Monarch- the Elementalist

by Gideon Omoruyi

  At an old age and with thousands of bodies slain under his name, he was able to bring back his loved one to perfect life rather than undead, just to have her taken away by a pack of wolves. How gruesome... He noted that he believed he was cursed by the 7th Luck.

  He wrote the book upon the snowy peak of a mountain, where he laid the remains of his loved one and hoped to fall asleep for eternity next to her.

  PAIN

  Wow.

  Just as I was about to feel sorry for him, I wondered if any of this was true. I didn't remember learning of any kingdom rife with the undead. Either way, I felt motivated and was ready to face that abomination of a spider.

  I ate a few fish and took 3 Tiny Phials of Healing and Mana along with me. During my training, I figured out these potions must be taken with a full stomach to avoid diarrhea. I would've brought more but they couldn't fit within robe's pocket and I didn't want them breaking by accident. My party consisted of two fully charged skeletons and Skelly the Warrior, I gave one of the skeletons the Iron Dagger +1.

  Back at the entrance to the lair, I squatted down and proceeded to use fire blades and a piece of bone to dig out the opening. The condensed fire now extended a foot from my fingertips and the old crusted entrance was easier to dig out then I expected.

  It became wide enough for my undead party to enter and so I ordered them in foot first. I chuckled as they tumbled down the tunnel. I went in after them and once I entered the cave, I noticed all of the eggs were hatched and the remains were already decaying.

  Since the floor was nothing but dirt, Skelly and his pals moved much quieter. We walked further in several meters before a hoard of baby Arachnids appeared from a hiding spot. With one hand, I blasted them with a cone of fire, instantly killing the majority of them. I was impressed at how far I came. To be fair though, I only reached this level because Recall Memory made mana control imagery a simple task.

  A few arachnids attempted to flank but they were cut down by my skeletons. All but one had been dealt with; I saw it attempting to flee and hide. Cute. I approached it and admired how it backed itself up against the wall because it was terrified of me.

  A quick stab of Skelly sword pierces through its entire body. I watched as it twitch to death, satisfying my growing sadistic nature. To be honest, I never favored granting mercy to anything or anyone that tried to take my life. It was just something I believed in—not sure why.

  I turned away from its corpse and continued along. The light from the mana crystals began to fade as I moved deeper into the cave.

  I jumped at the sound of a loud cracking noise. I look down, lit the area with flames and saw a litter of kinan bones. Damn, those miners must've had a bad night. Doom consumed me as the thought of being eaten here terrified me. I would be revived and constantly eaten by a beast that lived within the cave. How many years would such a cycle continue? I didn't have a clue how long Arachnids live. I shivered at the thought and moved on, doing my best to order my skeletons around the kinan bones.

  I noticed blightshrooms in bunches all over the wall as I crept around the turn and saw the queen sleeping. That fat bastard had gotten even bigger. But something else caught my attention—dozens, no hundreds of hatched eggs lined the entire walls of the circular room. The room looked as if it had once served a burial site... but that wasn't of any importance to me in that moment.

  It all made sense. Arachnids are unisex and this arachnid queen had been eating its own babies in a never ending loop. The newborn arachnids were doing their best to escape, hence the few that fled to the ruins.

  Damn sick creatures. I took this chance to concentrate a condensed fireball, moved in close and lobbed it. The ball exploded in a raging fire as the abomination screeched out in pain. It looked at me with its multiple eyes—both horrified and angry.

  PAIN

  What, do you think I'm food? You're in for a rude awakening!

  My two skeletons charged in and stabbed it but its hard chitin underbelly caused the attacks to bounce off. Unlike its younger counterpart, the under parts of her limbs were rock hard chitin and ended in sharp points. It raised its forelimbs weakly and tried to smash Skelly but she missed.

  She was incredibly slow and took several critical hits and cuts from Skelly and the other dagger-wielding skeleton. In a rapid fire I continued to blast her face with precise balls of fire. She finally smacked Skelly hard enough that I felt my mana drain drastically.

