Wild Era 2: A LitRPG Progression Epic, page 21
If she was a Gold Rank, she was in the Third Evolution, and probably at the middle or peak stage.
If she was Platinum, she was at the Fourth Evolution, stronger than anyone in Celadon.
Seeing her punch, he was leaning toward Platinum.
Every Evolution was at least three times stronger than the one before it. By the end, it was more like ten times.
That wasn’t even counting their abilities, just pure base attributes and innate advantages.
Fighting her was out of the question.
If he had that sort of strength, he could have ruled Highmist, and perhaps all of Celadon.
He watched until the end as she threw the bodies of every known assassin onto the rubble, and he counted the impacts.
He’d heard about the attack in the guild hall, so he wasn’t surprised. Those idiots had attacked the adventurer there. That wasn’t something he’d told them to do.
They should have known better.
This response was why he’d never wanted to clash with the guild directly.
His quiet curses filled the air for a full minute as he stared at the smoking rubble.
Now he had to distance himself from this fiasco.
When the guild ranker finally left, he shook his head and summoned his new butler. He’d just hired the man to replace Kolburn, but he wasn’t happy with the result.
It would take time to adjust.
The butler entered his study and bowed low. He was neatly dressed and his manners were impeccable, but Silas still saw the flaws.
Kolburn would have come with tea and a late lunch, since it was that time of day.
He wouldn’t have needed to tell him.
He studied the butler’s head for a moment before his face turned expressionless. Then he held out a letter of note from his bank.
“Take this to the guild,” he said. “Get a receipt. Return after and continue with your duties.”
“Yes, my lord,” the butler replied as he stood up and accepted the letter. “Should I deliver it to anyone in particular there?”
“No, give it to anyone at the desk,” Silas said, shaking his head as he held back another frown. “Tell them it is from me and that will be enough. Go.”
As the butler withdrew with another bow, he headed back to the window, looking out at the ruins of the assassins’ building.
Even the street urchins were leaving it alone.
There should have been quite a bit of wealth and other materials there, but the guild ranker had destroyed them all with that punch. The only thing left was molten stone that was swiftly cooling.
The letter he’d sent was the payment for the fine that the guild wanted to press on him.
He’d been planning to delay and get out of it, or at least to make sure the adventurers were dead before they could receive it, but with this level of guild attention, it couldn’t wait any longer.
He didn’t need a Platinum Ranker appearing above his mansion next.
Never wake a sleeping bear.
His lips twisted as he sat back down at his desk.
A few moments later, he received a message that the assassins were abandoning their contract and would pay the penalty for it.
It came from Cerith, their next closest outpost.
It should have come from Highmist, since he knew they still had a few places that were better hidden, but it seemed the person who'd taken the initial contract was among the dead.
He studied the blue ring on his finger. Then he took it off and set it in a box on his desk.
After that, he sent a message through an intermediary, where it would eventually get to the Wind Hunters. He also activated some failsafes to cut the connection, so that if they were discovered, it wouldn’t lead to him.
The assassins had failed and wisdom told him that he should back off completely, but that wasn’t his style. He’d already set things in motion, so he was going to see it through.
That adventurer needed to pay a price.
***
Kelin’s Perspective
It took Kelin a day to finish making the talismans he wanted.
He worked on one Soul Veil talisman after another, and by the time he was done, he'd added 120 of them to his storage space, bringing the total to nearly 200.
It was almost twice as many as he’d had before, but given how quickly he’d burned through them and how many people he needed to hide on the way out of the city, it might be necessary.
When he stored the last one away, he cleaned up the crafting room and headed out.
He planned to head back to the combat hall to finish training his abilities, but first he was going to the guild shops.
He had collected a couple of dozen storage items from the assassins and he wanted to dispose of them.
In total, he had eliminated about 130 assassins and trainees. The number didn’t bother him much, but it was high for a city like Highmist.
The only reason they weren’t better known was that they died quickly on their missions. They all had a set price that they were worth and their bosses didn’t care about sacrificing them.
He’d gathered quite a bit of information while going through the four training areas, which had filled him in on some of their activities. Unfortunately, none of it was useful for pinning down Verasun or filling in the details of whom from their organization had accepted the contract on him.
That information was kept more securely.
If he’d known and if they’d been someone he could deal with, he would have found them before returning to the guild.
He was sure there was still a branch of the assassin organization somewhere in Highmist. It was just better hidden than the one the guild had destroyed.
Most likely, it was somewhere among the nobility or the merchant council, since little happened in Celadon without those groups being aware of it.
The guild could probably find it, but they hadn’t destroyed it, which showed they had some tolerance for the matter.
For good or ill.
Other than that, the number of trainees he’d encountered showed underlying issues in the city.
