Hell Difficulty Tutorial

While I work on the door, the heatwave hits three more times, forcing me to focus on defending myself until it passes. And once it's gone, the “code” changes and I have to start over again.

With each attempt I make, I am getting quicker at it, so it's only a matter of time before I unlock it before the next heatwave.

What's nice is that during the heatwave, more Heatseekers start appearing, and the centipede-like creatures with human faces continue to fall to my concentrated thermal energy. I even fight some of them without it to better gauge their strength, and I find that it's entirely possible to defeat them without thermal energy.

My voidsteel blade actually cuts through them quite easily even without support from my skills. The only disadvantage is that it's getting just a tiny bit damaged. It would probably require me to kill hundreds of Heatseekers to destroy it, but the damage is there. Not like it doesn’t make sense; these monsters are all close to 300, but none of them have broken that particular threshold.

I level up once during that time, and my crown gains a level as well.

The crown is currently active, and filling with my mana. There is also an orb made of thermal energy filling as well.

I thought of just either filling the crown or the orb, but in the end, I decided to split my resources between the two of them. I always liked to be versatile.

When I finally unlock the door, it slides back and rolls to the side like the one before. After I pass through, it closes behind me, and I watch it happen. I don’t even create an anchor outside.

Being on my own has a bad influence on me. Maybe present Nathaniel messed up in his own way.

I will rely on you, future Nathaniel, to deal with the consequences. It's all for our Pride, and I appreciate your service.

Noname - Seems like I won’t be using Community that much. I need to focus on other things.

Reliable Tess reacts quickly; she, like most of us, has been constantly checking the chat, for seconds at a time.

Sset - Got it. Good luck.

Noname - Luck doesn’t have anything to do with it.

I turn off the Community and then stop and stretch. My body feels so light and warm. I even notice that I’ve been subconsciously using bits of kinetic energy to add power to my movements. However messed up Lissandra might be, her training methods do work.

Fulfilling my expectations, a few Ashborn Phantoms attack, only for me to kill them one after the other. Dozens of them throw themselves at me while the heat in the room I just entered gradually increases.

Soon enough, another heatwave hits, and with it, three more Heatseekers, each one bigger than the last and each one has three question marks but they’re probably no higher than level 299.

Thermal energy flows from my Vortex Core, and through my arm, as I use [Infusion] to fill my ax, the damaged blade of the weapon glowing with my golden flames. Kinetic energy flows through my body, giving me a comfortable feeling mana strengthening never did.

The first Heatseeker attacks me while the other two start absorbing the heat from the room, channeling it into the flames they use to attack me. And despite their strength, they can’t seem to damage the metal the pyramid is made of.

So far only my thermal energy seems to be capable of that.

I miss my first few shots at the Heatseekers, the monsters are quick and twitchy, but I use the golden orb over my shoulder, and fire a laser thin stream of thermal energy easily cutting into the monster.

Newly slowed, the monster fails to avoid me, and a single swing of my ax sends thermal energy coursing through the monster, burning it even surrounded by this crazy heat.

[You have defeated Heatseeker - lvl 299]

I hold Flamebearer in front of me, absorbing the monsters’ flames, and though they dance around me they fail to reach my body.

The sound of them passing through the air reminds me of a plane starting, and once I’ve gathered enough energy, I stop absorbing and swing, adding a bit of my own thermal energy into the mix.

A huge wave of flames explodes from me filling the room, bits of golden flames dancing within the monsters’ yellow, and devouring the Heatseekers, reducing them to ash in the process.

[You have defeated Heatseeker - lvl 299]

[You have defeated Heatseeker - lvl 299]

[Infusion - lvl 30 > Infusion - lvl 31]

With the monsters gone, the heatwave disappears as well, the room cooling off, as the residual heat is absorbed by metallic walls.

The light dims again, plunging the room into a nearly pitch black darkness. The only source of light is my thermal orb and the walls, though it’s not much. Even though it’s made of metal it looks like a flame has somehow been trapped inside it, letting out the faintest orange glow.

I take a moment to examine what I thought was a room, but in the end, I identify it as another tunnel that was blocked off by the door.

It is mildly disappointing, but I don’t mind it that much, opting to head deeper inside.

 

---

 

After two days of wandering around and killing any monsters I see, I’ve gained another level. Bringing me up to level 248.

My skills leveled up a bit as well, leaving me with this:

Active skills:
Focus - Lvl 49
Perception - Lvl 48
Redistribution - Lvl 48
Resonance - Lvl 49
Mana Domain (Pride) - Lvl 43
Tether - Lvl 36
Infusion - Lvl 32
Mana Crown - Lvl 28
Mana Manipulation - Lvl 49

Oh, and I strengthened my domain with Pride, using the point I was given when I reached Adept in my subclass.

After thinking about it for the past few days, I just decided to go with the option that makes the most sense instead of just going with my most commonly used skills. From my point of view, it just seems like my domain is the most fitting place to invest it.

I’ve started testing things out, and my domain has been strengthened significantly. Not so much its size, but its quality has definitely improved. It’s gotten a lot easier to make my mana do what I want within its bounds, but that’s not what I was aiming for. My theory is that it will be much more difficult for anyone to take control of my mana or disrupt it with my domain activated. It just feels like my Pride won’t allow it.

Of course, it’s still going to be possible for monsters like Lissandra and others much stronger than me, but as with a lot of things I do, I had the future in mind when I did it.

I’ve also decided to avoid letting it blind me and impede my growth as the black mana did.

Even so, I still think it could maybe have been better to use with my other skills.