  I chugged down two Tiny Phial of Mana, and as I got done with the second one, she charged at me. I bombarded her face with fire while carefully dodging her sluggish attacks.

  PAIN

  What's the matter you damn spider! Too much poison in the belly!

  I exploded another fireball in her face but it was so powerful enough that it sent me flying back. I did well to fall on my back to protect the phials in my pocket. I quickly rolled to my feet and saw that she was hurt much worse than I was. As she got back up my unarmed skeleton began to beat in her face causing mana burn with every hit. She smacked it aside with all of her weight shattering the skeleton completely.

  PAIN

  Behind you...

  She screeched out in pain. I had Skelly stab her from behind, where she had no hard chitin. I saw a pile of green blood spill onto the floor behind her. As she wails, acid explodes from her mouth, completely destroying my dagger-wielding skeleton and nearly engulfing me as well.

  With the little mana I had left, I lobbed another fireball but she dodged! The fire ball continued on towards Skelly...

  PAIN

  Fuck…

  But to my surprise, it bounced off Skelly, became bigger and combusted upon her open wound. Her blood must've become flammable because of either the poison she had digested or her acid. A chain reaction goes off inside her as the chambers in her body began to explode one by one.

  She collapsed in her own pile of acid. I stood there waiting for her to suddenly jump up at me. After a minute of staring at her dead body, I gathered mana into another ball of fire and hurled it. The explosion was immense and she cried out in pain,

  PAIN

  I knew you weren't dead you fucking bitch!

  I lobbed more balls of flames adding fuel to the fire. I huffed and fell to one knee. My mana was drained and my adrenaline began to fade. She had to be dead now. I drank my last Tiny Phial of Mana and approached her, close enough to touch her.

  I created a fire blade around my hands and proceeded to carve her head out. She didn't move once I started signifying her death but I continued. I had to make sure. Once done, I lobbed a tiny flame onto the decapitated flesh and it combusted a few more chambers within her body.

  I had triumphed and was so proud that I took a deep breath and shouted, or more like coughed my lungs out! The area stunk badly and the acid was now getting in my eyes and throat.

  I fled back around the cave, breathed in cleaner air and chugged one Tiny Phial of Healing. I felt instant relief throughout my body. My stomach churned a little but it wasn't dire.

  I went back to my room, grabbed the robes I made into a towel, took another Tiny Phial of Healing, covered my face and went back down into the cave. Most of the acid had dissipated and my eyes only tingled from the linger effect.

  Covered in thick webbing, I could make out four coffins around the room. I burned off the webbing and used every ounce of strength to push over the slab. Could the thing buried inside suddenly spring up and stab me? Well yes it could've but I wasn't all that concerned. I was feeling confident in my abilities and getting stabbed wouldn't be the worst outcome.

  Nestled neatly in the coffin was a simple old kinan skeleton. On his finger was a ring emitting a strong mana unknown to me. It was a ring enchanted with mana greater than mine and I did my best not to touch it as I carefully searched around it.

  The other three coffins were identical and each had an ominous ring nestled on the middle right finger. At the center back wall covered in thick webbing, was another coffin but upright. I al
most missed it due to the webbing.

  I thought about it for a second and decided to use my towel to remove the rings from the skeletons and then carefully wrapped them in my towel. Telekinesis would have been helpful with mundane tasks such as this.

  I approached the last coffin, seared the webs away, and cracked it open. The four skeletons sprung to life just as I thought they would. From the looks of it, the magic upon them was similar to Summon Skeleton Ritual. They were unarmed and wobbly but held out their bony hands in an attempt to cast a spell. Nothing happened so I incinerated them all and as I turned back to the main coffin, I noticed them rise again.

  I reduced them to ashes but they revived once again, and again, and again. Then I felt it, mana was building up from behind me. I turned and opened the coffin to find a petrified corpse. Upon its neck was a black necklace emitting pure mana. I would've loved to keep this to but it kept bringing back those damn skeletons so I shattered the necklace. With that, the four summoned skeleton collapsed into dust.