There should not have been so many people trying to become assassins instead of joining the guild, which would have treated them more fairly.
It suggested the guild’s influence was weak compared to the local forces, even though it was stronger overall. He couldn’t figure out the reason why, which suggested he was missing some information.
As he considered how to address it, he arrived at the guild counter.
It was a different clerk this time, but the woman shared the same sense of unconcern as the other one. She was indifferent as he emptied the storage items onto the counter.
They were mostly filled with weapons, some mixed potions that he didn’t trust, coins, and poisons, but there was a decent amount of clothing, armor, and random things that he had no use for.
He stored away the coins and poisons, but other than that he didn’t bother to count up the individual items. He just let the clerk sort them all and toss them into their respective containers behind the counter.
Then he sold off all of the spatial items.
Most of them were small ones, so they were only worth about 50 to 100 gold, but with two dozen of them, the result was decent.
He received over 8,000 gold for all of it, even more than what he’d gained from the last dungeon materials.
He chuckled as he stored it away.
After that, he looked through the guild’s collection of anti-scrying items and bought three that were around Level 100 for a relatively low price of 300 gold each.
He would give them to Maro and the others.
He would have bought better ones, but they wouldn’t be able to use them. It was the same reason he didn’t upgrade his own.
He could manage this Level 150 artifact since his soul was powerful, but even with his advantages, going up to a Second Evolution artifact was asking too much.
It would be hard enough for the team to use these low First Evolution ones.
Two were amulets, while the third was a ring.
He suspected that the three of them would only be able to wear them for a short while, but it would work for traveling to the dungeon. Even if they offered relatively weak protection, it would still be something.
His talismans would build on the capability.
He continued searching through the items available and selected a few more things.
In the end, he walked away with five high-grade spatial crystals, a few medium quality ones, and a high-quality First Evolution alchemist’s kit, as well as some materials designed to enhance and counter poisons.
It cost him about 3,000 gold total, but he still had quite a bit left.
He dropped by the front counter, where he left the anti-scrying items and a note for the team, and then headed for the training hall.
When he arrived, he sorted out all of his materials and then set out all of the poisons he’d obtained from the assassins, including the Epic-grade one that they had tried to use to kill him.
There were dozens of vials, including a few more of the Epic-tier Bloodbreaker type that the assassins had used.
It seemed to be a common one among their group, which meant they had a good supply.
Next to the poisons, he placed the new alchemist’s kit and the old alchemy mortar and pestle he’d made back in the Shieldrun Forest dungeon.
He had been planning to return to his regular ability training, but the sheer number of poisons raised a different opportunity. He studied the vials as he turned his attention to his Poison Resistance, which was at Elite.
It was time to fix that.
Advancing Poison Resistance to Epic was harder than getting it to Elite, but experiencing a wide variety of poisons and building a tolerance to them all was a key factor.
With the Bloodbreaker poison doing most of the work, it should be enough.
He examined the enchantment on the old mortar, but it wasn’t up to his current standards, so he stored it away and pulled out the mortar, pestle, and other key pieces from the alchemist’s kit.
All of the new equipment was at the Uncommon grade and of Professional quality, made from fairly decent First Evolution materials.
He spent the next several hours enchanting the entire kit, making sure that every piece was designed to stabilize and enhance the materials and the final product.
His hands moved nimbly as he selected a vial and poured a bit of the contents into the mortar. He mixed in some purified water as he began to grind it into a paste.
Some poisons weren’t suited for this, since it would destabilize their structure and render them inert, but he could refine a few. With the new equipment, he should be able to improve their effects by twenty to thirty percent.
He could have used the crafting hall for this idea, but the wards were better here, which would help to ensure he wasn’t interrupted and prevent any mistakes from escaping.
When he finished concentrating the first poison, he poured it into a spare vial and studied it.
It had been a dull red liquid, almost like rust, but after he worked on it, it had been purified. There was only a third of the liquid remaining, about an inch within the thin vial, but it was a bright and solid red that resembled powdered ruby.
This was one of the Expert tier poisons in the collection, but his enhancements had raised it to Elite.
It was a small amount, but it was enough to kill a dozen warriors below the First Evolution, or to sicken a hundred, if they didn’t have a resistance to it.
Before any of the potency could escape, he poured the entire thing down his throat.
Then he closed his eyes and studied the effect.
Spasms of pain began to wrack his body and flares of soulfire responded, but he suppressed the flames, letting the poison soak in.
An Elite poison, even one he’d refined himself, wasn’t capable of killing him unless it was in massive quantities.
His resistance flared up and began to war against the poison, and he did his best to nudge it along. He also made sure that no traces soaked into unnoticed areas where it could linger.
That would only cause problems for him in the future.
As his resistance fought against the poison, he began to mix another type. Sometime later, he drank that one too.
