Man, all I have to say is thank god I didn't find Worm back when I was doing my IB's.
Litterely the best thing I've ever read, ever. Everytime I think it can't get better, it pulls back and reveals another layer of intricacy. Worm doesn't just live up to the hype, the hype doesn't do it justice.
Anyway, hope you like the chapter!
Sorry for it coming out late, but I was in the middle of the Echidna arc and couldn't concentraet without finding out how it ended.
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Ch062-Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Die.
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[Raise Zombie (III) Proficiency increased to 19%!]
The change was gradual, but noticeable. As the mana density increased, so did the effect the dungeon had on the world.
First of all, there were bricks now instead of coarse stone, and they were all enchanted somehow, not quite enough that Sylver couldn’t break them if he tried, but enough that he would need too much time to even attempt to dig down into them.
A few of the ones near the ceiling were glowing. Not enough that Sylver could see with perfect clarity, but the light level did manage to hit the perfect sweet spot that using night vision blinded him. Using his mana sense to feel his surroundings also didn’t do anything, so he was limited to his eyes and his slightly diminished soul sense.
And the 74 zombie apes that had an order to destroy anything that moved. With the 30% strength increase, every single one was a walking cannon.
Enough so that the living rot poison almost seemed redundant. The fact that they had convenient pouches to store the poison was too useful not to use. So Sylver had every single one walking around with a pouch full of rocks and slimy poison.
The only downside was that the tunnel was too narrow for all of them to be able to throw rocks at the same time. At best, only about 8 could simultaneously throw a rock.
Sylver heard the sound of something shattering.
[??? (???) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
A flat-looking reptile dropped down from the ceiling a few steps forward, and landed with a wet splat. The apes moved out of the way so Sylver could walk over to it.
It had 6 legs, 3 on each side, and a tail almost as long as its entire body. Among the fact that the curve of its long jaw suggested incredible biting power, Sylver also noted that the claws at the end of its feet appeared to be barbed. On top of all that, the creature’s entire body was covered in rock-solid armor, which just so happened to match the brick pattern it was lying on right now.
How the apes managed to spot it, was a mystery to Sylver. Until he pulled back the creature’s eyelids and saw that they were so shiny that they looked white even in the dim light. The cause of death was very likely the small rock that had caved its skull in, and was still stuck inside of it. Sylver ripped it out of the top of the creature’s head and handed it to one of the apes to pack away. A knife would snap before piercing these scales, but blunt damage seemed to work extremely well.
“Weird… I would have thought it would be venomous,” Sylver said, as he pulled the creature’s mouth open and broke a tooth out. He looked inside but there weren’t any venom canals, it was all tooth. He dug under the scales, and cut one away from the body, and watched as the pattern on it changed and shifted, before it settled on a boring grey.
“And it can camouflage itself. Falls down on unsuspecting adventurers and uses its massive jaw to crush their heads and amour,” Sylver explained, putting the scale back and getting the apes to flip the thing over onto its back.
The belly was surprisingly soft, but still required Sylver to spend a significant amount of time cutting it open. Everything was going perfectly fine, until Sylver pulled its digestive tract out and furrowed his brows.
“Oh fuck off,” Sylver said simply, shoving the organs back inside and letting the blood slide of his darkness coated hands.
“What?” Spring asked, speaking to Sylver from the shadows.
“Its soul just slipped away. This is the exact reason I love reptiles, they’re extremely resistant to soul magic, but that’s the same reason most necromancers hate them. And at the moment I’m apparently too weak to even keep a goddamn lizard’s soul in place!” Sylver said, getting up and kicking the corpse with his foot.
“Apes! Listen up! New rule, don’t bother trying to minimize damage, you see a pair of glowing eyes, just shoot it until it drops dead!” Sylver shouted, stepping onto the corpse and walking over it.
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[??? (???) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
The apes at the front moved the corpse to the side and out of Sylver’s path, as they continued to walk down the path. The lizards were all incredibly well hidden, save for the fact that their eyes were a dead giveaway. If you had several eyes on them, that is, because there were multiple times that Sylver was too close to them to spot them, and only the apes in the very back managed to react fast enough to shoot the things.
For whatever reason, the lizards seemed to understand that killing the zombies wouldn’t do them any good and waited for Sylver to walk underneath them, before dropping down in an attempt to bite his head off. Thankfully Spring had organized the apes in such a way that there were always a couple in the back watching the ceiling and armed with a rock in their hands.
They walked in a group, Sylver in the very middle, surrounded on all sides by ape zombies, and with an illusion imposed over himself to make him appear to be an ape zombie too. Sadly Sylver had already realized that this wasn’t going to cut it for the lizards, since they weren’t actually using their eyes to see. After cutting another open out of curiosity he found that there was a soft piece of tissue along their nose that acted as a sort of ear, that Sylver guessed gave them an echolocation like sense.
They seemed to open their eyes out of some sort of weird reflex when falling, or for some other purpose Sylver wasn’t aware of. Visual confirmation, possibly?
It didn’t particularly matter, he’d seen a few that just dropped down without opening their eyes, and were hit while mid-fall. With zombies not needing to blink, or ever getting distracted, there was very little chance for the lizards. They were a threat, but they only fell as fast as gravity let them, and couldn’t do anything other than bite or blend in with the ceiling. Or at least didn’t get a chance to.
They walked through the tunnels, picking a direction at semi-random, mostly following whichever tunnel was the widest and easiest to walk through.
The path ended abruptly, with a large wooden door blocking the way. Sylver placed his hand on it to feel it for traps, and felt a pulse of mana harmlessly pass through his body.
The double doors swung open, momentarily blinding Sylver with the brightly lit area behind them.
A brightly glowing yellow moss seemed to cover the majority of the walls of the room. The ceiling was in the shape of a flat pyramid, and a large stone ball hung on a chain from the very top of the pyramid, with a very large ape standing on it. The chain looked far too thin to hold so much weight.
One of the zombie apes next to him staggered backward, a hole in his chest, and an explosion of gore directly behind him, painting the apes behind him red in blood. Sylver focused his attention directly ahead of him, and saw a group of thinner than normal apes, pointing at him and his group with drawn bows, and appearing as confused as he was.
Sylver’s zombies immediately started shooting stones at them, managing to hit a few, but missing most of them. While the apes with bows dodged out of the way of the volley of stones, they fired arrows in response, getting several zombies directly in the head and killing them.
Sylver leaned back and let one of his zombie apes grab him by the arm, spinning around twice, before throwing him towards the giant ape.
Spring and the other shades appeared behind the ape archers, cutting their strings with their daggers, and doing their best to stab them in the heads and necks at the same time. The difference in speed was evident, as the archer apes killed half the shades before they could even finish materializing, and not a single one managed to so much as graze the archer apes’ necks or heads. Only about half of their bowstrings were cut, most moving their bows out of the way before the shades could reach them.
Sylver flew through the air unencumbered, letting Spring handle everything down below while he focused on the big ape at the top.
[Chimp Champion (Warrior+Leader) – 66]
[HP-3000]
[MP-1292]
The giant chimp was frozen for a moment, its eyes darting down at the carnage going on down below, before attempting to focus on Sylver, who now had 9 identical copies flying through the air along with him. The chimp swung its massive and long arm through all of them, its open hand passingly harmlessly through the illusions.
Sylver landed safely on the side of the giant stone ball and glued himself to it, crawling underneath it, and glanced downwards to see how Spring was faring.
Right now he had abandoned all pretense at using ranged weapons, and had the zombies charging directly at the chimp archers, heedless of how many of them died in the attempt. Sylver understood the strategy, given the fact that the chimp archers were quick enough to dodge out of the way of any stones being thrown.
