high-priest skeleton for healing now but he takes so much mist from the book...
Skill issues aside, it was time to explore the dungeon. The new team formation was Pareth ahead, and Sofia with the Vampires a good thirty meters behind. If anything happened, Pareth could always teleport back.
Sofia still couldn’t see anything in the dark, but she picked up on something new around where she got attacked before thanks to her mana sense. There were a few piles of something near the walls, they emanated some remnants of mana.
Is that what’s left of the killed Shades?
She crouched to check on the nearest pile of grainy stuff, she picked some between her thumb and index, trying to understand what this was. Some kind of dust, powder? It’s very fine and volatile. Does [Identify] work?
The skill didn’t work, that she had to be able to see the object was still a requirement, and mana senses didn’t count.
Wait, actually.
She could see objects in her storage ring, so it stood to reason that if she collected the dust…
She had a lot of empty jars left over from all the food she ate during her training of the passive skill's first step. She scooped some of the powder with the jar and stored that. Inside the storage space, she could perfectly see the glass jar containing a handful of fine black powder. Looks like charcoal dust. I bet that would make a nice black ink.
[True Shade Dust]: The remains of a purified True Shade killed by holy light. Can be used to fuel rituals, brew potions, or dye clothing and armor. Does not reflect any light. Highly flammable while in powder form, store with caution!
That’s right, no mere darkness can stop my scribe; that dust will be useful. Sofia decided to collect all of it. If the description was correct, this was a rare commodity. In fact, the way to get this was so specific it could very well be worth enormous money if there were any buyers.
With that out of the way, they kept advancing, reaching the spot where two of the Vampires had succumbed. Pareth was ready and his [Sanctified grounds] flared up. Sofia didn’t take part in the fight and neither did the vampires. She let Pareth handle it since he was taking no damage anyway, instead, she focused on trying to find a way to see the shades. Even for Pareth, it would make it easier if he could rely on sight instead of only sound and birdlocation.
Since there was no way to produce any light in the dungeon, she also had to listen for the Shades and tried showering them with [Summon Blood]. Blood always contained mana, even the blood she summoned. So if that could hit the Shades, she would be able to see them.
For some reason that did not work. The blood splattered against the walls and ground, hitting nothing. Either they dodged it all or the blood didn’t stick. Is that because they’re essentially ghosts and the blood is counted as a physical attack? Sofia was earnestly trying and she felt indignant that all her ideas except sending Pareth failed so miserably at dealing with the Shades.
She tried other things like throwing the dust from their fallen comrades at them since that was also mana charged but it didn’t work either.
Wait a minute. They don’t go near the pond.
Silverwater dissolves souls.
It’s water that affects the spirit realm, right?
She had collected a whole barrel’s worth of the thing and the pond was still nearby. It’s a bit wasteful but… Sofia summoned the whole barrel out of her storage. Of course, the light of the water was still suppressed by the darkness. She plunged her hand into the thick liquid. That has to work. Like the powder before, she put some of the liquid in a glass jar, closed it, and threw it at the screaming monsters further ahead.
She missed by a long shot, she could tell without even checking with her mana sense. What am I doing? Next, she filled another jar and gave it to the Vampire skeleton on her left.
The jar flew toward the next screaming Shade. It exploded and the monster was covered in liquid. Its screaming only got worse, and Sofia could finally see her enemies with her mana senses.
The liquid showed the Shade moving along the wall as it screamed, it was truly like a shadow stuck to the whole and filling every crevice, following the grain of the stone. It was vaguely humanoid with uneven features, and where a normal human’s shadow would have had arms, it had two blade-like spikes as long as the rest of its body. It flailed around, howling in pain, and Sofia understood how these things attacked, they could detach their sword-like arms from the wall, turning them corporeal and using them like actual weapons. At the moment, these were scratching the floor, leaving deep grooves as the monster struggled because of the Silverwater.
Leave this one to me.
Pareth did so. He was fighting at least three more of the monsters that were already taking up all his attention. Three seconds later Sofia’s [Spine of the Black Sun] was fully materialized in her hand, and she lashed out at the Shade that was shaking off more and more of the Silverwater with each passing instant.
The monster shook so badly as the solar flare from the spine’s whip attack engulfed it that Sofia almost felt bad for it. She struck a second time. Between the Silverwater and the repeated debilitating explosions the Shade was very sensitive to, it couldn’t move anymore.
Sofia struck and struck again. The shade caught fire, it burned up in a flash of mana, completely obstructing Sofia’s mana senses. She could clearly hear the roar of a raging fire coming from his direction. It calmed down as abruptly as it had started and all that was left was another pile of dust. It looks brighter than Pareth’s piles.
‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 206]’
‘[Way of the Fool] grants bonus experience'
‘You gained a level!’
Sofia raised her whip, cheering at her victory, but she had to double-check [Way of the Fool]’s description.
[Way of the Fool] : Analytical thinking is 69% (1*Skill level + 50) more efficient when used for personal gains. The Fool always stumbles but never falls. Gain extra experience from performing kills with trickery and deceit.
That was trickery or deceit? Why, because it felt safe from me throwing useless shit at it before finding something that worked? Was that the trickery? Hey, I’ll take it. But I’d rather for the skill to level up and not my class.
