Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Seventy-Four (Patreon)

"Harvesting a block of metal is hardly how I thought I’d be spending my twilight years,” Mikhael said as they were finishing harvesting the metal.

“You’re only in your hundredth millennia, young man,” Farahduul scolded in a mocking tone.

“My late twilight years, I say,” Mikhael bemoaned, breaking apart some of the metal.

“Chin up,” Erosh said, the last of who had come out to break the pillar down. It was only the three of them, but with three rebirth forty-nine Empyreans, the bit of metal never stood a chance. “Just another couple millennia and we’re out of here.”

“Already plotting escape?” Beth asked from behind Erosh, causing him to twitch slightly.

“Of course I’m plotting escape!” he replied heartily, clearly joking. “I’ve had enough of this stuffy box!”

“You’re not in a box now, are you?” Beth asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Well, technically…” Erosh said, carving away the last pieces of metal and ore from the pillar. “By the by, this is some premium ore you lot have found. If you need some help forging it, we could make it into quite something.”

“I think we’re going to spend some serious time on that soon, but we’ve got to work on a few other things first,” Beth replied, giving the three a nod as they finished up. The task, technically, hadn’t been all that difficult to accomplish, it was just in the nature of the Empyreans to argue about something for half a day before executing on it. Beth was pretty sure being locked in a box with only twelve other people to talk to for millennia at a time had made them all a bit…strange, but it was something she could still deal with.

“North is our best bet,” Blood said then as the Empyreans disappeared back into the reliquary.

“Beasts?” Beth asked. Her senses extended rather far, but Blood would have scouted far beyond where Beth could sense without pushing herself harder than she wanted at the moment.

“Lots,” was all Blood said, but that was enough for the gleam to start in Beth’s eye.

“Remember, we’re underground!” Val yelled at Beth as she disappeared, teleporting with every step as she moved towards where Blood had been scouting.

“It’s fine. The rock down here is infused with plenty of mana,” Sera said, right before a big impact shook the cavern.

“Infused with lots of mana, huh?” Val muttered, rubbing her arms and glancing around the cavern, eyes twitching back and forth to every little thing.

The team continued exploring, having already hit one valuable find, but it wasn’t the kind of thing they were really after right now. A bunch of good metal was great, and it was something they could sell at a Seven Lights auction, even possibly a yearly auction, but the kind of even they were going to was much greater than one of those auctions. They would need something pretty crazy to even participate, but Beth wasn’t all that worried. They had several options and still had months to explore those options and find one, or more, good things to put up for sale. If this place didn’t turn up anything good, they could move on to the next place.

Beth led the way for a while, the group all happy to follow in her wake for a bit. Nobody needed any kills or anything at this point, the group all at or right about at their next rebirth point, so it wasn’t really an issue if Beth cut loose for a while. The only issue was the stability of the cave system they were in, and there were times where they found narrow areas where Beth would teleport through and then come back later to either move the group or redirect them. Beth couldn’t really get stuck, either, which was fortunate, as there were some very narrow areas that they would need to push through down here and the fact she could teleport while touching things was a big boon. She could also not teleport into solid matter, whether that was with Spatial Step or with her Ideal, she had to have enough room for her body to fit. Now, it might be just enough room, where she could appear wedged in a narrow crack and unable to move, but even that wasn’t terrible. She had no cooldown on teleporting and so could just teleport again.

That was also setting aside her fearsome strength; they might be on a high mana density world and deep underground, but if Beth was in a pinch, she could literally rip the mountains apart around them with nothing but her physical strength. Having over a hundred thousand in a stat was no joke and was territory that was usually reserved for Ascended, and often Ascended that were quite a few rebirths into the bracket, not just sitting at rebirth twenty. Her entire group was going to be extremely fearsome even in early Ascended rebirths, let alone once they had progressed through the bracket. Skills were multipliers of stats, mainly, and then Ascended added mana density and purity on top of it, further boosting the power of any skill used for anything. Given Beth’s group have six figures in one or more stats, likely at least two stat lines for each of them by the time they hit Ascended, even early on, that little bit of extra mana purity would offer significant increases in strength. Beth doubted they’d be going around fighting Exalted like that, at least for the rest of her group, but it would be a rare being that would give any individual team member trouble. As for something that could give the whole group trouble, well…

The exploration was a bit slow going, as they had to scout, fight plenty of beasts along the way, double back often, and spend time resting. Beth was little bothered by it, but being underground for long stretches weighed on most of the group’s minds. Sera wasn’t as affected as the others as dragons traditionally made their homes underground and there was still some of that in her blood, but the rest of the group didn’t like the indoors, some more than others. Blood was fine overall, but she did become more moody and recalcitrant if they spent extended periods of time underground without seeing the sun or having a fresh wind rustling their hair. Luckily, Beth’s gate could simulate that and more, another convenience that most people didn’t think about when thinking of such skills and items, though having a portable item that could replicate Beth’s power was pretty insane. She was sure that Zane or Fallon had something like that, or could make or get something like that, but it would be a stretch for even an Exalted to have a single item that could do what Beth’s skill did. Again, not impossible or something that didn’t exist, but it wouldn’t be something even powerful Ascended would likely have.

Hours turned into days and as time slid by, Beth was starting to debate how long she wanted them underground and running around doing this. Exploring was fun, but it was less fun when they were on a deadline and had things to do. They had already managed to acquire the resources that Val’s contact needed, and now that they had been to the world and explored the place, they could always come back and pick up where they left off, even if they would have to clear more beasts out once they were back. The thought of more combat, even against weaker opponents, didn’t do anything but excite Beth, though she knew the others weren’t quite as thrilled.