Sylver’s robe pulled him backward, as a giant hand descended down onto where he was a breath ago.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
Sylver ignored the messages and instead stabbed the hand directly in front of him with his dagger, twisting it while he could and leaving the blade inside as he crawled backward and upward as the giant chimp leaned down and crawled downwards, below the stone sphere they were both on right now.
As a man, Sylver felt a pang of guilt for what he was about to do, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. In front of him, absurdly large weak points hung loosely between the chimp champion's legs. With a wave of his hand, a small burst of glowing red darts exploded out of Sylver’s sleeve, disappearing into the soft and relatively hairless spheres. There was a very muffled, but definitive pop as the superheated metal reacted with the relatively cool flesh and exploded into small metallic shards.
The chimp champion screamed so loudly that Sylver felt his eardrums threatening to burst. As the creature cupped the two damaged weaknesses, Sylver was helped by his robe to jump higher and clambered up the chain.
Either the chimp champion felt the vibration in the metal chain he was holding, or simply heard the sound of Sylver’s boots hitting against it, but either way, he looked up and bellowed with anger at the source of his unbelievable pain.
Sylver waited for the chimp champion to reach upwards with his hand, before using his robe to launch back down, just barely managing to avoid getting grasped by the giant hand.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
Sylver surrounded himself with illusions as he fell, but through sheer luck, the chimp champion’s hand moved through them in such a way that he ended up grabbing Sylver’s left leg. Sylver saw the spark of realization in the creature’s eyes as the strength of its grip intensified.
Sylver’s eyes watered as the limb was crushed, the sharp shards of bone severing blood vessels and nerves, as Sylver had to align himself with the moving limb to keep it from being twisted and completely ripped off his body. The chimp increased his grip, as he hit Sylver against the stone sphere he was standing on, Sylver’s robe fluffing up and reducing the blunt damage to nothing, as the chimp lifted him up into the air again.
Will appeared out of the chimp’s own shadow along with Ulvic and the other wolves, biting the arm that was holding Sylver, and causing the chimp champion to loosen his grip just enough for Sylver to pull his mangled leg out. Will and the wolves were hit before they could dematerialize, exploding into a cloud of black, giving Sylver cover as he was sent toppling down towards the floor.
The robe puffed up again and absorbed the impact, during which Sylver covered his left leg in a layer of darkness and set off an explosion near his right leg, sending him half sliding, half flying, towards the exit.
Sylver’s left hand was outstretched as the doors closed, his pointer, middle and ring finger losing their tips from the motion, as the rest of his body couldn’t stop the momentum and collided with the hard wooden surface.
Sylver coated his left leg as best he could as he turned around, and had mixed emotions about watching his MP tick up to 1140. He saw what he had expected, as Spring nimbly dodged below one of the archer chimps swings, and slashed it through the neck.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
Spring disappeared into the shadows, as the last archer chimp behind him shot an arrow through the now empty space, the chimp champion landing next to him on the floor. He crushed the last four zombie apes as he landed on them.
“Who’s left?” Sylver asked, using Spring as support while he reinforced his leg as much as possible so it could at the very least hold his weight.
“Just me, and a few legless zombies, but we got all but one of them,” Spring answered, staring directly at the two chimps on the other side of the room. If he didn’t know any better, the way they were pulling their lips back to show their teeth looked a whole lot like a smile. In the shadow of the stone sphere, their eyes appeared to be almost glowing.
“Two on two, it’s a fair fight,” Sylver said with a strained grin, as a glowing bright red arrow passed through Spring, as the shade shoved Sylver to the side and exploded into a cloud of darkness in Sylver’s place.
Sylver fell to the floor and for half a second couldn’t get his bearing in order, the flash of pain in his leg momentarily stunning him, along with the harsh influx of mana from Spring dying. His robe reacted before he did, and slid him even further away, as another bright red arrow embedded itself into the wooden door a mere inch away from Sylver’s body, exactly where his head was a moment ago.
The robe moved him away again, lifting him to stand on his feet like he had practiced countless times before.
“Two on one, gonna be an uphill battle,” Sylver said to himself, as the two remaining chimps grinned at him.
For a split second, an image Sylver never wanted to see again flashed in front of his eyes. The face was distinctly different, but the smile and the sentiment behind it was absolutely identical. Sylver wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he was completely alone, or that his grin was just as self-assured as that of a stupid chimp’s.
The pain in Sylver’s leg flared before dulling down to nothing. A familiar chill started from his chest and spread to every inch of his body, down to the stubs on his left hand.
Sylver took a deep and smooth breath, and ignored the throbbing in his side, as his cracked ribs pressed up against his lungs, and gestured in front of himself, as the grinning chimp archer readied another arrow.
Sylver stood in place, his hands in front of him and ready, as the chimp archer aimed and fired the arrow.
It flew through the air, spinning and getting faster and faster, shining brighter and brighter, each spin causing it to flash with power, the arrow flying directly towards Sylver’s head.
It hit him square in the face, a blast of bright gore exploding behind him and coating the entirety of the door in red. His corpse leaned backward lifelessly, the blood squirting out of his shredded neck, staining his brand new cloak and robe, already absorbing the sluggishly moving blood.
The chimp champion further relaxed his defensive position and gripped his damaged family jewels with one hand, reaching out with his other hand towards his tiny subordinate, and doing the closest thing to a ‘down low’ two beings of such different sizes could manage. They both laughed in victory, the chimp champion reaching down with his other hand to try and consol the excruciating pain as much as possible.
The chimp archer jokingly mimed shooting another arrow at Sylver’s corpse, as one of his skills activated out of habit, and caused it to see the human's hairy blood-soaked corpse with near-perfect clarity. The chimp archer stopped dead in its tracks, as the skill continued to enhance the image, down to the point it could almost see the individual threads in the now red cloak.
The chimp champion saw the world slow down around him, felt the hair at the back of his neck rise, and started desperately looking left and right to find the source of danger.
It looked up just in time to see a shirtless and blood-covered Sylver, hanging off the chain that used to hold the stone sphere in the air. Sylver’s face was a mask of perfect calmness, only his eyes practically glowing with cold anger.
The chimp champion bellowed in slow motion, trying to move its giant body out of the way.
Or at least attempted to, as it suddenly found itself locked in place by pieces of decimated zombie apes, that had banded together as if they were a net and used their ribs, teeth, and shattered bones to lock the giant’s feet in place.
It smashed a few of the zombies to pieces, and managed to yank one foot out of their grip, as the stone sphere continued to fall and began to crush the giant chimp. The chimp archer didn’t even see what was happening above it, its gaze fixed on the small cloak wearing headless ape corpse, as the giant chimp’s torso shoved it to the floor and crushed it.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 20 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Chimp (Warrior+Leader) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating a layer boss, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Due to defeating a layer boss solo, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Due to defeating a layer boss 20 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Necromancer] has reached level 40!
+5AP
[1 perk available for [Necromancer]]
[Necromancer] has reached level 41!
+5AP
[Necromancer] has reached level 42!
+5AP
[Optical Illusion (II) Proficiency Increased to 57%!]
[Physical Endurance (I) Proficiency Increased to 100%!]
[Physical Endurance (I) rank up available!]
Sylver breathed a sigh of relief as the messages appeared and swung on the chain twice, before letting go to fall to the ground.
His wind magic was too weak and unfocused to properly stop his fall, ending up with his already broken left leg further breaking as he landed on it.
As he leaked blood on the floor, Sylver crawled towards the giant chimps corpse, getting a helping hand from a few of the zombie apes spread all over the place in bits and pieces, and felt the moment his HP went into the negative.
