Crossing Serpent's Way, page 18
part #1 of Trials of the Endless Planes Series
More waves of fatigue suddenly threatened to overwhelm him, but he quickly locked his knees and forced himself to remain standing. There was a chance that the others might just fail at the end and he’d have to step in again, which he couldn’t do if he was incapacitated by the strain from using too many abilities.
Eventually, his concerns were laid to rest as the group finally finished off the last beetle. It was actually Mila who delivered the final blow, summoning a lightning bolt that struck one of Mark’s crystal spikes and fried the insect’s mana core to a burnt out husk.
As soon as the beetle collapsed, the 21 combatants released a collective breath. Some of the humans plopped onto the ground along with a couple of sulfurions. The fowlings slumped on their aerospheres, while the onikai leaned on their spears. Even the fains sat down, though they kept their poise unlike the others.
And just as they let themselves relax, a blue screen appeared in all of their visions.
For defeating the penultimate challenge of the Forest of the First and Last, your group will be rewarded based on your overall participation:
Kaito Bao: 56%
Hearthside Clan: 10%
Nightroot Coven: 10%
Human Pioneers: 9%
Tribe Ghosttooth: 8%
Brood Talonriders: 7%
Every head turned in Kaito’s direction as he stood casually with his hands behind his back, a mix of expressions plain on their faces. Most were disgruntled, though others were bemused or outright hostile in the case of the humans.
Kaito ignored their looks, his vision flicking to a new blue screen.
For completing the majority of the challenge an individual group, you’ve been awarded the following:
- New Feat: Workhorse
- Grants +1 to all attributes
- 30 greater mana (GM)
Workhorse
Your back hurts from carrying the weight of others’ shortcomings.
+1 to all attributes
Name: Kaito Bao
Race: Human Male (Earth variant)
Class: Trackless Wayfarer (Ra)
Level 0
Mana
139 greater mana (GM)
Attributes:
Power
53
Dexterity
59
Constitution
69
Spirit
46
Conduction
51
Mentality
58
Kaito couldn’t help but grin. How could he not? The Lady of the Endless Planes, which he guessed was who doled out Feats, recognized his contributions. That was two Feats in barely a week of coming to a new reality. It wasn’t much, but every attribute point helped, especially if he was going to stay lvl.0 for a while longer. And it didn’t hurt that he was now flush with GM.
The sound of a roaring flame interrupted the murmuring amongst the various groups and they looked behind them to find that the bonfire’s portal had just been relit. It was time to head back to the sanctuary to recover.
There was still one last challenge left.
* * *
Chapter 16
There were as many bruised muscles as there were bruised egos sitting around the bonfire as the various groups once again kept their own company. A somber mood weighed everyone down with only the noise of the crackling flames echoing throughout the sanctuary.
After seeing what Kaito was truly capable of, even Teras and her team shied away, content to brood along with the others. Only Mila offered Kaito a thumbs up and a wave as he surveyed the safe zone. No one else was willing to meet his eyes. If they hadn’t been properly wary of him before, then they definitely were now.
He didn’t let it bother him though, he’d grown accustomed to people distancing themselves from him on Earth. Friends — true friends — were a tough commodity to find when the world had fallen to ruin at the hands of powerful monsters. But knowing what he knew now, he regretted not pushing even further while he still could. Almost his entire last year on Earth had been too easy for him. There had been no more challenges by that time, so he busied himself with forging mana cores. At least what he had been able to achieve had set the stage for him to accomplish even more now that he was in the Endless Planes.
Staring into the crackling bonfire, Kaito was at a crossroads. He knew he wasn’t going to level up, that was a forgone conclusion. Thaxus alluded that there might be a Feat and possibly a Title if he could complete the dungeon as he was. But, he could use his mana reserves to potentially rank up his Class abilities. While he didn’t feel prepared to modify them just yet, he could at least improve them to a point by increasing their damage or how much of an enhancement they added.
The question was — which would he rank up? Go all in on a single ability? Spread his mana out evenly? Hell, he could even spend a bit of time mashing mana cores together. He had more than 60 in his void locker that had come from the bone-plated beetles alone. Then on top of those, he still had the rest of his mana cores from the first part of the Forest.
Before he could decide on anything, he was interrupted by someone clearing their throat. His senses already told him it was Zenser, but Kaito had remained silent until the fowling got the nerve to speak.
“Kaito…I…we…wait no, let me start over again. Thank you, Kaito, for saving this run,” Zenser said as he bowed low at the waist while sitting on his aerosphere. “Without you, we would have either died or been forced to use our life-saving trinkets to escape this dungeon. I know that if my brood and I had retreated, then the three of us would not be allowed to challenge the Forest again for who knows how long. So for that, I thank you.”
