Gamble for Azeroth 9 (Patreon)

Sylvanas moved through the forest at a pace that would have killed him a week ago.

It wasn't a sprint, a more sustained run that devoured miles of distance without apparent effort, with a certain technique to it. Luckily for him, Water Breathing had its own movement style, and with his breathing to replenish his stamina, he managed to keep up … somewhat.

It was not graceful or easy, forcing him to maintain Total Concentration Breathing, Cardio helping him even further.

Sylvanas glanced back at him after they had covered about ten miles, and he caught genuine surprise on her face. "You have remarkable endurance," she said.

“For a human?” he asked.

She chuckled. “No, for a non-ranger,” she said. “I wish I could force some of the magisters run like this. Watching them struggle would be fun.”

“I always had good endurance,” he lied.

"A pity I can't recruit you as a Farstrider." There was humor in her voice, faint and dry, but he could see that the intention was clear. "You have the potential to become the second human Ranger Lord."

“That’s the nicest way someone tried to demote me,” he teased.

She actually laughed at that. A short sound, quickly controlled, but unmistakable. Interesting. The more abilities he revealed, the nicer she treated him. Previously, he was just a supplicant. Now, he was a peer.

They continued running, and after another ten miles, they stopped in front of a pile of rocks, one that looked normal, but his Bloom felt nothing from them. She pulled a token, and pressed it to a specific stone. It moved, revealing a tunnel, one that went deep.

"This leads to Windrunner Spire," Sylvanas said. "A private entrance, known only to the Windrunner family and those we choose to trust."

Arvis stared at the passage, then at her. "Sylvanas, I appreciate the gesture,” he started, deciding it was a good time to get on a first-name basis. “But don’t you think it’s too much trust to extend to someone you’ve just met?”

“I have an instinct for people. I know I can trust you,” she said.

Realization hit him. It was Charisma helping him. That, and Sylvanas was a direct person, relying on her instincts and habits than rational assessment. In any other person, that would have been a deadly personality defect, but considering she was one of the most dangerous individuals in the world, it wasn’t exactly a problem.

Well, unless she had to deal with politicians.

He decided to take advantage of it, though considering it wouldn’t hurt her, taking advantage was a bit of a misnomer.

“It would be dishonorable to access your home, Sylvanas,” he said.

She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s only me and my younger sister remaining, and she’s in Dalaran, living with her husband. I don’t even visit the place.”

He shook his head. “It will be dishonorable,” he repeated. “It’s still Windrunner residence, representing your family.” Then, he paused. “I would feel more comfortable if House Godwyn and Windrunner had an official alliance—“

“Perfect, now we do,” she said.

“We do?” he asked, acting surprised as if he hadn’t baited it.

“You’re working more to defend my home than my own council, and you advise me in strategy. I can do much worse in an ally,” she said.

“It would be my honor,” he said, and shook her hand.

And struggled to keep down his shout of excitement. He expected a Gold at best, and believed that silver was also a possibility, since it was merely an alliance with her house rather than a defensive pact with the rangers.

[Feat Achieved! Establish a permanent alliance with Sylvanas Windrunner

+1x Platinum Advantage Random Gacha ticket]

Platinum was a very welcome surprise, though he was curious about the wording, referring to her directly rather than her family.

She passed him the token, making it the second one. “You just need to follow the tunnel, and you’ll reach the Windrunner Spire,” she said. “You can use the library if you want to learn, but almost everything is in Thalassian.”

He nodded. “I don’t think I’ll have time to study. But I’ll check.”

After one last nod, she left, moving even faster than their initial arrival, a good reminder of just how far behind from true power.

Rather than wasting his time, he descended into the tunnel. It was a surprisingly comfortable passage, feeling fresh and airy. He could feel several runes responsible for it.

On the way, he activated his reward, his eyes widening with the options.

[Master Item Construction]

{Legendary Skill: You know how to create epic enchanted and special items depending on your capabilities, if you know fire magic, you could turn a regular ring into one that allows the user to use fire magic themselves at a lower level. If you had an ability like superhuman, you could create a ring that turns the average Joe into a super soldier. Stronger enchantments demand stronger base materials.}

[Lil' Hercules]

{Epic Trait: You are unusually strong, even as a regular human without powers you could rip a man in two with your bare hands and are durable enough to take your own punches. This strength scales with your current physical abilities, you are always stronger than you should be.}

Two amazing options. The first one was enough to directly catapult him to the peak of society. He didn’t even have to fight. He could just reach other elves, show his abilities, and have a place. Elves were arrogant, but no one would dismiss someone that could create truly impressive enchanted weapons.

All he needed was to abandon his path.

Comparatively, improving his strength was incredible, but it only benefited if he continued to fight, risking his life.

He picked the second option.

