Aeon Chronicles Online_Book 1_Devil's Deal

by Dante Sakurai

  Oh, his minion cap had multiplied by ten—to two and a half thousand. Insane.

  He flicked open his character sheet, a bubble of expectation building in his stomach. He’d ignored all level-up alerts throughout the battle. There had been at least ten character level-up alerts.

  Name: Rowan Black

  Title: Powerful One, Bastard Noble Kid

  Race: Draconian-Human (focus to expand)

  Gender: Male

  Level: 146

  Class: Necromancer

  Boss Status: World, Tier 6 (Focus to confirm advancements)

  Fame: 31,100 (Top 25)

  Faction: None

  Health: 200 (20 regen/minute)

  Mana: 28,500 (285 regen/minute, 920 reserved)

  Mana Type: Ice-Dark

  Stamina: 1450 (145 regen/minute)

  Strength: 21 (2X)

  Dexterity: 29 (2X)

  Vitality: 10 (2X)

  Magical Power: 195 (5X)

  Magical Capacity: 285 (10X)

  Control: 492 (10X)

  Points Available: 26

  Skill Tier Points Available: 1

  Lukewarm disappointment crept through his nerves. Fifteen levels only—from an entire siege and battle involving a thousand high-level players. Plus a killing blow on an S rank World Boss. That exponential scaling was really kicking in.

  His eyes hopped to his boss status.

  Hmmm, strange. He’d gotten the stat boosts without confirming the advancements. Peculiar. He flicked a message.

  Rowan Black: Did you also get your stat bonus without confirming your advancement?

  Gabby LeMort: Yup. I think it’s because it’s a passive bonus.

  Somewhat logical. Rowan nodded and focused on his Boss status as another message slide into the bottom of the chat.

  Ambiguous Pain: I forgive you for not telling me about your boss status on condition that you build me a mansion here with those dolls of yours :)

  Oh, right. Gabrielle had explained her new construction skills as part of her new class, not World Boss bonuses. Such a secretive, sly girl she was.

  Gabby LeMort: Heeeey… I was testing ya… to see if you could somehow figure it out yourself ^_^ You were always a smart one!

  Ambiguous Pain: Hmph. I still want a mansion here. There’s more than enough space.

  Gabby LeMort: Nope.

  Ambiguous Pain: There’s over thirty square miles stretching out to the outer collection crystals.

  Gabby LeMort: All needed.

  Ambiguous Pain: For what???

  Gabby LeMort: For my beautiful Dark Humans of course. This will be my future capital city.

  Ambiguous Pain: And you’re siding with them over me?

  Gabby LeMort: Yup. You’re being greedy ^_^ Be quiet and focus on corrupting!

  The bickering started once more and Rowan looked away from the chatbox. That was not an argument he wanted to get involved with.

  Instead, he concentrated on his World Boss status, willing it to open and accept, an incline for what the next bonus should be in his head.

  You have met the requirements to ascend to a tier 4 boss! (T6 advancement requirement met)

  You will gain the following bonuses:

  40 additional unallocated stat points

  Tier 4 world boss bonus: Necromancer Active Skill: Construct Minion

  As he thought. He’d debated on crafting his own minions via Create Bone and Create Minion Design while dueling Gabrielle in Zaine’s lair. Unfortunately, neither Create Minion Design or Undead Minion Library had functionality to make use a design. Neither could Riase.

  The tier two-to-four bonuses were a three-piece-set, each useless without the other two. Understandable—Gabrielle had quipped in passing that bosses below tier 6 were considered as lesser bosses. Her own builder-themed bonuses had been similar.

  Construct Minion worked by chanting a shot incantation and the minion will assemble itself while a small percentage of his mana was reserved. Better and more flexible than Rowan had guessed. He’d hate to stand over a pile of decaying flesh and bones and drawl a ridiculously long chant.

  Satisfied, he moved onto the next advancement.