He reached the corpse and succeeded in draining lifeforce and mana out of it before his blood even had time to start cooling.
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[Draining Touch (II) Proficiency increased to 41%!]
“That was too close. If not for some of the zombie apes still being able to move, I have no idea what I would have done,” Sylver said, flexing his left hand as the bones were slowly covered by muscle and gradually grew skin.
“You would have thought of something. At the end of the day, these were just a bunch of chimps. They fell for the substitution trick, and were done in by their own weapon. What was the point of this anyway?” Spring asked, knocking on the stone sphere.
“Going by the fact that there’s some sort of extension mechanism at the very top, my guess is that the chimp champion was supposed to swing around on it. But either it understood that unless it helped finish off the zombies, it would just get killed by the rocks, or it was angered enough by me that it couldn’t think straight, it doesn’t really matter at this point,” Sylver said, sitting up and using the chimp champions severed hand as a seat.
The crushed leg looked like a long balloon being slowly blown up, as the bones crackled and scratched against one another, as they very slowly fused back together and popped into place.
“I need to specialize more,” Sylver said, his flaccid foot twisting around twice before locking into place.
“Focus on building a few powerful zombies, instead of using disposable hordes? Or wait around until you can make more sentient shades, and wait until you have all the necessary materials for evolution?” Spring asked, as Sylver’s knee cap slid down into place and clicked as the tendons connected back together.
“No I mean, I need to start accepting negative effects. Look at how powerful that chimp was. Or the chimp archers. They’re only 20 levels higher and they nearly killed me. How am I going to deal with something 30 levels higher? Or 40? Or 50?” Sylver asked, straightening his leg out and clenching his jaw as the nerves started to heal up and connect to one another.
“You don’t? Most people seem to find killing anything 5 levels higher than themselves impossible, at least that’s my understanding of it. The only exceptions are people with exceptionally good classes, which you don’t seem to have,” Spring answered, moving the shades around so Sylver didn’t need to search for the next one to heal.
Sylver sat in silence for a while, healing his leg and healing the shades in his shadow with the overflowing mana, and trying to think things through properly. Despite the fact that he had already reached a decision.
“There’s a choice I need to make. The first is to completely disregard this whole thing. Go into deep denial, pretend there isn’t some sort of impossible magic being imposed on, by the look and sound of things, the entire world, and everything in it. But then what? Without Nyx around, or someone like her, I don’t have a source of pure dark energy to help me mold and expand my core. Or the time for it, even if I did find someone willing to help me. I don’t have centuries to wait around for my power to come back, I have no idea how long I’ve got,” Sylver said out loud, mostly to himself.
“So that’s out. And option two is to embrace it right? Accept whatever limitations it places on you, understanding that that’s simply the price you’ll have to pay for power?” Spring asked.
“I’m immortal. I’ll figure out how to remove all the limitations eventually. And if you think about it, provided the limitation is equal to the boost, it’s worth it. If I continue limiting myself to the perks and effects that come without any sort of negative effect, I’ll continue to miss out on some pretty good ones. Not to mention, considering the whole thing seems to build on the choices I make, if I just keep going as I am now there will come a point where I won’t be able to increase my level anymore,” Sylver said, standing up and putting pressure onto his freshly healed left leg.
“Are you sure that's a good idea? If the necromancer class is really as bad as everyone makes it out to be, you could be digging yourself into a hole you’ll never be able to escape. Too weak to fight anything above your level, and riddled with so many negative effects and limitations that all your knowledge is worthless as a result,” Spring cautioned, as Sylver jumped up and down and continued to test the limb.
“Let's say it is. The fuck else am I going to do? Spend months searching for information on a class I might be compatible with? And even then, just because I can use spells from other schools of magic, that doesn’t mean I’m an expert on them. And who knows how my unique class will react if I got a class unrelated to my specialty? I’m undead, I can’t exactly use wind or holy magic, as my main weapon, can I? Or fire, or water, I’m at best adept at earth. I do understand this is a risk. But I’m honestly tired of having to survive by the skin of my teeth anytime I fight anything even mildly higher leveled than I am,” Sylver continued, kicking with his leg and stretching it out to see that it wouldn’t dislocate.
“Not by the skin of your teeth. A few close calls maybe, but other than Nameless and his group, and Poppy, and Nautis the first time you met, there really hasn’t been a whole lot you couldn’t run away from, or trick somehow to tip everything in your favor. We are in a dungeon, you got careless, it happens,” Spring explained, as a few shades were sent to survey the place for anything worthwhile.
“It happens. I nearly died! For good! To a bunch of overgrown monkeys!”
“Chimps.” Spring corrected.
“Who fucking cares! I’m not saying I need to start accepting negative effects for the fun of it, but if it’s a worthy trade-off, or something I know a way to circumvent or prevent from happening, I’m going to take it,” Sylver said throwing his hands in the air and walking up the stone sphere to see if he missed something up there.
“You have a gut feeling about accepting negative effects, and you’re trying to justify it to yourself, by justifying it to me, right?” Spring asked, appearing at the top where the chain connected to the stone, before Sylver was even halfway there.
“I’m also furious and there’s nothing nearby that I can kill to vent my frustration on. A giant fucking chimp nearly ripped my leg off! But yes. The same way it ended up being extremely lucrative to go to that prison, I have a good feeling about taking the system a bit more seriously. Sofia already told me that dummy classes are a thing, so in the absolute worst-case scenario, I just accept her offer and have her seal away my necromancer class, and find something more suitable to level. The system doesn’t stop me from using any none-necromancy related magic, so it's not like I need the class to continue raising the dead. If anything, it would be a good idea to pick something I don’t know anything about. But then there’s the danger of me not using it properly, and ending up unable to increase my level,” Sylver explained, touching the base where the chain entered the stone sphere, and sending pulses of mana through it.
“You already made up your mind about it before even saying anything, haven’t you? And now you’re just making sure this isn’t one of those ideas that sound good in your head but fall apart when you try to put them into words,” Spring said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It's jarring how much your personality is showing with only 4%. I’m almost afraid to see what 10% will look like,” Sylver said, wiping the blood away from the stone.
“But I’m right, aren’t I? You’re just waiting to make sure the good feeling isn’t just the excess lifeforce moving through your body. But quite honestly, I agree with you. Your old knowledge gives you an advantage against others, but it's not enough. And you know better than anyone that trying to become powerful without hurting anybody, or making some sacrifices, is impossible,” Spring said, repeating the words that had been floating around in Sylver’s head for a while now.
Sylver got down from the stone sphere after confirming it wasn’t anything more than just a giant rock. If there was something deep inside, Sylver had no ability to crack it open, or to otherwise check. It was just a big ball of stone, hanging on a thin chain.
*
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[Perk: Unholy Blessing]
-Increase MP by 50%
-Increase MP regeneration by 25%.
*Increase weakness to positive energy by 150%.
*Increase weakness to holy magic by 50%.
*Increase weakness to fire magic by 50%.
*Decrease HP regeneration by 33.33%
[Perk: Dark Descent]
-Decrease cost of all [Negative] magic by 33.33%
*Increase cost of all [Positive] magic by 100%
*Decrease MP regeneration by 25%
*Decrease HP regeneration by 50%
They’re both not great… But this is the best out of the 11 I have available.
[Unholy Blessing] seems like the best choice… I don’t particularly care about HP regeneration, I can stomach any damage I take, and drain the life out of whatever hurt me. There’s never really been a time where I was waiting for my HP to tick up, and the needle already gave me a 50% boost. It’s a small price to pay for more mana.
