Hell Difficulty Tutorial

I watch as the twins and Min-Jae fight the golem I made with one of my new damaged arcane items.

 

Golem Heart (Arcane, Damaged) - The Golem Heart could once animate stone and metal, bringing golems to life. Now, its core is cracked, but it may sporadically imbue nearby objects with a flicker of life, making them move or respond for short durations, echoing its once grand animating power.

 

I made it entirely out of hardened dirt, and it wasn’t even that difficult to make. It’s just difficult to control, and the only orders the golem can process are very restrictive. I suspect that with a bit more practice, I should be able to improve my control and maybe even get it to change its shape.

But for now, the moment I send mana into it, it moves the earth in front of me, causing it to bulge and lift up, creating a simple humanoid shape. Very simple, as if a child had made it out of clay. On the other hand, it is twice my height and could kill said kid easily. It could easily take down anyone from Normal difficulty, and it would take dozens of people from Hard difficulty to reliably bring the golem down.

So we put it through its paces while Min-Jae and the twins fight the result, sweating, rolling on the ground, and screaming at me. Something rude, I’m sure, but I filter it out.

Maya is nearby, sitting on the ground with Bloodthirst in her hand as she proceeds to clean and oil the weapon.

The golem is a rusty shade of light brown. It moves fairly quickly for its size, but the only advantage it has is its durability. It’s way too slow to catch up to any of the three boys, and the only reason they’re taking damage is because we’ve decided to test out the golem’s damage output, and that they let it happen.

Holding the heart in my hand, I send my mana through its circuits, trying to parse the delicate inscriptions within. Activating some switch, the golem falters and falls to the ground.

I get a few weird looks, but I quickly alter my approach, and the golem slowly stands up again, packing more dirt around the heart, taking more of my mana as the dirt compresses.

The resulting golem winds up even slower than before.

Another attempt a bit later, and the golem loses half of its material, moving faster, until I mess something up, breaking its leg in the process and watching it fall.

Then I start to think I’ve come up with a new idea to change its shape, but instead, the golem stands up without its left arm.

For some reason, that makes Maya laugh - a lot.

For a moment I want to take my weapon back, though I settle for sending the golem after her instead, in all its clunky glory.

She jumps to her feet, excitement in her eyes, as blue armor surrounds her. Then, powering it with a few of her mana batteries and supplementing it with her own mana, the armor grows bigger and bigger until it matches the golem’s size.

Left arm or no, the brown stone figure attacks Maya in her oversized mana armor engaging her in a punching match, neither side bothering to avoid the incoming blows.

I start getting into it, and it feels fun, so I start funneling more mana into the heart, making the golem tougher and stronger but unfortunately not faster, which Maya uses to her advantage.

The cheating fox of a woman is even using Bloodthirst, the otherwise sizable claymore now looking almost like a dagger in the hand of the blue armor.

As much as I’m focused on the golem, I also take a moment to observe Maya, and I find myself surprised by what I see. I knew she was quite talented, especially with the skills she got. The mecha-like suit of armor always was her idea and I shamelessly ripped it off. However, she seems to have invested a few more points into mana now. She still has high physical stats, especially dexterity, but mana has clearly been getting a bit more love.

[Armament] still works much the same as it did before, and I think my [Regalia] was stronger while I had it, but she’s clearly put a few more levels into it, and when she uses it in combination with her [Boost], it truly begins to show some real potential, Incorporating spikes in the speed, strength, and durability of the construct. And she hasn’t skimped out on the mana batteries either, filling them to the brim with her mana.

However many times she destroys the golem’s legs, I restore them, and the golem keeps coming back.

With amusement, I watch as her reserves dwindle, and she decides to bow out in the name of conserving her mana batteries for something more useful.

More mana wins again.

As I direct the golem to fight Min-Jae, who alternates between slowing it down with his skill and bombarding it from afar, Maya comes closer.

“In a real fight, I would go after you as the controller,” she states, sulking like a true loser, not seeing the value of the best stat.

“Sure.” I nod.

“Also can you please recreate that orb for me? It burst again.”

“It’s called the evil orb.”

“... sure.”

I do as she asks and create another one of the constructs with its ever-changing demands.

It truly is an evil orb. Yup.

Much like Lissandra did for me, I hand the slightly modified orb to Maya, who immediately shuts up devoting all of her focus to the exercise. She doesn’t even bother to move aside, even that little distraction would be too much.

Then, with great satisfaction, I watch as the orb bursts open, as Maya uses too much mana.

Without another word, I create another one and three more for myself which I display over my head.

Maya glances at them and then at me, her eyes seeming to tell me that she knows exactly what I’m doing. She then quickly turns all attention to her orb.

It dissipates this time.

So I create another one.

After 30 seconds, it bursts open.

Another one.

She fails to follow the frequency, and it disappears.

Another one.

It bursts open.

Another one.

Fail.

Another one.

Burst open.

Another one.

Too slow to adapt to the frequency.

I add one more, bringing the total number of evil orbs floating over my head to four as I continue to keep the golem somewhat under my control. This is fun.

At this point, Maya looks like she wants to stab that claymore through my chest.

Is this what people mean when they talk about having friends? This isn’t bad at all. I could get used to it. I…

“Nat…” Tess shouts from somewhere behind me.

