World-Tree Online

by EA Hooper

  Breaker Doppelganger (Fighter-Rogue Only) – Mana Usage: Medium | Creates a doppelganger powered by Breaker energy. The doppelganger is constantly charged with a Breaker spell that includes any upgrades the user possesses. The doppelganger requires a minuscule amount of mana to move and maintain, and it disappears upon taking any damage.

  Player: Pale Alexandria

  Class: Cleric

  Subclass: Warden

  Real Age: 19

  Highest World: Eramar

  Vitality*: Lv 170

  Spirit: Lv 156

  Resolve*: Lv 178

  Perception: Lv 153

  Agility: Lv 158

  Strength: Lv 157

  -Notable Abilities-

  Light-Drain Butterfly (Cleric Only | Upgraded) – Mana Usage: Very Low | Creates a phantasmal butterfly that can drain light from players or monsters. The butterfly can sacrifice itself to provide a nearby target with either healing energy or mana gained from absorption. | Upgrades – Swarm Mind: Increases the user’s level of control and ability to give orders to multiple groups of butterflies at the same time. | Mitosis: Once a butterfly gains a very low amount of mana, it splits into two butterflies.

  Flash Heal (Cleric Only) – Mana Usage: Low+ | Instantly recover a small amount of the target’s missing body matter.

  Scar Repair (Cleric Only | Upgraded) – Mana Usage: Low | Restores a scarred area to the target’s default state. | Upgrade – Undo All: For an additional very low mana cost, the user may remove all scars from the target’s body.

  Clarity (Cleric Only | Upgrade) – Mana Usage: Low+ | Allows nearby players to see more clearly in dark or clouded environments. You must spend a minuscule amount of mana every twenty seconds to maintain the spell. | Upgrade – Mapping: This spell automatically updates the area map of nearby teammates.

  Barrier Wall (Warden Only) – Mana Usage: Medium | Magic Rating: 300 | Creates a stationary, rectangular barrier in front of you. This barrier evaporates after one minute.

  Revive (Cleric Only | Upgraded) – Mana Usage: Medium+ | Can revive a dead player in the split-second before they turn to dust by repairing the fatal wound. Only works if the target’s brain and heart aren’t severely damaged. | Upgrade – Heartless: This spell still works even if the target’s heart is severely damaged.

  World Fountain (Cleric Only) – Mana Usage: High | The user unleashes a beam of light to create a water fountain charged with world magic. The fountain greatly increases the rate of healing and mana recovery to anyone nearby, but it disappears after twenty minutes.

  Light Shield (Cleric Only | Upgraded) – Mana Usage: Low | Magic Rating: 300 | Replaces the user’s Mana Shield. | Decreases the user’s rate of mana recovery by the equivalent of ten levels of Resolve. Any teammates within fifty meters gain an increase in healing equivalent to twenty levels of Vitality and an increase in mana recovery equivalent to twenty levels of Resolve. This forcefield dissipates upon taking damage. Light Shield will automatically restore itself after one minute of not taking damage, but only if mana is available. | Upgrades – Threshold (200) | Lesser Elemental Threshold.

  Barrier Longsword (Warden Only) – Mana Usage: Medium | Magic Rating: 400 | Creates a longsword from barrier magic. This weapon cannot cut physical material, including players and monsters.

  Light-Drain Longsword (Cleric Only) – Mana Usage: Medium+ | Creates a phantasmal longsword that the user can control. This sword can absorb a large amount of light when it touches an object.

  Vincent hurried through the twisting passages as he read over the information, running by several monsters too slow to catch him. His path eventually took him to a narrow hall that led into one of Eramar’s three dungeons, Bellard’s Maze. Despite being the most annoying of the dungeons because of its puzzles and riddles, the maze had the weakest enemies. Their group had run all three dungeons many times, and it’d been ten years since anyone had died in the maze.

  He hurried through the outer section of the maze, following the paths he knew so well. This might be the last time I’m in Bellard’s Maze. The thought almost made him sad. I once hated this place. This world. I’ve suffered so much here. And yet, this is the only home I’ve known for decades. This is my world. It’s strange how humans can adapt to anything like that. Make a hellish world like this into a home.

