I opened my character interface and, one by one, went through each spell description, focusing on its new abilities.
Drilling Arrow
Expert rank: Base barrier-penetration value increased from 10% to 25% (current skill total: 77%).
Mana Shield
Expert rank: Reflect some of the damage from melee attack back to the attacker.
Mana Drain
Expert rank: Confer a high chance for disrupting a spell being cast.
Mana Infusion
Expert rank: Concentrate the full power in specific body parts.
I grinned with delight. As usual, the game’s brief description hid a plethora of untapped potential.
Though the Drilling Arrow upgrade sounded underwhelming, the entire purpose that drove me to invent that spell was to overcome magical barriers. In terms of damage potential, they weren’t any better than the standard ‘magic missile’ spell, so enhancing their penetrating power was great.
Mana Shield’s usefulness was self-explanatory, as I would now be able to just sit behind my barrier and watch as low-level enemies killed themselves by trying to get to me. I seldom used Mana Drain, as it was often more effective to simply kill my opponent, and I had no shortage of mana, but the ability to disrupt spells made it much more useful.
Mana Infusion received the most dramatic upgrade. It now seemed to hold the potential to execute near-superhero feats of strength.
To test my theory, I activated the spell, concentrating the full effect in my hand. Mana surged through my veins as it flowed to my palm and fingers. I grabbed my chair’s armrest and pressed down on it. Wood splintered as my fingers easily sank into the hard surface, leaving a visible palm print behind it.
Oh yeah. I imagined empowering the spell by channeling even more mana into it. Crushing rocks with my bare hands – check.
Direball was not listed along with the other upgraded spells as it was an Expert-ranked spell to begin with. It had been nerfed when Shiva consolidated everyone’s spells, but now it was back to full power.
With a satisfied grin, I picked up the Runecraft book and resumed my studies.
I made some progress, but before I knew it, the workday had ended. I yawned, stashed the book in my inventory, and teleported to my house.
“Father.” Lirian greeted me with a smile while Tika approached and kissed me tenderly.
My heart warmed at their presence. “How was your day, girls?”
“Tenragan taught me new sword moves,” my daughter said proudly.
I sat down in a nearby chair. “That’s good!”
Lirian’s blackened Outrider sword, Fate Stealer, had already made her an incredibly lethal warrior. At a mere level 22, she was easily the equal to fighters twice her level, and she could cast almost every one of my spells.
“And I hunted,” Tika said simply as she moved into my lap, draping her hands around my neck. “What did you do today, Oren?”
“Oh, you know me,” I said dismissively. “Promoted a new general, increased the size of our army, and unraveled some arcane secrets, nothing special.”
She smiled knowingly. “You sat down and read all day?”
I winced. “Maybe.”
“Father is a powerful Totem,” Lirian said, somewhat heatedly. “He needs to study to become stronger. Tenragan taught me that.”
“Ah, it’s nice to have a devoted daughter.” I grinned at her. “Well, I have to keep up with the way you’re progressing. Can’t let you win at ‘steal the sash’ against your old man, can I?”
“I’ll get you eventually,” she said with a smirk then turned away and walked upstairs.
“I’m looking forward to that day,” I called after her and chuckled softly.
“It’s getting late.” Tika gave me a look that made my pulse quicken. “Let’s go upstairs. We can sleep in again. I’ll tell the server to bring us something to eat in bed.”
I tried not to appear too eager. “Yes, dear.”
Yep, it was great being the chief.
***
True to her word, and with nothing pressing to do, Tika and I remained together in our room much longer than usual. A goblin maid had entered while we slept, leaving a tray of light snacks and a pitcher of juice, so we had plenty of fuel to keep at it when we finally woke up.
A few hours later, I went back to the library to resume my studies. It was a relief not to have the full weight of my army and clan management affairs on my shoulders, and I was able to make considerable progress in deciphering the blueprint I was studying. The game seemed to agree with me, increasing my Runecraft skill to 71.
The rest of the day passed quickly, and I spent the remainder of it with my two favorite girls, laughing and talking.
***
The next morning I woke up with a new purpose.
I’d gotten a little fed up with staring at rune doodles all day. I also ran into a bit of a dead end and needed something to take my mind off the problem that was stymying my progress. And I knew just the thing.
Sullivan wanted me to come up with a way to counter extremely high-level enemies. The solution was simple to conceive but difficult to implement. I needed to build more golems. Viridium Bead Golems’ strength was based on the number of beads they contained, which was limited by the level of the void crystal powering them up. I had several high-level crystals, the highest of which was a staggering 20,000, but what I was missing was Viridium.
In the first days of my reinstatement into NEO, I’d purchased 200 Viridium spheres from Akzar via the Export Office to make Aidanriel’s golem body. Most of the spheres were destroyed when we battled Novenguard’s defenders, leaving the golem at the measly level of 62.
