The Pinnacle Warrior

Class evolution quest: 

Defeat 10 Bosses of at least level 45 in single combat. Each kill must be completed with a strike empowered by Immortal Warrior’s Body.  Successfully use Gravity Surge and Spectre Burst to eliminate 100 monsters of at least level 44.Astrid nodded slowly, understanding why a simpler version of this quest would take a long time to complete for her mother. Brighid had said that her evolution quest to Steel had taken her about a month, and if she’d been stationed on the Bulwark at the time, finding time to delve to the bottom of a Dungeon branch would be a pain, to say nothing of doing so multiple times.

As it was, she realized that she was pretty lucky with regards to the second half of her evolutionary quest. If she hadn’t done the work in better understanding Gravity Surge with her parents and the Golden Fist, she would definitely struggle with the second task. At frist glance, it would have seemed to be particularly simple, but it wasn’t demanding that she use the Skills as she hunted, but to use exclusively those two Skills to kill her prey. She immediately understood that the task required that the enemy not be killed with her hammer’s blow, but with Spectre Burst and Gravity Surge, nothing else.

“Huh,” Benedict said as he finished reading his evolutionary quest. “That’s gonna take a little bit of time.“

“Same,” Felix replied.

“I’m not going to sit here and just talk about general points, I want the real information,” Astrid said, stepping forward. She was the first to share the requirements, and after explaining what she’d realized about the requirements of the quest, Muti was the next to do so.

Class evolution quest: 

Hide your presence from 100 monsters of at least level 43 and strike a killing blow without them recognizing your presence. Hide the presence of yourself and four others while passing within 10 meters of a hostile monster of at least level 46 ten times. “There isn’t a specific Skill that the quest is requiring you to use,” Astrid noted. 

“It is because it would be impossible without the use of my boon,” Muti answered. “Only using Ambusher’s Aura would be insufficient to hide the entire party while moving.”

Astrid nodded, and Muti didn’t seem to want to say anything else, so Astrid turned to Benedict. He shrugged and said, “Mine isn’t going to be as complicated as all of yours. It’s actually already mostly done, due to the training that I’ve done with Isana. Getting my Skills to work all together is the quest’s focus. After all, this new Class is a lot like Skandr’s, being pretty much a direct upgrade without too much of a difference from Caustic Bard.”

Having already pushed him to share his Class’s description earlier, Astrid didn’t care enough to bully him into sharing the specifics and looked at Felix. He, different from Benedict, didn’t hesitate to share his Class’s evolution quest.

Class evolution quest: 

Maintain the attention of 100 monsters of at least level 46 on yourself while another kills it. Interrupt 1000 crippling attacks directed at someone other than yourself, the attack coming from a creature of at least level 45.“Definitely focuses on the more defensive aspects,”  Benedict nodded. 

“That’s not a surprise, it’s the same way that the Class is changing. But, it is a lot of attacks to interrupt,” Skandr chuckled. “And the fact that they need to be deadly, or at least crippling, that’s an additional stipulation that will certainly make this more fun for you.”

Felix raised his eyebrows at the Wizard who smiled and stopped his teasing. Then, Muti seemed to have a thought occur to her and tapped her lips thoughtfully. When the rest of the Wanderers looked at her, she spoke.

“It does not specify that the attacks must come from a monster. We could push Felix’s progress by having him protect one of the members of the party from our own attacks,” the Barbarian explained, glancing at the other members of the party with a dangerous smirk.

“I veto that,” Astrid stepped forward. “While it doesn’t specify where the interrupted attacks need to come from, it does say that they must be crippling. If he fails a single time, one of us might end up dead.”

“Then he doesn’t have to be protecting one of us,” Skandr said, a smile mirroring Muti’s spreading across his face. “If we get to the point where we need to push him to evolve already, if he’s behind the rest of us, he could instead try to defend monsters from us, and if he fails and they die, who cares, right?“

“If we do that, then we’ll have to go to a weaker Iron tier Dungeon,” Astrid thought out loud, “because he’ll be opening his back to the monster as he defends against our attacks.”

“Okay, that’s a good thing to think about in the longer term,” Benedict said. “I’m just glad that I’m not going to get ambushed by one of you crazy people.”

