The Forgotten Legacy

Shaun knew that staying on the ground and playing shoot the sparrow out of the sky was going to be more hassle than it was worth, joining them in the air was going to be a much better use of his time and energy. He didn’t see anything particularly weird or interesting about the sparrow like he had with the Ant Queen, although that didn’t mean that they didn’t have attacks that could harm him.

Compressing air into platforms he started to run up into the air at the closest sparrow, he didn’t get far before he found out what the spear part in the sparrows name meant. Just as he had covered half the distance to the closest bird he felt an attack come at him from another, he quickly dropped down from his position, dodging the attack, but what he saw made him second guess how far he would be able to make it through the dungeon if level 30 monsters could form such powerful attacks. The sparrow were able to power up attacks from their beaks and then launch what looked like a spear through the air at their target. Shaun watched the spear hit the ground below him, the result was a compressed explosion, that, if it had hit him, would have caused some serious damage.

Now not only did he have to work on catching the monsters but he also had to constantly be on the look out for their attacks. If he didn’t have his affinity with air, there was no way that he could both attack and defend at the same time, it was only because of his increased stats and all of his affinities that he believed that with a bit of time he would be able to win against them.

Moving back through the air, he targeted the same bird as he had before, this time making sure to constantly use his echo to make sure he could feel whenever one of the attacks were sent his way so he could dodge it well in advance. The sparrow were quick, especially when flying at full speed, and after a while he gave up on using his sword for this fight. He would waste more mana if he kept running around long term compared to using his elemental strikes in the fight.

Manipulating the air so that he could get closer to the birds, giving them less time to dodge any of his attacks, as soon as he was close enough he sent a fire strike through his gauntlet straight out at one of the monsters. It hit the bird full on, but he had underestimated their durability and instead of killing it outright he had just knocked it from the sky with the blast. The flames still did their part though, the sparrows feathers were all on fire, and it was on the ground. He didn’t expect it to be able to get back into the air, but he should have no issue with dealing with it on the ground when the time came.

But that in itself caused a different issue, he could either increase the mana in his fire strike or he could just knock them all out of the air and kill them on the ground, it would save on mana but it would also mean that they could attack from the ground with their spear attacks. Deciding that mana was going to be more important long term he continued chasing the sparrow, only releasing the low levelled mana strikes, it was a tedious process, one that he wished he would end. However if he was right he was going to have five full waves of birds to deal with.

Eventually, after way too long of playing chase in the sky with the monsters, he had managed to knock them all out of the air, and from what he could tell, three of them had died of either the after effect of being on fire or when they had hit the ground. All that was left to do was run around to each of them and kill them with his sword. He found that the sparrow could only release a spear shot once every 30 odd seconds, giving him plenty of time to wait for one to try and attack him and then run in and kill it while it was defenceless.

When there was only one bird left, he considered whether he should just kill it now or wait a while to increase his mana. He still had half left, enough to deal with the next wave, but after that he would need to wait a while and let his mana naturally increase. He wouldn’t have to if he had just bought some mana potions, they were sold in one of the stores back in the colosseum, he had decided against buying any at the time as soul was his highest stat and he had plenty of mana to spare in a fight. But fighting waves of opponents with no rest in between had taken its toll on him, and his mana. When he got out of the dungeon it would be one of the first things he bought next. Spending the coin to be able to fight for longer, get more loot and hopefully more levels was worth it. Especially if he wouldn’t have to keep going through the easier waves first.

Having made his decision, he finished off the last bird, he received the expected notification of having 1 minute before the next wave and proceeded to loot the birds, getting their claws and beaks. When the next wave started he was greeted by eleven level 31 sparrows this time, this was also the 7th wave, meaning Rodger and his group had completed this level but not the next. Rather than wasting energy trying to find another way to take down the birds he did the same thing that he did in the last wave and chased them around, knocking them down with fire strikes, this time though he needed to up the amount of mana he used, as the first time he had attacked one of the sparrow it hadn’t done enough to fully make it hit the ground, it was still on fire and hurt, but not quite out of the air.

This was cutting it close on how much mana he would have towards the end of the fight, he was continuously using it to stay in the air as well as in his fire strikes, even with the efficiency of the gauntlet he only had so much he could use, until I fill that gem up at least.

None of the sparrow had managed to hit him yet, and he was able to kill them off as he had the last ones until he got to the very last bird alive, this one he was going to use to give him time to recover. Pulling out one of the skins he hadn’t sold to the Goblin he created stripes of the skin and infused them with the earth affinity. He waited until the sparrow sent out its attack, dodging it easily, before moving in and tying it up like a Thanksgiving turkey, effectively it couldn’t fly, couldn’t use its claws and its beak was tied shut. He inspected his handy work for a while before moving away from the sparrow and dropping into mediation to help boost the process of regaining his mana.

To boost the effects of the mediation he also tried something a little different, using his mana sight skill he found the mana motes around him, most of it completely unattuned, and started taking control of them with his mind, forcing them into his body and giving him an extra boost with each mote he brought into himself. He continued doing this for about 2 hours, and only stopped when he had fully regained his full supply of mana. This would have taken twice as long if not for draining all the mana in the environment around him, taking full advantage of his mana sight and heritage. It also came with an unexpected surprise.

