By the time her bones finally reformed, it was nearly dawn. Only then, with the pain lessening and the fog lifting from her mind, did she pull up her notifications.
Ding! Your race, Shadeling has reached Level 21.
….
Ding! Your race, Shadeling has reached Level 31.
Ding! Your class, Deciever has reached level 17.
….
Ding! Your class, Deciever has reached level 27.
This was followed by a flood of skill and spell notifications.
Ding! Your racial skill, Demonic Blood has reached Level 24.
….
Ding! Your racial skill, Demonic Blood has reached Level 30.
Ding! Your racial skill, Quick Claw has reached Level 10.
Ding! Your skill, Ambush Detection has reached Level 5.
Ding! Your skill, Archery has reached Level 12.
Ding! Your skill, Archery has reached Level 13.
Ding! Your skill, Identify has reached Level 5.
Ding! Your skill, Hunting has reached Level 2.
Ding! Your skill, Hunting has reached Level 3.
Ding! Your spell, Umbral Terror has reached level 3.
Ding! Your spell, Veil of Lies has reached level 8.
Even though she’d nearly been turned into bird chow, she was happy with the gains she’d made. Pulling up her character sheet, she realized she had a ridiculous 280 free attribute points to allocate.
Piper Ashcroft
Race: Shadeling, Level 31
Class: Deceiver, Level 27 (Epic)
Attributes
Strength – 76
Dexterity – 51
Stamina - 48
Vitality – 30
Perception – 3
Swiftness - 12
Magic - 22
Mana - 320
Mana Regeneration – 195
Free Attribute Points - 280
Racial Skills (5/10)
- Demonic Blood, Level 30
- Demonic Fury, Level 1
- Demonic Intellect, Level 8
- Quick Claw, Level 10
- Tail Strike, Level 9
Skills (10/10)
- Ambush Detection, Level 5
- Animal Caretaker, Level 5
- Archery, Level 13
- Cooking, Level 6
- Enduring Casting, Level 11
- Identify, Level 5
- Hunting, Level 3
- Running, Level 12
- Stick Wielder, Level 1
- Subterfuge, Level 2
Spells (4/10)
- False Face, Level 10
- Truth Shroud, Level 16
- Umbral Terror, Level 3
- Veil of Lies, Level 8
As the dawn light bathed her position, she considered where to place the points. She’d been pretty satisfied with splitting her points between physical attributes and magical ones so far. But after her encounter with the Crimson Guard—who’d shattered her illusion—she realized she desperately needed to increase her Magic stat.
To begin with, she placed 100 points into Magic. That brought the stat up to 122, which should hopefully prevent anyone from seeing her true nature. When she reached the Arissian Empire, she didn’t want anyone to learn that she was a demon.
Next, she placed 36 points into Mana and 61 points into Mana Regeneration. Since each point allocated to the stats actually gave her five, that brought both of them in line with each other to a total of 500 points. With her racial skill, [Demonic Blood] so reliant on mana, she wanted to be able to regain it faster after a battle so she could heal her wounds. Also, her improved mana pool should also allow her to cast [Umbral Terror] twice before running out of mana.
Once she was happy with her magic stats, she turned her attention toward her physical ones. She still had 119 points remaining to distribute. Right off the bat, she placed another 49 points into strength. Until she learned how to fight, most of her battles were going to be decided by brute force. She was pleased to see her Strength sitting at an impressive 125 when she was done.
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Then she placed the remaining points into Dexterity and Swiftness. After seeing how fast the Crimson Guard had moved back at the cave, she knew she needed to keep improving those attributes. So, she placed 5 into Dexterity and 29 into Swiftness, bringing them up to 56 and 41, respectively.
Gazing at her stats, she realized she was probably far above anyone back in the village. As she added up her stats, she was shocked to see she had a total of 625 attribute points. That meant she was now equivalent to a regular level 200 human, with a class at 200, and a secondary one at 200. She imagined the math was never that neat in reality, but if she was being chased by anything other than immortal vampire warriors, she could probably deal with them.
Then she remembered Justina taking an arrow to the face during her battle against the redcaps. Just because she was becoming stronger didn’t mean she couldn’t be defeated. A good example had been her experience the previous night. The dread owls weren’t nearly as powerful as the other opponents she’d faced, but they’d almost overwhelmed her with sheer numbers.
However, she always had an ace up her sleeve—not that she wanted to use it again. If she activated [Demonic Fury], it would give her a massive boost in power. It would double most of her physical attributes, which might even allow her to compete with a vampire.
But she would only use [Demonic Fury] in the direst of circumstances. The last time she’d activated it, she’d felt a presence in the back of her mind. A terrible, ancient presence that had urged her to commit atrocities. Unless she had absolutely no other choice, she would avoid using it. Especially when she was around Ophelia.
With her free attribute points allocated, she unsteadily rose to her feet. She tottered for the first few steps before she got used to her new hip. The boulder had really done a number on her leg. She was immensely grateful it hadn’t struck her chest, or it may have been lights out.
Piper walked over to the edge of the rock field and gazed out at the towering Black Pyramid. She furrowed her brow as she spotted smoke curling up from a twinkling blaze. Was that a campfire? Had the vampires somehow cut off their route already?