  You have met the requirements to ascend to a tier 5 boss! (T6 advancement requirement met)

  You will gain the following bonuses:

  50 additional unallocated stat points

  Tier 5 world boss bonus: Necromancer Elite Minion Design: Lich

  This specific minion design was unique and unchangeable. Rowan didn’t bear a skill to create minions with sentience and a capacity to learn and grow. The basic minions he could design lacked souls and were empty shells.

  These Liches appeared like any other Lich in fantasy games, bones, chains, and misty mana. They couldn’t equip gear and came with a bone staff. They started at level 100 and could learn and grow into three variation: Necromancer, Dark Priest, or Black Mage. They unlocked skills based on character level, starting with 3 skills and unlocking a new skill every 15 levels—decent commanders with sentience and human-like intelligence, bound to Rowan’s absolute will. Not bad indeed.

  And apparently, he’d been given a separate elite minion slot cap, his control stat divided by one thousand, always rounded up. Every elite minion without free will used one slot regardless of their power level. Those with free will—named minions—ate up ten slots. At Rowan’s current control stat, he could summon either ten Liches or one free will minion. He leaned to the Liches.

  Rowan opened and accepted the next with a whip of his thoughts.

  You have met the requirements to ascend to a tier 6 boss! (You have dealt a killing blow to a World Boss of tier 8 or greater)

  Congratulations! You have ascended through the lesser boss tiers and have become a true World Boss! Starting from this tier, your power will grow exponentially and so will the difficulty of the ascension requirements, which are now highly specific and tailored to your character.

  You will gain the following bonuses:

  Character Passive: Tier 6 Caster-Summoner World Boss Stat Multiplier (already active)

  60 additional unallocated stat points

  Tier 6 world boss bonus: Necromancer Crafting Recipe: Aetherial Graveyard Core

  Now, this was interesting. The bonus didn’t directly boost his power but it would be invaluable in the coming war efforts.

  Though the recipe dropped into his skill list, he had not received any knowledge on how to actually craft the core—only knowledge on how to turn the recipe into one of those small marbles, requiring high-quality glass and a minute-long chant. Rowan reasoned: the AI controller must’ve done this to promote the so-called dark couple’s rise. Not a bad title though a bit tripe.

  The recipe itself was fairly useful. The core could enchant any graveyard—or location, really—to produce free level 1 human corpses over time. You’d just have to dig them up and keep the ground level.

  Definitely invaluable if he was to go down the crafted army route, which he probably would at some point. He still owed Gabrielle an Undead dragon body. That’d take tens of hours to design if he couldn’t find a dragon corpse to use as a base.

  But the problem was he had to do all the work—that his craft-a-minion skill was a World Boss bonus, not a scroll-skill. He couldn’t just order a crafter minion like she could. Rowan wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he could do everything in his empire. Delegation was required for a well-function empire.

  Rowan sucked on his cheek in contemplation, unable to find a solution here… apart from looking up the tutor profession and testing if could teach Construct Minion to a Necromancer Lich. It was a long-shot, though.

  All-in-all, a satisfactory powerup worthy for the game’s final World Boss upon launch.

  Checking the time, Rowan twisted on his heels and eyed the central three-tower spire and enormous sapphire. Ten minutes had passed since he’d left them to bicker and the spire hadn’t been corrupted yet. The shield still wasn’t up. He snapped the girls a message through t
he now-quiet chat-box.

  Rowan Black: How’s the corruption and shield coming along?

  A reply in four seconds.

  Gabby LeMort: Getting there. Come see!

  Rowan Black: Coming.

  While he was about to send off his newly raised Undead off to patrol and blink toward the spire, Rowan’s attention hitched on the beast corpses. Three dinosaurs and one eagle at the distant end of the square, attempting to retreat from Zaine’s death. The other eagle had been shredded in his ice blast. Rowan threw them an Examine.