The solution was easy. I glanced at the Settlement Interface. Obsidian was the best return value currency to exchange for Viridium. We currently had 4,680 of the dark stone which, at a rate of five to one, could be used to purchase 936 Viridium spheres. That much would suffice for an ultra-powerful behemoth of war.
I brought up the Export Office Interface and scanned through it, looking for the exotic metal.
I didn’t find any.
I frowned. That wasn’t right. I looked again, filtering the offered resources by type then sorted it by price. There were plenty of items offered, but Viridium wasn’t one of them.
“What the crap?” I muttered. Part of my deal with Akzar’s trader’s guildmaster was that he’d keep open trade relations with my clan, regardless of his city’s reputation toward us, which was now hostile.
What is it?
“Shadow-crap.” This came at the worst possible time. I berated myself for taking so long to start making new golems; I could’ve tackled the issue of missing Viridium much sooner.
I redirected my thoughts and teleported away, appearing next to the small shrine in Claypits.
“Big Chief is here!” the familiar voice of Savol said. The goblin approached, looking much more distinguished than before. He was now wearing a familiar-looking chitin armor along with his customary purple cape. I noticed he had worked on his skills as well, as they were all already at level 10.
“I got a message to come.”
The goblin nodded. “Yes, yes. Savol gets a message too from traveler Sullivan Tucker. There.”He pointed at Sullivan, who was approaching us, his face grim.
“What’s up?” I asked. “What’s the emergency?”
“The NPCs sent an army against us,” Sullivan said shortly.
“And? We were expecting them to, right?”
He shook his head. “It looks like they took the threat seriously. Whitebanner and Storg have rallied their forces against us, also enlisting militia from the smaller settlements nearby.”
My face darkened. “How many are we talking about?”
“Rou
ghly 5,000 soldiers with average estimated levels between 10 to 20.”
“Damn.” Though the level range of most of my army was similar, the number of enemies was still three times greater than our own.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “And this time, since they’re the ones attacking, we won’t be able to use resurrections as a strategic tool to flank them.”
I winced. “It’s worse than that. While under attack, resurrection is impossible.”
“What?” His eyes widened. “That would be catastrophic. Are you sure?”
“Yes. It didn’t work back when my old guild attacked the valley.”
“But if they’re attacking only the hamlets, you might be able to resurrect the soldiers in Novenguard and bring them in through the portal,” the player suggested.
“That might work,” I said. “Vic?”
My cloak formed a mouth to speak. “Sorry, Boss. That would be cheating. You won’t be able to exploit that specific loophole.”
“This is serious, Oren.” Sullivan looked between Savol and me. “The general has some impressive defensive skills that can help us hold out, but they have their limits. We need more bodies than what we currently have.”
“It gets worse,” Hoshisu said, joining our discussion. “I just returned with my squad. We were scouting the far side of the enemy. I spotted some knights with Everance insignias. Those guys are all elites, level 100 and above.”
“Why not retreat to Novenguard?” I suggested. “With their high walls, we can probably hold the town.”
“Not a good idea,” Sullivan said. “Wars are rarely won from a besieged position. It will limit our maneuverability and ability to flank the enemy. We’ll do that if we have no other choice, but our best hope right now is to increase our numbers and figure out a way to handle those high-level knights.”
“We can mobilize the militias of our vassal settlements. That’ll add about 200 more soldiers to the army.”
“I’m pretty sure those soldiers would all be lower than level 10. It’s a good start, but we need a lot more than that.”
“Well, what about the foblins?” I suggested. “Last I checked, we have over 10,000 of them and nearly 3,000 kobolds of equivalent strength.”
Sullivan shook his head. “I thought of that, and I have an idea on how to use them, but that will be for the later stages. At the moment, since we’re going to be fighting from a fortified position, we don’t have a lot of room. We need soldiers, not fodder, to hold the line.” He offered me an apologetic smile. “I told you you’re best used at handling the army logistics, remember? Well, it looks like our chances are on your shoulders again. You have to find a way to provide the forces we need to hold out, or we’ll be forced to retreat, maybe back into the valley.”
“We’ll lose Novenguard!” I said in outrage.
“It might be either that or the clan.”
“Savol fights, will make soldiers bleed ugly enemies, make them pay for every centimeter,” Savol said, puffing out his chest.
“It won’t come to that, General. I’ll get you your soldiers and more golems to fight those knights.” I looked at Hoshisu. “How long do I have?”
She hesitated. “Three days before the army gets here.”
I clenched my jaw. Three days weren’t all that much. Even worse, my next scheduled logout was in five days. Which meant I had just two days to win the coming battle. But even if I wasn’t there at the end, as long as I reinforced my army, the other players stood a decent chance of handling the battle on their own.
“Where are you going to get all those troops from?” Sullivan asked.
“I know a place,” I said grimly. “They’ve attacked the clan before – even tried unleashing a demon-based plague on us. And now they’ve cut off our supply of Viridium. They have plenty of soldiers, so once I take over, you’ll get your reinforcements.”