  Something fell from within the necklace prism, an Obsidian Gem +1. This was my first time seeing a crafted mana crystal.

  Mana crystals were mana infused metal that grew from the ground over a period of a few decades or even centuries. This was the source of pure mana but whoever set up such trap was quite skilled to control pure mana in such way without tainting it with his or her own mana.

  Upon further investigation I noticed a crack within the coffin behind the corpse. I blasted it with fire and it revealed a cramped room and a chest at its center. I looked around for traps but couldn't find any. The chest had a rusty lock on it but the whole scene was still incredibly suspicious. I blasted the lock away and ordered Skelly down into the cave to open it.

  As he lifted the lid, I could hear a gear locking into place, followed by at least a dozen arrows bouncing off Skelly. I inspected the tip of one of the arrows. The poison upon it had dried long ago but it might have still caused me some issues.

  Skelly continued to open the chest and the items within the chest caused my heart to beat in my throat. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It shimmered with pure mana and was piled neatly in a fat leather coin purse. There had to be at least three hundred gold coins in there.

  I dropped to my knees as tears trickled down my cheeks. I began to laugh as I ran my fingers over the coins.

  PAIN

  This is not real. I can't believe it.

  The most valuable and purest forms of magic came in puries. It is the currency valued by all and defines a country's wealth. An ounce of diamond puri, a single coin, was the most valuable coin and equaled one hundred million puries. After diamond came platinum at one million puries. Gold, which sat in front of me, was worth ten thousand puries per coin. Next came silver at one hundred puries and then copper at one puri. Each form also came in ten ounce tabs which were square shaped and thick.

  Puries were similar to the Obsidian Gem +1 I held but despite pure copper being only one puri, puries were the only type of mana infused metal that boosted all types of magic. They were also easy to transmute and aid all sorts of crafting. From what I had seen this Obsidian Gem +1 probably aided necromancy type magic or dark magic.

  I didn't know how artisans infused this into armor but when they did, it lost all of its pure mana properties as the mana became that of the infuser. To be able to control pure mana without tainting it was incredibly rare.

  Other than the bag of new found wealth, there was also an (Ice Infinity) Oak Staff, 3% Ice Output and a Spell Book: Ice. I gathered them all and had Skelly hold on to the (????) Rings x4 for I dare risk touching them by accident. Skelly, wasn't covered in my mana since he was a ritual, so it was safe for him to carry but I didn't want to risk having him wear it.

  I had no clue what it would do to him or if it would suddenly impact me. I would rather be safe than sorry. I passed up the baby arachnid that I had mercilessly slain and felt Summon Undead Ritual was possible and so I summoned it.

  Success! I quickly noticed that not only was Summon Undead Ritual draining my mana, but it drained a large portion of it to restore this baby arachnid to a lively state. I was able to refuse the mana drain but I allowed it and the arachnid now looked completely normal. It didn't look undead at all and just then, Abigail's face popped into my head. She didn't look at all undead despite the fact that vampires were considered so.

  With Skelly and Spotty, my new little minion, at my tail, we headed back to my room. I found neat areas for my new acquired items, sat down, got comfortable, and unsealed the spell book.

  It was about time I got an ice spell. I would be able to preserve my meat finally. The book floated up in front of me and I smiled widely but it suddenly shattered like glass.

  PAIN

  What?

  The book then slowly crumbled and faded away.

  PAIN

  I failed! I failed learning Ice! What the fuck! That's... That's... Ugh!

  The seal was incredibly weak and I knew I had at least a ninety percent chance of success. I screamed out in frustration, pounded the ground, and then injured myself punching the wall.

  I took a deep breath and relaxed. I've been through worse, much worse, so there was no need to throw a hissy fit over a failed book. I lay down and breathed into my hands.

  PAIN

  I'm such an idiot.