The party then turned to Skandr and waited for his answer.

“I’d already known this was going to be the case, but mine is definitely the most different from the rest of yours.”

“Yeah, and that surprises nobody, that was the case with your first evolutionary request as well,” Astrid said, gesturing for him to continue and share the requirements.

Class evolution quest: 

Enchant an item whose final effect is entirely unrelated to storm magic and grants at least 20 attribute points to the wheeler. Create a spell that grants a greater consciousness to your skill: summoned storm cloud (Iron). “You might as well just hang around back here and practice while the rest of us go do things,“ Astrid laughed, shaking her head.

“I mean,” Skandr trailed off, shrugging. “Maybe not hold back from every fight, but I don’t think I’ll really be needed in the fights. Looking at this, I’d say it’s pretty obvious why Saul was the only one of the Golden Fist who hadn’t been able to evolve quite yet.”

“Or some other reason,” Astrid countered. “After all, the reason why I don’t think any of us will struggle with these requirements is because we’ve spent months training and doing what these quests require long before we got them. The second half of my quest is effectively demanding that I be able to adjust my Skills to better function as killing Skills without the addition of my weapons. That’s what my parents and the Golden Fist worked on with us. Plus, finding that many Bosses to kill is going to take us a fair amount of time…”

“You’re getting distracted,” Skandr replied. “The point is that I don’t need to be down in the Dungeon to make progress. In fact, for the most part, getting into the Dungeon is probably going to get in the way of me making quicker progress. I can’t really enchant while hunting, and spell exploration and experimentation can’t really be done while we’re fighting, so it’ll be better for me to just take it easy.”

“I’m not willing to just leave you behind while the rest of us continue on in the Dungeon, if just to keep us all safe if nothing else,” Astrid said. 

“But I’ll need more time on the surface, so we’ll have to figure something else out.”

As Astrid agreed with that, Benedict asked, “So, where’re we going to do all this? We’ve had some pretty strong requests we’ve made to the Verdant Walkers for a while, and they’ve been accommodating, but now we have even more that we’ll be asking for.”

“I get the feeling they don’t mind us taking care of clearing branches,” Astrid disagreed. “They don’t like to have to move around, and they always seem pleased we’re taking care of problems for them.”

The party continued talking, joking, and planning, but before long, they took one last rest before throwing themselves into the process of evolving to steel.

***

“Finally, a variant!” Astrid laughed as she rolled her shoulders. Her metal-shod boots’ steps clacked noisily as she walked forward. The dark room was truly massive, at least thirty meters across and with a massive, vaulted ceiling. Black and white marble checkered across the floor, and mounted torches all burst into life at the same time, giving a clearer view of the Boss stood in the center of the room.

Two weeks later, she and the rest of the Wanderers were making good progress towards evolution, and she was excited for a change. Stepping forward, she met eyes with the flaming skeleton. Or at least, she thought she did as the hollow holes that were its eyes seemed to lock with her own as it hefted its spear and shield. Fierce flames flickered across its whole body and armor, and Astrid readied herself as well.

The regular Boss in this branch was an ogre skeleton, and the first three times she’d fought it, its sheer size and resilience was a frustrating combination. In addition to its immunity to Spectre Burst. Unfortunately, because it was a skeleton, it also didn’t weigh nearly enough for Gravity Surge to do much either, so she’d been left relying entirely upon her skills instead of her Skills to kill the Bosses.

Before she could continue to think about the slower, frustrating fights against the nearly six meter tall skeletons, this shorter one, a hair shorter than her at right around two meters tall as she estimated, began its attack. Its spear thrust forward, and a gout of flame exploded towards her, so Astrid hunkered under her shield and pushed mana into it.

The flames sprayed all around her, like a waterfall falling against a stone, but as the cascade of flames ceased, her shield stayed ablaze, growing uncomfortably warm as the mana reinforcing the Dungeon Silver was eaten away. Evidently, the flames were more than just fire.

“Never simple, huh?” She muttered to herself as the skeleton blitzed forward. It moved quite quickly, its Alacrity appearing to be about the same as her own. Despite the speed it closed the distance with, it maintained the distance its longer weapon provided, the spear striking her shield hard enough to drive it back into her shoulder. The last of her mana reinforcing the shield was expended at that, and Astrid pushed another quarter of her mana into the piece of equipment as she lowered her stance.

