Underworld - Level Up or Die: A LitRPG Series

by Apollos Thorne

  “Two million!” the dwarf roared, beating the other two merchants by 500k.

  They hesitated.

  Did he just say two million? I could eat whatever I wanted for a year or ten.

  Considering it seriously, it would be possible to change my fighting style to take advantage of the weapon. With some good armor and Health Buffs, I could become a healing tank with an Earth-based sword. The skill the sword carried seemed to be directly related to its alignment.

  None of the other merchants seemed to be willing to go higher than two million. A very important question came first. What could I get with two million coins?

  I held up my hand and halted the negotiation to not encourage the dwarf until I was sure I would sell. “Sorry, but I’m not sure I’m selling yet. Will the bid stand?” I asked.

  “It will.” The dwarf nodded.

  Not wanting to disappoint, I added, “I just want to see what is available for that kind of money before I trade in such a powerful item. There is no doubt that keeping it would greatly benefit me.”

  There was an experienced businessman behind the eyes of the dwarf. It was really not necessary to explain myself to him, but I did it out of courtesy. That didn’t negate the fact that this might be the only item this powerful that I came across for a long time, if ever. It was foolish to assume this would become a new norm.

  Forcing myself to stop imagining what it would be like to use the blade, I looked from one merchant display to the next. Each of them was hurrying to put out new items for display as I looked. They knew me well enough by now to know in detail what I was looking for.

  It was overwhelming. I had recently shopped with Aeris, so remembering, the dwarf carried out the most powerful plate mail I had seen. Not just one, but three different suits. The stats were as insane as the prices. +50,000 to HP, 50% Magic Resist, Frozen Aura, +2000 Strength and more looked up at me from his bench.

  The dark elf had mage based items he had just put out for me to see. Two different staves, robes, cloaks and four different orbs had stats just as crazy as the armors. +60,000 mana, +1000 Int, +1000 Wisdom, +500 Mana Per Minute, +30% damage to a single element… Not to even mention the bonus skills and spells they gave.

  Books, scrolls, and potions were the items the halfling pulled out. One item made all of the other items fade into the background. He had Experience Potions! +50% bonus experience over 24 hours begged me to buy them. At 15k a shot they weren’t cheap, but with two million coins I could afford to take advantage of them. Besides the revelation of the amazing potions, the most important thing in my purchase would be knowledge. I needed the books the halfling had, and there were a lot of them. Long-term I expected to outgrow the sword.

  I… I became convinced looking at the prices and items available that the two million would be better spent elsewhere than keeping the sword. It was difficult, but I walked up to the dwarf holding it out for him. “Deal.”

  His eyes lit up like a child’s face on Christmas morning.

  After collecting a lot of coins, even though he cashed me out in 20 golden leaf bullion worth 100k copper coins each, they all expected me to begin my shopping spree. When I pulled out the vampire’s ring with the large blood ruby encased in gold I caught them off guard. If you looked closely there seemed to be something written in an unknown script on the gold encircling the ruby.

  “Could you identify this as well?”

  The dwarf looked closely. His mouth slowly dropped open. A flash of blue came to his eyes and was gone. “How? You have yourself a master ring.”

  Master Ring

  A sole key that unlocks a nearly impenetrable magic lock.

  The lock is only known to its user.

  I handed him the 10k for the identification and his eyes never left the item.

  “How much is it worth?” I asked as I began studying it.

  “We don’t carry that kind of coin here.”

  A chorus of “Mmmms” backed up his reply.

  “Depending on the original owner this could be tens of millions or more. It is more of a key than a ring. It unlocks only the most powerful enchanted locks. It takes so much mana to cast the spell to create the lock that just a vault with such a door costs close to a billion coins. People don’t spend that much to secure something cheap.”

  “Did you say vault?”

  “Yes. It’s popular for only the richest or most powerful people to have master rings in the Underworld.”

