Explorer of Edregon

Having moved out and away from the trogums’ tunnels, Vin felt confident enough getting back to work on his latest spell as he slept. With a little help from Dream Walk, he entered Lumel’s dream and the two of them got to work practicing their magic. He’d been fairly close to finishing his latest spell prior to his runic backlash, so even with the significant time dilation that meant they only got about an hour of practice while they slept, Vin was pleased to wake up the next morning having accomplished his goal.

Dormancy increased to lvl 6! 1,200 exp gained.

New spell learned! Tier-2 Earth Spell (Excavate). 10,000 exp gained.

Level up! Adventurer of the Arcane lvl 54!

+3 Attribute points to spend.

+1 Skill point to spend.

Like waking up to a new toy on Christmas, Vin couldn't help but jump out of bed and rush down to the tunnels as soon as he woke up. Finding one of the tunnels that the dwarves had been working on expanding, he held a hand out and wove his new runic formation together.

“Excavate.”

Rather than dislodge a large section of dirt like with Shift Earth, his new spell was much more powerful. A nearly five-by-five foot chunk of dirt was ripped out of the tunnel wall, staying packed together and floating above the ground as Vin grinned and headed down the tunnel. The dense earth drifted behind him as he moved, remaining in one single piece until Vin got to the massive mound of earth outside the tunnel entrance and allowed it to collapse. The spell worked just as he hoped it would, and Vin was glad he’d decided to take the time to try merging earth and gravity magic.

Excavate was built off of Shift Earth, Slow Fall, and Mage Hand, allowing him to both rip giant chunks of earth out of the ground, and keep it floating along behind him as he dragged the earth wherever he wanted it to go. It was a bit of a mana-intensive spell, but that didn’t matter nearly as much as it used to now that he had a method of replenishing his mana as he worked. He did feel a little bit bad that he’d only come up with this spell after some poor crafters in Terra had gone through all the effort of digging out a moat around the entire town wall, but he supposed it was better late than never.

Having gotten that out of his system, Vin allotted his bonus points into magic and focus, bringing them both up to a clean 90. That done, he regrouped with his friends, enjoying a simple breakfast that Lumel pulled from her Dimensional Pocket.

“Please tell me we’re good to keep going,” Scule begged, nibbling on a chunk of jerky as he looked around at everyone. “If I have to go spend another day helping Alka hunt down monsters, I’m going to tear my hair out. And I won’t look good bald, trust me, none of you want to see that!”

“I think we’re good to keep going,” Vin chuckled, getting nods from Shia and Lumel at the unspoken question. “Unless Reginald needs another day to break any more hearts…?”

Reginald looked up from his chunk of cheese, quickly shaking his head and waving his tail back and forth as he squeaked out a negative.

“I don’t even speak rat and I thought that was pretty clear,” Shia muttered, raising an eyebrow at the oddly nervous-looking rat. “Reginald, how many dates did you even go on? We were only here one night!”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Scule drawled. “So where are we heading next? Another trogum fragment?”

“Yep. Though seeing as the trogums are no more, and they presumably eradicated the fragment on their way through it, it’s probably going to be a bit empty,” Vin admitted.

The mood understandably grew a bit more somber at his words, and the team wrapped up breakfast before too much longer. After finding Alka standing over one of the tentacle monster’s corpses not too far from the trogums’ new home, they grabbed her and made their way over to the next fragment. There was only one fragment left in the southern-half of the third ring to explore, but Vin was intending to also hit up the other two fragments the trogum tide supposedly swept through, just to check and make sure nobody needed their help. Seeing as two weeks had already passed it was probably unneeded, but he’d feel better checking anyway.

As they made their way to the next fragment, Alka revealed that she wanted to hunt down every elite tentacle monster they could find along the way. It wasn’t as if they were that pressed for time with the festival still over a month away, and Vin still felt pretty bad about collapsing a large chunk of the trogums’ tunnel. Combined with the fact that taking out the elite monsters was easier than ever once he revealed he could use his newest spell to rip the earth covering the tentacle monster’s main body up into the air, unearthing them and allowing everyone to largely ignore the tentacles and kill the monster without too much issue, the team decided they were fine with the slight detour.

In fact, Scule and Shia seemed oddly excited with the idea of taking the rest of the day to go on an elite monster killing spree.

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Even if Vin didn’t receive any experience from killing monsters, Shia and Scule certainly did, provided they utilized their nature magic and poisons while doing so. With that in mind, Vin was more than happy to take on the supporting role and help the two of them grind out a large handful of elite monsters kills as they wandered the fragment. Not only would it help them close the ever-widening gap a little bit between them and him in level, but it would no doubt benefit the trogums as well to have their fragment rid of so many deadly monsters.

It took them the whole rest of the day to wipe out just about every elite monster they could find, and they hit an important benchmark just as they were finishing up the last one for the night.

“Woah!” Scule shouted, violently shaking for a moment atop Alka’s shoulder before letting out a wild laugh. “Yes! Finally! I hit level 50! Me, at level 50! Man, what a rush! Take that, dad!”

