CH.628 Living Weapon and Adventurer Progress
Since I haven’t written about either in a while, I guess it is time for us to talk about two background things that have been going on at the same time as everything else.
The living weapons and the adventurers.
Let’s start with the living weapons.
The thirteen Mabuki have learned quite a lot, and can act as quite decent living weapons. They aren’t on the level of Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword yet, but they are more than usable.
Spoiler
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And since they were usable, Wilma had begun experimenting with her weapon overlay strategy. She would have two or more of the living weapons circling her, and she could then grab the appropriate weapon for the job. Or just have the weapons attack without her input, but because of stats and all that it is better if she was the one wielding the weapon.
I had personally trained a few of the weapons, not primarily but as a secondary instructor. The two I had focused on were The Star Chain, Virgo and The Star Sword, Leo. Because I use a sword as my primary weapon and Dark Chain as a support skill.
Wilma’s favorite weapon, outside of her Eternal Hammer, Ilmari, was the Star Shield, Pisces. Can’t blame her for that. Having a large shield that can fly around you and blocks attacks by itself is extremely useful.
Alice had also realized something interesting with The Star Staff, Capricorn. As a living staff, Capricorn can cast basic spells using the mana stored within the staff. So the staff can cast support, buff and nerf spells, while the user just focuses on offensive spells.
Sadly not all of the Star Series turned out perfect, as Unika really doesn’t like The Star Bow, Sagittarius. She says the bow lacks the ability to assist with trickier shots and can even go against the user with them. And all it really assists with is firing quickly.
Also, Wilma had noticed that having more than 3 living weapons orbit her at the same time began to get difficult. The weapons would run into each other and just otherwise get in the way.
I had tried to help her with this by setting up the orbits in correct alignments and helping with the timing issues, but I honestly think it might just be the weapons being too eager to get used. They try to be overachievers and accelerate their orbital velocity so that Wilma would use them next, instead of just orbiting around until she needs them.
Lastly, Scorpio, The Star Dagger, is a bit too eager to have itself coated in poison. Mainly the paralyzing stuff, but still. The fact that my monsters made one of the Star Series into a poison addict is just a bit alarming. But I think that might be partially because Scorpio is a dagger. Maybe if it was a more complex weapon, it would have learned more techniques and so on, instead of learning ways of making a small weapon more deadly.
Now, the adventurers.
Let’s start with the very first one, Kurt. The young swordsman has come a long way from the person who was forced to ‘burn’ his hand on my card. On top of his developing sword skills, he has also learned three attributes of magic, Wind, Water and Lightning. He has also evolved twice now, though both have just been class races. First he evolved into a Swordsman and then just twenty levels later into a Magic Swordsman.
He, like the other adventuring students, is currently just above level 90, and all of them are preparing for their first Fissure fight, so that they can get their limit breaks after they hit 99.
Second, Brooke. Our diver adventurer has also advanced nicely. She evolved into a Water Magician Naiad.
Naiad is an interesting race. It isn’t commonly seen on humans, as it is generally believed to be an Elf exclusive evolution, but that isn’t the case. The race itself is kind of a water spirit and human mix, but not like Cailie where she is literally half spirit. It is more of a race that just has a deep connection with spirits, especially water spirits.
And yes, Brooke does have herself a contract with a lesser water spirit, which now lives in her hair. It wasn’t difficult for her to get one, as Cailie just summoned a few until one agreed to make a contract with Brooke.
Nikki the racoon girl has evolved again. This time from a Trickster Racoon-folk into a Trickster Tanuki-kin. The change wasn’t that much, but it does remind me that I have the Racoon-folk race, so I likely could unlock the Tanuki-folk, or kin, races.
Thanks to her new race, and her Trickster skills, she is the stealthiest member of the adventuring team. She can sneak up on people she has no right being able to get close to without being noticed.
No, she can’t sneak up on me. I either smell or hear her because of my enhancement skills, but she can sneak up on Unika, and that is impressive.
She has also studied poisons, so she can coat her twin-swords in poison to be more effective with her sneak attacks.
Barrett is next. He evolved into an Earth Striker (Human), which is a special race requiring both Hammer Technique and Earth Magic.
He has always been ‘the best’ of my students in a way. He knew what he wanted and likely would have gotten there without HomeBase, but HomeBase was just a massive shortcut for him.
He has also taken on somewhat of a leader role amongst the adventurers.
Lugh the White Fang Wolf-kin has probably changed the least. He did experience a second evolution and got his Spearman class race. He also learned Telekinesis so he could more easily recover his spear after throwing it, and he learned how to use Rending Claws to enhance his claw combat while his spear is somewhere away from him.
Miris the Centipede-folk has become more open. Because of his looks, he was, and probably still is, the most reserved member of the adventuring team. But after his evolution, and everyone getting used to it, he began to realize that people didn’t hate him for how he looked. He just looked different and they needed a bit of time to know him.
