He got on his knees and spent a few seconds hugging Lucky and running his finger through his fur to the delight of his familiar. Then, after getting his fill (for now) of the silky-smooth fur, he leaned forward and began whispering into the wolf’s ear. While he knew this way, the system would ‘hear’ parts of his plan, he hoped it would be fair and not react to it.
Finished with the instructions, he dismissed his shadowy familiar and resumed his journey toward the quarry. Meanwhile, his messages began to blow up with reports from Lucy, Adam, and Tim.
Taking a quick look at the messages, he saw that the messages from Lucy and Adam were mostly status reports of the guild members who responded to the request, while Tim’s were about the smokescreen he was setting up.
Opening the message, he saw that there was a war between two rival guilds in Ironwood, and a hitherto unknown fracture's location was leaked guaranteeing that everyone’s attention would be on those events.
‘Wow… he is really good…’
Another few steps were followed by another deluge of messages, this time from his team. Dan was on his way, and so were Katie and Izzy, while Clarissa still had some tasks at the Healer Guild. Giving it a quick thought, he directed the two chaotic girls to go and pick up Clarissa. Healers were, after all, prime targets and he doubted anyone could take the trio without large personal investments. Which, thanks to Tim’s machinations, would be improbable. But not impossible, thus his instructions.
Not a few seconds later, he received the acknowledgment of his message for the girls and he let out a relieved sigh.
A few minutes later he was down in the quarry walking forward toward the collection of guild members as they sat there, talking among themselves while clearly waiting for the next wave.
Sam didn’t try to hide so naturally, almost everyone (some people were standing with their backs to him) spotted his approach. Thankfully, there were actually people there who recognized him so he didn’t have to prove to a bunch of new people who he was.
He received several salutes and greetings, which he returned with small smiles and respectful nods.
“Sup, boss!”
“Hey!”
“What brings you here?”
Instead of answering every question, he quickly tapped the ground with his right foot, summoning a small podium made of stone and dirt. Ignoring the looks sent his way, he stepped up on it and then looked around.
He spent a few seconds meeting people’s eyes and waiting until the noise of conversation slowly disappeared as people began to focus on him.
Then a little awkwardly cleared his throat before speaking up. “Can everyone hear me?”
Silence was his answer.
Giving a small smile he continued. “Alright. I’m not big for speeches,” he pointed at the hole from where the stone spiders crawled out. “This place is important for the guild. We’re going down there and killing everything.”
Excitement quickly began to take over the crowd. Sam even saw the group that tried to ‘arrest’ him at the back, whispering to each other. The ascot still looked stupid.
“Is this a raid?” one person asked, instantly filling the crowd with even more excited whispers.
“Could be,” Sam replied. “We don’t know what is on the other end of the cave system,” he lied like a lying liar. “Could be a fracture or some monster nest…”
Everybody began nodding at that very logical explanation as Sam continued.
“Earth mages to my right, please,” he said and watched as a few people moved there. “The rest organize yourself in your usual teams.”
“Will this be enough for the raid?” asked another person.
“Don’t worry. The rest of the guild is on their way.”
That caused a wave of relief to go through the people in front of him.
“Now! Who was leading the efforts here?” he asked.
Instantly, a hand went up from the back of the crowd, which parted to show the ascot-wearing man walking toward him.
“Er, that would be me! Sir!” he replied, a tad nervous.
Sam hopped off his temporary podium, sent it back to the ground with a simple flex of his will, and walked closer to the guy while still ignoring the whispers, but called out just in case. “Everyone! Stand ready for the next wave, but don’t attack them. I want to test something!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Sure thing, boss!”
“Aye, aye!”
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He approached the nervous young man and held out a hand. “Hi, name’s Solar.”
The other man accepted the hand and shook it. “Hi. Name is BlueKnight, but you can call me Fred. Everybody does it for some reason…”
Sam had to bite back a snort after hearing that. “Sure thing, Fred. Now tell me about the situation here!”
Fred nodded and quickly began to paint a picture for Sam.
Sam checked his messages and saw that the first groups were close to the quarry. They could have arrived faster, but both Adam and Lucy agreed that they needed to keep their movements at least a little secret no matter what distractions Tim arranged.
According to Fred – he would laugh about that later – the frequency of the waves had been increasing by a few minutes each time, thus he didn’t have to wait much longer.