  [Corpse] Flame Dino: Level 192

  Decay: 3%

  [Corpse] Lightning Eagle: Level 203

  Decay: 3%

  All within raising range. Rowan waves his wand four times, saying Raise in the dark language each swish and willing his intent. Dark mana spiraled into each corpse and consumed sufficient minion slots, the Flame Dinos needing about half as many as a Colossus Enforcer, 21, while the Lightning Eagle—

  Was an elite minion!

  The dinosaurs stood lazily while the eagle squawked once and burst into the air in a gust of Lightning-Dark mana. Rowan brushed against the mental link and found it was indeed sentient, intelligent, and could learn and grow. Another lucky break. Thank you, Beastmaster girl. He owed her one for this—not really.

  And could he ride the thing as a mount? It was large enough.

  Rowan tugged on the link and ordered it to land near him. It cawed, dark and layered, responding with an affirmative through the link without resistance. It could think but its will was ultimately bound to his. An unquestioning slave that’d follow whatever last order it was given and then idle.

  The eagle landed on the roof in a gale of mana-laced wind and folded its brown-white wings. Some of its body had disintegrated, bones and muscles showing, coagulated blood stemming flow. If it could feel pain, it did a hell of a job hiding it. Rowan Examined and added it to the party list, its health bar at 60%, mana at full.

  Undead Lightning Eagle: Level 203

  Health: 103,500

  Mana: 603,100

  Stamina: 320,750

  Buffs: Mana Shield

  He pulled up his minion interface again and zeroed-in on his own elite minion list.

  [1 elite slot] Undead Lightning Eagle: Level 203

  Health: 103,500

  Mana: 603,100

  Stamina: 320,750

  Active Skill: Mana Shield (T8)

  Active Skill: Lightning Blast (T7)

  Active Skill: Lightning Tornado (T6)

  Active Skill: Lightning Wing (T4)

  Active Skill: Sonic Screech (T5)

  Active Skill: Thunderstorm (Ultimate) (T3)

  Active Skill: Winged Flight (T7)

  Active Skill: Lightning Blink (T8)

  Passive Skill: Sharp Eyes (T7)

  The fuck? None of those skills had been used during the battle apart from Lightning Blast. Either Rowan hadn’t paid attention or that Beastmaster was the shittiest player. The former was possible—there’d been hundreds of projectiles and skills going off every second.

  He queried the eagle and it hooted before replying with a mental image and feeling. It had indeed unleashed a thunderstorm—from its own judgment—over the mid-lines during the end of the battle. Rowan had been too focused on Zaine. The eagle was as smart as a human. “Good,” he said.

  Now, could he ride the thing?

  It hooted twice more and squatted lower, dipping its head, then wordlessly asked Rowan to place his palm on its head.

  Rowan shrugged and did as asked.

  Lightning-Dark mana flared and jolted up Rowan’s arm before zapping his brain in a bout of new knowledge. A dialog appeared.

  New Passive Skill: Flying Minion Riding

  You should be able to ride at the slowest speeds without falling off.

  Skill Level: 0

  Skill Tier: 0

  Effect: maximum speed of 30 miles per hour

  Tier Effect: Minimal wind buffering. 50% reduced damage while riding

  Yes. Yes. Yes. A flying mount. Finally. An influx of pleasure coursed in his skull.

  Rowan jumped on the eagle’s damaged back and took flight, blasting off into the air over his idling Undead. He flicked them an order to join the patrol and sped to the spire. He didn’t need to grip the eagle with his legs to wrap his arms around its neck. The flying skill seemingly canceled out all acceleration effects on his body and magnetized him to the beast.

  The buildings grew imposing as he neared the three-tower spire. The Water Mages’ sanctum sat the bottom of the towers, a grand, dome-topped structure as the base, columns and crystalline windows undamaged from the siege. Much of the small city stretching two to miles was in perfect marble condition—and just abandoned by the inhabitants. Goddamn cowards.

  Half way to the spire, the chatbox fluttered.

  Ambiguous Pain: So why’d you add the eagle to the party?

  Rowan blinked in surprise. She could see it too?

