SB: Chapter 272 – Way Of The Spear (Patreon)

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I walked into the Champion’s chamber on the 8th layer. We needed to keep descending as quickly as possible. We were going down to the 15th layer and then looking for a passage back to the College of Advancement.

Moths flew down towards me, releasing a poison into the air. The Champion moth was a much larger version that had an Aura Of Poison. It wasn’t strong enough to break my Poison Immunity Tier 4 skill.

With their ranged poison doing nothing, they swept in trying to claw at me with their limbs and mouth. I dodged between the monsters, moving my spear around me, slashing the monster moths down.

Normally fire would have burst out where I had struck them. But I didn’t need the Sun Amulet of Experience Blocking, I had decided. Even if I gained levels, I wouldn’t be tempted by free stat points. I was the master of my own destiny. If Xanatos got some experience, good for him.

I would keep my Soul Sense focused on my soul to try and sense where the experience was going to. There was no other reason to stop me from improving my class. I had just taken the experience blocking as standard and had gotten used to it after growing up with it.

The reinforcement from my mother and tutors compounded the lesson. More levels didn’t lock the soul in, it was the free stat points. They strengthened the existing structure. I had thought about how I felt at level 1 and level 20 and there wasn’t a difference. Most people used their free stat points as they got them.

Some might hold off at the start and then give in, but I wasn’t concerned about such things anymore. I was no longer a child, constantly wanting to give into temptation. Perhaps that was what my mother wanted when she had initially given me the bracelet. A shame it was fully bound with the Sun Amulet and couldn’t be separated.

I ruined a natural treasure of the dungeon, but it was fine. Since not wearing it made fights harder, which would only improve my spear skills. The moths kept rushing at me and then the Champion unleashed a stream of purple poison liquid in my direction.

“Vibration Blade! Slice x3!”

I stabbed upwards and the Champion’s attack was broken apart, its momentum killed. Then the Champion was struck. Vibration Blade spreading out the ranged attacks from Slice slightly, dealing more damage over a concentrated area. Like a claw attack.

The Champion plummeted out of the air as the remaining monsters kept rushing at me. I finished them all off easily enough. Time to harvest their Mana cores and then go down to the 9th layer.

Ozy was busy retrieving the cores from the fallen monsters and then putting them in a pile off to one side. I wouldn’t have trusted him with such a task before, since he would rather eat them. But now he was a slave. I let him consume the orange Champion’s core, but the rest would be going into my spatial bag after being cleaned off.

We cleared a total of 18 chambers that day and went from the 8th to the 10th layer, a good day of descending.

Perhaps there truly had been a weight on my soul from the Tier 7 curse skill. Like something that just weighed me down mentally not physically. While it was a curse skill and it didn’t contribute to the weight on my soul, it was still a Tier 7 skill. There easily could have been hidden pressures, sapping me of motivation to do other things besides completing the quest.

That could also explain my low level gain at the College after I returned, since I wasn’t focused on completing the quest. The sword case was being made, but a curse skill didn’t understand that.

Curse skills were truly insidious and something I would make sure never impacted me again after I got rid of the next two. I had no idea how Experience Siphon might be impacting me mentally, but Gnomish Silence was probably causing me to not think about the gnomes hidden in the dungeon.

The biggest issue I could see with doing a long solo descent, was that I wanted to get some more and practice my social skills. My father had always encouraged me to take more of them. I hoped to speak to him once I got back, but he appeared to have vanished or gone into hiding.

Or he could be dead.

It wasn’t something I liked to think about, but he had made a mess of the Eldarin continent a second time and I could see some people, or elves, being very unhappy with him. Legends disappeared every year without a single word or trace of their passing. A few returned after decades in the dungeon, trying to grind their way up to higher levels.

Social skills would probably have to wait unfortunately. There were countless skills I had to work on after all.

Once we hit the 11th layer, things would slow down with the mixed groups of monsters. The Compass Of Desire was still pointing the same direction as the next passage down. The 15th layer was my limit and I would probably stop on the 14th layer just to be safe.