The guild members were standing on the sides, leaving enough space in the middle for a fight while Sam stood in the middle of the empty place, facing the cave entrance.
Seeing people getting ready to throw down with the monsters, he called out. “Hold your fire! I want to test something!”
Instantly, another wave of whispers spread through the players.
“What?”
“Does he want to fight them alone?”
“Does the boss really need the experience points?”
“I kinda want to see it happen…”
However, before anyone could voice their objection or anything else, the area shook a little with a few smaller rocks rolling down the mountainside as a result of this.
“They are coming!” someone yelled.
Sam nodded and raised both of his hands and reached out to the surrounding wind. Instantly, wind spears began to appear near him, causing several people to gasp, followed by several hundred more, causing the air space above him to be saturated with buzzing wind spears.
His mana sense was fully trained on the mountain, trying to sense the being deep inside without poking it with his own mana again. He was powerful, but there were limits.
’A fucking Titan! Here, of all places!’ he grumbled to himself.
Titans were what the player base called the gigantic monsters that sometimes appeared in the world of Magic Unbound. There was nothing really common in them aside from being extremely big. Some were created by the natural mana at certain locations, some were the results of human experimentations, but there were Titans born from curses and even blessings.
They were always powerful, with enough health to tank several guilds worth of firepower, and caused devastation whenever they woke up.
The problem with this one was that Sam had never heard of one appearing this close to Ironwood. There were dozens in the ocean near Deepanchor, the swamps also held a few, and deep in the mountain range was another bunch that he knew. In his memories, he saw as the other Sam watched the videos as guilds spent an incredible amount of money and effort to find these Titans and defeat them for prestige and rewards.
And they didn’t wake up on their own. Somebody had to wake them up.
Either something was afoot, or maybe the fact that Sam suspected this one was a curse-type Titan caused it to wake up on its own.
Either way, he just knew the next few hours were going to suck as they had to defeat it before anybody else saw it.
It was not like they could hide a mountain-sized spider…
‘Maybe if we painted it pink…’ he mused with a small smile as he felt the tremors through the ground while his senses told him that several masses of mana were rapidly approaching the open air of the quarry.
Within seconds the first spider, one of the medium-sized ones broke into the sunlight screeching and dashing straight toward Sam, ignoring everybody else, and within a blink of an eye it was followed by a deluge of small and medium ones, their exit speed only constrained by the diameter of the hole in the mountainside.
Ignoring the clamor around him and the approaching horde intent on devouring him, Sam raised his right hand further up and then with a sharp movement brought it down, launching all the spears above him with extreme precision.
The sound the clash of wind spears and stone spiders made was enough to mask the noise the giant stone spiders made as they crawled out of the hole damaging the surrounding wall with their haste.
With the first wave dead, Sam sent forward a cloud of wind blades to make mincemeat of the small spiders and turned his attention to the big ones. They were big, angry, and really trying to reach him.
Experimentally, he sent one single wind blade at one of their legs and while it left a small scratch; it didn’t do too much damage. As if encouraged by this, the steps of the giant stone spiders became even faster as the guild members watched restlessly.
But they weren’t fast enough…
Sam raised his hand again and briefly focused on the area in front of him where he conjured a small ball of extremely condensed wind mana. The next second the ball shot forward, transforming during the flight into the crescent of an exceptionally sharp blade of mana that shone from the amount of mana it contained.
The nearest stone spider to Sam didn’t even stop as he released the spell, either because the last one didn’t hurt it or because in their anger, they didn’t care what happened to them. Looking into their angry red eyes, Sam suspected it was the second case.
This blade of wind mana also struck true. However, while the last one only scratched the leg of the giant stone spider, this one went through it like a hot knife through butter.
And the leg behind it.
Followed by several medium-sized spiders that had the misfortune to be in its path before the mana holding it together gave out and it exploded, taking out another batch of freshly arrived small spiders.
The wounded spider fell forward, losing its balance, straight into the spike of hardened earth that shot up with incredible speed, crushing its head.
There was a moment of silence and then the other giant spiders reeled up and let out a screech that shook the area, causing loose dirt and rocks to fly every which way while trying to deafen everyone present.
And in the sea of mana, Sam could see that the mass of mana inside the mountain got even angrier, the eight red eyes very visible even from far away.
All of them trained on Sam.