Sylver looked at the two perks and tried to think long term. More mana meant more defense against whatever he was fighting, including anyone armed with positive magic, or holy or fire magic.
On the other hand, decreasing the cost of his negative magic would mean he could heal the shades a lot quicker. And he could use the robe a lot more. And his curses would become stronger, but everything else would be too costly to ever use in a fight. Not to mention the MP regeneration decrease would cripple him in any fight that lasted more than a few minutes.
Sylver read through the other 9 available perks, ignoring the 50 blank spaces that he didn’t meet the requirements for. 3 came with no negative effects, but were just short of useless as a result. One was clearly an upgrade for [Tools Of The Shade] that simply allowed them to conjure weapons, but pointless since Sylver had armed all of them anyway.
Another seemed to be a way for Sylver to distance himself from his weaknesses, giving him an across the board 15% resistance to everything, at the cost of halving his maximum HP.
But the reason [Unholy Blessing] seemed like the best choice was that Sylver already knew how to increase his resistance to positive and holy magic. And losing a part of his HP regeneration seemed like a very acceptable sacrifice, considering [Deathless] and [Golden Egg] meant that eventually any damage would be healed. And it wasn’t like Sylver needed his body functioning to use magic. Aside from passing out from pain/shock, as long as his head and heart remained, as well as the needle, he should be fine...
“Are you sure about this? Because you don’t know for certain that your methods will work. Or that there’s a way to remove a perk. Or even if there’s a skill out there that would let you turn perks on and off at will, like you seem to think there is,” Spring cautioned, sitting in place as Sylver paced around and thought.
“How many times have I been hit? I either hide behind illusions, or use something for cover. I’ve got zombies as shields, as well as shades to keep everyone too busy to properly attack me. With more mana and more regeneration I could get to a point where I can heal shades faster than the enemy could damage them,” Sylver answered, staring at the floating board and waiting to see how his gut will react.
“Honestly, no I’m not sure. I’m already weak to positive energy and holy magic, I’m worried this will mean I’ll get instantly killed if someone uses turn undead on me... But on the other hand? Over 3MP per second. 187.5MP per minute, and if I have more mana, I can drain mana out of people and monsters faster. It’s an acceptable trade,” Sylver said, moving the other perks out of the way.
“So accept it,” Spring said, with Sylver waving away the rushing shade. This wasn’t a decision to be taken lightly.
1500 MP feels like it might be enough for something at the lower end of tier 2.
With the thought of being able to access even the fringe of tier 2 magic, Sylver accepted the perk.
[Perk: Unholy Blessing]
-Increase MP by 50%
-Increase MP regeneration by 25%.
*Increase weakness to positive energy by 150%.
*Increase weakness to holy magic by 50%.
*Increase weakness to fire magic by 50%.
*Decrease HP regeneration by 33.33%
He felt a powerful, overwhelming rush, as his mana channels expanded to accommodate their newfound size, his skin sending bright yellow sparks flying everywhere as new channels grew inside his flesh and bones and made space for themselves.
Sylver took a deep breath and held it in for a second. What came out of his mouth no longer looked like smoke, but instead appeared closer to gravity-defying sludge. As if someone had made a powder out of the darkest coal imaginable and then applied gravity magic to it.
The stream of pure blackness crackled with energy as it formed into a dark halo above and began to spin. It sped up to the point that it looked as if it was a motionless but completely smooth ring, the whole thing became a single beam of darkness and disappeared into the giant spherical stone.
Sylver leaned down and looked at the hole the spell had made, and smiled to himself as he saw the light at the end of the perfectly straight tunnel.
“I imagined tier 2 magic to have a bit more oomph to it,” Spring said, as Sylver felt around the hole the spell had made, and was pleased to see it was a perfectly clean cut.
“This isn’t tier 2 magic. This is a bastardization of the tier 2 spell, Abyssal Pillar. This was more like Mini Abyssal Dart. And used up every drop of mana I had. But on the bright side!” Sylver said, pulling up his status screen.
CON: 30
DEX: 10
STR: 1
INT: 100
WIS: 100
AP: 30
Health: 300/300
Stamina: 150/150
MP: 9/1500
Health Regen: 2.99/M
Stamina Regen: 2.25/M
MP Regen: 187.50/M
“Gods above and below I love this thing! Tell me why I shouldn’t just put all 30 points into intelligence?” Sylver shouted, getting up from his crouch and doing a small spin of joy. The rush from the sudden influx of mana was still yet to wear off.
“Because the plan was to get your constitution to 100, then dexterity, and then strength and then split it between intelligence and wisdom at a 2 to 1 ratio?” Spring asked sarcastically, pouring a small glass of water on Sylver’s excitement.
“Good point… Alright… I’m not leaving this place until I get another 6 levels to make up for the 30 I’m about to drop into intelligence. Scratch that, another 10 levels, because I want to get intelligence to 150. But we’re not going any deeper, we are backtracking and finding another layer boss, because I’m fairly certain we walked past the level 50 one. Sounds good?” Sylver asked, dropping the 30 points into intelligence and stretching his body as his channels exploded in size and settled down just as fast.
“If you’re going to pretend to ask for my opinion, at least wait for me to say something,” Spring said with a mock pout. Given the fact that he was connected to Sylver’s soul, the joy was literally infectious.
CON: 30
DEX: 10
STR: 1
INT: 130
WIS: 100
AP: 0
Health: 300/300
Stamina: 150/150
MP: 94/1950
Health Regen: 2.99/M
Stamina Regen: 2.25/M
MP Regen: 243.75/M
“You know, you’re a bit more impulsive than usual. Is everything-”
“No, I nearly died at the hands of an overgrown chimp... But this was a long time coming, pretty much the moment I touched Poppy I decided this was inevitable. The chimp just kind of reminded me that I’m not who I used to be,” Sylver said, stretching his body and moving the newly created mana around and enjoying the fact that he had just short of doubled his MP capacity in a little under a minute.
“I can kind of see that. I still think you should have waited a bit more before coming to a decision, but you know what you’re doing, and there’s not a whole lot I can say or do to stop you,” Spring said, disappearing into the shadows.
“I do value your words, but if my gut tells me to jump, I’m jumping. I didn’t live to be however old I was, by ignoring it.,” Sylver said, checking to see that he could still reinforce his limbs with mana.
[Physical Endurance (II) rank up available!]
Choose 1 from the following:
Physical Endurance(II)
-Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 10%.
-[Requirements not met]
-{Requirements not met]
-[Requirements not met]
-{Requirements not met]
…
“You know, I really had my hopes up for a second. That there would be something equally good here,” Sylver said, as he lamely accepted the 10% pain reduction and made his way towards the entrance he had come through. There was sadly no mimic or chest in here, but Sylver had gotten something even better than a pile of broken trash.
The wooden doors had swung open almost the moment the chimp champion was slain, Sylver was simply too preoccupied with restarting his heart to notice.
[Skill: Physical Endurance (I)]
Skill level can be increased by enduring pain.
I - Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 2%.
II - Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 10%.
Walking around the room, Sylver dismissed the various zombie apes splattered in pieces all over the floor. The damage was too great for him to fix at the moment, and more honestly he didn’t want to. They couldn’t even kill a couple of archers, and the shades proved themselves more than capable.
Even if they also died to a bunch of chimp archers. But in their defense, they did manage to finish them off, while the archers were occupied with killing the zombie apes.
But even more honestly, Sylver was looking forward to venting his anger and frustration on whatever happened to be the level 50 layer boss. And didn’t want anyone getting in the way.
Save for the small army of immortal shades in his shadow of course.
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Discord for discussions, updates and memes. Mostly memes and suggesting spells and discussing future skills/abilities. Also, a good place to ask any question you may have.
