Lots of things passed through my mind, from whether it was the right decision to make the contract, to how I was even going to go about making a so-called Artificial Heart. I mean, the process wasn’t particularly descriptive — from what I could tell — and originally it seemed to need a member of the same race. Instead I was just going to make a plant “heart” and stick it into her chest. No matter how I thought about it, it didn’t seem very convincing.
I sighed as I stared at what I identified to be a bathroom. It was inside the room I had claimed for myself, and while I was hesitant about leaving my bow, I still took the spear inside the shower. I had used one during my time with Elasia, who was The Illusionist.
Damn, I really did ask her how to bathe with the shower thing… I suddenly had a different perspective about all my interactions with her, and being truthful I was still very much fearful of her capabilities, but I also felt like she wouldn’t hurt me ever again— considering how she treated me anyway.
I thought for a bit as I undressed myself, my entire body was full of grime once more. Still, I kept the ring in my hand, fearful of losing Lumina’s journal or the Encyclopedia of the Dark, both were very important, or at least I felt. I grabbed my spear and jumped into the shower thing, closing the somewhat transparent door behind me.
The bathroom was closed too. I thought for a moment about how strange things were in comparison to what I was used to, but I couldn’t deny that I found it more comfortable. With that in mind, I turned the knob and water sprayed overhead.
Still. I closed my eyes. I wonder if I missed anything in the contract?
Last thing I wanted was to get killed just because I had a dark plant affinity, it was something that I was born with — sure, there was an argument to be made that I still chose to tread the path, but how was I supposed to know it was something that troublesome?
Would I have chosen something else had I known?
Probably not, I am stubborn after all. Nonetheless, I hoped I didn’t miss anything— well, he could certainly kill me after the thirty day period, but in that sense I hoped that I would either:
Be strong enough to fend for myself by that point.
Or.
Be with Elasia so she could protect me.
I wasn’t particularly proud of the decisions I had taken regarding that clause, but trying to make it into forty days would get it denied, even thirty-one days wasn’t allowed by The System. In a way, I had no other choice but to deal with it when the time came.
In the end, I just had to either keep the plant affinity secret, or if it was found out by him, to be strong enough to kill him.
The Light Maker… The attack that killed my treant was still engraved in my mind. At the same time, I did find it strange that he told me to get down— if he was in the vicinity wouldn’t he have noticed the treant was mine? Well, I was a bit unsure, but I knew that it was best to not trust him at all. Hm. There was a part of the contract I disliked.
Sharing information is solely for individual objectives and truthful.
If he asked me if I had dark plant affinity, then the only answer I could produce would be a truthful one. Annoying. I scrubbed my body as I idly pondered about how to avoid such questions, but there was really nothing I could do to avoid it. If it just came as a stray thought, and he asked, then—
Well, I can deflect the question. I suppose aside from giving him a nasty look that was everything I could do. Maybe answer indirectly by making assumptions too. I was a bit unsure about that.
And the artificial heart. What the fuck was a fake Adastra? Well, it was something to think about later. Needless to say that, in spite of how comfortable the water felt, I was still very much in a land of death with peril in my surroundings, and ultimately, I was too weak to deal with it.
I let out a small laugh. To believe I could probably kill the Supreme Moon Herald no problem now, but I was still so pathetically weak.
What was the average level around the universe anyway? Or rather, how long would it take before I would stop being at the doors of death?
And— would there be angry glory in killing the dragon after returning? I was unsure about how strong I would be upon going back to the New World, but the dragon was honestly the least of my worries right now.
◇ ◇ ◇
I crashed into bed, my muscles felt overly sore, but it did not take long before they relaxed. Questions about what I was even doing flooded my mind, but they were shut down by how exhausted I felt.
In the end, maybe agreeing to the trial so soon was a mistake, but at the same time. It was a bit too late to regret it, now I just had to deal with it. Unfortunately, my situation was messy and all I could do was ride it out.
Everything will be fine.
That was my last thought before I fell asleep.
