Malsour raised his fist violently. He had been working with the bedrock of this area for an entire night. He had come to understand it to a high degree.
A bedrock spear jutted out of the ground, slamming up and into the hog’s chin and into its brain. The bedrock then exploded outward.
The hog collapsed, dust rising around it.
Malsour let out a deep breath. He’d had a long night and the power he’d used wasn’t inconsiderable. Thankfully, most creatures weren’t able to make Mana barriers and relied on just their physical toughness. If the hog had been able to manifest one, then Malsour’s spear would have broken off on the Mana barrier.
“Looks like things are much more interesting on this side,” Malsour said. The stone wall he had made was removed in a flash, once again revealing the outside world.
Dave drank some more Xer. Malsour did the same. They looked to each other, grinning slightly.
Dave looked out on the vista again, seeing the Northwood that they would pass within a few miles of as they headed directly for the portal.
Although the wilderness they were in was impressive, the Northwood had trees that dwarfed the simple wilderness they were traveling to. There were few records of the creatures in the Northwood. These areas had simply not been touched since the start of Emerilia. There were a great number of treasures to be found, though the risk was also incredibly high.
Dave only had to think of the Level 1,500 creature that had smacked the bridge last night. There could even be Level 2,000 beasts in there. There really are no limits in Emerilia.
Chapter 25: Leaving Your Mark
The two days passed by quickly. Guilds and parties went off to get resources and find creatures; there were some really strong creatures that had appeared out of the forest as they moved.
Party Zero went out, mostly gathering resources. They were also called upon by the DCA, providing impromptu training.
The DCA soldiers could see the difference in their own strengths compared to those of the guilds’ and were eager to become stronger.
Dave caught a ride every so often with the wagons, taking the time to continue his lessons on coding. It continued to bear fruit.
He smiled as he disconnected from the Mirror of Communication.
Quest Completed: Skill Creator Level 10
Personally teach 3,200 people your Skill (2,894/3,200). Or help your students reach the level of Apprentice (193/200). Or help your students reach the level of Journeyman (0/1)
Rewards: Unlock Level 11 Quest
+20 Intelligence (Stacks with previous class levels)
+20 Endurance (Stacks with previous class levels)
+20 Willpower (Stacks with previous class levels)
+1,000,000 EXP
Quest: Skill Creator Level 11
Personally teach 6,400 people your Skill (2,894/6,400). Or help your students reach the level of Apprentice (193/400). Or help your students reach the level of Journeyman (7/10)
Rewards: Unlock Level 12 Quest
Increase to stats
Level 234
You have reached Level 234; you have 95 stat points to use.
“Always feels good to get a few extra stat points!”
He checked his character sheet.
Character Sheet
Name:
David Grahslagg
Gender:
Male
Level:
214
Class:
Dwarven Master Smith, Friend of the Grey God, Bleeder, Librarian, Aleph Engineer, Weapons Master, Champion Slayer, Skill Creator, Mine Manager, Master of Space and Time, Master of Gravitational Anomalies
Race:
Human/Dwarf
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Unspent points: 95
Health:
42,300
Regen:
22.56/s
Mana:
14,880
Regen:
52.30/s
Stamina:
4,740
Regen:
45.50/s
Vitality:
423
Endurance:
1,128
Intelligence:
1,488
Willpower:
1,046
Strength:
474
Agility:
910
His stats had shot up over the last couple of days as he realized that holding onto his stat points out here was a bad idea. He might be a powerful being but Ashal had quickly reduced his ego.
It now was nearly two million experience for him to level up a single level.
He moved toward Party Zero. Everyone was together—even Anna and Deia had been able to get away from their duties—as they were finally approaching the last kilometer before the temple and the portal hidden within.
“Well, this is creepy,” Steve said.
Dave stretched out his senses. A few creatures were around the temple and none of them made any noise. As if scared that they might attract the attention of a nearby predator.
The Aleph scouts had thoroughly checked the area around the temple. There was only one entrance to the earthen mound that held the temple.
They trekked around the outside of the dome.
A crack rose up twenty meters along the dome. It was framed on either side by rocks. Although the rest of the earthen dome looked like a natural hill, here it was easy to see that it was actually a manufactured construct. The crack was about ten meters wide at the bottom, reaching up and coming together.
“All right, let’s set up camp!” Josh called out.
The mages who had been making the road expanded their efforts out, all of them working to raise a smooth rock square, complete with drains and sewers. Earth mages unleashed their power; trees groaned as they used their roots to push themselves out of the ground and out of their path according to the Earth mages’ commands. The ground shook as steel and stone with roots in the bedrock rose upward. Stairs and different levels appeared; thick steel wound through the massive fortifications.
Arrow slits were made as the walls continued to grow. It took all of the Dark mages to work as one to create the walls. One section of the wall—forty meters wide—was finished so fast that it was visible to those protecting the mages, looking for animals that might charge them and watching the crack as well.