  I eyed the wooden staff.

  PAIN

  I guess that's less useful.

  I must have been incredibly tired because I fell asleep accidentally and once again, I had a dream about being an orc slave. I wasn't bothered by it any longer because I had gotten used to reliving such experiences repeatedly the past several weeks. I also had a few dreams about Dean and the gang back at the Kingdom of Fire. Though, the latter dreams usually ended up with me covered in their blood.

  The next morning, I decided it was time for me to find a way out of here. Not that I wanted to leave forever, rather I wanted to be able to come and go as I pleased.

  As I got up to eat a few fish, I noticed my mana drain was higher. It was because of Spotty and so I brought her into my room. I wasn't able to pour mana into her and as I stared at her closely, she looked very well alive. But I had an idea,

  PAIN

  Do you need to eat too?

  I tossed a fish in front of her and ordered her to consume it. She devoured it whole with the use of some acid and once she was done, I felt a relief on my mana drain. I allowed her to eat more fish until my mana drain became minuscule.

  I went back down into the arachnid lair, the Spider Tomb, and sought a way out. I got distracted several times because of the ruby mana crystals and blightshrooms. These blightshrooms were massive compared to the ones I saw at a market back at the Kingdom. They could have been useful if I had any skills in alchemy.

  I thought I might have to go back to the Tower and blast the debris away. I feared getting buried in the rubble. I'd be trapped for centuries or however long it would take for my body to learn a useful passive.

  As I was about to call it quits, I eyed the unnatural dip into the soil and rocks just in front of the arachnid queen's corpse.

  PAIN

  Oh!

  I got it! It was the queen's acid that corroded the ground and so I quickly ordered Spotty down. I had her go behind the chest where the walls were gravel and had her spew acid. My heart skipped a beat as the gravel and rocks began to corrode away.

  This would be a slow and daunting task but I left it to Spotty to dig me a way out of here. I went back to clean out the cave walls gathering about thirty pounds of silk and kinan bones.

  For the next few days I decided to focus on crafting silk combs made of bones and arachnid silk. It wasn't an easy task because most of the silk had dried together and stuck to each other forever. I was able to differentiate the queen's silk from the baby silk by the thickness. Out of the thirty pounds of silk I was able to obtain 13 1lb Silk Comb.

  Throughout the next few days, I would expect Spotty's progre
ss and then feed her. She was digging at a decent pace and as long as there was a way out, I didn't mind the wait. Back in my room, I stared at the staff wondering how enchantments with mana crystals materials work. I eyed the black obsidian gem sitting next to my books. Other than having an Enchanter pour their magic into an item, I had no other idea. I decided to go give the staff a try.

  Anything could be used as a medium but depending on the item, it could either increase my mana output or hinder it. Depending on the medium, it could also distort my magic or my aim. The (Ice Infinity) Oak Staff, +3% Ice Output increased my mana stabilization by twenty percent making it simple to channel mana. By aiming the tip of the staff into my other hand, I was able to make a large devastating firebomb and the time it took before I began to lose control had almost doubled.

  For a few more days, I trained with the staff in an attempt to increase my accuracy. As a good medium for casting, the entire staff became part of my mana zone making it a dangerous tool for casting uncontrolled fire. But whoever enchanted this item had made the top of the staff condensed in mana allowing mana flow to converge at the top.

  The staff also tripled my cone of fire range and allowed my balls off flames to reach from one side of the Chamber to the other—from five meters to about fifty but the downside was the amount of time and concentration it took to gather the mana. The staff aided me in keeping the mana stable but did nothing to increase my output. I was shocked by how stabilizing my mana drastically increased the effects of my spells, if only at the cost of casting speed.

  I would have liked to know more about enchanting and mediums but I would need to get out of here first. I went to go check on Spotty and saw that she had reached soft dirt. What a champ she was so I went back to my room to fetch her more fish. I allowed her to eat and aided her digging afterwards with the old rusted pickaxes from earlier.