NOVEL NEXT Chapter Forty Nine - My Floor
It was a good thing we ended up sidetracked on the fourth floor. It allowed us to all take the time to really talk about our experiences since the System arrived. Well, mostly it was me talking. The others had been together since everything started so once their story reached the edge of the dungeon, there wasn’t much more to say.
The outside world had obviously changed a lot, but it wasn’t solidified yet. One town might be completely fine, with people going about their days as if nothing had changed while another was now more like an apocalyptic reference to Australian movies about men with cars and not much else. For the most part, their advice was to judge it when I saw it, which seemed fair.
For my part, I explained what I felt they were lacking and why it seemed important. Everyone now had mana within their body but other than Tom, none of them even tried to use it outside of skills. Before I gained an Aspect, I had learned Mana Control. Even the System said it was essentially something learned as a child throughout the multiverse. With that control I had essentially created Infusion by myself.
“Guidance Stones are just that. Guidance. I don’t think they’re letting you do something you couldn’t do before, it’s just that the System makes it insanely simple once you’ve used one. Too simple, maybe.” I flexed my fingers, activating Drain and watching the magic move through my channels. The technique was anything but simple, yet its use was like blinking, it required no thought. “Something to work on.”
I was met consistently with embarrassed or confused looks as the others repeatedly realised they had either ignored or just misunderstood different things. Aaron spoke up, asking who made me the king of magic. I raised an eyebrow and created an orb of Mana Bolts, Tom’s peak skill. “Actually knowing what I’m talking about makes me king, Aaron.” The younger man flinched away until I dispelled the ball. I shrugged. “I can’t force you to care,” I said with finality as I walked towards the fifth floor.
Name - Grant Kaeron Race - Stormborn (Grade 1) Level - 40
Title - Dragon Slayer
Fortitude - 55 Speed - 55 Mental - 203 Will - 110
Free attribute points: 20
I showed Naea my character page, realising this was the first time she had seen it officially. Her eyes bulged but she kept her cool while a decidedly evil grin appeared on her face. She rubbed her hands together and tilted her head, making sure the numbers stayed the same at all angles. “Your Will is nearly as high as my Speed, Grant.”
Name - “Naea” Race - Dungeon Fairy Level - 48
Grade - E
Skills - Invisibility, Mana Control, Sparkstep, Harmony of the Storm
Patron: Grant Kaeron (Level 40)
I looked over the familiar page, which only told me so much. I let her statement remain vague. It was impolite to ask a woman her attributes, after all. I wriggled my eyebrows at her. “Yep, I’m impressive, I know.” Naea was gracious and played along, pretending to fawn over me. I placed the twenty floating points into Mental. Now that I had no weapon and new abilities, I could lean even less on the physical attributes. With all of my modifiers, it was actually equivalent to more than 40 points into the attribute. I was approaching 500 effective points in the stat.
Tom’s head snapped in my direction as I gained more strength in a moment than he had in half of his levels. If he were receiving the standard four points per level, his mental attribute was likely still less than one hundred in total. I just winked at him from a distance and surged my mana. His eyes went from squints to wide open. I began showing off, unable to help myself. Damned Dao of the Dragon, I thought jokingly.
Everything was fun and games until the boss of the tower decided to swing its own weight.
Stood at the door leading to the fifth floor, a wind began to push against my back. The Grade 0 members of The Ascent began to choke on the dense energy pervading the fourth floor. My Dao was already flaring, so I was okay. I curled my lip and extended the protection over the others as I returned to the group. Naea activated a Dao barrier and looked at me with worry in her eyes, all joviality replaced. Whatever waited on the fifth floor was serious business.
I couldn’t hide my smile as a bead of sweat ran down my neck. Thank you, System, I managed to keep my thoughts to myself, an actual challenge. I turned to Tom. “Hey. Oi. Over here. Yep, you’re okay. All of you are fine. Tom, look at me. Do you feel what I’m doing?” He was addled by the blast of Dao. I hadn’t felt the full force of it, and even my ears were ringing. These poor guys had basically been sledgehammered in the head. Once his eyes cleared, he looked at me and nodded.