◇ ◇ ◇
I awoke to heavy knocking on my door. A dull metallic echo that rang through my ears. I scrambled awake, I had my armor on and I was holding onto my spear. The knock of the door spread once more as I heard the man’s robotic voice.
“Realm Breaker, let us leave at once.”
I quickly grabbed my stuff and replied.
“I’ll be right there.”
In less than a minute, I was wide awake and had everything I needed to go outside. I found myself sitting across from the man, The Light Maker, though I was growing tired of not knowing his name, but I suppose things were going to remain like that for a while. He peered at me through his closed off helmet with crossed arms. Silence. A minute or two passed before he finally decided to speak.
“We are going to get you some levels first, and then we go searching for the corruption source. If possible, that will be our routine. Kill stuff, five levels at a time, and then search for an hour or two and head back.”
I frowned. “Couldn’t we get more done?”
“You do understand that one wrong mistake and the entire forest turns on us, right?” He asked with a huff.
I went quiet. Was that how it worked?
“Anyway, yeah that is the plan. If necessary we can just extend the contract— though I also feel like your trial will run out by then. No worries though, you will reach level 100 long before the appointed time.”
A sigh left me. I couldn’t disagree with him either. Even if I disliked the super safe nature of the plan. It was probably how things were done normally.
“Anyway, with that explanation out of the way. We can now go.”
◇ ◇ ◇
Soon, after a bit of small talk and knowledge questionnaire, such as:
Do you know what plants to stay away from? What about the monsters around here, which one is the most dangerous one?
Anyway, I didn’t know the answer to any of the questions being thrown about aside from guessing, which displeased The Light Maker. Then with a stern voice he began to explain a few identifiers of the most lethal plants, such as exposed thorns with poison — aka: basically everything in the inner forest — and also explained to me how Lycans were the most dangerous monster due to their high tenacity. He also explained that the more one lingered in one spot, the more monsters would be attracted.
I was given a few survival rules such as don’t make loud noises. Don’t destroy plants for no reason, and don’t go into the inner forest. Being honest, I kind of felt like I failed at all of them, but it was something to consider for later.
The only question I managed to answer was; why is the inner forest so dangerous? Aside from me saying the plants attack on instinct, they are also bloodthirsty. Which earned a happy nod from The Light Maker.
Soon, we found our first victim. A Blight Corrupted Wolfe. It was— brutally held by the neck from a swift light teleport from The Light Maker. I felt myself go a bit pale since I couldn’t sense that movement, the plan of getting strong enough to survive a fight against him had gotten bumped quite a bit.
While I was too preoccupied thinking, the wolfe thrashed under his grip and The Light Maker beckoned.
“What is taking so long?”
I let out a sigh and grabbed onto my spear. I couldn’t do that much to not show my dark plant affinity, so I simply pushed mana into the tip of the spear — which shone in a bright green light much to his curiosity — and stabbed with a swift motion into the wolfe’s skull. I then promptly welled the mana and exploded it into his brain, causing it to begin twitching rapidly.
“Come on, you take too long with this!”
I grunted as I swung the spear sideways and cleaved onto its neck. The mana exploded into the wound once more, festering and corroding it. The wolfe wailed as it died off. And soon the notification came.
[You have killed: (C) Blight Corrupted Wolfe. Lvl 109.]
[Level up: You have achieved level 82. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
[Level up: You…
[Level up: You have achieved level 85. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
[New Milestone reached — Skills & Knowledge Available]
I frowned, the experience had gone down, though maybe it was because The Light Maker was also sharing? I was unsure about that. At the same time, I had skipped now four milestones and was on number five. I was unsure about how much longer I’d save my time to look at skills, but I couldn’t check things right now.
The Light Maker nodded and turned around.
“That was much faster than I expected, 81 to 85,” he mused. “With that out of the way, we can begin looking for the source of the corruption. Ah, by the way, do you happen to have dark plant affinity? It’d be real useful right now.” He looked at me through his helmet.
I snorted. “If I had it, I wouldn’t be around you, would I?”
“You sure?”