‘Joy…’ he thought as he quickly began summoning more wind blades.
Soon, the field was littered with the dead bodies of the stone spiders, none of them coming even close to his location while the surrounding players gaped at him.
The monsters themselves were nothing special, so he didn’t care. Instead, he continued to watch with resignation as the mana in the mountain began to move aggressively.
He had enough time to send out a warning to Adam before the ground he was standing on began shaking as if an earthquake was occurring.
Thanks to his skills he didn’t fall over, but he saw several players being sent to the ground.
“What the hell?”
“What is happening!”
“Get off! And stop touching me there!”
Then an explosion of rock and dust filled the air.
BAAAMMMM
CRASH
And part of the mountainside moved toward them. However, instead of boulders rolling, it was a giant slab of stone in the shape of the legs of a spider. The claws at the end of the leg were bigger than Sam.
The leg moved forward coming down on the ground with people running out of its way, raining down fine dust particles as it shook off who knows how many eons worth of detritus.
Meanwhile, quite understandably, the players around Sam were not so quietly freaking out.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Mommy!”
“I hate spiders!”
Then another explosion.
BAMMM
Another leg was revealed opposite of the first one, sending stone and rock everywhere.
Sam looked at the chaos around him, then closed his eyes and watched as the ‘core’ of the mana slowly began to move.
“I probably can’t talk myself out of this…” he spoke quietly to himself as he unsheathed his sword.
Owed bonus chapters: Two (2)
Titles:
[Apprentice: You are an apprentice learning under a master. Increased experience point gain in the key skill of the apprenticeship.]
Magical Items:
[Ring of Minor Health Regeneration: A small ring, made from subpar materials, with a low-quality magical gem. As long as the gem holds mana, it aids with health regeneration. Can hold 100 Mana Points, and regenerates 10 Health Points for every point of mana consumed. Current Mana: 100/100.]
[High-quality Troll Leather Armor: Created by a journeyman crafter employed by your own company. They worked extra hard to make sure to return your goodwill. Excellent quality, given the materials and the crafter. Enchanted to decrease the sound it makes during movement, as well as has increased durability. Thanks to the substance it was impregnated with the troll leather it lacks its customary weakness to fire.]
*Not actually bottomless.]
Quests:
Active quests:
[Just walk in there!]
[Prove yourself!]
[Peaceful land, peaceful mind]
Finished quests:
[Monster Parade!]
[Topping the tree!]
[Reap what you sow!]
[Seaside opportunity]
[Another seaside opportunity]
[The booty of mystery!]
[Demonic demonstration!]
[The Test of the Survivor!]
[To the city you go!]
[Eternal Vigilance!]
[Returning Champion]
[Volatile Valley]
[Ride forward to be not killed in nasty ways!]
[Location, location, location!]
Skills:
Mana Skills:
[Mana Body: Level 7/100 (21%) (Passive) Your mana permeates your body, enhancing and improving it. The better your control of your mana is, and the more mana you have, the bigger the effect is. For every 100 Mana Points, it grants you 1 Base Health gain. For every skill level, it increases the Health Regeneration by 0,1.]
[Mana Shield: Level 99 (99%) Using mana, you can form a simple shell around yourself, which decreases the damage you take. Damage decrease depends on the amount of mana invested. For every unit of Mana invested in the spell, the shield will protect you from 9,9 (physical) damage.]
[A/N: Currently: WIS: 50 / MAG: 50 = 1 --> +2 Mana Regeneration per skill level]
Neutral Mage skills:
Elemental Mage Skills:
Wind Mage skills:
[Wind Blade III: Level 9/10 (99%) (Active) A spell that allows you to launch a blade of wind. The cutting power and speed of the blade are increased. You have greater control over its movement after creation. Allows you to slightly control its path after launching the wind blade.]
[Wind Blade Storm: Level 6/10 (7%) (Active) A spell that unleashes a storm of wind blades around you. The damage of the released Wind Blades depends on the Wind Blade spell and your mastery over it.]
[Wind Bullet III: Level 9/10 (99%) A spell that allows you to launch a bullet made of concentrated wind. You have excellent control over the projectile’s speed, size, and path.]
[Wind Explosion: Level 3/10 (21%) A spell that allows you to create a singular bullet of wind mana, and then fire it, which will, upon impact, detonate. The strength of the detonation depends on the amount of wind mana channeled into the bullet and your mastery over the Wind Bullet spell!]