Man, all I have to say is thank god I didn't find Worm back when I was doing my IB's.
Litterely the best thing I've ever read, ever. Everytime I think it can't get better, it pulls back and reveals another layer of intricacy. Worm doesn't just live up to the hype, the hype doesn't do it justice.
Anyway, hope you like the chapter!
Sorry for it coming out late, but I was in the middle of the Echidna arc and couldn't concentraet without finding out how it ended.
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Ch062-Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Die.
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[Raise Zombie (III) Proficiency increased to 19%!]
The change was gradual, but noticeable. As the mana density increased, so did the effect the dungeon had on the world.
First of all, there were bricks now instead of coarse stone, and they were all enchanted somehow, not quite enough that Sylver couldn’t break them if he tried, but enough that he would need too much time to even attempt to dig down into them.
A few of the ones near the ceiling were glowing. Not enough that Sylver could see with perfect clarity, but the light level did manage to hit the perfect sweet spot that using night vision blinded him. Using his mana sense to feel his surroundings also didn’t do anything, so he was limited to his eyes and his slightly diminished soul sense.
And the 74 zombie apes that had an order to destroy anything that moved. With the 30% strength increase, every single one was a walking cannon.
Enough so that the living rot poison almost seemed redundant. The fact that they had convenient pouches to store the poison was too useful not to use. So Sylver had every single one walking around with a pouch full of rocks and slimy poison.
The only downside was that the tunnel was too narrow for all of them to be able to throw rocks at the same time. At best, only about 8 could simultaneously throw a rock.
Sylver heard the sound of something shattering.
[??? (???) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
A flat-looking reptile dropped down from the ceiling a few steps forward, and landed with a wet splat. The apes moved out of the way so Sylver could walk over to it.
It had 6 legs, 3 on each side, and a tail almost as long as its entire body. Among the fact that the curve of its long jaw suggested incredible biting power, Sylver also noted that the claws at the end of its feet appeared to be barbed. On top of all that, the creature’s entire body was covered in rock-solid armor, which just so happened to match the brick pattern it was lying on right now.
How the apes managed to spot it, was a mystery to Sylver. Until he pulled back the creature’s eyelids and saw that they were so shiny that they looked white even in the dim light. The cause of death was very likely the small rock that had caved its skull in, and was still stuck inside of it. Sylver ripped it out of the top of the creature’s head and handed it to one of the apes to pack away. A knife would snap before piercing these scales, but blunt damage seemed to work extremely well.
“Weird… I would have thought it would be venomous,” Sylver said, as he pulled the creature’s mouth open and broke a tooth out. He looked inside but there weren’t any venom canals, it was all tooth. He dug under the scales, and cut one away from the body, and watched as the pattern on it changed and shifted, before it settled on a boring grey.
“And it can camouflage itself. Falls down on unsuspecting adventurers and uses its massive jaw to crush their heads and amour,” Sylver explained, putting the scale back and getting the apes to flip the thing over onto its back.
The belly was surprisingly soft, but still required Sylver to spend a significant amount of time cutting it open. Everything was going perfectly fine, until Sylver pulled its digestive tract out and furrowed his brows.
“Oh fuck off,” Sylver said simply, shoving the organs back inside and letting the blood slide of his darkness coated hands.
“What?” Spring asked, speaking to Sylver from the shadows.
“Its soul just slipped away. This is the exact reason I love reptiles, they’re extremely resistant to soul magic, but that’s the same reason most necromancers hate them. And at the moment I’m apparently too weak to even keep a goddamn lizard’s soul in place!” Sylver said, getting up and kicking the corpse with his foot.
“Apes! Listen up! New rule, don’t bother trying to minimize damage, you see a pair of glowing eyes, just shoot it until it drops dead!” Sylver shouted, stepping onto the corpse and walking over it.
*
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*
[??? (???) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
The apes at the front moved the corpse to the side and out of Sylver’s path, as they continued to walk down the path. The lizards were all incredibly well hidden, save for the fact that their eyes were a dead giveaway. If you had several eyes on them, that is, because there were multiple times that Sylver was too close to them to spot them, and only the apes in the very back managed to react fast enough to shoot the things.
For whatever reason, the lizards seemed to understand that killing the zombies wouldn’t do them any good and waited for Sylver to walk underneath them, before dropping down in an attempt to bite his head off. Thankfully Spring had organized the apes in such a way that there were always a couple in the back watching the ceiling and armed with a rock in their hands.
They walked in a group, Sylver in the very middle, surrounded on all sides by ape zombies, and with an illusion imposed over himself to make him appear to be an ape zombie too. Sadly Sylver had already realized that this wasn’t going to cut it for the lizards, since they weren’t actually using their eyes to see. After cutting another open out of curiosity he found that there was a soft piece of tissue along their nose that acted as a sort of ear, that Sylver guessed gave them an echolocation like sense.
They seemed to open their eyes out of some sort of weird reflex when falling, or for some other purpose Sylver wasn’t aware of. Visual confirmation, possibly?
It didn’t particularly matter, he’d seen a few that just dropped down without opening their eyes, and were hit while mid-fall. With zombies not needing to blink, or ever getting distracted, there was very little chance for the lizards. They were a threat, but they only fell as fast as gravity let them, and couldn’t do anything other than bite or blend in with the ceiling. Or at least didn’t get a chance to.
They walked through the tunnels, picking a direction at semi-random, mostly following whichever tunnel was the widest and easiest to walk through.
The path ended abruptly, with a large wooden door blocking the way. Sylver placed his hand on it to feel it for traps, and felt a pulse of mana harmlessly pass through his body.
The double doors swung open, momentarily blinding Sylver with the brightly lit area behind them.
A brightly glowing yellow moss seemed to cover the majority of the walls of the room. The ceiling was in the shape of a flat pyramid, and a large stone ball hung on a chain from the very top of the pyramid, with a very large ape standing on it. The chain looked far too thin to hold so much weight.
One of the zombie apes next to him staggered backward, a hole in his chest, and an explosion of gore directly behind him, painting the apes behind him red in blood. Sylver focused his attention directly ahead of him, and saw a group of thinner than normal apes, pointing at him and his group with drawn bows, and appearing as confused as he was.
Sylver’s zombies immediately started shooting stones at them, managing to hit a few, but missing most of them. While the apes with bows dodged out of the way of the volley of stones, they fired arrows in response, getting several zombies directly in the head and killing them.
Sylver leaned back and let one of his zombie apes grab him by the arm, spinning around twice, before throwing him towards the giant ape.
Spring and the other shades appeared behind the ape archers, cutting their strings with their daggers, and doing their best to stab them in the heads and necks at the same time. The difference in speed was evident, as the archer apes killed half the shades before they could even finish materializing, and not a single one managed to so much as graze the archer apes’ necks or heads. Only about half of their bowstrings were cut, most moving their bows out of the way before the shades could reach them.
Sylver flew through the air unencumbered, letting Spring handle everything down below while he focused on the big ape at the top.
[Chimp Champion (Warrior+Leader) – 66]
[HP-3000]
[MP-1292]
The giant chimp was frozen for a moment, its eyes darting down at the carnage going on down below, before attempting to focus on Sylver, who now had 9 identical copies flying through the air along with him. The chimp swung its massive and long arm through all of them, its open hand passingly harmlessly through the illusions.
Sylver landed safely on the side of the giant stone ball and glued himself to it, crawling underneath it, and glanced downwards to see how Spring was faring.
Right now he had abandoned all pretense at using ranged weapons, and had the zombies charging directly at the chimp archers, heedless of how many of them died in the attempt. Sylver understood the strategy, given the fact that the chimp archers were quick enough to dodge out of the way of any stones being thrown.