  The dark, swirling sky greeted him when he finally reached the surface. He eyed the two pits to the side of the entrance, knowing his leaving would trigger the skin flyers that guarded the tunnel. Twenty of the creatures flew out at once and spiraled around one another, almost looking like a skin worm in the sky.

  Vincent held out his hand and cast Black Cinder. Thousands of dark embers rushed from his palm and scattered through the air. Wherever an ember touched a skin flyer, it burned a small hole in their body. The embers ate through the skin flyers in seconds, and all twenty fell out of the sky in pieces.

  He rushed away before the draugrs could finish climbing from the pits. Vincent hurried at seventy-percent speed to maintain his stamina and ran for almost three hours before reaching the base of the stem.

  Vincent slowed as he neared four small buildings. Their party had built the structures themselves from marstone Vincent had mined over the decades. With a four-hundred rating, the marstone walls had survived numerous attacks over the years. The marglass windows only had a fifty-rating, and Vincent had replaced them so many times that some years he didn’t even care if the windows were there or not.

  Each structure served as a house of sorts for the four players. Jim had stocked his with barrels of world mead he sometimes found deep underground. Strangely, the draugrs had developed a way of turning surplus world magic into the alcoholic beverage. Jim had reverse engineered the process, but he struggled to find sources of world magic as easily as the draugrs did.

  Quinn’s house, the largest building, acted as more of a dojo. She filled it with sparring dummies made of different materials. Various kinds of weapons were strewn around the main room, and the four players had spent a considerable amount of time studying various weapons and fighting styles. Quinn had taught them hand-to-hand combat, and Xan showed them everything she knew about sword fighting. Together, the four had pushed themselves to new heights, and they’d developed more advanced fighting styles.

  Xan had designed her house as a team area, including a dining room and a lounge space. The team had decorated the lounge in art they’d made themselves during times of boredom. Jim taught them everything he’d learned about painting from his one year as a failed art student. After several decades on Eramar, he liked to joke that he could ace those same art classes if he were to return.

  Vincent approached the second-largest building. His home had been designed for practical purposes, including rooms for apothecary and rune-making. The entire back of the building had been designed for a single purpose—a purpose he considered the most vital of all the skills he’d advanced on Eramar.

  The old man unequipped anything metal before stepping downstairs. He waved his hand, activating the massive runes carved into the walls of the forge. They glowed brighter and hotter, and the room felt as sweltering as the edge of a volcano. Vincent approached the slab of hardened-verasteel at the center of the room. He’d inscribed runes onto the slab to protect it from the forge’s power, but he’d still knocked a few chunks off the side with misplaced hammer blows.

  Vincent placed five chunks of World Ore on the slab. This should be enough to make orosteel according to other players I’ve messaged over the years.

  Vincent equipped his rune hammer. The hammer’s ability to absorb frequencies not only protected it from the forge’s power, but also allowed him to redirect that power into whatever he struck. It’d taken him years to learn to control frequencies through the hammer, but he’d grown so proficient at it that he could even redirect weaker mana attacks. For that reason, he always kept at least one of his dozen rune hammers in his inventory.

  The powerful frequencies from the runes rebounded
around the room. Vincent couldn’t see the frequencies, but he could feel them in his bones, the hammer, and the air. Even without years of studying frequencies, any player would’ve felt their skin crawl as the rebounding waves became increasingly powerful.

  His hammer glowed red-hot, and the World Ores became warped as the forge’s power began to melt them. He struck the hammer against one chunk and sent sparks of magic through the air. His upgraded Gravity Shield stopped the sparks from harming him, but the heat still made him sweat.

  Vincent worked and toiled for several hours. He changed the frequency of the forge with a wave of his hand, slowly dimming its power as he worked the metal into shape. Near the end of the blade’s construction, he used a carving rune to etch and empower an enchantment onto the orosteel.