She quickly realized that couldn’t be true. If the vampires were this close, they would have simply attacked her during the night. Someone else must be at the Black Pyramid, though she had no idea who they were. Could they possibly be from the Arissian Empire?
As hope blossomed in her chest, she hurried over to Ophelia. “Wake up,” she said softly. “We need to get moving.”
“Just a little bit longer,” her friend groaned. “I’m so tired.”
“There’s a camp not far from here. Maybe they have breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Ophelia shot up, her eyes roving across the landscape. “Where?”
“It’s right in front of the Black Pyramid.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
Piper turned slightly when [Ambush Detection] blared a warning in her mind. She was about to spin around when she realized why it had activated. Instead, she just rolled her eyes as a stick poked her in the back.
“You’re getting soft,” Ophelia laughed. “Must be your old age.”
“You’re going to be the same age as me in a few weeks,” she replied. “Does that mean you’re going to be old, too?”
“Whatever.” Ophelia yawned and stretched. “It’s your birthday soon as well. You’re always going to be older than I am.”
With a shake of her head, Piper set out toward the Black Pyramid. But after a few paces, she stopped and examined one of the dread owl corpses. It had only been a few hours since she’d killed them. The meat should still be good.
Taking out her knife, she set about severing the leg from one of the birds. Then she cut away the breast and offered it to Ophelia.
“If you think I’m carrying that gross thing, then you’re out of your mind.”
“If they don’t have breakfast to share, then we need something to eat,” Piper explained. “This shouldn’t taste too different from chicken.”
At least I hope so, she mentally added. Are awakened birds even edible?
There were so many things she wished she’d asked Alfred in the past, but a part of her had always thought he would be around. He’d taught her a lot about hunting and survival. However, she was starting to worry that it wasn’t enough to survive in the mountains.
With a dramatic sigh, Ophelia took the dread owl’s breast and wrapped a spare piece of linen around it. The material looked suspiciously like the one they’d found in Justina’s bags. How many things had Ophelia borrowed from the woman?
They set out at a slow pace, the footing treacherous among the boulders. As they moved, the sun continued its ascent in the sky, though its rays did little to warm the surrounding air. About halfway to the pyramid, ominous black clouds began to blow in from the east. She silently prayed they would avoid another snowstorm.
Ophelia cursed as she slipped and landed on her rump. She frowned as she struggled back to her feet. “I can’t wait until I awaken and get a class.” She paused in the act of getting up. “Which realm do you think I’ll go to?”
“What realms do farmer’s wives come from again?”
“Not funny!” her friend cried out. “I’m going to be an amazing combat class, and you know it.”
“Like a milkmaid?”
“That’s it! I’m going to poke you again, foul demon.”
Piper couldn’t help but giggle at her friend’s antics. They may be tired, exhausted, and stressed from being pursued, but at least they had each other. And sometimes that was enough.
They continued walking for over an hour, and Piper had to slow her pace to let Ophelia keep up. The lack of food and water was really beginning to affect her friend. She hoped that whoever they encountered at the Black Pyramid would at least let them cook their meat over the fire.
What would happen if the people they encountered weren’t friendly? They were coming from a vampire-ruled empire. At best, they might not want to have anything to do with them. At worst, they might attack them on sight.
With her vastly improved strength, she believed that she could protect Ophelia from most threats. Unless of course one of the people by the campfire was a spellcaster. She still had no idea how to counter someone throwing a fireball at her aside from hiding behind illusions. But that wasn’t a long-term solution.
“Do you mind giving me a hand?” Ophelia gasped as she tried to climb over a jagged boulder.
Piper jogged over to her friend and slipped her arm around the young woman’s waist. Then, they continued onward, with her partially supporting Ophelia’s weight. She really needed to get some food into her soon.
As they crested another rise, she spotted a campsite right below them. It looked like at one point there had been at least half a dozen tents, but most of them had been shredded. Near a roaring fire, two young men were hunched forward, holding their hands toward the flames.
She quickly realized there had been a battle here recently. The boulders had splashes of blood on them, and four rock cairns had been constructed at the edge of the camp.
Piper took a second to recast [Truth Shroud]. To ensure they wouldn’t see her as a threat, she changed her race to Human, Level 10, and her class to Farmhand, Level 8. Then she tied it off with [Enduring Casting].
The fact that she didn’t gain any levels from using the spells helped her relax. Apparently, the Holy System didn’t think there was any danger to her from the young men below. She had to admit that that was a nice change.
Then she double-checked her [False Face] before she decided to alter her hair slightly. In the blink of an eye, her hair changed from blond to dark brown. If the vampires happened upon this camp and questioned the young men, she didn’t want them to describe a blond woman.
Not that the Crimson Guard would likely rely on anything so mundane as asking if anyone had seen her. She was sure their scout had an amazing power to track her movements. But there was no point in making it easier for them.
“Is now the time for a new hairstyle?” Ophelia asked. “When there might be breakfast waiting for us?”
“It’s called a disguise.”
“Yeah, no one will ever figure out who you really are.” Ophelia rolled her eyes. “Best disguise ever.”
Piper ignored her friend’s teasing and set out for the camp. This might be her first encounter with someone from the Arissian Empire, and she wanted everything to go perfectly. All that stood between them and freedom now was the Black Pyramid. And she was hopeful that the young men knew a way through it.