Sylver’s robe pulled him backward, as a giant hand descended down onto where he was a breath ago.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
Sylver ignored the messages and instead stabbed the hand directly in front of him with his dagger, twisting it while he could and leaving the blade inside as he crawled backward and upward as the giant chimp leaned down and crawled downwards, below the stone sphere they were both on right now.
As a man, Sylver felt a pang of guilt for what he was about to do, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. In front of him, absurdly large weak points hung loosely between the chimp champion's legs. With a wave of his hand, a small burst of glowing red darts exploded out of Sylver’s sleeve, disappearing into the soft and relatively hairless spheres. There was a very muffled, but definitive pop as the superheated metal reacted with the relatively cool flesh and exploded into small metallic shards.
The chimp champion screamed so loudly that Sylver felt his eardrums threatening to burst. As the creature cupped the two damaged weaknesses, Sylver was helped by his robe to jump higher and clambered up the chain.
Either the chimp champion felt the vibration in the metal chain he was holding, or simply heard the sound of Sylver’s boots hitting against it, but either way, he looked up and bellowed with anger at the source of his unbelievable pain.
Sylver waited for the chimp champion to reach upwards with his hand, before using his robe to launch back down, just barely managing to avoid getting grasped by the giant hand.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
Sylver surrounded himself with illusions as he fell, but through sheer luck, the chimp champion’s hand moved through them in such a way that he ended up grabbing Sylver’s left leg. Sylver saw the spark of realization in the creature’s eyes as the strength of its grip intensified.
Sylver’s eyes watered as the limb was crushed, the sharp shards of bone severing blood vessels and nerves, as Sylver had to align himself with the moving limb to keep it from being twisted and completely ripped off his body. The chimp increased his grip, as he hit Sylver against the stone sphere he was standing on, Sylver’s robe fluffing up and reducing the blunt damage to nothing, as the chimp lifted him up into the air again.
Will appeared out of the chimp’s own shadow along with Ulvic and the other wolves, biting the arm that was holding Sylver, and causing the chimp champion to loosen his grip just enough for Sylver to pull his mangled leg out. Will and the wolves were hit before they could dematerialize, exploding into a cloud of black, giving Sylver cover as he was sent toppling down towards the floor.
The robe puffed up again and absorbed the impact, during which Sylver covered his left leg in a layer of darkness and set off an explosion near his right leg, sending him half sliding, half flying, towards the exit.
Sylver’s left hand was outstretched as the doors closed, his pointer, middle and ring finger losing their tips from the motion, as the rest of his body couldn’t stop the momentum and collided with the hard wooden surface.
Sylver coated his left leg as best he could as he turned around, and had mixed emotions about watching his MP tick up to 1140. He saw what he had expected, as Spring nimbly dodged below one of the archer chimps swings, and slashed it through the neck.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
Spring disappeared into the shadows, as the last archer chimp behind him shot an arrow through the now empty space, the chimp champion landing next to him on the floor. He crushed the last four zombie apes as he landed on them.
“Who’s left?” Sylver asked, using Spring as support while he reinforced his leg as much as possible so it could at the very least hold his weight.
“Just me, and a few legless zombies, but we got all but one of them,” Spring answered, staring directly at the two chimps on the other side of the room. If he didn’t know any better, the way they were pulling their lips back to show their teeth looked a whole lot like a smile. In the shadow of the stone sphere, their eyes appeared to be almost glowing.
“Two on two, it’s a fair fight,” Sylver said with a strained grin, as a glowing bright red arrow passed through Spring, as the shade shoved Sylver to the side and exploded into a cloud of darkness in Sylver’s place.
Sylver fell to the floor and for half a second couldn’t get his bearing in order, the flash of pain in his leg momentarily stunning him, along with the harsh influx of mana from Spring dying. His robe reacted before he did, and slid him even further away, as another bright red arrow embedded itself into the wooden door a mere inch away from Sylver’s body, exactly where his head was a moment ago.
The robe moved him away again, lifting him to stand on his feet like he had practiced countless times before.
“Two on one, gonna be an uphill battle,” Sylver said to himself, as the two remaining chimps grinned at him.
For a split second, an image Sylver never wanted to see again flashed in front of his eyes. The face was distinctly different, but the smile and the sentiment behind it was absolutely identical. Sylver wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he was completely alone, or that his grin was just as self-assured as that of a stupid chimp’s.
The pain in Sylver’s leg flared before dulling down to nothing. A familiar chill started from his chest and spread to every inch of his body, down to the stubs on his left hand.
Sylver took a deep and smooth breath, and ignored the throbbing in his side, as his cracked ribs pressed up against his lungs, and gestured in front of himself, as the grinning chimp archer readied another arrow.
Sylver stood in place, his hands in front of him and ready, as the chimp archer aimed and fired the arrow.
It flew through the air, spinning and getting faster and faster, shining brighter and brighter, each spin causing it to flash with power, the arrow flying directly towards Sylver’s head.
It hit him square in the face, a blast of bright gore exploding behind him and coating the entirety of the door in red. His corpse leaned backward lifelessly, the blood squirting out of his shredded neck, staining his brand new cloak and robe, already absorbing the sluggishly moving blood.
The chimp champion further relaxed his defensive position and gripped his damaged family jewels with one hand, reaching out with his other hand towards his tiny subordinate, and doing the closest thing to a ‘down low’ two beings of such different sizes could manage. They both laughed in victory, the chimp champion reaching down with his other hand to try and consol the excruciating pain as much as possible.
The chimp archer jokingly mimed shooting another arrow at Sylver’s corpse, as one of his skills activated out of habit, and caused it to see the human's hairy blood-soaked corpse with near-perfect clarity. The chimp archer stopped dead in its tracks, as the skill continued to enhance the image, down to the point it could almost see the individual threads in the now red cloak.
The chimp champion saw the world slow down around him, felt the hair at the back of his neck rise, and started desperately looking left and right to find the source of danger.
It looked up just in time to see a shirtless and blood-covered Sylver, hanging off the chain that used to hold the stone sphere in the air. Sylver’s face was a mask of perfect calmness, only his eyes practically glowing with cold anger.
The chimp champion bellowed in slow motion, trying to move its giant body out of the way.
Or at least attempted to, as it suddenly found itself locked in place by pieces of decimated zombie apes, that had banded together as if they were a net and used their ribs, teeth, and shattered bones to lock the giant’s feet in place.
It smashed a few of the zombies to pieces, and managed to yank one foot out of their grip, as the stone sphere continued to fall and began to crush the giant chimp. The chimp archer didn’t even see what was happening above it, its gaze fixed on the small cloak wearing headless ape corpse, as the giant chimp’s torso shoved it to the floor and crushed it.
[Chimp (Archer) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 20 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Chimp (Warrior+Leader) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating a layer boss, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Due to defeating a layer boss solo, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Due to defeating a layer boss 20 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Necromancer] has reached level 40!
+5AP
[1 perk available for [Necromancer]]
[Necromancer] has reached level 41!
+5AP
[Necromancer] has reached level 42!
+5AP
[Optical Illusion (II) Proficiency Increased to 57%!]
[Physical Endurance (I) Proficiency Increased to 100%!]
[Physical Endurance (I) rank up available!]
Sylver breathed a sigh of relief as the messages appeared and swung on the chain twice, before letting go to fall to the ground.
His wind magic was too weak and unfocused to properly stop his fall, ending up with his already broken left leg further breaking as he landed on it.