  Like all the oro materials, orosteel is naturally magical—it can’t be hardened or further magically-enhanced. However, it’s perfect for enchanting. Someone with my moderate attempts at enchanting over the years should be able to put a pretty good ability on this thing.

  He’d learned a couple of enchantments from Elmrot’s Rune Book, but the enchantment he’d finally chosen came from a book he’d received after their team cleared out a nest of mimics eight years ago.

  Vincent grabbed the red-hot blade and carried it into the next room. He dunked the sword into a barrel of enchanted water to cool it and finish the blade’s construction. Vincent even gave it a name he’d thought of months ago.

  Song of War – Material Rating: 400 | A finely crafted orosteel longsword. You can feel magic beating within the blade. | Singing Blade: The wielder of this blade may convert mana into a vibrational frequency that projects the blade’s cutting power.

  >Vincent: I finished my blade.

  >Jim: Finally! You’ve been working toward that for ages.

  >Quinn: Go kill something to test it out.

  >Alexandria: I’m on my way, Vince. We can do a little sparring to test your sword.

  >Vincent: Alright, just go easy on me, Xan. If you kill me, you’ll put us two weeks behind schedule.

  Vincent stepped outside and approached the line between the stem and the ground. He waited for a few minutes until Xan approached. After their decades on Eramar, something looked different about the young woman. She walked with more confidence, and her face seemed colder at first glance. However, her more childish nature would often slip through, reminding everyone she was only nineteen outside of the game.

  “Let’s see that blade of yours,” Xan said.

  Vincent held out the sword. “I think I did pretty good work on it.”

  Xan’s eyes looked over the blade for a few seconds. “Yeah, better than most of the hardened-verasteel swords you’ve made. That’s a fine blade. You best not lose it.”

  “I know I will eventually, since losing your gear is a big part of the game. I shudder at the thought of all the stuff we’ve abandoned underground in this world. But I’ll try to make this sword last until we’ve dealt with Lucas.”

  Xan took a few steps away. She cast Light-Drain Longsword in her right hand and summoned her Barrier Longword in the left. She took a relaxed stance, but Vincent knew how quickly she could defend and attack from that position.

  Vincent held his blade, readying himself with an aggressive stance. Xan is our team’s best swordsman, so this will be a real test of this sword’s capability. I’ve tested the Singing Blade enchantment on a verasteel blade, so I have that down well. With my level of frequency control, it’s the perfect enchantment for me to put on a sword.

  Vincent swung his sword, spending a small amount of mana to convert it to vibrational energy. The shockwave traveled through the air at the speed he had swung, and Xan blocked it with her barrier sword.

  The old man kicked off the ground, moving toward the woman at high speed. Their blades clashed, and then he dipped away from a slash of her phantasmal sword. He swiped at the ground, using Singing Blade to kick an explosion of dirt into the young woman’s face. Vincent charged again through the cloud of dirt and cut through it, however Xan had disappeared from the other side.

  With Vincent’s level of Perception, he could hear Xan’s footsteps, despite the raining dirt. He turned and blocked her phantasmal sword with his orosteel blade. Vincent pulled away, but he still felt a low amount of mana get absorbed because of the sword’s proximity to his hands.

  Such a dangerous spell. Even if someone has heavy armor, a tap to the chest can rip away a lot of mana.

  Xan grinned, chasing after him. She kept her phantasmal sword held back and attacked with rapid strikes of her other blade. Their weapons met several times, but then Vincent separated them by hitting the ground between them with Singing Blade.

  Vincent dove away and sent another vibrational wave through the falling dirt. He heard the ring of Xan blocking the wave, and then the woman charged through the raining dirt with both hands on her barrier sword.

  Their blades met again as Vincent blocked a barrage of swift attacks. Despite Vincent having slightly higher Strength and Agility, he still struggled against her higher level of skill. Xan’s attacks and defenses came almost instinctively to her, and she always seemed one step ahead of Vincent’s movements.

  Vincent shoved with all his strength, knocking Xan back, and then he hit her with Singing Blade. The wave cut through her Light Shield, and even left scratches on the chain links of her armor. Vincent charged forward, hoping for a spar-ending strike while she tumbled backward, but Xan waved her free hand downward.