Though it is partially also Sharon the arachne alchemist. She was never hated for her looks and she was able to prove to Miris that by being more outgoing, she gained friends and respect on HomeBase.
In terms of his battle skills, Miris is extremely fast with his Flickering Step skill. He knows how to chain the skill with his multitude of insect legs and can move way faster than someone with his level should be able to thanks to that.
Callan, as you may remember, uses a sword and shield. He evolved into a Guardian and with it, we were able to confirm something. Callan did indeed have vision problems. He was nearsighted, thus affecting his ability to hit targets with ranged magic. But the evolution luckily fixes that issue and Callan has gotten decently accurate with his spells.
He still specializes in defending, buffing and healing, but he can go on the offensive if he needs to.
Next up, Dante. His sword skills are advancing nicely, and his Fire Magic is top notch. He has also picked up Telekinesis and Mana Flight, accomplishing half of his goal of flight.
He does still want to grow wings, and I’ve actually been considering making a deal with a demon, so that Dante can become a Cambion. That would allow him to grow wings, and also get access to Demonic Magic. Sure being a Cambion still isn’t the easiest, but thanks to my corrections to demon summoning, it has become just slightly more accepted. But mainly amongst those who actually know magic. It is still illegal to do so in any of the three Kingdoms, but you can do it in the Hero’s country as long as you have a Sage as an observer.
Last, Elina. The resident magician of the adventurers. She evolved into a Sorceress and with some installs, she has picked up Dark and Fire Magics. She still looks up to Alice about as much as she ever did, which most likely affected her choices of magic attributes. Sure it isn’t a perfect match, as Alice is Dark, Fire and Earth, while Elina is Wind, Dark and Fire, but close enough.
Elina can fly with Wind Magic, but she isn’t that stable yet, and she has gotten the Swordstaff Technique skill. Otherwise her skills are focused on spamming spells.
But now, it was time for the final test of my adventurers. If they could pass this test, I’d know they are ready to take on a fissure and the horrors it brings.
Originally I planned on having them fight me 1v9. It would have been a challenge for me, but with my stats, I should have been able to do it.
But I just recently got someone better. The Soul of the Ocean, Varuna. He is huge, has more HP than basically anyone, and is quite good at holding back his strength.
I would be standing by, just in case Varuna went too far.
Now you might think it is unfair of me to expect them to be able to damage Varuna, someone who is literally made of water and is strong enough to stand up against a Fenrir, but you need to remember, Varuna is made of water.
He is actually quite susceptible to lightning, unless he purifies the water he is made out of. Which he generally doesn’t, as it takes a while and prevents him from growing his body mass as easily as he usually can.
The fight, to not make it too unfair, was taking place on the water forest floor of HomeBase. It also has aqua treants, so the adventurers can’t just focus all their efforts on Varuna.
I gave the group a quick mission brief, before I let them head into the forest. Meanwhile, I levitated myself up into the air before turning myself invisible with the Numeron Code.
I guess I’ll quickly mention a few things about that. It does make me completely invisible to any sort of vision based anything. It also removes most noise I make, like breathing, walking sounds, etc. But I can still speak if I want.
I can be detected when I’m invisible by smell and touch. And some area based locating spells can still locate me, as long as they locate things by ‘touch’ not ‘sight’. So a Wind Magic spell that runs strong winds through an area and sends the user feedback on disturbances would spot me, but an equivalent spell using Light Magic wouldn’t.
Space Magic also works, as I do disrupt the space I stand in, but still, I’m pretty well invisible.
I looked from up high as the adventurers made their way into the forest. The aqua treants attempted to harm them, but they weren’t that big of a threat. Because of her race, Brooke could tell them apart from the regular trees, so they couldn’t surprise the group, and they were easy targets for any number of attacks.
Varuna on the other hand wasn’t that easy. Sure he was nowhere near as large as he was when he took on Nir, probably being only the size he was at the end of the fight, but with the rain on this floor, he had a constant source of water so he never ran out. He just kept taking attack after attack, while every now and then launching a powerful counter which caused issues to the adventuring team.
In the end, the adventurers had no choice but to retreat. They had exhausted their mana, and even some mana potions. And while they had equipment to draw mana from HomeBase, they weren’t allowed to use that for this fight, as it was a test.
That is also why Kurt didn’t use any cards, despite the fact that he has some that might have helped them in the situation.
To open their retreat path, Kurt used the last of his mana for a powerful Lightning spell that stunned Varuna for a bit. With that, they ran away before Varuna could gather the next wave of water to attack them with.
I was quite proud of them, because despite their retreat, they gave it their best shot against a near impossible opponent. And only after exhausting their options and buying plenty of time for backup to arrive, they retreated.
Also, none of them had life threatening injuries, though that might be because of Varuna holding back properly. So yeah. A few more levels to each of them and they’ll be ready to take on fissures.
What do you think?
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