“Congratulations,” Lumel smiled, and Vin did his best to whistle as they all cheered and gathered around the grinning petian. “What did you get?”

“Poison Penetration,” Scule laughed, rubbing his hands together evilly as he read over his level 50 Capstone. “This is exactly what I wanted! Even if an enemy has a thick hide or armor or something else to block my poison darts from physically entering their bloodstream, some of the poison will get through regardless! I’m pretty certain magical defenses will still be a problem, but even so, I’m so happy I could cry!”

“Damn, that really is the perfect Capstone for you,” Alka said, nodding approvingly. “Definitely a huge increase in your combat potential.”

“No kidding. Way better than my level 30 Capstone,” Scule snorted. “Not that naturally increasing the toxicity of the poisons I personally craft is bad, but it doesn’t do me all that much good if I can’t even get them into my opponents in the first place.”

“Well, we’re all proud of you for finally managing to hit level 50,” Shia said, unable to stop herself from grinning at the ecstatic Rogue. “...Last.”

That one word addition ripped the wind right out of Scule’s sails, and he sagged as he stared at her in disbelief. “Seriously? You and Lumel beat me to it? Again?”

“To be fair, creating that grand artifact of Vin’s gave me a ridiculous boost,” Shia admitted. “But yeah, I tipped over during the battle for wave seven. The latest Capstone sort of broke the mold I’d been filling up until now. After getting Friend of Nature at level 10 and One With Nature at level 30, I was really expecting something similar. Instead, I got Unbreakable Bonds.”

“That sounds interesting,” Lumel said, looking curiously at her. “What does it do?”

“I’m not entirely sure yet, to be honest,” Shia admitted. “It’s one of those that feels like it does a lot of little things. Though I do know of at least one effect it has, which Scule’s not going to like one bit. It seems like I can pinpoint all of your rough locations if I focus on any of you.”

“Aw, come on!” Scule frowned, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “I even made Vin remove that Soul Mark on me already because I don’t want to be tracked! Do I get a say in this?!”

“Actually, you do,” Shia said, causing Scule’s tantrum to halt mid-breath. “I think so long as you’re focusing on hiding or not wanting to be found, it won’t work.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose that’s alright then,” Scule said, clearing his throat as he turned to Lumel. “Moving on! What did you get, Lumel?”

“I’m… not entirely certain if I want this getting out to anyone other than you guys,” Lumel admitted, giving them all a nervous look. “I can only assume it’s because of how much time and experience I’ve gotten working on studying the Underside. But my level 50 Capstone is Divine Decipherer.”

“Ohh, now that sounds fun!” Shia grinned. “Have you messed around with it yet?”

“Yeah. It makes it much easier to piece together what the Gods’ intentions were when creating the Underside, and how the different runes and formations flow together,” Lumel said, wringing her hands together as she glanced up at the night sky. “It’s just that, after hearing from Vin about how the Gods have their secrets they don’t want getting out… I guess I’m just a little nervous about the Capstone.”

“So long as you haven’t been paid a visit by a naked man wrapped up in glowing chains, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Vin reassured her, taking her hand. “That’s an amazing Capstone to help with what you’ve been trying to do down there. Way to go!”

“It’s not like I picked it out myself,” Lumel said, blushing under his praise even as she smiled. “But thank you.”

“Well, this has been all sorts of fun, bonding and sharing everyone’s new Capstones with one another,” Alka said, standing with her arms crossed as her glowing eyes narrowed. “Though I guess I can’t complain too much. I did get a new arm recently, so that was nice.”

“Sorry, Alka,” Vin started, before she cut him off with a raised hand.

“Nah, I’m just screwing with you guys. Obviously I’m glad you’re all getting stronger and more powerful, and I came to terms with the fact that I won’t be getting any more help from the System ages ago. From taking down epic monsters to fighting the ranker king, it’s pretty obvious I’m not obsolete just yet, so don’t you guys worry about me. I’m pretty confident I could still take down any one of you in a one-on-one fight if it ever came to that. Except for Vin. He’s too much of a wild card.”

“You think you could beat my Living Giant?” Shia asked, looking more entertained than insulted. “Wanna try sparring sometime?”

“Sparring isn’t the same as a real fight,” Alka argued. “Your spell is powerful, no doubt there. But all I have to do is stab through the branches surrounding you and you’re as good as dead.”

“My class ability lets me shift damage I would take into the mana-infused branches themselves,” Shia argued. “All that would do is cut off a few of the giant’s fingers!”

“Then I’d stab you twice,” Alka snorted, waving a hand dismissively. “Simple enough.”

“Guys—” Vin tried to interject, sighing as the two of them ignored him and their playful banter turned into a genuine argument. It certainly didn’t help when Scule jumped in, claiming to be able to take both of them on now with his latest Capstone. For his part, Reginald scurried onto Vin’s shoulder, letting out a tired squeak as he shook his head.

“I don’t know what he said, but I think I agree with Reginald on this one,” Lumel said, smiling as she watched the other three go at it. “It’s nice being a pacifist!”