Level 1 Fallen

With Diane’s help, I somewhat understood the changes that had taken place in the Beyond the Veil skill. As long as it was active, I could step into an ethereal realm where my presence did not occupy a physical space. If I was attacked in this state, at least by a physical attack, the attack would pass harmlessly through me.

However, that was not to say that the attack was without weakness. As part of our tests, we had Bella shoot at me with one of her guns. The black bullet pierced through me, striking my actual body and causing me to hiss in pain. I wasn’t sure exactly which type of energy her bullet had identified as my ‘weakness’, but clearly this indicated that there was at least one damage type that could continue to harm me normally.

In fact… I soon flashed back to a memory, when we were pursuing the undead players. In order to protect the people of the city, I had used projected walls as barriers, which the spirits had been unable to pass through.

To test this theory, I summoned a projected ki clone, and had it use a basic ki attack on me. Sure enough, the attack struck true. Similarly, projected fire, water, and darkness could reach me in this state. When Diane tried her shadow magic, just to make sure it wasn’t only ki-based effects, that was similarly able to affect me in my ethereal state.

“In other words, it only protects against physical attacks,” Diane noted once she found out that the dark magic had struck me. “Still, very few people would be able to see through that skill, so they wouldn’t really have a reason to randomly throw out energy-based skills.”

With that testing out of the way, the two returned to their dungeon grind, and I returned to my simulated training. On day three, my Ghost Zone evolved into Wraith Zone, which was identical to Ghost Zone, but also allowed the shrouded beings to fly and pass through walls. I hadn’t tested it, but this meant that Beyond the Veil could also likely fly and pass through solid objects as well.

Still, that didn’t need any special testing, so I didn’t worry about alerting the others and disrupting their own training. On day four, however, I had two more skill evolutions. First of all, Vitality of the Forest evolved into Forest Titan, which I was quite eager to try out when in actual simulations. Unfortunately, the skill was no longer suitable to keep active as a passive power.

Thankfully, the other skill that evolved was Simulated Training, which evolved into… Simulated Training 2. Yeah… they kind of just… didn’t give it a cool new name. Either way, with this evolution, the rate of experience that I could earn was raised to twenty five percent, and I could now simulate various environments that I was familiar with as part of the training.

Using that new enhancement, I set myself in a forest against a group of dragons that I had fought in Pyrrhos. As soon as I activated Forest Titan, vines and branches began wrapping around my body, infusing me with their vitality while also becoming a living suit of foliage several meters tall. This height would no-doubt increase as the skill leveled up, but it was already turning me into a floral behemoth.

Finally, on day five of my constant simulation training, two more skills evolved. The first was Sensitivity, which evolved into Counter Detection. That one was just a matter of time until it evolved, given that it was constantly active.

Finally, Shadow Arsenal evolved into Shadow Forge, which operated similarly to its previous skill, but specialized in creating multiple weapons at once. However, if the user wished, they could create just one weapon with lasting properties. My mind flashed back to the sword that Erebus had placed down in front of Ella’s kingdom, wondering if Shadow Forge was one of the skills that had gone into the making of that weapon.

Either way, that was all of the training that I was going to get. Halfway through the fifth day, the girls messaged me to let me know that they had trained their skills to a sufficient degree, and had managed to reach the intermediate rank with them. I had been planning on making new skills for Bella to use to cover for her lack of bullet skills, but seeing as how she had her area bullet that she showcased before, her new dispelling bullet, and the scatter shot, I felt that there was considerably less need for that now.

All in all, maxing out my training speed like this had enabled me to push four of my highest level skills to the grandmaster level, which should greatly enhance my abilities in combat. I looked at my little cave dwelling that I had lived in for the last few days, shaking my head and walking out before carefully collapsing it behind myself.

Outside the tunnel, Diane and Bella were already waiting for me. “So, how did your training go?” Bella asked curiously, a bright smile on my face.

I went over the various evolutions that I’d had since our last encounter, and Diane’s eyes widened briefly. Once I was done, she stepped forward, holding her hand out expectantly.

Seeing how I stared at her hand, uncertain what she wanted, she finally spoke up. “Dagger made with Shadow Forge.”

“Ah,” I understood now, focusing on creating a permanent dagger with my newly evolved skill. It had a rather simple design, but was made of pitch black material. Diane eagerly grabbed it, testing its weight before giving a small frown.

“It’s not as strong as my current equipment,” she muttered dejectedly.

I let out a soft sigh, shaking my head in resignation. “It scales with my intelligence stat. Right now, King of All Trades is the only thing I have boosting intelligence. If I want to further enhance the power of some of my skills, I’ll need to get another boost for that.”