Just as she was talking about grabbing the group and going with Sera, Blood came back at a quick clip, indicating that she had found something interesting up ahead. They were back to the wolf scouting, her keen nose and senses able to detect things that Beth, or any of the others, for that matter, would have missed and walked right by. Blood made a hand signal for quite, which had the whole group turn silent, including tightening up straps on equipment and making sure they wouldn’t be rattling or clanking about. She then gave them a short wave and disappeared again, but she was easy enough to follow, not pushing her stealth or moving too quickly.

Eventually, they came upon what Blood had discovered in a cavern that was rather less impressive than the last one where they had found the metal, at least in terms of size, but it more than made up for it in terms of what was contained within. There was a pool of a clear liquid (Beth would never just assume water, not after all her various adventures), the pool seeming to glow with a light of its own, as there was no other obvious source of light in the cavern. That gave Beth a bit of hope, as water didn’t typically just glow, and whether it was the liquid itself, or something very valuable in the liquid, it was likely this was something rather interesting. Such things had a very good chance of being extremely valuable, and Beth crouch down beside Blood at the cave entrance; they were on a little lip about ten feet off the floor of the cavern, the tunnel having been big enough for all of them to fit through other than Bjorn, who had had to do a kind of crouched shuffle to get through without just crawling.

Beth glanced at Blood, still fascinated by her gold and black and pure white eyes even after years, and the wolf tilted her head slightly, flicking an ear towards Beth before pointing to a spot on the far side of the cave. With the room being as small as it was, still about a thousand feet across or maybe a little less, it was easy for everyone in the group to see into every corner of it, but it still took Beth a moment to see what was there. There was a massive shape on the far side of the pond, but it was still and not moving, blending in with the rock around it and not moving at all. Beth wouldn’t have been able to see it at all if it weren’t for the light from the pond, as it cast some strange reflections in the room that made noticing the odd shape just slightly easier. If Beth was forced to guess without yet being able to properly Identify the thing, they were looking at some kind of rock drake or maybe some kind of basilisk. It was pretty hard to tell what the exact shape was in the strange light and without the beast moving at all.

Beth gave Blood a raised eyebrow, making a small gesture at the creature with her hand, to which Blood shrugged in response. She pointed right at Beth and then at the creature, which was a pretty clear signal, though Beth rolled her eyes at the implication. Even the rest of the team had gotten used to her nature and tactics at this point and made use of them in their own strategies. Beth glanced back at the rest of the team, gathered around in and behind the entrance to the cave, and got a universal set of nods. She then slipped over the lip, touching down on the floor of the cavern with barely a sound. It appeared that she needn’t have bothered, however, as the basilisk or drake was entirely unconcerned with her presence. It wasn’t wholly unusual to find, particularly at much higher levels; Beth still remembered the mantis enemies in that very first Trial she and Blood had done all those years ago, waiting in stealth in the woods and trying to ambush them.

She had an idea that this was rather similar and, considering the layout of the room, the setup was pretty obvious to any creature with a higher level of reasoning. Not that she was going to avoid triggering the obvious trap, but the setup was pretty easy to see through; the beast was waiting closer to the pond than it might seem, especially as the pond was further towards that end of the room than where they had entered. If anything tried to approach the pond, the creature would just have to lash out, either with its jaws or its tail, and catch whatever prey entirely unaware. Once again, Beth was impressed at Blood’s ability to identify threats and dangers even most experienced adventurers would have a tough time recognizing.

She decided to follow the old, tried and true method of keep it simple, stupid. She walked over to the pond, still being careful not to make too much noise; she shouldn’t make it too obvious, regardless of how things were set up and that she knew what was happening. She didn’t know whether the creature would pounce right away, but she calmly approached the pond, looking like someone or something that had just wondered in and found the pond a great attraction. As soon as she reached the very edge of where the liquid was, a shallow area where the liquid was no deeper than the toes of her boots for a foot or so, the creature decided she was in range and pounced. Beth looked at it with her eye powers as she dodged its first strike, an explosive tail swipe that she had predicted some time before.

Level 700 Greater Steel Basilisk

Well, it certainly seemed impressive, especially at that kind of a level, but Beth had fought stuff as tough, or nearly so. It turned out, something that was level seven hundred and had a metal in its name was pretty damn durable, her first couple strikes doing practically nothing to the beast. The one saving grace was that the thing was slow for its level; Beth wasn’t a speedster like Blood or Val, but she was rather quick all the same, and she didn’t have to be all that fast physically when she was a master of teleportation, something that also seemed to throw the creature for a bit of a loop. She lured the beast away from the pond as she was first probing its weaknesses, something it was only too happy to comply with, which really showed that it had been guarding the place. Likely there was a quite juicy treasure hidden in there. At least, she hoped it wasn’t just because the big lug liked the pretty blue water.

Beth’s battle with the beast took a long time, but she was faster, stronger, and likely just as tough, though she barely got hit. To outside observers, it would have looked like a tough and bitter struggle, with Beth just barely pulling it off, though her joyful laughter as she exchanged strikes with the beast might have given away the lie of that thought. She eventually killed the thing, after much trouble and being slammed through a cavern wall twice, but the way her crushing damage and spatial damage could penetrate through an opponent meant that tough hide and flesh were less effective in stopping her. If the beast had been very strong in mana or had unusual mana manipulation properties, it would have been a much harder sell, but it hadn’t been able to stop her damage from piercing through it and smashing up its internal organs. She harvested the thing with her looting powers before joining the group at the pond’s edge.

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