He had to. It was the one that offered immediate benefits. He felt his body burn and change, feeling more solid. As he ran, he grabbed a rock and squeezed it . It didn’t turn into dust, but it still shattered.

He was tempted to turn back and immediately start fighting with the undead, but he didn’t want to waste the opportunity after he had spent that much time to cover the distance.

Even at full speed, it took two more hours to arrive at Windrunner Spire. The moment he arrived, he realized he had made a perfect choice.

He didn’t even need to use Total Concentration Breathing to refill his reserves. Just an ordinary breath was enough. The mana was that dense.

As much as he wanted to explore the estate, which was an interesting combination of understated and extremely valuable, he moved to a wide walled area at the center, multiple archery targets marking it as a training field.

He saw that there were several training weapons, including blades. He grabbed one of them, still not wanting to start using his enchanted blade for experimenting with magic.

Curious, he swung the blade lazily, testing his strength, though it did little to give him an idea. Instead, he slashed one of the training dummies, a slash sufficient to bisect it. “Damn,” he said.

If it hadn’t been for Water Breathing, he would have immediately abandoned his blade for one of the paladin hammers to take full advantage of his sudden burst of power. The difference was unbelievable.

Then, he chuckled, realizing he was not thinking correctly. Sheer strength wasn’t critical for swordsmanship, because the human body had too many weak points an edge could easily take advantage of.

Undead bodies didn’t share the same weakness, which was why he had to rely exclusively on the full might of his forms to deliver effective blows. Not only did those attacks push his body to its limit and drain him, but they also left a gap that other enemies could take advantage of, which was why he always tried to position himself.

If he could just cut through the ghouls with balanced swings, things would change, and he could keep his Water Breathing forms against truly dangerous enemies.

Though, as he swung, he couldn’t help but wonder how his strength measured against the Paladins, who had the ability to empower themselves using the Light. He had no real baseline to determine.

Not that it mattered. Even if he wasn’t stronger than them at this moment, he would get stronger. Especially since the description of the trait made it clear that he would continue to get stronger.

As much as he wanted to test it more, he stopped, and took his Water Breathing stance. He tried to imbue his First Form with mana. It failed.

He took a deep breath, and tried again … then again.

The difference was immediate and profound. In the border village, he had to put a gap of two minutes between attempts. Worse, once his mana was depleted, there was nothing he could do.

Here, he could time it so that his slash had more mana to direct.

It took almost a thousand slashes to deliver the attack, occasionally interrupted by meditating on the nature of water while he played with elemental transformation. Outside, even if he wanted to dedicate his time fully, it would have taken more than a week. Here, it took a touch more than two hours.

He hummed.

He used Water Surface Slash again, but this time, water actually formed along the edge, extending the edge while empowering it with mana. It meant that even an ordinary sword worked like an enchanted weapon.

Admittedly, the difference wasn’t as much as he had hoped, but a few attempts made it clear that it was only because of his deficient mana reserves. Once it improved, so would his attacks.

He still practiced another two hundred blows, making sure the muscle memory settled in.

The Talented trait was truly paying off.

That was enough training, he decided. He would have loved to spend more time, but with his latest trait giving him incredible strength, further improvement wasn’t the most critical aspect.

However, before leaving, he still visited the library. He couldn’t read Thalassian, but maybe some of the diagrams would spark something. But, to his surprise, once he arrived, he found several books on the table, all in common, with a notebook open.

One with a name at the first page. Rhonin Redhair.

He recognized the name, which was not exactly a big secret. Rhonin was one of the heroes of the second war, and his marriage to Vereesa Windrunner had always been gossip material among the nobles.

He ignored the temptation to steal or copy the notebook. It would disrespect the trust Sylvanas had shown. Also, stealing personal items from an archmage was a stupid idea.

He didn’t even try to read. Just taking a glimpse of the page had shown that it would give him no benefit. It was written in common, but it was simply too advanced.

Luckily, there were a great deal of books and scrolls piled on the table, also in common. A little digging gave him a scroll titled On the Nature of Mana Gathering. Most of it was incomprehensible, as it had been written as an academic treatise about some niche points rather than a practical guide, but he was lucky that it described four primary methods of gathering mana as an introduction.

Passive absorption, which the body did naturally. Active meditation, which Total Concentration replicated in a way, though by different mechanics. Ley line tapping, an advanced method that required mages to detect mana that was hidden underground, which involved connecting one's personal reserves to the vast rivers of magical energy.

Then, there was the fourth method. Connecting to other dimensions. Particularly, one called the Twisting Nether. The scroll didn’t explain much, just referring to it as a gap between dimensions.

Considering casual mentions about possible demonic possessions, he had no intention of trying it.

A good reason never to experiment blindly.

Unfortunately, that was the only lucky find. The other books were either too advanced, or too impractical to benefit him in a day or two.