As he leaked blood on the floor, Sylver crawled towards the giant chimps corpse, getting a helping hand from a few of the zombie apes spread all over the place in bits and pieces, and felt the moment his HP went into the negative.
He reached the corpse and succeeded in draining lifeforce and mana out of it before his blood even had time to start cooling.
*
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[Draining Touch (II) Proficiency increased to 41%!]
“That was too close. If not for some of the zombie apes still being able to move, I have no idea what I would have done,” Sylver said, flexing his left hand as the bones were slowly covered by muscle and gradually grew skin.
“You would have thought of something. At the end of the day, these were just a bunch of chimps. They fell for the substitution trick, and were done in by their own weapon. What was the point of this anyway?” Spring asked, knocking on the stone sphere.
“Going by the fact that there’s some sort of extension mechanism at the very top, my guess is that the chimp champion was supposed to swing around on it. But either it understood that unless it helped finish off the zombies, it would just get killed by the rocks, or it was angered enough by me that it couldn’t think straight, it doesn’t really matter at this point,” Sylver said, sitting up and using the chimp champions severed hand as a seat.
The crushed leg looked like a long balloon being slowly blown up, as the bones crackled and scratched against one another, as they very slowly fused back together and popped into place.
“I need to specialize more,” Sylver said, his flaccid foot twisting around twice before locking into place.
“Focus on building a few powerful zombies, instead of using disposable hordes? Or wait around until you can make more sentient shades, and wait until you have all the necessary materials for evolution?” Spring asked, as Sylver’s knee cap slid down into place and clicked as the tendons connected back together.
“No I mean, I need to start accepting negative effects. Look at how powerful that chimp was. Or the chimp archers. They’re only 20 levels higher and they nearly killed me. How am I going to deal with something 30 levels higher? Or 40? Or 50?” Sylver asked, straightening his leg out and clenching his jaw as the nerves started to heal up and connect to one another.
“You don’t? Most people seem to find killing anything 5 levels higher than themselves impossible, at least that’s my understanding of it. The only exceptions are people with exceptionally good classes, which you don’t seem to have,” Spring answered, moving the shades around so Sylver didn’t need to search for the next one to heal.
Sylver sat in silence for a while, healing his leg and healing the shades in his shadow with the overflowing mana, and trying to think things through properly. Despite the fact that he had already reached a decision.
“There’s a choice I need to make. The first is to completely disregard this whole thing. Go into deep denial, pretend there isn’t some sort of impossible magic being imposed on, by the look and sound of things, the entire world, and everything in it. But then what? Without Nyx around, or someone like her, I don’t have a source of pure dark energy to help me mold and expand my core. Or the time for it, even if I did find someone willing to help me. I don’t have centuries to wait around for my power to come back, I have no idea how long I’ve got,” Sylver said out loud, mostly to himself.
“So that’s out. And option two is to embrace it right? Accept whatever limitations it places on you, understanding that that’s simply the price you’ll have to pay for power?” Spring asked.
“I’m immortal. I’ll figure out how to remove all the limitations eventually. And if you think about it, provided the limitation is equal to the boost, it’s worth it. If I continue limiting myself to the perks and effects that come without any sort of negative effect, I’ll continue to miss out on some pretty good ones. Not to mention, considering the whole thing seems to build on the choices I make, if I just keep going as I am now there will come a point where I won’t be able to increase my level anymore,” Sylver said, standing up and putting pressure onto his freshly healed left leg.
“Are you sure that's a good idea? If the necromancer class is really as bad as everyone makes it out to be, you could be digging yourself into a hole you’ll never be able to escape. Too weak to fight anything above your level, and riddled with so many negative effects and limitations that all your knowledge is worthless as a result,” Spring cautioned, as Sylver jumped up and down and continued to test the limb.
“Let's say it is. The fuck else am I going to do? Spend months searching for information on a class I might be compatible with? And even then, just because I can use spells from other schools of magic, that doesn’t mean I’m an expert on them. And who knows how my unique class will react if I got a class unrelated to my specialty? I’m undead, I can’t exactly use wind or holy magic, as my main weapon, can I? Or fire, or water, I’m at best adept at earth. I do understand this is a risk. But I’m honestly tired of having to survive by the skin of my teeth anytime I fight anything even mildly higher leveled than I am,” Sylver continued, kicking with his leg and stretching it out to see that it wouldn’t dislocate.
“Not by the skin of your teeth. A few close calls maybe, but other than Nameless and his group, and Poppy, and Nautis the first time you met, there really hasn’t been a whole lot you couldn’t run away from, or trick somehow to tip everything in your favor. We are in a dungeon, you got careless, it happens,” Spring explained, as a few shades were sent to survey the place for anything worthwhile.
“It happens. I nearly died! For good! To a bunch of overgrown monkeys!”
“Chimps.” Spring corrected.
“Who fucking cares! I’m not saying I need to start accepting negative effects for the fun of it, but if it’s a worthy trade-off, or something I know a way to circumvent or prevent from happening, I’m going to take it,” Sylver said throwing his hands in the air and walking up the stone sphere to see if he missed something up there.
“You have a gut feeling about accepting negative effects, and you’re trying to justify it to yourself, by justifying it to me, right?” Spring asked, appearing at the top where the chain connected to the stone, before Sylver was even halfway there.
“I’m also furious and there’s nothing nearby that I can kill to vent my frustration on. A giant fucking chimp nearly ripped my leg off! But yes. The same way it ended up being extremely lucrative to go to that prison, I have a good feeling about taking the system a bit more seriously. Sofia already told me that dummy classes are a thing, so in the absolute worst-case scenario, I just accept her offer and have her seal away my necromancer class, and find something more suitable to level. The system doesn’t stop me from using any none-necromancy related magic, so it's not like I need the class to continue raising the dead. If anything, it would be a good idea to pick something I don’t know anything about. But then there’s the danger of me not using it properly, and ending up unable to increase my level,” Sylver explained, touching the base where the chain entered the stone sphere, and sending pulses of mana through it.
“You already made up your mind about it before even saying anything, haven’t you? And now you’re just making sure this isn’t one of those ideas that sound good in your head but fall apart when you try to put them into words,” Spring said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It's jarring how much your personality is showing with only 4%. I’m almost afraid to see what 10% will look like,” Sylver said, wiping the blood away from the stone.
“But I’m right, aren’t I? You’re just waiting to make sure the good feeling isn’t just the excess lifeforce moving through your body. But quite honestly, I agree with you. Your old knowledge gives you an advantage against others, but it's not enough. And you know better than anyone that trying to become powerful without hurting anybody, or making some sacrifices, is impossible,” Spring said, repeating the words that had been floating around in Sylver’s head for a while now.
Sylver got down from the stone sphere after confirming it wasn’t anything more than just a giant rock. If there was something deep inside, Sylver had no ability to crack it open, or to otherwise check. It was just a big ball of stone, hanging on a thin chain.
*
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[Perk: Unholy Blessing]
-Increase MP by 50%
-Increase MP regeneration by 25%.
*Increase weakness to positive energy by 150%.
*Increase weakness to holy magic by 50%.
*Increase weakness to fire magic by 50%.
*Decrease HP regeneration by 33.33%
[Perk: Dark Descent]
-Decrease cost of all [Negative] magic by 33.33%
*Increase cost of all [Positive] magic by 100%
*Decrease MP regeneration by 25%
*Decrease HP regeneration by 50%
They’re both not great… But this is the best out of the 11 I have available.
[Unholy Blessing] seems like the best choice… I don’t particularly care about HP regeneration, I can stomach any damage I take, and drain the life out of whatever hurt me. There’s never really been a time where I was waiting for my HP to tick up, and the needle already gave me a 50% boost. It’s a small price to pay for more mana.