There was also the chance that I would need a blacksmithing skill in order to learn how to best take advantage of Shadow Forge, but that was not a skill that I could just casually train. At best, I would have to substitute my ability to give enchantment slots to items with including the enchantment as part of the creation process.

Thinking about my explanation, Diane’s eyes lit up again. “Then, if we get you another enhancement skill, you might be able to make our new equipment for us. Customizable equipment with built-in effects.”

Even Bella seemed somewhat interested in that, though I honestly didn’t know. “It’s worth a try, at least? We’d need to find a decent stat-boosting skill, though.”

“Sounds like a job for sponsor points?” Bella asked, but Diane refuted that idea.

“Sponsor points are a precious commodity. If we’re going for a skill like this, there are better ways. Dale, you have Karlson on your friends list, right? He should know about some places were we could get skills to boost stats.”

Hearing that, I checked my friends list. “He’s not online right now, so I can just ask his Chosen.”

After saying that, I sent a message to Karlson. If you have a moment, could you help me find where I can get a skill to enhance stats? Specifically, Intelligence, and maybe Magic.

Although the Magic stat wasn’t too useful to me on its own, it might increase the effectiveness of some of my skills down the line. And, like Intelligence, these were the two skills not covered by my Barbarian’s Fury.

It took a few minutes before Karlson responded, making me wonder if he would get back to me at all. If you’re looking for those, there are two dungeons that give skills for those specific stats. One of them is the Tower of Magi, which has been claimed by the Black Scale nation. The skill there is Magic Initiate, which boosts those two stats and gives a small increase in magic proficiency skill gain.

The other is a wandering dungeon, the Sage’s Sanctum. There are a lot of skills that benefit from Intelligence in that dungeon, and the boss has a chance to drop the Seeker of Truth skill, which increases the two stats, as well as the hidden perception stat. You’ll want to take a demotion book with you, though, since that is its intermediate skill form.

Seeing the two options, I knew that my best bet would be the Sage’s Sanctum. While the tower dungeon may have been easier to reach, it would bring me head to head with the dragon nation. Do you have any idea where I can find the sanctum, then?

Sorry, but its location is too unpredictable. It will randomly appear as a hidden door in any public library. Typically, it only stays in each library for one or two days, and then disappears to go to another one. From what I’ve read, there’s no way to trace the dungeon, or to call it to a specific library.

I relayed Karlson’s message, causing the other two to purse their lips. “In the end, it still comes back to sponsor points, right?” Diane asked with a sigh. “At the very least, we’ve narrowed down the scope of the question, so it should be cheaper.”

Reluctantly, I pulled up the sponsorship system. It seems like I had earned a few points from my time in the war dungeon, but nothing too noteworthy. I had a total of 187 points at the moment, so I posed my question. Where can we find the Sage’s Sanctum?

The response came immediately, costing me exactly one hundred points. I looked at the message, reading it aloud for the others. “Currently, the Sage’s Sanctum is located within Aetheris, two hundred and seventeen kilometers north-by-northwest from your nearest rift. At the back of the local Aarakel’s library, pull out the book titled ‘Truth in Plain Sight’.”

“Aetheris… didn’t your friends come from there?” Bella asked, looking at Diane. Diane hesitated, but nodded her head in confirmation. “Should we get one of them to go with us as a guide?”

“We shouldn’t really be there long enough to need a guide… Still, I suppose it would be better if we had someone that knew the natives well enough to make sure that we got in before the dungeon shifted again.” Diane reluctantly agreed, sending out a message.

A few moments later, a response came back. “They’re going to send their chief communication officer with us. She has the most experience talking with the Aarakel.”

“Is this someone that we should be concerned about?” I asked, recalling that this was a heavy roleplay-intensive guild. Many of them liked to act as if they were reclusive mages far above the realm of mere mortals.

Thankfully, Diane shook her head. “They wouldn’t put someone like that in charge of communication with NPCs. Elly is a lot more sensible than that. She might put on the roleplay persona for official meetings, but she knows to keep it normal when dealing with outsiders.”

“Elly?” I asked, looking at Bella. Between her, Ella, and Elly, I was worried I’d start getting names mixed up.

“Ah, that’s her nickname. She always makes characters with some form of that as their name. Her character here is… ah, Eilwen Evens. I’m just used to calling her Elly.”

I let out a sigh of relief, knowing I was not likely to get that name mixed up with either of the others. “In that case, let’s go meet her.”