  The phantasmal sword that had been missing dropped between them. It collided with Vincent’s chest, and he felt half his remaining mana get ripped away in an instant. He knocked the blade away, and realized too late Xan had charged at him again.

  Xan controlled the Light-Drain Longsword to float back into her hand. She tackled Vincent to the ground with the barrier sword, then pointed both blades at his neck. “I win.” She let both blades disappear before she helped her teammate to his feet. “That was a good try, though.”

  Vincent smiled. “If this blade can do that much against you, then it’ll be a lot more dangerous to the Justiciars. Most of them are outfitted with verasteel. Only their more elite men have hardened- or enhanced-verasteel. And most of them either have two-hundred rated Mana Shields, or they went with two layers and haven’t upgraded the strength yet. So, Singing Blade should let me pick off Justiciars with ease.”

  “Sounds good in theory,” Xan said. “Still, we need more practice. Maybe we should raid Marquis’s Hollow. That’d be a great test of our strength.”

  “Just the two of us?” Vincent questioned. “That dungeon is still pretty tough even with our entire team.”

  “Come on, I think we can do it. If I need to waste Restore early on, then I’ll consider it a loss and we’ll retreat.” She held up the Divine Healer’s Pendant she’d gotten for completing her Class Quest three decades earlier. Once a day, the item allowed her to heal all of one player’s injuries instantly as well as fully restore their mana. In all their years on Eramar, it’d proven to be the single most important item the party owned.

  “Alright, but we have to play it safe. Our allies are already pressuring us to make our move. If one of us dies, we’ll have to call off our last attempt at taking down Rethin.”

  Xan nodded. “Alright, but if that happens, we’re coming back here after we capture Lucas. We’ve spent too many years on this world to not kill that thing. I’m basically obsessed with it now.”

  Vincent chuckled and stared into the distance until he saw Rethin’s head poking over the horizon. “Yeah, I feel the same, Xan. That monster has been the one thing on Eramar that we haven’t conquered. I remember all the video game bosses I’ve struggled to beat over the years—the hardest games I’ve ever played. And none of those compare to Rethin. It’s a challenge I don’t want to walk away from. However, stopping Lucas is more important. If we don’t get the chance to beat Rethin this time, then we’ll come back for him. I swear on it.”
/>   Chapter 27

  Player: Noble Vincent

  Location: Eramar (World) | The Mounds (Region)

  Class: Ranger

  Subclass: Mage

  Vitality: Lv 165

  Spirit*: Lv 174

  Resolve: Lv 153

  Perception*: Lv 180

  Agility: Lv 163

  Strength: Lv 162

  As the two players approached the gaping hole in the ground, Vincent’s HUD showed the area name change to Marquis’s Hollow. He glanced into the thick miasma that filled the dark hole, and then the teammates chugged potions of miasma protection. The potions lasted about an hour, but they both carried two extras.

  Hopefully we’ll be out of here in an hour, Vincent thought. Even at our levels, this isn’t the kind of place you want to stay for long. Especially since Marquis makes changes and brings in more monsters the longer you’re there.

  “After you,” Xan said, waving at the pit.

  Vincent nodded and leapt into the miasma-filled darkness. He fell a hundred meters down, and his Gravity Shield slowed his impact as he landed. With his upgraded Scan, he studied the shapes in the surrounding darkness to ensure Marquis hadn’t prepared an invitation party for them.

  >Vincent: We’re good, Xan. Marquis didn’t have anything ready this time.

  >Jim: Woah, woah, woah. You two are raiding the Hollow by yourselves? We’re already on a tight-enough schedule. If you two bite the dust, we’ll have to take the daiglass shard and leave without fighting Rethin.

  >Vincent: Yeah, I know. We’ll play it cautiously.

  Xan dropped to the ground beside him, breaking her Light Shield. She cast Clarity with one hand, and a dim light glowed, revealing passages hidden in the miasma and darkness.