  Quest item! Undead Dance Party with Birthday Cake! Okay, such a cake could never come out pleasant… Immediately I knew it was a key to unlock either the home or treasure vault of the Vampire Lord the Mistress had fought. It might be some time before I was powerful enough to pursue it, but I now had a good incentive to leave the labyrinth besides just being free of the place.

  It was almost a big enough revelation that I forgot about spending my 2 million coins. Okay, not quite, but it still nearly caused me to dance in front of them!

  It was time to focus. If I wasn’t careful I could end up with a lot of great items that wouldn't have the best long term benefit for my character build. The danger of some unknown army attacking us wasn’t entirely gone, but I doubted the vampire had told anyone else about us. He was arrogant enough to attack the Mistress because he thought he could take all that she had. I doubted he wanted to share any of the loot. Was I safe? No. Perhaps never again. But this was the best I could hope for in this messed up world. What was here that could help me grow as strong as possible when time wasn’t a factor?

  The small book collection the halfling possessed was the first thing on my list. I decided to take 20 of them to keep the price under 400k. Some of them were more expensive than the ones I saw before. As much as 50k each. Maps and encyclopedias would be priceless to me this early in the game. There were a number of element and spell class compasses. Also, there were things on fencing, pole weapons, alchemy, blacksmithing, smelting, forging, jewel-smithing, stealth, lockpicking, and trap making and disarming.

  Finally the peanut butter and jelly of the crop were the books on magic theory: How to Get the Most Use out of Elements for the Ogre-brained Among Us. Learning as much I could about magic was essential. How to Get the Most Use out of Elements for the Ogre-brained Among Us.

  As I scanned through one of the elemental compasses on Water Magic, it became clear immediately that picking up another element wasn’t going to be easy. I had to either find a teacher, or a dungeon of that alignment.

  When it came to the rest of my purchases I kept one thing in mind. What would help me survive? Just as Aeris had spent a good portion of her new wealth on defense I would do the same. After the lesson from the succubus, I knew I had to get good armor as soon as possible to guard against my weakness. It was only a band-aid for a long-term problem, but I had a feeling there were some awesome band-aids. I stayed away from any item that added new skills that I didn’t already have. I didn’t want to become dependent on an item if I could help it.

  My Steel Full Plate Mail wasn’t terribly ornate except for green runes along the trim of each polished plate. The helm had wings above the ear slits and a flat top. My boots and cloak I kept to help with my stealth. Besides that, the only other thing that remained was my scepter. Even my rings I sold back to them to upgrade.

  I bought a pair of trap detecting rings that gave me over 100 to the skill. How it worked or what the 100 translated to in the real world I didn’t know yet. The shield I now used wasn’t actually one I purchased, but one I got from a zombie.

  Here is a breakdown of my new gear:

  Durable Full Plate Mail of Life

  Quality: Exceptional

  Alignment: Nature

  Improved Durability

  +45,000 HP

  Spell Dampening 40% (Lessens spells effectiveness.)

  If the suit was a full set including the boots and gauntlets I would have an additional 5,000 HP that I passed up for the cloaking bonus. They were in my inventory so if I needed them I
had them. I doubted there was a lot of the nature element in the Underworld. It would be better than facing off against the 80% of dark aligned creatures.

  Stone Steel Kite Shield

  Quality: Fine

  Alignment: Neutral

  Spell Dampening 60%

  I was hoping that the spell dampening of 60% and 50% of the armor would stack, making it possible to fully block most spells. Though I was pretty sure it wasn’t this simple, this was the highest percentage shield I had seen even if it didn’t have any special stats or characteristics.

  Channeller’s Orb

  This orb acts as a magnet to arcane forces around you.

  +250 Mana Per Minute Mana Regen

  The more mana regen the better! In a lot of cases, the additional damage my scepter granted me was overkill in the dungeon now, so I planned on carrying this in one hand and my shield in the other; or possibly just switching out between the two. It wasn’t like a game where you could only equip one item per body part. Technically I could hold the shield and orb in the same hand. That would be a little awkward though.