I frowned, and simply looked at him with nothing but annoyance. He shook his head.
“It was just a joke.”
“If you’re just looking for an excuse to kill me after thirty days, then the fact that I haven’t even said much about the trial is enough,” I quipped.
“That is true.”
◇ ◇ ◇
As I followed him around, a weird thought popped into my mind. It was a term I had been seeing and hearing somewhat recently.
“What is Essence?”
He paused. “Like, Essence Skills?”
“Yeah, what are they? How do I get one?” I asked once more.
He pondered as he began walking, hand on his chin.
“Simplest explanation is, it's a skill that comes from your very being and is graded in quality. Once you understand it enough, you may be able to use it. It uses your affinity and knowledge to basically unleash something above the tier— ah, maybe you can learn an Essence Skill from level ups too.” He shrugged.
I frowned. “So is it like progressing your Prophecy with whatever thoughts you have?”
“Bingo.” He walked around a tree. “Don’t trouble yourself with it too much. Hm, actually— have you ever seen a Herald monster do a final stance move? That would be an Essence Skill.”
I paused, recalling the mountain blowing up into nothing.
“That’s how strong they are?”
He nodded. “Which is why, they are the signature thing of C grade. One thing that makes C grade stand above D grade no matter the circumstance.”
“I see…”
He continued to walk leaving me alone with my thoughts.
So, Essence Skills are that strong? Then— the Feat of Untamed One was a great Feat? Well, Elasia had hinted at it. Hm. I certainly looked forward to being able to do that, a question was: when?
I need to be stronger…
“Oh.” The Light Maker paused as he stared at a tree. In comparison to the surrounding dark plants, this one had patches of darkness and seemed to be rotten. It was a mix of plants. “A Blight Corrupted plant? Seems like we might be close to something.”
I had to do a few things before getting stronger: and it starts with me completing the trial and making the Artificial Heart.
Azrie
You can read the entirety of book 2 (up to chapter 155) on patreon!
I also opened a ko-fi, where you can read from chapter 137 onwards!
Blair now has a discord server, join here
Lots of things passed through my mind, from whether it was the right decision to make the contract, to how I was even going to go about making a so-called Artificial Heart. I mean, the process wasn’t particularly descriptive — from what I could tell — and originally it seemed to need a member of the same race. Instead I was just going to make a plant “heart” and stick it into her chest. No matter how I thought about it, it didn’t seem very convincing.
I sighed as I stared at what I identified to be a bathroom. It was inside the room I had claimed for myself, and while I was hesitant about leaving my bow, I still took the spear inside the shower. I had used one during my time with Elasia, who was The Illusionist.
Damn, I really did ask her how to bathe with the shower thing… I suddenly had a different perspective about all my interactions with her, and being truthful I was still very much fearful of her capabilities, but I also felt like she wouldn’t hurt me ever again— considering how she treated me anyway.
I thought for a bit as I undressed myself, my entire body was full of grime once more. Still, I kept the ring in my hand, fearful of losing Lumina’s journal or the Encyclopedia of the Dark, both were very important, or at least I felt. I grabbed my spear and jumped into the shower thing, closing the somewhat transparent door behind me.
The bathroom was closed too. I thought for a moment about how strange things were in comparison to what I was used to, but I couldn’t deny that I found it more comfortable. With that in mind, I turned the knob and water sprayed overhead.
Still. I closed my eyes. I wonder if I missed anything in the contract?
Last thing I wanted was to get killed just because I had a dark plant affinity, it was something that I was born with — sure, there was an argument to be made that I still chose to tread the path, but how was I supposed to know it was something that troublesome?
Would I have chosen something else had I known?
Probably not, I am stubborn after all. Nonetheless, I hoped I didn’t miss anything— well, he could certainly kill me after the thirty day period, but in that sense I hoped that I would either:
Be strong enough to fend for myself by that point.
Or.
Be with Elasia so she could protect me.
I wasn’t particularly proud of the decisions I had taken regarding that clause, but trying to make it into forty days would get it denied, even thirty-one days wasn’t allowed by The System. In a way, I had no other choice but to deal with it when the time came.