  Rowan Black: Elite sentient minion. Like the Nihils but without free will.

  Gabby LeMort: ooooo can ya ride it?

  Rowan Black: Yeah, got a riding skill. On my way now.

  Gabby LeMort: Too late! Activating in 4 seconds.

  Damn.

  Good players could arrive any second so Rowan didn’t stop her.

  A stream of dark mana shot up into the sapphire from the spire’s base chamber. The gem flushed black and rapidly gleamed ten times, a maelstrom growing, before a translucent, blueish darkness washed through the city and beyond.

  Water-Dark mana filled Rowan’s veins, chaotic, menacing, and tainted with lingering anger and hate. It was still mostly water mana, yes, but the corruption was heavy.

  Rowan halted his approach as the spire released a titanic vertical beam. It tethered the crystal to the sky in an unreal display of pure Water-Dark mana. The sky darkened to blackish blue and streaks of glistening mana decorated the heavens exactly like in Ambiguous’ dimension. A true dark wonderland. Black tendrils wrapped around the three towers of the spire, warping the white granite of each into matte, onyx-like stone.

  Kind of tripe but he was a rising dark lord. His base couldn’t be white and pink else the good players wouldn’t take him seriously.

  The wave of corruption passed while a curtain of Water-Dark shielding descended from the sky and cut into the sea where light-blue met murk, covering the outer harvesting crystals and more. The black and blue crystal throbbed with mana like a heart of darkness. The sky-tether remained and pulsated like a main artery. What a sight this was.

  Rowan looked over his shoulder and saw the green landscape wither to tints of gray. The web of ponds, rivers, and waterfalls sparkled with dark mana even at this distance. He knew: soon those dark-aligned fauna similar to those in Ambiguous’ world would grow.

  A whoosh sounded.

  “Heya, Rowan!” Gabrielle chirped from behind. “Like the new spire?”

  He twisted around and met her happy, swirling eyes. Those two words was where it all started—and where it now continued with the creation of their little pocket of darkness in a world of nausea-inducing light. He grinned at his dark princess. “Hey. Yes, I do.”

  She laughed that sweet mirth, circling his eagle ever so playfully and healing it with twirls of her emerald wand like a good co-ruler.

  Chapter 43

  Rowan Black

  While Gabrielle and Ambiguous were temporarily offline, the Worker Dolls toiled away on the city’s defenses under Rowan’s supervision. She’d studied the Shield Battery’s design, figuring out how it worked within minutes, and ordered the dolls to build improved versions which could connect to the city’s main shield. As many as possible using the city’s resource stores. They could be salvaged for full refunds any time so why not? For now, beefing up the shield would suffice before Gabrielle finished her designs for land and sea turrets, automatic if possible.

  Ambiguous had promised to return within a couple in-game hours to ferry the Dark Hu
mans over. More than two days remained on the stasis timer, plenty, more than enough to spare while preparing the city for occupation. And Gabrielle still had to craft a spawnstone anyway.

  Rowan stood in the spire’s central chamber, a spherical room decorated with sapphires and onyxes holding a central corrupted sapphire which had granted Rowan a city-management interface. Gabrielle had granted him admin control as promised. It was a simple 2D map of the city and list of characters inside the bounds. He could zoom in on any particular building and issue orders through the crystal network. Basic magi-tech. The Gem-Enchanter profession allowed for that.

  Gabrielle’s absence was already irking him. He hadn’t asked for her contact information before she’d hurriedly left for lunch. A part of him feared she wouldn’t return. Illogical and irrational. He needed her too much.

  Their deal still stood. Lots and lots of sex and eternal loyalty in exchange for co-leadership of this continent. He’d be fucking her right now if she hadn’t logged out for a late-lunch. Ambiguous had to attend to whatever as well, Rowan uncaring. They couldn’t live in-game indefinitely and neither could he. The nanobots in his blood only provided so much nutrition. A shame. Hopefully the city wouldn’t fall while he’s gone.