Kaito nodded along. Appreciation was always nice. “But you didn’t come over here just to thank me, Zenser. What do you want? You can be upfront about it. Believe me, I won’t be offended.”
Zenser got off his ball of wind and sat on the ground in front of Kaito. Apparently, it was a serious topic. “I have to ask you for a favor, Kaito. Those mana cores you collected…would you be willing to trade or sell them?”
Kaito raised an eyebrow, unable to hide his surprise. Out of all the things that Zenser could have come to him for, he hadn’t even entertained the idea that someone would want the beetle cores. Instead of answering right away, Kaito took a few out and inspected them. After consuming more than a hundred beetles, there was no way he didn’t have all the information there was about these monsters.
Honestly, he was disappointed by what the monsters offered. The abilities they had weren’t anything he particularly wanted for himself.
[Hive Mind (Un)] - Passive ability that allows you to communicate telepathically with others who have the same ability within a 20ft range, allowing you to easily coordinate your attacks with your allies.
[Rapid Incubation (Un)]: Active ability only usable at or near death for insectoids, avians or reptiles. As a final act of survival, lay 2-3 eggs that rapidly grow to maturity, hatching new, exact copies of the original creature.
[Ichorous Innards (Un)]: Passive ability that produces viscous ichor that greatly supports and protects your viscera. You are able to take greater amounts of damage without hurting your vital organs. You can also function for longer at peak physical condition while your organs are damaged.
[Chitinous Hardening (Un)]: Active ability that forms a chitinous exoskeleton that provides natural armor, giving you greatly increased resistance to physical attacks for a period of time.
[Larval Burst (Un)]: Active ability that injects a cluster of mana-wrought eggs into your opponent, which can be remotely triggered to hatch into energy leeches that siphon mana, eventually making their way back to you to replenish your mana reserves.
[Pheromone Trail (Un)]: Active ability that produces a misty trail of pheromones to befuddle the minds of enemies with the possibility of hypnotizing them to follow your commands for a brief period of time.
Kaito stopped reading after those few abilities. None of them were any good as far as he was concerned. He decided then that the beetle cores would simply be fodder for a few GM. Nonetheless, he flicked the information over to the fowling and said, “Why would you want these, Zenser? They’re…not exactly appealing. There are better abilities from the creatures in the first half of the dungeon.”
Zenser shook his head, “No, you don’t understand. My brood, the Talonriders, could use those cores. Those abilities would work perfectly for fowlings. Originally, I was the most interested in the incubation ability but now that you’ve shown me these others, I have even more reason to barter with you.”
“How does that work? These seem to be more insect related to me.”
“When my kind are first born, we are all the same, blank slates that are perfect replicas of our brood mothers. It isn’t until our first molting that we differentiate our genders and personalities. Rapid incubation has a simple enough stipulation to trigger, but if we can merge it with larval burst, there is the possibility of having faster hatchings just through the use of mana. That would be a huge advantage for my brood over the others. The more hatchlings we can field, the greater the amount of resources we can gather from the dungeons and monsters all across Serpent’s Way.”
There was a glimmer of excitement in Zenser’s eyes as he talked about the possibilities. Kaito found it novel to see such youthful exuberance coming from this small bird-person. He hadn’t felt anything like this kind of optimism in years. “Have you not gathered these cores before? If we could complete this challenge, then other fowling teams must have done the same before, no?”
“You flatter us, Kaito,” said Zenser as he dipped his feathered head, “But while the colosseum challenge always summons waves of monsters, the species changes. Even if there are similar monsters, their abilities can be anything. These beetles are an opportunity that may not ever come up again.”
Kaito shrugged, there were never in-depth investigations performed with the dungeons on Earth. At least not enough to determine anything conclusive. Though thinking back on his experiences hunting monsters in dungeons, he could see some truth in Zenser’s words. “I’ll be honest, Zenser — I like you and the other fowlings. You’ve been nice enough as far as group members go, so I don’t mind handing over what cores I have, but I won’t just let them go for free...”
“Of course not, Kaito. We fowlings pay our way, especially when someone has helped us already. Name your price and I’ll see what I can do.”
Kaito stroked his chin as he thought of the many things he needed. A plan formed in his head about what he wanted to do once he escaped from the Forest, but it all hinged on knowledge. “All I want is information, Zenser. You’ve said before this is the strongest dungeon in Serpent’s Way, but that implies that there are others. I want to know about them. Where they’re located, the fastest ways to get to them and any information you have about what to expect once I’m inside. I might also want some clothes, though I’m not sure about armor just yet. But I definitely want to get some sort of primer about what those symbols on everyone’s equipment are.”