In the end, I just had to either keep the plant affinity secret, or if it was found out by him, to be strong enough to kill him.
The Light Maker… The attack that killed my treant was still engraved in my mind. At the same time, I did find it strange that he told me to get down— if he was in the vicinity wouldn’t he have noticed the treant was mine? Well, I was a bit unsure, but I knew that it was best to not trust him at all. Hm. There was a part of the contract I disliked.
Sharing information is solely for individual objectives and truthful.
If he asked me if I had dark plant affinity, then the only answer I could produce would be a truthful one. Annoying. I scrubbed my body as I idly pondered about how to avoid such questions, but there was really nothing I could do to avoid it. If it just came as a stray thought, and he asked, then—
Well, I can deflect the question. I suppose aside from giving him a nasty look that was everything I could do. Maybe answer indirectly by making assumptions too. I was a bit unsure about that.
And the artificial heart. What the fuck was a fake Adastra? Well, it was something to think about later. Needless to say that, in spite of how comfortable the water felt, I was still very much in a land of death with peril in my surroundings, and ultimately, I was too weak to deal with it.
I let out a small laugh. To believe I could probably kill the Supreme Moon Herald no problem now, but I was still so pathetically weak.
What was the average level around the universe anyway? Or rather, how long would it take before I would stop being at the doors of death?
And— would there be angry glory in killing the dragon after returning? I was unsure about how strong I would be upon going back to the New World, but the dragon was honestly the least of my worries right now.
◇ ◇ ◇
I crashed into bed, my muscles felt overly sore, but it did not take long before they relaxed. Questions about what I was even doing flooded my mind, but they were shut down by how exhausted I felt.
In the end, maybe agreeing to the trial so soon was a mistake, but at the same time. It was a bit too late to regret it, now I just had to deal with it. Unfortunately, my situation was messy and all I could do was ride it out.
Everything will be fine.
That was my last thought before I fell asleep.
◇ ◇ ◇
I awoke to heavy knocking on my door. A dull metallic echo that rang through my ears. I scrambled awake, I had my armor on and I was holding onto my spear. The knock of the door spread once more as I heard the man’s robotic voice.
“Realm Breaker, let us leave at once.”
I quickly grabbed my stuff and replied.
“I’ll be right there.”
In less than a minute, I was wide awake and had everything I needed to go outside. I found myself sitting across from the man, The Light Maker, though I was growing tired of not knowing his name, but I suppose things were going to remain like that for a while. He peered at me through his closed off helmet with crossed arms. Silence. A minute or two passed before he finally decided to speak.
“We are going to get you some levels first, and then we go searching for the corruption source. If possible, that will be our routine. Kill stuff, five levels at a time, and then search for an hour or two and head back.”
I frowned. “Couldn’t we get more done?”
“You do understand that one wrong mistake and the entire forest turns on us, right?” He asked with a huff.
I went quiet. Was that how it worked?
“Anyway, yeah that is the plan. If necessary we can just extend the contract— though I also feel like your trial will run out by then. No worries though, you will reach level 100 long before the appointed time.”
A sigh left me. I couldn’t disagree with him either. Even if I disliked the super safe nature of the plan. It was probably how things were done normally.
“Anyway, with that explanation out of the way. We can now go.”
◇ ◇ ◇
Soon, after a bit of small talk and knowledge questionnaire, such as:
Do you know what plants to stay away from? What about the monsters around here, which one is the most dangerous one?
Anyway, I didn’t know the answer to any of the questions being thrown about aside from guessing, which displeased The Light Maker. Then with a stern voice he began to explain a few identifiers of the most lethal plants, such as exposed thorns with poison — aka: basically everything in the inner forest — and also explained to me how Lycans were the most dangerous monster due to their high tenacity. He also explained that the more one lingered in one spot, the more monsters would be attracted.
I was given a few survival rules such as don’t make loud noises. Don’t destroy plants for no reason, and don’t go into the inner forest. Being honest, I kind of felt like I failed at all of them, but it was something to consider for later.