The wall was four meters thick and fifty meters high. At their peak, the walls had crenelations with mages’ balconies every ten meters. An enclosed balcony overlooking the walls was equipped with spikes and razor-sharp steel. As the first was finished, a second twenty-meter section of wall rose from the ground.
As the walls went up, the forest was moved back. It was slow work. To see was to believe; the power of these mages when working together was enough to fell trees and remove underbrush for ten kilometers around the growing outpost.
Trees walked closer; their roots dug through the ground before they delivered themselves to where summoned creations were quickly cutting them into uniform planks and timber supports. The trees blocked off their sight lines so they needed to be removed. With them being so massive only a few dozen of the massive trees needed to be felled.
As the different trees and undergrowth were moving to be sorted out by the summoned creatures, the Earth mages started to level out the ten kilometer wide area.
Where different plants had been removed, dirt and rocks were rolled in to fill these craters. Then the grade of the ground was changed, sloping steadily down and away from the outpost. Not only would someone attacking them be seen ten kilometers off, but they would be down a slope, allowing those in the outpost to easily deal with them.
It was slow work and the different natural fauna was still moving itself. These trees were nearly two hundred meters thick and eight hundred tall. The summoned creatures numbered in the thousands but it would still take them days to deal with all of the trees and different plants that had uprooted themselves and marched to their work
area along the side of the earthen dome covering the temple.
Earth resources that they had found would literally come out of the ground and walk into their bags of holding.
Dave checked over the walls. There were now two sections up and the third was rising from the ground. This one was different as it had a ten-meter wide and fifteen-meter tall gate and faced the crack that led into the temple.
There was just a hole where the gate should be. A metal or stone door might sound like a good idea, but if anything hit it then it would have the elasticity of wood.
The wall grew. It was now eight meters thick and took nearly twice the time it did for the other walls. With that done, the mages moved to the next wall.
The outpost would be two hundred meters long, facing the crack. The walls on either side would extend outwards six hundred meters before being closed off.
The mages and engineers who had been working on the road had greatly refined their abilities over the four-day journey. They’d become faster as they were the slowest part of the entire raid party. Making roads was easy to them now. Engineers moved about, checking the area. Earth mages made it flat and changed the composition of the ground so that it would support the road. Dark mages created gravel so that the roads wouldn’t shift once placed, as well as a massive sewer system and a drainage area that was many miles deep.
Only when these things had been completed was stone and metal created over the top. It came out in gray sections, the rough scaffolding underneath filling in and then being covered over by massive rock blocks.
Here and there, engineers marked out different spots. Dave and a group of those trained with soul gem construction came behind. They placed down soul gems in the center of some of these basements or open areas that had been marked off.
Once placed, the soul gems were activated. They unfurled, growing to meet the different lines that the engineers had lined out. They had planned this outpost down to the inch so everything flowed easily.
These soul gem constructs grew into their spaces, sinking into the ground and securing themselves to the supports that were rooted in the bedrock. The soul gem constructs slowed their pace as their power reserves were depleted.
Vault soul gems and other charged soul gems were connected to the power grid that the Dark mages had engraved into the rock pad that was growing through the outpost.
The soul gem constructs took this power in, continuing to grow. They didn’t grow too tall, needing metal and stone supports that the Dark mages could provide in order to reinforce the soul gem construct buildings.
Within an hour, a quarter of the walls were up; four kilometers around the outpost had been cleared and graded. The rock pad that was the basis of the outpost was half done. Soul gem constructs were rising from the ground like jewels in contrast with the black and silver walls.
A roar sounded out from the forest. One of the moving trees seemed to have stepped on a sleeping jungle tiger. The creature attacked the massive moving tree, its black claws cutting deep into the bark of the centuries-old tree. The tiger was massive, fifteen meters tall and thirty long. It looked like a tiger from back on Earth but with two tails that ended in spikes and it was green and brown with black teeth and claws.
“Why the hell is everything in the damn forest looking like moss!” Dave complained to himself.
The natural camouflage did make it incredibly difficult to spot these powerful beasts. Dave could easily pick out creatures with his Touch of the Land and others had similar spells but their range wasn’t too big. They would only be able to give a minute or two warning if a creature charged toward the outpost undetected by the scouts.
The aerial forces took to the skies, gaining altitude. Scouts spread out, looking for other threats that might be attracted by the tiger’s growls. DCA ground forces checked their simple Mana bomb mortars. Mages revolved Mana around their bodies, ready to fight in a moment. Shields and weapons were brandished, the excited atmosphere of just moments ago shattered.
The engineers and Dark and Earth mages continued what they were doing without stopping. The faster they could finish off the outpost, the sooner they could have some cover from the creatures that were banging on their front door.
All of the forces checked in that they were as ready as they could be. The aerial forces were buffed by the support mages and their attack started.