Sullivan and Hoshisu glanced at each other. “You don’t mean …”
“Oh yeah,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “It’s time to pay Akzar a visit.”
Interlude: Travelers
“I should have guessed you meant an actual graveyard,” Fox grunted, glancing at the nimble cat girl while he held off two undead ghouls.
“Deryl said he knows the liaison to the assistant of the Church and Gardening department and that he heard that the manager of–”
“Duck!” Misa shouted.
Raystia tumbled away just in time for a spinning chain to pass over her head and wrap around a skeleton with burning eyes that was about to skewer her from behind. “Thanks!” The catgirl rolled into a ball, passing between two zombies and slicing both their Achilles tendons with her new enchanted daggers.
The zombies fell to the ground. They still moved and wriggled, trying to reach her, but their mobility was hampered, and they posed no immediate risk.
Meanwhile, Riley had finished chanting. The dark priest raised his staff, and bolts of dark energy impacted the undead around them, ravenously eating away flesh and bone, reducing them to puddles of black ooze.
“What took you so long?” Fox huffed as the ghouls he was fighting liquified.
“Sorry.” Riley chuckled nervously. “That chant was longer than expected, and I got a notification from Nihilator in the middle saying that he’s very pleased with having a new temple and that I should–”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’m just glad it worked,” Fox said. “I’d be damn pissed if I took all those hits for you just to end up with a lame spell effect.”
A moment later, all four party members received a notification that their graveyard shift quest had been completed successfully.
“Come on, chums,” Misa said merrily, stuffing her chains back into her magical ring. “Let’s collect the bounty.”
“Uhm, I’m pretty sure city hall is closed this time of night,” Raystia pointed out.
“Nonsense,” the long-eared woman said. “They got us running around in sewers and graveyards doing their dirty work for them. The least they can do is talk to us once we’re done.”
“She’s right,” Fox said. “If we’re going to get another goddamn crap quest – and I mean that literally – I’d rather get it now, at night, when there’s the least amount of witnesses around.”
“Maybe you should head back to the house and rest up, buddy,” Riley suggested. “I hate these quests too, but if we turn the city authorities against us then we’ll really be in trouble.”
They were spared that particular unpleasantry as Raystia’s contact met them at the exit of the graveyard.
“Deryl,” the catgirl said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
He grinned at her. “Hey, Raystia. I had a hunch you’d be heading out to claim the quest right about now, and I thought I’d save you the trouble.”
Fox scowled at him. “Because you guys have been so cordial before?” The bugbear drew his axe and shield and looked around with narrow eyes. “This smells like a trap.”
The other three party members tensed up.
Deryl’s eyes widened. “No, no, nothing like that.” He hesitated as he took in the alert faces then he sighed. “Alright, if you must know, I was told that if you approach city hall again they’ll throw you all into prison. I like you Raystia, despite your … ahem … heritage, so I came to meet you here instead.”
Riley frowned. “Why would they do that? The guards were never friendly, but they left us alone. We’ve proven that we’re not causing any trouble.”
The man grimaced. “It’s nothing personal. There’s some tension against monster races right now.”
Fox snorted. “Isn’t there always?”
“It’s a little more than that,” Deryl explained. “A large force of monsters took out one of our border towns, and they’ve moved deeper into the mainland. It’s probably nothing serious; the outlying towns are already marshaling their forces to get rid of the threat. I’m sure you four have nothing to do with that, but until this blows over, it might be better for you to lay low f
or a while.”
The four friends exchanged knowing looks.
“What about our reward then?” Misa asked. “The undead are now re-dead.”
The man nodded. “As I expected. I’ve taken the liberty to forward your request, even collected a favor from a friend at the Department of–”
“Get on with it,” Fox growled.
Deryl looked offended. “In short …” He retrieved a letter from his coat pocket. “Here’s the deed for a 20 square-meter plot at the far end of the dock district.”
Misa snatched the document and scanned through it quickly. “Hey, what gives? It says we need to pay 10,000 gold for the plot.”
“Say what?” Riley nearly choked. “That’s enough to buy a family house in one of the nicer districts.”
“Nothing I can do about it.” Deryl sounded apologetic. “You know how the city officials are, and Cornelius, the head of the Church and Gardening department, is as official as they get. As I’ve said, now’s an especially bad time to be a mixed-monster individual in Everance. But once you pay the repara–I mean … the fee, the plot is all yours. There’s even a clause there that permits you to use it to build a church, though you’ll have to register it with the office once it’s done. The details are all there.”
“That’s just dandy,” Misa said dryly. “I’m sure they won’t make us scrub their toilets for something like that.”
Deryl winced, his expression saying it all.
Raystia reached into her inventory and took out a heavy leather purse. “Here’s the gold.”
“Raystia …” Riley said. “You sure about that? That’s most of the gold we got from the cache. They’re ripping us off.”
The catgirl shook her head. “We only have the money thanks to him , and you know what he asked us to do.”
Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5) Page 11