  2x Silver Ring of Trap Detection

  +50 to Spot Trap

  After the purchase of the books, armor, orb and five experience potions, I still had 700k to my name. I had a plan for 500k and the extra 200k was my back up.

  Now that I had greatly increased my chances of survival, it was time to turn my attention to base building. If we could get a decent blacksmith and a few other crafters, it might make gearing up a whole lot easier. Having a good blacksmith that could constantly improve my armor and change its alignment could very well save lives. I had no idea how long it would take me until I could change the alignment myself, so it was essential to pursue it.

  As a human, my lifespan was short in comparison to some of the monsters of the Underworld. It was likely impossible to grow as powerful as the lords of the underworld unless I found something that would allow me to live forever. Maybe I could count on Light Magic for that? Another question that needed answers. Focusing and mastering one alignment was possible though. The Mistress had said as much. It could at least give me a fighting chance in the right situation. What I needed the most was knowledge.

  What would I do next? Try to get the forge built for one. After that, I didn’t know if I should try to conquer the tower first, maybe leave the Mistress’s dungeon and enter the rest of the Underworld. I could seek the Vampire Lord’s magic vault. Mastering Light Magic was a given since it was what I was talented in. I had already noticed that it leveled much faster than my Blue Magic spells. Learning other schools of magic would help prepare me to take advantage of any elemental weakness and so would learning more Blue Magic. The Mistress made it all too clear that I needed more than just my Light Magic. I agreed with her.

  The first thing on the menu though would be a snack at the cafeteria. Then I would let everyone know my plan about building a forge. I guess I should build a library as well. One thing was for sure. There was no end to what needed to be done.

  Chapter 24 - Study

  My lone Skeleton Warrior stood at the ready for any monster that dared approach me as I studied.

  This was the fruit of my new Undead Dominance spell. I had beaten this Skeleton Warrior to an inch of its life then took over its mastery with a single cast of my Blue Spell. It leveled up whether I was dominating new mobs or keeping a single one under dominance, so I just kept this one under my control. It was another 100 MPM spell to add to my list.

  The Skeleton had leveled from 120 to 132 since I had set up shop here in the last four hours. Unlike other Skeleton Warriors, this one was fully armored in Skeletal Plate Mail and a Skeletal General’s Horned Helm. It made the summoned skeleton nearly invincible to creatures even 100 levels higher than it.

  It hadn't been as much trouble as it might seem to set up this ornate wooden desk and lay out all my tomes as I studied in my own personal dark corner of a deep side cavern. My inventory coupled with my 350+ Strength made hauling it around easy. This area was good experience for my minion and the drops were decent. Mostly low-end magic weapons that Russ could deconstruct to help with his forging and blacksmithing skills.

  I reclined back in a modern steel folding chair with my magical light orb shining bright overhead. The modern chair had been cheaper than any chair that might go better with the desk. The desk itself was something the dwarf merchant was just going to throw out so he had given me a good price.

  One of my many tomes sat in my lap tilted against the desk as I read.

  Looking up and off to the distance, I pondered the current logic of my book’s author. The author, Boris Coddlehead, was a Werecat and just as self-indulgent as any cat you would run across in the world above. He just happened to be a genius with dark magic too.

  To unlock the spell tree for Dark Magic would normally take finding a dark magic vein and a very specific process to unlock it. But since I was naturally talented with Light Magic, I would likely never be able to become aligned with Dark Magic, its opposite alignment. Nothing explicitly said I couldn't learn it, but it was clear that it would be much harder because all the alignments had a relationship with each other. As an example, Fire and Water Elements were opposites, so they didn't work together. Fire and earth though did work well together, creating their own sub-elements like Magma, Metal and Explosive magic.