The spear went high as Astrid ducked low, and as it scraped off the top of her shield and over her, she darted forward and swung the hammer at the skeleton’s knees. It lowered its shield, the quick blow disrupting its stance but failing to do anything more.

With the ringing of weapons clanging off of metal shields echoing through the massive mausoleum, the fight immediately surged into a breakneck pace, and Astrid became more and more doubtful of her gratitude for the variant appearing. Though it wasn’t as tough or strong as the hulking regular Boss, its Alacrity was more than enough of a frustration that she regretted even thinking about it. Then there was the magical flames that ate through her mana much faster than they should have.

Those brief regrets were amplified into a barely contained rage as the skeleton used a Skill she hadn’t seen yet, its shield shining with blue fire as it smashed away her own shield with supernatural force. Her left arm bent out to open the path towards her chest, and its spear immediately seized that opportunity. She dropped her center of gravity as the spear tip sought a weak point under her breast plate, where chain mail covered the part of her waist that needed to bend. Her quick reaction kept the blade from burying itself in her guts, but the thick flames on the Boss’s weapon surged forward and covered her breastplate with flames that had her gasping in pain.

Her heartbeat drummed in her ears as Astrid’s anger overcame her. She dismissed her shield and grabbed the haft of the spear just below the head before the attacker could pull the weapon back, wrapping it under her left arm. Her hammer, empowered by Power-aligned mana, smashed down into the haft of the spear. Though made of metal and reinforced, the spear bent a little before getting yanked out of the skeleton’s hand and smashing to the ground.

Astrid twisted, pulling the spear out of the skeleton’s reach before throwing it far away. Knowing what was coming, she spent a charge of Body and hunched her shoulders as the edge of the skeleton’s shield smashed into the back of her head.

Flames covered her entire body at that, and Astrid had less than one or two seconds before her party would step in and set her back from progressing on her quest. Keeping her party’s inevitable actions in mind, she took her hammer in both hands and twisted, smashing it into the skeleton’s shield as hard as she could. Empowered by her mana and Body, the skeleton’s guard was thrown wide open, and Astrid spent another charge of Body as she stepped into the Boss’s range, trapped its shield by stepping past its guard, and bore the beast to the ground.

Its flames compressed into its body, and knowing the explosion that was coming, Astrid screamed in challenge as she raised her hammer, used a third charge of Body, and smashed the hammer‘s head into the skeleton’s skull.

The dilapidated marble floor they fought on shattered and puffs of broken stone filled the air as Astrid’s enraged attack pulverized the Boss’s head. The flaming explosion that had been brewing disappeared as the kill notification flashed in Astrid‘s eyes.

Burning skeleton night Boss slain. 1,400 experience gained.

As soon as it was dead, she shouted, and the rest of the party came forward. Skandr was the first to react, his cloud surging forward and dousing the flames that continued to stick to her. Even with so much water, it took several seconds for the fires to be totally doused. As soon as they were, Benedict came forward, his attention, obviously on ensuring that Astrid was well recovered.

“I’m fine, basically,” she said as she dismissed her armor. “If it had taken me even a few more seconds, though, I would’ve been out of charges of Body because those flames were mostly focused on eating up my mana, and that was the only thing keeping me moving.”

“You’re a monster, and I say it with all the love in my heart,” Benedict said as he shook his head and pulled out his flute. “Regardless, that is insane.”

“Well,” Astrid shrugged, “if I was more familiar with it, the fight wouldn’t have been as close as it was. Maybe. I’m not sure, not having my active Skills against the Bosses is pretty annoying.”

“You’re halfway done,” Benedict said, “it seems like this is working pretty well for you, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

“More than that,” Muti cut in, “you are strengthening your understanding of your body and how your energy moves within it. This is perfect training for you.”

Astrid laughed and looked at her friends as they all prepared to leave the Boss floor. After all, they were only halfway to evolution, and it was only a matter of time before they all were Steel and ready to continue on their paths. Then, they could return to their home and make changes for themselves.