Chapter 122: Oathsworn
Coop leaned on the end of his ethereal morning star’s handle, slowly shaking his head at the development of his build. The ramping challenges were clearly meant to be undertaken by parties, where individual weaknesses could be covered by allies and strengths could be exploited by a larger group. A powerful, physically resistant enemy should naturally be the target of pure casters supported by the disadvantaged fighters.
Normally, an individual wouldn’t be capable of easily addressing their weaknesses and they would be forced to rely on others to fill gaps in their kit. A physical fighter couldn’t jump into dealing magic damage without a significant investment into different stats, skills, and therefore levels and time. More importantly, they would be neglecting their current line of progress to start another from scratch. If they invested stats into Intelligence it would come at the expense of Strength, making the change a complicated proposition.
The factions recognized the obvious situation and determined that hyper focused individuals assigned to parties was the optimal solution. Meet a magically resistant enemy that is immune to blunt damage? Have the casters focus on crowd control and distraction, and swap the hammer warrior for a sword wielder.
Coop’s Revenant class was certainly an exception. His Mind-based build allowed him to bypass a significant portion of the investment and almost all of the drawbacks with simple passive skills, and more importantly, investing in alternatives didn’t deprive his established strategies from further development. Every point of Mind was increasing his Strength and his Intelligence simultaneously and the only cost was the consumption of a single skill selection for each attribute.
Coop slowly ceased shaking his head in disbelief and nodded once to himself in acceptance. He dismissed his morning star and summoned his spear and shield in anticipation of some travel. It was mission accomplished in the mana well.
Admittedly, he had adjusted the mission a few times to make it feasible, but he counted the expedition a success either way. The top half of the coral pyramid was prepared for Ghost Reef’s challengers. As long as they didn’t venture too far into the depths, there shouldn’t be any surprises awaiting them.
Coop walked across the core chamber of the coral colony to check the center for treasures. The mana vortex had slowly formed a slightly different pattern with the absence of the One That Hunts bathing in the middle. The currents weren’t driven up to the ceiling without the guidance of the creature’s shell. Instead, they formed a whirlpool of glowing vapors that gradually filled the bottom of the core chamber. The gradual flowing pattern made it seem like he was walking on luminous clouds that were drifting in an alien sea-green sky.
He waded through the slow moving currents, completely unable to feel them, as he approached what could have been a still image of the eye of a shrunken hurricane. His hopes for an epic treasure weren’t fulfilled, but he still managed to snag a handful of glowing jewels. They would certainly be useful for arrays as they matched up with Garod’s description of valuable materials. These were definitely the best haul he had acquired during his trip, but Coop had dreams of unique and legendary items to empower his friends.
On his way back out, he checked the notifications received from defeating the boss shrimp. Coop didn’t get his hopes up, knowing that the mana well monsters were slightly different from the invaders, with altered designations that didn’t perfectly align with what he was familiar with. The ‘Elite’ Level monsters counted as normal, so he wouldn’t be surprised if even the boss was just another regular monster, pumped up with mana.
[You defeated The Ravenous (Boss Level 125)]
[+251623 Basic Credits]
[+2 Kinetic Destruction Gem (Legendary)]