Sylver looked at the two perks and tried to think long term. More mana meant more defense against whatever he was fighting, including anyone armed with positive magic, or holy or fire magic.
On the other hand, decreasing the cost of his negative magic would mean he could heal the shades a lot quicker. And he could use the robe a lot more. And his curses would become stronger, but everything else would be too costly to ever use in a fight. Not to mention the MP regeneration decrease would cripple him in any fight that lasted more than a few minutes.
Sylver read through the other 9 available perks, ignoring the 50 blank spaces that he didn’t meet the requirements for. 3 came with no negative effects, but were just short of useless as a result. One was clearly an upgrade for [Tools Of The Shade] that simply allowed them to conjure weapons, but pointless since Sylver had armed all of them anyway.
Another seemed to be a way for Sylver to distance himself from his weaknesses, giving him an across the board 15% resistance to everything, at the cost of halving his maximum HP.
But the reason [Unholy Blessing] seemed like the best choice was that Sylver already knew how to increase his resistance to positive and holy magic. And losing a part of his HP regeneration seemed like a very acceptable sacrifice, considering [Deathless] and [Golden Egg] meant that eventually any damage would be healed. And it wasn’t like Sylver needed his body functioning to use magic. Aside from passing out from pain/shock, as long as his head and heart remained, as well as the needle, he should be fine...
“Are you sure about this? Because you don’t know for certain that your methods will work. Or that there’s a way to remove a perk. Or even if there’s a skill out there that would let you turn perks on and off at will, like you seem to think there is,” Spring cautioned, sitting in place as Sylver paced around and thought.
“How many times have I been hit? I either hide behind illusions, or use something for cover. I’ve got zombies as shields, as well as shades to keep everyone too busy to properly attack me. With more mana and more regeneration I could get to a point where I can heal shades faster than the enemy could damage them,” Sylver answered, staring at the floating board and waiting to see how his gut will react.
“Honestly, no I’m not sure. I’m already weak to positive energy and holy magic, I’m worried this will mean I’ll get instantly killed if someone uses turn undead on me... But on the other hand? Over 3MP per second. 187.5MP per minute, and if I have more mana, I can drain mana out of people and monsters faster. It’s an acceptable trade,” Sylver said, moving the other perks out of the way.
“So accept it,” Spring said, with Sylver waving away the rushing shade. This wasn’t a decision to be taken lightly.
1500 MP feels like it might be enough for something at the lower end of tier 2.
With the thought of being able to access even the fringe of tier 2 magic, Sylver accepted the perk.
[Perk: Unholy Blessing]
-Increase MP by 50%
-Increase MP regeneration by 25%.
*Increase weakness to positive energy by 150%.
*Increase weakness to holy magic by 50%.
*Increase weakness to fire magic by 50%.
*Decrease HP regeneration by 33.33%
He felt a powerful, overwhelming rush, as his mana channels expanded to accommodate their newfound size, his skin sending bright yellow sparks flying everywhere as new channels grew inside his flesh and bones and made space for themselves.
Sylver took a deep breath and held it in for a second. What came out of his mouth no longer looked like smoke, but instead appeared closer to gravity-defying sludge. As if someone had made a powder out of the darkest coal imaginable and then applied gravity magic to it.
The stream of pure blackness crackled with energy as it formed into a dark halo above and began to spin. It sped up to the point that it looked as if it was a motionless but completely smooth ring, the whole thing became a single beam of darkness and disappeared into the giant spherical stone.
Sylver leaned down and looked at the hole the spell had made, and smiled to himself as he saw the light at the end of the perfectly straight tunnel.
“I imagined tier 2 magic to have a bit more oomph to it,” Spring said, as Sylver felt around the hole the spell had made, and was pleased to see it was a perfectly clean cut.
“This isn’t tier 2 magic. This is a bastardization of the tier 2 spell, Abyssal Pillar. This was more like Mini Abyssal Dart. And used up every drop of mana I had. But on the bright side!” Sylver said, pulling up his status screen.
CON: 30
DEX: 10
STR: 1
INT: 100
WIS: 100
AP: 30
Health: 300/300
Stamina: 150/150
MP: 9/1500
Health Regen: 2.99/M
Stamina Regen: 2.25/M
MP Regen: 187.50/M
“Gods above and below I love this thing! Tell me why I shouldn’t just put all 30 points into intelligence?” Sylver shouted, getting up from his crouch and doing a small spin of joy. The rush from the sudden influx of mana was still yet to wear off.
“Because the plan was to get your constitution to 100, then dexterity, and then strength and then split it between intelligence and wisdom at a 2 to 1 ratio?” Spring asked sarcastically, pouring a small glass of water on Sylver’s excitement.
“Good point… Alright… I’m not leaving this place until I get another 6 levels to make up for the 30 I’m about to drop into intelligence. Scratch that, another 10 levels, because I want to get intelligence to 150. But we’re not going any deeper, we are backtracking and finding another layer boss, because I’m fairly certain we walked past the level 50 one. Sounds good?” Sylver asked, dropping the 30 points into intelligence and stretching his body as his channels exploded in size and settled down just as fast.
“If you’re going to pretend to ask for my opinion, at least wait for me to say something,” Spring said with a mock pout. Given the fact that he was connected to Sylver’s soul, the joy was literally infectious.
CON: 30
DEX: 10
STR: 1
INT: 130
WIS: 100
AP: 0
Health: 300/300
Stamina: 150/150
MP: 94/1950
Health Regen: 2.99/M
Stamina Regen: 2.25/M
MP Regen: 243.75/M
“You know, you’re a bit more impulsive than usual. Is everything-”
“No, I nearly died at the hands of an overgrown chimp... But this was a long time coming, pretty much the moment I touched Poppy I decided this was inevitable. The chimp just kind of reminded me that I’m not who I used to be,” Sylver said, stretching his body and moving the newly created mana around and enjoying the fact that he had just short of doubled his MP capacity in a little under a minute.
“I can kind of see that. I still think you should have waited a bit more before coming to a decision, but you know what you’re doing, and there’s not a whole lot I can say or do to stop you,” Spring said, disappearing into the shadows.
“I do value your words, but if my gut tells me to jump, I’m jumping. I didn’t live to be however old I was, by ignoring it.,” Sylver said, checking to see that he could still reinforce his limbs with mana.
[Physical Endurance (II) rank up available!]
Choose 1 from the following:
Physical Endurance(II)
-Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 10%.
-[Requirements not met]
-{Requirements not met]
-[Requirements not met]
-{Requirements not met]
…
“You know, I really had my hopes up for a second. That there would be something equally good here,” Sylver said, as he lamely accepted the 10% pain reduction and made his way towards the entrance he had come through. There was sadly no mimic or chest in here, but Sylver had gotten something even better than a pile of broken trash.
The wooden doors had swung open almost the moment the chimp champion was slain, Sylver was simply too preoccupied with restarting his heart to notice.
[Skill: Physical Endurance (I)]
Skill level can be increased by enduring pain.
I - Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 2%.
II - Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 10%.
Walking around the room, Sylver dismissed the various zombie apes splattered in pieces all over the floor. The damage was too great for him to fix at the moment, and more honestly he didn’t want to. They couldn’t even kill a couple of archers, and the shades proved themselves more than capable.
Even if they also died to a bunch of chimp archers. But in their defense, they did manage to finish them off, while the archers were occupied with killing the zombie apes.
But even more honestly, Sylver was looking forward to venting his anger and frustration on whatever happened to be the level 50 layer boss. And didn’t want anyone getting in the way.
Save for the small army of immortal shades in his shadow of course.
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