The 16th layer had monsters get smarter as the twist to the dungeon. That was far too dangerous for me. I knew my mother would tell me to rush down and use Stillness to slowly clear each chamber one by one, but I knew my limit.

Going too deep and too quickly was a good way to die. The Last Bastion could wait a while before I visited. I heard at the College, that it was still treated as neutral ground between all legends and elites. Anyone below that level was fair game for becoming a retainer or servant. A polite way of saying slave, since there was no way a lower level person could get back to the surface.

While distasteful, it was better such legends stayed in the dungeon, rather than going up to the surface and causing trouble. The crafters who wanted to push their skills to the limit also went to the Last Bastion.

If I went, it would probably be after I had enough strength to protect myself and used my free stat points. Well, maybe not that long, since I was leveling up without using my free stat points. I didn’t think anyone had done that long term in the past.

The College probably had a study done, since they studied everything they could, but most people equated levels to stats. I could only imagine one day, when I was a high level, facing an impossible opponent. Then I would just double my stat points by using my free stat points and crush them.

While an amusing thought, it was also completely unrealistic. A person needed to get used to higher stats. Changing them by more than 20 at once was not recommended, since it could cause complications. I had enough complications to last ten lifetimes and I didn’t plan to invite some more.

But once I did use my free stat points, it would be a huge jump in overall combat power. At least I was leveling up now. A shame I didn’t do that before, but the temptation of free stat points was endless. And if Xanatos got some experience, he was welcome to it. He would get what he deserved one day.

I almost wished for another Seraphim Quest to get a powerful and unique skill. But that would be insane. The last one had taken up far too much time and had been far too dangerous. While I got rewards out of it, a divination skill and my sword, I had almost died several times.

But I guess that was what it took to become a Supreme Legend. Perhaps the lower layers would be possible with my new sword.

Now I was just thinking in circles.

I missed being part of a team. I wanted a team to chat with, but I didn’t want the drama that came with a team. Unfortunately, both things were inseparable. Perhaps I would look more into the Adventurer’s Guild to find team members I could get along with, where there would be some level of trust.

That was the other challenge. I was ridiculously rich in terms of equipment. For most adventurers it would be far more profitable to kill and rob me, taking that risk, rather than clearing the dungeon for however many years they needed to match my wealth.

That was why the team made from top graduates from my year at the College seemed like such a great idea. Everyone had a strong background, so there was no need to rob anyone else. Unfortunately, that team ended in a complete disaster.

I was both too rich and strong for lower level individuals. Someone my age or even a decade or two older would have a hard time matching my skills. As for level, I would put myself around level 80 in terms of combat ability based on the standards of the Eldarin continent. But such adventurers had been with long term teams, they had bonded with and trusted.

Joining a premade team was just asking for an accident to happen in the dungeon due to my wealth. Even if contracts were drawn up, for hundreds of platinum, any adventurer would take the risk of a black mark on their record.

My sword was just too valuable. Spatial pouches, self-repairing armor, and other pieces of equipment would have pushed things, but would have been fine. But my sword was just asking for trouble. I had no doubt that legends would come looking for it once they learned about it, putting my safety at risk.

As for Boris knowing, he didn’t ask and didn’t have the skills to inspect it. He knew I liked the sword and I had retrieved it after the huge Mana explosion, but he clearly was only interested in physical exercise.

Maybe he thought that if he increased his Strength stat enough, he would be able to instantly kill anything he came across. That was a nice idea, but one ethereal monster and he would be dungeon food.

I needed triple my current stats to not have to worry about such things. So about 1,200 more. If I could keep gaining at least 5 stat points every 3 months, it would only take 60 years to gain that many stat points.

No, the most pressing thing was to get back, and then get a soul fruit. Preferably a green one if possible. I knew blue ones were too rare and no one traded them for money. Perhaps one of the legends taking over land needed money to build up their forces and had one tucked away. Or someone wanted to buy a powerful weapon instead and wanted to sell one.

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