*Your skill [Basic] Meditation (Level 25 – MAX) has evolved into [Advanced] Meditation (Level 1)*

*[Advanced] Meditation: The Meditation skill allows the user to more easily fall into a trance like state where they are able to recover their Mana at an increased rate, the skill also allows the user to block out their surroundings and fully focus their attention. The advanced skill allows for a boost in Mana recovery by speeding up the absorption of the ambient Mana. Can also more easily meditate and stay aware of your surroundings.*

The name of the skill hadn’t changed, and for the most part it was the same, essentially the upgrade to advanced just integrated exactly what he had been doing with his mana sight skill and offered a little bit of understanding of his surroundings when he meditated. Having finished with what he needed, he went up to the bird he had tied up and killed it. He received the notifications for killing the sparrow as well as the one-minute countdown to the next wave. Rather than waiting on the ground he moved up into the air just before the timer hit 0, making it easier to chase all of the birds down from the beginning.

Now on the 8th wave, the sparrow were level 32, now even to his own level, and 12 of them were flying around. He found these birds to be slightly quicker than the last, also their attacks seemed to have more power behind them, meaning that the risks of getting hit were much higher and the damage would be severe if he did manage to take an attack full on. The same process as before continued now, but the amount of mana he now had to put into his fire strikes as well as the usage of his air affinity to be able to move quick enough to not only avoid attacks but also get on the offensive had increased. With 12 monsters attacking him he had to concentrate almost fully on dodging them, some of the birds even came close to him to try and attack by claw, these ones he was able to kill very quickly, his sword, imbued with a powerful strike, was too much for them to handle at such short range.

The monsters had become more coordinated as well, instead of just sending out their spears whenever they felt like, they teamed up on him and made him flee away from their barrage of spears several times. At one point he hadn’t been able to get out of the way quick enough and had taken a spear to the shoulder, blasting him through the air and away from the birds until he hit the ground. He was quick enough to get back on the move but it had taken a good amount of mana channelled through his gauntlet and into the healing spell before he was back to full mobility in his arm.

He had taken worse attacks before, and at a much lower level, so his pain tolerance had increased quite a lot in the last few months, it had hurt, a lot, but he had learnt how to manage his pain and keep his head in the fight.

He continued fighting his way through the sparrow, slowly taking them out until there was only the one left. He had been hit by another spear during the fight, this time to his leg when he was just slightly too slow to get out of the way, he managed to heal it using just his nature affinity but it had taken a lot of mana, and now with only one sparrow left he was nearing empty. He tied the bird up again, just like the last, and went back to meditating.

As he did he thought about how likely he was to be able to get to and finish 10 waves, wanting to see what the boss was at wave 10 and also the next monster type. His health and stamina were running low, even with the healing he couldn’t bring his health back to full, not without more mana, and he had no way to replenish his stamina without resting. The next wave was going to be rough, but also the most rewarding, he would finally be getting the bonus experience again, as they would be level 33, just one level higher than he was. He tried to think of ways that he could push the fight into his favour but he came up empty, the arrow heads he used to use just wouldn’t cut it against higher level monsters, and the poisons and toxins he had were from lower level monsters, much lower than the birds. His daggers might help, but unless he powered up the shots first they likely wouldn’t do much, not to mention if he missed it would become a waste of mana.

When his mana was back to full he ended the bird before moving back up into the air, he still hadn’t come up with a better solution on how to kill them, but it was something he would trouble shoot before he came into the dungeon next. The 9th wave went the same as the last, but it took what had to be nearly an hour before he had killed all but one bird, he had been hit 4 times by the spears, and four times he needed to run away from the monsters to heal, the wounds causing him more damage than before and taking more mana to heal. He persisted though, he wasn’t willing to give up, not when he was so close to the 10th wave, he needed to know what he would be fighting and if he had a chance on winning the fight. He repeated the same process until he had regained his mana and killed the bird. He hadn’t been getting the notification of their deaths until after he killed the last one, apparently as one monster was left alive it counted that he was in a fight. Luckily the skins he was using had held when he was binding the birds, however he was needing to use more and more every time.

*You have defeated a (Spear Sparrow – Lvl 33). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained. 2600 TE awarded*

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*You have defeated a (Spear Sparrow – Lvl 33). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained. 2600 TE awarded*

*Class: Elemental Blade Slinger has levelled up by +1 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger has reached Level 36. +3 Str, +2 Dex, +3 End, +3 Vit, +4 Soul gained*

*Race: Human has levelled up by +1 levels. Human (E) has reached Level 33. +16 Ap gained*

Shaun put all of his AP into Dexterity, needing the increase in his movability more than anything else in that moment. Too soon did the next wave of monsters appear and with it the boss that he had been both excited for and dreading.

*Starling Sparrow – Level 35*

The boss was twice the size of the other sparrow, but that wasn’t what made a touch of fear enter him, no the boss was not just any old sparrow, its feathers shimmered like stars on a dark night and he could feel the power coming from the monster. He didn’t know how, or even what power it had, but he knew that this fight was going to be the hardest he had ever fought in his life based on the aura he felt coming off of it.