Maya immediately rushes to her to complain while pointing her finger at me.

Has she no dignity in her body? So weak.

“I’m helping,” I note, nodding over at Tess.

“I saw you helping. Mind creating one for me?” Her voice clearly implies a challenge.

“Very well,” I say, creating another orb before sending it over to her. I maintain its frequencies until Tess takes over, and then I stop.

As expected, Tess does even better than Maya. She manages to keep up with the orb for a bit before it bursts open as well.

Instead of surprise or disappointment, her gray eyes shine with interest, and I create another one.

And another.

Then another.

After each one bursts open, Tess seems to improve, if only slightly. I’m honestly tempted to create the original version I learned from Cockroach-Sandra for her instead of the simpler version of the orb I created for group 4.

Even though this orb is easier to work with, much easier, than the original non-adapted version by Liss, it annoys me that Tess is improving so quickly.

It’s not envy talking or my pride, but I know I’m better at it than her. All my skills, traits, passives, and talents, which have served to bring me this far. All my experience and hard work. Even so, a genius like Tess displaying the full breadth of her talent reminds me that I can never stop pushing ahead. If I do, people like her and the cowardly Savant will take over. And we can’t have that.

“Help me with this one,” the blonde says, nudging Maya, who quickly reaches for the orb and starts helping as well.

The work seems to grow much easier, split between two people.

“Let’s go eat something,” Tess tells Maya, who silently grabs the claymore and follows behind Tess, both of them working on the orb. I even get a short wave as they leave.

Then, once again, I send mana through the golem heart, the humanoid figure made of stones and dirt reforming.

“Try ranged attacks now,” I shout to the boys, as we get back to testing.

 

---

 

The 6th floor monsters usually appear during the day and rarely do anything during the night. They only ever leave their hidey holes when it's scorching hot outside and they attack anything that moves when they do, sometimes moving even in groups.

We have difficulties finding drinkable water and food. Plenty of monsters cannot be eaten either because they taste too disgusting or turn out to be poisonous.

Sure, I bet you could eat an insectoid monster if you had to. Your body should be able to digest it all after all the changes it went through.

But would you want to?

So, the lack of water and food seems to be a major feature of this floor, and buying them in the system shop turns out to be no more possible than it was on the third floor.

That's the system we know. Ah, good old times when I flipped the system window every few hours. I do it even now and then turn to Min-Jae, who looks at me with surprise in his eyes.

“So you will be getting bulli… trained by Tess?” I ask him.

“Yes, she said it might be better to separate me and the twins.”

“Have you been acting like a bully again?”

“I have not.”

“Really?”

Instead of shouting back at me, he seems to deflate, “Look, Nat, I know my behavior in the tournament was pathetic. I’ve already been shit on by everyone in the group over that. I… it just felt…”

“Three monsters at eleven o’clock,” I announce, interrupting him.

With a practiced motion he moves his hand, sending five pieces of compressed metal flying through the air as they hurtle towards the monsters.

They whistle as they pierce the air. Each one the size of a human head, making for an ugly amalgamation of metals squeezed into a lumpy round mass. There is rust covering them in places, and their shapes resemble crumpled paper more than they do true orbs or anything else. But they are effective.

The five chunks of metal slam into the monsters at a speed too fast to dodge.

The monsters in question remind me of bugs with their wide heads, mandibles, and four long legs.

Green blood splashes into the air, but the monsters don’t make so much of a sound as they come rushing towards us.

[Venomclaw - lvl 202]

[Venomclaw - lvl 203]

[Venomclaw - lvl 201]

Min-Jae moves his hand, and the chunks of metal come flying back, but the monsters are faster.

They move very quickly on their long legs, each movement replete with an uncanny twitching, as their hard skeletons clatter against the rocky ground. Mana seeps out of them, reaching towards us as it rises up in a poisonous aura, like a cheap imitation of a domain.

Venomclaws like to move in groups, each one having its own knock-off domain with poisonous mana in it. And they like to combine them to put more pressure on their opponents.

When there are only a few of them, it isn't a problem. But when you have dozens of them combining their efforts… Well, it could end up interesting.

But much as I had expected, Min-Jae moves the orbs he had made out of mana-conductive metal. These do a better job of accepting the effects of his gravity skill and are easier to manipulate for it. And much, much quicker. A barrage of two hundred or so orbs shoots ahead; more than orbs, they look like bullets. In this moment he’s like a minigun spitting out projectiles at immense speed.

They pierce through the monsters and then fly back, piercing them again and again until the Venomclaws fall down with their bodies heavily perforated.

Before stowing his orbs, Min-Jae spins them around in a quick orbit to remove any remaining blood and pieces of the monsters' bodies and then returns them to his backpack.

Each of these orbs is about half the size of a golf ball, we had them made for him on the 4th floor. And they’re heavy enough that he shouldn't be able to move them at all, though he can always alter their weight, so it's not a problem.

“We should leave; there will be more of them once they smell the blood of the others.”

“Nah, we’re staying.”

Min-Jae looks at me only once and gulps.

The day’s just getting started, I wonder how many of these things we can lure here for Min-Jae to kill before they go to sleep for the night.