The only question I managed to answer was; why is the inner forest so dangerous? Aside from me saying the plants attack on instinct, they are also bloodthirsty. Which earned a happy nod from The Light Maker.
Soon, we found our first victim. A Blight Corrupted Wolfe. It was— brutally held by the neck from a swift light teleport from The Light Maker. I felt myself go a bit pale since I couldn’t sense that movement, the plan of getting strong enough to survive a fight against him had gotten bumped quite a bit.
While I was too preoccupied thinking, the wolfe thrashed under his grip and The Light Maker beckoned.
“What is taking so long?”
I let out a sigh and grabbed onto my spear. I couldn’t do that much to not show my dark plant affinity, so I simply pushed mana into the tip of the spear — which shone in a bright green light much to his curiosity — and stabbed with a swift motion into the wolfe’s skull. I then promptly welled the mana and exploded it into his brain, causing it to begin twitching rapidly.
“Come on, you take too long with this!”
I grunted as I swung the spear sideways and cleaved onto its neck. The mana exploded into the wound once more, festering and corroding it. The wolfe wailed as it died off. And soon the notification came.
[You have killed: (C) Blight Corrupted Wolfe. Lvl 109.]
[Level up: You have achieved level 82. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
[Level up: You…
[Level up: You have achieved level 85. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
[New Milestone reached — Skills & Knowledge Available]
I frowned, the experience had gone down, though maybe it was because The Light Maker was also sharing? I was unsure about that. At the same time, I had skipped now four milestones and was on number five. I was unsure about how much longer I’d save my time to look at skills, but I couldn’t check things right now.
The Light Maker nodded and turned around.
“That was much faster than I expected, 81 to 85,” he mused. “With that out of the way, we can begin looking for the source of the corruption. Ah, by the way, do you happen to have dark plant affinity? It’d be real useful right now.” He looked at me through his helmet.
I snorted. “If I had it, I wouldn’t be around you, would I?”
“You sure?”
I frowned, and simply looked at him with nothing but annoyance. He shook his head.
“It was just a joke.”
“If you’re just looking for an excuse to kill me after thirty days, then the fact that I haven’t even said much about the trial is enough,” I quipped.
“That is true.”
◇ ◇ ◇
As I followed him around, a weird thought popped into my mind. It was a term I had been seeing and hearing somewhat recently.
“What is Essence?”
He paused. “Like, Essence Skills?”
“Yeah, what are they? How do I get one?” I asked once more.
He pondered as he began walking, hand on his chin.
“Simplest explanation is, it's a skill that comes from your very being and is graded in quality. Once you understand it enough, you may be able to use it. It uses your affinity and knowledge to basically unleash something above the tier— ah, maybe you can learn an Essence Skill from level ups too.” He shrugged.
I frowned. “So is it like progressing your Prophecy with whatever thoughts you have?”
“Bingo.” He walked around a tree. “Don’t trouble yourself with it too much. Hm, actually— have you ever seen a Herald monster do a final stance move? That would be an Essence Skill.”
I paused, recalling the mountain blowing up into nothing.
“That’s how strong they are?”
He nodded. “Which is why, they are the signature thing of C grade. One thing that makes C grade stand above D grade no matter the circumstance.”
“I see…”
He continued to walk leaving me alone with my thoughts.
So, Essence Skills are that strong? Then— the Feat of Untamed One was a great Feat? Well, Elasia had hinted at it. Hm. I certainly looked forward to being able to do that, a question was: when?
I need to be stronger…
“Oh.” The Light Maker paused as he stared at a tree. In comparison to the surrounding dark plants, this one had patches of darkness and seemed to be rotten. It was a mix of plants. “A Blight Corrupted plant? Seems like we might be close to something.”
I had to do a few things before getting stronger: and it starts with me completing the trial and making the Artificial Heart.
Azrie
You can read the entirety of book 2 (up to chapter 155) on patreon!
I also opened a ko-fi, where you can read from chapter 137 onwards!
Blair now has a discord server, join here