  How easily you could learn another alignment depended on the elements you already knew and their synergy to the alignment you were trying to learn. The natural Synergy between Fire and Earth Magic was 50%. This meant a person who possessed Fire magic would have a 50% chance to learn it during the right ritual. They would also have 50% efficiency when using the other element after they learned it. So they could learn to use 50% of the spells in that spell tree. They would also only be 50% effective.

  Once they learned the two main alignments of fire and earth they would have had a 75% Synergy with Magma Magic, one of the sub-alignments that were a mix of the two alignments.

  Fire's Synergy with the primary elements was as follows: Earth 50%, Air 80%, Water 0%. The sub-elements varied even more. But what was odd was that what you were talented in would affect the synergy between alignments. As an example, if you had a talent in an element you would have 60% Light and 60% Dark Magic efficiency. They could actually use both, but depending on which one they got first, the opposite alignment would immediately change to 40% efficiency. So if someone chose Light Magic, they would only have 40% efficiency in Dark. What you chose to learn first really mattered.

  Also, because talents varied so much, synergy efficiency could vary even more. There was often more to it than just having a higher efficiency, just like my ability to heal a person's endurance and health wasn't a normal characteristic of Light Magic.

  Personally, I had 0% efficiency with Dark Magic, but a 60% efficiency with all elements. This included all of the sub-elements. The exception was that if I learned one element, then I became less efficient with its opposite. So if I chose Water Magic, I would immediately have only 40% efficiency with its opposite. The advantage was that even though I couldn't ever be considered a master in an element, I could use each element, even if I possessed all of them, regardless of their opposites.

  It was rarer to be talented in a sub-element. Olivia was one of the lucky ones to specialize in Nature Magic, a sub of Water and Earth. She had 100% efficiency in Nature, and 80% in Water and Earth. Because of her high degree of specialization, her opposites Fire and Air only allowed her 20% efficiency.

  Blue Magic was a different story. Everyone could learn Blue Magic regardless of synergy because the spell cast was considered a monster skill. One problem was that Blue Magic Dungeons were hard to find as Blue Magic Veins were rare in the area surrounding the Head Mistress's dungeon, so even after we got out it would be a while before anyone could learn it.

  Being able to pick up every spell alignment would likely take years if not decades. And that was at the best a guess. We had yet to enter a d
ungeon. The Magic Compasses explained the difficulty of dungeons by giving a recommended level, but these weren't dungeons like you might think of in games. These were living, breathing ecosystems that could be taken over and ruled by more powerful beings. They had the ability to grow and even level up.

  I wasn’t the only one trying to learn more. I lent my books to the others liberally as long as I had read them already. Every caster had at least read through their own alignment. Some owned their own.

  Putting down my book, it was time for some fun.

  “Batman!” I yelled just like they do in some anime to cast a skill or spell. Of course, it really was quite unnecessary to say anything, but I was alone and needed to give my brain a break.

  Bat Form took hold of me, taking two seconds to fully transform into a three foot tall bat. Currently, I was In the Buff, so my size as a bat was more than twice the size of when I cast it without buffs. Sadly, any skeletal armor didn’t really work well in bat form. The weight of the bones weighed me down. My regular armor and clothing also didn’t stack with the form, so I lost their benefits. I was just thankful my clothing was also transformed with the spell, so I wasn’t left naked after I was done, having to redress myself.

  Flapping over to my Skeletal Warrior, I perched on top of its head, wrapping my wings comfortably around the horns of my minion’s helm. It must have been an interesting sight to see a three foot tall bat with six-foot wingspan chilling on an intimidating, thickly armored skeleton warrior.

  “Onward, Betty!” I cried in all squeakiness.

  The Skeletal Warrior took a step forward, not really obeying any verbal command, but following my will through the spell.

  My desk was hidden in a fairly secure nook of the cave system by the Skeletal Scouts area. It was a side cave off the main, man-made hall system that connected the different difficulties of skeleton mobs. It was the perfect place for my Skeleton Warrior to auto-hunt close by while I read. If there was anything that it spotted getting too close to me then it would protect me first.