[Mana Manipulation]? To give it an effect like my domain without having to activate it. Maybe applying it to [Mana Crown] would have improved my control or offered something better. And I think about it[Redistribution] also sounds like it could work nicely with Pride.

I’ll probably be having these thoughts for a long time, but I still think I’ve chosen well. Even if it might not be the best option currently, it will influence my future options for my primary class and passives. The system always says rewards are offered according to my performance, so it knows how I use my skills and chooses rewards accordingly. I could spend an endless amount of time theorizing, so I may as well put a pin in it. I have something more interesting to deal with now.

I have found the loot.

The owner of the pyramid didn’t even try all that hard to hide it. Just a few traps, one of which cut off my left arm and removed my feet below the ankle.

Another trap with spikes that I couldn’t detect piercing through my side.

Another one that tried to fry my brain with some kind of mental attack. Though, I still regret destroying it to stop the attack, rendering it impossible to examine.

And a few more lost limbs and a day or something later, I have reached a truly beautiful place.

Living quarters.

As with everything in this goddamn pyramid, it is huge. Like a skyscraper plopped down in the middle of the pyramid, It seems out of place, surrounded by all this metal, but this place is shielded, and the heat is much lower there.

There are no elevators and only stairs, but I quickly locate the core. A pillar made of white crystal somewhere in the middle of the living quarters. Well, not just living quarters. There are workshops here as well, from what I saw as I was passing by.

So I reach the core, and using my [Resonance], [Infusion], [Mana Manipulation], even [Mana Domain], and my Mana Wavelength Iris, I easily activate it.

It takes an hour, and I blame it more on my lack of sleep rather than the amazing defenses or difficulty of the task.

Connecting to my crown, I redirect a part of my mana to the core, and it floods it with shiny light blue particles of mana. The lights dance inside nicely, and then it takes two more hours for me to take over the controls and light up the place.

One after another, the lights in the walls start glowing and after days in the dimly lit tunnels, it feels nearly alien. Cozy, but alien nonetheless.

I glance at my left arm which is still missing a hand. It will regrow soon, but it’s annoying because I can’t use a mana prosthesis properly; the hand keeps growing and interfering with it. Well, it’s not like it’s anything new to me.

I take a huge chunk of my mana and use [Perception] and [Focus] to get as much out of it as possible. I send a pulse through the living quarters like a sonar wave, trying to locate anything interesting.

[Perception - lvl 48 > Perception - lvl 49]

Huh.

I did have to get a few of my skills to level 50, didn’t I? The cockroach threatened to kill me if I didn’t.

Instead of bothering with more useless stuff, I create an orb over my shoulder. It’s an imitation of that evil orb Lissandra made for me before. Mine’s still not perfect, but it’s good enough to train.

Since I don’t have to deal with the Burden Enhancement Inscriptions, disrupting mana and heat, I create another evil orb and head to the lowest part of the place while training. I have sensed some nice stuff down there.

On my way there, I stop in front of a room with expensive-looking doors. They’re made out of some weird wood and delicately inscribed. In fact, some of these inscriptions are only there to make them look nicer.

With a blast of kinetic energy, I turn them into mere scraps of wood. Their defenses were inert, my mana in the core supporting the most important functions of this place.

I enter a room that seems to be really luxurious. One of the huge windows even offers a view of what probably used to be a huge garden. Now it's dried up, and the trees have been reduced to giant hunks of dry wood.

There are layers of dust everywhere, but it's still been well preserved. There isn't much humidity in the pyramid, so I guess it makes sense.

First, I reach a small stand where drinking glasses sit under a few faucets. I send a bit more mana to the core through my [Tether] I left there and then reactivate the inscriptions directly, bypassing the broken mana stone.

A hissing sound pours from the pipes for the next thirty seconds, before being replaced by a quiet bubbling. A stream of dirty water shoots from the pipes, and it takes another thirty seconds for it to clear up and correct the flow. I use it to wash off one of the glasses and then fill it. Without much hesitation, I drink the entire glass in one go.

Disgusting.

I fill another one and drink it as well. Then a few more. The longer the water flows, the better it tastes. That, or it's already killing my taste buds. Both options are fine with me.

I stop the water and then head to another room, which is entirely made out of white polished stone, with hundreds of holes in the ceiling.

The clothes I'm wearing end up on the ground, and for a moment, I look at them. Then I burn them in the golden flame of my thermal energy until nothing remains.

The room turns out to be a shower, as I had expected. At first, dirty, disgusting water pours down, again as was expected. It takes a minute of me standing under it before the water flows properly or clearly.

There doesn't seem to be any soap or Old Spice shower gel, so I just stand there for a few minutes until I feel cleaner. All the dirt and sweat I’ve collected ever since the start of this little adventure with the little kitten and cockroach are washed away. The experience leaves me feeling much lighter.

After that, I spend a good ten minutes choosing new clothes in the small room I find nearby. There are dozens of articles, and most of them are in a good state. Only clothes made of certain materials seem to have been ravaged by the passage of time.

Using the mirror I wipe clean with one of the shirts while inspecting my reflection.

Black shirt with rolled-up sleeves. I really like the material. The pants are light brown and feel nice as well. The shoes do not fit me at all, so I go barefoot. I’ve gotten used to the experience since the tutorial started. Some shoes just can't handle too much explosive movement, so it makes sense.

Maybe I could open a shoe shop for superhumans when I get back to Earth. I bet a lot of people will need them.

In the end, I also use [Resonance] to trim my hair and “shave” the stubble from my face.

I loot the place as well, taking interesting mana stones from appliances and a few stones from the walls. I fill a few bottles I found with water and pick up some replacement clothes as well.

Only then do I head to the bottom of this place.

If I'm right, it's where the armory is.