Dave saw as the DCA and the other flyers moved in formations where the tiger was tearing the five-hundred-year-old tree to shreds.
They released their attacks: Mana bombs, arrows, spells, Mana bolts, and Mana grenades. It looked as if a miniature sun had risen with all of that power focused on just one beast.
The tiger let out an angered shout and turned to face the aerial forces. It lunged at them, reaching nearly thirty meters in the air. Its fur was burnt in places but it looked more pissed off than hurt.
Dave took a running leap. His orbs pushed him into the air as gravity stopped to affect him. He concentrated on a soul gem in his hands.
He pulled out a torch to heat the soul gem up, making it malleable and entirely unstable. Dave conjured a Mithril mitt on his left hand; he sunk his consciousness into the orb.
He reached seventy-five meters high before he came down on one of the complete walls. He didn’t move as he landed, entirely focused on the soul gem.
The tiger continued to try to attack the aerial forces. Its Health whittled down as the different air units hit the tiger and then rushed away before it could do more than swipe at where they had been. It wasn’t like the ebony rhino; Mana attacks would most definitely hurt and wound it.
Josh held the ground forces at bay. If they could beat the beast from the air, then it was worth it. A good melee fighter knew when to take aggro and when to let others do it.
The ground forces watched, silently cheering on their aerial allies as they took the tiger down to half of its massive Health.
It dropped to the ground; the impact shook the ground as it shook its head in anger. Five Mana bombs exploded next to it, making it turn away from the blast. It let out an angry yell, as it now found itself no longer in the cover of the forest, but rather looking at the growing outpost filled with mages and ground fighters. It started moving forward, letting out an angered shout.
“Ranged!” Josh yelled out. Mages and anyone who could hit the tiger at four kilometers let loose their attacks.
The aerial forces continued to harry the tiger but it paid no attention to them. Most basic beasts would just turn and attack whatever was aggroing it. This beast was a Level 957. It wasn’t sentient by any means but it was incredibly smart. Although it knew it couldn’t fight off the aerial forces, it was the king of ground battles.
It crossed a kilometer in bare seconds. Spells and attacks rained down on it as it moved from side to side to throw off the attacks.
“Mana shield!” Dwayne called out. The tiger’s speed and strength was not something that could be simply stopped by the melee fighters’ strength alone. Maybe if it was just the top Stone Raiders with their best gear, but there was four other guilds as well as the DCA ground forces.
Mortars released, their Mana bombs adding to the damage. The tiger was down to just a third of its Health.
“Is everything in this wilderness a boss-classed beast!?” Fellox’s leader Gimel barked.
Magically coded blocks were thrown out and connected to soul gems’ power output. A shield of blue, so thick that it looked like glass, connected between these blocks, covering the front of the raid party.
The tiger leaped, as if taking down an elephant. Its claws slammed into the shield, making some of the thick layers shatter. The tiger bounced off and cried out in pain.
“Attack!” Josh yelled out on the general chat.
“Melee, take aggro. Ranged, light the bastard up!” Dwayne called out over the Stone Raider chat.
“Support buffs!” Lucy called out over the support channel.
“Mages—stop it from getting up,” Kim y
elled to her mages.
There wasn’t enough room for everyone to get in on the action. Half of the Stone Raiders, Portal Purge, mage’s and adventurer’s guild as well as Fellox and the DCA forces stayed back so that everyone wasn’t falling on top of one another.
Dave came out of his working. He’d been barely able to keep the soul gem stable as he used his smithing art to alter and imprint new coding into it. He was about to throw it on the ground, thus activating it, when he saw that he wasn’t needed.
Ragged cheers came from the Stone Raiders who had finished off the tiger. It slumped to the side.
The others relaxed, a few jealous that they hadn’t been able to directly fight the tiger, but knowing that too many people would have made it incredibly difficult.
Dave smiled, letting out a breath as his guts started to uncoil from the fear he’d felt. His hands shook from unreleased adrenaline and his breath coiled as his head cleared from the pressures of creating a high-grade magical code within the greater soul gem in his hand.
A roar ripped through the forest, not ten kilometers away. Another and another roar took up this call.
Shit. Well, at least tigers on Earth live alone most of the time. I hope this one wasn’t part of a group? Dave looked to the walls. The wall facing the crack had been completed. There were also two walls twenty meters wide that extended back from it.
They would need another twenty-eight sections per side and then another five to close in the area. The Dark mages were burning their Mana at a crazy rate, pulling on their vault soul gems and their linked amulets. Dave could see support people handing out these amulets like candy to those who weren’t in the Stone Raiders or DCA.
Walls rose up one every five minutes. Even at that pace, it would take five to six hours! Dave didn’t think that they could keep this pace up so it would most likely be closer to eight or nine hours.
Emerilia Series Box Set 3 Page 60