[Wind Movement: 39/100 (19%) (Active) You can use your mastery over wind to move in any direction you wish. Your movement speed is increased significantly. This speed boost is increased by 1% for each skill level.]
[Wind Edge III: Level 9/10 (99%) (Passive) A spell that allows you to enhance the edge of any bladed weapon you wield with the wind. Thanks to the spell, the speed of your strikes will greatly increase. The power and reach of the blade will be greatly increased further.]
[Wind Affinity: Level 61/100 (17%) (Passive) You have a good affinity for the wind. Beings born of the wind will be more favorable to you. The cost of the Wind-type spells and skills is reduced and their power is increased by 0,5% for each skill level.]
- Wind Flurry
- Wind Bullet Barrage
- Healing Wind
- Wind Jump
- Wind Drill
- Wind Blade I-III
- Wind Blade Storm
- Wind Bullet I-III
- Wind Explosion
- Wind Movement
- Wind Edge I-III!
Utility skills:
Companion skills:
Shadow skills:
(Shadow Cloak triggers this benefit.)]
[Shadow Affinity: Level 30/100 (14%) (Passive) You have a good affinity with the shadows. Beings born of the shadows will be more favorable to you. The cost of the Shadow-type spells and skills is reduced and their power is increased by 0,5% for each skill level.]
Physical skills:
[Basic Armor Mastery: Level 91/100 (6%) (Passive) You learned the basics of wearing armor. Decreases the Stamina consumption slightly while wearing any kind of armor.]
[Clean Armor: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) Your mana got used to a certain spell, so the waste mana radiating from you will, over time, permeate and clean your armor.]
[Resistant Armor: Level 5/5 (MAX%) (Passive) Thanks to your practice, you can fully utilize everything that your armor provides, granting you increased resistance against the environment. Grants 2% increased environmental resistance per skill level. Environmental resistance protects against environmental effects only.]
[Durable Armor: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) You learned how to roll with the punches. This includes knowing when your armor can take a hit and when it can’t. Increased durability for any armor you wear from incoming damage from non-environmental sources.]
[Epic Breathing Technique: Level 9/10 (99%) (Passive) You breathe, and the world breathes with you. You move along your own rhythm. Decreases stamina consumption even more during any activity and further increases stamina regeneration when not in a fight. Gain +2 Stamina Regeneration for every skill level.]
[Tranquil Heart: Level 11/100 (54%) (Passive) Your heart beats to the same rhythm as your body. It’s efficient and harmonious. You have an even easier time resisting mind-altering effects and a portion of of those effects are reflected back to the source. The portion is 1% per skill level. You also radiate an aura of tranquility that confers the resistance portion of the skill to your allies near you.]
[Flow: Level 77/100 (9%) (Passive) Thanks to being a natural sensor, you can read the flow of the mana. Increases your stability and the bonuses any movement or martial art skill provides by 1% per level in the skill.]
[Focused Flow: Level 5/5 (MAX%) (Passive) When focusing on any enemy beyond what is normal, your ability to read their flow becomes clearer and more precise.]
[Controlled Flow: Level 5/5 (MAX%) (Passive) Your read of the flow is more controlled, allowing you to see the flow much better. Increases the flow visibility by 20% for every skill level.]
[Immersed Flow: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) When you start reading the flow a counter starts. After every ten seconds, the effect of the Flow skill increases by 1% for each skill level. Maximum 600 seconds.]
Parry: Level 24/100 (13%) (Passive) Decreases the stamina consumption of defensive weapon movements. It allows you to more efficiently and accurately parry incoming attacks. Decreases the damage of the blocked attack by 0,5% for each skill level at the moment of blocking.]
Resistance skills:
General skills:
[Dwarven Language: Level 5/10 (1%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Dwarven language.]
[Elven Language: Level 7/10 (8%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Elven language.]
[Dark Elven Language: Level 5/10 (1%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Dark Elven language.]
[Sarkan Language: Level 3/10 (42%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Sarkan language.]
Crafting skills:
Pet skills:
[Strong Jaw: Level Max (Passive) The jaw of the wolf is strengthened.]
[Lucky Aura: Level Max (Passive) Those who are in the same party as the wolf receive a buff to their luck. It depends on their luck how big the increase is.]