Zenser’s eyes lit up at that, “I’m certain my brood can provide that without an issue, though is that really all you want?”
“Eh, the cores were just going to be used for mana, so I don’t mind trading them for things that are more useful. But now that I know you want them, I’ll make sure not to crush any. Talk to me again once we’re done with this dungeon and we can iron out the details.” Kaito offered his hand, but Zenser only tilted his head to the side in confusion. “It’s how Earthlings make promises. We shake hands.”
Zenser promptly shook Kaito’s hand, “Bargain struck then, Kaito.”
Nodding once more, Zenser left Kaito to his own devices and returned to the other fowlings to give them the good news. As Kaito watched the bird-man move away on his aerosphere, he also added that ability to his checklist. An aerosphere looked pretty convenient and he could always use some more Boons tailored for traveling.
With that settled, he shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind and returned to the matter at hand — what to do with his glut of mana. The beetle waves had been the first test with his full arsenal at work and his meticulously manicured abilities had performed admirably. His passives layered seamlessly to magnify his piercing and striking power by manifold. Meanwhile, his active abilities complemented his fighting style flawlessly. If he was being honest, there wasn’t much he wanted to change at the moment. There was the possibility that the final challenge would call for greater firepower, but if that was the case, then it was the other groups who needed to worry more than him. He hoped the aliens had some trump cards hidden somewhere.
In the time he spent thinking about his Class abilities, he realized that there was really only one choice that would provide a tangible increase to his combat capabilities. Firming his decision, he tapped into the mana stored in his core and envisioned his Class ability, [Diamond Soul (Ra)]. Improving this would further protect him from the strain of heavy ability use, which was the largest advantage that he had above every other person here.
Thaxus mentioned that some of the aliens would be able to rival two or three of his attributes, but none could truly do what he could. They just didn’t have the sheer attributes. He had the strength and speed of the onikai, the stamina for using abilities like the fains and the durability and fortitude of the sulfurions.
He routed some of his mana into his diamond soul and carefully observed how much energy it took to rank it up. The rank ticked up to 2/40 after 400 mana exactly. He immediately dumped another 400, but the rank didn’t change. Adding some more, the ability improved once it had a total of 600 mana, which meant each successive rank was an additional 200 units over the last. He plugged in more mana in a rush, ranking the ability up once more.
Four hundred mana for rank 2, 600 for 3 and 800 for 4…that means 200 extra for each successive rank.
He tried to do the math in his head, but he was never much of a numbers guy, that’s what calculators were for. And since he didn’t exactly pack himself a calculator in his void locker, he took out the next best thing — a pencil and paper.
Kaito wished he still had a smartphone or a tablet, but when monsters began to roam the Earth, technology ground to a halt. There were no more people to operate the basic infrastructure that kept civilization running. No electricity, no running water. Fortunately, humanity didn’t have to worry about dysentery or cholera to kill them. It wasn’t rampant disease that wiped out most of the human race. It was the mana-touched creatures that developed practically overnight.
He sighed, shaking the memories away like a bad dream. There was a reason why he hunted monsters so much. He preferred those memories of the Crucible over all the others.
Focusing back on the task at hand, he quickly scribbled down how much mana he would need to rank up one of his abilities. All told, it would take about 42 GM to get to rank 20 and 164 GM to get to rank 40. That was…a lot of fucking mana. Even with his time on Earth and his two new Feats, Kaito only had 137 GM left after getting diamond soul to rank 4.
But, what was the point of stockpiling his mana if not for power? That’s what it was there for.
In a flash, he ranked the ability up all the way to rank 10, dipping his reserves down to 128 GM. Rank 20 dropped that further down to 97 GM and that’s where he stopped.
Remembering what Thaxus had said, rank 20 was the soonest he could potentially modify his ability, so it didn’t make sense to dump in more mana than was needed. And while he wasn’t certain what direction to change his diamond soul just yet, he would eventually.
Name: Kaito Bao
Race: Human Male (Earth variant)
Class: Trackless Wayfarer (Ra)
Level 0
Mana
97 greater mana (GM)
Attributes:
Power
53
Dexterity
59
Constitution
69
Spirit
46
Conduction
51
Mentality
58
Trackless Wayfarer (Ra) Abilities:
Rank:
Mana-Empowered Strikes (Ra)
Active ability that enhances unarmed strikes by infusing them with mana, significantly increasing damage dealt.
1/40
Farstrider (Ra)
Active ability that increases the length of the Wayfarer’s every step, significantly increasing their movement speed.
1/40
Diamond Soul (Ra)
Active ability that grants the Wayfarer a significant amount of resistance to mental attacks and other magical effects.