“Right, good, you’re going to do the same.” He looked at me like my head had grown five times the size. “No, seriously, it’s easy. Take a breath, clench your thighs and push the energy out like you’re blowing up a balloon.” While I was sure my directions weren’t perfect, Tom grasped the idea extremely quickly. He might genuinely be better at magic than me. The thought made me grumpy but it wasn’t the time. It took a few tries until Tom was able to hold his Dao extended without the bubble popping.
I gently removed mine until Tom’s was the only thing protecting the group from the gale forces of the Tower boss’ Dao. It was a little like walking away from a house of cards and hoping it wouldn’t fall. Once I was sure he had the feeling down, I threw my protection over them again. “You’re going to have to hold that while I deal with buddy boy up there.” Tom grimaced but nodded, looking at me with determination.
“Please hurry,” Tom said through gritted teeth. I nodded, turning on my heel. I hoped the others would get the tower completion rewards even if they didn’t come to the fifth floor but if they didn’t, such was life. I had done all I could for them and more. Each of them was on the cusp of understanding Dao, which in turn would let them evolve once the bottleneck was broken. Any more assistance and I would hinder their paths and my own, forever becoming teacher and students.
As soon as my foot entered the stairway to the fifth floor, the pressure increased tenfold. Naea nudged me and we both looked at each other with begrudging admiration for our upcoming enemy. Something about the entrance to the stairwell had blocked most of the Dao from entering. Now it was an actual challenge, even for myself. We made our way up the passageway quickly.
With a layout like the floors below, the fifth floor was not a surprise architecturally. Beautiful lacquered wood made up the bulk of the space, with impossibly detailed carvings all throughout. The walls were decorated with paintings and tapestries, while statues made of incredibly solid stone were dotted around. They were in the form of heroic looking amphibians. The only real difference was the number of enemies on this floor.
A singular figure stood waiting near the middle of the room. All around it, energies swirled like a nebula brought to Earth. Instead of a small army, there was one creature. I began to use analysis and it brought its eyes to meet mine in response. Why? I couldn’t help the shiver which ran through me. My temper flared as the tower boss scoffed in response, taking my revulsion as fear. Why did it have to be a goddamn rat?
Sneering at me from a few hundred metres away was a humanoid rat. It was wearing a robe which covered most of its hunched form. Covered in brown and grey fur, it’s face was gruesome, elongated and wrong. Its eyes, pinkish in colour, looked too human, both intelligent and feral at once. As we surveyed each other, the spirals of mana and Dao surrounding the thing became increasingly energetic. Angry, challenging and proud, the ratman’s Dao tried to assault me like a weapon.
I was excited.
Unlike my clashes with Naea, this was a serious life-or-death situation. The creature had done me a service in its insult. It had tried to insult my pride. As my own Dao flared out, no longer just protective but offensive in its own right, the ratman began to chitter in outrage. A mostly invisible battle was being fought as I stepped closer and closer to the creature. Each step increased the weight on my back by double but I didn’t stop. The dungeon boss would be feeling the same from me.
It screamed and launched itself backwards as I came within twenty feet. A horrible, broken howl rippled through the air as the monster’s Dao influenced the space. As it landed against the back wall, I stamped a foot down. “Naea, if you would join me.” She nodded and together, we blanketed the whole floor with our Dao. The creature had made a miscalculation. It had tried to stake its claim on the area with its Dao. It would have been difficult to fight under those conditions. It was an interesting application of Dao.
Unfortunately for it, this was our floor now.
Its control broken, the monster pulled out a weapon and leapt to attack. Its rage was real. Naea fell back a little and focused on covering the fight with the Dao of the Fairy Dragon. I dodged the incoming attacks and tried once more to analyse the monster. Without its Dao in the way, I could see its name and level.
Boss Monster - Master Thorn - Level 79
A full 10 levels higher than Shub’Nagorath. Stronger by a huge margin due to having actual control of Dao, as well as a fighting style not focused on its progeny. As I dodged, I reaffirmed my decision to leave the party behind. Not only could they not have completed the tower alone, but they would have been destroyed by this guy. If I had to protect them, I’d probably get myself killed, too.
It wasn’t a lack of power, they just weren’t blessed with a familiar who could turn their own vast mana reserve into pure healing energy. I had used the perfect concoction of abilities and circumstance to push further than others possibly could in a much shorter time. So it was just us. Naea and me. Against the most lethal enemy I had yet to fight.
Finally, I might have found something interesting.