The last thing he tried was to use the mana-infused forms with his enchanted sword, afraid that it would have a negative impact. But, happily, it worked much better than he expected, actually enhancing the impact.

Water and the Holy Light didn’t oppose themselves, or maybe it was the way he used to hunt the undead.

He ran back, doing his best to keep Total Concentration Breathing active, wishing that he could stay here for more than a few hours. He didn’t return to village, feeling a strange enthusiasm to put his Strength trait to the test.

He once again found a group of stragglers, but this time, he didn’t use Water Breathing forms. He merely used the simple chops, each blow enough to cleave through ghouls without exhausting him.

“That’s good,” he muttered in excitement as he started running toward Southwest, toward the direction of Stratholme garrison. With his improved abilities, he no longer feared Garithos’ plots. And, with elven side getting complicated, he had to see if the road could be traversed.

His Bloom, improved by Sensor, allowed him to sense undead presence at an even greater distance, and he saw that, once he had passed the border, the undead density had dropped significantly.

The run toward Stratholme took the better part of four hours, and every mile further confirmed it, which was a surprise. Especially since the undead seemed to be less interested in cutting a path through the peasants.

The scattered patrols and isolated wanderers remained, but without the coordinated search patterns and tactical coordination that had made the elven border impassable.

Arvis sighed as he continued, understanding the reason. Even elves might have managed to see something other than their own noses if their land had been suddenly filled with tens of thousands of human refugees. It was one thing to refuse to help them when the problem was distant, but it was another thing to turn children away while looking them in the eye.

It was good news for his immediate situation, but the implied strategic expertise was not good news.

Another thing to note was the mana density getting much lower, so much so that, without a better technique, he would probably need ten minutes to fill his reserves.

The forest gradually shifted as he traveled southwest as well, the trees growing sparser, the soil less rich, blight stronger without the influence from the elven forests to blunt the impact.

He avoided killing the undead unless their presence meant he had to delay his travel significantly, his new strength made it trivial. The efficiency was intoxicating, so much so that he had to repeat himself that he was merely dealing with the fodder of the enemy army, true elites like liches and death knights were likely busy hunting the paladins and other high-value targets.

Overconfidence killed faster than incompetence.

Farmlands that were once filled with people were empty, their inhabitants gone. However, seeing the fresh cart tracks in the mud, combined with footprints, leading to Stratholme, gave him confidence.

It made sense. The city might have been emptied by the recent disaster, but it still had the largest garrison in the region. For evacuating peasants, it was the obvious destination, the one place with walls and soldiers and the promise of organized defense.

They wouldn't know that the garrison was undermanned, poorly supplied, and commanded by officers whose primary qualification was having the favor of a pompous Grand Marshall.

However, when he arrived at Stratholme, his stomach dropped.

The garrison gates were barred shut, with soldiers visible at the on battlements, crossbows and spears pointed outward.

Pointed at the crowd below.

Thousands of people were gathered at the base of the wall. Not hundreds. Thousands. A sea of people filling the road and spilling into the fields on either side, hopelessness radiating from them.

He didn’t immediately go to the gates. Beneath the walls, all it would take was a lucky crossbow shot to ruin things. He picked another path. One benefit of patrolling a dead city for months, he knew some alternative approaches, including areas where guards wouldn’t be.

As he approached the city, some of the arguments drifted to his ears, their shouting clear. He saw a familiar captain, one of his uncle’s stooges, standing at the wall, shouting down.

“This is your last warning. By order of the garrison commander, no civilian entry is permitted until the security situation is assessed. Return to your homes.”

"Our homes are gone!" a woman screamed from the crowd. "The dead took everything! Where are we supposed to go?"

"The orders from Grand Marshall are clear. No one will be allowed to enter cities without examination by priests. Wait until our priest can recover!” he declared. Arvis watched them in shock. He had known that his uncle’s stooges were not an impressive bunch, but he never imagined them turning away civilians.

Especially since their so-called excuse meant nothing for Stratholme. There were no civilians to infect, and they had more than enough space to isolate the civilians without risking a cascading failure.

Arvis used the commotion to his advantage and climbed the walls, wincing as one of the captain ordered the soldier to fire at the crowd. The soldier, Arvis recognized as one of his bullies.

The bully at least had enough presence of mind to target the ground rather than the peasants, doing his best to ignore the order. He was careful not to make any noise, as he didn’t want to face the garrison.

Ironically, it wasn’t because he was afraid of the three hundred soldiers in the garrison. He was very much aware of their capabilities, and they were not a threat to him. But, he wasn’t a barbarian that needed to kill fellow soldiers.

A few targeted beatings should be enough to educate them to the folly of their ways.

First, he sneaked around the city, searching for the Commander. He needed to see exactly what the old man had been thinking.