Time passed as strange smells and fogs rose up from his work and filled the room, which was sometimes filled with a wave of soulfire that incinerated them all.
Slowly, he drank one poison after another. Others coated a blade that he dragged across his arm or a needle that he used to stab himself.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but he kept going.
A painful time here was better than dying in a dungeon.
As he worked, he also did his best to combine his Poison Resistance with his ability for Endless Flame, since it was well suited for it.
There was nothing preventing the echo of a Law from being used in more than one ability, and if he wanted Poison Resistance to advance to Heroic one day, it needed the resonance.
A day and a half later, as he breathed in one of the last vials of the Bloodbreaker poison, a wave of golden flame suddenly surged through his body, incinerating the poison before it could affect him.
This time, it wasn’t soulfire.
It was the natural expression of his poison resistance, and it took almost no effort.
There was also a touch of endlessness, as if the flames were carrying embers that would never go out.
At the same time, a notification echoed in his mind, one that was more powerful than usual.
Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire!
Your Innate Ability: Poison Resistance has gained a Tier and reached Epic.
At the Epic tier, your Poison Resistance has become a part of your existence. You gain more conscious control over the ability and can direct it to the best effect.
You are now able to extend the influence of the ability more comprehensively throughout your body, allowing you to address underlying issues left behind from old poisons and to deal with more subtle types of poisoning, including slow environmental ones like heat stroke, salt imbalances, or elemental density.
Note: This ability has been partially merged with the Law of Endless Flame.
As your physique is based on Soulfire, this ability will most easily take the form of an innate flame that incinerates opposing forces.
The Path’s voice was accompanied by a surge of power as the ability changed.
Complex and subtle branching structures from the ability spread through his soul and body like new veins, reaching every part. They hummed with a subtle flame.
He also felt more comfortable as little bits of environmental effects, like a touch of Water and Shadow energy from the corners of the room, suddenly stopped affecting him.
He spent a little while adjusting to the effect. Then he stored the few remaining poisons and the alchemy kit away.
As he did, a softer but even more important notification rang in his mind.
Congratulations on achieving an Epic Ability before the First Evolution.
Your success has been recorded by the Path.
Your future Class options will be expanded to match.
A smile traced its way across his lips as he nodded in approval.
Poison Resistance had been his first ability to reach Elite, so it was only appropriate that it also be the first to reach Epic.
It wasn’t Heroic yet, but it was getting closer.
Wildfire had let him cheat, but this meant he’d unlocked Epic classes on his own, for the first time in this life.
He took a brief break to scour the room and ensure that flames burned away every remaining trace of poison, to prevent harming anyone else who might come here.
Then he pulled some food out of his storage ring and had a quick lunch of a spicy local stew with fresh bread, which he washed down with a light ale.
After that, he took out one of the high-quality spatial crystals he’d bought and sat down as he got to work on absorbing it and expanding his storage space.
Streams of spatial energy floated away from the crystal as it dissolved and merged into the air around him. Under the influence of the high-grade energy, his storage pocket slowly grew larger.
From 15 feet in every direction, it expanded swiftly until it stabilized at 25 feet.
He let the dust of that crystal disappear and pulled out another, resuming the work.
Slowly, 25 feet expanded until it reached 36 feet in every direction and then the space stabilized again.
Kelin rubbed his chin as he studied the result. Then he pulled out a third crystal and dissolved it as well.
His storage space expanded to 47 feet in every direction, which he decided would be enough for now. It was a fairly large cube of space, similar to having an entire warehouse to store things in.
As for the other crystals, he would save them for later.
Until the Fourth Evolution, spatial crystals were key components in many spells and enchantments, including everything from mass teleportation to some types of wards, as well as long-distance communication.
The crystals were difficult to use directly, and it depended heavily on your skill and Spatial affinity, so for most people it was better to place them into an enchantment.
Fortunately, he had a high Spatial affinity, so he could make the most of them. It was the same reason he was able to create a large storage space.
It would still be difficult to control the energy directly, but it was less dangerous.
He had two high-grade ones and five mid-grade ones left, which would be enough for an emergency or two.
Later today, he planned to use one of the high-grade ones to set up a teleportation beacon at the guild, so that he could return quickly if needed.
He would put it in the room he’d rented and then conceal it. No one should bother it there.
The only difficult part would be authorizing it to work through the guild wards, but he could get the necessary approval from Sandren.
Since he had no abilities for teleportation yet, he would have to buy a single-use teleportation scroll or a decent spatial artifact from the guild, which would be expensive.
In terms of other equipment, there wasn’t much else he could buy for his current level that would help. The few items he could use were Rare-grade ones like the elixirs he’d pulled from dungeons, and their price was well beyond what he could afford.
